Loving Others
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
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 with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 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. 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 your members than that your whole body go into hell.
Context
Context
How does this relate to what we’ve been reading?
This is that greater righteousness
Addresses the attitude behind the sin
Specific connection with Jesus’ teaching on anger
The judgment of hell is for both
To be discussed a little later on
What’s The Sin?
What’s The Sin?
Adultery: a married person having sex with someone besides their spouse
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
It’s one of the few laws that warrant the death penalty in the First Testament.
Pharisees were content with this surface level righteousness but were content to break laws that weren’t as public.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
In the LXX it’s the same word as lust - desire
Jesus fulfills the Law by holding up some of the neglected aspects of it
28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
What kind of behaviors would be say are or are not under lust?
What this is not:
It’s not being attracted to someone
It’s not acknowledging that a person is pretty or handsome
It’s not having to see someone showing too much skin out in public
What it is:
Looking for the purpose of lusting
It’s creeping on people
It’s porn
It’s following bikini models on Instagram
What’s the Big Deal?
What’s the Big Deal?
See how ‘lust’ is used in the Old Testament to see the difference between seeing something and lusting for something.
What are some of the problems with lusting in these passages?
21 “ ‘You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife; you shall not desire your neighbor’s house nor his field nor his servant nor his female servant nor his bull nor his draft animal nor any of his livestock nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.’ ”
It doesn’t belong to you
4 And the mixed multitude who were among them craved a craving, and, sitting down, the sons of Israel also wept, and they said, “Who will feed us meat?
It reflects a dissatisfaction with what you already have
14 And they desired desire in the desert, and they tested God in the dry land.
It turns God into a our servant from whom we demand our blessings
25 Desires kill the sluggard, for his hands prefer not to do anything. 26 The ungodly desires evil desires all the day long, but the righteous shows mercy and compassion lavishly.
It’s selfish
Honey, I would never cheat on you. I just think about it constantly!
Lack of commitment
How often can we dream of something before acting on it?
Looking outside of your marriage will spoil it - no one can live up to the countless models and variety
The Marriage Ideal
The Marriage Ideal
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Mankind lives up to God’s image together as man and woman.
What happens when we stop seeing the other sex as partners?
Recap on Gehenna
Recap on Gehenna
29 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. 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 your members than that your whole body go into hell.
There is an important connection between this teaching and the preceeding one on anger: hell.
Gehenna was a real place. A valley know as the Valley of Ben Hinnom. It is notable for the child sacrifices that happened there
1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done, 2 but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals, 3 and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
God promises poetic justice
You reap what you sow
You are forgiven if you forgive others
Eye for an eye - the punishment fits the crime
Why is Gehenna a fitting punishment for both the angry heart of a murderer and the lustful heart of an adulterer?
Because they didn’t value human life God will not value theirs.
Angry person goes to hell because he does not treat a person as the image of God.
The lustful person has a similar low view of other people - they’re sex toys.
Sex Is Not Love
Sex Is Not Love
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:2 gives us our role-model for love in Christ
Giving himself up for us
A sacrificial love that puts self at the bottom, washing feet and being buried six-feet under.
Just as the acceptable sacrifices in the Old Testament gave a pleasing aroma to God, the loving sacrifice of Jesus was pleasing to God.
Paul is quick to point out the kind of loves that are most certainly not the self-giving love that pleases God.
3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Three sins are mentioned in 5:3 and 5:5:
Sexual immorality
Impurity
Covetousness
So much sexual immorality is promoted as love.
“Love is Love.”
All forms of love should be respected and equal regardless of gender.
Referring to sex as ‘making love.’
What these sayings imply is that sex is love. And that’s a really shallow understanding of love.
If your love of another is solely dependent on your having access to their body for your own pleasure then its not love.
Some people feel owed a fulfilling physical intimacy with their spouse, and as soon as it goes from good to ‘eh’ they hop in bed with someone else. God wants me to have this fulfilling relationship.
It’s victimless. These people are posting their lewds of their own free will. No harm no foul, right?
These sins are very private, so as long as nobody finds out ignorance is bliss.
It’s natural
We’re getting married eventually anyways
Our marriages are to be pictures of the incredible faithfulness that God has shown for us.
Does casual sex, adultery, pornography, and lusting after everyone but your spouse remind you of God’s commitment to you? Does it remind us of the love Jesus showed by giving himself on the cross?
Instead:
Adultery shows yourself as faithless and putting your desires above your spouse
Lust shows an attitude of never being content with what God has given you
Casual sex shows a worship of your own body above the will of God
How can we expect to see the sacrificial and selfless love of God on our behalf when the only love we have is for sex?
If that’s the love we want then we are not imitating God and walking in love like Christ. We are not children of God, but sons of disobedience who follow the devil, and we will go to hell if we continue in it.
Don’t Even Talk About It
Don’t Even Talk About It
In verse 4, matching the three sins of sexual immorality, impurity, and coveting, are three types of speech to be avoided:
Filthiness
Foolish talk
Crude joking
What makes our talk filthy, foolish, and crude is their content. Seeing as these three ways of talking are bracketed by three sexual sins we should understand this as sexually charged language and joking.
Dirty jokes
Innuendo
Suggestive language
Instead of looking at and talking about the things that we can’t have we are to always be praising God for what he has been giving us.
What’s the Solution?
What’s the Solution?
29 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. 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 your members than that your whole body go into hell.
It is upon the one who looks to keep his eyes and hands in a proper place.
Your eyes are the ones looking
You hand is the one touching
You heart is the one in need of repair
Don’t blame other people for your own shortcomings
Cut it off!
Literal? (Origen might have) But does removing one hand curb lust?
Certain relationships (work spouse)
Enablers (Instagram, internet, phone and computer entirely, movies)
