2 – What would Jesus say today about purity?
By Jeff Fry
Darwin Park Community Church, UK
Matthew 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 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. 30 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.
Thesis: We should take drastic measures to keep our thoughts pure.
I. Intro
A. Review
B. Illustration
1. Recently, a Telegraph article reported a British airline pilot’s wife was reported to have been imprisoned in Dubai for adultery.
a) She was reported as having been “distraught”.
2. But according to the OT she got off easy: the penalty then was death (Leviticus 20:10).
3. The western world has moved far away from these strict attitudes toward adultery and even more so in our attitude toward sexual lust and impure thoughts.
4. This Week: Jesus would say that we should take drastic measures to ensure that your thought life remains pure.
II. We should take drastic measures to keep our thoughts pure
A. State
1. Matthew 5:27 "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
a) Jesus refers to the seventh commandment from Exodus 20:14 “You shall not commit adultery”
b) But he takes it deeper and continues saying that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully …
(1) Again like last week it is not just the external that Jesus is interested in, but the deeper, attitude of the heart
(a) This is not condemning the normal attraction that exists between men and women. This is condemning the deep-seated lust which consumes and devours, the kind that undresses someone with their mind and uses them for their pleasure.
(i) It gets to the deeper question of “how do you see your brother and sister?”
(a) Do you see them as someone who is to be loved in a selfless way or to be used in a selfish way?
(ii) How do you see other human beings? Can you have compassion and concern for the good of your neighbour or do you see them as objects to be used?
(b) In Matthew 15:19 Jesus says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
(c) I was picking dandelions the other day from our front yard because all the other neighbours use weed killer and we don’t so our front garden looked very colorful but because of these dandelions!
(i) There are 2 ways you can pick em:
(a) Lazy way: you can snip off the flower part only and leave the root. If you go this way you can sure the dandelion will come back on you again.
(b) Proper way: you can dig it up by the root so that it doesn’t come back on you again.
(ii) Impure thoughts are like that dandelion says Jesus: you can deal with the external actions (adultery) but that isn’t really getting at the source of the problem. You need to deal with your heart or your desires in other words. Your desires have to change. But how? WE will see later.
c) Our society is easing off on its prohibition of adultery …
(1) Swinging – two couples having consensual sex with the other couples’ spouse.
(a) Apparently according to one survey by research company onepoll.com two million Brits have tried this and six million say they would like to try it.
(b) To me it’s a recipe for disaster and flies in the face of God’s commands and His wisdom as laid down in Scripture.
(c) If this is the extent to which we’ve gone in this area then a little lust and impurity is nothing. …. Consider
(i) Our adverts sell by sexual tittilation
(ii) Our bookstores are filled with novels full of infidelity
(iii) Page 3 of most tabloids at petrol stations need to avoided by anyone hoping to maintain purity of thought
(iv) Pop songs like Ciara’s “Love, Sex, Magic” are focused on satisfying sex & physical desire as paramount.
(v) Relationship talk show experts like Tracey Cox on Radio 1 don’t help either. See article in the Independent where she recommends porn to save relationships.
(vi) One journalist for the Independent wrote an article entitled “I look at porn: am I a monster?”
(2) Into such a society Jesus speaks his words “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”
(a) Which one of us is not guilty of adultery?
(b) Are you starting to see from this series how great our need for God is, and for His forgiveness and mercy?
(c) “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3)
(i) poor in spirit = spiritually impoverished, in need of God, spiritually bankrupt before God, unworthy before God
2. “if your right eye causes you to sin then gouge it out …. If your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away …”
a) Jesus calls for drastic action in the face o fsin – why?
(1) It has the power to direct our heart, our whole person, who we are
(2) Because the consequences are so great – hell
b) Jesus knows that if you start down the road of sin you begin a degenerative process that doesn’t stop until it ends in hell.
B. Illustrate
1. “he handed them over …” (Romans 1:24, 26, 28)
a) in the sense of “hand over control of, responsibility for”
b) he handed them over to ….
(1) Means he handed control over to …
(a) V. 24 “to sexual impurity”
(b) V. 26 “to shameful lusts”
(c) V. 28 “to a depraved mind”
(2) And so their sin just got worse and worse and controlled them more and more and eventually destroyed them
2. God doesn’t do anything, he just removes His protective hand so that man’s natural depravity has all its freedom to run and take effect.
3. The “degenerative downward spiral of Romans 1”
a) When man jettisons God’s ways in a full sense then man’s sin will intensify until he destroys himself.
C. Apply: How can our hearts become pure?
1. Put off / Put on : If it’s my heart that needs to change as Jesus says, then how do I get a new heart?
a) You have a new heart but what are you doing with that heart?
(1) With the coming of the new covenant in Jesus we were given a new heart.
(a) Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”
(b) The NT says it like this: 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
(2) But you don’t practically experience that new heart at work until you, by faith, believe it, exercise it, and put it into practice.
(a) I have a friend in the States whose father has a very weak heart from illness. To keep him alive they had to put an apparatus into him that assists the pumping of his heart. He wears a belt that has batteries in it that have to be recharged regularly that keep the pump pumping. If he removes the batteries the assistive pump won’t work and his heart will stop pumping.
(i) Your new spiritual heart needs material to work with as it can’t work in a void
(ii) Put the right thing into your heart to empower it – i.e. focus your mind on Scripture, worship music, etc
(a) Romans 8:6 says, “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace”
(b) Paul says in Philippians 4:8 says Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things.
(b) Your part of the relationship with God is to put off the old self (sinful man) and put on the new self (new creation).
(i) Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
(a) Put off & put on
(i) Put off the sinful, impure thoughts by resisting them and turning your mind from them
(ii) Replace them with the truth of God by meditating on Scripture
(b) Air traffic control tower illustration: like an air traffic controller don’t give impure, lustful thoughts permission to land in your mind but reject them
(c) This is why I’m so upset that nobody as far as I know has taken one of the Scripture reading plans which sit each week in the back of the room. It makes me wonder what are we filling our minds with?
(i) The Bible is God’s love letter to us
(ii) Sarah’s letters when in Lublin language school
2. PUT OFF - Covenant Eyes – put off by protecting yourself from online pornography as
a) one report says that porn causes relationship difficulties for 40% of clients coming into see relationship therapists.
b) Another report said that UK internet users search on the word porn more than anyone in the English speaking world with 1 in 4 adults downloading images.
c) Another 2006 report showed a 30% rise in the users of porn on the internet over a 12 month period recently
3. PUT ON - Stonghold Buster on purity – put on (downloadable from our dpccnet.com site’s homepage or just go to site and search on “purity”)
III. Conclusion
A. Drastic action is recommended by Jesus (“pluck out your eye”, “cut off your hand”) and drastic action is needed by us to cut out sin in our life before it destroys us.
B. Illus.
a) After 15 years in what she thought was a happy, loving relationship, Jessica was horrified to discover that her partner had become obsessed with online pornography.
b) "We had always had a very good sexual relationship and never had a problem, so it was the last thing that I would have suspected," said the 37-year-old businesswoman, who has asked for her surname to be withheld.
c) "I was so shocked and we had huge rows about it so many times, but he used to try to justify it by blaming me for not giving him enough attention after our daughter was born."
d) The couple eventually separated last June after her husband had an affair with a woman he met online. But Jessica, who lives in East Anglia, blames online pornography.
e) It took her a while to realise why their phone bills were so high. "He had always been into computers, and when we were on dial-up we'd get these massive phone bills - and at the time I couldn't understand why," says Jessica, who has a five-year-old daughter.
f) "Later on it all made sense, and with broadband the world was his oyster. I would walk into the room and see my husband staring at the computer screen and would often catch a glimpse of an image. I began to notice the different sites he had been visiting and it got to the stage where he would be downloading stuff at all hours of the day and night."
g) Jessica is one of an increasing number of women who are finding that their partners are enjoying secret sex lives through online pornography.
2. I’m sure it just started with a peak at a web page one day and then another and another until it became an addiction with downloads at “all hours of the day and night”.
a) Sin …. We cannot
(1) Flirt with it
(2) Enjoy nibbling it around the edges
(3) Pamper it
b) Sin … we must
(1) Hate it
(2) Crush it
(3) Eradicate it
(4) Say no to it
(5) Not give it permission to land in our minds
(6) Turn away from it decisively and not give it another thought
C. Whichever way you go with purity it is going to snowball, gain momentum – it can spiral downward into more and more sin ending in destruction, costing you time, money and even your most cherished relationships (Romans 1) or it can spiral upward toward God through repentance and renewal of mind until we see God. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:3).