Matthew 5: The Hidden Cost Of Lust

Jesus doesn’t just forbid adultery, he goes after the source. We sit with Matthew 5:27-32 as Pastor Dale pushes past the comfortable “line in the sand” approach to Christian ethics and asks what our desires reveal about our worship. When we keep asking “Is it okay if I…?”, we’re usually hunting for a loophole. Jesus offers something deeper: a heart that stops consuming people and starts seeking their good.

We talk plainly about lust, pornography, and the way a consumption mindset turns image-bearers into objects. The sermon gives language that sticks: lust is using someone for what they can give you, then discarding them.  Jesus’ extreme imagery about gouging out an eye and cutting off a hand isn’t about performance, it’s about decisive boundaries, honest community, and planning for weakness instead of trusting our willpower.

If you want a clearer, wiser, and more hopeful framework for Christian sexual ethics, heart transformation, and marriage as a gospel signpost, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Setting Up The Sermon On The Mount

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Jesus gathered his disciples and walked to a high spot as a crowd swelled with students. Curious onlookers and possible enemies wanting to hear this religious leader who seemed different. Could it be the Messiah they have been waiting for to save them from their enemies? Could the old kingdoms of this world be passing away? Was this Jesus finally ushering in the kingdom of God? And then he spoke a verbal attack on unrighteousness and self-righteousness, an assault on I'ma get me and mine. And it was a message for the broken. Blessed are the poor spirit, the spiritually bankrupt, those who recognize desperate need for God. And starting with this deep truth, he dispensed world-changing, life-rearranging understanding. Love your enemies, be generous to everyone. Come on. For real?

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You will never be good enough by working harder. Pray this way. You are the light of the world. Do not worry about your life.

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Be realistic, Jesus.

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Ask, seek, knock. Stop performing. Enter the cloud. Enter through the narrow gate.

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Today, many likers of Jesus listen to these words and they say, He probably didn't mean that, but if we truly assume Jesus meant what he said, a better kingdom would shine brighter in a darker world. Together we can look to the Savior on the mountaintop and soak in the teachings of life. Join us for uncommon sense, joyfully living out the challenges of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

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Amen.

Reading Matthew 5:27-32

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Good morning. I'm Pastor Dale. Good to be with you guys today. Today we are going to be in Matthew 527. Matthew 527. I hope you have a good Bible. If you don't have a good Bible, we would love to give you one. We have them on the sides of the room. We have them in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Haitian Crayol. Well, good morning, friends. I mean, good morning to everyone in the room, except for those of you who set off fireworks and shoot guns super late into the night last night, which we have come to learn over the last eleven years is normal, but it's still not normal for me, especially not when I gotta get up the next morning to preach. Shook the house. That was bananas, but that is not what I'm preaching on. I'm in Matthew 5.27. Are you there with me, friends? Who's there with me in Matthew 5.27? Let me see the Bible. Oh, beautiful Bibles. Love to see them. Beautiful, beautiful. Alright, um, this is a fun sermon to preach, so I'm glad to be here. I am glad that I'm just trying to back up Jesus' words. So Matthew 5.27. You have heard it said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her and his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Verse thirty-one. It was also said whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. This is God's word, and it is good. It is good. Let's pray, friends. Father, we do thank you for this moment we can be together. First, uh before anything, we just want to lift up our brother Isaiah, who is with his grandmother in the ICU. Lord, um, we know that she basically raised him, and so that's more like a mother. So we ask that you would just be with him during this moment. Encourage him. Lord, I know uh a lot of what he's thinking about is the things that he's not doing for us right now, and I just pray that he would just get all that out of his mind, and that he would just be uh able to just be present and know that his church loves him more than anything he can give to us. Encourage him right now, please, Lord. Father, we thank you that we get to gather together as your people today. We thank you for our country where we are given freedoms other people dream of. We thank you for a country where we are free to critique and criticize our leadership without fear of being thrown into jail or being killed. God, I pray that you would help us to use our freedom for the good of others and for the glory of your name. We are grateful for you for your love this morning. We ask that you would continue to make us more and more like your Son, through the power of your Holy Spirit, the blessing of your church, and the wisdom of your word. Please teach us this morning. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.

Why We Keep Asking For Loopholes

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So people often ask me this question, and I'm just gonna give you the first part of the question because it always changes. This is the question I get. Pastor, is it okay if I I'm gonna stop right there. Um, I get asked that a lot about a lot of things. Um, am I allowed to? Is it okay? Can I maybe um and it's because we like boundaries, don't we? We like boundaries that make us feel secure. But usually when you are asking me this question, you tend to know the answer. Is it okay to sleep with someone that I'm probably gonna marry? You usually know the answer. Is it okay to steal from someone who's like kind of bad already? You usually know this answer already. Can I punch a bad guy in the face? You already know this answer. But while the Bible doesn't speak on certain things like weed, I see what it does to so many of you. The Bible doesn't talk about internet porn. Did you know that? And if Jesus doesn't speak to AI generated porn or mushrooms, then they're probably okay, right? But here's what he is interested in, friends. God is interested in your heart. God is interested in your heart, and here's the thing um we all have our own idols, don't we? Now, what's an idol? An idol is uh something that becomes uh greater than God in your in your life. So sometimes it's something good that becomes greater than God in your life, other times, other times it's it's uh something that's bad that becomes too great in our life. But guys, John Calvin calls our hearts idol factories. We build idols. We're good at it, aren't we? Um We make idols out of anger. It's fun to be angry about things. We make idols out of sex. We can make idols out of work, out of sports, out of religion, and even out of our families. And so today, though, I'm gonna talk to you about our hearts, because Jesus is interested in our hearts. He was interested in our hearts last week, he's still interested in our hearts. So I'm gonna give you three messages from Jesus about the heart. Three messages from Jesus about the heart.

Adultery Starts Before The Act

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And my first message is this adultery begins in the heart. Adultery begins in the heart. Verse 27, you have heard it was said, do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. This is a problem. We don't want to talk about this, but we need to. The seventh commandment is you shall not commit adultery. It forbade sex outside of biblical marriage. And everyone in Jesus, uh audience at that moment would have known this. Cheating on your spouse is terrible. It hurts you, it hurts your spouse, it hurts your children, it hurts your family, it also hurts that person and their friends and their family. But Jesus wasn't only concerned with cheating, was he? He was worried about the corrupted heart itself, seeking joy in something that could never give you what you truly need. Creating gods out of things that were never meant to be God. Now, I don't know if you remember last week, but Jesus condemned murder and anger. He condemned murder and anger. And it's weird, isn't it? Like to hear something like that is to say, like, man, I don't like eating wonder bread and I don't like eating dog dew. You're like, those two things are not the same thing, are they? Murder and anger. But Jesus is saying it's not just murder, it's your heart. Is murder worse than the sin of being angry? Yes. But both sins destroy our relationships, our relationship with God and our relationship with others. In the same way, while a physical act of adultery does more damage to relationships, even lusting after someone other than your spouse destroys relationships. It hurts your relationship with God and others. Now let me talk to you about lust, that term lust. It's consuming something or someone for what it can give you and nothing more. Consuming something or someone for what it can give you and nothing more. So think of this. What is bloodlust? It's the desire to see others hurt with no care about them, right? What is travel lust? It's traveling to places without a care, how your travel might hurt the people where you go. So uh the best way I can think of lust to explain it is a drink, a soda. Like um you drink out of a soda can, you get what it can give you, and you're done with it. You don't need it, it doesn't serve any purpose for you anymore. It's done. Now, is it wrong to drink out of a soda can and dispose of it? No. I mean, you don't keep it, you don't cherish it, you don't put it like in a frame or anything like that. No, it's trash or at least recycle, right? But this is what we do when we lust, when we hunger and we thirst for someone else. We consume them for us. Now, Indian pastor Brian Wintel says women are not to be treated as sexual objects, but as fellow human beings. You would be like, why does anyone even have to say that? Now it's okay to view food as food. It's okay to view shelter as shelter. It's okay to use a lawnmower for what a lawnmower can give you. It's a machine, it cuts lawn, that's its purpose. But another person's purpose is not just to give you sexual release. Another person's purpose is not to just give you what you lust after. Humans are made in God's image. Humans are brilliant works of art made for the glory of God, not for your consumption, not for my consumption. They are complex, they are beautiful, and when we treat them as anything less, we not only denigrate them, we denigrate their creator. You ever see those old cartoons? It's like you got the guy, he's like sitting on a desert island, and there's like maybe another guy or there's a dog there, and then in the cartoon, when he looks over at the other guy, like the guy starts to turn into like a piece of pizza or like a steak or like something that can be consumed. That's what this feels like, right? Like that person is now just something I consume, right? That person is now just a steak. Well, that's not the way God created us to see each other. Mm-mm. That's not the way it works. That is a bit like lust. We see others only what they can give to us. When our true desire should be for them to flourish. This is why our faith is not something you consume in podcasts and in just comfortable seats. Yes, we care for each other in this church. We sing beautiful songs together. That's what we do, but it's still not about you, is it? Don't consume church. Our faith is about the glory of God and about loving our neighbor, a desire to see our neighbor flourish. Don't consume people in any way. And I would say this in the same way. Kids, don't consume your parents. They're not here just for what they give you. Your teacher is not here just for what they give you. Like we are called to love and encourage those people in the same way. Do you know uh who consumes people? Zombies, vampires, right? It's it's no wonder though that many people don't want to be in honest relationships today because it feels a bit like a horror movie where there are zombies outside trying to eat the life out of you, trying to take from you, not trying to give anything back to you. Do you feel that way, Ever? Like, I think it happens. And so, what do you do? You stock up on food and you hide. You you hide in your homes, you have resources, you have enough to live off in your home. What do we do? We watch church on our phone, we watch sports on our phones, and then we go to bad AI therapists and wonder what's going on. We watch porn on our phones, and all we're doing is consuming and consuming and hiding and just taking and taking and taking. We consume people, friends. You are staying inside to hide from the zombies, but when you do that, when you do it enough, do you know what you become? A zombie. Someone who only wants to take from others, and that's killing you. God made you to seek the welfare of other people, not use them. God made you for relationship, not for imagining sex with someone who's not your spouse. He built you for godly relationship. But this is all difficult. So if you are concerned about adultery and the wickedness of the heart, that is where it all starts. Adultery leads to the wicked uh excuse me, the wickedness of the heart is what leads to adultery. And so the question becomes, well, now what do we do? What do we do? And this is where we get our second point.

Cutting Sin Out With Boundaries

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Our second point is this sinful hearts need help. Sinful hearts need help. Okay, hold on. Um sinful hearts need God's spirit, don't we? God's word and God's church. But we also need solid boundaries, don't we? Now, William Barclay, um, he calls our text um a surgical command of God. A surgical command of Jesus. This idea that we cut sin out like a surgeon does. Verse 29 says, if your right eye causes you to sin. Now, here's the original language. Um, it's not just sin. It's if your right eye causes you to stumble. Um, the word here is scandalizo, and I think it's interesting. It sounds like it has scandal in it, but scandalizo, it's as if someone has set a trap for you. It's the bait and stick trap, would have used the same general word here. It's that part of the the trap where you put the cheese in, um, and then when the rat comes to get the cheese, what happens? Snap, right? Like right down, destroys them. It's saying, it's saying, if your right eye traps you, if it causes you to trip and fall. Verse 29, gouge it out, throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into jail. Now here's the thing. Whenever we read a text like this, we we we see that Jesus is using hyperbolic language, hyperbole. But what we do is when we see that he's using hyperbole, we we decide that this is gonna apply to everything else he says, because that gets us off the hook of a lot of things. But here's what I'll say. This is actually much worse than that. Using hyperbole here is worse. Let me let me tell you why. Uh let me just have you listen to Pastor David Guzick. This is what he says. He says, The trouble with the literal interpretation is that it does not go far enough. Even if you did cut off your hand or gouge out your eye, you could still sin with your other hand or eye. When all those are gone, you can still especially sin with your mind. So, yes, once again, Jesus is consistent. He wants your whole heart, not just our actions. So he continues in verse 30, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Now, when we live lives of understanding, where we acknowledge that we are spiritually bankrupt, corrupt in spirit, right? Poor in spirit. Remember, that was the very beginning of Jesus' sermon. Then and only then can we humbly accept our imperfections and plan accordingly.

The AI Story And Why Limits Matter

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Now, there was an AI experiment, and um it didn't go so well. This was about three years ago where Colonel Tucker Hamilton, chief of AI testing and operations in the U.S. Air Force, once described an experiment with AI and missiles. Now the AI was told that it was helping with warfare to destroy an enemy, but in order to launch nuclear missiles, it needed to seek permission from the person in the tower. Multiple times the AI was asking the tower for permission to launch weapons on the target and was denied. Eventually, the AI decided the best way to get around that was to launch the weapons at the tower itself, freeing it from the confines of responsibility. See, this artificial intelligence launched a drone strike thinking it killed the operator. Now, why did the operator not die? Because uh they knew that they were playing with something that they could not undo. A few hours the colonel actually denied this ever happened and that he had somehow misspoke, probably because he was trying to get funding for an AI program, and that's probably not a good way to advertise it, right? But the reason why the whole world didn't fall into nuclear war was because they hadn't given the AI real ability to launch actual weapons. The AI thought it had that ability. There was no actual tower. They had boundaries because they didn't fully trust it. See, without boundaries protecting us from bad decisions, we often make bad decisions, right? Like the Bible says that the human heart is deceitful, is deceptive above all things. When you end up alone with someone who's not your spouse, you are in a position to fail. It's no accident, it's a failure to plan. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. Guys, when I have Irish chocolate or rice crispy treats in my house, I have no can I'm gonna eat them. You can count on it. You can it's it's why I don't put Irish chocolate in my house. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. I have a friend who for the last over a decade now has had a flip foam. You know, those are kind of expensive, hard to find, hard to get on your plan. Homeboy prints out maps. You know, you're like, what are you doing? What why are you printing out a map? Well, because I need to. He is so slow at texting, friends. He knows his limits, though, and so he prints out maps. And his marriage is better, he's a better parent, he's a better uh leader because he's aware of his brokenness and he plans for it. He's aware of his brokenness and he plans for it. See, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. Friends, it matters what we consume. Matthew 6 says, the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. Now, what uh what you look at matters to Jesus. These dudes that I just described to you, they were protecting their actions. But while they know a physical boundary helps them, it still has to be about their heart, their relationship with God. But Tony Evans reminds us, immoral actions begin with immoral thoughts, and the immoral thoughts are evil too. You can't address sin by only dealing with external actions. So, friends, when we are in sin, when we embrace things that hurt us, things that go against God, it hurts us and it hurts our relationship. Have you noticed when we are struggling with sin that we start to get more negative? Is there anyone else besides me that when you're struggling with sin, you start to get negative about everything around you? You notice all the problems in everyone else. We find things suddenly that we don't like in the Bible. It's interesting, it's when we're in sin that we seem to find things that we don't like in the Bible. Not that we don't other times, but we we focus on it. We start to remember things that we don't like about Jesus and his church when we are in sin. But the question is is it really about those things or are we projecting? Do we want to justify our decisions that increasingly put us in areas of compromise? And the only place to feel better about ourselves is to find problems with other people. If I can just find something wrong with someone else, then I can justify my bad decisions. Then I don't have to feel bad about myself. And friends, if you drink enough, if you have enough sex outside of marriage, if you lie or put your work before your family, if you end up wasting your time on things that don't glorify God, you will feel less close to God. And when you do, you will start to reject him and you will find yourself chasing after worse and worse things. It does not get better. It does not get better. People rarely, rarely steal a million dollars from their work the first time. They often start by having poor boundaries and taking just a little bit for themselves, just a little to wet their beak, and then they move on, and then they just take a little more and a little more. Most people don't start drinking for the first time with a 12-pack. Now, some of y'all may be different, but most people don't. They don't. They work their way up. But here's the thing: every sin is that way, but every good thing is too. Every good thing is too. If you are on a diet, you don't just stop going to McDonald's though, do you? You have to replace it with something else, something healthy. Or you'll just get hungry and go to McDonald's. And you'll be right back where you were, unhealthy with that Big Mac and that shake. And I'm so glad I'm allergic to that food now because I would be eating it. Guys, we don't need to just have boundaries though. We need to seek the things that build up, the things that restore our hearts and draw us closer to community and to God. God has so many great things for us. Now here's what William Barclay says. He says, If any man is harassed by thoughts of the forbidden and unclean things, he will certainly never defeat the evil things by withdrawing from life and saying, I will not think of these things. He can do so only by plunging into Christian action and Christian thought. He will never do it by trying to save his own life. He can do it only by flinging his life away for others. See, this man that Barclay speaks of, he's not he not only has boundaries, but he finds his strength in relationship, he finds his strength in caring for others. And while he can use certain things, he refuses them. While he can use Instagram, the more time you spend with believers who know your sins, who know your struggles, the more often you succeed instead. And so for all of us in the room today, it's good to ask ourselves questions. What things draw us away from God? What things draw us away from God? And I would suggest, and here's where I become that like nerdy pastor, I would suggest movies with an R for nudity should not be seen by Christians. There may be a few of you that think you can handle it, but I'm just gonna say it hurts most people. And I'm willing to be that nerd who says, you probably just shouldn't be doing this, friends. Um, but you also have to ask this what things draw me to God? Some of you need to be more busy. You need to be more busy for God, friends, because otherwise you're gonna be busy doing something else that you don't want to

David Looked Twice And Fell

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do. Now, friends, do you recall the story of David and Bathsheba? I know not everyone knows it, so I will quickly go over it. Um, in 2 Samuel 11, um, there is a guy named David. He is a king, he is a godly king who loves the Lord. I mean, uh the story would not reflect that today, but he does. And it says this in verse 1, 2 Samuel 11 1, in the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. Oh, that's interesting. So it says, in the time when King David was supposed to be busy doing his work, he was lounging at home. When he was supposed to be doing something, he was not doing what he was supposed to do. And then what happened? It says, In the spring, when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers in Israel, and they destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, not him. But David remained in Jerusalem. Now, one evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, a very beautiful woman. So David sent someone to inquire about her. Now let me ask you this. Would this have happened if David were doing what he was supposed to do already? Of course not. And the person said, Isn't that Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hittite? Oh, interesting. See, here was the problem. David was not doing what he was supposed to be doing. He was not where he was supposed to be, he was where he was not supposed to be. David looked, and then here's the real problem. David looked again. Many of you cannot control the first look. You just see something and you go, whoops, and you look away. It happens all the time. But David, David, looked twice. Guys, I understand the world is throwing images of naked ladies at you all the time. People who sell sex find ways to sneak it in front of you constantly. They are drug dealers trying to give you that free taste of something so they can get you hooked. And let me just say, it's not really they, it's the devil who's doing this. And it's like it's like this it's like you move away from a community to get away from your heroin dealer, and on the airplane, you see a commercial for heroin. Try it, it's great. And there are people shooting heroin in the airport of your new city. It's difficult. This is not easy. What chance do you have? You are spiritually bankrupt, poor in spirit. And friends, you only have a chance with Jesus, only Jesus can save you. Friends, if we aren't arming ourselves with the things of God every day, we're not going to be able to make it. My first advice, of course, is don't look twice. Don't look twice. If you see something, look away, look down. Um, if if you um are on a website that shows you something more often, like I know for me, it was like I used to really like to look at sports on sportsillustrated.com, and then I realized, huh, there's some nudity up in here. I can't go to Sports Illustrated anymore. Done with that website. Cut it out surgically, right? In the same way, there are gonna be certain shows, movies, um, and apps that do this to you. So, what do you do? You cut it out. You can't look twice. If you see something on an app, you gotta cut it out. Cut out the website, cut out the phone, like my friend, and give your close friends something, a fishing license. Especially uh, dudes, you need to give permission to people in your life to ask hard questions. Because I don't want to ask you a hard question without your permission. The hard question would be: what are your eyes focusing on? Where is your heart right now with God? Is your heart turning towards any sort of sin in your life? You have to have people who can you can trust in your life that you give permission to ask that question. Can't do it alone. Everyone is weak. You have probably underestimated your your enemy and overestimated your strength. Don't fail to prepare for attacks because they will come. And don't do it alone. You need people asking you about the state of your heart and eyes constantly. You need built-in protections. We're not trying to become legalistic, but we're trying to help each other and encourage each other. I went to a skate park with a buddy a few months ago, and he told me it's not if you fall, it's when. And I was like, But I'm here. Why did you tell me that now when I just got here? And I'm looking around, and everybody has padding on like every part of their body, everybody has like helmets that look like they were made in 2050, and like I'm just there with my shorts, you know. Like, what am I doing here? But I was like, I'm already here, it's far away, and so guess what happened? I went and I skated and I fell. I did not plan well, and I did not have padding, and I walked around like I had a broken hip for like weeks. That's a problem. Okay, there's a there's this artist that uh my wife was listening to, and she really liked this artist. She's real good. Um, I I will listen to her in the car with my wife. But one of the things that she she did is she suggested this artist who's actually moving in a spiritual direction, and so her new music is getting more spiritual. She suggested an album. She suggested an album. She suggested an album to uh brother Isaiah in our church. Well, the picture on that uh on her page is scandalous, and so it's crazy because even as she's making something better, the page on her in uh on her Spotify account is scandalous and is something that only her husband should be seeing. This is the way that we're being attacked. So we have to plan and we have to repair and we have to talk to people. I'm a surfer, and I don't know if you know this, but people who surf, especially women who surf, don't seem to need very much clothing for surfing. And so I find myself constantly looking at the ground, choosing to look away, and I get teased for it, and it's worth it. I'm responsible only for me and my eyes. Nobody is gonna say anything about that. And let me just say, man, it's not on you men to police women what they wear. That's not your job. If it's your child, we can talk. But to the women, it's not fair that you showing parts of your body that feel neutral cause men to stumble in their faith. It's not. It's not your fault. You don't owe men anything, it's their struggle. But um, while I'm not telling you to like wear a hijab, ladies, um, you can dress in a way that treats others as more important than yourself. Not because of you, not because you have to, only because you want to. I think that is a Christ-honoring way of looking at things. Dudes, we don't need to tell women what they're wearing, we don't need to talk to women about what they're wearing ever. Ladies, consider talking to other ladies maybe about what they think. And I think in the same way, ladies, you don't need to give feedback to every woman on what she's wearing either, okay? Let's be clear about that. It needs to be requested. But, ladies, ladies, let me just say this. Um, you can request help from other women and ask them, what do you think about the way I dress? And you can work on it together with people you trust, okay? That's probably the way to do this. Ladies, you don't have to speak to every woman's clothing choice. Let them ask you for help. Now, interestingly, in 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul told the rich women at Ephesus to dress modestly. But he wasn't speaking about anything sexually suggestive necessarily. He was speaking to the women who were showing off how rich they were. That's interesting. In that way, all of us sometimes maybe need to consider dressing more modestly. And it's not only the women that need to do this, we also might need to drive more modestly our cars. All this is to say, however we dress, we should do it for the glory of God. Whatever we do, we should do for the glory of God because whatever we wear, whatever we do, whoever we talk to, wherever we go, we can do that for the glory of God.

Modesty Responsibility And Neighbor Love

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And this brings us to our third point. God desires we reflect his heart. God desires we reflect his heart. See, our commitment should look more like his. Verse 31 it was also said, whoever divorces his wife must give her a written notice of divorce. But I tell you, everyone who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. Whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. I really like uh preaching on this one. Not really, but Jesus' standards are different than ours. And I know many of you in the room are divorced and remarried today. I don't want you to focus on that right now, okay? This goes beyond your past. You can follow Jesus with your heart now, even if you've gotten it wrong before. You see, marriage is supposed to point our commitment to God. Adultery and idolatry are one and the same. There are texts in the Bible that speak to abandonment and abuse, but I'm not going to spend all our time today on is this sin? Is this okay? Can we do this? Is this all right? No, no, no, no. We're trying to see God's heart here. We need to look at the root of what Jesus is getting to here. Lust can even exist in your marriage. Um, and when uh that lust runs out, so do people. That's a problem. Feelings are temporary. Marriage is about choosing to love that person the way Christ loved you for the rest of your life, whether they deserve it or not. Is that painful sometimes? Oh my gosh. Ask my wife. Now, it's not about what they can give you, but it's about how you what you can give them. Because the moment that we just don't feel in love, the moment that we feel out of love, the moment that we just don't need anything or feel anything from that person, we discard them like they're just a thing, not someone that God has has put us in a marriage relationship to love. Do they deserve it? Not always, no, but neither did we. Neither do we deserve the love of Jesus. Marriage today lacks the reverence God gives it in the Bible. Marriage is a picture of the gospel, and it's on all sides of the spectrum. I have net I will never forget the politician Newt Gingrich, who went on CNN and railed against gay marriage, saying we have to protect and defend biblical marriage. And I was like, homeboy has six, has had six wives. I'm like, you need to sit down and stop talking about everybody else. You don't understand marriage either. It was never about you, sir. We have changed the meaning of marriage to be about convenience, to be about feeling. It is not. Marriage has so little value in our culture today. We say we fall out of love. That's how we show that it was not about commitment, it was not about that person, it was not about God, it was about me and mine. Some people think marriage is a chance to be a coward and abuse their wife. That is not biblical. We know that's not biblical. Men were meant to protect their wives. Now many people in our society live together, they go on vacation together, and they have sex before marriage, and when they get married, very little changes. That's a

Marriage Divorce And Covenant Faithfulness

SPEAKER_01 36:41

problem. That's not valuing marriage, it's devaluing marriage. We also fail to see that marriage is about holiness. We are meant to make each other holy, closer to God, sanctified. Husbands, your wife, your goal is to lead your wife in service. Your goal is to find ways to serve your wife and draw her and your family to Jesus. You are to provide and protect, but you are also to lead in service. Wives, you are to honor and serve your husband in the same way with a desire to bless him and draw him closer to Jesus. And to both sides, when your spouse is not honoring God, you put God first in your life because that is the only way you can love that person. It has to be out of the overflow of your love for God. And then you seek ways to encourage them in faith and to love them in everyday life, even when they're jerks. And they will be jerks. Zambian pastor Joe Coppolo once said, While women should be should not be expected to stay in unsafe and abusive situations, Jesus' words reassert uh reassert the true meaning of marriage commitment and the solemnity of the marriage union. Guys, just because you can divorce in our culture doesn't mean you always should. Let me just say that. Just because you can divorce because Jesus said you can, doesn't mean you always should. Did you hear him say you should? Or you can? There is a difference. Did you notice that? Friends, uh, we have had friends who wanted a divorce, and they both had really solid relationships with all of the lawyers in Wichita, Kansas. So they all went to the lawyers and tried to like get a divorce, and guess what? Nobody felt like they could get them divorced because they felt like they were too close to them. And so they ended up sticking it out, and they ended up growing closer to God, and they have an amazing marriage now, and they couldn't stand each other at one point.

Hosea Gomer And Redemption Love

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Now, there is a story in the Bible, the story of Hosea. He is a prophet. When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said to him, Go and marry a prostitute, and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord. God said to him, Go marry a woman who is uh cheating on people, who is going and doing stuff in the street, because she represents you to me. Thanks, Lord. So Hosea, he went and he married a woman named Gomer. Yes. Her name is Gomer. I don't know why you would name someone Gomer after this story, but that there it is. But Gomer was not faithful to God. Excuse me, Gomer was not faithful to Hosea. She left him, she slept with other men, and she got herself into debt. Did Hosea have the right to divorce Gomer? Yes. But God sent him back to her because God's love is like that. He has the right to rid himself of us. Gosh, I mean, how many times do we go and do the stupidest thing? God says, Don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch that, don't touch. And we're like, just like a kid, right? Like, and then and then we, you know, get electrocuted and we're like on the ground, you know, twitching, and God's like, What did I tell you? But what does he say too? Come home. Come home, come home. So Hosea had the right to divorce Gomer. God had the right to divorce us. But here's what the Lord said to Hosea Go again, show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods. And it says and have raisin cakes, which is a way of worshiping another God. So I bought her, Hosea said, for fifteen shekels of silver and nine bushels of barley. So what that meant is he cleared out his bank account and he had to find other finances, other things to pay for her. Out of sacrifice, Hosea had to get his wife back. I said to her, You are to live with me many days, you must not be promiscuous promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same towards you. So he makes a commitment to her. You see, God's love is a picture of redemption. Not because we deserve it, we are faithless. God's love is a picture of marriage, a good picture of marriage, where we, dudes, I know, we are called the bride. Men and women are called the bride, and Christ, he is the bridegroom, and he's the only good one. And no matter how much we sin against him, he says, Come home. Come home. And here's what God said to his people in Hosea I will take you to be my wife forever. I will take you to be my wife in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion. I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord. See, that's wild because um basically all of Israel had done the opposite of all the things he described to you. And friends, so do we. And that's the beauty of the gospel. That no matter how much we go off on our own, we do the stupid things, we treat people, we treat God as disposable, we use things for our own gratification. Still, God chases after us, still God shows us love. You are not good enough. He is good enough in our place, in our stead. Jesus came to this earth because we were not good enough. He died on the cross because we were not good enough, and he rose again as a good husband because only he was good enough for us. He revealed to the world that he was good enough, that he was a good husband, and that he loved us. So, friends, if you do not have a relationship with Jesus, if you have not been walking in that relationship with Jesus, if you have been using others, using God only for what you can get, and then walking away the moment he says something you don't like, it's okay. We're a lot like Gomer, aren't we? And yet he calls you home to relationship, to serve him, to serve others, to be compassionate, to be a good spouse who loves others, whether they deserve it or not.

Final Call Toward Holiness Together

SPEAKER_01 42:48

So, friends, God desires pure actions, but they should flow from pure hearts. But sometimes we need help in building boundaries to protect our hearts, and we have to seek out the things that draw us closer to God. And I ask you, why desire the things that destroy our soul and kill our relationships when Jesus died to free us from them? Instead, let us chase holiness together and honor the one who gave his life for our victory. Let's pray.