your Bible to Matthew chapter 5 this evening. Matthew chapter 5, we're beginning at verse 27. As you're turning, would you allow me to say thank you for praying for me as I recovered from my injuries. Most of the time I feel pretty well. Several times a day I might have a slight fog of the brain or a pain in the shoulder that reminds me that I am human and sometimes Do silly things. And the Lord, that is the mercy of the Lord. And I do appreciate your prayers and the way that our God has answered them. But in Matthew chapter five this evening, as I mentioned, we'll be looking particularly at verses 27 to 32. Although I'd like to begin reading in verse 17 for some context as our Savior applies to us the word and the law of our God. So here God's word beginning in Matthew chapter five in verse 17. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least to the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you're offering your gift at the altar there, remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 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 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 your whole body go into hell. It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. that whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. This is God's word. Let us pray and ask that he would bless its reading and its preaching. Heavenly Father, indeed, we thank you for your word. We thank you, you have written by prophets and apostles of old that which we need to know, to know you, to be saved, to walk as your people in this world. Would you illumine your word into our hearts this evening by your spirit as it applies to us the gloriously good news of our savior Jesus Christ, in whose name I pray, amen. If you're familiar with the ancient story of the Odyssey of Homer, You may recall in that tale as Odysseus made that long trek home from Ilium from the Trojan War to his wife and son and faithful dog in Ithaca. One of the trials along the way was that of the sirens. Those sirens were these sort of woman bird-like figures who were of course known for their song, for their sound. We still use the word siren today as a noise that gets your attention. The problem with these sirens, though, is that if you listened and you headed for the siren song of these figures, you were headed for your death. The word siren, actually, in the Greek comes from the word for rope, because these sirens would be your hanging. They would be your death. And so Odysseus knows he has to sail by the sirens to make his way home. So on the advice of Circe, he has a plan. He tells his crew members of his ship that they are to plug their ears with wax so that they cannot hear the siren song. Odysseus wants to hear the song, so he says, tie me to the mast. the ship, and regardless of what I say, how desperately I beg you to allow me to go to the sirens, do not do so. In fact, tie me tighter, he says, lest I escape and make my way to my death." And once they had made their way out of Earshot, Odysseus' frown was to be the sign to his crew member that they were out of danger and could be released. Now why do I bring this up in a text on Matthew chapter 5? Well, if you heard what Odysseus was willing to do to escape that temptation, you recognize that Odysseus was willing to do whatever it took to resist the siren song that was coming his way. And in a very real way, our Savior, as he commends to us the seventh commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery, requires us to do whatever it takes to resist that temptation. You heard, as I read the text, to the point of plucking out your eye or cutting off a limb of your body, and we'll discuss in a minute what that means. But that underscores our Savior's insistence that we do whatever it takes. And yet, friends, that in itself is not enough. This cannot be simply do more or try harder or give more effort because we know in that is the message that we will fail. Oh no friends, we must be willing to do whatever it takes to resist sin because we have a savior who is willing to do whatever it took to defeat sin himself in the flesh. We have a Savior who is willing to go to the cross of death to defeat our sin, to defeat our guilt, to eliminate our shame. Therefore, why would we not be willing to do whatever it takes to defeat that same sin that lingers? The Apostle Peter tells us that we suffer for doing good, but we suffer in line with as our Savior suffered, we are blessed. So we hear Christ's words knowing that he will go to the cross, that he will be willing to do whatever it takes to defeat sin, and therefore empower us to do the same in our lives. So as we look at this text this evening, I'll give you three points from this text. We'll begin in verse 27 with an explanation of this commandment. Then in verse 28 and verses 31 and 2, we'll consider the extent of this commandment. Verses 29 and 30, we'll consider the extremity of this commandment, the extreme to which our Savior calls us to go. But we'll begin in verse 27 with an explanation. No, as I just mentioned, this is the seventh commandment. Jesus quotes, you shall not commit adultery. You may recall the last time we were together, we heard Jesus consider you shall not commit murder, the sixth commandment, and we saw that had a positive aspect to it. To not commit murder also entailed a positive preservation and protection of human life. as that which was created in God's image. And so likewise with this commandment, the commandment to not commit adultery entails a positive aspect, a positive side. And what might that be? Well, if not to commit murder is to uphold life, therefore not to commit adultery is to uphold marriage. is to uphold that one flesh relationship that God has called men and women to enter into and to maintain. And this makes sense because we know, don't we, how God created and ordained marriage to be one of the fundamental building blocks of the church, of society itself. Think for a moment of how the church is built up, but by healthy marriages. Think of perhaps you, where the first place you heard the gospel may have been from your parents, from a healthy God-centered marriage, raising you up in the faith. In many ways, your father may have been like a mini-pastor, if you will, leading his flock, leading his family in worship. In teaching, you know the instructions that Moses gave to impart to one's children the law of God. But first, he would have to do so with his wife, wouldn't he? A child knows when a parent is being a hypocrite. A child knows when a parent is not living out what he or she is teaching to him, to her. And so in the church, these building blocks of marriage, healthy marriages are there, but also in society. And I don't think I have to explain that to you, because in our day and age in which marriage is so denigrated by society, society is paying the tax on that. Society is seeing the just deserts of that decision to denigrate and to underplay and to destroy God-given marriages. So anytime that that two people who are not in wedlock, anytime two people who are not married as one woman and one man for the rest of their lives, who have not made eternal everlasting vows before God, engage in sexual activity, they are attacking those building blocks. But think about what they're doing as they do so. They're saying to God, they're saying to the one who made them, they're saying to the one who instituted marriage for the good of the church, for the good of the world, they're saying, I know better. We're saying, if we commit any sort of sin that Jesus describes here, we're saying, God has a plan, but I have a better one. God may think he knows what's best for me and for my pleasure and for the good of my life and for my future, but I think I know better. That was the sin of Adam and Eve, the garden, wasn't it? God had instituted a plan whereby they would be obedient in the garden by resisting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Satan shows up and convinces them that they know better. that if they listened to themselves, things would be as they wanted, that they would receive what they desired. If I may give you an illustration that is very different, perhaps this will help. Imagine if you were learning to drive, and you know that the gas pedal is for acceleration, and the brake is for slowing the vehicle. And someone came to you, you know, if you really want to get where you're going, use the gas pedal for movement and the accelerator for braking. It would make no sense. It would be absurd. It would be turning everything on its head. But that's what we do. We say God has instituted sexual relations for marriage only and nothing outside of marriage. And we say, how about lots of activity outside of marriage and not really consider marriage important at all? We try to go somewhere via the gas, via the brake, and stop via the gas pedal. It makes no sense. That is the way sin works. It makes what is up down what is down up, and it convinces us that we're wiser than the one who made us. And so that's at least one reason why our Savior is so careful to explain this commandment in all its fullness to us. It's not because God is a prude. It's not because God hates the sort of relationship that He created man and woman to enjoy in marriage, but that He knew its proper place. that which would be good for us in our common life and in the common grace of this world and in our lives of grace in the congregation in which we are called and in the small families and the large family that is the church. And maybe you're thinking, yep, yep, I get it, I understand, I agree, I'm okay with that, I'm good with that, and I haven't committed this sin anyway. And that's when Jesus really grabs our attention, isn't it? He shows us the full extent of this command. And again, just like with the sixth commandment toward murder, we recognize that it's not merely physical activities that the Lord is seeking to either allow or to prohibit, but he gets right to our heart. not ignoring or downplaying the need for the physical prohibition any more than he was with the sixth commandment when he showed that murder began in the heart. But he does want to get to the heart. That recognizing that merely not refraining from physical activities is not all that is entailed with this commandment. And the reason is because the sin begins at the heart. The desecration of one's spouse, whether it be a present spouse or your future spouse if you're unmarried or a hypothetical spouse that you don't know if you'll have one day or not, it begins in the heart. And the reason we know this is because that's where love and commitment to that spouse is rooted as well. Love is not based in that which is physical. That which is physical will wax and wane, and for illnesses, it'll disappear altogether for a time. And if you think you're basing a marriage on how you feel in your body, you're in for a rude surprise. The commitment of a God-glorifying, healthy marriage that will last is when two people's hearts are committed, are choosing to love one another, And if that's where commitment begins, then that's where adultery begins as well. Because we have decided in our hearts that what is most important is not my commitment to my spouse, but it's what I want, my own pleasure, my own so-called satisfaction. But as believers, we are people whose hearts have been changed. We are people who have been enlivened, who have been brought from death to life by the Holy Spirit, applying the word of God to our souls, so that once what was wicked now becomes born again by that which can empower us to obedience. that our hearts which once cling to what was fading and dusty and going to the dust, to the dirt, has now been born again with the imperishable word of God. We have been changed from the inside out. You know that Jesus in this commandment Verse 28, anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent in his heart has already committed adultery with her in his heart. It doesn't say what? It doesn't say he's on the road to adultery. It doesn't say he's in danger of adultery. It doesn't say he's flirting with disaster. It says you're already there. It says you have committed adultery with her in your heart, to be clear. In one sense, it is not as bad. We are grateful that you have not actually gone with a physical body and enacted what your heart wants, but it is still of the same sin. It is still on the same spectrum of breaking the seventh commandment. It is still antithetical to who you have been made to be as one born again by the Lord and loved by him. We excuse ourselves, do we not, when it comes to this? We say, oh, I was only looking, I was only taking a glance, or whatever words we use to convince ourselves that what we have done isn't so bad. But Jesus says that's invalid. That is not a legitimate way to say I have not broken this commandment. So we ask ourselves, how do I place myself in such situations? Where do I find, or when do I find, or for what reasons do I find my heart wandering? Wondering, where do I find that temptation entering? Perhaps it is my wandering eyes in certain places, or certain people, or the way in which I use my technology and my devices and my computer. Perhaps I'm the one leading others astray. Men and women both are very capable of leaving others astray by their dress and by their behavior and by the things they say. Jesus comes to us and says, that is not what life in my kingdom is about. That is not what disciples who are those who are marked by the beatitudes that we looked at previously are like. That's why it's part of what one theologian calls the Christian counterculture, that Christians are different from the world around them. Jesus' description of however we break it is still committing adultery is actually why he includes this discussion of divorce in the last two verses. This isn't Jesus' main discussion of divorce. It's not even his main discussion of divorce in this book of Matthew. He returns to it later just to give more detail, but if you notice his point of bringing it up here in verses 31 and 2 is what? Well he says, There's two kinds of divorce. There's divorce where someone has committed sexual immorality. And in that instance, the person who asks for the divorce, the offended party, is not at fault. He says, otherwise, everyone who divorces his wife except for that makes her commit adultery. Whoever marries that person commits adultery. So what do both categories have in common? Adultery. If there is adultery causing a divorce, it is in some sense a legitimate or allowable divorce, but adultery was still present. But if it's an illegitimate divorce and you ought not to be divorced and yet you do so anyway and get remarried, now you're committing adultery then. This is not to throw aspersions on the victim or the offended party. It's to say if the spouse committed adultery, The Seventh Commandment was broken. If not, a divorce happens nevertheless and sexual relations occur, adultery happens. It just says, regardless, it has brought the Seventh Commandment into the picture in a way that it is broken. Jesus is saying this is an example of the way in which this commandment is overlooked. And we know that it's no better, in our day it's probably much worse. This is not a sermon on divorce, but we understand that when the marriage vows are broken, that's in one sense, that's the easier illustration to understand. We see it. The spouse doesn't have to be divorced, but is allowed to get divorced. Paul will talk about a non-believer who refuses to stay married to a believer, and he says a divorce is allowable in that situation, again, not required. If the married spouse is abandoned and left behind, But all the other times, Paul says, well, you're just not feeling anymore. You're just looking for somebody new or somebody younger or more wealthy. He says, you are committing adultery with that person. Doesn't mean it cannot be forgiven. Doesn't mean the Lord does not have mercy on sinful people, because he does. But it is to underline the severity of what is at stake. That is the extent of this command that Jesus is illustrating in our last two verses of the text. But that leaves the middle two verses, verses 29 and 30, what I call the extremity of this command. Yes, that is a bit of a play on words because Jesus shows us the extreme and includes our extremities, the limbs of our body. We often with these verses, have you heard people sort of dismiss them as hyperbole? They say, well, Jesus is just exaggerating for effect. He wants us to understand just how important this command is. And they just want to leave it at that. But if that was all Jesus was trying to do, I wonder why it is included at all. I mean, the second half of each verse is certainly not hyperbole. When he says, it's better to lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell, that is certainly true. or verse 30, it's better to lose one of your members, in this case your right hand, than your whole body go into hell. That is certainly true. And whether or not we believe this directly affects how seriously we take the combating the temptation to lust and to sexual sin. Jesus is saying if you're serious about avoiding hell, The general assumption in that day and age when people actually understood and believed in hell more than they do now, the obvious implication was, if I believe that and I do, then I'll be willing to do whatever it takes to avoid that situation, to avoid that sin. That's Jesus' point. He's highlighting, yes, the importance, but by equating it with eternal damnation. And of course he's not saying that his disciples, his true believers, are at risk at losing their salvation. That's not the point at all. The point is, if not amputation, if not cutting out your right hand, if not plucking out your eye, then what is necessary in your own life to resist such temptation? Maybe it's something like controlling your time with your computer, or throwing out your computer, or avoiding certain areas of relationship of people. I know someone who didn't even go to the mall because he didn't think that he could go to the mall without sending in his heart. Again, Jesus is not commanding, thou shalt not go to the mall. He's saying, what is necessary? What is necessary to resist this sin? If you're wondering, why so extreme? Why so extreme in guarding the sanctity of marriage? A sort of example that Jesus doesn't give in the other sections of this chapter. We know that marriage is nothing less than a picture of our redemption. It's nothing less than illustration of that relationship that our Savior has with us. So when we besmirch and demean and belittle our marital commitments, we're saying that we really don't believe that our Savior is that committed to us. We're showing what we really define salvation as, a take-it-or-leave-it relationship. If it works for me, great, if not, oh well. By saying that respecting sanctity of marriage is not that important, we are making a statement about our Savior. Paul tells us in Ephesians 5, in commanding proper relationships in marriage of a wife who submits to her husband, of a husband who loves and cares for his wife, He says, no one hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. But I do think he is showing not merely the symbolic body of Christ, but saying that we are united to him in his death, as his flesh was crucified on that tree. as we partake of it symbolically at his table. We are united to him, body and soul. We're not married to him in some sort of sexual way, but we are one with him. Therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound. I'm saying that it refers to Christ and his church. When a marriage properly understands the gravity of the seventh commandment and lives a life of commitment one to the other, it shows to the watching world what sort of savior we have. One who is willing to do whatever it took to purchase us for himself. The gospel is not a picture of marriage. Marriage is a picture of the gospel. In heaven, barriers will fall away, but the ultimate reality will remain and be seen all the more clearly, that we have a Savior who is willing to be scourged and beaten and mocked and dragged to the top of a hill to be crucified, to suffer the dignity of death, of burial, of a body that had to be wrapped in spices so it didn't begin to smell, but instead on the third day he rose from the dead to demonstrate his defeat of that very death that put him in that grave, the very sin that held him to that tree, the very devil who thought he was defeating him by the machinations of Judas, the high priest of the elders, who in fact was signaling and signing his only demise. That is what we demonstrate to a watching world with our marriages that display purity, that display allegiance one to the other, that display faithfulness, because we have a God who is utterly committed to us. Our Jesus, who is willing to do whatever it took to purchase for himself a bride to defeat for us our sin. So as we share what he has given to us, wisdom from God, sanctification, righteousness, as those are given to us by our Savior, we show that same commitment to defeating sin. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it requires suffering. But as I began with alluding to First Peter, I close by showing us that when we suffer with Christ, we are blessed. Because the same spirit of holiness that was poured out on Christ is given to us to empower us on the way. So friends, you may not be married. You may have been married for decades. Command is the same. To honor the Christ who purchased you by seeking in all your heart, all your life and all your ways to honor this commandment and all those that he gives us. Because by doing so, we show ourselves to be the bride of a Christ who loves us and will love us to the end. Let us pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, we recognize that this is a hard command. We know the weaknesses of our flesh and of our hearts, that we know that we have been born again. We thank you that you have changed us. We thank you that you're remaking us from the inside out. Lord, may we, as the psalmist saying, may we love your law. May it be our delight all the day long. and we long to please you because you have made us ours. You have made us yours and we are safe in your arms. Pray this in Jesus' name, our great high priest and savior, amen.