Self-Control Crucifies Lust

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 Is it sacred or is it sinful? Uh, those seem to be the two options when it comes to thinking about sexuality. The only two options, it seems like, uh, sacred. It’s a beautiful union between a man and a woman that should be guarded and protected. It somehow reflects the beauty of the intimacy that God desires to have with his people.

Even the secular world outside of the Christian sphere, the walls of the church seem to idolize and worship sex, uh, people’s lives. Lives are aimed at it, identities shaped by it. Sinful. We don’t like to talk about it. Now, growing up, I always thought that. Love songs that weren’t explicitly about God. They weren’t worship songs, but they were like romantic love songs about a man to a woman or a woman to man.

Uh, were inherently sinful just because they weren’t directed at God. And that wasn’t something that I was taught. It was just kind of assumed because of how infrequently I heard good romantic relationships between men and women described in the church. They weren’t playing these songs on Christian radio.

In fact, bands like Switchfoot, uh, were kind of like a little edgy ’cause they would write their worship songs so vaguely that it could apply to God or it could apply to your girlfriend. I don’t know. Frederick Buchner, the author and Presbyterian pastor, wrote, sex is sinful to the degree that instead of drawing you closer to other human beings and their humanness, it unites bodies, but leaves the lives inside them hungrier and more alone than before.

So sacred or sinful. Oh, it seems again, for Christians and non-Christians alike, regardless of how we view and approach sex, there seems to be an underlying assumption, whether we idolize it or downplay it, that sex has some kind of inherent value, potential and maybe even danger even if we don’t exactly know what that is.

And so this morning, uh, we’ve got one deadly sin left. Now, if you’ve been gathering with us the past couple of months, you’ve been a part of our lint series, looking at the seven deadly sins, technically eight, we’ll get there in a minute. Uh, and how the fruit of the spirit help us combat them. So far, here’s what we’ve covered.

Love, crucifying, greed, joy, crucifying, gluttony, peace, crucifying envy, patience, crucifying, sloth, kindness, crucifying, anger, faithfulness, crucifying, fickleness, gentleness, crucifying, pride. Now technically. Uh, lent is over. Uh, and the church calendar actually moves from a season of fasting to a season of feasting.

In fact, historically, Easter tide, which is the season of Easter, is celebrated for the 50 days between Easter and then Pentecost in June. But here at Passion Creek, uh, we messed with the calendar a little bit. That’s right. And I, I’m, I’m gonna say this was intentional though. I don’t think it was. I think this was actually a mistake.

We added a deadly sin. So if you’re counting, this is technically the eighth deadly sin, but that’s okay. We did an intro sermon that put us a week behind. So all that to say before we move on, we’ve got one more deadly sin to cover, and then next week will be fun. Yes, lust. Now, before we start, I wanna say that the Bible gives both direct teaching and indirect examples of how humans should view sex and practice sexuality.

Scripture in fact, is full of stories showing both the beautiful and the disastrous ways that people have used and abused sex. Right? It doesn’t shy away from the reality of sexual brokenness. In fact, the Bible is very clear that since the beginning of time, humanity has been sexually broken. For example, after Adam and Eve, the first humans created in the Garden of Eden are kicked out of that garden for introducing sin, evil, death, and wickedness to the world.

We get their descendants a few generations later, taking multiple wives for themselves. This is a kind of sexual malpractice that will become the norm for centuries to follow. And from there, it just gets worse and worse. Now, I say all of this to say that by nature of being human. And by nature of us living in a hypersexualized western culture, all of us, every single one of us in this room is in some way sexually broken.

Right? Right now we all come into this conversation with baggage that comes from experiences, opinions, or thoughts that shape how we respond to any mention of sex, especially in the church. I promise though, today is not going to be an in-depth, explicit discussion on sex. Uh, so you just relax, it’s gonna be okay.

And I’m saying that mainly to myself. So it’s just I like shaking. All right. No. Now, if you’d like a roadmap on where we’re going, here it is, uh, what lust isn’t, we’re gonna talk about first and we’re gonna talk about what lust is, and then we’re gonna end with what we actually do about it. So you ready?

Yeah. Alright. If you have a Bible, please turn to Matthew chapter five. Now. Matthew chapter five is the, uh, first book, Matthew’s the first book of the New Testament. Uh, and Matthew five is the beginning of what’s been historically called the Sermon on the Mount. It is a collection of Jesus’ teachings that give a picture of what life in the kingdom of God looks like.

And so this whole sermon is kind of structured this way. Jesus takes an idea that was commonly held and believed in that time among the Israelite people or the Jews, and he deconstructs it, these views about what people had regarding what it meant to live a good life. Then he actually shows us how God actually designs us to live.

So the common formula is you have heard that it was said, but I say to you, so go and do this thing. Three steps, three point sermon. They’re all pretty easy to follow. Now, this part of the Sermon on the mound actually gives us what I think might be the most helpful teaching on the deadly sin of lust in the whole Bible.

So with that, let’s read this teaching from Jesus. Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 27. Now you’ve heard that it was said, do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman, lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away for it’s better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to 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 the parts of your body than for your whole body to go to hell. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery.

And whoever marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.

So, uh, so a few thoughts. Uh, first, if we’re going for a plain reading of the text. This is really harsh, at least on the surface from Jesus. Don’t look at women, and if you do, you’re basically having an affair with her. So go ahead and cut off your hand, poke your eyes out so you never do it again, and maybe then you won’t go straight to hell when you die and also never get divorced.

Right now, it seems impossible to follow this teaching from Jesus, or at least it seems like stereotypically religious antisexual repression. Jesus either comes off like a prude monk who wants us to repress our biological inclinations to procreate, or like a religious zealot holding his followers to an impossibly high aesthetic standard.

In fact, this is why there’s a major popular interpretation of this entire sermon on the Mount that basically says, yeah, this is an impossibly high standard to follow, and Jesus means to set the bar so high so that you can actually see that you need a savior. In other words, you don’t actually need to follow this.

You’re supposed to try it. Realize you can’t actually do this and say, well, it’s all. There, but the grace of God, I go and practically just personally, I don’t really buy that interpretation. Amen. Now, Jesus himself starts this whole sermon by saying that whoever teaches others not to live by these commands that he’s gonna give, including what we just read, will be essentially shamed in the kingdom of God.

And then he ends this whole sermon in Matthew chapter seven by saying whoever hears this teaching and then puts it into practice will be like a man who built his house on a strong foundation. In other words, I fully believe that Jesus intends on some level for us to actually live this out. Yeah. With the help of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God, of course.

Right? Right. So is Jesus a religious prude, a zealous, fanatic? Or he, God incarnate, coming to us as a brilliant teacher, a rabbi, to show us what life in the kingdom really looks like. So let’s work back through Jesus’ teaching line by line to figure out what he’s not talking about. Starting with verse 27, you have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery.

Now, Jesus is quoting the 10 Commandments here. Uh, it’s actually technically the seventh commandment, which says literally that do not commit adultery. It was defined adultery by having any kind of sexual relationship with someone other than your spouse, which is easy enough at this point. I mean, it’s pretty easy to tell whether you’ve done that or not, and just to set the standard, this is what all Christians believe is the standard of sexual like.

Practice in the kingdom of God as followers of Jesus. We would say yes. Any kind of so, uh, sexual, uh, relationship or activity that takes place outside of your relationships with your spouse is sexual immorality. It’s what Paul will talk about throughout his letters in one Corinthians, especially, where he says, if you commit this kind of sexual sin, you’re doing something to your own body.

And we’ve talked at length in the past about how important it is to view our bodies as agents of God’s goodness and temples of the Holy Spirit. So that’s where Jesus starts. You’ve heard that it was said, just don’t do that, verse 28. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So Jesus is kind of raising the bar here. In fact, among the audience of people that are listening to this teaching from Jesus would’ve been the Pharisees who were people that considered themselves righteous, meaning in right standing with God by way of moral and religious purity, simply because it’s pretty easy to not actually commit physical adultery.

So let’s start with what lust isn’t first. Lust is not just behavior.

Now, growing up, most of the teachings on lust that I’ve heard at least, and I’m sure there are great ones out there, and again, we all have different experiences with this, but personally, most of the teachings on lust and this passage in particular that I’ve heard have all kind of fall short because they relapse into the very habits and old ways of thinking that Jesus is trying to break his listeners out of.

Well, as long as I don’t actually act out any of my fantasies or desires, I’m good. I’m in the clear. Or more oftenly. How it was presented was, okay, so this is what Jesus says. You don’t wanna go to hell. You don’t wanna commit adultery. You’re like 16, uh, fix your behavior and then you’re in the clear, just stop doing this external thing and you’ll be okay.

In fact, the purity movement of the early, late nineties and early two thousands put a heavy emphasis on the behavior. And for a lot of people, that was a really good thing. But for many, they were left, uh, with good behaviors, but still sexually broken undealt with lust in their hearts. But if Jesus was a prude who’s after repressing our desires, then he would’ve just stopped at the behavior.

Now, Jesus does point to where lust ends, but it’s not through our external bodies. You’ve already committed adultery in your heart, right? Is what Jesus says. See the bad response, and I think our impulse. Two. The deadly sin of lust is trying our hardest not to look lustfully at other people. And that’s good.

You shouldn’t do that. Yeah, but that’s incomplete. This response is what Dallas Willard calls changing the act without treating the source. Easy to do, easy to measure, but misses the point completely. The deadly sin of lust. What Jesus is calling out here certainly involves our behaviors, but it is much more than that.

And honestly, this is both good news and bad news, and so good news, if you are someone in this, uh, this church congregation, I never know what to call you guys. If you’re in these walls here in this room, now you’re not an audience, but it’s anyways, and you struggle with sexual sin or addiction, Jesus is not coming at you with shame here.

Right? The actual act of sexual immorality certainly involves lust. But Jesus is addressing a certain type of person here and a specific type of heart condition. And that’s kind of the bad news because Jesus is addressing something deep inside the human heart. It’s much more difficult to notice, diagnose, and treat, right?

In fact, trying to fix lust by changing our behaviors and leaving it at that is like trying to cure cancer with a bandaid. In other words, like all of the other deadly sins that we’ve talked about, lust isn’t primarily something you do externally, but something you do internally, right? And so the problem is, at least according to Jesus, there is a way for you to lust without actually committing the physical sin of sexual immorality.

The Desert Fathers and mothers. These were men and women who went through extreme lengths to limit their literal ability to exercise. Lust found that even after eliminating all possible outlets for sexual immorality or lust, they couldn’t get away from lust. For example, Eva Pontus writes The demons war with secular people more than objects, but with monks they do so, especially through thoughts for monks are deprived of objects because of their solitude.

Further, to the extent that it is easier to sin in thought than in action. So is the warfare in thought more difficult than that, which is conducted through objects For the mind is a thing easily set in motion and difficult to check in its tendency towards unlawful fantasies, which is a really long way of saying you don’t have to commit the act to commit the sin.

Even if you were to live like a monk and eliminate all possibilities of exercising your lust, you can still lust. And so Jesus is calling out something that first happens in our hearts and minds before it happens through our buddies, but bodies. But that leads to the second thing, that lust isn’t Lust is not just desire, right?

Right. So there’s a translation issue here that many versions, uh, just kind of miss the point of or don’t get. Right. Uh, there’s an important preposition in the original Greek. It’s the word proce. Can you say that? Pro that means two scholars agree that the better way to translate this verse is whoever looks at a woman to lust after her.

Or I think the ESV captures it well with lustful intent. In other words, whoever looks at another person. With the intention of lusting after them has committed adultery with them already. I wanna be careful here because I’m not saying that it’s okay to ogle at attractive people if it happens by accident, but I am saying that there is a huge difference between being attracted to someone and lusting after them, Saint Augustine or Augustine, depending on how educated you are, uh, which is, which in his commentary on this passage says this.

And of course, we must bear in mind that he did not say whoever lust after a woman, but that he said, who whosoever looks at a woman to lust after her. That means whoever fixes his attention on her with the aim and intention of lusting after her. That is not the same as to experience a sensation of carnal pleasure, but it is the giving of such full consent that the aroused desire for it is not repressed, but would be satisfied if opportunity presented itself or a more modern scholar, Dallas Willard puts it this way.

We must be careful to recognize that sexual desire is not wrong as a natural uncultivated response any more than anger is or pain. It has a vital function in life, and as long as it performs that function, it is good and it is a good and proper thing. Moreover, when we only think of sex with someone we see or simply find him or her attractive, that is not wrong and certainly is not what Jesus calls adultery in the heart.

Merely to be tempted sexually requires that we think of sex with someone we are not married to and that we desire the other person. Usually, of course, someone we see. But temptation also is not wrong, though. It should not be willfully entered. Jesus himself came under it, experienced it, and understood it.

In other words, just like anger, sadness, pain, fear, hunger, your initial impulse to recognize beauty in another person and to feel desire as a response to that beauty is not wrong. You are literally biologically wired this way, and that is a good thing. That’s how you have kids. So what we’re not talking about is desire.

Billy Graham famously summarized this passage by essentially saying, you can’t help the first glance, but you can help the second. The experience of noticing that someone is attractive, even the experience of personally being attracted to someone isn’t necessarily sinful. That’s temptation, which again, isn’t wrong because even Jesus experienced temptation.

But in that moment, as with all other deadly sins, we have a choice. Greed, do we act on it by taking what’s not ours gluttony? Do we indulge in it by giving into our cravings for more envy? Do we feed it by finding false catharsis and harboring bitterness towards others? Sloth? Do we sit with it by avoiding pain and giving into apathy, anger?

Do we fuel it by stewing on it and fanning it? See, lust starts with a second look. And we notice beauty and we feel an impulse of desire for sexual gratification. And then we feed that impulse. We use the body of another person for our own pleasure and gain. We simplify someone’s worth in that moment, at least to what they can give us, what they can do for us and how they make us feel.

And in that way, lust is ultimately about control. Right? And that’s exactly what makes lust a deadly sin. It’s not just desire and it’s not just behavior, but it’s how the overlap of our desires and our behaviors put people in our cross hairs and lust is like pulling the trigger. Hmm, wow. Which is exactly why Jesus connects the dots between lust and divorce.

So verse 31, it was also said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in the case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Now it’s kind of odd for Jesus to jump from lust into like technical divorce practices.

It seems like he’s on some kind of like sexual tirade against people who have brokenness in their relationships. And a lot of people have come to shame based on their experiences from this teaching of Jesus. And I wanna say, this is not a teaching on divorce. There’s a lot of nuance that should go here.

And I am not interested in black and white blanket statements that ostracize people or put people into categories based on their experiences. But what Jesus is doing here is he is actually weighing in on an ancient rabbinical debate regarding the interpretation of a specific verse in Deuteronomy 24.

So.

You wanna talk about it? Cool. I wrote a paper on this recently, which is why I’m really excited to share this now in the Old Testament, the Book of Deuteronomy is a book written by Moses to give laws and parameters to the Israelites. These were God’s people who had just been, uh, freed from slavery, uh, in Egypt.

And so they’re wandering the wilderness, trying to figure out how do we form a society? We don’t have any laws to govern us. How do we live? And so Moses inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes, uh, these law books that explain the social codes and what should happen in certain situations. Now, at that time, in that part of the world, a man could divorce a woman for any reason and then kick her out of his property.

Moses in Deuteronomy 24 gives a law saying that a man who divorces his wife for any reason must give her a certificate of divorce. It was a document that provided legal and social protection for her in a time, and an environment where divorced women would’ve been the most vulnerable. But then a debate broke out between rabbis and other men who wanted to know, wait, did you just say I could divorce my wife for any reason?

All I have to do is give her a document that says I did it, which missed the point completely. Now, the most popular response to that question in Jesus Day was, yes. Any reason as long as you give her that paper that she’s divorced, and kind of to put it crudely, fair game. Don’t like her cooking, divorce, just give her the paper.

Don’t like how she treats you divorce. Just give her the paper. Don’t like the in-laws divorce. Give her the paper. Don’t like the sex divorce.

So Jesus comes in a world where men had the power to separate themselves from their wives if their sexual desires were not satisfied. And he comes into that world teaching a better and truer way of the kingdom. If you divorce your wife for any reason other than actual physical adultery, you’re the adulterer, which if we’re playing this game, I imagine Jesus’ listeners are hearing is a law punishable by death according to Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

In other words, you are the problem, not your spouse. Jesus is essentially saying this, the end result of lust is the objectification, manipulation, and I don’t mean this politically, so calm down, oppression of the very people that you are supposed to care the most about. Lust is the use and manipulation of others for your own pleasure.

It’s the desire for excess at the expense of others. So do you see what we’re naming here? Lust is about sexual sin. Yes. And it is about warped desires. Yes. But sexual sin is a symptom, not the diagnosis before it’s a sexual affair. A one night stand or an internet relapse, thus starts as an uncontrollable desire to get something from someone else at almost any cost.

Wow. Wow. Whether an actress or model on the internet, your office mate at work, your next door neighbor, or the person you see outside on your commute to work every day, lust is a deadly sin. Not just because of what it does to us, but also because of what it makes us do to others. Lust overrides our desire to serve and love others, no matter the cost to ourselves and replaces it with a desire to serve and love ourselves, no matter the cost to others.

Say it, rather than sacrificing our will for the good of others, we sacrifice others at the altar of our will, and this does happen. Sexually affairs one night stands pornography. Whatever sexual sin you’re thinking of probably starts with lust. But lust, I would argue, is so much more than sexual sin.

Historically, the deadly sin of lust has encompassed everything that defines excess at the expense of others. All of us then are guilty of this. We use others to make ourselves look better, feel better, or be seen by others. See, lust is ultimately about reducing people’s worth to the value that they can bring us.

Wow. And to Jesus, that’s adultery. So if that’s lust, what do we do about it? Verse 29. Here’s what Jesus says. If you’re right, eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away for it’s better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to 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 the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

It’s a harsh solution to a severe sin. In fact, I would argue Jesus seems to reserve his harshest judgment for the sins that not only warp and affect our souls, but also warp and affect the souls of others. Now obviously what Jesus isn’t saying is to literally cut off your hands and poke out your eyes Again, the solution isn’t to fix the heart by changing the behavior.

But it is to deal with lust quickly and drastically. Right? Right. Do whatever you need to do to cut off sin at the root. Don’t settle for internet blockers, shared passwords and accountability partners, which I’m all for by the way, but leaving lust to be dealt with by the habits of our hands is again, like treating cancer with bandages and high hopes.

See, the solution that Jesus is giving is actually the last fruit of the spirit that Paul gives us that we read in Galatians five, self control. Now, I would argue that self-control is ultimately about giving up control. That’s good. Now, here’s what I mean. Saint Augustine slash Augustine, again has a helpful way of understanding where sin comes from and how easily it can pop up into our lives.

He gives a three step process. First he says, is suggestion. So sin first comes as a thought. That seems to just kind of pop into our minds a temptation to eat when we’re fasting, gossip, when we’re insulted or experience a sexual desire or thought when we’re tempted. This is the serpent in the Garden of Eden, suggesting to eve that God is holding something back for her.

No, you’ll not surely die. Did God really say that? And that leads to the second step pleasure. Not only do we think the thought, but we then entertain it. What would happen if I, would it really be that bad if, or how could I not? This is when Eve in the garden sees the suggestion of the serpent. She looks at the forbidden fruit and saw that it is good for food and pleasing to the eye.

And step three is consent. All right. We take the suggestion, we entertain it enough to find value and pleasure in it, and then we give ourselves over to that sin in question. We commit to it. And so taking, uh, Augustine’s framework, here’s what I think self-control can look like really practically. First submission, and I mean this in a few different ways.

So I mentioned a minute ago that self-control is ultimately about giving up control. Now, I’ve noticed that for me, sin usually happens when I find myself anxious, discontent and looking for relief from some kind of discomfort. Sin, especially lust, is an attempt to gain control where we don’t have it control over our reputation.

So we gossip control over an outcome. So we commit to greed, control over our sexual desires. We lust. That’s good. When we’re tempted to sin, in order to change our circumstances, our first step is simply to submit to both God and our circumstances as well as to others. So if you’re hungry, just submit yourself to being hungry, right?

Right. Uncomfortable, frustrated, whatever the experience is, and I know that’s easier said than done, but there is something about recognizing, at least now in this moment, I intention, uh, attempted to do this sin because of a discomfort that I’m feeling

more bluntly. We just submit ourselves to God in this moment. See, like Jesus in the desert, temptation is always an opportunity to experience freedom and relief from God. If we recognize temptation as it comes, submit ourselves to it, offer ourselves up to God, then it’s easy for us to say no to it in the long run.

But I would also argue submission counts in the way that we interact with others. See if the sin of lust is ultimately about using other people for our own pleasure and gain, then one of the easiest ways to counteract that is to get used to submitting ourselves to others in humble service. Wow. The way that we reach out to others in love and sacrifice, our will and good for theirs is a form of love and submission.

By learning to see people and value them, not what they can do for us, but by our impulse training it to become, what can I do for them? We keep lust at bay, at least for a little while. Two redirection.

See where sin promises pleasure and relief. Jesus ultimately promises more. Amen. And one of the easiest strategies when it comes to any kind of temptation, uh, fasting especially, or something like lust where there’s a an immediate physical way to exercise that type of sin. One of the best things you can do is literally just go do anything else.

Right? Right. Don’t punish yourself. Don’t sit and wallow in the fact that you’re tempted. It’s okay. Jesus quoted scripture, I imagine he was prayer, walking out in the middle of the desert. When Satan comes at him with all of these accusations, go do something that you actually enjoy. God is a good father who wants to give you good gifts.

The sin that’s tempting you with pleasure is ultimately gonna leave you hungrier than you were before. So go take part in the true meal, right? Do something else. That’s good. Practice gratitude. Give thanks for something that you do have. Step three, practice

now instead of giving our consent to sin. We have to learn to give ourselves over to habit, rhythm and practice. See sin sort of compounds on itself. Once you say yes, it’s easier to continue saying yes, it just gets easier and easier and harder and harder to resist. And so the only way to counteract that is to practice giving ourselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit through habits and rhythms.

And it’s essentially what our church is about. I would say the only way to grow in our devotion to Jesus and resist sin is to make it a habit to constantly orient and submit ourselves to God. And this can look a lot of different ways. One of the best practices to help ourselves resist the physical sin of lust and sexual immorality is the practice of fasting.

And we’ve talked about this at uh, before, but denying your body, the physical pleasure of food, will help you deny your body other physical pleasures. That’s practice. Next week, uh, we’re kind of ending our season, at least we hope it’s of practice that continues, but our season focusing on fasting, and next week we start our next practice series, which is the practice of prayer.

We’re gonna spend four weeks talking about different ways that we see in scripture, people engaging with God, communing with him in prayer. And I know this isn’t really an easy tie in, and it’s not really a pitch to get you to come back next week, though it’s not, not a pitch to get you to come back next week.

I’m not promising that your life is gonna get fixed. Uh, all your problems are gonna go away and you’ll never be tempted when you start to learn to pray more frequently. But what I am promising is that if you show up, so will God.

And a lot of what, resisting, lust, resisting any sin, any of the seven deadly sins that we just talked about, a lot of what that’s about is just showing up to God. What we’ve learned and we’ll explore through this prayer practice, is that God often wants us to come to him in prayer more than we do. So we’re not trying to get our attention or get God’s attention when we pray.

What we are doing is turning our attention to him, whose desire isn’t to shame us or to send us to hell for sexual struggle and sin, but it is to give us a new heart. And I’m convinced that it’s in these moments of prayer where God reveals his heart for us the most. And so with that, we hope you’ve enjoyed, which is a weird way to end.

But it, the series on the seven deadly sins is not meant to shame you. Yes. But it has been meant to show you, uh, the depth of what sin can do to a human soul. But more than that, the level of transformation that Jesus can ultimately offer. So with that, why don’t we stand and respond?