The Sixth Commandment Freed To Be Faithful

The Sixth Sunday After Trinity                             27-July-2025
Sermon Text: Exodus 20:1-17/The Sixth Commandment
Sermon Theme: “ The Sixth Commandment: Freed To Be Faithful”
I. Freed By God’s Grace To Be His Own! (Vs.1-6) II. Recreated Daily By God’s Word Walk In Newness of Life!(vs.7-8) III. Freed To Faithfully Love and Serve Our Closest Neighbor! (Vs.12-17) by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

I.N.R.I. “Jer 31:31-32 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— (32) not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.” Through the prophet Jeremiah the Lord God calls the nation of Judah to repent. He freed them from slavery in Egypt. Birthed them to freedom in the waters of the Red Sea. The greatest army in the world, of that day, had been drown in the waters Israel safely passed through by God’s grace. The Lord God became a husband to Israel His Bride at Sinai. The giving of the Ten Commandments, the old covenant, was the marriage of the nation to the only true and living God. The bride Israel proved unfaithful - she forsook her Husband - molding a golden calf to worship forty days after hearing God speak from Sinai. God is faithful. He called her back to Himself daily providing bread from heaven. Often sending plagues to stop their sinful rebellion - that they would repent and return to Him.
       The Lord God had risen up early and stayed up late sending prophet after prophet to call His Bride back to Himself. She wouldn’t listen, but prostituted herself with the false idols of the nations. Finally in 722B.C. the Assyrians decimated the northern ten tribes and destroyed the rest in exile. Judah didn’t learn from the punishment of her sister. She continued in being unfaithful to her Husband. The Lord God would not break the promise He had made in Christ Jesus. A new covenant would be established - in the flesh and blood of Jesus - “The Lord Our Righteousness!”
      The Christian Church is the new Israel - the Bride of Christ. God the Holy Spirit teaches, Eph 5:31-33 "FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." (32) This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (33) Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. The Apostle Paul is teaching us the doctrine of Christ’s Church in the book of Ephesians. He shows us the Church in our Home - established at the altar with the marriage vows of husband and wife. Christian marriage is to be an icon - a picture of Christ’s love to His Bride the Church.
      Baptized into a righteousness that exceeds the outward keeping of the Law of the scribes and pharisees - learn to relish and rejoice in God’s gift of marriage: “ The Sixth Commandment: Freed To Be Faithful” I. Freed By God’s Grace To Be His Own! (Vs.1-6) II. Recreated Daily By God’s Word Walk In Newness of Life!(vs.7-11) III. Freed To Faithfully Love and Serve Our Closest Neighbor! (Vs.12-17)
I. The marriage vows began (vs.1-3) The Lord God promises His faithfulness to the nation of Israel. He is the Lord “their” God promising them to be faithful. He rescued them from the prison house of Egypt. He is for them! His bride is only to look to Him for all good things. Fear, love, and trust in Him above all things.
    (LSB pg. 321, 6th Cmdt. W.D.T.M?) What is similar between the first and the sixth commandments? Scan their what does this means - a moment? See it? There are no negatives. The other explanations all have the phrase, “so that we do not” - not the first or the sixth. The Father calls us to Himself through His Son Jesus to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel promise. Marriage is God’s gift to mankind, before the fall into sin burdened it with many trials.
     (LSB pg. 322, 1st Art. 1st Para W.D.T.M?) History records, Mat 19:3-6 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" (4) And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,' (5) and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH' ? (6) So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." Our Creator made us sexual beings. He wrote that reality into our chromosomes. In our mother’s wombs He called us to be male with XY chromosomes or female with XX chromosomes.  The Lord God has no problem with our physical bodies. He has no problem that we are sexual beings - created and called to be male or female.
       We confess God has made me and all creatures. He gave you your body knit together with your soul. Why are we created as sexual beings? Look back to Genesis 2 - the sixth 24 hour day of the existence of all matter - after molding man and preparing a home for him - something was not good - Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." The only true God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit one God three Persons dwell in eternal community of love. Mankind is created for a community of love. Created as male or female - a man leaves home to establish a new home as he is married to a woman - pledging her his faithfulness for life.
       The mystery of marriage is that husband and wife become one flesh - two lives and hearts knit together through joys and sorrows until death parts them. (Vs.4-6) Our God would not have His Bride Israel turn from Him. He was zealous to protect her with His love and care. False idols would destroy Israel.
        When the fallen created angel Satan strove into Eden to whisper lies to our first parents - he sought to tear them from God’s Word and promise - and to destroy their marriage. Now they were naked and ashamed of one another - trying to camouflage their sin with fig leaves running with the devil apart from one another. No longer did Adam rejoice that his wife was “bone of his bones” - she was just “that woman” God foisted upon him - who fed him the forbidden fruit.
       What idols has Satan whispered into your ears to destroy the high and holy calling of being male or female - the high and holy calling of being husband and wife? Screens with flickering images deceive, and lure you away into adulterating God’s gift of sex and marriage. Pornography pollutes the minds of pre-teens and grown men. Just as there is no safe amount of cyanide - there is no safe amount of porn. Repent. Turn off the screens - it isn’t good to be alone with only a flickering screen. Sin isolates you in the prison of self. You worship the idol called “ME!”
    Struggling with sexual sin - remember your baptism! (LSB pg. 325, Baptism 4th Part) In baptism the Lord God has made you His own! He will not abandon or divorce you from His gracious promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus!
II. As Jesus preaches the Sermon on the Mount the Law cuts us to our very core! We are murderers. We are adulterers. We cannot earn by our trying saving righteousness. We need to be clothed with Jesus perfect life and righteousness in our baptism! We need to be made new daily by the Holy Spirit forgiving us all our sins in Christ’s Church! (Vs.7-11) Rejoice God has blessed you with His Name in Holy Baptism. In marriage a Christian husband gives his name to his wife - not to enslave her, but as a promise that all he has, all he is, all he will be now belongs to her. All her debts and obligations become his to shoulder. The two become one - freed within marriage to love, care, and serve one another.
     (LSB pg. 321, 6th Cmdt. W.D.T.M?) We are called to be sexually chaste not to follow the whims of our fallen culture. Our nation has perverted God’s gift of sexuality and marriage. Husbands and wives bought into the lie that more stuff made a happy marriage. Then a generation thought free-love was the answer. Legally marriages were viewed as disposable with no fault divorces. Soon the lie was promoted, ‘It’s my body and I can do anything I want with it!” The lie convincing women to prostitute their bodies in the name of liberation. The lie that murdering your unborn baby in your womb was true feminism. The lie that marriage is just a piece of paper - play marriage - live together - until you get all you want out of that person then dump them. The lie that sex has no consequences.
     Christian - Hear God’s truth: 1Co 6:15-20 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! (16) Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "THE TWO," He says, "SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH." (17) But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (18) Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. (19) Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (20) For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Sex isn’t just a hook up - it joins you to another person. We live in the land of anti-depressants, and empty shells of human beings who sold their bodies for momentary pleasure. Repent!
     Return! Jesus draws near to bring you true Sabbath rest! To the woman caught in the very act of adultery in John 8. Jesus forgave and set her free to sin no more. She wasn’t to continue in sexual perversion calling it a life style - she walked away from that sin to walk with Jesus! Remember as you struggle with sexual sin. Remember as you struggle in your marriage - your rest, restoration, and healing is found in Jesus alone! Come into His House for forgiveness. Come to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit with His Word to love one another! Let Jesus’ body and blood be the forgiveness, life, and salvation that pulses through your words and actions as a sexual being in your calling even if you are single, widowed, or married.
III.(LSB pg. 321, 6th Cmdt. W.D.T.M?) Husband and wife -love and honor one another! Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church - sacrifice all you have and are for her. Wives honor your husband as the head of your household. Women are strengthened by love. Men are molded into husbands and fathers with respect.
      How should Christian husbands and wives serve in their marriage? (Vs.12-17) The Second Table of the Law calls you to love your neighbor as yourself. If you are married your closest neighbor is your spouse! Respect their calling in your home. Preserve and protect their life. Honor their maleness or femaleness. Strive to keep each other chaste. God the Holy Spirit teaches, 1Co 7:2-3 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. (3) Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. Rejoice to share your goods trusting one another with money and property. Explain everything your spouse does and says in the kindest possible way. Don’t look outside of your home or your spouse for happiness - be happy with the spouse the Lord God has given you!  
        Christian husbands wisdom teaches you, Pro 5:15-19 Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well. (16) Should your fountains be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets? (17) Let them be only your own, And not for strangers with you. (18) Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. (19) As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love.
      Marriage will kill you! That idol of “ME” must die, as God the Holy Spirit resurrects you in Jesus to live a new life. A life of loving sacrifice and service within your marriage. Beware of your old adam’s counting and blaming game. Christian marriage doesn’t keep a tally sheet - instead like Jesus we rejoice that we are baptized to serve and give our lives to our spouse, our children, and our grandchildren.
      Behold the blessing of Christian marriage: Psa 128:1-6. Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. (2) When you eat the labor of your hands, You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. (3) Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants All around your table. (4) Behold, thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD. (5) The LORD bless you out of Zion, And may you see the good of Jerusalem All the days of your life. (6) Yes, may you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel! Amen.