Matthew 5 (Part 11) :27-30

Matthew chapter 5 we're beginning at verse 27 let's start reading there down through verse 30 it says

stop there great Mother's Day message right let's pray Lord thank you so much for this beautiful day that you've given and Lord we do thank you for your word and you know there's there's nothing inappropriate about your word and we do thank you for it and and we're not ashamed of it we pray that you would give us wisdom and understanding and not only wisdom but application how we can apply these things to our lives we really need Lord God to to always walk in that that application of the Word of God so use this time we pray in Jesus precious name amen all right Jesus is doing really just what he did that we covered last week you'll remember that last week Jesus talked about murder which is the the sixth commandment and I mean the six of the ten commandments by the way let me back up a little bit more do you remember that when Jesus kind of started a little bit of this whole sermon on the mount thing after the Beatitudes he said don't think that I have come to abolish the law because that's what they were accusing him of they he comes to completely do away with everything Moses gave us in the law he says that's not why I've come I in fact you know I've come to uphold and fulfill the law and and so we find that what Jesus does for us in these passages is he gives clarity and information to our understanding or maybe I should say our previous understanding of what the law meant and brings us to a better understanding of what the law really said and you know there's nothing nobody can find fault with the law in terms of the righteousness and purity and holiness of the law last week we dealt with the issue of murder you heard that it was said do not commit murder but I say to you not contradicting that law but enlarging upon it Jesus says let me let me give it greater definition and clarity for you you if you missed out on that you can get the message online from last week but now he's gonna do the same thing with this issue of adultery and he starts off by saying you you've heard it said don't commit adultery where did they hear that well again this is in the commandments this is the seventh commandment and it's very simple you shall not commit adultery and by the way adultery is definition wise the voluntary sexual action between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse that's actually you know what the Jews believed adultery to be that's what we still believe adultery to be I know that because I looked it up I actually just went on to Webster's dictionary and put in the word adultery when's the last time you tried that and I just I just you know looked at the and it was pretty similar to the one I showed you here I tamed it down a little bit for general audiences but that's basically the idea but what Jesus is gonna do is he's gonna take that definition which we've long believed to be this is what adultery is when a married person has sexual relations with someone outside of the marriage and Jesus is going to make it more personal and he says here in verse 28 but I tell you that if anyone or he says that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart so just like we dealt with with murder Jesus is taking the focus and bringing it into focus for us what is the focus of sin it's the heart we tend to think of it as the act have you ever committed murder remember we asked that question last week you ever committed murder most people would say I'm committed murder you know Jesus said however if you're angry with someone and you in your heart you're thinking you fool you've committed murder in your heart because it begins in the heart so here's the next question if you ever committed adultery well once again if we define it from a physical sort of a standpoint there's many who could say no I've never done that but how many of you can say that your heart is completely and totally pure of any kind of a thought along those lines and that is kind of the issue here I want you to take note of the fact that in verse 28 again look at it there in your Bible Jesus once again says but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman what lustfully he doesn't just say anybody who looks at a woman good grief you know then yeah that'd be a problem he says whoever looks at a woman lustfully that's the key word in the passage so it kind of behooves you and I to understand what lustfully means because I've actually found that there is some confusion about that and James in his epistle gives us a very good understanding he says that each one of us is tempted when by our own evil and note that he is dragged away and enticed and then and I want you to take note of this last sentence after desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and I really want to focus on those words after desire has conceived because that is the point where lust begins okay it's when my desire and my evil desire that is my desire to have that sexual buzz as we call it is conceived and I long for that and I kind of lay hold of it it is the point where we act on our desires okay an evil desire like even a lustful thought toward another woman when I act upon that thought to keep it hold it nurture it in my heart and so forth that's when lust begins so you know that that's where the thing is now there are a lot of biblical examples of lust and adultery and stuff like that one of them that is very well known is the story of David and Bathsheba you remember the story King David is living in his palace and he obviously has a kind of a bird's-eye view of the city of Jerusalem he's up higher than the other homes of the common people the Bible says that one evening he steps out on his veranda to kind of just you know get a breath of fresh air or something like that kind of look at the city and the scripture tells us that lo and behold as he looks down upon the the rooftops of the homes that were nearby there was a woman who was bathing and David looked upon her and so forth and you know the rest of the story by the way when David saw her there he had not yet committed sin he had not yet lusted he simply saw her we all see things all the time the question is what do we do with what we see and what David did with what he saw as you know the story he continued to look and then he sent for her and then he had relations with her even though he was married she was married and you know how the whole sordid kind of a tale played out it's not not not David's finest hour to be sure but you have to understand where lust began and and where adultery began when did David commit adultery with Bathsheba most people would say well when he took her into his bed and you know had relations with her not according to Jesus adultery took place before that adultery took place when David looked upon this woman and wanted her and instead of looking away again we all see things but instead of looking away and going oh hey not that's yeah okay and just kind of going back into his you know room and thinking maybe even to himself you know maybe stepping out on the veranda here in the evening hours when that sort of thing is likely to happen people bathed in the evening I it's probably not a good idea I want to keep my heart pure I want to keep my eyes you know from that sort of thing he didn't do that he didn't turn around and walk back in the room he stayed there he looked he pondered He sought and lust was filled in his heart and that is where David committed adultery. Isn't that interesting? David committed adultery before Bathsheba even came into the picture in a personal way. Before Bathsheba was even aware of it, David had already committed the sin of adultery. Let me put this in kind of a modern computer age sort of an example because this I think this kind of helps people to in their mind understand how a desire is conceived and how lust then begins to take over. Let's say imagine you're looking on your computer and you're sitting at you know your computer or your laptop or whatever and you're you're you're you're reading something on the web. Maybe it's a news page or something like that completely innocuous seems to be pretty harmless and you're scrolling down the page and suddenly you find this little picture down at the bottom of the page. It's interesting by the way how the news services like NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News and so forth they like to put these little pictures that are meant to draw you in and it has nothing to do with the news. It might say something like you know the top bikini bods for the 2012 summer season or something stupid like that and you're you're just kind of you know reading through the news and and and genuinely there just to get the news but you see this picture little thumbnail picture down there that obviously shows something that is alluring and you see it there and you haven't yet committed sin and you're tempted to click on it. You're just tempted but you haven't yet committed sin. Do you know the temptation is not a sin? Jesus was tempted the Bible says and yet was without sin but instead of scrolling back up to the top of the page or turning off the browser or everything completely you move your mouse over that picture and you click. You have just entered into sin. It is when the desire comes up to my action. When I take action on that temptation that is where the sin of lust begins. And so you have to always remember that it is an action sort of a word all right so this is this is what Jesus is trying to help us to understand here that there is a connection between what the eye sees, what the heart longs for, and what the actions reach out for. You can't stop seeing things. The question is what are you looking at? Let me say that again. You can't stop seeing things. The question is what are you looking at? And the difference is it's one thing for me to drive down the road and glance up to a billboard and see something there that's inappropriate and then to turn my eyes back on the road keep them straight in front of me and keep going. It's another thing to sit and look and so forth. That's a whole different issue. Now you see there's a change in my desire related to those things. I don't know if you've ever, when's the last time you read through the book of Job? Job's a great book but it's not one of those books you usually read through just for you know pleasure reading because it's kind of laborious it's a little bit heavy and you know the conversations in there between Job and his buddies are in poetic style it's not the way we talk and it can be kind of difficult but there's some great stuff in there that Job mentions about his determination to be careful with what he looks at. Let me show you from Job 31 it's a couple of few different verses here and I kind of put them together but Job says I made a covenant literally a pact with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl. Now you know the difference now don't don't keep reading I'll get back to it I promise you know you know now what lustfully means now don't you it's not just he didn't say I made a covenant not to look at a girl how you gonna do that you have to go away he said I made a covenant not to look lustfully at a girl why because there is a connection between what my eyes see and I might just follow my heart might just follow what my eyes see look what he goes on to say if my heart has been led by my eyes right and he says if my heart has been in then enticed by a woman or if I have lurked at my neighbor's door why would a person lurk at his neighbor's door because he wants to keep looking he didn't just see now he wants to look right then Job goes on to say then you know then I've done this I've committed this sin but I want you to see this this this statement that's in the middle of this passage or this group of verses if my heart has been led by my eyes in that wild do you know you can see things with your eyes and you can choose not to let your heart be led by what you see some some people think that it's just a natural sort of a thing that whatever I see I just got to kind of you know follow after it just kind of stumble along and and run after whatever I happen to see with my eyes well not if I make a determination like like job said that I'm not going to look that way at those things which would otherwise cause me to sin I choose not to look lustfully at those things I I it has to it has to start somewhere and so forth and here's the reality of the situation deeds of shame those things that were ashamed about when we do they begin with thoughts of shame they are enticed by fantasies of shame some of us have a wonderful God-given imagination frankly I'm one of them well you know when I was a little boy my parents could hardly get me out of dreamland I was you know yeah I was just kind of and God gave me a wonderful imagination but you know what else I found out in my life that sin is operating in my life too and sin has taken that God-given gift of an imaginative thought process and made it sinful it's been corrupted and I can easily do that I can easily just give in to the thoughts of the imagination that want to just run to me and be centered on me and what I want to think about and what gives me pleasure rather than using my imagination for the kingdom of God and for the purposes that that are out there in his kingdom and for the glory of God I rather I want to use it for the glory and pleasure of Paul you know so there's a there's a point in time where we have to rein in what we see with our eyes what we think with our hearts you know if we just let it go see this is the problem you guys we give ourselves permission to allow lust to go on in secret and then we wonder why our lives don't measure up the way they should and we end up doing things we know are wrong but we've given permission for the eyes to stay on something that it sees that's full of pleasure we give our hearts permission to ponder and nurture thoughts of things which we know are just going to feed the desires of the flesh literally we're feeding our flesh and it's becoming so accustomed to getting fed that it's crying out to us all the time to be satisfied I found a fun amazing quote by one of my favorite authors John Stott let me let me show you this he says I doubt if ever human beings have fallen victim to immorality of some sort of another who have not first opened the floodgates of passion through their eyes similarly whenever men and women have learned sexual control in deed or meaning in action it is because they have first learned learned it in the eyes of both their flesh and fantasy isn't that great what a great quote so once again summing up what he says he says I seriously doubt that anybody has ever walked into some kind of immoral action that didn't first start with something they saw that they took into their heart nurtured it there and then finally played it out you know we call that today we call it acting out and you know we've comforted ourselves by saying well at least he didn't act out or she didn't act out you know what that may be the world's definition of when that really get serious but Jesus takes it a whole lot further he says when you have nurtured the thought in your heart you back it out you've done it that's what he's saying here again saying just like with murder he's not saying that having thoughts of fantasy toward another person will lead you to adultery he's saying having thoughts like like that lustful thoughts is adultery okay it is so that's what's really going on and and that's what we need to be aware of now this all brings us to these last couple of verses that we look at in this passage and they're kind of those shocking verses you know it says look with me in your Bible at verse 29 it says

okay stop there well obviously this is a kind of a shocking and slightly startling thing to hear Jesus say and please don't think that Jesus is advocating self-mutilation and the reason we know that he's not advocating self-mutilation is because he's already made the point that sin begins in the heart that's the whole point of what he's saying he's saying you have heard it said when it happens in the flesh that's when it happens I'm telling you when it happens in the heart that's when it happens so he's already told us that it's not necessarily but just the fleshly action of the sin that is sin it's the root beginning with what the I see what the heart ponders and and what then and desires and so forth so and the reason I say that is because there have been some people over the years whose you know zeal was a little outstretched by their wisdom and they did really dumb things to their body thinking that was going to make a difference that's not what Jesus is saying and frankly part of what he's saying here to us is lost a little bit on modern audiences because you did you notice he said if your right eye caused you to sin and then your right hand why did he specifically say right well to you and I doesn't mean anything if he just said left I we wouldn't have cared we'd have just gone ow whichever one right or right hand left hand I mean you know you may write with one or whatever but I wouldn't want to lose either how about you here's the point in the Bible right always means strength and best okay the right hand the right eye even the right foot it always stood symbolically for your best whatever as a father back in the Bible days my very first son would be referred to as the son of my right hand in other words the son of my strength if I introduced my son to you and said this is the son of my right hand back in biblical days you'd know exactly what I was saying he's the son of my strength right so this is why Jesus is specifically saying if your right eye if your best strength that which is of the most precious value to you okay causes you to fall into sin get rid of it even if it's your right hand later on in the Gospels he's going to even add the foot to this thing and say even if it's that get rid of it what is Jesus saying essentially he's saying if by seeing something you are led into sin live as though you didn't see that thing live as though you were blind and your eye had been plucked out and you could not see that thing if what you touch causes you to sin live as though you don't have a hand to touch that thing live as if you literally don't have a hand to go and grasp on and to have that thing better that you would do that than to fall into sin and be absolutely captivated and and you know just taken over by that thing now as important as this information is I want you to know something I'm not suggesting to you by this that we have to create all kinds of rules about things you should look at and touch and go and stuff like that I believe me throughout the history of the Christian church we've gone there with like really bad you know consequences it wasn't good you know we've done that in the past we've come up with rules and said alright here's the deal real Christians are never caught dead in a movie theater real Christians never do this never do that never do this and never do that and then we start doing things like measuring the women's skirts and if it's so many inches off the floor too high and we can see a little too much ankle then you know she's going to be chastised because she didn't keep the rules and if the guys don't do this and if the union you know all that sort of thing you know that's not what I'm advocating because rules like that you know just ultimately don't work I mean there's wisdom to be applied let me take just a moment here to talk to particularly you younger girls it's one thing to dress to look attractive it's another thing to dress to look sexy and believe me women know when they're dressing to look sexy and so do guys and as a Christian I would have an expectation that you would care enough about what Jesus has just said or made you aware of in this passage related to particularly how a man is aroused and men are very visual in that sort of thing that you would care enough about your fellow brothers in Christ that you address appropriately and I'll leave it at that and let the Holy Spirit minister to your heart accordingly to that but once again I'm not I'm not dealing here with rules and regulations simply because things change and between people for example the things that may cause me great difficulty maybe they're no issue to you you know and maybe the things that are a difficulty to you I I'm not tempted at all by them right I mean you could put all of the alcohol and drugs in front of me that I you in the world that I wouldn't be tempted it's just not a temptation but somebody else is that would be absolutely downright cruel now don't think that I'm virtuous because I'm not tempted by alcohol there's all kinds of other things you could put in front of me and I'd be a goner but it might not affect you at all you'll be strong you see that's why we're not going to come up with rules about this stuff because people have different issues people have different weaknesses and if your weakness is this then you know that's something you really need to stay away from you need to in in that sense you need to gouge out the eye and cut off the hand but I may not have to in that situation I have to do that over here we have to apply whatever area is our weakness we have to apply the wisdom of this word and understand that and you know I wish I wish Christians would be honest enough to say to somebody else without thinking that it demeans them somehow when somebody says hey you want to go see such-and-such a movie and you know you know what that movie's all about you know what kind of images are in that movie and for you it's a problem I wish a Christian would be able to say honestly you know what guys I can't go I mean thanks for the offer but I can't go really how come you know what I've just those kind of images just don't work for me in my walk with Jesus and it just drags me down and so you know you guys might be able to go I'm not judging you you guys might be able to go see a movie like that and it just doesn't draw you into temptation but for me it's an area of weakness I can't go so wouldn't that be refreshing to hear that you know from a from a Christian who who literally you know is honest about something like that anyway but let me just say something the reason Jesus kind of made this graphic for you and I this whole cutting off hand gouging out I stuff you kind of wonder you kind of think well you know Jesus couldn't you have said it in a way that was a little less gruesome I mean you know it's pretty bloody and yucky when you think about it but you know what you want to know what else is yucky you want to know what else is repulsive cutting out sin in our lives anybody in this room who thinks that getting rid of sin or getting rid of putting sin in front of you even or going there or whatever is easy think again it's like cutting off your hand it's like gouging out an eye for whatever your area of weakness may be if you have a problem with internet pornography then you can't go there you just you cannot be alone in front of a computer that is unfiltered, ever. Okay, well that's just not convenient. Neither is cutting off your hand. Or gouging out your eye. How much do you care about sin? How much do you care about walking with Jesus Christ? That's the question that's going on. We need to take those areas of our lives that are a weakness to us and put them behind lock and key and then throw away the key. So that we don't even know where the key is. That's what Jesus is talking about in terms of the radical action that it takes to get free. And to care enough. Jesus, I do not want to keep doing this. I'm a Christian. I belong to you. I'm washed in the blood of the Lamb. I believe you died for me. But I am not going to live under the dominion of my flesh anymore. I am sick to death of this. And I want it to stop. Well, you know what? I can't stop it in and of myself. I can't do this in my own power. I need God's help. I need accountability in the body of Christ. I need to create a situation where it is hard, I mean, almost impossible for me to go there. You know? So, you got a problem with, say, internet pornography? Give away the password to your computer and don't weasel it out of that person for whatever reason. I don't care the emergency. That's the way it's got to be. If you got a drinking problem, you better have every drop of the stuff out of your house. And don't even go to places where they're going to be serving it. Don't even go there. If you don't want to fall off the cliff, don't play around the edge. Because, you know, our hearts, you can't underestimate, you know, what they're capable of, and so forth. It's just, you know, whatever causes you to sin, whatever causes you to fall down, get rid of that stuff, and so forth, you know? I want to just make one final comment, if I may. And it's really just kind of encompassed in the last sentence of verse 30. Would you look there in your Bible, please, at verse 30 and then the last sentence of it. He says here, It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Now, that's a strange statement for you and I to hear today. But it encompasses a principle that I want to bring out here. And here's the principle that Jesus is basically laying out for you and I. Eternity is more important than today. Okay? Now, here's why that sounds so weird to us today. We've grown up in a world that says, Today, today, today, today, today, today. There's nothing to live for except today. And it's just been hammered into our hearts and minds over the years. Hammered, hammered. Today, live for today, live for today. We've written it into our songs. We've written it into our beer slogans. We've written it just everywhere. Live for, I'm just going to live for today, and so forth. Listen, Jesus did say take one day at a time in terms of your faith and so forth. But he didn't mean live for today as if that was your purpose. You and I are supposed to live for eternity. We are supposed to live our lives today in the shadow of eternity. And that's the only way a statement like this could even begin to make sense. He says, it's better for you to lose one part of your body. And we can't even imagine that. Lose a hand? Lose an eye? Are you kidding me? What am I going to do without a hand and an eye? He says, yeah, but that's only going to be for a short time. Think about how it's going to affect eternity. See, the principle is eternity is more important. So what are you doing today in this short temporal amount of time that you've been given to live upon this earth that is going to affect eternity? It's better. It's a better thing for you and I to live today radically with a thought toward tomorrow and eternity and how that's going to affect our lives. Amen?