Sin in any relationship is serious, but since marriage is a unique covenant that represents Christ and the church, betrayal from a spouse is particularly devastating. Sexual unfaithfulness can shatter a wife’s sense of identity and worth. Her husband has not only gone outside the marriage but has actually brought pollution and idolatry into their union. Wives feel this intensely, even when they’re not the ones who pursued sexual unfaithfulness.

If your husband has sinned sexually, you might be surprised at how deeply you feel ashamed. Shame can be a vague, haunting, smothering feeling in our hearts. It may hover the way a low-grade physical ache emerges with the flu. Or it can suddenly fall over us, collapsing our hearts inward as if a heavy, water-soaked blanket was dropped on us.
The Bible connects shame and guilt, yet also distinguishes between them. Guilt communicates, “I’ve done something wrong.” Shame communicates, “Something is wrong with me.” Ed Welch, a biblical counselor, makes the distinction in his book Shame Interrupted:
Shame lives in the community, though the community can feel like a courtroom. It says, “You don’t belong—you are unacceptable, unclean and disgraced” because “You are wrong, you have sinned” (guilt), or “Wrong has been done to you” or “You are associated with those who are disgraced or outcast.” The shamed person feels worthless, expects rejection, and needs cleansing, fellowship [community], love, and acceptance. (11)
Note what Welch says about shame coming not only from our own sin but also from association with those who are disgraced. Just as you’ve perhaps been troubled by your troubles or anxious about your anxiety, maybe you’ve been carrying the shame of your husband’s sin as your own.
But your husband is guilty of sexual sin, not you. Regardless of how either of you (as sinners and sufferers) may have contributed to brokenness in your marriage, your husband chose to act on desires and pursue his own sexually sinful behaviors. Yet the intimacy of the marriage covenant does closely associate you with his guilt and the shame that comes with rebellion against our holy God. Why is this, and how does it happen?
Marriage, Sexual Sin, and Shame
Marriage creates a powerful opportunity for a husband and wife, in covenant before God and witnesses, to enter into a oneness-of-life relationship. Traditional Christian wedding vows usually include the following components.
Will you have this woman/man to be your wife/husband, to live together in holy marriage?
Will you love, comfort, honor, and keep her/him in sickness and in health?
Will you forsake all others, being faithful (relationally, mentally, sexually, emotionally, physically) to her/him as long as you both shall live?
 In response to all of these questions, the man and woman both promise, “I will.”
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1) Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, 2) let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and 3) whatever you do, do all in the name of Jesus. I believe that obedience to these commands is the soil in which the spirit of thanksgiving flourishes. Obedience to these commands is the lifestyle which is most conducive to the thankful spirit.

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday on which we take off from work and school, eat turkey and dressing, and watch parades and bowl games on television. But we need to remember that Thanksgiving should be more than a day off and a special meal and seasonal TV programs. Thanksgiving was instituted as a day which our culture sets aside to count our blessings and to give God thanks. Yet we must acknowledge that Thanksgiving as originally instituted is becoming more and more foreign to much of our culture. A radical form of ingratitude has come to characterize the culture that today dominates in certain spheres of our society. The philosophy behind this radical ingratitude is neo-Marxism, a new embodiment of the failed economic theories of Karl Marx.
The original version of Marxism tried to promote revolution through conflict between factory workers and the capitalist owners of the means of production. In the twentieth century, economic versions of Marxism were tried in numerous places and without exception proved to be economically disastrous. At the same time, the economic status of workers continued to improve in societies with a free market. In the closing decades of the twentieth century, socialism and communism were abandoned in many nations as failed economic experiments.
Sadly the ghost of Marxism has risen from the grave in the twenty-first century. The newer version of Marxism tries to promote revolution through conflict not between economic classes but between social classes referred to as the victims of oppression and the oppressors. Instead of promoting gratitude for the real blessings that people experience, neo-Marxism encourages people to view themselves as oppressed victims even when they are not. Neo-Marxism tries to convince people to view truly good things about our culture as sinister means used by the powerful to maintain power and to oppress their victims. To give some examples, free speech is opposed as a form of hateful violence, police protection for high crime neighborhoods is opposed as racial profiling, private ownership of defensive weapons is opposed as the cause of criminal violence, constitutional limits on government are opposed as barriers to radical social change, the traditional family is opposed as a barrier to new sexual liberties, and so on. In today’s world, things for which we should be grateful are labeled as means of oppression.
Perhaps the most tragic consequence of neo-Marxism is the current trend for young people to be dissatisfied with the biological sexual identity that God has encoded into every gene in their physical bodies. It is a sign of our times that instead of saying with the psalmist David, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” many young people resent the physical bodies which God has given them.
In contrast to much of our culture today, the biblically defined Christian is characterized not by an embittered ingratitude but by thanksgiving. To use the language of the hundredth Psalm, we enter into God’s gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Giving thanks to God is the Christian’s duty. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Paul exhorts us, “In everything, give thanks.” And consider Ephesians 5:3-4:
3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
Worldly people may be known for their dirty jokes and filthy language and coarse jesting, but the Christian should be known for giving thanks to God.
I chose Colossians 3:15-17 as our passage for today because it mentions the concept of thanksgiving three times, once in each verse. This is very obvious is verses 15 and 17. Verse 15 says, “be thankful,” and verse 17 says, “giving thanks to God the Father.” The reference to thanksgiving is not as obvious in verse 16, at least not in the New King James Version, which reads, “singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” The reference to thanksgiving in verse 16 is obvious in some other translations. For example, the New American Standard and the English Standard Version both translate verse 16 as referring to singing “with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
The Greek word here is usually translated “grace.” Yet like most words, this Greek word has more than one possible meaning. The meaning of this word which we are probably most familiar with is the goodwill which motivates a giver to give a gift as an undeserved and unearned favor. This is the meaning that this word has, for example, in Ephesians 2:8, which says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” This is a reference to grace as the goodwill which motivated God to give us the unmerited and undeserved gift of salvation. Yet this Greek word also has other related meanings. It can refer to the gift itself. It can also refer to the gratitude of the person who received the gift, to the gratitude motivated by the reception of the gift.
In verse 16 of our text, the Apostle Paul is here using the Greek word often translated “grace” to refer to the gratitude of someone on the receiving end of God’s undeserved favor. This is the possible meaning that makes the best sense of verse 16 and is also the meaning that is most consistent with verses 15 and 17, both of which mention thanksgiving.
I believe our passage for today gives us some insight into how we as Christians can maintain the spirit of thanksgiving in spite of the ingratitude that dominates so much of our culture. Our passage today consists of three verses, and each verse contains a command. The three commands are 1) let the peace of God rule in your hearts, 2) let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and 3) whatever you do, do all in the name of Jesus. I believe that obedience to these commands is the soil in which the spirit of thanksgiving flourishes. Obedience to these commands is the lifestyle which is most conducive to the thankful spirit.
I want to look at these commands and through them exhort us to give thanks to the Lord our God.
Paul’s first command is, Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. Now notice at the onset that Paul is not talking about just any old inner peace. There are plenty of people who are at peace with themselves who should not be. Many people have hearts like the false prophets of old who cried out, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace. The Bible describes the unregenerate heart as calloused and stony, which is a metaphorical way of saying unfeeling. Their lives are burdened with sin and with guilt and yet they feel no inner grief. They have the peace of spiritual indifference, the peace of spiritual ignorance, the peace of spiritual death. Their hearts have the peace and quiet of the graveyard.
Paul is not referring to just any old inner peace. He is referring to the peace of God. This is the peace which Jesus promised as His legacy to His people in John 14:27, where He said,
27 “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
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O brothers and sisters, do not pine after the experience of Peter, James, and John; instead, ascend the mountain of Scripture and beg the Spirit to enlighten the eyes of your heart to see the glory of Christ, to see the radiance of His goodness shining forth through His Word!

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.
And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean. And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”
Mark 9:2-13 ESV

After bringing His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the LORD led the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through the wilderness and to the foot of Mount Sinai, also called Horeb, the mountain of God. Once there, the LORD’s presence descended upon the mountain as a thick cloud of fire and darkness. From Sinai, God assembled His people together and spoke directly to them, declaring His Ten Commandments, yet the people begged the LORD to speak to Moses alone, fearing that God’s holy presence would burn them away like stubble. The LORD did so, but even when Moses descended after speaking with God, the Israelites needed to cover the prophet’s face since the light of God’s glory reflected from him too sharply for their eyes to bear.
Our present text is similar to the display of God’s glory upon Sinai, except in one critical manner, as Tim Keller says:
Moses had reflected the glory of God as the moon reflects the light of the sun. But Jesus produces the unsurpassable glory of God; it emanates from him. Jesus does not point to ‘the glory of God as Elijah, Moses, and every other prophet has done; Jesus is the glory of God in human form.[1]
May we behold His glory today in the light of His Word.
The Transfiguration// Verses 2-7
Our passage begins by telling us that these events took place six days after Peter’s confession and Jesus’ revelation to His disciples of His coming suffering, death, and resurrection. Now we are simply told that Jesus took three of His disciples with Him to the top of a high mountain. Jesus, of course, already pulled these three disciples apart to witness the raising of Jairus’ daughter back in chapter 5, and He will again do so at Gethsemane.
Upon the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. We rightly call this event the transfiguration since Jesus was transfigured before His disciples. The Greek word is the source of our word metamorphosis; thus, we might also say that Jesus was metamorphosized before them. If you remember elementary science, butterflies have likely already popped up in your mind, for we call the process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly metamorphosis, which literally means changing form. Just as a butterfly, while being the same creature, has an entirely different form from when it was a caterpillar, so Jesus displayed an entirely different form upon the mountain. But what was that form?
In Philippians 2:6-8, the Apostle Paul beautifully describes the humbling of Jesus, and to do, he begins with Jesus’ normal, eternal state: “he was in the form of God.” The word that we translate as form is morphe, which means something like the essential nature of something. Thus, Jesus was of the same essential nature as God the Father, or as the Nicene Creed puts it: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” Yet Jesus displayed His humility by not grasping onto His equality with the Father but rather by “taking the form [morphe] of a servant.” Thus, when Jesus descended to earth, taking on human flesh as an infant within Mary’s womb, Jesus’ form was changed. He certainly did not cease to be God, yet there was a very real emptying of Himself, a forsaking of His divine glory in order to tabernacle among the people that He Himself made.
The Transfiguration of Christ upon the mountain, therefore, appears to be a momentary lifting of that earthly veil, a brief glimpse, however small, of Jesus’ preincarnate glory. Indeed, the unearthly nature of this metamorphosis is described in radiance and intensity of His clothing. They were whiter than humanly possible. The subtly of this description reminds me of the stone that “was cut out by no human hand” in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2:34, 44-45). Both objects are glaringly ordinary, clothing and a stone, yet there was something altogether extraordinary about them. They were beyond human production. Nothing short of the glory of God was emanating out of Jesus.
To make matters even more astounding two of the greatest Old Testament saints appeared with Jesus to speak with Him: Moses and Elijah. The only two men from the Old Testament who bear as high of a status as these two are Abraham and David, who were both within Jesus’ direct lineage. Oh, to be present as Peter, James, and John were as our Lord conversed with Moses and Elijah! What did they speak about? What deep and heavenly mysteries were unfolded in their conversation?
While we are not given direct dialogue (and given verse 6, I am sure that they forgot most of the details), Luke 9:31 does tell us the subject of their discussion: they “spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” The ESV footnotes that departure in Greek is literally exodus. They spoke of Jesus’ exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
What a strange reversal! Upon Horeb, Moses was sent by God rather unhappily to Egypt to accomplish the exodus of God’s people from their bondage to Pharaoh, which would result in Moses being exalted in everyone’s sight. Now on this mountain, Moses was sent to encourage the Son of God as He was readying Himself for the greater exodus that He would accomplish, the liberation of God’s people, both Jew and Gentile, from their slavery to sin, which would result in Him being lifted up for all the world to look upon with scorn and contempt. An exodus that would require the Author of life to humble Himself even further “by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).
R. C. Sproul writes:
Both Elijah, who represents the prophets, and Moses, who represents the law, clearly understood the vocation of the Messiah. They knew Jesus had to die, and they knew why. They came to the second person of the Trinity with their comfort and their encouragement, reminding Him of His destiny that they had foretold centuries before. Elijah, who had been carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire, set foot once more in the Holy Land. Moses, who had been denied entrance into the Promised Land, at last stood there after centuries.[2]
In response to all of this, Peter speaks, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” G. Campbell Morgan says that “This is surely what they were thinking on the mount. Lord, not that Cross to which Thou art going; let us stay here! Let us build three tabernacles here. Let us stay in this light, in this glory, in this holy conversation. Yet the conversation was of the exodus; and if they had stayed there, the exodus had never been accomplished!”[3]
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