Heart Adultery Matthew 5:27-30

As I start out the sermon this morning, I want to give a little bit of a disclaimer that if if you're if you're young if you have a child who's Old enough to be in here, but but too old to go downstairs for Children's Church.

The topic is a little bit sensitive today, so I just want to warn you we're gonna be talking about The sin of lust so I just want to give you a heads up about that. And parents use your best discretion about whether or not to keep your kids in the service.

So this morning as we continue our sermon series through Matthew we are going to to see Jesus address a sin that is one of the most uncomfortable to talk about publicly and that of course is sexual sin and specifically the sin of lust.

Which is impure thoughts that that enter the mind At our church. We do not dodge any uncomfortable or controversial topics. What God says we proclaim and We believe it all is truth since it comes from his mouth and and only God speaks the truth completely.

Some sermons will make you feel Uncomfortable, but that's not a bad thing. If it's going to help us grow it deeper in in intimacy With the Lord then every uncomfortable sermon is well worth it. The sin of lust is something that everyone has dealt with.

Whether in large degree or small degree during one's journey through life. What we know from our experience and from Scripture is that this is a struggle that begins at a young age. 2nd Timothy 2 to Urges us to flee from youthful passions.

All right.

So so that word youthful tells us that this is something that is there early on. In our in our experience in life in this plea to flee certainly includes the sin of lust. That shows up in our adolescent years and will continue into our adult years if one does not deal with it.

But typically when we think of sexual sin we think only of physical immoral acts. These include but are not limited to sex before marriage, which is known as fornication sex outside of marriage, which is known as adultery and sex between the same gender which is known as homosexuality.

All of these are practiced widely by our culture and some of them even encouraged. The damaging effects of each of these are self-evident. If you do not do things God's way Then there will be some disorder and problems in one's life.

But sexual sin does not stop with the physical and that's and that's what the focus of this sermon is. Going to be it goes much deeper. All sins start in the heart and You can cross the line in your thoughts where it is still sin, even if you never act upon it in an act action.

So it can just be in the mind. And in the heart and still be a sin. We saw this last Sunday with the sin of anger. Right, you don't have just have to choose someone out or punch a wall. To be guilty of the sin of anger you can be angry in your heart.

You can hold bitterness towards somebody could have resentment towards someone and you might not even show it with your actions, but it's still Sinful as Jesus drove home last Sunday and the sin of lust is the same way.

In this sermon, we are going to see Jesus go after what is called heart adultery.

And.

May we see how damaging this sin is and may we all be persuaded and encouraged to purify our thought life. So this time I encourage you to turn with me in a Bible to Matthew chapter 5. We'll be looking at verses 27 through 30 and if you're using a red Bible in the pews is on page 963.

Heart Adultery in Matthew 5:27-30

The sermon is titled heart adultery. And what the sermon is calling each of us to do. What the text is calling each of us to do is to flee from lustful desires. That left unchecked will lead you to destruction.

We're gonna see two warnings. The first warning is this. Realize that adultery is committed in the heart not just action actions and we'll see this in verses 27 and 28. But before we jump into our text, let me give you a little recap of last week's sermon.

I already mentioned the sin of anger. But last week we looked at the first of six Explicit corrections to the rabbinic teachings that were formed after the Old Testament was written. What I mentioned is that many of the Jewish leaders during this intertestament period were false teachers.

They misunderstood much of the Old Testament and even added their own teachings to it. Last week in the first of six corrections. We saw Jesus tell the crowd That the Jewish leaders were right about the evil of murder, but their teaching on it was incomplete.

They thought that that is if you kill someone that was that was wrong and they were right. But what they didn't understand is that if you if you hated someone in your heart That was also a kind of murder.

It was it was a heart murder that was taking place. So what Jesus told the crowd is he's preaching the Sermon on the Mount. Which is where we're which is the sermon that we're looking at right now as he was preaching to the crowd what he told them.

Is that these Jewish leaders did not go far enough? They went wrong in their understanding of obeying the law. What they thought is that if you simply kept the law outwardly you would be considered righteous by God.

But they forgot about your inward motivation. God cares about what is happening inside of us in our obedience. When Jesus addressed murder he addressed the seeds of murder anger. And what Jesus told the crowd and us is that each believer needs to address the serious sin of anger.

Toward others.

What we saw is that we need to take care of our heart not just actions. This was the first warning from last Sunday and what this means is not holding bitterness and resentment Toward others, but we need to have forgiveness.

We need to forgive others as God has forgiven us. And the second warning that Jesus told us is that we needed to develop the habit of pursuing peace quickly With others if our worship toward God is going to be pure.

Then we can't have all this anger and bitterness in our heart toward others. He wants us to deal with that and if we deal on a horizontal level with others. Then our relationship with God vertically is going to be so much better.

Now this leads us to our text this morning. And by the way, all the sermons are online. So if you missed last Sunday, you can go and listen to that sermon. But I hope that recap helped a little bit. And by the way, I might be coughing a little bit here.

So every couple minutes I might be coughing so just try to ignore that as best as you can. So let's read verses 27 through 30 and then we will dig into what the text is telling us this morning. Jesus said here you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right hand 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. If 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's a very very strong words from the Lord Jesus Jesus. Jesus for the second time begins with the statement in verse 27. You have heard that it was said and once again, he's not correcting the Jewish leaders here.

He is just about to go into showing where they could have done better in Their teaching and as we'll see later on when he says you have heard that it was said. He's completely corrects what they say, but here he's saying.

They didn't go deep enough. So let's take a closer look at how Jesus goes deeper in the second half of verse 27 where he says. Sorry verse 28. He says everyone who looks at a woman With lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

What Jesus does in this verse is he quotes once again from the Ten Commandments. The Sixth Commandment in Exodus 2014 says you shall not commit adultery. I Already mentioned what adultery is above adultery is when a married man or woman has sex outside of marriage.

When the sinful act is committed the covenant that you made between your spouse and God has been violated. The rabbis who taught the common people Rightly taught the masses you should not have physical relations outside of marriage.

But if you stop there, what you say is incomplete. God does not just care about external obedience as we have seen but heart obedience also. So this shallowness is. The correction that Jesus makes to the Jewish leaders the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament.

He never Changes. Jesus was not bringing some new teaching To the crowd, but he was teaching what God has had always taught his people. God in the Old Testament cared about the heart. And he does in the New Testament to.

The greatest commandment in Deuteronomy 6 5 tells us to love God with all of our hearts. And as we saw last week God was not Impressed when Israelites would offer sacrifices at the temple and they would just do it outwardly as an but it was not An act of worship.

It was not done out of devotion to him. It is interesting That the Lord addressed heart adultery in the Tenth Commandment. Okay, so the Pharisees are teaching these people for hundreds of years and they're saying do not commit adultery and all they mean is physical adultery and They're and they're pointing to the the commandment in the Ten Commandments but the Tenth Commandment That addresses the issue of adultery.

The Tenth Commandment says this you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. So so the commandment is addressing coveting. You shouldn't have this desire for what is not yours. Whatever it might be and one of those things might be your neighbor's spouse.

And it was prohibited now covening is a heart sin. This is not some sin you that you you you can you act it out of course by stealing but covening itself is is purely a heart sin and the Pharisees Overlooked that.

But Jesus is saying it's right here. When you commit the sin of lust you are also committing the sin of coveting. You are desiring something that is not yours. You are desiring a woman or a man that is not your spouse.

This can be done by both married and unmarried people so heart adultery is addressed in the Old Testament, and this is what Jesus goes after in verse 28 as We have just read and I will remind you he says.

Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So Jesus is agreeing with what the 10th commandment says where it says you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.

You know you will notice in verse 28 that Jesus mentions the sin of looking at a woman with lustful intent. And he does not say looking at a man. But we can certainly draw the conclusion that both are in mind.

This is the sin of lust is not just exclusive to men. It is something that that women struggle with.

To.

This attractiveness that God designs for men and women to have for each other is good. It's God's good design. But it's God's good design that has gone bad. And it's gone bad because our sinful heart leads us to take what God has meant for good and Distort it into something evil.

Let me explain. God created men and women to have An attractive appearance where the opposite sex would be attracted to the other. When a man is attractive we call him handsome. When a woman is attractive we call her beautiful.

God created you To be attracted to the opposite sex and and to pursue only one of the opposite sex in.

Marriage.

But sin turns this attraction Into a free-for-all we're looking at anyone and everyone in an impure way is promoted in our culture. In the winter Brianna and I we like to take the kids to Mall of America, and I'm not sure if you're like me, but I Go crazy in the winter.

I'm one of those. I love to be outside. Especially on those below-zero days. I just go nuts right. I hate being inside. So we like to go to Mall of America because there's a lot of places to move around.

It's not claustrophobic. Unless it's a really crowded day then it sometimes it can be. And there's a Disney store there that Aletheia enjoys so we go there on some of our days off in the winter. I'm a problem with going to Mall of America.

Or any mall for that matter is there are images of women and men With very little clothing outside of some stores. Only the husband of that woman should see her like that and only the wife of the husband should see him like that and Sadly the model whose picture is there is out for anybody to see and just anybody who walks by.

So that this is not God's design. This is why when I'm at a mall I intentionally look ahead and Brianna warns me about a store where one of these images is and and vice versa. We will touch on how to handle these environments a little more in the next point.

What lust is is? God's good design gone bad because a man should be attracted to his wife and a wife to her husband. Where they can enjoy? Physical.

Intimacy.

Now.

There's obviously qualifiers right we when you notice someone who's attractive. That's that's that's not sin, right? You're gonna notice that right you're gonna notice a beautiful mountain, right? You're gonna notice a beautiful stream.

You're gonna notice which is that which is pleasing to your sight, but the question is what do you do with that? Do you go do you entertain it in a way that crosses a line now? What would God design right is that is that this attractiveness would be would be met in the context of marriage and There would be this vulnerability.

For a man or woman in marriage where where the husband and wife would have that experience together God gives the strong desire for the opposite sex to be satisfied in marriage but once again our sinful society twists it and takes God's good gift and makes it ugly and They call it beauty they even use they use those words.

Now what Jesus is saying is That we should not focus on anyone who is not our spouse in a lustful manner. And if you are not married you should not think of another woman or man in a lustful manner. And this is not easy.

We know this since our natural sinful desire is to believe the lie. That it's okay, just to have a thought every once in a while what harm will that do. But to think this is a lie to think of another woman or man in a lustful manner is to commit adultery as Jesus has told us and the technical term is hard adultery, which is which is the title of this sermon and There are damaging effects to this.

What scripture teaches is that there are different degrees to sin and therefore different deferring degrees of consequences. To have physical adultery means that your family life will be greatly damaged.

The consequences to physical adultery are evident when when we see it and the person who commits physical adultery brings trouble upon him or herself and Hurts their family and many other others in the process and and and and if you're a believer it really damages your relationship with God and.

And hopefully if you're an unbeliever it brings you to your knees to God. To commit physical adultery is never worth it and the consequences show the mess that it leaves. But to commit hard adultery and that's the that's what the main focus is here.

Because that's what Jesus is focusing on here in the text is Also damaging if you are longing for another woman or man, that is not your spouse. Then this will obviously affect your marriage. It's always sweet to see a man and woman Following the Lord and deeply in love with one another.

We can think of these marriages. We have these in our church. And do you know why? This these marriages are so healthy. They still long for one another even into old age. Even when physical appearance has waned and they are so tied to the wife or husband of their youth.

That they gag at the thought of longing for another man or woman. Or if they are tempted they hate the temptation because they know how bad it is and how destructive it would be. The Old Testament book song of Solomon.

It's one of those books in the Bible where we wonder is this does this really belong in the Bible and you realize? Yes, it does. It's such a wonderful book. This book shows how beautiful romance is between a man and a woman in marriage.

All right, and the and the and the images are pretty graphic. But it's but it's holy because it's it's this is a man and a woman in the context of this God-given marriage that he has beautifully designed.

It is right and good to long for one another emotionally physically.

And.

Your spouse is someone that you trust care for and respect. If you commit heart adultery by longing for another woman or man It will hurt it will hurt your marriage. So there are consequences. It will cause you to move further from your spouse and your close connection that God desires for you to have will fade.

And even more important your relationship with God will be harmed because God really cares about how you view Your spouse and God wants you to treasure your spouse. He wants you to be romantic with your spouse he wants you to only long for your spouse and no one else.

And If we let our mind go in places it should not go.

Then.

We then the Lord's not pleased and and you will feel the effects of that in your marriage. So the consequences are they're not. Because there's different degrees of consequences. They're not as severe as physical doctor, but there still is Consequences and they're not good for committing heart adultery.

But I also warn all of us that physical adultery always Starts as heart adultery and if you do not take care of your heart, it can always lead to physical adultery. Which is the worst kind? That being said we should not be content with lustful thoughts saying you know what?

I'm I'm never gonna go to that point because Even if we never do go to that point the lustful thoughts themselves Cause problems and and we must turn from those and that's what Jesus is calling us to do in this text so flee from lustful desires that left unchecked will lead you to destruction.

And the first warning that we receive from Jesus is To realize that adultery is committed in the heart not just actions. Now I just mentioned Consequences that you will experience in your life through either physical or heart adultery but in the next point Jesus touches on how unrepentant lustful thoughts Leads to very severe eternal consequences.

The Warning of Hell and the Call to Radical Repentance

And so our second warning is this deal with impure thoughts to avoid serious consequences and you can even put their eternal Consequences. We'll see this in verses 29 and 30. What Jesus does in the first two verses of this passage is to address that physical adultery is not the only adultery that takes place.

But heart adultery as we have seen but now he urges action to take place based on what he has just said. So let's let's read what Jesus says here the action that he calls for in verses 29 and 30. He says once again 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 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.

What you will notice is that Jesus does not want us to take this literally, okay. I don't even need to say that it's pretty obvious. He Jesus is not prescribing self mutilation here in your fight against lust.

But this illustration that Jesus gives we need to understand to help us fight this in our lives. What you will notice is that Jesus mentions the right eye in the right hand. Okay, he doesn't mention the left hand.

He mentions the right. So if we're being careful readers here, we need to say. Okay, what why is he saying the right and not the left? Well, I'm glad you asked in Jewish culture. The right direction as opposed to the left was considered to be more important.

What scripture teaches is that Jesus sits right now? Where does he sit right now? God's right hand. That is the most important seat that one could sit. And that's why he it's just the place of blessing.

And it's the right hand and not the left. Jesus sits at the place of honor in heaven. The right is more important. With this is with this understanding. This is what Jesus is saying here. He's talking about importance.

When Jesus says that you are to gouge out your right eye and cut off your right hand to fight off lust. He is stressing doing what it takes to take care of this damaging heart sin. This means that we need to be willing to give up whatever Might lead us to lust and it might even be things that we deem important to us the most important thing in our life is To pursue God and his righteousness and if anything causes us to lust.

Getting in the way of that then we need to give it up and he says gouge it out. Okay, which is of course a metaphor here. And so that which causes us to sin lustfully we need to deal with so if being around a certain person of The opposite sex causes you to lust then draw boundaries with that person.

Even if you value their friendship. If being on certain internet sites causes you to lust then avoid going there. I mean some sites we should avoid all together now, but there's other sites new sites for example that aren't bad in themselves, but sometimes they have these ads in the pop-up and.

And if you go to certain sites where you tend to see ads pop up be very careful. Go in with caution. Go in with a careful eye so that you do not stumble if thinking of. If thinking of a certain person makes you have a lustful thought then replace that thinking with thoughts of God or Pray for that person when they come to mind so that you don't think of them.

As an object that satisfies your your sinful desire, but as someone created in the image of God God wants us. To think of those who are not our spouse as very as valuable okay, and when we When we think of them in a lustful manner.

We just treat them like they're like they're a piece of meat like they're an object. That's it when in reality everybody every human being is created in the image of God.

If.

If there's if there is a woman who is not a believer We should see that this is someone who's created in the image of God and that should help us not think of them as an object. And if we think about a Fellow brother or sister in Christ we should think of them just as that a brother and sister in Christ.

It helps for me to think of it this way like my sister. I have two sisters. I have a sister and I have a sister-in-law and I and I would never even think of them in that way. I think of them only as my precious sisters.

And so the Lord has taught me to think of every woman as My fellow sisters in Christ as sisters in Christ. First Timothy 5 to this is what Paul told Timothy says. Treat younger women as sisters in all purity and women are also to treat men as brothers.

And If we do this this this helps you fight the sin of lust. Now the key to defeating lust is to do what it takes to kill that sin in your life. We are able to see progress in our lives when we have control over our desires as the Spirit helps us.

Romans 8 13 says. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. That is such a wonderful verse it's a team effort between you and the Holy Spirit, that's how you defeat any sin.

The Apostle Paul Teaches us to have control over our sins because it because if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. You have died to your sin and you have the spirit in your life. So the sin that once had domination over you no longer has domination over you.

First Corinthians 9 25 to 27 he describes it in this way he says. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly.

I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. Then he writes in another place in Romans 6 12 through 14.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. But present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you. Since you are not under law, but under grace. So if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord Savior and treasure you have the Holy Spirit. And you are able to kill this sin in your life the sin of lust.

You don't have to be in bondage like you once were so do not let it control you. As I mentioned above the key here is to do. What we need to do and and to do what we need to do we need to have the desire to carry this out.

We need to have we need to have the desire to have victory over this in our life. The fight for lust requires boundaries. Yes, as I mentioned already, but we must not stop there. If you think that removing boundaries takes care of the whole problem, then then you are mistaken.

During church history. There were people known as monastics and what they did is they locked themselves away. Separating themselves from the temptations of the world. And they thought you know if we just eliminate the temptation, then I don't ever have to worry about this sin ever again.

But removing oneself does not take away the problem right. Because no matter where you go. You're still there right the heart goes with you. You can take away the internet you can take away shopping malls.

You can take away TV. You could cut yourself off from anyone who might cause you to lust, but the problem does not go away. Just because you do that again doing those things Might be appropriate in fact.

I think that's what Jesus is is telling us to gouge it out. He's telling us to put up put up these. Put up these boundaries and to do what we need to do to take care of it. But the biggest problem is our heart and that and and that is with you is as Barb just Said it's with you no matter wherever you go no matter what your surroundings are.

What the monastics did is not biblical right we know this because does God want us just to lock ourselves away. Do you think of how selfish that is God wants us to be there for others? To be useful to others.

And how can we do that if we're locked away. And Jesus says in John 17 that we're not just what he said he said of the father. He said I don't I don't want you to take them out of the world. But that you keep them from the evil one.

Okay, so one way to say it is that we are in the world. But not of the world we are not to live as hermits. The root of what Jesus is after is the heart if that desire is there to pursue God as you fight lust.

The Lord will honor that and you will see progress. All right, if you want to change, that's a good thing because progress is coming. And this is why Jesus says what he do whatever it takes to fight lust those temptations Will come and when they come you need to fight either the physical temptation before you or a thought that comes into your mind.

And first Corinthians 618 says flee from sexual immorality and I'm like I said that might be physical it might be leaving a place that causes you to stumble or it might be just Leaving the place in your mind where your mind it might go.

To have the sincere desire to turn from sexual sin shows that one wants true joy in God over the false joy of sexual sin. The serious problem is for one to be content with heart adultery and never deal with it.

That was the problem of the Jewish leaders. They were okay as Long as people that as long as the society didn't see them fall Where it was a public sin. They thought they were okay. They thought they were good with God as long as they just they didn't commit the physical act of adultery.

But as we see in our text heart adultery is worth is worthy of sending one to hell.

Forever.

This is the frightening part of this passage the unrepentant sin of lust has sent and will send many people to hell. And Jesus is warning that right here He's saying do what it takes take care of it now because if you don't this could turn into something so bad.

Where you reach a point where your heart is so hard that you can't repent. If you have no conviction over lust and no sincere desire to change. And then this shows you to be an unbeliever. This sin like every other sin will send you to hell.

On what unless you throw yourself upon the mercy of God? And this is where we need to be reminded of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you are here today and not a believer believe in Christ, he went to the cross to die.

So that you might live he died for your sins. He died in your place. He died on this on the cross for the sin of lust. In whether thought or deed. And what we must understand about ourselves is that we are far more sinful than we could ever imagine.

If someone were to put an image of our thoughts throughout our life on that screen for everybody to see. Would you want that? That'd be a little unnerving wouldn't it? Every one of us would fall short and then and then Romans 323 it would really take on.

The truest meaning you've ever seen. Where it says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God because our thoughts are filthy so often. And even as a pastor, I'm like wow, I can't believe that thought this went through my mind.

Just because you just because you pursue pastoral ministry doesn't mean okay, you're good. No, you got a fight to just as hard as anybody and maybe even harder because I sometimes I feel like maybe I'm being attacked maybe even more.

But this this is a war that we're all in.

Together.

There truly is no one righteous. We need Jesus Christ and He paid for these sins at the cross. So we must flee from lustful desires that left unchecked will lead you to destruction. And as Jesus is speaking to this crowd Overlooking the Sea of Galilee He's speaking to each of us and he gives us two warnings that we have seen.

We need to realize that adultery is committed in the heart not just actions. And the second warning is to deal with impure thoughts to avoid serious.

Consequences as.

We look at this what we need to realize is that the heart at the heart of every sin is idolatry. We want something more than God and when you want something more than God you've committed. Idolatry and lust is like that.

Pastor John Piper, that's a name that many of you are familiar with a well-known pastor. He has this quote here that I think is very helpful. He says we need to fight pleasure with pleasure. Right. Why don't why do we why do we fall into the sinful lust?

It feels good. Why don't we follow God. It feels good. It's better. It's a it's a superior joy. It's a real joy. It's a true joy. So you so if you pursuing Christ. If you're hungering thirsting for righteousness sake if you're finding your joy in the Lord.

Then this this this piddly Sin this unsatisfying sin of lust. Well, you'll you will see it for what it is. I Lost is like a mirage.

You know, I.

Think I've heard this before but you know, you see those old cartoons. I remember watching these cartoons as a child and. And they see some they're in the desert and they see this well of water way in the distance.

And they go and and go and go and they finally get there and they think oh I finally got to the water and they realize their mind. It was just playing games with them. There was nothing there. That's what that's what lust is like.

You think it's going to satisfy you and there's nothing there.

Nothing.

But with God, there's always fullness. Always fullness. There's all he he always satisfies you fully and forever and we must always Believe what the scriptures tell us about how God forever satisfies us in that way.