Sermon on the Mount: Blessed Be 7

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TODAY: RYTHM at 6:30 - going out - talk with Steve

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Intro

Things change when God speaks.

How does God speak into your life???

You must recognize that God is already speaking - His Word is eternal, and it continues since the dawn of the spoken existence of Creation, to now, and off through all eternity, His Word has spoken and is constantly changing the World around us.

You must be listening for His voice.

You must be near the source. His Word - it is alive. It is living. It is LIFE. If you’re not hearing Him speak to you, you’re not in His Word.

Here’s the reality:

God wants to speak into your life.

He wants to tell you His love for you.

He wants to tell you His love for this world.

He wants to tell you what He wants you to do - for you to know your purpose in this world.

He wants to reveal Himself to you - for you to know Holy, Almighty God personally.

He wants to reveal His glory to you - and for you to know how He calls you friend.

Church, He wants you to know the POWER of His Word, that’s able to empower you to be an agent that brings life and change to this fallen world.

God does not desire a bunch of religious people

2 Timothy 3:5 CSB

5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.

He does desire and seek His Church - the Bride of Christ - to be beautiful and radiant with knowledge of His word, operating in the authority of His word, and carrying out the acts of righteousness that changes the world around her.

The Next Heart Issue: Adulterous Hearts

Matthew 5:27–32 CSB

27 “You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. 28 But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 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 the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 “It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. 32 But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5…

This is an issue of the heart that has been around since the beginning of time.

As a matter of fact, the 2nd recorded sinful behavior after the fall of man is in Genesis 6 where mankind is flippantly engaging in lustful behaviors; where the beauty of women is recognized but taken advantage of for the purpose of self-gratification.

Last time we investigated this Sermon on the Mount series, we talked about hatred being akin to a murderous heart - and how when Jesus preached about it it reflected the second sinful behavior committed by mankind - but with specifically a man named Cain.

Here, as Jesus is speaking on adultery and is correlating his message on the behaviors of mankind, we see the parallel in Genesis 6.

Genesis 6:1–4 CSB

1 When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. 3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.

Now I don’t have time this morning to get into the studies of the “sons of God” or the “the Nephilim”, so please let’s focus on the point of what Jesus is talking about in His Sermon.

What we read here is that women were recognized for their beauty in lust-filled ways, and they were chosen as wives specifically for self gratification by the “sons of God”. But the Lord said specifically here, that His Spirit will not remain with MANKIND forever, because they are corrupt.

What we don’t read here is that mankind went to war against and fought for the holy aspect of partnership and covenant between man and woman. What we don’t read here is that the women put up a fight for protecting their modesty and legacy. What we don’t read here is that man got in the middle of this and affirmed what God ordained from the beginning.

No, what we read here is that the LORD saw corruption in MANKIND - men and women - and found contention within Himself about having even created mankind.

What we read here is that the LORD does not see a victim in this situation but culpability in sin that needed judgment.

What needs to happen today is that men and women stop viewing each other in victim mentality and take ownership for personal sexual immorality.

There is a spiritual war today on healthy relationship building - where for some reason men (specifically single men) are attacking and denigrating women in general because of their own adulterous heart issues; and we see women asserting their “I’m gonna get mine” mentality as what they think is a response to man’s actions.

Where in reality, the LORD is saying there is corruption in both men and women and it was never anything He instituted for mankind.

Next time we will see what happens in God’s judgment of mankind’s corruption.

Jesus Affirms Marriage Covenant

So when Jesus speaks about adultery, he’s talking about the lustful aspects of the sin nature that all of mankind is born into, and there should be a holy war maintained within ourselves to resist the temptations of our flesh and uphold the integrity of the covenant of marriage.

Scripture tells us that we actually need to cut and run from lustful desires - to flee

2 Timothy 2:22 CSB

22 Flee from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Single brothers in the house - its okay and good to recognize the beauty of a woman and maintain a modest perspective of her. And there’s permission to pursue a single lady in dating and courting her to find if she would be the one person you pursue for the rest of your life. And you CAN do this WITHOUT engaging sexual immoralities.

Single ladies in the house - its okay and good to recognize that you are beautiful and worth being pursued. And there’s permission to make yourself available to be pursued in dating and courting to find out if the man is worthy of pursuing you and you alone for the rest of your life. And you can do this keeping your modesty and without engaging sexual immoralities.

JESUS creates so much emphasis with this that gives the allusion of violence to maintain such a standard of integrity against an adulterous heart.

With gouging out an eye, or cutting off a hand; we recognize and understand that an eye in itself can do nothing.

That a hand in itself can do nothing.

But the intent and will of the heart is what drives the soul of a person to see with their eye and do with their hands. And the heart is deceitful in all its ways

So what Jesus is talking about here is going to war with that which is seen and done outside the holiness and covenant of marriage and to flee from it - get it away from you, create distance!

What would it look like if we as a holy people and even as a nation went to war on pornography and sexual exploitation?

What would it look like if we as a holy people and even as a nation went to war on the enablers of promiscuity and sexual fluidity?

What would be the second and third order of effects on maintaining a righteous perspective of healthy covenant-making?

God Views Our Relationship with Him as a Marriage

Here’s the thing about marriage that is so important to God.

It’s the level of intimacy that gets to be enjoyed and shared in that relationship that is so deep it goes beyond even the privacy of sexuality.

God designed it intentionally with both a man and woman bringing the best of what God created within them to be shared and enjoyed by each other.

That together, the experience of doing life together - with all the ups and downs, the goods - the bads, the beautiful and the ugly - the experience together would be so unique and bonding that the togetherness itself could be considered miraculous and life-giving.

God’s design of this union is so special, so unique, so close, so devoted, and so personal that He chose to make His relationship with the Church that of an example of such a marriage.

Where the best of God - which is all of Him - is expressed and given to the Church; and where the best of the Church with all the giftings and radiance of color, language, culture, and abilities is given the Lord.

And the partnership therein literally changes the World - bringing LIFE into the world of death; bringing LIGHT into the world of darkness; bringing HOPE into a world of despair.

And where man’s commitments can be debilitated by the flesh and sin, and we do our best with our intentions and promises and our oath to say, “I do…”

When it’s God’s turn for His vows, He doesn’t say, I do. No, instead He says, “I AM.”

In the Old Testament, God refers often to an adulterous nation of Israel when they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

It was a heart issue that still creates tension in the hearts and minds of mankind today.

His desire is for we as believers, the Church of Almighty God, that we know Him personally and intimately.

2 Corinthians 11:2 says the Church is espoused to Christ.

Revelation 19 and 21 talks about how the Church is prepared as a bride adorned for the husband; and the Church is the bride of the Lamb of God (being Jesus).

Ephesians 5 declares the roles of a husband and wife reflecting on how Christ is the head of the Church.

Romans 7 explains the new covenant brought by and through Jesus Christ is explained as a marriage union - lawfully and intimately.

The Word explains that God is jealous for our time, jealous for our attention, jealous for our passions and wants.

God’s desire for you this morning is to know Him in such a jealous fashion - that you’d be jealous for His attention, for His time, even for His passions and wants.

How does your life - as you’re living today - reflect such a disposition to a perfect and holy God?

How does your life - as you’re living today - reflect in your wants, desires, and priorities, the things of a relationship with God?

Blessed be you who have been made one with Christ; redeemed, beloved, established by God. He’s a jealous God. He fights for you. He strengthens you. He values you. So much so, that He is jealous of anyone that would take advantage of you.

[example of His intentions with the Church, the judgment of the first sin against her demanded the death of Ananias and Sephira.]