Lust // Matthew 5:27-30

INTRODUCTION

Matthew 5:27–30 CSB

“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 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. 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.

Illus. purity culture in the church — True Love Waits, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, purity rings, chastity pledges

Sexual purity is a good thing in an increasingly sexualized culture

Problem — We had the negative consequence, but lacked a positive vision for sexuality — central vision of the Christian life was reduced to what had happened with our bodies sexually >>> misses the vision of spiritual wholeness Jesus calls us to in the Sermon on the Mount

Dietrich Bonhoeffer — “The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one’s life towards a goal.” — That goal is sexual wholeness; one where our thoughts, hearts, and lives are brought into accord with one another in a whole-person submission to Jesus.

Big Idea: Jesus calls us away from lust and toward radical sexual wholeness.

Focus on lust >>> Most basic heart posture away towards sexual wholeness; sin beneath the sin

EXEGESIS // Matthew 5:27-30

1. Lust Begins in the Heart (v.27-28)

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been working through a section in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus explains what it means for him to be the fulfillment of the Law. And if we can look at the Sermon on the Mount through the eyes of a first century Jewish audience, we can see why what Jesus says about the Law is so important and relevant to understanding everything else that he says. When Jesus ascended the mountain just like Moses did when he received the Law from God and then started teaching with authority, certainly the disciples around him wondered — What does this mean for the Law of Moses? Is Jesus giving us a new Law that replaces the Old?

Those were weighty questions because the Law of Moses shaped everything about the lives of the Jewish people — it both established their identity as the covenant people of God and taught them what it meant to know and live their lives unto Him. Jesus, seeing into the question on their hearts and minds, tells them in Matt 5:17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” — that meant that the Law was not going away, but that it was being accomplished… HOW???

I think Paul tells us in Romans 8:1-4 when he says…

Romans 8:1–4 CSB

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Paul tells us there are two senses in which Jesus fulfills the Law:

Jesus came and lived a sinless life in perfect obedience to the Law and then submitted to death on the Cross to atone for our sins and to satisfy the righteous demands of the Law. As Ben helped us to see a couple of weeks ago, we don’t have a Law problem. We have a sin problem. The Law is good. It both revealed the holy character of God and gave his people the means by which they could participate in his gracious love as covenant people. However, the Law reveals fundamental problem too deep for rules and regulations to solve called sin. The law exposes how because have inherited a fallen nature from our first parents, no amount of striving in the flesh can achieve the moral perfection the Law calls us to. Even the greatest of the Law-keepers (the scribes and Pharisees) are rebuked by Jesus because while they had everything right on the exterior, their hearts were far from God. They were like “white washed tombs” because on the outside they looked clean and perfect, but on the inside they were filled with “dead man’s bones” (Matt 23:27). This is why we need the gospel — we could not achieve perfection under the Law in our flesh… We could not love God from a whole and undivided heart… but Jesus came in perfect obedience to the Law, submitted himself to death on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, so that we would be set free from the Law’s demands which we could not fulfill.

But Paul says there’s another sense in which the Law is fulfilled when he says the Law is “fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” — When Jesus satisfied the righteous demand of the Law, he did not say it was passing away or that he was changing it. Jesus is not saying in this passage that “I’m doing something new with the Law that’s going to better fit your life”… he says “I’m doing something in you that’s going to change how you relate to and keep the Law.” Embedded in what Jesus teaches here is a promise given to the prophets of the OT being realized — that is that a day was coming when God would take our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh (Ezek 36:26) and write his law on our hearts (Jer 31:33). Jesus is calling us to radical wholeness and righteousness by the Law not as an effort of the flesh but as a gift from God who grants us purity of heart and empowers us by his Spirit who lives in us. In that way the Law is fulfilled not just for us but in us by a work of Jesus.

What follows afterward are six examples of how Jesus fulfills the Law for us and in us, thus calling us to a greater righteousness. Last week, we studied the example of anger, and this week Jesus talks about sexual purity by focusing also on the heart beneath the actions.

Matthew 5:27–28 CSB

“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Fuller meaning of the Law — Adultery >>> lust. Jesus insisted that the seventh commandment (Ex 20:14) ought to be interpreted in light of the tenth that would prohibit coveting a neighbor’s wife (Ex 20:17)… Jesus’s uses both the vocabulary and grammar of the tenth commandment making the connection clear.

Carson points out that Jesus uses the present tense of “look” — continues beyond a passing glance; giving ground for lustful thoughts

What Jesus shows us here is that sexual sin begins in the heart — it takes what God has created to be a good gift and twists and distorts it for selfish, disembodied, unfettered pursuit of desire.

2. Lust Grows Outward from the Heart to the Life (v.27-28)

Unlike what our culture might suggest, our thought-life has consequences >>> because we are whole people, we are the sum total of body, soul, and spirit - of head, heart, and hands. What thoughts we entertain in our minds become the affections we cultivate in our hearts which become the way in which we live.

Gracious invitation of God = to expose the embryonic sin of sexual infidelity by looking at the lustful heart. It is an invitation to pay attention to our hearts and see that no sinful orientation or pursuit in our lives emerged out of nothing. It began with compromises down deep that go on to bear real consequences in our lives.

Carson also points out that there is a danger of over-applying this verse, but there is an even greater danger of under-applying it… as long as it doesn’t see the light, it’s no big deal. It will!

Application — Pay attention to your heart. See the gracious invitation of God is to call you into sexual wholeness; to put off the wicked and destructive way of lust, and to experience the freedom of the gospel; to find in Jesus what our hearts long for and can’t find in the brokenness of the world

3. Therefore, We Should Guard Our Lives From Lust (v.29-30)

Various Interpretations

Literal — Quarles uses the story of Origen to demonstrate this thought; “But those who have adopted this position (like Origen, who castrated himself in his attempt to battle lust) later regretted this drastic measure because it was completely ineffective in combatting temptation.”

Metaphorical — cutting off members of the church in church discipline because of their uncontrolled lust; this is lacking because of the clear connection between the eye and the lustful look

Spiritual — Quarles suggests that Jesus begins with a conditional statement “if your hand causes you to sin” but assumes the reality of a false condition to make a point because adultery begins in the heart (Matt 15:19). You can’t rely on the tools of the tools of the flesh to fight a fight that can’t be won in the flesh. Ultimately, conquering sexual sin will depend on whether one is pure in heart (Matt 5:8), and this purity of heart is granted by Jesus. What happens in the body ultimately affects the heart, though. As Jesus says where your treasure is your heart will be also (Matt 6:21).

Jesus’s Warning and Wisdom — Calls us to make sacrifice respective of the danger

Danger is that it will lead to a hardness of heart that invites judgment

Jesus teaches his disciples that they should be prepared to make enormous sacrifices in their pursuit of sexual purity. Quarles points out that the right eye and right hand were considered two of the most precious parts of the body (1 Sam 10:27; 11:2; Ps 137:5; Zech 11:17) — point being that it is better to risk inconvenience, ability, and power to risk the eternal punishment that would result from the unforgivable sin - blasphemy of the spirit.

Count the cost — Purity of heart is worth inconvenience, disruption, and discomfort.

Dramatic action should be taken not just to avoid the overt sin but to guard the heart, thoughts, and actions which lead to it too.

Application — Flee lust by cultivating faithfulness in your mind, heart, and life

MIND — Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Enemy’s work = deformation of the mind

Gospel renewal = transformation of the mind in the way of Jesus

Practical methods:

Pornography — About 70% of men and 40% of women view pornography online, but widening our definition of pornographic material to include things like written or audio pornography might increase those numbers to 90% and 60%, respectively.

HEART — Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”

Practical: movies, relationships — Is this helping me walk in sexual wholeness and threatening it?

HANDS — Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Danger = leads to a hardness of heart

Circular… what happens in the life also affects the heart; Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

4. So that we protect the purity of our hearts (v.29-30)

Invitation to a blessing — Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

What happens in the life affects the heart

Good News for the Impure and not Whole —

Missing something; the right eye and hand don’t cause a person to sin — that begins in the heart (Matt 15:19) — passage isn’t calling us to sexual moralism (false premise)

Jesus both calls us to wholeness but exposes where we are not whole; we are called to understand that our thoughts, loves, and lives belong to one self that is to be in submission to God — on the same token, we are confronted with the reality that we can’t even by the most extreme of measures achieve the spiritual wholeness of heart Jesus calls us to

The Good News — points to our need for Jesus Jesus grants us purity of heart

CONCLUSION

Communion