THE LOOKS THAT KILL

Introduction

-{Matthew 5}

-In the Fall of last year news broke that a 74 year old pastor/speaker who was famous for being a part of some of the biggest Christian conferences in the nation, was found to have been having an inappropriate relationship with someone who was in their late 20’s. While they claimed that no physical relations occurred, there were strong romantic overtones.

-While some people might nitpick over the details of whether or not such a thing is actually adultery, Jesus makes it very clear that it is. While some look only on the outside actions and make judgment, God looks at the heart. And God wants us to have a righteousness that comes from within.

-We have been in the Sermon on the Mount that talks about the values of God’s Kingdom and the righteousness that is embraced by its members. Jesus was dealing with a Jewish religious system that looked only at the actions of people who tried to find loopholes on how to break God’s law, if not literally then in spirit.

-But Jesus calls for something better from His disciples. And so He made this profound claim:

Matthew 5:20 LSB

20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

-He then begins to expound on what He means by that statement. It is not merely following the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law that God had always intended. So, last week I looked at the prior passage and learned that you are not righteous merely because you never literally murdered someone. God looks at the heart, and says that anger toward someone such that you desire their harm and/or you slander their name is murder in the heart.

-In today’s passage we find something similar about adultery. It’s not enough that someone doesn’t commit the physical act. Just because that pastor I mentioned didn’t commit a physical act doesn’t make it any less adulterous or sinful. But what could have led such a respected leader fall into that trap? What is the heart of the matter?

-I entitled today’s sermon THE LOOKS THAT KILL; because what your eyes focus on and cause your mind to hone in on, it can kill spiritually, emotionally—it can wither a heart and destroy a relationship.

-What we learn from today’s passage is that the looks of lust lead to life-altering consequences, and need to be dealt with for our spiritual health. May we guard ourselves against these looks that kill.

Matthew 5:27–32 LSB

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 “But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 “And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 “Now it was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; 32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

-{pray}

-So, what does Jesus have to tell us about true righteousness and the commands against adultery. First, we see that we are to:

1) Discern the internal source of lust (vv. 27-28)

-Jesus points to a particular commandment and then fleshes out what God truly intended. So, here He looks at the command YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY. And most moral people would agree with that. However, Jesus goes beyond the mere physical act.

-Just as in the passage before, Jesus adds the true interpretation, beginning with the phrase BUT I SAY TO YOU. Jesus is talking authoritatively as God the Son, giving the fuller meaning. Here is what adultery looks like according to Jesus in v. 28: EVERYONE WHO LOOKS AT A WOMAN TO LUST FOR HER HAS ALREADY COMMITTED ADULTERY WITH HER IN HIS HEART.

-Just a few quick things I want to note: First, Jesus gives the teaching from the perspective of a male lusting after a woman, but the teaching is all inclusive—women are not exempt from what Jesus is teaching. Second, this is not talking about someone who sees someone physically attractive and just takes note that they are physically attractive. Just because you think someone is beautiful or handsome is not the issue.

-However, it becomes an issue if in your mind you begin to think of the other person in inappropriate ways—if you go beyond merely looking and you begin to sexually fantasize in some way, shape, or form. Think of it this way (a way that I heard it put): if somehow you could take a video of your thought life and it be put on the screen and shown in church—if you’d never be able to show your face in church again, then, yeah, that’s probably an inappropriate thought right there.

-If you look at someone and in your heart you want them inappropriately, Jesus says you already have committed adultery with her. And, let’s face it, all of us can say OH OH. We can’t excuse it or justify it, but we can seek forgiveness for it.

-And yet, people still do try to justify it in a million different ways. People say I CAN LOOK, BUT I JUST CAN’T TOUCH. Jesus says: nope; that’s not how it works. It’s still lust, and is adultery in the heart. Someone will say: well, I’m not married so I can’t commit adultery. Well, sexual sin is sexual sin. If you are not married to that person, it is still sinful lust. You might could say that you are committing adultery against your future spouse or their future spouse.

-Any sort of sexual anything outside of the bonds of marriage between a man and woman is sinful. That means that pornography, fornication, cohabitation, whether in thought or deed, is sinful. And at the heart of it is lust. Jesus says IF YOU LOOK TO LUST.

-And that’s the thing—lust is powerful. Just like anger that I talked about last week, when left unchecked lust can take you down roads you don’t want to go, and once on it, it is very difficult to get on the exit ramp. The Bible talks about you are to beware the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The devil will use the world to entice your eyes in order to entice your flesh so that you get prideful enough to fall to a temptation. And once he has the hooks in, it can lead to devastating consequences.

-And so, Jesus is saying to nip it in the mind before it leads to anything else. The seed of lust in the heart, itself sinful, will snowball into actions that can cause havoc in a person’s life and relationships. And just like the anger I talked about, lust will grow and grow and look for other outlets. It may start small, but it then turns into a monster that is uncontrollable.

-Casting Crowns has a song about the SLOW FADE of sin. It starts with one small compromise, and then leads to something else, which then leads to something else, and all of a sudden you are somewhere in life that you never intended it to go, but the lust of the mind led you there.

-There have been studies about how frequent porn use then leads to greater deviations like pedophilia. I was told a story by a pastor friend of mine of a missionary that they knew who started looking at porn because of the stress or whatever, and the usage just got larger and more deviant over time until they were charged with child porn.

-But what we need to realize is that it starts with a heart of lust. It’s not just an adultery problem, it’s a heart problem. It’s not just a fornication problem, it’s a heart problem. And so, Jesus says you need to do something about it. So, the second lesson from the passage is to:

2) Deal radically with the roots of lust (vv. 29-30)

-Jesus says in vv. 29-30 that if your eye or hand cause you to sin, cut them out because it is better to be maimed than to go to hell.

-Is Jesus serious? Very! Now, that doesn’t mean that we take it literally. Jesus is not calling for some sort of physical mutilation in order to deal with the problem. Because, guess what: blind people and people without hands still lust and commit adultery. Jesus also is not saying that you need to find a cave in a desert and live like a monk, because Satan can still find you there and your flesh and lustful heart go there with you.

-What Jesus is saying in very strong terms is that the sin in your life is to be dealt with radically. In order to control the lust in your heart, do radical things to keep yourself from sinning in thought or deed. Sin is that serious. We don’t treat it that seriously. We think our sins are just pets that we keep around and play with whenever we want. But Jesus says that sin is deadly in all its forms and there needs to be something radically done in your life if you don’t want to suffer the consequences.

-The old Puritan teachers and preachers called it mortification of sin—putting sin to death. This comes from what Paul says:

Romans 8:13 LSB

13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the practices of the body, you will live.

-But that is only possible if you have believed in Jesus Christ and live by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then you can live as Paul also said:

Galatians 5:24 LSB

24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

-And he says in:

Colossians 3:5 LSB

5 Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

-And so we do whatever radical thing we need to do to mortify it / put it death. According to Puritan John Owen to mortify sin is a habitual weakening of it, a constant fighting against it, and eventual success and victory over it. According to Owen, this needs to be done constantly and consistently because sin is always active, because unmortified sin weakens and darkens the soul, and because unmortified sin hardens others to the gospel. Or, as he warns elsewhere, YOU BE KILLING SIN OR IT WILL BE KILLING YOU.

-Do whatever you need to do to cleanse your mind from the lust that so easily ensnares you, so that your thought life is pleasing to God which then leads to a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. We want to bring our thoughts under control so that we have a guarded mind that focuses on what Paul talks about:

Philippians 4:8–9 LSB

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is dignified, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, consider these things. 9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

-But to help in thinking the right things, it means you need to control what it is that you look at. Jesus warned a little later in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:22–23 LSB

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

-So, part of the radical thing is being careful what your eyes look at. In a metaphorical sense, you pluck out the eyes so that temptations don’t enter through the eyes, enticing lust in the mind, and then leading you to places you ought not to go. We are told in Scripture:

Proverbs 4:25 LSB

25 Let your eyes look directly ahead And even let your eyelids be fixed straight in front of you.

Psalm 119:37 LSB

37 Cause my eyes to turn away from looking at worthlessness, And revive me in Your ways.

-And then be careful where your hands lead you, so that they don’t take you places that will entice your eyes which then stokes the coals of lust within you—metaphorically cut off your hand. If your hands lead you to social media posts or internet websites that then entice your eyes which then stokes the coals of lust within you, which then leads to other things, then do something radical to stop the process. The further you go, the more enslaved you become.

-If there was a cobra lying in the middle of the road, you wouldn’t walk up to it, talk to it, pet it, or play with it because you know the deadly poison of its bite. You would do any radical thing possible to keep your distance. That’s what Jesus is saying—sin is so damaging you do whatever needs to be done to avoid the trap. And if it starts to rear its evil head, Jesus says do whatever radical things you need to do to put to death the sin in your life, because if you do not there will be devastating consequences. And Jesus goes on to talk about one of those consequences, with the third lesson from our passage:

3) Divorce is a devastating fallout of lust (vv. 31-32)

-I always want to treat this subject with careful compassion, because so many brothers and sisters in Christ have suffered from divorce and its consequences. And too often the church has not treated these brothers and sisters well. Instead of reaching out for healing, the church reached out with a heavy hand of condemnation, and that is not at all what we are called to—rather we are called to love on people during their trials.

-Now, no doubt, divorce is not at all God’s design; it is not ideal; it is something that God hates. And those who have gone through it can agree—it is awful and devastating. And so, what does this have to do with our subject today? Why did Jesus include this teaching right here?

-It’s because the Jews of the day, including the religious leaders, were playing fast and loose with marriage, the first human relationship God ordained, something that God instituted that would then be a picture of Christ’s relationship with the church. And divorce mars the picture. But the Jews in the hardness of their heart would seek divorce as if it were making any other decision, like what to eat or what to wear. They treated marriage and divorce very flippantly.

-So, Jesus references something found in the Mosaic law, from Deuteronomy 24, that the Jews were more than happy to do—give a certificate of divorce. There were rabbinic debates about what that meant. Some rabbis taught that a man could divorce a wife for any reason, including burning the food. Others taught that it could only be for sexual immorality. But elsewhere in Matthew Jesus gives a fuller explanation of what God really thinks about the whole thing:

Matthew 19:3–9 LSB

3 And some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” 7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

-This is what God intended for marriage. And what this has to do with the previous verses and our subject for today is that too often it is lust of the heart that leads to divorce. Yes, it leads some to commit the actual act of adultery. But too often it is just a lust for something more that causes someone to become distant from their spouse and then seek something that they think someone else can give them. Or, as the cliche goes, you think that the grass will be greener elsewhere. Lust leads you there.

-Yes, there are biblical reasons for divorce—sexual immorality, Paul talks about abandonment of an unbelieving spouse, and I would never begrudge someone to stay in an abusive relationship. But too often it is this driving lust and desire that wants to seek something else—what they think might be an easier relationship or warmer relationship. But, the grass isn’t actually greener. Yes, marriage is hard work—so work at it.

-I don’t know how many times I’ve been told by someone who wants to seek a divorce for unbiblical reasons: God just wants me to be happy. I hear that, and then I have to deal with what I talked about last week, because that just gets all over me and makes me angry. NO...GOD DOESN’T WANT YOU HAPPY AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS LAW AND HIS WORD AND HIS HOLINESS. It is lust and desire that is driving you.

-Now, there is redemption in Christ for anyone and any situation. And for those who are divorced and remarried, you just live faithfully with the one that you have. But for everyone who is married, don’t let your lusts and desires drive you away from your spouse. That is not honoring to God.

Conclusion

-Real quick I want to end with seven principles for battling lust in the heart and mind so that your heart and mind are pleasing to God. These are not original to me—these come from Rod Mattoon...

a) Realize your thoughts are not hidden from God

Psalm 94:11 LSB

11 Yahweh knows the thoughts of man, That they are vanity.

-God can see your heart and thoughts, so that ought to motivate us.

b) Reject the lies of this world that lead to sinful thoughts and habits

Galatians 6:7 LSB

7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

-If you sow bad or lustful thoughts in the hearts, it will lead to sinful habits and lifestyles.

c) Guard your mind from what is unacceptable to God

Proverbs 4:23 LSB

23 Guard your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

-Be alert to those things that will enter and corrupt your thought life and stir up lustful desires

d) Request God’s help in prayer

-Be like David and continuously seek God in prayer to move and change your heart. He prayed:

Psalm 51:10 LSB

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

e) Focus your mind on the Lord Jesus Christ

-The prophet tells us:

Isaiah 26:3 ESV

3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

f) Read the Word of God

Psalm 119:11 LSB

11 Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.

-God’s Word is powerful and always effective, sharper than a two-edged sword to get those thoughts out

g) Be accountable to someone

James 5:16 LSB

16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

-Make yourself accountable to someone for your spiritual condition to help you on your journey

-There is a lot here today. Christian, if you are dealing with any sin, whatever it might be, come to the altar and pray God’s strength to do something radical to get rid of it.

-If you are looking for a church home that teaches the truth of God’s Word...

-When we fall short, which we all do, there is forgiveness found in Jesus who died and rose again for us. Believe in Jesus and be saved...