Great Reversal: Lust

Intro

We live in a crazy world don’t we

We live in a world that has redefined what is good by saying if we have a physical desire then it must be good.

It is crazy to live this way

But what if you are deceived by your desires?

What if the desires that we have, if we really perused them then they wouldn’t be good for us but they would actually harm us and others.

It turns out that we are deceived by our desires all the time aren’t we?

James the brother of Jesus says it this way

James 4:1-2a

The New International Version (Chapter 4)

4 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

James spent enough time with Jesus to understand that our desires deceive us

The reason why there is war and fighting is because our desires completely spin out of control

But we have to spot the lie of our society

The Buddhist know that our desires can be harmful but they go the complete opposite direction....

The Buddhist believe that you need to completely eliminate your desire in order to become a good person, they believe that our desires is at the root of all suffering

But you can’t eliminate all desire…Because desire is what keeps us alive

It is what keeps us drinking, water, eating food and working

But what James the brother of Jesus points out

Where do fights and quarrels come from?

They come from our desires that battle within us

See this happens when a good desire, a natural desire that was given to us becomes corrupted

But what happens is that our natural desires get corrupted

Sometimes our natural desire for security gets corrupted into a unnatural desire for power

Our Desire for intimacy gets corrupted by sexual immorality

When our food desires get corrupted, We over eat and become gluttonous

When our natural desire for sleep gets corrupted, We might over-sleep and become lazy

It used to be on black Friday you would hear about fights breaking out at the mall…Because our natural desire to bless others gets corrupted into anger and coveting

The reality is that our Desires have the capacity to go out of control and do us and others real harm!

So how do we overcome these crazy desires that we are experiencing?

Your first fill in is this:

The process of growing in Christ is subordinating our desires to Jesus

Do you get it?

Where we get in trouble in life when we elevate our own desires as the most impotrant thing...

And it might seem unnatural to look internally and say…Well Maybe the desires I have are actually corrupted!

We allow our desires to get us into trouble when we let them go unchecked...

This is what James is talking about

And why is James talking about this?

This is a really key point because when you get this point it will help you to understand much of the New Testament...

Because The Sermon on the Mount is the Theological Core for the New Testament.

It is the core ethic, heart and teaching of Jesus

When Jesus gives the great commission and says, go into all the world and teach them everything that I taught you...

What is Jesus talking about?

The Sermon on the Mount!

So you are going to find these hyperlinks…these breadcrumbs all over the New Testament that will lead you back to the Sermon on the Mount.

So Last week I started with talking about loopholes because the reality is when we approach such difficult passages of scripture we look for loopholes in the plain meaning of it. We think of ways that it surely does not apply to us but obviously applies to others

But another set of glasses to see this entire section of the sermon on the mount though is Jesus way to reach strait into our lives and speak directly to our base desires

The reason why our desire becomes so impotrant is that we usually go after what we desire.

We normally run after our desires, and if those desires are in rebellion to God then we are just in trouble aren’t we?

So flip with me this week to the Sermon on the mount:

Matthew 5:27-30

The New International Version (Chapter 5)

Adultery27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, 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 right hand causes you to stumble, 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 go into hell.

Another fun little non challenging portion of scripture right?

Ouch! This teaching gets personal right?

Lets look at this one part at a time:

Matthew 5:27

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

Now where has this been said?

The ten Commandments

Now here is the deal. God begins Ten Commandments by saying: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery

He begins them with saying not only who he is, but by saying the intentions that he has with his people...

He set them free from Slavery

These commandments are all about freedom…They are all about how to live as a free people!

So Exodus

Exodus 20:14 says

The New International Version Chapter 20

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

This is as to not have a sexual relationship with anyone outside of marriage

Because when you commit adultery that is a prison of shame, guilt, hiding and brokenness

God already saved his people from the prison of Egypt but God knows that there are other ways that we can be slaves and one of those ways is through unchecked sexual desires.

But what Jesus does in the next line is brilliant...

Because for many married people, not committing adultery is fairly easy, but statistically it is not as easy for people as homicide.

So Jesus combines two commandments to dig under the surface of what adultery is...

Because Jesus knows at the heart of adultery is Lust or an unchecked sexual desire and appetite.

Matthew 5:28 is to

28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So what Jesus is saying here is that this is just like Murder....Anger proceeds murder and Anger is just as punishable as murder

So Lust proceeds adultery and what Jesus is saying is that it is just as punishable as Adultery

And what Jesus is doing here quite brilliantly is he is showing his listeners that this was always the law…This is the 10 commandments

Exodus 20:17

The New International Version (Chapter 20)

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

You shall not covet your neighbors wife

See in the 10 Commandments there is both this prohibition on Adultery and Lust.

But many of the teachers of Jesus time just focused on having sex with someone who is not your spouse

But Jesus said nope…It is lust…It is coveting your neighbors wife

And lust doesn't always include looks

Its that flirtation with the delivery guy

It is that office friendship that gets you thinking about that person more than you might have thought about her otherwise

But in another sense: Lust is very visual and there are entire industries dedicated toward cultivating Lust.

Of course there are the usual suspects…Hollywood is always adding pushing the envelope on Sex and Nudity

Streaming services are doing the same thing...

Sometimes you could be watching what seems to be like a normal show and bam there is a naked person

But then there is the Pornography industry

Covenant Eyes is an online software company that tries to keep pornography off all of your devices

Here is what their research shows

40 Million People watch pornography in America on a daily basis

This gets so bad that these people end up watching porn while at work

20% of men have admitted to watching porn at work and 13% of women

64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women say they watch porn at least once a month.

A 2018 study revealed:

Nearly 27% of teens receive sexts.

Around 15% are sending them.

57% of teens search out porn at least monthly.

51% of male students and 32% of female students first viewed porn before their teenage years. as pre-teens or children…Parents: This should shock and alarm you!

The first exposure to pornography among men is 12 years old, on average.

71% of teens hide online behavior from their parents.

68% of divorce cases involved one party meeting a new lover over the Internet.

56% involved one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.”

70% of wives of sex addicts could be diagnosed with PTSD.

Prolonged exposure to pornography leads to:

Diminished trust between intimate couples.

increases the marital infidelity rate by more than 300%

Belief that promiscuity is the natural state.

Lack of attention to family and child-raising.

A 2014 study found that compulsive pornography users “had greater impairments of sexual arousal and erectile difficulties in intimate relationships but not with sexually explicit materials.”

And if all of this sounds bad: We haven’t even gotten in the COVID statistics yet...

But we know that one of the side effects of all online school was the proliferation of pornography to younger and younger kids

We know that a whole new generation of kids were exposed to sexually explicit material before because of at home school

Why do I bring all of this up?

Because there is an entire lust industry that has billions of dollars worth of revenue that is working on reaching you...

This industries goal is to make you a slave to lust! It is literally trying to bring you back into the slavery that the the 10 commandments are trying to free you from...

This industry doesn’t care if your a man or woman

single or married

A christian or not

They don’t even care if your a child

They want to get in your face because their is money to be made

And I want to submit to you that the only way to truly protect yourself from pornography is

Submitting your desires to Jesus

Your desire must become subordinate!

So I want to talk about what lust actually does for a second:

Lust removes a name and a face..>Lust removes an identity

Lust is all about a body or bodies...

It turns people into an object for your use

it actually dehumanizes people

And the hard part about lust is that it is secret

The person whom you lust after may never know that you are lusting after them

But God knows...

God knows that we are dehumanizing his kids

And here is the other thing that is impotrant in this discussion, in fact, it is actually a contemporary debate here too,

In Jesus Day, Married Jewish women were supposed to wear head coverings to prevent men from lusting after them

The same was true of the purity culture of the 90’s

Women were told to watch what you wear and that what you do will cause a man to stumble

And I think it is generally true that ladies you ought to treat your body with respect and honor and be modest

But What Jesus did here is so impotrant

He places the responsibility for lust where it belongs

One the one who is doing the lusting.

So if your here and lusting is your issue…It is easy to throw the blame on others...

But Jesus reaches right into your life and says…Hey…Its you…its your desires...

Its that old Led Zeppelin Song: Nobody’s fault but mine

So what does Jesus say that we ought to do instead

Matthew 5:29-30

29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, 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 right hand causes you to stumble, 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 go into hell.

So we have spoons and knives in the back if you should feel the need to gouge out your eyes or cut your hand off...

Just like the passage we read last week, Jesus uses Hyperbole: This is an exaggerated statement that isn't meant to be taken literally but to make a bigger point...

And very clearly that is that the man with a mutilated stump of an arm or with gouged out eyes can still have a wicked heart

Eliminating Body parts does not change the condition of your heart

If we could avoid sinning by cutting off body parts then we would have to be rolled into heaven as one bloody mutilated stump

What Jesus is saying is that we need to cut out of our lives the conditions that lead to lust

Maybe there are some of you here who need to switch to a flip phone

Buy software like Covenant Eyes…It will keep computers and phones safe for your whole family

Maybe when you see someone that looks good and your mind turns to lust, instead of dehumanizing that person by fantasizing about them you pray for them as a brother or sister in Christ.

The process of growing in Christ is subordinating our desires to Jesus

And there is a part two to this:

it is the role of the will to see to that our desires are subordinated to Jesus

Your will is your is your own self drive to control impulses

And you can train your will through discipline

For example. Through covid I wanted to lose weight. So I started hiking…then I started running, then I started Cycling and now I have a natural impulse every day to exercise

I have disciplined my life in such a way that it is my natural impulse to go work out

SO you can train your life…train your will through discipleship to Jesus to to bring your desires in line with Jesus desires

See in our sinful state our wanter is broken…God wants to fix our wanter

The Apostle Paul says it this way:

This means taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:5)

Overcoming lust begins with praying for the will of God to overcome our will…For God to fix our wants and desires

Making an effort to overcome lust with the Help of God begins by subordinating your desire to Him...

It is literally coming before the throne of grace and admitting that God’s desires for you are so much more impotrant than your own desires for yourself

This means you have to make an effort!

Men: Here is what this means for you

If your married....Your wife is your new standard of beauty…Look at your wife…That is the pinnacle of all beauty to you.

You are only into her now...

You have to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ!

men you have to guard your eyes. There is a multi Billion dollar industry that is out there just waiting to sink its claws into you

Women:

Look at your husband: He is your standard of beauty…If he’s bald then your into bald... if he has a beard then thats what your into

Women, statistically lust rears its ugly head in your life when you get emotionally invested with a person that is not your husband

Guard your heart

Married Couples:

Hebrews 13:4 says

The New International Version Chapter 13

4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

Don’t buy into the lie that pornography is a victimless crime, it will absolutely affect your bedroom

Men if your into porn you are effectively cheating on your wife

Women if your into it, your cheating on your husband

and you have to stop!

Married people you have to strengthen your marriage and guard it from lust...Here are a few things you can do

Speak loving words to one another

Date your spouse

Spend time together

find things that cultivate intimacy

Admit to one another where you stumble

Have regular sex

1 Corinthians 7:3-5

The New International Version Chapter 7

3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control

All of us:

What the issue of lust truly reveals to all of us is that we have a fundamental desire that needs to be changed

When Jesus trains his disciples to pray the Lords prayer he trains them to say

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

We have tackled some of the most intimate parts of life today so I simply want to do this.

I want to invite you all to stand...

If your married. Grab the hand of your spouse

If your single I just want to invite you to put your palms up to be in a posture of receiving.

Prayer

Father: For Married couples

Would you help them to have eyes only for one another

Would you enable them to forsake all others

Would they see one another as their own standard of beauty

Would you ignite a desire for each other and a passionate desire for you in their marriage

For Single People

Lord the temptation for lust is so strong, I pray that you would sustain single people with your presence

I pray that you would forge a new desire within single people here today

Would you satisfy single people with your love

Lord we pray for all people

That you would break the power of our corrupt desire