If you want to get your Bibles open to Matthew 5, I'll pray, and we'll get started. Lord, I pray for You to bless the time that we have together here in Your Word. Kind of an uncomfortable, difficult topic this morning. And so, Lord, I pray for Your help in dealing with it and giving us insight into our own hearts and minds so that we can glorify You, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. If you don't already have your Bible open to Matthew 5, please go ahead and get it there. Today we're going to move through into and through the next couple of verses in the Sermon on the Mount, which will be verses 27 and 28 this morning. In these verses here, what we see is Jesus has a very simple, a very direct way of laying down for us the law of the kingdom of God in regards to sexual purity. I hope you are comfortable in your chair. It might be a little bit of a squirmingly uncomfortable topic today when we talk about that. But we'll try to honor the Lord in what we're doing here today. So read these verses with me in Matthew 5, verses 27 and 28. says, Jesus says, 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. Last week, we discussed the few verses before this and the topic of anger and how we need to be concerned about the condition of our hearts. As we look at the Sermon on the Mount, what we really see here is Jesus operating as the new lawgiver, giving us the commandments of the new covenant, the things that He's concerned about, similar to, say, the Ten Commandments given in the Old Covenant. But Jesus' concern isn't really with external conformance to rules. Ceremonialism. Jesus is concerned about what's going on in our hearts. And when we come into the kingdom, when we're part of the people of God, and we name the name of Christ as Christians, this needs to be our concern too. Hopefully you saw the pattern of it last week if you were here. We spent a good amount of time talking about how in anger we sort of tend to justify our anger. trying to convince ourselves that we've really been wronged, and therefore my anger is appropriate. Of course, sometimes it is true that we've been wronged, and anger may be a response, but in the Kingdom of Heaven, we talked about last week that we can't really hold on to our anger for very long. We're warned, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Because even if we are sort of angry for a righteous cause, we still have the deceitfulness of sin in us that flourishes, that deceitfulness flourishes in the pride of our self-righteousness. So when we're trying to justify ourselves as my reaction being righteous, we're in quite a bit of danger there. Anger is perhaps the place where that happens most frequently and strongest. As a follower of Christ, we talked about last week that I'm not only responsible to repent of the anger I feel in my heart, I'm also responsible to address the anger that I've incited in you against me. Jesus said, if you know that somebody has anger against you, leave your gift, don't come worship me, go make things right with them, and then come back and offer your gifts to me. Those are the last couple of verses from last week. The Lord considers it such a priority that verse 24 actually commands us to take care of our anger issues as the first priority even before we go worship God. It can affect the way that we think about God, the way that God listens to our prayers, and a whole host of things we talked about last week. But Jesus is emphasizing how seriously We should address these things, how we should look at the condition of our heart. Next week, we'll cover verses 29 and 30, which will really tell us how seriously we should deal with sin, how to mortify sin. That's what we'll talk about next week, how to put it to death, how to cut it out of our lives. But before we discuss the violence with which we must put our sin to death in our lives, Jesus raises today a second vitally important topic that he lays down in his law, the new covenant. Now in our day, there's a widespread acceptance of sexual sin, but it was a very serious crime in ancient Israel to commit adultery. In fact, it was so serious that in certain circumstances it could be considered a capital crime, a crime worthy of the death penalty like murder. like blasphemy. It was in the same sort of level of seriousness in the law of Israel. The teachers of the law in Jesus' day were not really confused about what adultery was. Jesus is not here explaining adultery to them. They knew that it was serious. They did fail, however, to recognize the deeper issue of the heart that's behind adultery. Jesus isn't merely trying to help them understand this better. He's adding. He's adding to the law, right? Don't commit adultery is still the law, but Jesus's command is more comprehensive. It's do not lust. Just like last week, we said do not murder is commandment, but don't be angry. That's the new covenant. commandments and today Jesus is basing do not lust on the on the seventh commandment out of the ten commandments don't commit adultery but this is this is something more something deeper to see it in the verses again Matthew 7 20 or 527 Jesus says you've heard it said that 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 strictly speaking adultery is defined as having sex with a married person with someone other than your spouse. Either you're married or they're married. It's extra marital sex in addition to somebody being married. When one or both of the two people involved are married to someone else, both are guilty of committing adultery. We use all kinds of euphemisms. We don't often call it committing adultery the way Jesus does here straightforwardly. We say things like, eh, he's having a fling, she's having an affair. Right? Somebody's cheating, they're two-timing, they're being unfaithful. All of those are really attempts at sort of softening the sound of the sinfulness of the act itself. And we think about adultery and talk about it. Historically, most cultures considered adultery to be a serious act. In fact, it's the most serious act of voluntary consenting sexual activity. It involves not only the sexual acts themselves, it also involves the breaking of the marriage vows and causes damage to existing families. Now in many countries it's not only considered immoral, it's also a crime. Even in our day. I found this little article in Newsweek magazine from April 2024, less than a year ago. That Newsweek article stated that there are currently 16 US states, plus Puerto Rico, where it's still a crime. Adultery is a crime. In three states, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin, it's a felony crime. And you'd think that it would, for the most part, be a minor crime. And if it's a minor crime, it would be focused in the South. And that's kind of true. But it's a misdemeanor in both New York and Illinois currently. It's interesting that that's how these laws continue in the books. Now, the Newsweek article itself was celebrating that there's moves in all these legislatures to decriminalize adultery, but it's obvious from the article that it is well understood that committing adultery is immoral and in many cases criminal because of the destabilization it causes in a society based on families falling apart, marriages being ruined by And while many people don't want to see these laws enforced, it's really only a fringe, a minority in our society, even today, who want to embrace it as if it were some sort of a moral good, or at least neutral morally. Yeah, adultery doesn't matter. Most people don't see that. Most people don't think like that. And I'll make the bold claim that most who profess to be Christians have not and would not commit the sin. I know it happens. And there's probably more who have committed adultery than who have committed murder. But I still think that the percentages amongst professing Christians are probably fairly low. mostly due to the stigmatization of adultery as breaking one of the Ten Commandments. It's always been a thing, and even the pagans and the unbelievers and the atheists kind of have some clue about this. But like we discussed about murder, Jesus here in our verses today was not concerned with only the external compliance to this specific prohibition against engaging in sexual intercourse with a married person other than your spouse, adultery. His deeper concern is seen in the New Commandment, where he involves the heart and the mind of the believer, those who are in his kingdom. Do not lust. Do not look with lust, think with lust, or be overcome by lust. It's, of course, possible to lust without ever committing the physical act of adultery, isn't it? I mean, lust is in its own right a serious sin, one that Jesus focuses on here. And not only is it a serious sin, I would wager that it's one of the most prevalent in the hearts and minds of people, Christians and non-believers alike, just as anger is. Very prevalent. It's there. It's a heart issue that plagues most, if not all, And this is exactly what Jesus is targeting in verse 28, right? In this verse, Jesus specifically singles out everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent. Given his immediate audience, it's most likely that they would have assumed he's talking about a man who is lustfully looking at a woman. Somebody's looking at a woman with lustful intent. They probably would have thought a man, right? Therefore, some actually will want to look at this verse and say that it's only relating to that particular circumstance. Jesus is only concerned about men who are looking lustfully at women. Not any other type of sexual sin of any kind. It's just that situation that he has in mind. But we know all too well that there are lots of other situations. And that throughout the Sermon on the Mount, he frequently uses one example to talk about the whole host of sins that it represents. And he's doing that so clearly here. The Bible's no stranger to all the varieties of sexual sin. Based on the context of the sermon, we are well within bounds to assume that Jesus is addressing his new law as broadly and expansively as could be imagined. He's not restricting it to one man looking at one woman lustfully, and that's adultery in your heart. He's talking about the whole universe of sexual sin. And in one verse here, he presents the ethic for sexual purity in his kingdom. As I'm going to present this today, I'm going to try to not be prudish without being gratuitous. I'm going to try to walk the line, because I think that it's going to be most helpful for us to be straightforward. And so it might be a little bit uncomfortable, but, you know, I want to try to keep that in mind. And so I want to challenge the temptation of lust without perpetuating the sinfulness of lust itself. So, well, that's the Lord, you know, hopefully the Lord will really help us get that. the way that would honor him. So if you look at verse 28, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in their heart. I want you to see the connection with last week's message about anger. We discussed briefly how anger doesn't always lead to murder, but most murder is preceded by some type of anger. Right? Anger is the first thing. It's the initial concern. It's the anger in the heart. Similarly, we see here that lust precedes adultery and therefore should be our urgent concern. Lust is more than just that noticing somebody is attractive or acknowledging beauty. That is not technically lust and not what Jesus is describing here. What he says is that it's somebody looking with lustful intent. It's the lingering look. It's the continued and repeated gaze with the purpose of entertaining thoughts in my mind. And it isn't just the physical act of directing my eyeballs in some woman's direction. It's what I do in my mind with what my eyes are seeing that's the issue. That wantonly lustful look is when I'm also simultaneously creating the fantasy in my mind, dreaming about something. This is the way that David looked at Bathsheba from his balcony, isn't it? It's nothing new, nothing particular to the Western world. 2 Samuel 11, 2 says that it happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. Now, without saying it exactly, David didn't just admire her beauty and move on with his day, did he? No, the next verse says, and David sent and inquired about the woman. Does anybody here suppose that David sent his servant over to her house to tell her, hey, you should probably put some clothes on and go inside before somebody sees you? Is that how the story goes? No, we know what David's thinking. It's a bit coy in the scripture, but we know that he's thinking about her. And some time he would probably like to spend with her. Right? So David sent for her. And she consented and went to him. And he took her and he lay with her. Lay with her means that they had sex. They committed adultery with one another. They're both actually married to other people, and this is adultery. Right? It all started how, though? How did it start? That lustful look, right? David's looking at her, and he's looking at her with intent. And then he made himself an opportunity. In the language here of Jesus in Matthew 5, 28, it's that before David even lied down with Bathsheba, he had already worked out the mechanics of committing adultery with her in his heart before he even sent for her. That's not so spontaneous. It's an intent that he had in his mind about what he's trying to accomplish. Now, lest we think that Bathsheba was somehow an innocent victim in the story, it says that she was the one who was taking a bath in a rooftop in plain view of the king's balcony. Hello, king. What are you doing this afternoon? What the story tells us is that David sent for her and she willingly went to him. having a pretty good idea, one would assume, about why she was going. Now, the thoughts and emotions of lust were perhaps different for each of them, but the end result was what each intended it to be, since they had already committed adultery on their hearts. In Proverbs 5, 6, and 7, Solomon wrote warnings to his sons about the seductive, adulterous woman He concludes his section of the Proverbs in Proverbs 7.25, saying to his sons, Solomon, knowing plenty about seduction himself, having numerous wives and concubines, basically warns his sons that they shouldn't look on a woman lustfully, for it's committing adultery with her in your heart. He calls this married woman, who's the seductress, an evil adulterer. For her trying to capture men, he says, with their eyelashes and smooth talk. I can't do the batting the eye. Eyelashes and smooth talk. She's trying to lure them in. She's using a plan to lure men turning their hearts to her. Now, I think it's probably true that men are more prone to lusting after women by what they see physically, but make no mistake about it that lust goes beyond the mere physical. Most of us like to be appreciated, paid attention to, respected. And we can begin to lust after a woman who pays attention to us. who laughs at our jokes, who notices and precipitates our friendliness. I mean, when men see this and begin to fantasize about how nice it would be if. There's the lust, there's the intent. This is looking at a woman with lustful intent as well. It's a more emotional lust to be sure, but one that can lead us right into adultery just the same. This phrase in our verse here, Matthew 5.28 says in the ESV, speaking, speaks of the one who looks at a woman with lustful intent. It could actually be translated a little bit differently. Not just a man who looks at a woman with lustful intent. It could also be translated as speaking of one who looks at a woman for the purpose of getting her to lust after him. See that? This is sinful lust. when I am looking lustfully at her or when I am trying to entice her to look lustfully back at me. That fits the same pattern that Jesus established in the anger section, isn't it? It's equally sinful for me to be angry at you as it is for me to entice you to be angry with me. Talked about that last week. You see, he's laying out the same pattern here. This is something that we got to be concerned about. I'm not only concerned about my own lust, but I should be concerned about causing somebody other than my spouse to lust after me. Now, we're probably more inclined to think about women tempting men to lust, as Solomon warned his sons to watch out for. Like I said, maybe stereotypically, most men are more visually stimulated, making them prone to being tempted to lust after women by what they see. But women can be tempted to lust by what they see physically, too. Many may lust for the more emotional connections of a sexual relationship for various reasons more than just the physical. But the reality is that men, we got to be careful not to try to be more thoughtful and more caring and more close and a better listener and sharing emotional ties with a woman than she shares with her own husband. We can tempt them to lust. That's generally how men tempt women, by being a shoulder to cry on, sympathetic, good listener, or by being funny, or by talking about how much money I have, or something like that, all kinds of different things. But the warning to us as men is to not to look at a woman with lustful intent, and to not tempt her to lust after me, because both of those things are sinful. Now, like I said, men, I think, are the more direct subject of Jesus's teaching. But by example, women are included here, that women are capable of being tempted to lust after a man, and tempting men to lust after them. Just as these are sin for a man in the kingdom of God, so too it's immoral for a woman. I mean, some women really are evidently stimulated to lust after men and their physique. Big muscles or guys with beards got to watch out and stuff. But women are also drawn to that emotional stability or sometimes the exciting spontaneity that some bad boy brings, right? Any of those things can cause people to lust after what they want when they see it in a man that's not their husband. I mean, this can be a sinful lust when notice turns to daydreaming, turns to fantasy. It's lust that's also committing adultery in your heart, according to Jesus. And of course, I need to flip this on its head like we did when talking about men and their lust. It's equally immoral for a woman to look at a man for the purpose of getting him to lust after her. Whether it's seductive dress, or paying too much attention while he talks about himself, or laughing too much at his stupid jokes, enticing a man who is not your husband to lust after you is a sin. And lusting and desiring to cause lust, both are condemned by Jesus. We may not think about it like this, but whatever you're doing that we would normally refer to as flirting, flirting is just this thing, right? Flirting is this trying to get some other person to pay attention to you, to lust after you. It isn't just innocent fun, and it often has the effect of inciting lust that's the earliest danger that could end in sexual immorality, including adultery. But, of course, adultery is not the only category of sexual sin that's discussed in the Bible, is it? It's not the only thing forbidden by Jesus in these verses by implication. Some want to look at it and say, lust, that's strictly about the physical sexual craving. We don't always use the word that way, do we? We talk about people having a lust for power, a lust for money, right? It's a desire that begins to plan for something, even if you don't consider emotional infidelity to be a type of lust that Jesus says is committing adultery before the act. I'll just add another prohibition that will govern this, coveting. Coveting is the other thing. Lusting and coveting are very close to each other. In fact, I might argue in some ways overlapped so far that they're basically the same thing. Especially when you consider that commandment out of the Ten Commandments, right? How does it read? Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not covet your neighbor's wife. That's a command that's repeated in the New Covenant. Jesus repeats that in a number of different ways. I mean, that could mean that I shouldn't covet her cooking, because she cooks better stuff, or whatever. It could mean that, but it's not limited to that. And so, broadening it out, that's Jesus' purpose, is broadening the commandment and driving it deep into your heart, deep into your soul, at the level of where your thought life is, and your motives, and the things that you would never tell somebody else. That's where the Lord's digging. That's where the Lord is targeting. Desiring to have somebody else's affection, whether it's a man desiring his neighbor's wife or a woman desiring her neighbor's husband's, you know, whatever, both are coveting that other person and are related to lust at least, and it's forbidden by Christ. We need to view the sexual ethics of the kingdom as expansive, not limited. It's not merely adultery strictly defined. I've already strictly defined adultery, right? Sex, man and woman, one of them's married at least. It's breaking the marriage. Now, adultery, Jesus puts here, I'm guessing because it's probably the worst of the offenses. It's the one that could be a capital crime. He's making an argument from the worst case down to the deepest level. going from adultery to lust. But, you know, I think this, adultery is probably the easiest of the sexual sins to avoid. Sex with someone who's married to another requires a decent amount of planning, in most cases. And when you yourself are married, you kind of have more, I don't know, at least with professing Christians, hopefully more conscience. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it happens. It shouldn't happen. But because of that, because adultery is probably the easiest to avoid and the worst kind of sexual offense, that doesn't mean that sexual intercourse between two unmarried people is any less sinful. Right? On the one hand, we're talking about extramarital affair. Now we're talking about a premarital relationship, premarital sexual relationship. The Bible labels it as fornication. We call it usually premarital sex. It's not only two people who have never been married who commit this when they have sex with each other. It can also involve people who are not currently married, like a divorced guy and a widowed woman. Just because you've been married before doesn't make it okay to have sex with anybody else before marriage, no matter how old you are or how experienced you've become. Sex outside of marriage is always sinful. Just as this, to get to Jesus' point, lusting after the unmarried is as sinful as lusting after the married, according to our verse, isn't it? Lusting is this, lusting. It's not as if it's okay for me to look at a younger woman who's never been married lustfully, is it? Just because she's never been married. Or even if I myself am unmarried. It's still the same. Just saying it like that should clear it up, I hope. But sexual sin doesn't always only refer to sexual intercourse. It includes a variety of other, let's say, sexually stimulating activities. All the way to even perhaps kissing or holding hands if those incite lust. The standard for understanding lust is both the lustful intent of the act but also that prohibition against coveting. When I treat a woman who's not my spouse as if they were my wife, I'm coveting someone who's not my wife. I'm lusting, perhaps, after somebody who's not my wife. It would be sinful for me, as a married man, to hold some other woman's hand, wouldn't it? Or to kiss her passionately. Or even kiss her not quite so passionately. Because she's not my wife. It's equally immoral for you to do the same thing as an unmarried man with an unmarried woman. She's not your wife, and therefore it's sinful for you to treat her as if she were, especially if your intent is lustful. Even if it's lusting for the emotional satisfaction or the security that an act like, say, holding hands can give. Why do you hold hands? Because it feels good, it feels secure. fills a need that I have. At the base level, that's an emotional lusting after some satisfaction from a woman who's not your wife or from a man who's not your husband. You see, sexual immorality isn't limited to not lusting after somebody I know either. It's not only lusting after somebody, but I can lust after somebody who's not physically present. Jesus' prime concern is not that they are physically present. What his concern is is what's happening in my heart and mind. And so this extends to pornographic videos, pictures, stories. It's not just those showing and describing illicit sexual acts. It's also innuendo in movies and novels and things that can cause me to lust if I fantasize about doing and having those things that I'm seeing, watching, reading about, any of it. That can cause lust. When you're seeking sexual and emotional satisfaction through any of these means, your lust is sinful. there's at least one more category that that's related one that's I think kind of often overlooked in the discussion it's in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 3 and 4 where Paul says but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness not might must not even be named among you as is proper among Saints let there be no filthiness or foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place but instead let there be Thanksgiving Filthy talk, crude joking about sexual immorality shouldn't even be named among us, it says. There's no place for that in the life of the Christian. That means that we shouldn't talk with even our friends or our families about our own former sexual exploits or our current activities. Even sex, which is in the proper boundaries of marriage, to talk about that with somebody else is often gossip at the very least. course it's appropriate to talk with your spouse about such things not only appropriate but important and encouraged but to talk with most others as a casual context about sex is like is it gossiping at least and going beyond that to crude jokes sexual innuendo for the sake of making others laugh that may not incite lusting but it is out of place in the life of a believer and certainly related given Paul's context. Now it may not be technically sexual immorality to participate in such joking, but it's so closely related that we have to mention it in the same light. Although I don't imagine I have to spend a lot of time talking about homosexuality and the whole host of LGBTQ+++, You've got to recognize that these are sexual sins based in lust, and we can't skip the clear teaching of both the Old and the New Testaments about it. With this single verse right here in Matthew 5, or 528, Jesus covers the whole array of this type of sexual sin. Because all of it, all of it springs out of a lustful intent. Just as heterosexual sexual sin does, so homosexual and other, however you want to label it these days, that sin is based in lust the same way. These lusts can be present even in the context of a biblical marriage. It's helpful to understand and to recognize. I can have these kinds of lusts even though I'm married to a woman. because of the brokenness of the world and the hard-heartedness that it might have. We have to kind of recognize, like I said, the expansiveness of what Jesus is saying here so that we can bring these things out into the open so we know how to deal with them. In the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans, he details the downward spiral of sexual sin that degrades as men and women suppress the truth of the gospel. In Romans 1.24, he describes how men and women dishonor their bodies in a sexual revolution when they throw off God's restraint to have casual recreational sex with multiple partners. Not okay. And by the way, stage one of the falling apart of a society. Stage two he identifies in Romans 126 where we read about how this leads to exchanging natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and he's specific. Women consumed with passion for one another and men committing sameless acts with men. There's the L and the G. And the B probably. And the T. I don't know what the Q is, but it's in there somewhere. But the plus-plus happens with the next stage. All of that leads to a debased mind that begins to give approval to and even celebrate all these forms of sexual immorality and debauchery. Parades of pride and all of these sort of things. Alliances with those who are defined by their sexual sin. It's a terrible thing, isn't it? Think about it. Everything we see around us, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, on and on it goes. Those are all sexual identities, right? That are defined by this, the impurity of their hearts and the lusts they pursue. See that? The lusts maybe you pursue, maybe I pursue. All of this defilement comes out of the heart and mind of men and women who give themselves over to these lusts after impurity. And that's where it all begins. The lust. All forms of sexual sin start there with lust. And if we're going to address the root of the evil in the hearts and minds of men and women, we have to address the lust. That does not mean that I need to become an expert, first and foremost, in other people's lusts. That is not Jesus's point. He is not deputizing us to go into the world and to tell all of these other people that they need to stop lusting after the people that they're lusting after. It's not that there's no place for that, but that is not our primary goal, our primary marching orders from the Lord. We have to address our own sinful desire in our own hearts and minds as Christians. Here is where the law of Christ must reign in our lives. if we are going to be blessed in the kingdom of God. So how do we do it? I mean, seriously, how can you control the sexual and emotional lusts of your heart? Paul said it, 1 Corinthians 9, 27, and I thought, I'm in the same place what Paul was, where I need to discipline myself and keep my body under control, lest after preaching to you, I myself should be disqualified in this vile area of sexual purity. We got to take this somewhat seriously. So how do we do it? Here at the end, I made three groups of ideas. Three groups of ideas about how we can avoid lust and how we can maintain purity that's required in Christ's kingdom. The first is to take an example of Job, the Old Testament Saint Job. In Job's writing, in the book of Job, chapter 31, verse 1, Job said, I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin? See, Job made this commitment to himself, a covenant, a promise, a contract with his eyes, not to look with lustful intent at a woman. He says a virgin, but stick a woman in there. Not only would he turn his eyes away from gazing at her, but Job adds in the next couple of verses that he would not allow his heart to be enticed toward her, nor would he lay in wait at his neighbor's door for her. He's not going to make plans about how to follow up on his daydreams. He's not going to fantasize. And if he starts to fantasize, he's going to quit, and he's not going to make an allowance for the flesh. In Paul's language, right? He all starts with the covenant of his eyes. I think Jesus might have had this in mind when he says, whoever looks at a woman, looks at a woman with lustful intent, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Where did Job get this idea about, I'm going to make a covenant with my eyes so I don't look with lustful intent? Probably Jesus. He probably told him. Nonetheless, this is the example for us, an example that we need to take and to make this our first commitment, that we discipline ourselves in this. That if you notice someone who could inflame lust in you, don't look twice. Don't linger in your gaze. Don't allow yourself then to fantasize about that person. This is not only turning your head so that your eyeballs don't study the other person's physical attractiveness. It is also refusing to imagine what it would be like if only Fill in the blank, but don't fill in the blank. Right? You have to stop lusting right there, right now. And it's true whether you're visualizing sexual activities with that person or if you're just merely dreaming about the emotional satisfaction that he or she could provide to you. Either one of those is lusting and you have to cut it off immediately with definitive action. Talk about that again, I said, next week. About plucking your eyeball out and cutting your hand off. Those are the next couple of verses we'll get into next week. And it's not just about sexual sin. That's why I didn't include them today. But it's at least about sexual sin and lust. You've got to deal with it seriously. Make a covenant with your eyes not to gaze. And as Proverbs 5.8 tells us, keep your way far from the temptation and don't even go near to it. Don't even try to get close. Do you know how often we get ourselves in trouble? By trying to get as close to the line as we think we can get without falling off the cliff. And we rarely judge that line correctly. You notice that about yourself? Stay away from the line. Back off. Flee from it. Go away from it. Decide to kill the sin of lust before the temptation increases. Does that sound easy? There's a truth that permeates the Sermon on the Mount. And it's appropriate to mention here that you can't do any of this. Job made a covenant with his eyes, but he didn't keep it. Couldn't keep it. What Jesus is talking about here is so deep in our hearts and minds that we cannot deal with it by ourselves. One of the purposes of this sermon is to create and for Jesus to institute and to publish a law that you can't keep. At least not on your own. Not without grace. Not without Him coming into your life, giving you a new heart, calling you into the Kingdom, and then helping you to maintain yourself in the Kingdom. You understand that? This is an appropriate place to mention this. Oh, you've got to make the covenant. You've got to put forth the effort. You've got to turn your eyes away. You have to stop the lusting before it develops into something more. But you cannot and will not be able to do that unless you know the Lord Jesus, and you cry out to Him in your sin. There's a way out of every kind of temptation, and only the Lord knows that way. Because He's been tempted in every way, just like you have been. In every one of these sexual temptations that I've mentioned, every one of the emotional lusts that we've talked about, and all the rest that I haven't mentioned. And He knows how to get out of it, and He will help you get out of it. but you have to commit yourself to getting out of it and seek his help in that. That's point one. How do we get away from this? Second way concerns the flip side of lust that I've mentioned. I mean, don't just make a commitment to turn your eyes from whatever might cause you to lust. You also have to make the commitment not to do anything to entice somebody else to lust after you. Don't be flirty, right? Be friendly without seducing others to lust after you. Treat everybody like Paul wrote to Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. Paul told Timothy, treat older men as you would a father, younger men as a brother, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. I know this isn't a perfect standard. I mean, the world has a type of sexual deviancy that goes all the way out to incest and stuff, but we who claim to be Christians should be able to, like, not pursue that, right? We should be able to understand this as kind of a standard. Is it appropriate for me to be flirty with my mom? Treat older women like your mother, right? Should you try to sexually seduce your brother? Yes, picture your brother in your head at this moment. Or your sister. Unless they're sitting down the aisle from you, sorry. I realize that's like half the room now. But it was supposed to be right. That's how we're supposed to think about it. I'm not going to seduce that other person. I'm not going to entice them to have some desire for me. I want to deal with everybody in all purity. Boy, you do that. You're going to get a long ways toward getting a handle on this. Don't put yourself into situations where you are inappropriately fulfilling some emotional need or another beyond what's appropriate. And not only consider the way you talk and act, but be mindful about your appearance and the way you dress. You knew I was going to get to this, right? Also in 1 Timothy, Paul says this to Timothy, that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control. Now, I know that some will immediately object that men will lust after a woman even if she's in a baggy gunny sack from head to toe. And that's kind of true for, you know, until you start doing different things. That can be true. I mean, as per the first point of how you deal with this. Men, as well as women, need to be responsible to control their own eyes and their own minds. That's my first concern. But also, we have the flip side responsibility not to entice others to lust. That's true for both men and for women. Just because you may not be consciously trying to entice others to lust after you, you can inadvertently do so when you don't aim for modesty. When you don't consider how you can encourage purity in those around you or discourage the impurity, I'm going to be even more specific for a moment about how these are pointers, not just mine, but some mine. How can you look in the mirror to consider this point for yourself? I just want to encourage us to think about this. Do your clothes cover your body appropriately? Or does your low cut or crop top or something reveal more skin than is helpful if you're around a brother who's trying to maintain purity? I mean, consider how tight your clothes are. A man needs to consider how tight a shirt he wears, one that accentuates his biceps and his chest, right? So that he doesn't entice a woman, or maybe a man for that matter, right? Yeah, ooh, yeah, no kidding, right? I mean, is that the shirt you wear when you go to visit your mom? Back to that point? Men shouldn't dress in such a way to encourage lust just as much as women need to consider how a tight top might accentuate some of your upper body features. I mean, consider the same thing when you put on pants. How tight are they? How short's your skirt or shorts or something, right? How do you fit it? Do you tuck the front of your shirt into the front of your jeans but not the back in a way that might accentuate something that you might not want to draw attention to? whether you're a man or a woman. Have you ever even thought about that? I've been told that leggings are very comfortable. One time I wore pantyhose, that's true, very comfortable. But you should be more concerned that people can see the outline of your undergarments, so that you cover up that sort of thing, so it's not on display for everybody. In general, ask yourself, do your clothes accentuate the shape of your body, leaving little to the imagination in areas where modesty should be your priority? If you consider that, you're going to get a long ways. And if you're married, I'll encourage you to do this. Ask your spouse to help you evaluate these things. Ask her. Ask him. I mean, first of all, because 1 Corinthians 7, 4 says that the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his body, but the wife does. So does your spouse want everybody to see your body like that? I mean, seriously. It can also be helpful to ask your spouse, because they actually understand what causes others of their own gender to lust. Your husband can actually help you in that way, and wife, you can help your husband in this way too. Because I have an experience being a man, I might be able to tell you how men think. and what causes them to lust, so that you can have some priority in your modesty to help be responsible for maintaining purity in the body of Christ. If you're not married, you can actually go and ask a married friend who's of the same gender to help you. Unmarried woman asks married woman. Married woman can say what her husband's told her. It makes him lust, so on and so forth. So that maybe some young woman doesn't go to the married man and go, do I look seductive? That's probably not super helpful. So I wanted to be real specific because I see this and Jesus is making it such a priority and how do we actually eliminate this? Eliminate the lust in my own heart and eliminate or at least reduce my participation in your lusting after me. How can I do these things? It brings me to the one last recommendation for those who are married. about helping to maintain sexual purity for you and your spouse. 1 Corinthians 7, 5 says, I'm just going to say this positively. Sex inside of marriage is God's main provision against the temptation to lust. It is God's plan. It's good. It's right. It's ethical. It's moral. It's healthy. It's enjoyable. It's fun. It's satisfying. All of these things, right? God made it that way. It isn't only the physical act of sex. It includes all of the emotional care and the satisfaction that goes along with the marriage relationship. It's the intimacy that's not just the physical kind. But it's also not without the physical. At least it's not supposed to be, not for long. Marriage is the one place where lust is not sinful. Get that? Do not lust except for in your marriage. I will throw that in there and be confident that the Lord agrees with that statement. Proverbs 5.15 describes this kind of euphemistically again with a word picture, where Solomon tells his sons, drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers. Marriage is that one place where lust is not sinful. So if you want to flirt, flirt with your spouse. You want to seduce somebody, seduce your spouse. Not just in order to avoid lust, but because the Lord's actually told you to do it. If you don't happen to be married, might consider making yourself available to such an idea. It's not going to fix the lust problem to get married, but done correctly, done righteously, it's God's outlet to help, right? So where sexual enjoyment and emotional fulfillment are as God designed them to be. These are the safeguards provided by the Lord. To keep us from looking at others with lustful intent, don't lust, Jesus said. Don't cause others to lust after you either. Make the commitment to guard your heart and your mind in this key area of sexual morality. I'll just point you back in Matthew 5 to the beatitude in verse 8. It says, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. How are you gonna keep your heart pure? This is one of the ways. This is one of the practical ways that Jesus tells you about how to keep your heart pure. Don't be angry. Don't lust. You do those two things and you're going to be better than halfway there. There's a lot of other stuff, but these are the root of so many other sins in our lives that we must recognize Jesus identifies them first as a priority to get these things right. And as we start to do this, we'll see more and more of God. We'll actually be able to be blessed by Him in this way. And so Jesus' simple statement is, control the lust in your heart, and God will bless you. Amen? Lord, I thank you for... These passages are a bit uncomfortable. But I thank you for being real with us, being practical. identifying things that are the things that we currently struggle with in our own hearts and minds, perhaps even today. Things like anger and lust. Lord, I pray that you would help us to first desire to fight those things, to be controlled and responsible, to, as Job said, make the covenant today with our eyes and our hearts and minds not to look linger, daydream, fantasize with lustful intent. I pray that you would help us in these things, that we would want to do them for your glory, Lord. I pray that you would just lead us and guide us in that. Thank you for everybody's patience today with the topic. And Lord, like I said, I thank you for giving it to us. And I just pray for your help. We know that we can't do these things on our own. So we must ask you for the help that we need. Pray you'd give it to us. Reveal the sin that we're blind to, Lord, and help us to repent, to follow you. That we would seek you, desire to be blessed by you, Lord, give us purity in our hearts, we pray today in Jesus' name. Amen.