You guys can have a seat. My name is Eric, one of the
pastors here. Glad to be here with you guys
today. And we are in the book of
Matthew chapter 5 in the Sermon on the Mountain.
So if you have your Bibles, please grab a Bible, open up to
Matthew chapter 5. By the way, we have free Bibles
at the welcome table always. And so if you don't have one,
you want your own paper or hard hardcover.
And we have some nice ones out there as well.
For those who don't have a Bible, we'd love to give you one
free today so you can follow along.
But today we are in the famous Sermon on the Mount, as I've
said, and Jesus has got into some very difficult teachings, I
think. And as a church, we are a church
that does expository preaching, but also what what would be
called in Latin lectio continuum, which is verse by
verse, chapter by chapter, sequentially through the Bible.
We continue. And so we pick a book and we
make it all the way through. And in doing so, the, the, the
thought is, is that the Holy Spirit wrote these words down in
such a way that we're supposed to walk through this to, to hear
all that God has for us. Because if we don't do that,
then we'll jump around to the the easier to hear truths and
sometimes skip the harder to hear ones.
But we want to hear the whole counsel of God because that is
what God has for his people. That's how God does has designed
to purify his people on earth before he comes back his his
bride, the church, he wants to purify her.
And it's going to be through the washing of the water of the word
is what Ephesians 5 says. And so it's through the word
that we learn how to be more like Christ and we learn how to
fight our sin. And and so I want to challenge
you as we make it through these, the 6th antithesis of Jesus,
which are we started last week where Jesus is kind of taking
some of the Old Testament 10 commandments and breaking them
down and even even expositing them or expounding on them more.
I would challenge you to keep coming back and and not miss
these on purpose because it may be too hard to hear.
In fact, we need, all of us need this today.
God has decided that today here in this room, he said, this is
what I want this people, all of us to hear and to know today.
So with that being said, we're going to look at Matthew chapter
5, verses 27 through 30, and I've entitled the sermon today,
Lust, inappropriate sexual desire.
Let's go ahead and read those verses Now.
It says you have heard that it was said you shall not commit
adultery. But I say to you that everyone
who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already
committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it
away. For it is better that you lose
one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into
hell. And if your right hand causes
you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
For it is better that you you lose one of your members than
that your whole body go into hell.
Now, as I've kind of prefaced, these are some harder teachings
of Jesus and. A lot of.
Times when you're new to the faith or you think about Jesus
from maybe the world's perspective, You think Jesus is
the nice one and the Old Testament God is the mean one.
I've heard that before from non believers or people that don't.
Just. Quite understand the God of the
Bible, the triune godfather, son, Holy Spirit.
But what's going on here is Jesus is really showing us he is
the God of the Bible, the one who the law came from out of his
heart, his moral commandments. That's what the 1010
commandments are his, his moral standards for not only in his
own nature, but for his creation.
And it's it's, it's expected upon all of his creation to
follow after then God's standard here.
And Jesus is expounding on this because remember, the context is
the disciples that are following Jesus are Jewish.
And then the audience surrounding listening in on this
sermon are also Jewish people. Some would be some of the
Pharisees and the religious leaders of the day.
And you had the Pharisees were the legalists who only looked at
their outward actions as kind of breaking the law.
They didn't think about internal thoughts or internal heart
motivations applied to these these laws that God had laid
out. And so they as Jesus walks
through these, it says, you've heard that it was said and then
he'll follow it up with but I say to you, so he's saying they
taught you this, but here's what I'm going to say that this means
there's more to it than what they actually revealed.
And so let's get into this. And my first point then?
Is this that adultery does not protect or respect the sanctity
of sex? So right there in that first
part of the passage, he says, you've heard that it was said
that you shall not commit adultery.
And So what he's doing is he's quoting the 7th commandment of
the 10 commandments, the law as I had already kind of laid out
there. And there really is nothing
wrong with that statement. At all.
It's actually in Exodus 20 verse 14 where Moses went up on the
mountain and God wrote with his own finger in stone tablets.
Here are my standards for the people, my people.
And the 7th. Commandment is you shall not
commit adultery. Now why is this a big deal to
God? Why is sex a big deal to God?
Well, God created sex. And it's meant to be used in an
appropriate relationship. So the point was that or the
title of our message was that it's in lust is an inappropriate
sexual desire. Well, adultery is the same thing
here. And and adultery then is an
inappropriate use of something God created.
It's a pollution of something God created.
Actually, the word adultery comes from the word to
adulterate. Which means to corrupt, debase
or make impure by the addition of a foreign or inferior
substance or elements. So just an illustration here if
you have. A glass of water.
It's. Hopefully a pure glass of water
and you you would drink that. But if you add just one drop of
Roundup or one drop of some kind of poison.
That's not meant for human use. This thing is now tainted.
It's impure, right? It has become corrupted and you
wouldn't drink that anymore. Well, that's the same thing.
When sex is something is taken out of context when when in the
application of what God created sex for, sex is meant only for a
man and woman in a covenant marriage relationship together.
And what is it is beautiful picture of God?
'S oneness and intimacy with his people.
There are several. Reasons why why he created sex 1
is for procreation, to have children so that we could
continue to multiply, take dominion of the earth as he
commanded in when he created man and woman.
But it also is an analogy or an illustration.
In fact, marriage itself is an illustration of God's commitment
to his people. So the nation of Israel was like
his bride, and God is the husband.
And in the New Testament the same language is used that
Christ is the the bridegroom, the husband, and the church is
his bride. And so in the old.
Testament. One of the prophets.
Ezekiel 16/8. Uses.
Some language, some intimate language about God's love for
his people. It says this, When I passed by
you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love,
and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered
your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered
into a covenant with you, declares the Lord your God, and
you became mine. So in a sense, sex is meant to
consummate. A marriage and that's what when
God looks at his people, he looks at us as a a people he
loves so dearly and that he he wants an intimate relationship
with and a oneness with. And on top of that, not just our
relationship with God, but when you see when last week we looked
at that man and woman were created in the image of God.
And last week we looked at anger or to commit murder is to
devalue or disrespect the image of God, the image bearers of
God. To not preserve life is to
disrespect God himself and to sin against God.
Well, in that same passage with a little bit different look at
it, he created male and female in the image of God.
So not just one kind of being, but two.
And when he created male and female, the story goes is that
he created Adam and then out of Adam he pulled a rib out of his
side and made woman. So human beings were just one.
And now he makes 2 out of 1. And then what does he do when he
brings the first human beings back together in marriage?
He brings them back together and he says you shall.
A man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall
become. 1. Flesh.
Again, there's a Oneness. There's only one other being in
the universe that is plural and yet unified, right?
Three in one. That's Godfather, Son, Holy
Spirit. He created human beings to be
man and woman. 2IN1 flesh, right?
So you could say when God made us in his image, not only after
his moral attributes and his character and the ability to
create things and to have emotions, a mind and a will like
God does, he also created man and woman together in his image.
Now, I know that's kind of, you know, a little bit deep to think
about, but the illustration there is when the 2 become one
flesh, that's the consummating of the marriage, which involves
intimacy or sex. So then adultery is any sex
outside of that covenant relationship that God created.
It's a perversion, it is a corruption, it makes it impure,
and it disrespects God's design as image bearers, just like we
talked about last week in Jeremiah 3/6.
Again, there's another analogy of of when the nation of Israel
goes out and seeks other gods in idolatry.
And here's what he says. The Lord said to me in the days
of King Josiah, have you seen what she did, that faithless one
Israel, how she went up on every hill and under every green tree
and there played the whore. And then in verse 9, because she
took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing
adultery with stone and tree, meaning she gave herself over
the nation of Israel. The gods people gave themselves
over to worshipping, entering into covenant relationship,
consummating with these other made-up gods made out of stone
and tree. So adultery in its simplest
sense is cheating on a spouse or causing another to cheat on
theirs. But even in its context here, if
you think about the 10 commandments when Jesus goes
deeper on it with with a teaching, this encompasses not
just one specific kind of inappropriate relationship, but
all sex outside of marriage then has different names.
But this encompasses that in the 7th commandment.
So it it can be fornication or a swinger lifestyle, polyamory or
having an open marriage, sex before marriage, being
unmarried, transsexuality, homosexuality, pedophilia, rape,
polygamy, bestiality, prostitution.
Now, again, you know, going through these passages of
Scripture, I think This is why probably some churches are like,
you can't talk about that. You're going to offend too many
people. Because you know what I hear
from people today when you bring up the topic of sex, it's like
you need to get with the times, pastor.
It's 3000 years later since those commandments were written
and the culture is different. The people are different.
And and so doesn't God just want people to be happy?
And if these actions or these relationships or these things
make them happy, isn't that just OK with God?
And the answer is no, the word of God has not changed and it
will not change. And its relevance is just as
relevant to 3000 years ago as it is today.
And sin is sin. The the the.
World is trying to get us to believe that God is shifting and
changing and morphing with with the people so that really
people. Become God, and then they
fashion their own God that fits their own morality and
standards, rather than trying to fit God's standards.
And here's the simple. Truth about this?
Is that if we could just keep sex inside of marriage alone?
You know as well as I know that we would have much fewer issues
in our world. Amen.
Because all of us, I can bet, have been affected by sexual
sin. All of us, whether it's being
abused by someone, whether it's ourselves.
Having so much shame because we've done something and haven't
found the Lord and haven't found forgiveness that we continue in
aspiring cycle of doing it over and over again.
Trying to to self medicate or because of unhealthy situations.
We we try to get love in all the wrong places.
We've all been affected by sexual sin.
And so This is why it's important to God.
It represents our relationship with him.
But he also knows that when used inappropriately, it can really
affect you and me badly. So going to his his first verse,
it says you've heard that it was said you shall not commit
adultery again. At first glance, there's nothing
wrong with this statement. But as I said, the Pharisees
have been teaching about this, and it's incomplete.
They thought they were living righteously because most of them
could say that they were following the letter of the law.
OK, I haven't, I haven't stepped out on my wife.
And that's all that this means. Black and white, as long as
everything looks good on the outside, what people can see
what's going on in my life. I haven't broken any laws.
There were 613 Old Testament laws and they tried to follow
them all. In fact, they tried to follow
their own laws they made-up to try to get them to not break
these laws and they would tick boxes basically, K haven't
broken that one, haven't broken that one, haven't broken that
one. And they walked around with
spiritual pride saying I'm not as bad as these other people,
therefore God, God favors me. In fact, listen to.
The. Prayer.
Of the Pharisee in the analogy that the illustration that Jesus
uses about the Pharisee in the tax collector and it says this
in Luke 1811, the Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus.
God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners,
unjust adulterers and even like this tax collector.
So he stands there with pride. We know the rest of the verse
says that the tax collector stood there and beat his chest
and said, forgive me Lord, for I am a Sinner.
I'm not even worthy to come in your presence, but the
Pharisees. Jesus said this in Matthew 2327.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you
are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear
beautiful, but within our full of dead people's bones and all
uncleanness. And that's what it's like when a
person thinks. That they are right with God
because they're externally following.
Commandments in their most literal sense, but Jesus turns
this up on its head, and his purpose is to try to let
everybody know that all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God. And he's going to do a fuller
teaching on the 7th commandment. And my point about it is this,
that lust is an internal sin that has external and eternal
consequences. So it might not be visible on
the. Outside of a.
Person in the early stages, but it does have external
consequences and eternal consequences.
The definition of lust in its general use of the word is just
evil desire, and it can be used for other things other than just
inappropriate sexual desire. It can be used for covetousness
as well, like the Bible calls it, the lust of the eyes.
You know, you see things that you want out there.
You see what your neighbor has and you want it and you're
jealous and you're envious and and so a lust for evil, a
wanting for evil, but in this specific sense it is used.
As this intense and unbridled sexual desire, that's the lust
that we are talking about today. So let's see what Jesus has to
say in his fuller teaching on this commandment.
He says, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman
with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in
his heart. So you see how it was narrow.
It was like, OK, only people who've cheated on their spouses
are in this and now Jesus saying no.
You're not going to get off that easy.
This is for everyone who has ever looked at another person
and. Thought evil thoughts.
And desires in their heart. You have broken the 7th
commandment. Now you might say, well.
That's that's a little harsh. Because in the Old Testament,
someone who was caught in adultery was actually stoned to
death. That was the capital punishment.
And so as I said. It's an internal sin with
external and eternal consequences.
Now the consequences might not be same the same on Earth.
But they are the. Same in heaven and that's what
Jesus is saying if you've sinned James, his brother James in
chapter 2 verse 10 says forever, keeps the whole law, but fails
in one point, has become guilty. Of all of it.
And so if you've even looked with lustful intent, you've
broken not just one law, but all of it.
I'm going to show you that in just a minute.
But So what is this look then? Because where does it become sin
versus just a look like where is the where is the line?
And I hope I can help you find that some of it's a conscience
issue, but let me help you with what Warren Weirsby says is that
the desire and the deed are not identical, but spiritually
speaking, their equivalent. The look that Jesus mentioned
was not a casual glance, but a constant stare with the purpose
of lusting. So it's not just a casual glance
looking at someone or something, but it's a looking with an
intent to. Feed off of it.
To continue to intake something to feed a internal thought or
desire that you have in your heart, that's when it becomes
lustful sin. And pornography is probably the
most obvious thing that we can all come to an agreement here is
certainly the sin of lust. And here's an interesting thing
I think we think, you know, pornography is probably a bad
thing, especially in America, right?
But no pornography is a world problem, a world problem.
In 2018 there was an Internet sample taken of kind of trying
to encompass. Just all all.
Internet youth and so a sample taken says this that 91% of men
and 60% of women access porn in the last 30 days.
That's a lot of people I heard just recently.
Yeah, well, maybe it's different in some areas of the world and
but I had just heard a story, you know, when we invaded Iraq
and took got into Saddam Hussein's kind of bunker and
took him, came to, you know, kind of make justice happen in
his quarters was found hordes and hordes of pornography.
And in the Middle East, the women are wearing, I mean,
basically from head to toe, they're covered and all you can
see is maybe their their eyes. And you would think because in
their culture it wouldn't be that bad.
But no, I mean it's everywhere because this is a human problem.
Again this. Isn't just some people now, now,
I'm not going to get into the pot why the percentage is higher
in men than it is in women. There's a lot of.
You know, kind of I could spectate on that or have some
different opinions, but it's in both men and women and that's
the point and that's out there in the world, but.
OK, you say. Well.
What about in the church? What's it like in the church?
Because we're supposed to be different, right?
Jesus taught us these things and we're supposed to know that lust
is evil. While in the church, a study was
done. It says 68% of men struggle with
unwanted sexual behavior. That could include porn that can
include other things and 3030% of women so.
Why is this? Important to talk about and why
does the Holy Spirit want us to talk about this today?
Because it can't be skipped over.
Young people and old people alike need to hear.
About the sin of lust, because it's all-encompassing and I've
heard people say. Well, why is it?
Such a big deal to look at something in my mind.
I mean, I'm not hurting anyone, right?
And I say give me a break. Your spouse is going to find out
soon. The Bible says your sin will
find you out and she might want to divorce you.
He might want to divorce you. Your kids might stumble upon
your porn stash or find your search history.
It'll come out in all kinds of ways that you treat other people
as objects rather than respecting them as image bearers
of God, Daughters and sons of God.
You might spend all of your money and on top of that.
The biggest thing, the ultimate thing that Jesus is getting at
here is that you've offended God with your eyes and with your
thoughts and with your heart. Because what we lust after isn't
just a sin of lust, but it also becomes idolatry because when
we're lusting, we're thinking, oh, I want some of that right?
We're, we're breaking the first commandment now instead of being
happy with God's provision in our life, instead of being happy
with the, the situation that we have in our life that was
sovereignly put there by God, someone would say, I'm not happy
with my situation, God. So who am I married to or, or
whether I'm not married yet or not, or I'm not sure if the
person I'm dating is ready to be committed to.
And so instead of doing it your way, I'm going to do it my way.
Because either I'm God or my passion for sex is God.
Wanting to fulfill that desire that is deep within me is the
thing I worship more than you. And that is what idolatry is.
So we've broken the first commandment, the 7th
commandment, and the 10th commandment because the
covetousness that I've told you about as well.
Colossians 35 says put to death, therefore what is earthly in
you? Sexual immorality, impurity,
passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.
So we need to do something about this.
And recently I I saw something in the news.
The Republican A few of the Republican Party have put
together a bill to make porn a federal crime.
And I'm, I'm thinking, I think to myself, would I vote for
that? Of course I would vote for that
because I mean, porn has destroyed so many people's
lives, has caused so many external consequences just in
this world, not a, you know, beyond it just being well.
The sin being more important, but eternally, but even
externally temporarily. All of us.
Including myself, have faced consequences because of sexual
sin out there in the world. And do I want to protect my
family? Do I want to protect my kids
from temptation? Yes.
But here's the thing. You can't just legislate all sin
to be gone either because as I said, it's all over the world.
And whether we, you know, covered ourselves from head to
toe so that nobody could see us or not, the lust is still there.
It's not because of anything external out there.
It's what's in here. It's what's in our hearts and
our minds. And while some things might
trigger it here and there, it really is birthed in the heart
internally. And by the way, this has been
going on way before we ever had Internet TV, you know, 3000
years ago. I don't think they had magazines
or anything like that either, right?
And so, but one of the most famous people in the Bible that
is guilty of lust and then it turning to adultery is David
himself, King David. I'll just read one verse to you.
It says it happened late one afternoon when David arose from
his couch and was walking on the roof of the King's house that he
saw from the roof of a woman bathing and the woman was very
beautiful. So this started with that.
Look. We're talking about he saw a
woman saw that she was beautiful.
And I'm going to answer the question, is it OK to appreciate
beauty? But but let's just think about
this for a moment. It was birthed in his heart.
He already had it in his heart. And then when?
When opportunity presented itself.
He says she's beautiful, but he kept going in his mind and he
contrived this whole thing and he asked who is this woman?
He found out that they that she was married to Uriah and so that
should have stopped him, but that didn't stop him.
And So what does he do? He he says, well, send her over
here. And so they go get her.
They lay together, she becomes pregnant and then to try to
cover up the consequences. He says, well, let's pull your
husband out of battle, who's fighting for me by the way, and
says let's get him in here and we're we're going to see if
he'll. Go and lay with his wife while
he's on break. He wouldn't do that because he
had too much integrity because all of his fellow soldiers were
out at war. And so that fails.
So then David devises a plan, sends a note to the the captain
and says, hey, when when war gets heavy, pull back and leave
Uriah there to get killed. And so lust turned into lying,
adultery, and then finally murder.
And the Lord was very displeased with David and he'll never
outlive this sin because it was written down for us. 3000.
Now all of our sins, thank God, are not written down on piece of
paper. Amen.
But David's was why I still believe I'm going to see him in
heaven because he's been forgiven by the Lord Jesus.
But it was written down for our instruction so that we could
learn from. Even a man as great as David
could fall like this. So we better watch out for lust.
The intent there was to take it further than just appreciating
attractivity. So is it OK for us to appreciate
beauty? Yes, it is.
God made men and women and things out there in the world
beautiful to look at. The image of God is beautiful.
And so it's OK to appreciate beauty?
Or what about trying to look attractive?
Yes, that is OK. Now this becomes a conscience
issue for some because I remember, you know, I was
discipling this guy. We were going to the gym
together and you know, he was, he was single at the time.
And, and one time at work, he, he, he made a comment and he was
like, I want to be a sex symbol, you know, and I, I said, that's
probably not the reason you should be working out, man.
I mean, like it's OK to look good, but it starts to become
wrong when I'm dressing like or, or even getting in shape with
the thought in my mind that I'm hoping somebody looks at me and
thinks of sexual desire. See, that's when it becomes the
the sin in the heart. So you have to.
Decide. I have to decide.
When we. Put on the.
Clothes that we wear every day or whatever, Is that a thought
that? Crosses my mind when I put this
on or when I'm at the gym or whatever it is.
It's not necessarily like, oh, if I do this, this, this could.
'Cause my brother or sister to stumble.
If it is the thought in your mind that that could be
possible, I would also love your neighbor as yourself and not try
to do that. But that turns into a conscience
issue again, because as I said before, the sin is internal.
You can't go blaming whatever comes up in your mind and your
heart on everybody else and what they look like and what they're
wearing. It really comes from your own
evil heart. And so we've got to get our
hearts right if we're going to live in a world where not
everybody understands this type of stuff yet.
Some people haven't. Even preached about this to
them. A lot of people, most people
aren't even believers. Why would they follow a moral
code that they don't actually believe in, but yet we have to
live in this world but but not be of the world?
Hold yourself to the standard before you start holding
everybody else to it again, AB Bruce writes.
The look is not casual but persistent.
The desire is not involuntary or momentary, but cherished.
All right, so the look of lust. That Jesus is talking about here
when he says looks at a woman with lust.
Again, it's intentional. It's not now I don't want to
walk away. I'm like, oh man, like somebody
crossed my path and I looked for a split second.
I'm going to hell. You know, that's not what I'm
trying to say here today because it's not an involuntary or
momentary thing. It's when it starts to be
cherished in your heart. It's when you're going back and
you're looking at a person and you're saying in the right
circumstances. Or in another life, I would
consummate my yes is on the table and in the right
circumstances, possibly those circumstances might line up.
What are you going to do when the other person gives you that
look back? You got to be ready for this
because he says, look when you look at someone like that.
It's already adultery. You've already broken the law to
God, and it's in your heart as a possibility.
And the whole point here though is this, that lust is just as
bad as what we consider the worst of sins.
All of us are guilty of the sin of lust.
I can guarantee it, all of us in the room, including me, and that
makes us desperate for a solution.
We have a. Sickness in our hearts and in
our minds that needs a cure, and Jesus has come to be that
physician and to bring that cure, and we must be desperate
to hear from Him and to follow Him.
And so let's. Get into my last point, which is
then this Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Now this is a quote actually kind of modified from a guy
named Hippocrates who some people call he's the father of
medicine. His quote was for extreme
diseases, extreme methods of cure as to restriction are most
suitable. So if we have a desperate
problem and it needs a desperate cure.
We should go to desperate methods of restriction and so
let's look what Jesus has to say, he says.
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it
away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than
that your whole body be thrown into hell.
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw
away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than
that your whole body go into hell.
So he's saying right there, if we just look at this at first
glance, pull out your eye, cut off your hand.
And then in Matthew 18, he uses the same illustration and he
says, and then cut off your foot.
And so is he saying then that we all need to become pirates like
Captain Hook. That could be the story of
Captain Hook. I don't know.
You know, maybe there's a deeper story there where he was
struggling and he took this very literal.
But what this is? Hyperbole.
He's not saying maim yourself. In fact, one of our early church
fathers named Origen because. Of this passage.
Took it so literal that he actually castrated himself
because he wanted to follow the Lord in a more faithful way.
And people have done that over over the centuries.
Again, because legalism creeping into the teachings of Jesus in
Scripture. But what Jesus is really saying
here is that you must be extreme about getting rid of sin.
And as a committed Christian, we're not supposed to live like
the world, and we should so much try to live for him that we
would be willing to sacrifice normal human function and
privileges so. I went through or have been in
addiction recovery, you know, for a long time did a lot of
addiction recovery ministry. And one of there was a lot of
sayings, you know, that we would come up with in addiction
recovery. And, and one of them was like,
you've got to change your playmates, your playgrounds and
your playthings if you want to stay clean and sober.
Or in this case, you know if you want to beat the sin of of lust
or a sexual addiction. You've got to change who you
hang out with where you go and the types of things that you do
or find entertainment in you. You got to change your life and
that's really the essence and message of of Jesus's sermon on
the Mount anyway to his disciples is look like if you're
going to follow me. This is what Kingdom minded
people disciples. Look.
Like and live like in the Kingdom.
They're completely different than the legalists, and they're
completely different than the people who have no law or do not
follow God. And so if there's a place that
often triggers you, why do you keep going there?
There's a. A.
Thing that you do, why do you keep doing it?
If, if, if you know, again, and, and there was a statement that
said, don't go to the Barber if you don't want a haircut.
Like, why are you going to hang out at the Barber saying, Oh,
I'm not here for a haircut. I'm just here to hang out.
I'm not going to partake. Right.
That was, that was an analogy for people who are trying to
quit drinking, but they go hang out at the bar because that's
just what they've always done. Well, if you hang out at the
Barber long enough, you're eventually going to get a
haircut. That's just what happens.
The same is true for the things that we do.
If we don't change the persons, places, and things in our lives
as we follow Christ, then we're probably going to continue to
sin more. And our objective as Christians
is not to follow the law. But we do want to, by the power
of the Holy Spirit, sin less. We'll never be sinless, but we
do want to sin less to the glory of God.
Here's what 1st Thessalonians 4 three says.
It says for this is the will of God, your sanctification.
His will is that you would become more holier and holier
throughout the years, days, months, week that you live.
And then it goes on that you abstain from sexual immorality,
that each one of you know how to control his own body and
holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the
Gentiles who do not know God. We should live in righteousness.
I love what Job says in Job 31 verse one, as he's defending
himself against his friends. You know about why all this bad
stuff is happening to him and and he says this, I have made a
covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze out of
virgin? He's basically saying like I'm
living in righteousness. Mike, the covenant I've made is
to keep my eyes fixed on the Lord and His law and what brings
life from Him. And the same is true for us is
that if we're in covenant with Jesus Christ, then the Bible
says our eyes should be fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. We need to be looking to him,
not scanning the world for all that our eyes can take in for
some kind of evil desire because we have a hole in our heart and
nothing can fill it, even though we keep filling it with more and
more sin and more and more things.
We eventually come to realize that this isn't helping me, it's
only making more more sick. But what we need to do is take
in Jesus Christ going back to our verse that says if, if, if
your right eye causes you to sin.
And that is not like a theoretical statement like if
this happens, then do this. What he's actually saying is
it's going to happen. It's.
Going to happen when your right eye causes you to sin.
Do this. Of course it's going to happen.
Of course your eyes, your hands, and your feet are going to cause
you to sin, Christian, I know that for a fact.
You are not going to be able to live the rest of this life
sinless. So what are you going to do
about it? We've got to have a solution to
this sickness, an antidote for this problem.
Even if we try really hard to escape the computers and phones
and don't go out in public anymore, one day we're going to
see something or someone because of our hearts.
We will have inappropriate sexual desire that will make its
way up and out of our hearts. That is going to happen.
But here's the solution. It's not in the text at first
glance at least, but it's standing right there in the
context. And it's Jesus Christ, the
person and work of Jesus Christ. Think about it.
This is the whole reason why he came.
And he's preaching this sermon to them because what he's saying
is this, like you think you can follow me by following the law.
And in verse 20, he reminded them, your righteousness
exceeds, should exceed the Pharisees and the scribes or you
won't answer the Kingdom of heaven.
And for them, they're looking around and they're like, man,
this is a hard teaching because those are the holiest people
we've ever seen. Like they're, they're the most
righteous people that we actually know.
And so this is hopeless. And even at the end of this
chapter in, in in verse 48, it says, you therefore must be
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
And you're thinking, what are we to do?
I don't have enough self-control.
I I've tried to do things in my life to put up boundaries and
stuff, but I still slip and still fall sometimes.
Where's the hope? Well, the hope is in Jesus
Christ. Jesus is not coming to preach a
new set of laws and standards for the people.
He's expounding that the law of God is, is so holy that even the
most religious people 2000 years ago didn't get it.
So God himself had to come down and say, look, it's not just
external, it's internal. It's in your heart.
And all humans because of the fall of sin are totally and
utterly depraved. And so why I've come here, it's
to be an example for you. But ultimately to die for you to
take your place, because when it says you must be perfect or your
righteous succeed the Pharisees, there's only one person that
that actually applies to, and that's Jesus Christ himself, the
God who became man, who walked this earth a sinless life and
became the sacrifice for our sins.
And on the cross, all of our sins, all of the internal
thoughts, all of the things that we've done to other people, the
wrong things, the evil things, even the little things that we
think when Jesus was nailed on that cross, all of those sins
were applied to Him. And when that perfect blood of
Jesus was spilt running down the cross, He knew that all of His
righteousness was going to be exchanged at His death to all
sinners who put their faith and trust alone in Jesus Christ.
And He is our only hope. We are going to fall.
We can become more holier in this life.
But ultimately, we rely on Jesus Christ alone to be right with
God to make it into the Kingdom of heaven.
But when you do put your faith and trust in Jesus, you do have
a lot more power than you ever had before to now start fighting
the sin that you've struggled with your whole life.
You have the Holy Spirit, God himself dwelling in you.
You have a church family who will preach the hard text to you
and walk through scripture with you.
You've got groups of people that will do discipleship with you
and sanctification. That is His will for your life
will be worked out. I can guarantee that because
He's the one doing it. So I'm going to close with this
for those of you who've already made a mess of your life.
But have now experienced some restoration.
Praise God. I know that's me.
I mean, say praise God because he has forgiven us.
He's changed us. He's taken some of the most evil
people and turned them around to become people of his own
possession. The greatest of sinners.
Paul himself, he said I was the chief of sinners.
And now I'm being used by God's glory to go.
Start and plant churches and the God used Him to write scripture.
He changed David's heart. Even so, you and I have things
in common with everybody in the Bible that God used.
Praise God that we've made a mess of our lives, but He's come
and cleaned us up. We don't need to feel
condemnation anymore. Those of you who are
inappropriate in inappropriate relationships right now or are
in the middle of struggling with sexual sin, come to Jesus, find
support from his church. If you're struggling and you
just feel like, look, I'm trying to pray, I'm trying to read and
and he's not saying anything to me.
I'm not hearing anything like you need to be around God's
people as well. But Jesus is the only one that
can change. The problem that exists is in
your heart. You need a heart transplant and
only Jesus can do that. Come to Him.
He will forgive you of your sin. So many people here have
experienced the grace and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ
and it was nailed to the cross with Him and we believe that and
we hold on to that. He will forgive you and those of
you who are close. To ruining everything with a bad
decision for a moment of pleasure.
Run away from your sin. Run.
Do whatever you can to run from that.
Tell somebody about that. Run to Jesus.
Reconcile with whoever you need to reconcile with your spouse if
there's a rift there. And things aren't healthy in the
relationship and you guys don't have intimacy For these reasons.
And I guess I would say that to those who are married then, and
you're just going through the motions, start looking at sex as
a way of worshipping God, as a picture of his, his glory and
his blessings on his people. It's a beautiful thing that God
can use a relationship to bring about healing and restoring and
sanctification and marriage. Will do that I.
Promise you you want to get holier and you're single.
Get married because God will show you what it's like to love
one another and put others before yourself.
But don't expect things from your spouse and use scripture to
say, hey, this is no, you serve your spouse and you pursue each
other. God wants healthy marriages in
his church and you'd experience the blessing, the full blessing
of what marriage is in the picture of what it is.
Young people do not get unequally yoked just to stop the
burning passion. I know that you have the
hormones running and everything and you're like, I got this
desire and and I don't have time to wait.
There's so many consequences that do come from not waiting.
I promise you, just one burning passion moment can be a
generation of people that are affected by that.
Wait for someone who's waiting for Jesus.
And if you've already sinned in that area, it's OK, you can find
forgiveness in Jesus. And you not married yet, so you
can stop and you can think about, hey, I need to start
being more committed to Jesus and finding my pleasure in Jesus
and then maybe I'll be healthy enough for a relationship one
day. To the glory of God, let's pray.
Father, thank you. Thank you for forgiving all of
our sins. Thank you for sending Jesus as
he was beaten, whipped and bruised and drugged naked to
the. Cross for all of our.
Sin forgive us, Lord, Father, help us.
To honor you, help us to speak the truth to people who need to
hear it. Help us to have the power to
follow after Your will and sanctification, and help us walk
by the Holy Spirit Lord, and bring people to yourself.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.