Overcoming Sexual Sin — Jason Robinson

And like we said last night, there's a lot of people that are really good at the problem, diagnosing the problem. But the solutions, the majority of the time, are some new thing, some new angle, you know, some new truth that hasn't been seen, you know, for the last 2 ,000 years.

And it's been hid from Christians, and now it's here to set you free. And the prophet Isaiah is saying, let's go back to the old paths. Where is the good way? And if we do that, he says, we'll find rest for our souls.

And, you know, there's thousands of Christian books, and psychology books, and philosophy books, and all these libraries of books, and seminars, and I mean, I know it sounds simplistic, but the answer to all of our problems is in the scriptures.

And if we just rid ourselves from all the people that try to explain them away, and try to twist them, and just go like a child, just childlike faith, the scripture, and just read it and believe it, we can be set free.

And so we're looking this weekend at the church, and what it is, and what it needs to be. And it's very important that we see that there is a church of those that have come out of the world, and they've set a direction, kind of like a boat at a dock, and it's deciding to go to the Bahamas.

And it goes on its course. And there are specific churches that, in a city like this, that may feel led to reach out to the inner city. There may be churches that feel led to reach out to college students, or let's say there was a Hasidic Jewish community in the area, and church wanted to reach out to them.

There are different courses you could go as a church, as far as outreach, as far as style of worship, depending on the culture in your area. And so what happens is God raises up a core in a church, and that core has the vision and the direction that God is leading them to go.

And if there was a church, let's say, that wanted to reach Hasidic Jews, and they wanted to dress like Hasidic Jews, and sing Messianic Jewish songs, I wouldn't go to that church and try to change the direction of it.

If I didn't feel led to go that direction, I would find a church that wasn't doing that. So every church should have a core that understands the direction that they're trying to go, the way that God's leading them to reach people for Christ, and the way that God's leading them to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And that core, it's understood who that core is, the leadership and those that are committed, those that God has birthed a daily relationship with. These people and their lives are revolving around each other, they're loving one another.

There's symphony there. You know, the scripture that a lot of people use, you know, if we ask anything, if any of us agree on earth as touching anything, and we ask Jesus, He'll do it. A lot of people like to quote that verse, and it's good, but the word there, agree, if any two of you shall agree, that word is symphonyo in the Greek, from which we get our word symphony.

And what he's saying there is, if any of you are in symphony with each other, then if you ask Jesus something in His name, He'll do it. But if you're not in symphony, He's not going to answer it. And so the church is like a symphony.

You know, you have the brass section over here, and the cellos, and the violins, and you have the drums back here, and there's a director, and he is able to guide all of those people to be in harmony with each other.

All of those instruments are tuned in with each other, and it sounds beautiful, but if there was no director, if they were tuned to different keys, if they were playing at different tempos, it would just be chaos.

And unfortunately, that's the way many churches are. There isn't a leader, or the leader is inadequate. They're tuned to different things, and it plays, and it's just not a beautiful thing. So in a church, those that are in symphony with each other are the core.

Okay, that's in essence the local body. Okay, now there's going to be some that the core is inviting and ministering to. They're totally welcome to come. They're totally welcome to visit, kick the tires, see if this is something that, a direction that they want to go, a lifestyle that they want to live.

There are obviously times when the church gets together, and they have people come and visit. This isn't some exclusive club with a secret handshake, and you have to know the password to get in. Nothing like that.

That's cultic and dangerous. But the point is, the church is catered to Christ, not to visitors. They're welcome to come, but it's not going to be designed in such a way as to make them feel comfortable.

The songs, and the length of the service, and style of everything is not catered to seekers. It's catered to the direction that the core feels Christ is going to be pleased with, and they're in symphony with each other, and they're going this direction.

And those that desire to go that direction are welcome to get on board, but not change the course that the church is feeling led to go by Christ. And so it's really important as we're looking at this, it's really important to see the danger of what Francis Schaeffer called religious social pressure.

See, a lot of churches become clubs, and they become places where there's a lot of pressure. We talked today about all of the different cliques, and with each clique has its clothing, and has its music, and has its hobbies.

And unfortunately, a lot of people come to Christ, and they leave that, and then they join the church, and the church is the same thing. I have many friends that have come out of the Amish and Mennonite churches, and if you join, say, a Mennonite church, some of them you have to agree to a book, a literal, what they would call a standard book, where they would have all kinds of things.

You have to have a black car, and no chrome on the car. If the car you bought had chrome on it, you would spray paint it. And so those are called black bumper churches, because it's pride, you know, to have chrome.

So they spray paint the front of their cars black, and you have to agree to wear all these things, and you have to agree to not do this, and not do that, and it's legalism, and it's death. And they'll have in the book, you know, you're not allowed to go to Six Flags, and so the teenagers will go the next year to Geauga Lake or Cedar Point, and so they have to add that in the next year.

You're not allowed to go to Cedar Point either, you know. Yeah, it's like another amusement park. It's just not called Six Flags, so they went to it because it didn't say we couldn't go there, and then they have to add that, so the book gets thicker each year.

And that's an extreme, okay, and most people see through that, and they say that's death. But most churches, many, many churches are like that. Maybe they don't have a book, it's hidden, it's an invisible book, and if you come to this church, you will eventually conform to the norm.

And it could be as liberal as anything you could imagine, as loose as anything you could imagine, but it's still, there's a pressure there, you know. A lot of emerging churches emphasize, you know, social programs and reaching out and helping the poor.

There's a lot of emphasis on helping the poor, helping the widows, and helping the environment. We got to offset the carbon print that we put on the environment, and we got to ride bicycles, and we got to, you know, use certain types of foods and not buy clothes from Walmart because, you know, people in China are having to make them.

And so you go to that church, and you're slowly having to conform to that, and if you don't, there's a pressure put on you. And that's just as legalistic, and we need to see this, that's just as legalistic as the Amish, because you're conforming to something, and there's a pressure put on you, and you won't be received.

And what happens in these settings is you begin to despise people that don't live the way you live. And so here on this side, you have very conservative people, and she doesn't dress the way I think she should dress, and he doesn't do the things I think he should do, and he does other things I think he shouldn't do, and he's worldly, and you begin to despise other Christians.

And you have the same legalism on this side with worldly or liberal Christianity, and he's, you know, legalistic, and he says you shouldn't do this and that, and in our church, you know, we do this. And this is why we have all of the division in the body of Christ in America, is social pressure, and we need to allow in churches people to be totally free to be who they are in Christ, who God has made them, and that's going to look different for each one of us.

I had this conversion band once, and the back seat, if you press this button, it would, you know, motorized bed, it would fold down into a bed, and if you press the button again, it would fold back up into a seat, and that button, that switch broke, and I had my mechanic guy look at it, and he couldn't fix the switch, and he's like, but yeah, I can, if you want, I can put it back up into a seat so it stays at least that way, and I said, yeah, and so he took the switch out, and he took these two wires and just held them together, and as he held them together, it pushed back up into a seat, and I was like, wow, I didn't understand, you know, how does it know to do that, and he said, it's just programmed to do two things.

You hold the wire together, and it goes up, and you hold the wire together, and it goes back down, and that's the way we are. Each one of us is wired to do something, and when the power of the Holy Spirit comes in us, we're going to do what we were wired to do, and what I'm wired to do is going to look different than what you're wired to do, and I have to receive you when you get filled with the Spirit, and what you're doing is different than mine, what I'm doing.

You have to receive me, but what happens when people are insecure, birds of a feather flock together, so they can't receive people that are different than themselves, so they just have to start flocking together with people that are like them, and well, we should have a church, you know, and we don't agree with how these people are, and then the people over here, yeah, we don't agree with how they are, so we should have a church, and then you have all these churches with all of these different gifts, and you have a church full of a bunch of people that are hands.

There's just a bunch of hands in the church, you know, and they don't like the feet guys, so they started their own church, but they're not expressing Christ. They're just a bunch of hands, you know, and then the feet church is over there, and you know, and they're despising the hands, and they're a bunch of feet, and God is wanting to bring together a body where there's no social pressure.

There's no underlining pressure to conform, you know. The epitome of this is the Amish, where all of the men have black pants and white shirts, and all the women have black dresses, and they all look the same.

Okay, that's cookie cutter. Obviously, that's wrong, but you come into a lot of evangelical churches, and you know, suddenly you leave this, and you come over here, and all of the women have pants, and they don't have dresses, and all of the men wear certain types of shirts, and certain types of clothes, and it's the same thing, just rewrapped.

It's conformity. God wants diversity in the body, because that's what's going to exercise your love when you're having to love somebody that's different than you, and humans, their natural way of thinking, we naturally don't like people that are different than us.

So, when you're in the third grade, and the kid from China moves in, you make fun of him. Oh, you know, and you make faces, and he's Chinese, you know, and because we're so insecure, he's different than me.

I must be mean to him, but that's the way we are. Spiritually, we, now we're saved, and oh, that guy's different. You know, I don't want to be around him, and God is bringing together a body of people that are totally different, and they're allowed to be different, and nobody's being despised, and they're all loving one another, and it's a place where you can be real.

This is who I am. I'm not saying I'm perfected yet. I want to be perfected. This is me. I'm not going to try to act in such a way to where you're going to accept me. I'm going to be real, and as you see me being real, you're going to help me become like Christ, and I'm not talking about, you know, a lot of churches say, you know, we're just being real, you know, we're just being real, and I want to go to a church where nobody judges me, you know, and you know, like one guy said, okay, we'll just go to a bar, you know, I mean, nobody will judge you in a bar.

I'm not talking about being real as to justify sin, and just stay real, and stay defeated. I'm talking about being real with the goal of changing, with the goal of shedding your sin, so not putting up, you know, the word hypocrite in the Greek.

It's actor. The actors in the first century, they would walk around with the face mask, you know, they would hold up in front of their face, and during the play, they would have this face, and as soon as the play was over, they'd put the mask down, and a hypocrite is not someone that tries to do right and fails periodically.

A hypocrite is someone that acts like they're doing right and isn't doing right. They're trying to put forth this image that they're walking in victory, but they're not, and we need to be real with each other.

When you see me, and you say, how are you doing, and I just had a bad day, I don't want to say, fine, yeah, I'm doing great, brother, amen. No, I want to say, I had a sucky day today, you know, I'm pretty discouraged right now, so we can help each other, you see.

We can be real with each other. How are you doing? I'm pretty depressed. I got mad at work, and on top of that, I have bills due at the end of the week. Oh, okay. See, real, not, yeah, good, yeah, it's good, it's a pretty day, huh?

Yeah, pretty good day. Forget that. Let's be real for the purpose of overcoming sin, and so all that to say, bringing all that into the context here of this topic of lust, I talk to and counsel many people all over the country, and in the last month or so, I can't even begin to tell you how many, well, the last four years, how many times I have had people send me text messages, emails, phone calls, you know, I'm falling into sin, I'm falling into pornography, you know, I made out with my girlfriend, and, you know, we had sex before marriage, or how many people that I knew were wholehearted for Jesus, were loving Jesus, and cheated on their wives, and got divorced, and it's just growing more and more and more.

People that, when I first came to Christ, were my mentors, falling into adultery, and it's just such a huge problem in Christianity, and at least the circles that I've been in, very, very little is said about it, and yet, there's so much in the Bible about it, and I think you'll be shocked how many verses are, you know, focused on on this, and it's just all over the scriptures, and, you know, when I grew up, my parents weren't Christians, and didn't know God, and my dad, you know, had no problem with me as a four or five-year-old sitting with him while he watched, you know, pornographic movies.

I mean, I grew up in the, you know, age of where it was okay for me to cuss, and it was okay for me to, you know, pretty much do whatever I wanted to do, and watch wicked movies, and everything. I mean, I grew up in a very wicked atmosphere, and, you know, by the time I was 12, I had eyes just full of adultery, and lust, and girlfriends, and, you know, just given to sexual immorality, and my whole childhood, my whole, all of my teenage years, and then I come to Christ, and start going to a church, and I have all of this monster that's been created before salvation, okay, behind me, and now I come to a church, and, you know, I see verses that obviously it's not good to have sex before marriage, and things like that, but I don't remember ever hearing a message about overcoming lust.

I don't ever remember hearing a message about it being a sin, you know, to watch pornography, or masturbation, or anything like that. I mean, I heard lots of messages about topics that weren't helping me with any of those things.

They were high and lofty, you know, things, but I didn't care about any of that. I wanted, you know, victory over sin, and so I went through this cycle as a 19, 20, 21-year-old, 22-year-old, 23-year-old, of, you know, repenting, and feeling horrible, like I'm a total loser.

I'm just horrible, and then, God, help me, help me, help me, and then two months goes by, boom, fall again, and just, I'm just a total idiot, and then three months later, and that was my cycle, and just thinking, I must be a freak or something here, because, like, nobody else is struggling with this.

I mean, I'm, everybody's just, I see them in church, how you doing? Awesome, brother, I'm doing great, how are you? Well, I just got done struggling with lust over there, and I feel like an idiot right now, you know, but nobody's telling me that they're defeated, so I must just be a sexual freak or something here, because I'm the only one doing this, and so that's how I lived, and there was no teaching, no practical teaching.

Well, then, make a long story short, it comes out a few years later that one of the pastors of my church was committing adultery, you know, with another sister in the church in that time period there, and so that's one of the reasons that it, you know, dawned on me, well, of course they weren't going to teach on that, because they were struggling with it too, you know, and defeated, and hiding it in hypocrisy, and a lot of pastors won't teach on this.

One man did a survey, I forget what the story was, they had a big pastors conference, and thousands of pastors came to this hotel, and I think the hotel monitored, 80 of them ordered pornography the nights that they were at the hotel, you know, so a lot of times these things aren't taught on, because the people teaching them don't have victory themselves, and when they are taught on, it's so vague, and it's not really, you know, helpful, so what happens is that the standard of scripture is lowered, the call to holiness is lowered in an attempt to justify sin, and so a lot of churches don't teach on women dressing modestly, because the leaders in the church have eyes full of adultery, and they have women up on stage leading worship in very sensual clothing, and there's just kind of a general spirit of lust in the church, and it becomes normal, and you know, in my case, I was 19, I'm coming to church, and there's immodesty, and I'm like, hey, I have to deal with this all week long, I mean, I'd like to sit here and sing, my Jesus, I love Thee, and not have to worry about, you know, looking down at the girl in front of me, because she's dressed immodestly, I mean, can I at least have a place here where I can focus and worship Christ, and there was an insensitivity to young men in, you know, in the body that I went to when I first got saved, and I want to clarify this, because there's, you know, a lot of misconceptions out there about holiness and separation and, you know, obedience is not legalism, okay?

Many people have come out of dead traditional churches, and they've come out of churches that were guilt-driven, and I understand that there's a death in that, and we don't want to go back to the law, but when somebody emphasizes obedience to Jesus, we have to separate that from legalism.

Legalism is where I take God's heart and his teachings, and then I add to them, and the Pharisees added to the teachings of the old covenant, and then they despise people for not teaching the things or not obeying the things that they added to, so God says in the Old Testament, you know, keep the Sabbath, don't work on the Sabbath, don't lift a burden on the Sabbath, so the Pharisees somehow take that teaching, and they come to conclusions that God didn't come to.

For instance, we need to have certain sandals. We need to have Sabbath sandals. They only weigh six ounces. If they weigh seven ounces, it's too heavy. You're lifting a burden on the Sabbath, and so we have all of these things that men come up with.

They add to God's teaching, and that's legalism, and anytime I try to find my acceptance with God based upon some external thing that I'm doing, based upon, you know, something that I've come up with, like, you know, I believe that you should get up at five in the morning and read the Bible, and if I don't get up at five in the morning and read the Bible, then God doesn't accept me, and or if I do get up at five in the morning, read the Bible, but I know you don't, and then I write you off and don't accept you.

That's legalism, but obeying the teachings of Scripture in a childlike way, that's just obedience, and a lot of times people want to call obedience legalism because it's a cop-out, because they're not obeying, and it's a nice way to say, well, that's just legalism, and that is a way of justifying, you know, our sin, and, you know, for example, in this context here, what we're talking about lust, a lot of times nowadays, I think we talked about this last time I was here, you'll hear phrases like, you know, God's love is unconditional.

God loves us unconditionally, no matter what happens, God loves you, God loves you, and so what happens is we concoct theologies based upon our morality, so if I'm defeated by sin, my morality will dictate my theology, okay, and an extreme example of this would be churches nowadays that are homosexual churches, so somebody is giving into homosexuality, something clearly taught on in the New Testament to be a sin, they're giving into it, and so they either have to quit the sin, or they have to change the Scripture to justify the sin, and so their morality, or in this case, the lack of morality dictates their theology, and many people are defeated by sin, so they want to take this whole, you know, God is like a coin, and there's the love of God and the fear of God, they want to take this whole side of the coin and cast it off and focus on the love of God, to the destruction of the fear of God, and so a lot of times that's caused by a lack of morality, and so I want to feel accepted no matter what I do, I want to feel love no matter what I do, so I gravitate to a theology that is conducive to that, and so in my case, when I was 19, 20, 21, I went to a church that taught once saved, always saved, no matter what you do, you can go out and kill somebody, you'll still go to heaven because salvation, you know, is eternal, they'll say it's eternal life, you're going to heaven no matter what, and what that produced in me as a young 19, 20, 20 year old, you know, kid that was struggling with hormones and lust, what that did is it took away the fear of God in my life, and at that moment of temptation at two in the morning when I was fighting and fighting and fighting, finally it's just like, I'm gonna die if I, you know, don't do something here, and the thought would come in, well, you're going to heaven anyways, you know, and God loves you anyways, so why don't you just do it and just ask me to forgive you after you do it, and I'm here to say, whenever you're standing at that moment and you think in your mind, I'll just do it and then ask God to forgive me after I do it, at that very moment, you're standing on the precipice of hell itself, okay, that is a lie from the pit of hell, that is the lie all the way in Genesis chapter 3, you know, the devil talking to Eve, you know, and minimizing and downplaying the severity of sin, you're not going to die, you're not going to die, Romans 8 says, if you live after the flesh, you will die, and it's not talking about physical death, I mean, how many of us have sinned after salvation, we didn't just drop dead, you know, after we sinned, it's talking about eternal death, separation, and so at that moment of temptation, when I'm going to die in my passions and lusts, and should I give in, should I give in, the Bible says, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil, okay, so there's these two sides to this coin, okay, the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil, by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, but if we're feeding on this one side, in an imbalanced way, when we're faced with temptation, we'll be more prone to give in, and let's look real quick here at this, before we get into the John chapter 16, John chapter 16, verse 25, these things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs, but the time comes when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father, at that day you shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and I believe that I come out from him, so when somebody teaches you that God loves you unconditionally, it's just not something that Jesus taught, because notice here in verse 27, the Father himself loves you, why, because you've loved me, look over at chapter 14 there in John, John chapter 14, verse 21, he that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him, so if I read the scriptures, and I have Christ's commands, and I keep them or obey them, that is what manifests that I love him, you know, I can tell my wife I love you, I love you, I love you, and then cheat on her, and she's not going to care if I say I love you, my actions manifest if I love her or not, and he's saying that our obedience to him manifests our love for him, and then notice here it says, and he that loves me, it says, and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, see the condition there, you see, when I see what Christ teaches, and then obey, I'm showing through my obedience that I love him, okay, and this is not work salvation, okay, it's a love relationship, I'm not working with my marriage to, when I decide not to cheat on my wife, that's not works, it's love, I love her, and therefore, I don't want to cheat on her, and I love Jesus, therefore, I don't want to cheat on him with the world, and whenever I do cheat on him with the world, at that moment, my love grew cold, and that's why I cheated on with the world, so I manifest my love for Jesus through obedience to his word, and when I love him, the Father loves me, there's a condition there, so we need to be very careful to not be influenced by Dr. Phil and Oprah Winfrey, and a lot of the psychology that has crept into Christianity, and all these phrases that people say, and books that, Christian books that people read, and they sound good, you know, there's a novel that was going around about nine months ago, and a lot of people that I knew were reading this novel, and it was a really good story, but there's these phrases in this novel that, they're just not in the Bible, they're good, they sound good, but they're just, they're anti what Jesus is saying, they're going against what he's saying, look at chapter 15, I mean, it's really simple if we have childlike faith, and just believe it for what it says, verse 9, John 15, 9, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, continue in my love, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, so if this cup is God's love, okay, and say I were to take this, whose water is this, are you drinking it still, if I were to take this pick and put it in that cup, okay, that pick is now in that cup, okay, and if I said to that pick, stay in that cup, okay, Jesus is saying, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, but if you don't keep my commandments, yeah, you're still going to be in there anyways, is that what he's saying, no, no, so when I disobey Christ, am I still in his love, no, I mean, my three-year-old son could understand this, and let's keep reading here, verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, these things have I spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full, so he's not saying this to be some drag, he's saying, look, I want you to have joy, I want you to have peace, I want you to be fulfilled, that's why I'm telling you to obey me, not because I'm a boring, you know, ascetic god that wants you to live like a monk, no, I want you to be happy, I want you to have peace and joy, I tell my son, don't touch a hot stove, because I love my son, I tell my son, don't run around in the street when cars are coming down the road, why?

Because I'm mean, and I don't want him to run around the street, no, because I love him, and I don't want him to get by a car and die, and so God is saying, keep my commandments, so that your joy may be full, verse 12, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I've loved you, greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, verse 14, you are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you, see the condition there, like, it's so simple, you're my friends, if you do what I command you, and we need to remember this as we approach this subject of lust, okay, because this subject of lust, this is, you'll see it as the top sins in all the lists of sins in scripture, because it's the ultimate test of your love for Christ, it's the ultimate thing of, you're going to love me, the creator, or are you going to love what I've created, that was, that was the test in the Garden of Eden, okay, God created this fruit, but said, don't touch it, you're going to love what I created, it looks good, it feels good, it's going to make me wise, you're going to, he's, do you want fellowship with me, he's saying, or you want to eat that, and they chose the created over the creator, and that's the same thing today, when we get into this topic of lust, and so we need to approach this topic with a proper understanding of the fear of God and the love of God, because if we only have a one-sided God, when we're tempted to lust, we'll give in, because hey, God loves me anyways, real quick, look at Psalm chapter two, Psalm chapter two, verse 12, kiss the son, lest he be angry with you, and you perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled, but a little, blessed are they that put their trust in him, see the condition there, God's saying, kiss the son, or he'll be angry, chapter seven, real quick, verse 11, chapter seven, verse 11, God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day, and, and notice here, like, you'll hear sayings that, you know, sound good, and they're partly true, but not fully true, you know, God loves everybody, okay, but right here, it says, also, he's angry with the wicked every day, see, we need to have a proper fear of God, when we're approaching this topic of overcoming sin, okay, when I'm wicked, when I give into my sins, I'm wicked, and God is angry with me, because he is a God of love, he's angry with me, okay, this isn't some old testament view of God, that doesn't, like, suddenly God doesn't get angry with sin anymore, because he is a God of love, he does get angry when people go against him, look at chapter 11, real quick, verse five, the Lord tries the righteous, but the wicked, and him that loves violence, his soul hates, you mean God hates people's soul, I thought God loved everybody, it's what it says, if I love violence, God hates my soul, because God loves people, and I'm going against him, and, and the Lord hates it, you know, he hates violence, so it's, it's very important to understand this, this love of God aspect, look real quick, last verse in this topic, we'll get into the last, look at Jude, Jude, right before Revelation, and let's look at verse 20, but you, beloved, building yourselves up in the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, keep yourselves in the love of God, what does that mean, okay, I got the cup again, I'm in the love of God, here's the love of God, and I'm in it, whose responsibility is it for me to keep myself in God's love, anyone, here's mine, he says you keep yourself in the love of God, he doesn't say God's love is unconditional, he says you keep yourself in the love of God, God's love is there, but I have to keep myself in it, and so what that means is, when I, it's like a circle on the ground, when I walk outside of that circle, okay, I'm not in that love anymore, I have to repent, that 180 degree, I have to change my, my mind, I have to change my direction, and get back into God's love, and in God's love, as we saw in John, is obeying his commandments, if you obey my commandments, you will abide in my love, so that circle, what keeps me in that circle, is obedience, and when we look at this topic of lust, we need to see that the consequences are eternal, this isn't something that you should try to, you know, fight, but you know, but God still loves you, brother, and you know, you're still going to go to heaven when you die, this is a very serious topic, because it could cause us, if we continue to give in, to rebel against God, rebel against God, it could cause our hearts to become hard, and then we drift out of God's love, and you know, here, let's look at the first verse in Matthew chapter 5, very, you know, common verse that a lot of us have, you know, seen before, the whole Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has this theme, you know, in the Old Testament, it said, don't do this, but I say, don't even do this, okay, so here's the standard in the Old Testament, don't kill, but I say, don't even get angry, the standard is now raised, it's even higher, and what he's doing, he's going to the heart of the matter, see, if you can overcome anger, then you're not going to kill somebody, you know, how are you going to kill somebody, just being all nice to them, you know, so if we want to prevent people from killing people, let's go to the heart of the matter, which is anger, you know, the Old Testament said this about divorce, I say this, the Old Testament said this, I say it, it's all throughout the Sermon on the Mount, and we get to Matthew chapter 5, and look at verse 27, you have heard that it was said of old, you shall not commit adultery, but I say unto you, whosoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body should be cast into hell, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you, for it's more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than your whole body should be cast into hell.

Now let me ask you a question, is this legalism? No, it's loving, it's a loving God teaching us that I love you, I want you to be pure, so that when you come together with your wife, you'll have a pure relationship, that your heart will be towards her, when your heart will be towards your husband, and your heart will be towards me also, and that there's nothing that perverts that pureness, but he's also saying that if you do give in to impurity, and give in and you get defeated by it, you don't repent from it, you will eventually be cast into hell, and so what American Christianity has done with this teaching, many have said, well this isn't for Christians, because Christians are eternally secure, but if you read verse one, he spoke this to his disciples, people that were following him, and he's saying, look you disciples, those of you that are following me, this will send you to hell, I mean think about this, have you ever heard a preacher say, if you lust with your eyes, you will go to hell, I mean that's pretty blunt preaching, if you lust with your eyes, you will go to hell, but that's what Jesus is saying, and we need to see this in a serious, sober way, and notice just to be honest here, he says, if your eye is causing you to sin, pluck it out, meaning you have to take radical steps to cease from this sin, and me personally, I can't own a television, like it's like putting a bottle of Jack Daniels in front of a raging alcoholic that's trying to quit, I mean I can't sit there and flip through the channels, and eight out of ten women are dressed in a seductive way, and I can't see that again, and again, and again, and again, without it stirring up passion in me, I don't judge other people, if they're able to do it, great, I'm not, I can't do it, so that's like plucking my eye out, okay, and notice he says, if your hand causes you to sin, okay, what does that mean, think about it, how does your hand cause you to sin, men, cut it off, he's saying radically stop sinning, because if you don't, it's better to go to heaven with one hand than to hell with two, I got both of my hands, but I'm in hell, he's saying whatever it takes, whatever you have to get rid of in order to stop this sin, get rid of it, because the consequences are eternal, and so this is obedience, you see, it's a beautiful thing, it's not legalism, it's obedience, he's saying love obeys, he's saying, do you want to show me how much you love me, then obey me, and so it's like, yeah, but I've got these passions in me, I've got these lusts in me, and everything in my being wants to look at that girl, she's going down the street, and you know, I see the initial look, and whoa, okay, there's a pretty girl, and every part of my body is wanting to look again, okay, and at that moment, Jesus says, do you love me, and if I say, well, yeah, I love you, but just hold on, let me look again, that's it, and notice about this verse, okay, look at verse 27, or verse 28, if a man looks at a woman to lust, it doesn't say if he looks and lusts, okay, because a lot of times you might look, maybe you're at a red light, and a car pulls up beside you, and you see guys out of the corner of your eyes, it's a blonde girl, and you look to see if she's pretty, and you may look over, and it may be some biker guy, you know, but so you didn't lust, okay, but you looked with the intent to lust, that's the sin, you see, maybe you're sitting on your, maybe you're sitting on the front porch, she's jogging down the road, some girl's jogging down the road, and you look to see if she's pretty, okay, that's, it's the intent, okay, and so it's, you know, kind of define this a little bit, obviously, we're going to notice if somebody's pretty, obviously, we're going to notice if somebody's got, you know, a beautiful body, the initial look, and noticing that isn't the sin, okay, don't put yourself under this bondage of, oh my goodness, that girl was pretty, oh god, I'm sorry, no, that's not a sin, okay, you can't help, you're wrapped in a body, okay, and your body has passions and lust in it, and your body has things that it likes, and you know, some guys like women with long hair, and some guys like women with short hair, and so what may be attractive for you isn't attractive to me, different people are attracted to different things, but in you is this desire for certain things that are appealing to you, and noticing that initially isn't a sin, okay, and where it becomes a sin is when you're wanting to lust, you're wanting to look down at a girl's, you know, butt, you're wanting to look at a girl's breast, you're wanting to look, you know, and check this person out, you know, and you're looking, and then Jesus is saying, if you want to stop adultery, where do you stop it?