The Sermon on the Mount #3
Kingdom of the Heart - Respect( part 2)
Matthew 5:27-37
CHCC: September 23, 2007
INTRODUCTION:
Last week we saw the first point Jesus made about the Kingdom Heart. He taught that if we hold Anger in our hearts, it will grow to Contempt and Malice. No one with a Heart full of Anger can fit into the Kingdom of God.
After he talked about Murder and Anger, Jesus moves on to 3 more topics that most preachers might try to avoid --- Adultery, Divorce, and Swearing. Jesus did not avoid these thorny issues of life, so we won’t avoid them either.
1. Adultery
Randy Travis came out with a country song a while back called “Why I Cheat.” Here are some of the lyrics:
A workin’ day too long, when everything goes wrong
And a boss who don’t know I’m alive.
I once had a notion I’d get that promotion,
But now I barely survive.
My children keep growin’ my age keeps a’showin’
Just like the old friends that I meet.
My wife’s too demandin’ with no understandin’
Of why I stay dead on my feet.
Now I’m getting’ older, my life’s getting’ colder
… Just some of the reasons I cheat.
It’s amazing how many excuses people can come up with for cheatin’. But Jesus taught that if we want to live Right, we have to do a lot more than just avoid the act of “Cheat’n." Jesus went right to the Heart of the matter in Matthew 5:27-28: "You have heard that it was said, ’Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus was well aware that many men who had a Righteous Reputation were hiding hearts full of lust. Since the Heart is what really matters in the Kingdom of God, Jesus said that looking at a woman for the purpose of lusting is fundamentally an act of adultery.
When a person indulges in lust but doesn’t act on it, the reason is usually that they simply haven’t had the right kind of opportunity. Just as a thief will steal if the circumstances are right --- an adulterer is a person who WOULD sin if they could … especially if they could be sure they would never get caught.
I’ve heard people who’ve been unfaithful to their spouse claim, “I didn’t mean to do it. It just happened.” But this kind of sin NEVER “just happens” to a person with a pure heart. It “happens” to someone who cultivates the deadly habit of lusting … by choosing to indulge their desires time after time after time.
Listen to the words of a Minister who ended up with a ruined marriage and a ruined ministry after a one night stand: "Adultery isn’t something that happens with the act -- it happens months beforehand. It’s an attitude. You disconnect yourself from the person you’ve said you’re spending the rest of your life with." Contributed by Denn Guptill
I don’t want to leave this topic without homing in on what I think is the biggest threat to Christian homes today. A family counselor named Jill Manning says, “I can unequivocally tell you pornography, especially Internet pornography with its violent, demeaning, or highly explicit messages, is damaging, not only for youths, but for many adults as well. It has lasting affect on social and sexual attitude and development.”
Statistics in 2006 say there are over 4.2 million porn websites tapped by 68 million Internet searches each day. Over 68 million pornographic emails are sent every day. That does not even count the Chat Rooms and Instant Messages where inappropriate conversations are taking place between strangers. (CP80 Foundation 4/06)
A survey in 2004 showed that 1 out of 2 men admitted a problem with internet pornography. 40% of pastors admitted struggling with it. The same survey showed that women are the fastest growing consumers of it and that the median age of first exposure to porn is 11. (mymax.biz 7/04)
Internet Pornography is uniquely dangerous for Christians because it invades our own homes. You don’t have to go anywhere or to buy anything to access it. All it takes is a weak moment … just long enough to click the mouse button. Besides that, you can easily tell yourself that no one needs to know … and that it’s not hurting anyone. It’s just fantasy … kind of a harmless second life. Don’t believe that lie. It may take a long time, but eventually that fantasy life will destroy your real life.
Let me tell you two examples I’ve seen recently. Both couples are young with little children. In both families the wife discovered the husband was accessing Internet Pornography. In both instances the couple confronted the problem head on and got some counseling.
But one couple left the computer in the basement where the husband spent a lot of time. That’s like leaving alcohol sitting around in an alcoholic’s house. It’s only a matter of time. That couple divorced this year … and the divorce was directly related to the husband’s misuse of the Internet
The other couple took the internet out of their home entirely for several years. Years later they had to have it installed at their home for work. The husband was realistic enough to know it was not smart to have that kind of temptation sitting around in his home. So the couple set up a system that limits sites he can access and makes his wife the “guardian” of their computer. They are serious about Guarding their marriage. And that husband and father is serious about guarding his Heart.
I hope families and individuals in our church will be just that serious about guarding their Homes and Hearts. It is impossible to have a Kingdom Heart if your mind is full of lust. (We’ve put some helpful web sites at the bottom of the sermon outline to help you find ways to prevent the misuse of the internet in your own home.)
If you doubt the danger of lust, look at what Jesus said next:
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part 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. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Matthew 5:29-30
Most people interpret this as Jesus way of telling us sin must be avoided at ALL costs. But I tend to agree with Dallas Willard’s interpretation.
When you put this in the context of the entire Sermon, it seems likely that Jesus was saying something like this: “If you think sin is nothing more than wrong action … then why don’t you just eliminate the body part that is sinning?”
This is actually the basis of Law in some cultures … where the punishment for theft is to cut off a hand. In some countries, women … by law … must be covered head to toe in a Chador … a long, thick, dark, loose robe with a veil over the face and a slit to look through.
This rule came about in a misguided attempt to avoid all possibility of lust. After all, how can a man have lustful thoughts if he has nothing to look at? Historically, such a solution regards the woman as the problem. Some men have even been known to cultivate hatred of women in order to avoid lusting for them. Is that Right Living? Is that the way of The Kingdom of Jesus?
The truth is physical remedies cannot rid us of sin. Even a blind person, or someone with a mutilated body, can still cultivate a heart filled with Anger, Contempt, and obsessive Lust. We have entirely missed the message if we take Jesus sermon and try to make it into new LAWS. The overreaching POINT is that Right Living does NOT come from technical obedience to a list of Rules. Right living in the Kingdom of Heaven comes from the heart. And the Kingdom Heart is a Faithful Heart.
2. Divorce
Look at Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:31-32, “It has been said, ’Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
Unfortunately, some people try to use this statement as a “Righteous loophole” for getting a divorce. I even heard someone admit that they wished their spouse would commit adultery so they could get a “Christian divorce.” Jesus did not say this in order to make new Laws about the right way to divorce someone! We need to start by understanding the context of what he taught.
In that day, a man was generally thought to be Righteous as long as he gave his wife a “Certificate of Divorce.” So when Jesus limited the reason for divorce to unfaithfulness, he was giving protection to wives … who knew their husbands could get rid of them for any conceivable reason.
If the wife at least had a “Certificate of Divorce,” she would have limited options. She could live with a relative … if anyone was willing to take her in, or she could remarry … if anyone would take “damaged goods.” Otherwise she would find herself on the streets --- perhaps forced to become a Prostitute in order to support herself.
When Jesus said anyone who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery, he put the blame squarely back on the man who divorced her in the first place … the very man who considered himself Righteous, just because he had followed the letter of the Law.
Divorce is a big topic (bigger than I can talk about in the time we have today) … and it’s a painful topic. But that is exactly the point Jesus is making. God created marriage for our benefit and for the benefit of our children. Divorce is NOT His intent. Divorce always does damage. The best Divorce can ever be is the lesser of two evils. According to scripture, Divorce is only permitted because of hardness of heart.
Ask yourself, if both the husband and wife had hearts free of anger, contempt, malice, and lust … how many divorces would have to happen?
Two people with Kingdom Hearts … where anger has no home … and where wong desires have no place … those people can keep their marriage together no matter what hardships they have to endure.
For Centuries the traditional marriage vows have said: "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish ’till death do us part." If Jesus is the center of a marriage it IS possible to go through anything the world throws at you --- unemployment, sickness, sudden tragedy, sleepless nights, and hard days --- and still love each other.
I see an example of this in couples like Daisy and Fred Anderson. Daisy had a stroke many years back when they were both relatively young. When you watch how carefully Fred helps Daisy out of a car or walks with her into the church, you can’t help but see their faithful love for each other. That’s the kind of faithful Heart that Jesus can give us in His Kingdom.
3. Oaths
Now we move from talking about Marriage Vows to talking about Oaths in general. Other than Weddings, we don’t make “formal oaths” very much in our society. If you give testimony in court, you get “sworn in.” If you take a political office or become a citizen you have a swearing in ceremony. Otherwise, we make most of our promises by signing on the dotted line.
In Jesus’ day, most contracts were verbal. Sometimes people got really creative to show how serious they were about their promise. The attitude of some Jews was that a promise to another Jew was real, but a promise to a Gentile … well, not so much.
So they came up with clever wordings that would sound impressive but that they didn’t really have to fulfill. Technically, they could swear by all kind of high and holy things as long as they didn’t make the vow “to the LORD.” It was kind of like making an oath with your fingers crossed behind you back.
That’s why Jesus said, I tell you, do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Matthew 5:34-36
The kind of oath-making Jesus was talking about is common for people who are “selling” something … kind of like the proverbial “used car salesman.” We might call it a “song and dance routine.” You might hear this kind of person called a “spin doctor.”
Jesus says quite bluntly: Don’t do it. Simply let your ’Yes’ be ’Yes,’ and your ’No,’ ’No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37
People who are part of the Kingdom of Heaven need to be straightforward … trustworthy in business and in friendship …completely faithful in thought, word, and deed. Jesus calls us to be true to all our promises, whether in marriage or in any other part of life.
CONCLUSION:
But don’t imagine you can become this kind of person on your own. Only Jesus can change your life. As we’re studying The Sermon on the Mount this fall, we don’t just want to be informed, we want to be TRANSFORMED.
I believe that if we apply the teachings of Jesus, marriages can literally be saved, friendships can be strengthened, the church can be stronger and more effective. That’s what we’re asking God for today. (prayer)
