Righteousness in Daily Life: Illicit Sexual Desire

Matthew 5:27–30 ESV

“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 lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Fred and Sally have been married for a long time now.

After a brief dust up with Sally, Fred heads to work.

Stewing in frustration over their relationship he reasons,

“I have been a good husband, I deserve better than this.”

At the office, he sees his female coworker and imagines them together.

He imagines her in ways that would dishonor the Lord Jesus.

All while thinking, “I deserve this.”

Fred is a sexually broken man.

Fred deals with unlawful sexual desire.

This is typically what we think of when we think of lust.

But after their argument that morning, Sally goes for a run at the gym.

While at the gym she ponders what life would be like without her husband,

“I’m sick of the way Fred doesn’t listen to me. I should have never married him.”

“I’m a good wife, Fred doesn’t know the kind of catch that I am.”

At the gym, a young man compliments Sally.

He asks her how he day is going.

He spends time hearing about their most recent fight.

Sally daydreams of what life would be like to be married to this guy who listens.

She daydreams and imagines their lives together.

She imagines all the ways he would “meet her needs” unlike Fred.

Sally is a sexually broken woman.

Sally deals with unlawful sexual desire.

The sad truth I want us to realize from the get go is that each of us are sexually broken people.

Who live in a society of sexually broken people.

In a world of sexually broken people.

Sexuality and Technology

We find ourselves with greater capacities through technology to propagate this brokenness even further.

Men addicted to pornography.

Women addicted to the attention of others through their seductive photos.

Each of us with greater capacities in receiving material that provokes sexual desire.

Unlike any generation before us.

Sexual desire is by God’s design…

Genesis 2:23–25 ESV

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Sexual desire is NOT evil in itself.

Sexual desire in the context of marriage is good and right.

The way we talk to our children about sexual desire cannot bring a connotation that sexual desire is yucky.

We need to place sexual desire within God’s framework for how sexual desire was designed.

Sexual desire was designed by God to be used in the worship of God.

Sexual desire worships God when it is used according to His purposes.

Sexual Desire as a Fire

Sexual desire can be helpfully compared to a fire.

In it’s appropriate context, sexual desire is a beautiful thing.

It can provide warmth, comfort, and keep a house warm.

But when sexual desire is removed from the context that it was designed for.

It will inevitably create great harm.

We DO NOT have the ability to flip a switch and turn off sexual desire.

Proverbs 6:27–29 ESV

Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.

Yet it is twisted because of sin.

Humanity has always struggled with unlawful sexual desire since the fall.

The fall made sexual desire disordered.

Sexual desire NOW is warped from the good design that God gave to us about sexual desire.

To build a fire, there needs to be a series of processes that take place to build that fire.

Wood needs arranged, sparks needs to be kindled, and then air needs to be slowly applied.

Fires need stoked and rekindled.

It takes maintenance, an active participation for right conditions for right desires.

We need to stamp our wrong conditions which will quench our fires.

Remember Fred and Sally.

There problem was NOT sexual desire itself.

There problem was misplaced sexual desire.

Matthew 5:27 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

Adultery breaks God’s law – visible & external.

Adultery is any form of sexual intercourse outside of marriage with a person NOT your spouse.

It is any form of taking what does not belong to you as though it does belong to you.

Adultery is warned against in TEN COMMANDMENTS.

But it is also warned against in many other places in Scripture.

Proverbs 5:1–6 ESV

My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

The first thing that Solomon acknowledges is that this woman is called the “forbidden woman”.

She is referred to as Lady of folly.

She is the embodiment of desire for something outside of God's design, for sexuality.

The first thing Solomon says about this woman is that she is desirable.

Christian

We need to remember that wrongful sexual temptation is always desirable.

There is nothing sweeter than honey in these days, honey was extremely sweet, and oil was expensive as well.

This forbidden woman is even more attractive than those things.

Solomon is acknowledging that this illicit desire will be present in your experience.

Adultery is condemned in the OT.

But Jesus goes further…

Matthew 5:28 ESV

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Illicit sexual desire as adultery – vertical & internal.

Jesus elevates the command of adultery to go beyond the physical act to include “seed” of adultery which is lust.

Illicit sexual desire is sexual desire outside the context that God designed.

Unlawful sexual desire is the remove of sexual desire from it’s God ordained context.

What are we to do?

Matthew 5:29–30 ESV

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 lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Illicit Sexual Desire and Radical Amputation

Jesus is comparing sexual desire with adultery.

In the Old Testament adultery would've only been considered an act outside of the confines of marriage.

But Jesus picks up on the eye and the hand because it is far more significant than simply committing adultery.

He applies the principle of lust to the inner man.

Why the eye and hand?

“The right eye and the right hand were considered two of the most precious limbs of the body (1 Sam 11:2; Psalm 137:5; Zech 11:17).” —Charles Quarles

1 Samuel 11:2 (ESV)

“On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.”

Psalm 137:5 ESV

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!

Amputation – Tear out lustful eyes! & Cut off grasping hands!

Is Jesus calling us to gouge out the eye?

Is He demanding that we cut off our limbs?

Some have understood this command in a literal sense.

Origen, An early church father, is said to have castrated himself.

He castrated himself so that he would not be tempted.

The problem with this literal understanding is that if we gouge out the right eye, we will still see to lust with the left eye.

Then if we gouge out the left eye, we will still have to war with our imaginations.

By focusing on the specifics of the literal interpretation, we miss Jesus's point.

The phrase “cause you to sin” is one word “σκανδαλίζω” which literally means to “cause to stumble”

It literally means to, “to stick in the trap that springs and closes the trap” (Roger & Rogers)

The idea of this word is captured as well in our english word for Scandalize or Scandal.

Matthew–Luke Comment

Disciples should recoil from thoughts of sexual sin, just as they recoil from thoughts of severed limbs.

Where is this battle fought?

Your imagination and the battleground of the mind.

Matthew 5:29 ESV

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.

Sexual Desire as a Fire

Immediate Control – (Light Switch)

We do not have the ability to turn off sexual desire.

The reason we cannot turn it off is it is a God-given gift.

Eventual Control – (Building A Fire)

We choose incrementally where we direct our attention.

Where we direct our attention will determine what we find desirable.

What we direct our hearts at will affect what we desire.

What we pursue will lead to desire.

What we desire we will pursue.

It is cyclical.

If I give myself over to decision over and over, they will begin to control you more eventually.

One of the main problems with lust is it is rarely ONLY sexual.

Lust ALMOST always includes other motivating desires.

Not everyone struggles with sexually illicit desire for the same reason.

You need to understand what other motivating desires links arms with sexual sin.

Remember back to Fred and Sally.

Fred’s imagination and self-talk revealed much of his LUST problem.

“I have been a good husband, I deserve better than this.”

Or Sally

“I’m sick of the way Fred doesn’t listen to me. I should have never married him.”

“I’m a good wife, Fred doesn’t know the kind of catch that I am.”

A person’s daydreams are not morally neutral.

It’s not morally neutral to fantasize hitting the game winning home run, or any list of things.

These fantasies point to something about our own glory or honor.

Whispered promises are speaking promises to you of some benefit.

In Genesis 3, the whisper of promise came with Satan giving an interpretation of the fruit saying that there were benefits that come to those who partake of the fruit. 

Christian

What are the whispers of promise that are given to you?

A man or woman who cannot control their appetite is already giving into a lie that this world gives.

If a person believes they should never be denied any bodily urge.

This could be things like food, money, and rest.

Desire for Affirmation

The desire to be respected and have admiration.

We justify our own existence, and we feel confident in our own flesh.

We feel secure in who we are if we are affirmed by other people.

“Our chief enemy is the lie that says sin will make our future happier. Our chief weapon is the truth that says God will make our future happier. And faith is the victory that overcomes the lie, because faith is satisfied with God.” —John Piper

What are the consequences?

Matthew 5:29–30 ESV

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 lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Consider the eternal danger of lust.

Jesus warns that WE MUST radically cut sin out of our lives.

If we DON’T, then our whole bodies will be thrown into hell.

Unlawful sexual desire can and will send us to hell.

Can a person lose their salvation?

It's often people in extra marital affairs that will make comments like this.

"You're not saying that a person can lose their salvation, are you?”

In the midst of walking in gross sexual immorality they say things like,

“I know this is wrong, but God will still love me.”

This should not be a comfort to that person.

As John Piper warns, we cannot contend that

“Faith in God is one thing, and the fight for holiness is another thing. We have saving faith on the one hand and then we have sanctification by works on their own.” —John Piper

Stop Signs & The Warnings of Scripture

The warnings of Scripture act as stop signs for us.

If you go out to the intersection and see a red light and think,

“Red doesn’t mean stop for me, I’m the exception to the rule.”

And you get T-Boned in the intersection

Should you be surprised?

NO!

The warnings of Scripture are actually HOW GOD PRESERVES HIS PEOPLE.

God preserves His people through the warnings of Scripture.

“Faith delivers from hell, and the faith is it delivers from hell delivers from lust…I do not mean that our faith produces perfect flawlessness in this life. I mean that it produces a preserving fight.” —John Piper

Young men, pornography will kill you.

Young ladies, the false narratives of the romances novels, and show will destroy you.

How are we to fight?

Lust and the power of grace.

The way of the Christian is not by the law but by grace.

Romans 6:14 ESV

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Remember that this does NOT mean the law is Abolished.

We are no longer under the requirements of the law because Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law.

We are under the forgiving and empowering grace of God.

We are empowered by GRACE.

Grace is NOT a “get out of jail free card.”

Grace is POWER.

Grace is power to obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Past Grace – Forgiving grace to cancel sin.

Jesus demands a radical removal of illicit sexual desire as the response of faith.

The faith that believes upon the Lord Jesus empowers His followers to flee the fleeting pleasures of sin.

We fight for our lives against sin by the power of faith in future grace.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery” has a higher and deeper meaning when applied by Christ under the New Covenant than it ever could have had to hard-hearted sinners when it was merely written on stone. Only under the New Covenant do we learn that God designed mar­riage to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church (Eph. 5:22-33).

Moses, under the Old Covenant, could not appeal to the cross; his appeal was to the physical redemption from Egypt. The ground of both the motive and the duties enjoined on the church in this age of the Spirit is embodied in the truth and power of grace that comes to us through the New Covenant estab­lished by the redemptive work of Christ.” —John G. Reisinger

Future Grace – Empowering grace to conquer sin.

We need to trust that God’s future grace will meet us tomorrow.

Fred and Sally need God’s future grace in their sexual brokenness.

You and I need God’s FUTURE empowering grace in our sexual brokenness.

“The fire of lust’s pleasures must be fought with the fire of God’s pleasures. If we try to fight the fire of lust with prohibitions and threats alone–even the terrible warnings of Jesus–we will fail.

We must fight it with a massive promise of superior happiness. We must swallow up the little flicker of lust’s pleasure in the inferno of holy satisfaction.”

2 Peter 1:3–4 NIV

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

It is actually through the promises of God that YOU and I escape the corruption of the world.

It is through God’s divine power in the KNOWLEDGE of HIM that we share in HIS nature by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT.

Righteousness in the kingdom of God produces radical amputation of lust by the forgiving and empowering grace of God.