The Shadow of Lust

Introduction

In 2009 I was with Joanna doing some shopping when news broke about an incident at the home of Tiger Woods. There was a lot of mixed reports about an altercation with his wife and drunk driving. At the time, Tiger Woods was the most feared golfer on the tour. He was dominating the sport and the sports world. He was a golden child of American athletics. He was paving new roads for African-Americans in a sport that wasn’t known to be diverse.

When the news broke I remember texting my Pastor and asking him if he’d hear the news. The only thing I thought was that I hope he was OK after his accident.

But for those of us who remember, that was no accident. That was a man that had fooled the world with his good boy and polished demeanor, and was really a man who was sexually out of control.

He didn’t just have an affair with his wife, there was a body count of women that he had managed to keep secret for years. Until everything that was done in the shadows finally came into the light.

We’re diving into this shadow tonight men, but before we do that let’s go back to the Garden of Eden once more.

Adam & Eve

In the story of creation, the pinnacle of God’s creation was Mankind. Here is what was said about the creation of Adam and Eve:

Genesis 1:26–31 (NIV)

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Of all that was created, none were made in the image and likeness of God. Adam was the first image bearer of God.

Of all that was created, none was given the ability to rule over creation as God empowered Adam & Eve to do.

Of all that was created, none was given every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth.

And, of all that God created, it was only of Adam & Eve that God said it was very good.

In this very good creation there is an order that God created;

Genesis 2:18 (NIV)

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

This is the account of Eve’s creation and her purpose for Adam. She was to be a helper. She was not just any kind of helper but a suitable helper. In this new dynamic relationship, Adam was to worship God with Eve at his side. Together, Adam and Eve were to fulfill the commands of God, to live in communion with Him, and to pass down the knowledge of God from generation to generation.

But instead of worshipping the God who created Eve, man has worshipped the woman, Eve, who was created to be his helper; not his god.

This is the shadow of lust. It is replacing the worship of God with the worship of women and we are going to bring this into the light.

The Shadow of Lust

Of all the issues that men wrestle with today, lust is at the top.

This is not a new problem and we see the consequence of lust in the stories of our Bible. Most notably, King David lost his battle with lust and he is described as a man after God’s own heart.

What hope does that leave us?

There was a time when work was required in order to see images of naked women. They were sold in magazines. Access was not free. Many men in this room are old enough to remember having your first encounter of naked women or scantily clad women through magazines.

I remember going to my grandma’s house ensured that I would pay a visit to her garage.

Now, unfortunately, my grandma’s garage had been long commandeered by my uncle who turned it into his own personal auto shop for any of the cars he was fixing up at that time. And on the walls of my uncles garage was all the centerfolds from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Magazines, or Low Rider Magazines, and in some corners of the garage out of my grandmothers sight, Playboy magazines.

This is how lust was introduced to me as a kid.

Today, this generation, doesn’t need their uncle’s dusty garage to look at pin ups. They only need to open their phones and they have free access to what was once hard to come by.

And lust casts its shadow on the mind of a young boy who is just trying to pass the time away on their personal device.

Now that these images of women are everywhere, the shadow of lust has grown in power and in influence.

Jesus Explains Lust

Matthew 5:28 (NIV)

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

I want us to read this verse and consider what Jesus says about lust. The word he uses for lust is epithyméō which means to set one’s heart on a thing. This word is actually neutral in that sense because a person can set their heart on anything; even to set their heart on desire for God. Jesus uses this neutral word here because I believe he is giving us the key to fighting lust, which we will talk about at length tonight. But let’s begin with that; Jesus is talking about our hearts and not our actions.

When a person begins to lust after a person they are setting their hearts on someone that is not lawfully theirs.

This is where I believe the church has gotten so much wrong when it comes to lust. Growing up in church they would say some of the WEIRDEST things to us when it came to dealing with lust.

Go take a cold shower

Tie knots on the strings of your sweat pants

Go do push ups

This is all surface level moralism, and it is not the deeper work that asks of us to do. Jesus doesn’t want surface moralism he wants deep transformation.

We need to transform the desires inside of us, not tame them.

And we do that by bringing our desire into the light of God’s word.

So, that is how Jesus explained lust, but as we look over this verse once again, look at the degree to which Jesus challenges us; if a man looks at a woman lustfully.

Jesus said that the offense isn’t at action; that’s surface level, but it is in the way we look at women.

Now, Paul is not saying that simply seeing a women is incorrect. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ who are called to bring revival and renewal to this earth. So this isn’t a challenge to never look. But to look is intentional and repeated gazing. It is when gazing becomes fantasizing about this woman to commit sexual acts outside of God’s vision for your vision and will for your life.

Jesus is saying, this isn’t my best for you.

So we see the words of Jesus here in Matthew 5 and we can begin to uncover how Jesus asks us to live in relationship with women.

The Damage of Lust

Lust breaks the order of God and the relationship of men and women.

God, the source of love, gives us the gift of love between a man and a woman. For the married men in the room here today, love is god’s gift and lust is satan’s counterfeit.

We were made for love.

We were made for sacrificial love.

We were made to find a wife; to leave our families and cleave to her. We were made to lay down our life for her. We were made to serve and to protect her. We were made to worship God together in oneness with one another. Two become one flesh. What God has joined together, let no man break apart.

This is God’s design of love. It orders God’s creation. It creates beauty for ashes.

This is God’s picture.

But lust distorts all of this becuase we stop seeing women for who they are and we start seeing them for what they can do for us.

We counterfeit sacrifice for selfishness, and in the end we stop seeing women as being image bearers of God, and lust will cause you to start seeing women as a commodity.

We stop treating women like a person and we start seeing them as a thing.

Lust damages.

Lust tries to topple the order of God.

Lust is anti-Christ.

And because it cheapens the gift of love that God gives you, lust deteriorates your soul.

Lust Unleashes Hell

A deteriorated soul fails to make sound decisions. Their judgment is impaired. They will give up the eternal for the moment and so damage everyone that they love isn’t the process.

I’ve sat with spouses who are shattered that their couldn’t fulfill the needs of their husband. It brings so much Shame on them as they feel as though it is their fault that a man could not kill the shadow of lust.

It’s bad enough that lust destroys the souls of a man, but then like a wildfire, it begins to consume those around him.

Imagine the faithful and loving spouse feeling shame for nothing that she’s done wrong. Now she needs counseling and therapy and her guard is up and she’s slipping further from God’s design for her life.

I want you to think about the children who are caught in the middle of the hell that lust creates. Children who were living in an ordered family are now uprooted from the safety and the nurture that they need because Dad couldn’t kill the shadow of lust. Children who often times grow up with emotional trouble as a result. They start to internalize some of the pain as if they too played a hand in the deterioration of the family. Children who were supposed to be handed generational blessings are instead handed generational trauma.

Galatians 6:7–8 (NIV)

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Every time you are overcome by the shadow of lust you are sowing to please your flesh. You are feeding the flesh.

And you will reap hell in your marriage, hell in your children, and one day you’ll wake up from this whirlwind and you’ll ask yourself, how did i get here?

[TRANSITION]

So now that we’ve talked about he damage of lust, how do we overcome it?

Give me a New Heart (Conclusion - Long One)

It begins with this simple prayer:

Psalm 51:10 (NIV)

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

We need to start, not by addressing the external, but the internal. We need to ask God to give us pure hearts. This should be every man’s prayer. We should be coming to God and asking him that he would examine our hearts and remove that which is impure.

We are surrounded by a world that wants to disorder our hearts. We must begin here. We must contend for our hearts.

I love what Zach said Sunday when he said that out of our hearts flow all of the matters of our life.

Give your heart the same attention that you would give to anything in your life that you want to grow.

Want to get fit? You give time and attention to workout and diet.

Want to pay off debt? You give time and attention to paying off high interest loans and reducing your spend.

We know these things, right? Whatever has your time and attention will grow.

Give your heart your time and attention.

I love this simple word from the Lord in Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Look at that… God is willing to do it! God wants to remove the heart of stone, but do you want to remove the heart of stone? Do you want to have the Lord come in and reupholster your soul?

So we begin here. We commit to the heart.

Reorder My Desire

The next thing we are going to do is ask the Lord to reorder our desire.

I want you to listen to what I am going to carefully say right now. Men, feeling desire towards women doesn’t make you sinful! That was not the point of anything that I’ve said today. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We were made to desire a woman. Our bodies do get aroused. That doesn’t make you sinful, that makes you a hormonal man.

At my age, our libido starts to drop and I’m trying to keep that up by lifting heavy weights, eating better, and taking whatever supplements I can.

You guys all tracking with me?

It’s not desire that’s wrong is disordered desire.

So we need to ask the Lord to order our desire in such a way that we crave the things that the Lord wants for us.

Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

This verse has been many times misunderstood because we think it means God is going to give you a Masseratti or a house in La Jolla, because that’s the desire of your heart.

No, what this means is God will give you the desires of your heart. He’s going to reorder your desires. You’re not going to desire things that pull you away from him, but you are going to desire the things that are moving you closer to Him.

Practice Discipline

Now here is an important thing that needs to be said, and it needs to be contextualized. We must practice discipline in our life when it comes to our sexual desires.

Earlier I said that Jesus doesn’t want surface level moralism. That is 100% true. We first pursue our heart. But we don’t neglect our habits. We just don’t start from there.

It used to be that we started on the outside and that doesn’t work. We need to start here. But we do need to be disciplined.

We need to consider the things we watch. The things we listen to. The environments that we put ourselves in.

Your coworkers should taper the tone of their conversations when you come into the room because you are a disciplined man of God. I’m not talking about a legalistic way of life, but you are a man of conviction. You are a man of courage. You have boundaries. You have healthy rhythms in your life that are commensurate with the reordering of your heart.

Again, contend for your soul. Contend for the soul of your wife. Contend for the soul of your children.

Be a man of discipline.

Delight In Your Wife

Now men, let me talk to all of the husbands here.

Delight in your wife.

God gifted men and women with sex. And oh what a gift we have!

Too many times the culture of church talked about sex in a shameful way and they told you, “Don’t do it! It’s a sin!”

No it is not!

Sex was made for a man and a woman to be enjoyed in the covenant of marriage and it is to be delighted in!

I almost made my son skip the Song of Solomon in his bible reading plan because that poetry is very erotic. But it’s in the book to let you know that these desires are God-given and God-ordered.

So they are meant to be enjoyed to their fullness.

Husbands, let me give you a book recommendation. I know that over time it is hard to keep your marriage fresh, so there is this great book called Husband in Pursuit. For those of you guys with no creativity it tells you EXACTLY what to do to pursue your wife.

Come on it’s a playbook. Read the book, run the plays, thanks me later.

Call

So men, tonight we are going to ask you to ask God to create in you a clean heart. Our prayer today is this - God, renew my heart. Give me a heart that delights in you.