Matthew 5:27-30

We are in the middle of what are some very practical examples of what it means to live out Jesus’ commands on the sermon on the mount. We have looked or will look at specific examples regarding anger and murder, about oaths (how you make promises) and justice. We will look at love for enemies next week. This week we are looking at the very core of human relationships, sexuality. This is going to stay pg for the whole message but we will be talking about human sexuality and the marriage relationship. There is something central we are called to locate on this concept and Jesus is using it to point back to the blessed life.

Jesus is getting specific here because while this may be one part of human life and flourishing it is an important part. It may not be all of human life but it is an important one. And it is necessary to get some areas correct in order for the entire system to work out.

At home we have a kind of a wheel barrow called a gorilla cart. It is an excellent device. It looks and functions like a wagon but it has a locking mechanism that can dump the bed. You can load up leaves or mulch or weeds and then walk it like a wagon to dump it wherever you need. It works perfectly. Except. This year somehow one of the tires broke. They aren’t inflated like normal tires, they are filled with a sort of squishy frame. Somehow one of the tires split. And I thought, well it can still work out ok while I wait for the new tire I ordered. So I filled it up with yard debris and tried to haul it to my backyard. What normally moves easily did not budge. The tire, with the weight on it, didn’t want to go anywhere. An otherwise perfect device was rendered mostly useless because of one area. You would recognize the same problem if you’ve ever taken a grocery cart and gotten a squeaky or broken wheel.

This is the same for our own lives as well. Every part of our lives has to work well in order for the whole to work well. This is why the Sermon on the Mount matters. Jesus is giving us a picture of what it looks like for an entire life to flourish. These areas in the sotm are not a list of dos and donts they are the way in which a human life works when in connection with God. When we are connected in life with God through Christ, our lives can look a certain way and this particularity helps us to see that.

if you want to look at the forces that drive human relationships then this morning can help you to understand how you are interatcitn*with others and how Christ is calling you to do so

Our relationships often ask for more than we want to give. Christ offers us more than we can possibly take.

We will look at the way we interact in relationships through

the heart

the action

the habit

this is using Augustine’s same breakdown of this passage with different words.

Lust can only take, it never gives.

Let’s begin by looking at the heart.

Matthew 5:27–28 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.

Jesus is making a wild claim for the 1st century. It was highly permissible for men in that culture to live in adulterous relationships. Not according to the law but according to much of ANE culture. And Jesus again does not pull punches when He speaks

Jesus again is using this structure, you have heard it said but I say. He reminds us of the 7th commandment to not commit adultery, that is to have a sexual relationship with someone who is not your spouse.

But Jesus wants to show us how this works out. When we take what is good out of context, it just becomes management through power.

Looks with lustful intent.

Also deals with ongoing gaze. Not just as you look but it is an infinitive. As you continue to look.

Definition of lust

Love is when we understand and desire something for what it is and for how good it is or can be. It has meaning regardless of what we think about it.

Lust is when we desire something for what it can do for us. It has meaning only based on what we can get out of it. It is purely transactional. And any relationship based on transaction automatically throws love out the window.

SO Jesus is pointing to a necessary distinction. Love never takes. Lust only takes.

And he is pointing, rather specifically, at that moment when a man looks at a woman too long. Beyond just seeing, but seeing for what that person can do for us.

This has become a normal operating procedure for us in our culture. And the church has bought into it.

The church has to first return to the message that

We are more than whatever lust offers.

We have celebrated lust in our culture. We are called to remove any restriction on love and any kind of restriction on what that looks like. And when that happens it is easy to confuse the two.

CS Lewis in the Four loves tells us that the voice of Eros (a love that is passion and selfish) yells and sounds like the voice of agape but it is not.

Eros, sexual desire takes the voice of a God in its confidence and commitment to its goal. But it doesn't point to anywhere beyond satisfying that goal.

“It is in the grandeur of Eros that the seeds of danger are concealed. He has spoken like a god. His total commitment, his reckless disregard of happiness, his transcendence of self-regard, sound like a message from the eternal world.”

But it’s only a message to getting what you think you want.

What we act on is not only what causes us to sin. It is the direction and intent of our hearts. It is when we let desire run away with us. And when both desire and action run away hand in hand we begin to have deep issues.

What we desire matters. But it matters because of what we do with that.

Let’s look at action.

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.

Sin is serious business. It has real effect in the real world. So much so that it is worth removing other things to pursue correct and kingdom ethical practices. Jesus understands the corrupting essence of what sin can do. And what Jesus does is that He makes a value statement. He shows the value of the Gospel based on what He tells us we should be willing to give up.

This cannot mean literal. But He is using it to speak of value.

It is so worthwhile restraining from sin (and all its effects) that Jesus is saying that it equals more than the value of your eye or your hand, which is essential to normal functioning.

Jesus is stating that the Gospel is more than sufficient for normal functioning. That God’s goodness has come into the world to fix our broken condition through the death and resurrection of Christ is so worthwhile that it is more essential to your right eye or hand.

It is also a statement on how powerful acting on lust can be. So much so that it would be better to be without essential means of navigating your world than to continue on with the ability to act on lust.

That is how detrimental it can be.

Now love and even sexual relationships in marriage are good. But lust, what it is I can take has no body of its own, it is parasitic. It takes what is good and perverts it. It makes it turn and rot.

We will always take things much further than we even initially intend. This is where sayings like “you either die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain” come into play. Because we have this issue with “lustful intent” we will look too long at any one thing because we think we must have it.

Jesus calls us at this place to cut off the culprit. It is better to have life than not and let something rot.

we have a chance to remove what is rotting. Get off social media or off the internet. Get out of that relationship.

Wherever there is rust there is rot. And once we arrive here, sin has taken hold.

We have a chance to deal with it at this level, if we don’t, repetitive action becomes habit. Lust becomes normative. This is precisely where we are as a culture.

It is worthwhile turning back to find what is good, and I must say, most human.

Every lustful intent is inhuman.

In this case, since we are talking about sexuality, we have to talk about the lustful inhumanity of sexuality.

We all arrive, and I’ve said this before, sexually broken. We don’t have the moral high ground, rather we have a God who is merciful and a witness that points to that reality. Christ has not only redeemed those who have Called upon Him but He also shows us how to live.

And He is pointing away from all that keeps us sexually broken.

The world has normalized pornography.

It is unbelievably inhuman. It is the complete objectification of human relationships. It keeps the viewer with a sense of control while the truth is he is entirely out of control. You may have control over your phone or computer but you have no control over an another human life. You have been deceived. You have lustful intent and that makes another person inhuman

Sex outside of marriage in any form is the the objectification of the sexuality itself. We again have normalized it but we have also normalized artificial sweetener and tons of studies shows it leads to cancer. Normalization does not mean it is the correct way or means to get there.

When we practice actions over and over we get habit.

And I know Ive mentioned this before but practice doesn’t make perfect.

Practice makes permanent.

So whatever actions you have picked up as habits are not perfection they are becoming permanent, they are concreted into your life.

This is what happens in our culture. Our practice has made permanent.

And at some point you have to choose what will become permanent in your life. The way of the culture. How have the practices that you have set up apart from Christ or in the working of the world worked out for you ?

Or the practices of Christ? His actions have led to a much different way.

You are more than whatever your desires would otherwise say.

You don’t have to allow the god-like voice of your desires to win the day. In fact the more you do, the more they become habit, the more your foundations rot.

That’s why love and lust must be two different things. Because Christ came with love to win us back. The love of Christ that gives and does not take restores.

But you have to go all the way back to the heart and give him those desires. surrender to Him. He will support you. He will use the church to do so. The goal is not shame it is support. It is to return to love