Lust and Divorce

Matt. 5:27-32

Welcome:

Good morning and welcome to City Line Church! If we haven’t yet met, my name is Pastor Ryan, I’m the pastor here at City Line. It is so good to be with you all this morning, whether this is your first time here, or you’ve been coming to City Line from the beginning, I’m glad you are here with us this morning.

You are joining us towards the beginning of a new sermon series. This series will run all the way through the Spring and we will be walking through the most famous sermon in the Bible…perhaps the most famous sermon in history. The Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.

Jesus has just begun his public ministry and has called some of his earliest disciples to follow him. He began preaching and healing people and he was beginning to draw bigger and bigger crowds. Then Jesus stops and delivers the sermon in Matthew chapters 5-7.

Jesus is interested in what it means to be a person in the Kingdom of God. If we are Kingdom of God people then how should we live? The Sermon describes what true human life, flourishing, and loving community look like when they come under the gracious rule of God.

In the section of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is both deepening and expanding sections of the 10 commandments in the Law of Moses. In particular this morning he turns to hotly debated topics in his day, and topics that have impacted every generation of humanity. Lust and Divorce.

Before we come to this difficult teaching from Jesus, let’s turn to the Lord and ask for his help as we come to his Word this morning.

Let’s pray.

Prayer:

“Almighty God, in you are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of your Word; and give us grace that we may clearly understand and freely choose the way of Your wisdom, peace, and wholeness.

When we fail to keep your law, point us again to your son Jesus, who fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts and illuminate our minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Word is proclaimed that we may hear with joy what you say to us today and put it to practice in our lives. In Jesus’ mighty name we pray. Amen.”

Introduction:

There are many different ways to look at the divorce rate in America and various research and governmental agencies take different approaches. But, after looking at these reports and reading article after article, there is one thing they all agree on, divorce peaked in our country between 1977 and 1982 and since then the number of divorces has been slowly declining.

After the year 2000, the decline in divorce rates fell faster. In fact, the 2020’s have been some of the lowest divorce rates on record in America.

What does that mean, it means if you were born in between 1977 and 1982 in America, you are more likely than any other generation of Americans before or after to experience the divorce of your parents. If not your parents, your grandparents or your aunts and uncles or close friends. No other generation has been so impacted by ravages and and the heartache of divorce.

If you were to poll preachers across our country, and you were to ask, “what is the topic that you least enjoy preaching and teaching about?” my guess is that divorce would be right up there. Also high on that list, I think, would be adultery, lust, and sexual sin. These are just uncomfortable and, for many people, painful topics to approach.

Well, this morning, that is my task in this sermon, to talk about lust and divorce, because Jesus talked about lust and divorce in his sermon. We’ll start off by talking about Lust and the drastic measures that Jesus calls us to in order to avoid it. And then we’ll turn to the topic of divorce.

Ok, so let’s jump in and talk about Lust.

Body:

1. Lust: Adultery Expanded (27-30)

Jesus begins this teaching in verse 27, with the same refrain from last week’s sermon, “You’ve heard that it was said, but I say to you.” For those of you who didn’t catch David’s sermon last week, when Jesus says, “You’ve heard that it was said,” he referring to common religious teaching and instruction that his audience would have heard day in and day out in their local synagogues.

These teaching are not bad, in and of themselves, in fact they are often very orthodox teachings that are honoring to God. But Jesus is giving us instruction on how to have a righteousness that even surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and the pharisees. He is saying, “I want my kingdom people to go deeper, to penetrate into matters of the heart, not just external righteousness, but a righteousness that comes from the inside out.”

The “You’ve heard it said” from last week was from the 6th commandment, “You shall not murder.” This week Jesus moves to the 7th commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” Remember, this is a commandment from God, given to the people of Israel, through Moses at Mt. Sinai. The people of Israel had known this teaching for generations.

But, what does Jesus do? He goes deeper. He expands in verse 28. You’ve heard it said, “but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Looking lustfully is committing adultery in the heart. In other words, if heart-adultery is the result of eye-adultery, then the only way to deal with the problem is at the beginning…with our eyes.

Wow! Just let that settle in for a moment. “All along I thought I was doing good Jesus. I was cheating and I was only having sex with my spouse, so thought I was alright.” Right? Jesus says, nope, you’ve got an adultery problem even if you are just looking with lustful intent. If you imagine cheating. If you imagine an adulterous relationship you are breaking the 7th commandment.

And I should say, I think it is fair to switch genders here. “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a man with lustful intent has already committed adultery with him in her heart.” We should also NOT exclude lustfully looking at someone of the same sex. The point, of course, is don’t look at anyone else with lustful intent. Don’t let wondering eyes take your heart away from your spouse.

Pornography use is an obvious target for this sermon partly because it is so pervasive in our culture. All of the most recent surveys and statistics show that both men and women are regularly using porn primarily on smart phones and tablets.

Attitudes towards porn are also changing. While generally about 70% of Americans consider porn to be morally wrong to consume, younger Americans, under the age of 34 have a much higher tolerance for it. According to a fairly recent Atlantic article, 45% of people 18-34 think porn use is morally ok.

It was strange preparing this sermon, reading commentators and pastors from the 70’s and 80’s. They too were worried about porn use in the US, but it was almost quaint by today’s standards. They were worried about sex scenes on TV and the rising subscriptions to Playboy magazine. I think those pastor’s minds would be blown by how pervasive and easily accessible porn is today.

To be clear, porn is not ok. It is sinful in intent and creation. It’s sole purpose is to exploit people’s bodies to make money by stirring up lustful longings for someone who is not your spouse. This is directly apposed to Jesus’ teaching. Also, it is incredibly degrading and dehumanizing to the sex workers themselves who are made in the image of God.

Of course, to only target porn use as THE application of what Jesus was teaching about lust would be to undersell the problem. There are a million different ways to look with lustful intent at another person. Whether it be at the beach, at the workplace, or imagining what it would be like to have sex with an old boyfriend or girlfriend. Any of these, and so many more, are ways to break the 7th commandment in our hearts.

The sad part about all of this is we all know how deeply destructive and shameful this all is. We’ve seen lust and adultery tear apart relationships.

Ok, so how are we to keep this teaching of Jesus? Isn’t this task to big for us? To not even look at another person in lust, is this possible? Well, Jesus medicine for this disease is to take drastic measures.

Third century Christian Scholar Origen of Alexandria read this passage and after years of struggling to control his own sexual desires, actually made himself a eunuch. Not long after, in 325 AD the council of Nicea forbid this barbarous and overly literal act. What Jesus is advocating was not literal physical self-maiming, but a ruthless moral self-denial. He is advocating taking drastic measures in our struggle against sin.

If your eyes are causing you to sin, behave as if you didn’t have eyes. Don’t look! Take drastic and immediate measures to avoid lusting with your eyes. For me, one way this plays out is I have a service called Covenant Eyes installed on my computer and phone. It works as filtering service, so I can’t get to places I shouldn’t go to AND it works by sending reports of where I have been online to accountability partners. I find this extremely helpful.

Wherever Christian men and women have learned sexual self-control, through the power of the Holy Spirit, it is because they have first learned self-control with their eyes and with their minds.

Jesus uses eyes and hands as metaphors. Eyes are body parts you see with and hands are body parts you touch with. In Jesus’ metaphorical use of these body parts he is saying, if your eye causes you to sin, don’t look, act as if you were blind. If your hand causes you to sin don’t touch.

To extend the metaphor: If your foot causes you to sin, don’t go to that place. If your nose causes you to sin, don’t smell. We may need to eliminate from our lives certain things which (though innocent enough in and of themselves) are sources of lustful temptations.

This could mean getting rid of a laptop or iPad, maybe going back to a dumb phone instead of a smartphone, getting strict filters, leaving a workplace where you are tempted, cutting off communication with someone who is clearly wanting more from you. There are many ways to take drastic measures to avoid lust.

Most of the time, we all know the steps we need to take in our own lives, we just don’t want to do it! These drastic steps my be painful, but they are worth it.

C.S. Lewis, in his classic short, imaginative novel The Great Divorce, has this amazing seen where a pitiful young ghost-like man has an oily, red lizard living on his shoulder. The young man has the opportunity to tour heaven, and as the young man approaches he comes up to an angel, and the lizard begins to squirm, and complain, and talks the young man out of his approach.

The young man, in ghostly form, turns away scared but the fiery Angel, seeing the man with the red lizard on his shoulder calls him back and immediately offers to set him free from the tyranny of the lizard’s control.

“Would you like me to make him quiet?” said the flaming Spirit . . .” Of course I would,” said the man.

“Then I will kill him,” said the Angel, taking a step forward.

“Oh-ah-look out! You’re burning me. Keep away,” said the Ghost, retreating.

“Don’t you want him killed?”

“You didn’t say anything about killing him at first. I hardly meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that.”

Finally after a long conversation, the young man agrees that he can’t go on living this way anymore. He can’t keep being controlled by the Lizard. He agrees to let the Angel kill it.

It grabs the lizard, breaks it back and throws it to the ground. It does hurt. The young man even thinks he is going to die, but he is free and after a moment, the dead lizard begins to transform and turns into a beautiful stallion and runs away over the hills of heaven.

Lewis explains later in the story that the oily lizard was lust, he writes: “What is a lizard compared to a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering, whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”

You see, Lewis is channeling Jesus, “Better to lose a member now than be thrown in hell later.” It may hurt for moment, but freedom for eternity is worth momentary drastic measures. Do we live for this world or the next?

Jesus may not mean literal physical disfigurement, but he does mean to take serious, drastic, and immediate measures even if they are painful, in order to avoid lust.

If you find yourself living with passions and lusts that are out-of-control (sex, food, drugs, cutting, porn, video games, whatever it may be), Jesus Christ wants to break the power of sin in your life and set you free. He can.

Remember, So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. If you are finding yourself trapped and controlled by lust, if you feel trapped in an adulterous relationship, please reach out to me or one of our elders. Jesus gives us the gift of community to help us in our fight against sin.

2. Divorce (31-32)

Ok, let’s move on to verses 31 and 32 and my second point this morning. This is Jesus’ teaching on divorce. It is the third “you’ve heard that it was said” and this one is related to last one. Jesus says, “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must giver her a certificate of divorce’”

This teaching goes back again to Moses’ teaching on divorce in Deuteronomy chapter 24.

Before I get to far into the weeds here on divorce, I want to acknowledge how painful divorce is and I realize how difficult a topic it can be for many. I also want to say, God hates divorce, he doesn’t hate divorced people.

God hates divorce because it is a tearing apart of the oneness that He has joined together. God hates divorce because of the pain and heartache in dissolving even a broken marriage. Jesus, here in this passage is aligning with this hate for divorce by giving a call to fidelity in marriage.

Jesus says in verse 32, “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Jesus, later in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew 19, will give a fuller teaching on divorce, which expands on what he introduces here. And there is no doubt that this is a hard teaching.

It seems there was a debate raging in Israel, among the Jewish religious leaders and scholars about the proper grounds for divorce. One side, the side that was apparently winning the argument according to the Jewish historian Josephus, was the side that wanted men to be able to divorce their wives for any reason whatsoever. Two egregious examples of this from one tradition during Jesus’ day was that a man could divorce his wife for reasons like she spoiled a meal for him or if he found another woman more attractive.

While a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason, women held no rights in Israel to divorce their husbands. It was clearly an unjust system that was eating away the beauty of marriage.

The pervading religious culture that Jesus entered into, particularly the Pharisees, regarded divorce lightly, but Jesus took it very seriously.

He takes it seriously because God takes marriage seriously. Jesus emphasis when it comes to marriage and divorces, is that marriage is a positive, exclusive, and a permanent relationship. That marriage is a covenant between one man and one woman for as long as they both shall live.

Jesus also regards the marriage of a divorced woman as adultery. Notice that the blame for this adultery is placed firmly on the man whose action caused it, not on the woman. Matthew 19:9 will add that remarriage by the original husband is also adultery. This radical refusal to recognize the validity of divorce is grounded on God’s original purpose in creation: marriage is forever.

However, Jesus does give an exception clause, that if there is sexual immorality, there is grounds for divorce. If a spouse is being sexually unfaithful in their marriage, divorce is an option, but not required.

If we look at the totality of Scripture, we get some fuller guidance as well. Paul teaches in 1 Cor. 7 that if an unbelieving spouse runs out on a Christian and abandons the marriage, then that Christian is free to remarry in the Lord. We would also say that abuse inside of a marriage is willful type of desertion of the marriage covenant and also grounds for divorce.

But, Jesus point here is to make divorce more difficult then was practiced and lift up the permanence of marriage, not to find exceptions to the rule.

This may play out like this: if two Christian spouses get a divorce, except for sexual unfaithfulness, they should remain unmarried. Because, according to Jesus, you are opening your self up to the sin of adultery.

There may be individual cases where a divorced spouse may be free to remarry another Christian, like in the case of the death of a former spouse or their remarriage, but again the main point here is that marriage is a forever deal. This is a hard teaching. Particularly in a culture so impacted by divorce. When you sign up for Christian Marriage, except in extreme situations, you are signing up for a full life together.

If you are single, you should take away from this that marriage according to Jesus is a big deal. Don’t enter into lightly, thinking it can be thrown away. Think about it as a forever deal. You are committing to every future version of that person. Consider whether you are called to a life of singleness or marriage, both are a holy calling and both should be considered.

If you are married, Jesus is calling you to remain faithfully committed to your spouse as long as you draw breath. You must avoid lust and divorce and only have eyes for our spouse.

This isn’t a bad thing either! This is a simple and joyful part of Christian marriage. You as married people get to enjoy each other and grow together over the long haul! The simple joy of knowing someone deeply and being known for life. This is a good thing.

Conclusion:

So, in conclusion, what is Jesus requiring of his Kingdom people? How does he want his followers to live? He desires for us to be free from lust and committed to our lifelong marriages.

Jesus was preaching to a people who seem to take lust, adultery, and divorce lightly, BUT his people are to instead be serious about sexual purity and marriage. There shouldn’t be any looking around to see what is out there, and fantasizing about what may be, but instead looking to love and to serve and adore your spouse or remain faithfully single.

This is all part of keeping Christianity weird. We are different, set apart from our unbelieving neighbors because of our sexual ethics. We live differently.

The only way we can get there is by a reorientation of our hearts. We need to be reoriented by ongoing work of the Spirit of God. Our hearts need to be put on the right path, again and again, until that right path starts to feel comfortable. The power of God that rose Jesus from the dead is at work in us if we are in Christ, if we have faith in Him. He can change us.

If we want to be people who are free from lust and committed to our current or future marriages, we need that power. We need Jesus to kill the lizard of sin on our shoulder, to break its back, and to reorient our hearts, our eyes, our desires, to him.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Let’s pray as we come to the Lord’s Table.

Final Prayer

Our Father, we ask for your Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven. Help us not to be people who lustfully look around for what may be. Help us avoid adultery in all it’s forms. Help those of us who are married, to have have marriages that are joyful and for life. Change us, reorient our hearts, so that we are no longer controlled by lust of our eyes. We want to be your kingdom people.

O God, us believe that you have the power and authority to take us and others out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of Light. Lord Jesus, thank you for dying in our place, living the life we could not live and dying in sacrifice that we couldn’t provide for ourselves. We worship you and bless your name, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the author and finisher of our faith, you who deserve all praise, glory and majesty forever and ever. It’s in your name we pray Amen.

Communion

1. Introduce the table

We come now to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. This is one of two sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ and in it we acknowledge the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

It is through faith in Jesus that we are invited into His Kingdom, but not just his Kingdom, we are also invited to sit at his family table. We are invited as sons and daughters of the king.

So, we come now, to the family table. It’s furnished with bread and wine, in our case we have both wine and juice AND regular and gluten-free bread.

The wine is darker red and juice the lighter color. These elements signify the once-for-all sacrifice for sins that Christ made with his body and his blood on the cross.

Until he comes again, he nourishes us here at His table while we wait for that one day where we will eat and drink with him in the new heavens and the new earth. Eating and drinking at this table actually strengthens and encourages our faith until that day.

2. Fencing

In light of what we believe from Scripture concerning the Lord’s Supper:

I want to remind you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to not take the bread and the cup in an unworthy manner. Lest we eat and drink judgment on ourselves. So, examine your hearts and if you need to do some repenting before coming this morning, you should do that.

But, if you have faith, even if you feel like it is hanging on by a thread, if you are a Christian who has been baptized and are in good standing with a church that teaches the Gospel, you are welcome to receive communion with us. Come and be strengthened this morning!

If you are here this morning and you aren’t a Christian, if you don’t believe in this Jesus, who is the living God who died for you, first of all we are glad that you are here this morning. You are welcome here. But this part of the service isn’t for you. We wouldn’t want you to violate your own conscience by coming forward.

So, if you don’t yet have faith in Jesus, I’d encourage you to stay in your seats and not receive this bread and wine, but instead consider faith in Jesus, the true substance that these signs and seals points us to. There’s a prayer up on the screen for you to reflect on during this time.

3. Words of the Institution

So, with that, hear these words of the institution:

The Lord Jesus Christ on the night He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, gave it and said, “this is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” (break bread)

In the same way He took the cup after supper saying, “This cup is the new covenant of the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (hold up the cup)

For As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.

I’m going to pray for us one more time, and as I do, can those helping with communion please come forward and prepare the elements. [Pray]

God strengthen and encourage our faith at this family meal this morning. May we remember your body and blood, broken and shed for us. Meet us here and grow us in Grace this morning. Amen.

4. Invitation to Come

In a moment you can come forward row by row starting in the back and once you’ve received the bread and the cup, please return to your seats hold onto the elements and return to your seats and we’ll partake of them together once everyone has been served.

Come now and feast on Christ by faith.

(Communion Assistants: Dan and Megan Riley, David and Mesha)

5. Receiving the Meal

This is Christ’s body, take and eat. This is Christ’s blood, shed for the forgiveness of sins. Drink of it all of you.

6. Let’s Stand and sing

Song(s) of Praise

I do urge you to run to our Lord and Savor Jesus Christ, the one who empowers us by his Spirit to live holy lives of love and sacrifice, because he first showed us the way to live in his life of love and sacrifice.

Benediction

“Now, look up and receive this final benediction:

Leader: Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Heb. 13:20-21)

All: Amen.

Leader: Go in peace and serve the Lord!

All: Thanks be to God!

(End around page 13-14 or about 4,500 words)