Desire, Consumption, Destruction
Notes
Transcript
Me
Me
The other day I opened my phone to check one thing.
Just one thing.
And then suddenly I looked up
And realized like twenty minutes had disappeared.
A purposeful google search became a tangent to FB
One video became another.
One article became another.
I’m sure you have never had that happen to you!
And honestly, the scary part is, nothing malfunctioned.
The apps were working exactly as designed.
Because our world is incredibly good at training us to consume.
Back at Moody, during my senior year we read a book called, “Hidden Worldviews”
A worldview is the overarching ideas of how you make sense of the world
Sometimes there are overt ones, like Christianity,
But there are also many worldviews that are caught rather than taught
So one chapter in that book talks about consumerism,
And one of the things the book points out is that consumerism is not merely consuming things.
Because consumption itself is not evil.
We have to consume things to live.
Food.
Water.
Entertainment.
Rest.
Even enjoyment itself can be a gift from God.
“Everyone also should eat and drink and enjoy all his efforts. This is God’s gift to man.” -Ecclesiastes 3:13 (CSB)
So the problem is not consumption itself.
The problem is when consumption becomes the place we look for fulfillment.
Consumerism is a way of living our life,
And it comes out in how we are always striving and binging
Entertainment.
Experiences.
Content.
Even people.
And the older I get,
The more I realize how deeply that mindset shapes us without us even noticing.
Because after a while, you stop approaching things relationally,
And begin approaching them consumptively.
“What does this do for me?”
“How does this make me feel?”
“What am I getting out of this?”
And I think,
Those questions shape far more of our lives than we realize.
They shape our relationships.
Our dating.
Our marriages.
Even the way we approach church and other people.
Because that mindset does not simply stay on our phones.
It slowly shapes the way we see everything, and everyone else too.
We
We
And I do not think any of us are immune to this.
Because we live in a culture built on consumption.
Everything is instant.
Instant entertainment.
We live in a culture trained for immediacy.
Netflix drops entire seasons in one day.
We used to wait a week for the next episode
And hope we were home in time to catch it!
Now if something buffers for five seconds we get irritated.
We are being trained to expect instant access, instant fulfillment, and instant gratification.
And that same attitude shapes how we approach
Shopping, food, our social media opinions, and certainly immediate gratification
Over time, that mindset starts shaping more than our habits.
It starts shaping our hearts.
We begin approaching relationships with the same mindset we approach content:
“What am I getting out of this?”
And it shows up in all kinds of ways.
Sometimes we consume entertainment to escape
Instead of actually dealing with our lives.
We doom scroll
Because silence feels uncomfortable.
]We binge video games, social media, or YouTube
Because distraction feels easier than being present.
Friendships can become transactional.
We can slowly begin investing in people mainly when they benefit us emotionally.
And if we are not careful,
We can even bring that same consumer mindset into church.
We simply trade trending Netflix shows for trending worship songs.
We trade influencers for Bible teachers.
And binge sermons instead of TV shows.
None of these things are automatically bad.
But we can still approach them with a consuming mindset:
“Did I like it?”
“Did it inspire me?”
“Did it meet my needs?”
“Did I get fed?”
While rarely stopping to ask:
“How do I love people?”
“How do I serve?”
“How do I remain faithful?”
“How do I become more like Jesus?”
And when that mindset shapes us long enough,
We can consume spiritual things without actually becoming more like Jesus.
The world trains us to consume people.
Jesus teaches us to cherish people.
Which is exactly why Jesus says what He says next.
God
God
Desire (v.27-28)
Desire (v.27-28)
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Just like last week with anger and murder,
Jesus again moves from the external action to the internal heart.
The Pharisees had reduced righteousness down to technical obedience.
“I didn’t physically do the act.”
And Jesus says,
“You are missing the deeper issue.”
Because sin does not begin at the action.
It begins in the heart.
Jesus is not talking about merely noticing someone.
He is talking about training your heart to consume them.
It is that second look.
Going back because you want to keep feeding the fantasy.
The lingering stare.
Replaying the image in your mind.
Letting your imagination turn a person into a source of gratification
Instead of someone made in the image of God.
A consuming gaze
That desire stops seeing someone as an image bearer and starts seeing them as a product for your personal gratification.
And this is where Jesus completely confronts the mindset our culture trains into us.
The world trains us to consume people.
Jesus teaches us to cherish people.
This is why lust is so much deeper than merely “looking.”
Because lust is not just about sexual desire.
It is selfish desire detached from covenant, holiness, and love.
It is desire that consumes rather than cherishes.
If we want to see what consuming people looks like at scale in our culture,
We need to talk about pornography.
Because pornography trains and disciples the heart to consume people
And if we think this is only affecting a small group of people,
The reality is our culture is already being discipled by this.
A 2023 study found:
The average age of first exposure today is around 12 years old.
and 15% having exposure as early as 10!
Nearly 75% of teens are exposed before they turn 18.
Then nearly half intentionally pursue it.
And it is not just a “boy problem” anymore either.
For many young people today,
Exposure does not even begin intentionally
It comes through social media:
The Algorithms.
The Suggested videos and reels
Content designed to keep people looking and consuming.
Which means we are not talking about a small isolated issue anymore.
We are talking about an entire culture discipling desires.
Teaching people to stop seeing others as image bearers
And start seeing them as products for personal gratification.
This is why lust is so destructive.
Because it separates sexual desire from covenant faithfulness.
It disciples people into consumption.
and before we simply point fingers outwardly,
Jesus wants us to realize this issue goes far deeper than sexuality alone.
Because lust ultimately trains us to ask:
“What can this person give me?”
Instead of:
“How do I honor and cherish this person rightly?”
That is why Jesus says adultery begins in the heart.
Because long before sin reaches the body,
Desire has already begun shaping the way we see people.
Consumption (v.29-30)
Consumption (v.29-30)
And once Jesus exposes how deeply desire shapes the heart,
He says something shocking next.
29 So if your eye, even your good eye, causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your hand, even your stronger hand, causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Jesus knows sin does not stay contained.
Desire grows.
What we repeatedly feed, eventually begins feeding on us.
And that is why Jesus immediately moves from the heart to radical action.
Because Jesus is not interested in us casually managing sin.
He is calling us to deal seriously with the habits shaping our desires.
Now to state the obvious,
Jesus is not commanding literal mutilation here.
If gouging out eyes could fix lust, blind people would not struggle with sin.
Jesus is using shocking language to wake us up to how destructive sin actually is.
The eye represents what we keep looking at.
The hand represents what we keep reaching for.
Jesus is exposing how sin travels through the ordinary habits and patterns of our lives.
Through what we feed.
What we touch.
What we return to.
What we refuse to let go of.
Because we tend to negotiate with sin.
Manage it.
Excuse it.
Minimize it.
Keep it close enough to enjoy while hoping it does not consume us.
But Jesus says sin is destructive enough to radically confront.
At the heart of what Jesus is saying is this:
It is better to surrender temporary gratification
Than to let sin slowly consume and destroy you.
This is one of the places where abiding becomes very practical.
Because many of us yearn to be more like Jesus
While continuing to feed the things deforming us.
We want peace while feeding anxiety.
We want purity while feeding fantasy.
We want intimacy with God
While consistently consuming the very things seducing our hearts away from Him.
The book of Proverbs asks:
“Can a person scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?”
And the implied answer is: of course not.
Because eventually what we keep feeding begins shaping us.
So Jesus says:
Deal seriously with the habits shaping your desires.
This is not about earning salvation through behavior modification.
This is about recognizing that what we continually consume shapes who we become.
That change requires honesty before Jesus.
Abiding in Jesus means radically changing what feeds your heart.
So here are some ways Jesus may be calling you to change your heart diet.
Maybe it means deleting an app for a season.
Unfollowing accounts.
Putting boundaries on your phone.
Being honest about certain shows, conversations, or habits.
Not because technology itself is evil.
But because Jesus is calling us to stop feeding the habits teaching us to consume people.
One of the hardest parts about this is that our culture constantly tells us:
“If you desire something strongly enough, it must be good for you!”
But Jesus says desire itself is not always trustworthy.
Every desire must be surrendered to Jesus
Some habits must be cut off.
Some patterns must die.
Because unchecked desire does not stay private.
It eventually consumes us.
And eventually, it begins destroying the relationships around us too
Because the world trains us to consume people.
But covenant faithfulness requires us to cherish them.
Destruction (v.31-32)
Destruction (v.31-32)
And that is exactly where Jesus goes next.
Because lust and consumption never stay isolated in the heart forever.
Eventually they begin tearing apart sacred covenant relationships too.
Jesus says: Matt. 5:31-32
31 “You have heard the law that says, ‘A man can divorce his wife by merely giving her a written notice of divorce.’ 32 But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.
And this is important, because Jesus is not randomly switching topics here.
He moves from lust to divorce because both can grow from the same distorted way of seeing people.
Lust says:
“What can this person give me?”
Selfish divorce says:
“What do I do when this person no longer gives me what I want?”
In Jesus’ day, there was a major debate among rabbis about what counted as a legitimate reason for divorce.
Some took a stricter view.
But others allowed divorce for incredibly shallow reasons.
A burned meal.
Public embarrassment.
Finding someone else more attractive.
The Pharisees had turned divorce into a loophole.
A technicality.
A way for men to discard wives while still feeling morally justified.
So imagine the issue.
A man could discard his wife, give her the required certificate, and still tell himself,
“I did it legally. I followed the rules.
So there is nothing wrong with what I did!”
To be clear the certificate was not bad,
It provided legal protection for the woman
Proof that she had been released and could remarry.
Jesus is confronting the kind of heart that uses legal paperwork to cover covenant unfaithfulness
Because in that world,
A woman could not simply initiate divorce on her own.
At most, she could petition the courts, who would then command the husband to initiate the divorce
So when a husband treated marriage casually,
He was not just “moving on.”
He was often leaving a woman vulnerable, socially exposed,
financially unstable, and deeply wounded.
When Jesus confronts divorce here,
He is not minimizing broken marriages.
He is confronting the hard-heartedness
That treats covenant relationships as disposable.
He is confronting men who treated sacred covenants like loopholes
And women, made in God’s image, like disposable property
Because the same consuming mindset that says:
“What can this person give me?”
Will eventually say:
“What do I do once this person no longer gives me what I want?”
And Jesus says covenant faithfulness matters more than personal gratification.
Because the world trains us to consume people.
But Jesus teaches us to cherish people.
And that means covenant relationships cannot be treated as disposable.
To help clarify the idea of covenant, a covenant thinking relationship says:
“I will not treat you as disposable when you become difficult.”
Now this is where we need wisdom and compassion.
Because divorce is painful
Many people in this room have experienced the deep grief and trauma surrounding it.
Some were sinned against.
Some carry regret.
Some fought to save a marriage that the other person walked away from anyway.
And the goal of Jesus here is not to shame wounded people.
The goal is to confront the consumer mindset that turns covenant into something disposable.
There are other passages in Scripture that wrestle more fully with the difficult realities of divorce, abandonment, reconciliation, and remarriage.
But Jesus’ focus here is confronting hard-heartedness that treats covenant relationships as disposable.
Divorce is never presented in Scripture as something beautiful or ideal.
It is never the celebration of covenant breaking.
At best, it is the grieving acknowledgment that something sacred has already been deeply fractured by sin.
This is why Jesus speaks so strongly about it.
Divorce is never merely paperwork.
It tears apart something God designed to be sacred.
Something meant to reflect faithfulness, cherishing, and covenant love.
That is why in Matthew 19,
Jesus says Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of human hearts, but that was never God’s original design.
God’s design was never:
Consume people until they stop satisfying you.
It was covenant faithfulness
Cherishing people rather than consuming them.
And this is where the whole progression comes into focus.
Unchecked desire becomes consumption.
Unchecked consumption becomes destruction.
Because when people become products for personal gratification,
Relationships eventually become disposable too.
You
You
So how do we understand all of this through the lens of abiding?
Jesus has taken us on quite a journey in this passage.
He has shown us that sin is not merely about outward behavior.
It begins in the heart.
Desire shapes how we see people.
Unchecked desire becomes consumption.
Unchecked consumption eventually becomes destruction.
And all throughout this passage,
Jesus has been confronting our world that trains us to consume people.
While calling us to cherish them instead
And every one of us has been shaped by that consuming mindset in some way.
Maybe sexually.
Maybe relationally.
Maybe digitally.
Maybe spiritually.
But Jesus is not merely exposing our hearts to shame us.
He is exposing them so He can transform them.
Because the goal of Christianity is not merely avoiding bad behavior.
It is becoming people who love differently.
People who stop asking:
“What can I get from others?”
And start asking:
“How do I honor and cherish people made in the image of God?”
And that kind of transformation does not happen through guilt.
It happens through abiding,
Through walking relationally with Jesus.
Abiding is not merely starving sinful desire.
It is learning to fill our hearts with something better:
The presence, truth, and love of Jesus.
The more we abide with Jesus, the more He reshapes what we desire.
After all, Jesus never treated people as disposable.
He moved toward the broken.
He honored the overlooked.
He protected the vulnerable.
He loves sacrificially instead of consumptively.
Even when we fail Him.
Even when we betray Him.
Even when we abandon Him.
Jesus did not treat people as disposable, nor us
He laid down His life for them and us
That is the gospel, friends.
And what a beautiful gospel it is.
The cross is the opposite of consumerism.
The cross is covenant love.
Jesus saying:
“I give Myself for your good, even at great cost to Myself.”
And that means abiding cannot merely be about avoiding lust.
It is about learning to love like Jesus.
Learning to see people differently.
To honor instead of use.
To cherish instead of consume.
To remain faithful instead of constantly searching for the next thing that gratifies us.
So maybe today, Jesus is inviting you into honesty.
Honesty about what has been shaping your desires.
Honesty about what you keep feeding.
Honesty about where you have treated people consumptively instead of relationally.
And maybe for some people, today is not mainly about condemnation.
It is about surrender.
Because Jesus does not simply want modified behavior.
He wants your heart.
And one of the beautiful hopes of the gospel is this:
Even when our desires have become distorted,
Jesus is still able to reshape them.
Even when we have failed relationally,
Jesus is still able to restore us.
Even when sin has fractured what is sacred,
Jesus still offers grace, forgiveness, healing, and transformation.
Because the world trains us to consume people.
But Jesus teaches us to cherish them.
Because Jesus cherishes us
