WELCOME & INTRODUCTION
RICK ALLEN: DEF LEPPARD
Rick Allen became the drummer for the UK Rock band Def Leppard at the young age of 15 in 1978. Def Leppard had produced 3 albums by 1983, but tragedy would strike the next year. In 1984, Rick Allen was in a car crash that threw him from his vehicle. His left arm was stuck and twisted in the seatbelt and severed it from his body.
Doctors were able to reattach his arm, but it got infected and they ended up having to amputate it. As a drummer, his arms were his livelihood. Rick thought his drumming career—which had begun to be very successful—was over. He felt deflated, but his family was supportive as well as millions of fans worldwide who had sent him letters of support from all over the planet. Rick decided he would continue.
While his career was taking off before his crash, this may have saved it.
Rick worked with some drum engineers to create an electric drum kit that would allow him to use his feet to press different pedals to replace the parts he played with his left arm.
In 1987, Def Leppard produced their biggest album of their careers, Hysteria, and Rick played all his parts with the adopted drum kit. Rick Allen is ranked on many lists as one of the greatest drummers of all time. In 2019, Def Leppard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Today’s lesson from the Sermon on the Mount tells us that if our hand causes us to sin, we should cut it off. Not quite what happened with Rick Allen, but in a similar way, losing his arm was a blessing. When we sin, we might need some spiritual surgery to put us on the right track.
We don’t often speak about the kinds of sin that Jesus addresses in this passage this morning. We get scared that the subject is too mature for our kids to hear or it may be that this subject is just tough to deal with. So we have generally not been willing to talk about it.
But the reality is we need to not just talk about the passages that are more easily digestible. We need to be able to go into the controversial things as well. Even when they are tough. We cannot say, “We don’t talk about that” because the truth is that our kids and others DO talk about that. And they probably aren’t getting the complete truth about it and they need to be prepared to deal with the things in life that are thrown at them as much as we do.
If we are unwilling to discuss lust, adultery, divorce, sexuality and other controversial or embarrassing topics in the church, then where will we look for the answers of the day that we need? In the past, the church has been unwilling to speak about such things, ignore them and hope they go away and the truth is it makes us look like we DON’T HAVE answers. Sometimes we do address the tough topics but use simplistic little explanations that don’t make sense and don’t give GOOD answers. Our kids go other places to ask people willing to have these conversations and they address it without Jesus.
I do want to let all our parents know that I am not going to be graphic or say things in a “too mature” way that our kids will hear things that maybe they aren’t ready for. I am using good judgment and vocabulary to speak about this so that their ears won’t be hearing things in a difficult to handle way. With that, let’s read our passage together.
MATTHEW 5:27-30
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 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. 30 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 that your whole body go into hell.
This is the second of the six antitheses passages that Jesus preaches. We spoke about this last week. There are six antitheses that Jesus addresses where he takes the Old Testament Law and adds an addendum to it where it goes from just being a quick rule to follow into addressing the core of the rule and why it was written.
He begins each antithesis with the phrase, “You have heard that it was said.” This is to bring the hearer that day on the hillside back to what they may already know. They “had heard” that it was said. But now, Jesus completes the thought and spirit behind that law with his own addition.
In today’s passage Jesus quotes from Exodus 20:14, where Moses brought down the Ten Commandments and the Seventh commandment says, “You shall not commit adultery.” This, they were familiar with. Adultery was something they took seriously. In fact, all sexual sin was seen as highly more egregious in their society. This sin was punishable by death.
LEVITICUS 20:10
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”
DEUTERONOMY 22:22
“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”
This is why when during Jesus’ ministry he has a woman brought to him caught in the act of adultery and the Pharisees and scribes wanted to see if Jesus would obey these laws and stone her for her sin. What does Jesus say?
JOHN 8:7
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
And they one-by-one went away. Why? First, only the woman was brought. It was supposed to be both of the adulterers who were put to death. Second, Jesus knew that many of them had had moments where they lusted after women and committed the same sin in their hearts.
Here in our passage, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter. Which in reality the heart of the matter is the heart. This sin issue is an issue with the heart. Keeping rules is great. There are lots of rules we are called to follow in our world. Keeping rules keeps the peace in a civil society.
In these antheses, Jesus wants not just the rules kept but for their hearts to be softened by the spirit of this law.
What we discover is that these are things that are interconnected. Last week, we talked about anger and how being angry is one thing but it can be tantamount to murder. That being angry brings on the kind of judgment that murder brings because at the heart is someone who hates and wishes for that person to be gone.
Then with anger, we can bring on these other sins. Lust, divorce, lies, retaliation, and hatred.
What about our passage this morning? Jesus says not to commit adultery. But he adds that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
There are 3 things we need to do to shield ourselves from lust.
1. GUARD YOUR HEART
Jesus equates lust with adultery because you are bonding your sexual fantasies and desires with another person whether they are in the room with you or not. Whether they know you or not.
Adultery turns away from the promise you make to another to be married for life with them. That promise is important. It is also a promise for your soul.
PSALM 24:3-4
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
We often reduce sin to what we do. Jesus makes it clear that sin is rooted in who we are. We often sin with our eyes and our hands, but Jesus teaches that these are a sin of the heart. It is a clean heart that we need to come before God.
Do you conceal lust in your heart but count yourself righteous because you have never followed through with the act?
2. PROTECT YOUR EYES
Jesus warns his audience that this has eternal consequences. We often will hear arguments that all you care about is sexual sins and argue about those things when people lie, cheat, steal, and hurt other people. Sin is sin, right? First, yes. Sin is sin. All sin is wrong. But God sees sexual sin differently and more serious. It is given greater weight because it comes to the heart of the matter which is idolatry. Idolizing your own desires over those of God.
Looking at someone with lustful intent. Jesus is saying lingering to look at someone and thinking about them in this way might as well be considered adultery. But, I haven’t committed the act…you might say. Jesus says you have.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
The pornography industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry. And it’s actually backed by companies that you probably didn’t know about. Marriott, Westin, and Hilton Hotels, AT&T, Comcast, General Motors, Yahoo!, Meta/Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and other social media companies who regularly censor content they don’t like still allow pornography even though they say they are trying to combat it and sex trafficking.
If you think porn is fine as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, let me say, it hurts people. Pornography websites are how sex traffickers make their money by forcing women into making these movies. And then when you watch, you are supporting it.
Also, it does hurt you. It also hurts your own physiology. Scientists studied the effects of dopamine in the brain with porn usage and have found that the dopamine levels are identical to heroin usage. But it’s actually worse. The crash your brain gets from pornography is worse than coming down off of heroin.
Why say all this? It hurts you and I care about you. Trying to satisfy lust makes life as difficult as an addict. It isn’t worth it for your body. And it isn’t worth it for your soul.
JAMES 1:13-15
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
We must take whatever steps we must to deal with this temptation to look and lust. Jesus says if your eye causes you to sin, to pluck it out. Let me say that taking this to the most extreme literal sense isn’t what we should be focused on. I don’t recommend gouging out your eye or cutting off your hands. What Jesus is saying is that if you have a place in your life that lust overcomes you, you might need to avoid it from now on.
I know someone who has issues with lust and cannot go to the beach anymore. It was too great a temptation to look at the women. So he avoids it. Another friend has his wife screen his phone and computer so that he has accountability to her and his lust temptations. You could say this is the way he “plucks out” or “gouges out” his eyes.
The key to spiritual victory over lust is not a mutilated eye. It is a circumcised heart.
DEUTERONOMY 30:6
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
3. WATCH YOUR HANDS
Jesus again says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. There are things we have to do if we are tempted to sin. Jesus wants us to think ahead about what we will do in a situation where we might be tempted. It is best to prepare and plan for our greatest temptation. This goes for all temptation. We need to have a plan in place. When we follow Jesus, we know that Satan will do his best to throw as much temptation our way with the things we are most tempted with.
If that is lust, okay we need to plan for what we see. If it is stealing, then we need to have a plan in place for our temptation to take things that are not ours. If it is lying, then we need to soften our hearts toward the truth in every situation whether it is easy to tell the truth or not.
Here are some things we can do to plan for our greatest temptations:
1. Realize where yielding to sinfulness will lead you.
What will the consequences be? Who is hurt by this? How will this affect my life if I go through with the temptation? Jesus tells his audience in Matthew 5 that it leads to hell. This may sound cliché and like a fear tactic. But hell is real and I can tell you we all don’t want to be there.
2. Deal with the real cause of your sin. As I have mentioned before, things like anger are part of the root of our sin. When counseling people who are addicted to pornography and lust, often times, they are very angry and depressed people. The dopamine acts as a reward to their brains. The problem is that over time, it makes the affects less and less stimulating which leads to more usage. There is a counselor that I have spoken with who says if you can get off of your addiction for 90 days, your brain resets its levels and it is easier to resist.
When it comes to other temptations, we need to see why we like to steal, lie, curse, etc.
3. Act decisively, immediately, even if it is painful.
This may mean not using anything connected to the internet. I know some people who don’t use the internet. Some who have traded their smart phones in for flip phones. People may ask, hey, why aren’t you on Facebook? Why don’t you have apps? This is why.
4. Realize your lust is not the whole of your life. What do you gain by abandoning it? Lust enslaves you to bondage. Jesus came to rescue you and set you free.
We all want freedom. Christ brings life and brings freedom. Don’t give in to lust. My prayer this morning is that this lesson wasn’t too terribly painful. Lust destroys. It can cause depression. We are better when we find healthy things to think about and are healthier when we treat other people as a soul a life whom Christ loves and died for.
We have to talk about this. We need to talk about that. We can’t ignore it. There are other topics we are going to cover in the next couple of weeks that are also tough. Next week we are going to talk about God’s plan for marriage. Why divorce is very difficult. How when we don’t keep our word and swear with oaths that is only hurting us. And other topics. We have to talk about them. The church should be the best source for truth and we want to tell the truth. We want to do it with grace and with gentleness and respect.
We also want to be a source of help. If you struggle with this, I want to help you. It isn’t easy to deal with these things alone. I can tell you, I won’t judge you or be angry with you. I won’t be scared of you. Don’t be afraid of me. I truly want to help.
You may want to talk about this. Come find me afterward. This is one time I am telling you not to come forward. I don’t want to cause you embarrassment. Come find me later and let’s talk about it and set up a time to really sit and talk.
INVITATION
