2.16.20 Matthew 5
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ 28 but I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to fall into sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 If your right hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to be regarded as an adulteress. And whoever marries the divorced woman is regarded as an adulterer.
How Can I Be Attractive?
Our church recently installed LED bulbs to save hundreds of dollars every month in our electrical bills. They burn brighter and much more efficiently than the old bulbs. Many of us may feel like the old and worn out bulbs. How and why would God want to plug us in in order to shine His light into this world? Yet, by His grace, He does, and He wants US to be attractive. You don’t have to be young and new to do this.
One of the brightest ways you can let your light shine is through your relationships with others, especially with those you are dating and those you are married to. It’s kind of fitting that this is the focus of today right on the heels of Valentine’s Day. Are you loving and kind or are you short tempered and mean to your spouse and children? Are you being faithful and trustworthy? Who would want to go to your church if they heard you being abusive or mean?
The Pharisees wanted to be impressive in the eyes of the world. So they expounded on the law in order to make it manageable and doable in everyday situations. They came up with a system of do’s and don’ts for everyday living - like how far you could walk and what kind of clothes you could wear and how you could dress your hair if you wanted to be a good and law abiding Jew. They thought this would be attractive to the world. One might say it seemed to be very “practical.”
What did the Jews of Jesus’ day teach about marriage? Deuteronomy 24:1 said that a man could divorce a woman if he “finds something indecent about her.” The Mishnah, a Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament, spoke of two different schools of thought behind divorce.
The School of Shammai says a man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some immoral behavior. The School of Hillel, however, says that a man may divorce his wife even if she has merely ruined his food. Gittin 9:10
Jesus concurred with the School of Shammai that adultery was an acceptable reason for divorce, but not the trivial reasons that Hillel had said. Jesus then proceeded to take the argument far deeper than previous Rabbis had ever thought. “You have heard . . . but I tell you.” He went far deeper than a spreadsheet of “do’s” and “don’ts.” He looked into motive and thought - not just action. He didn’t make the law doable, He ended up making it damnable in a sense.
Jesus said, I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now this is a difficult one. Even when you’re watching a seemingly normal television show, how often is it that somewhat graphic sex scenes come on with no warning. But what is the initial reaction? Look more closely or look away in shame? Jesus doesn’t excuse it or call it “art”. He calls that “committing adultery” in the heart.
How serious of a sin is this? “If your right eye causes you to fall into sin, pluck it out and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to fall into sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Some look at hell as a conscientious decision that people make as a result of rejecting God. But here Jesus paints it as if people are “thrown” into hell. They don’t want to go there, but they don’t have any choice.) This is what will happen to those who sin with their eyes or their hands.
Sin is serious because sin is connected. One part affects the whole. Jesus explains this.
What comes into your heart through the eye, you then do with your hand. All three parts are involved. So what does God do? God doesn’t just throw the eye into hell. He throws the whole body into hell.
Look at what happened with David because of his sin with Bathsheba. Their young child was put to death as a consequence of their sin, as a judgment on David and Bathsheba, but not as an eternal judgment on the child himself.
Look at what Jesus says of divorce. Jewish men failed to see the profound effect divorce would have on their ex-wives - how they would be ostracized by the community and assumed guilty of adultery - when they hadn’t done anything of the sort. I’ve seen this happen to victims of divorce, people who never wanted a divorce and whose spouses had no Biblical reason to do so. They feel like rejects and failures because of what their selfish spouses have done to them.
Science has even shown how pornography actually changes the way a brain works, effecting it like a drug would. Pornography hasn’t stopped men from raping women. It only leads to more and more graphic and disgusting behavior. Look at what divorce does to children and divorcees. It doesn’t solve much of anything. Sin is connected.
So look at Jesus’ remedy. Pluck out the eye! Cut off your hand! Let’s imagine that we tried Jesus’ approach. What if everyone who viewed pornography plucked their eyes out? Let’s imagine that anyone who texted something cruel to someone chopped their fingers off. What if you said something mean to someone and you chopped your tongue off? We’d be like the Monty Python Black Knight with no arms or legs, trying to fight with nothing less but a torso. Where would it stop? You’d have to chop out your brain ultimately. You’d have to commit suicide, and in doing that you would be breaking the Fifth Commandment, so you still wouldn’t be saved.
So much for the kinder, gentler, Jesus: the Jesus that doesn’t judge. Jesus takes it deeper: to a divine level: to the depths of hell.
What’s He ultimately trying to do? Isn’t the ultimate point that we CAN’T save ourselves by trying to cut ourselves up into pieces? The law was primarily given to expose what sinners we are, and how we need a SAVIOR, even if we’ve never committed adultery with our bodies or gotten divorced from someone. Jesus, in His own strict and seemingly unloving way, was trying to lovingly show them how truly sinful they were, so that they realized they needed a real Savior from SIN and HELL. They didn’t need a Messiah to overthrow the Roman government. They didn’t need a new lawgiver. They needed a Messiah to overthrow the gates of hell and God’s wrath. Jesus came so that I could come to Him and say, “God, have mercy on me, the pervert. God have mercy on me, the adulterer.”
My religion can’t be simplified a system of ten steps to better money management or a happier marriage or a successful church. I will never be the perfect husband. I will never have a pure thought process. I will always be dealing with sin IN HERE, and I can’t get rid of that no matter how much I improve or change my life. This solution is going to have to go much deeper. God is going to have to kill me. He is going to have to rid me of any hope of improving myself into heaven. God is going to divorce Himself from me, burn me up and send me to hell. God is going to have to . . . crucify me. I’m going to have to be damned. And how is He going to do that? Through Jesus. This is why He took on flesh in the first place. This is why He went to the cross, so that He could become ME and YOU, so that He could fulfill that Law with all of its damning threats.
What does this mean? Now I can be honest with God about who I am. I don’t have to try and hide behind a veneer of good works and piety. I don’t have to try and cut the law up into bite sized chunks that I can try and do to make me feel good about myself. I can confess how filthy I am, and I can cling to how merciful Jesus is. When I see Jesus as my complete Savior, MY law keeper, then I finally see the light. Here’s One who willingly went through separation on the cross: One who was cut off from Life: for me. That’s it. That’s enlightening. He died for sick perverts. He died for the divorced: those who failed in their marriages. He died for the adulterers: those who didn’t keep pure. He died for them all, and I don’t have to pluck out any eyes or chop off any hands. I don’t have to drink myself into oblivion. I don’t have to keep calling myself a loser. I can call myself a sinner. But I can also call myself FORGIVEN. What Jesus said is harsh. BUT I TELL YOU. But I need this word, before I see the other word - the word of forgiveness and salvation in HIS WORKS.
It also means that I will take my thoughts more seriously. If this sin is infectious and it damns, then I will confess these sins too. I will hate them. I won’t want them to grow in me and affect the other parts of my life either. I will fight against them. But how? Since this is impossible should I just punt on it? Of course not.
Maybe it starts with the way we look at sex in the first place. C.S. Lewis wrote,
Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?
Sexual desire is not evil in and of itself. God made us to have sexual desires and with sexual body parts. He designed marriage for sexual relationships. But those desires can be twisted by Satan, and he can mislead with a constant barrage of temptation. Here God takes a step back and says, “This is not normal behavior. These are not normal cravings. These thoughts and images can be resisted.” It’s good for us to remember this. Like Luther who compared temptation to birds, “You can’t keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from nesting in your hair.”
Perhaps it continues then with cherishing the one I have chosen to live my life with, to treat this one with the special attention and affection God wants me to give HER, not others.
Valentine’s Day seems dangerous to me in some ways. You feel compelled to buy a rose or candy - to be nice to someone and even romantic, when you don’t always feel like it or when it isn’t the natural time. Romance is nice, and we need to be romantic from time to time. But love isn’t usually so sweet, not in real life. Show me someone who can clean up some vomit, get a heating pad, rub out a sore foot, provide a shoulder to cry on. Show me someone who takes time to listen. I find that much more enlightening than a hopeless romantic who only buys candy and flowers. Show me someone who makes sacrifices for someone else. Show me Jesus.
The world is attracted to the bright and shiny objects, the strobe lights of the world. They seem like a lot of fun when you’re out on the dance floor, but when you’re trying to read or eat dinner they are obnoxious. Sooner or later, people realize that this light isn’t anything to live by.
How can you let your light shine? Be the steady light of love and forgiveness for those closest to you. Be willing to repent of your sins and see Jesus as your Savior, not just your example. Fill your life with mercy and forgiveness and grace. Be faithful to those you’ve been called to serve. People will see that seemingly dull kind of light, and they will be attracted to that different type of ambiance: not the strobe light of good looks or flashy dance moves, but the warm ambiance of Jesus. Amen.
