Sermon Tone Analysis

Sex is a big deal in our culture, and yet our cultural perspective on sex and sexuality is entirely paradoxical and befuddled.

In some respects, sex means so much more than it used to:

What is the biblical vision of sex and the body?

What is life in the Kingdom all about?

Today we are taught that sexual desire is central to human identity.

The concept of sexual identity is a very modern concept, and it points to our cultural understanding that sexual desire is essential to forming personal identity.

Why is the overhaul of our perspective on sex so crucial?

Today we are taught that sexual self-expression is essential for healthy personhood.

We’re told that healthy people explore their sexual and erotic desires.

People should express their sexual desires in ways that feel self-fulfilling.

And underneath this is the belief that sexual expression can indeed be self-fulfilling and self-actualizing.

Exploring sexual desires is a way of finding out who you really are.

What is life in the Kingdom all about?

Sex means so much more than it used to.

But at the same time, sex also means so much less than it used to.

Today we are taught that sex is morally neutral.

Sex is neither good or bad in and of itself - it is simply a tool for self-discovery and self-fulfillment.

Today we are taught that sex can be simply recreational - just for fun and with no more meaning or significance than going for a hike or watching a movie - unless of course you want it to be, in which case it can be unitive, it can be procreational, it can be spiritual, if only for that particular individual.

Today, sex and sexual desire is used for such trivial purposes like selling things, or gaining attention or fame.

- commercials, lyrics, movies, fashion.

So we live in a culture that elevates sex and sexual desire to such a degree that it is central to personal identity and fulfillment, while at the same time denigrating it to a neutral, insignificant tool to we used for nothing more than pleasure and profit.

It’s confusing!

Sexuality means everything and it means nothing.

Sex is a big deal in the Scriptures too!

Jesus speaks to the issue a number of times in his Jewish context, and Paul speaks about sex a whole lot more in his Greco-Roman context.

In fact, when we look at the rhetoric of these two, whose words make up the bulk of the New Testament, we see that they reserve pretty biting and intense language for the subject of sex and sexual desire.

Let’s look at a well known passage in .

Let’s remember the context here.

This is part of a famous stretch of teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount, and it was a teaching that was directed at Jesus disciples.

These are people who have committed themselves to who Jesus is and what he is all about and who desire to fashion their lives and identity after him.

This is important to remember, because a serious misstep that we can make as Christians is to make the biblical vision for sex and sexual desire the primary and forefront issue, and making this the first issue or talking point that we bring up when having a conversation with someone who is not a Christian.

But if someone is not a follower of Jesus, why on earth would they be compelled to follow his teachings?

Alright, so let’s avoid that misstep and recognize that Jesus himself is giving this teaching to people who have already committed their lives to him and desire to be formed by his teaching and mission.

Paul does the same in his letters.

He is writing to Christians.

Okay, so that’s important to remember.

Jesus introduces this section in the same way he has introduced his other teachings in this Sermon on the Mount:

(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.”

This is a pattern in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have hear it said…but I say to you...” To understand what Jesus is doing here with this pattern, we’ve got to recognize what Jesus is doing with this entire sermon.

Jesus is all about announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God - this sphere of life where the good will of God is reflected in all of creation and humanity, this sphere of life where all relationship that were broken by sin are restored, and at the center of this Kingdom is Jesus.

So Jesus is speaking to his disciples about what Kingdom life looks like.

What does it look like to live as Kingdom people, people who embody the teaching and mission of Jesus.

Now, God had always been about creating this sort of people, which is why he gave the people of Israel (the people from whom Jesus descended and is fully a part of) his commands, often summarized as the Law.

One of the purposes of the Law, or this array of God’s commands, was to reveal to God’s people how to live as Kingdom people.

And here we see that Jesus affirms that - he affirms that God’s commands point people towards God’s will.

“Do not commit adultery” accurately points to God’s desires for us.

“Do not think that

Jesus sees himself as very much in line with this.

He hasn’t come to do away with these commands, but as he says in verse 17, he has come to fulfill them.

Jesus has come to fulfill the purposes of God’s command.

He has come to make, or re-make more specifically, people to be Kingdom people, people who know and are able to pursue the desires of God.

And so Jesus puts his own teaching right alongside God’s commands.

God said, “You shall not commit adultery,” and Jesus intensifies it, “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Why?

Because Jesus knows people don’t just end up in bed with someone else’s spouse.

People aren’t just suddenly hit with an intense desire to have an affair.

No, there are deeper issues at work that drive people to forsake their vows and commitments and betray their fellow human being in this way.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount we see that Jesus knows the Kingdom doesn’t come about by modifying our behaviors or just jumping through the right religious hoops - no we become Kingdom people by allowing Jesus to work on root issues, deep issues that are sometimes feel like they are at the very core of our being, but deep issues in our lives that fracture our relationship with God and with other people, issues that lead us to ruin.

This is why Jesus locates the source of the problem not in the sexual act of adultery, nor in the prolonged stare with lustful intent, but where?

He says the source of the problem is what’s going on in the heart.

These actions, they are but symptoms.

And a good doctor doesn’t treat symptoms with no regard for the cause, and Jesus is a good doctor.

He wants to go after the source.

Now why is Jesus so upset here?

I mean look at the language he uses!

He commends self-mutilation as a way forward.

He is worked up about this.

Or when we read Paul in , he is worked up about this issue of sexual immorality, the example that he gives being sleeping with a prostitute.

Why are Jesus and Paul so triggered by this issue of sex and sexual desire?

Well for one thing, it is not because they hate sex.

Jesus is not a prude.

He is not afraid or unsettled by the subject of sex and sexual desire.

Because if we look at and 2 of Jesus’ Bible, the Old Testament, we see that after God created human beings, male and female, fit for one another in every way, including physically and sexually, they come together in marriage, where they commit themselves wholly and fully to one another, making a covenant between themselves, and in that context they express and seal that unity of mind, body, and spirit in sex, and what does God say?

He says it is very good!

There is an entire book of the Bible that celebrates sex and sexual desire.

Song of Songs or Song of Solomon.

It’s a book of romantic love poetry, at times even semi-erotic.

Jesus grew up listening to Song of Solomon, this compendium love poetry that depicts sexual desire between a man and a woman leading into marriage.

It was read annually around the time of Passover.

Listen to this beautiful section near the end of the book (8:6-7):

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.”

In the Scriptures, sex is a sign of the personal, legal, social, economic, total union between a man and a woman who have made that commitment to one another in marriage.

It is this wonderful gift in which the married couple can outwardly express that union and maintain it as well.

Absolutely beautiful and passionate.

Our bodies are good.

Sex is good.

Sexual desire is good.

But is it really as easy and simple as that?

Is it really as black and white as to say that sexual desire is good?

Notice what the author of this love poem likened desire to: fire.

Is fire good or bad?

Well, that depends.

If it’s heating up my burgers on the grill, it’s good; or if it’s keeping my house warm.

But it can also very well be burning my steak, or consuming my house.

In the same way, it’s not so easy to say that sex and sexual desire is good - it’s like fire.

In the marriage covenant it is a beautiful and powerful expression of a whole person united to their spouse.