Matthew 5:27-28 (ESV)
Lust
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.
I’m going to begin my sermon this morning by doing something that my wife really does not like me to do, and that is talking about her. But I want you to know that I have received her permission to do this, so here we go. Something you may not know about Marilyn is that she is a very gifted cake decorator. She took cake decorating classes when I was at the seminary and she put what she learned to good use. While on vicarage she decorated cakes in a brand new bakery that opened within walking distance of the church where I served. Then when we got to our first congregation she started her own cake decorating business that she ran out of our home. When we moved to Tuscola she got a job decorating cakes at the local IGA store. She doesn’t do it anymore, except for very special occasions like a grandchild’s birthday, so if you’re thinking of asking her to do a cake for you, you might as well put that thought aside. But I am proud to say that she was very good at what she did and she made some of the most beautiful cakes I’ve ever seen or tasted, except for one, and that was the one that she was working on out of our home at our first congregation. It was the day before Easter and if my memory serves me correctly she had something like 7 cakes to do that morning, most of which were in the shape of a cross. Well, my office happened to be in our house at that time and I can remember coming out of it and walking into the kitchen just as she was removing one of those cross cakes from its pan and putting it on the board on which she would decorate it. But as she did so, the board became unbalanced in her hand and that beautiful cross cake slid right off the board and into the dish water. She looked at me and I looked at her and not knowing what to say, I tried to inject some humor into the situation. So I said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were in the business of making sponge cakes.” Need I tell you that she did not appreciate my humor one bit?
Well, there’s a term we can use to describe what Marilyn did to that cake. She adulterated it. The verb adulterate means to make inferior or impure; to ruin; to make something other than it was meant to be. It’s the verb from which we get the word adultery. To commit adultery is to make the marriage relationship inferior or impure. It ruins the relationship because it takes that which was so special between a husband and a wife, namely, the sexual relationship, and gives it to another. It introduces a third party into the relationship. It makes the marriage bond something other than it was meant to be and destroys the foundation of trust that it was built upon. And that’s what we began talking about in my last sermon 2 weeks ago as we started our study of the 6th Commandment which says “You shall not commit adultery.” And I told you at the end of my sermon that morning that today I was going to begin by talking about how these situations even develop and how people end up doing things that they promised on their wedding day they would never do.
I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say because I don’t care how much you love your spouse or how committed you are to them, I don’t care how many times you’ve thought or said, “That would never happen to me” or “I would never do anything like that,” given the right time and the right circumstances, or maybe I should say the wrong time and the wrong circumstances, anyone is vulnerable to sexual temptation. And I think the reason for that is because we typically don’t fall headlong into sexual sin. We don’t wake up some morning and say, “I think I’m going to have an affair today.” Rather, what happens is we slowly slide into sexual sin. Maybe that cute co-worker in the office gets a little flirty with you or gives you a compliment one day on how you look and pretty soon you can’t stop thinking about her and you’re looking for more and more ways to run into her.
Or maybe you and your husband have been having a few problems, nothing too big or drastic, but there have been more than the usual number of arguments going on in your home. And one day you’re checking out at Wal-Mart and lo and behold, standing in front of you is an old flame from high school. The 2 of you start talking and he asks how you’re doing and you let it slip that you and your husband have been having a few problems lately and he offers a listening ear and a compassionate heart, which is more than you’ve been getting from your man at home lately, and pretty soon you find yourself sliding – sliding into inappropriate thoughts which can eventually lead to inappropriate actions further on down the road.
So what do you do to keep from sliding? Well, I’m going to have more to say about that the next time I address the 6th Commandment from the pulpit when I talk about some of the ways whereby we can fight and overcome sexual temptation, but for right now let me share with you what 2 wise men once said. The first one was Job – yes, the same Job who in the very 1st verse of the book that is named after him is described as one who was “blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.” Well, in chapter 31:1 he says: “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.” Basically what Job is saying there is that you have to make decisions on how you’re going to handle sexual temptation before it comes your way rather than having to make it on the spur of the moment when it comes your way. For example, I recently learned of one pastor who went to visit a very godly man in the hospital. This man was in his 80’s. And when the pastor walked into the room, this elderly gentleman was in bed watching TV, but he had his hands over his eyes like this. So the pastor asked him what he was doing. And the man said, “I don’t want to watch that commercial.” The pastor said, “Why not?” The man said, “Because there are some visual images in it that could cause me to stumble spiritually.” This guy was 84 years old and yet he still battled sexual temptation. But he had done what Job did. He had made a covenant with his eyes that he would not look lustfully at a woman. He had nipped temptation in the bud before it even had a chance to take root in his heart.
I heard of another man – this one a pastor – who does a lot of traveling. And every time he gets to a motel, he pulls a picture of his family out of his suitcase and puts it on the TV. Then he calls the front desk and asks them to turn off the cable in his room, thus removing any temptations to watch things that he knows would be displeasing to his Lord, disrespectful to his wife, and detrimental to his spiritual well-being.
The 2nd wise man I alluded to a few moments ago was Martin Luther who has a great quote that some of you have probably heard before. He said: “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” In other words, you can’t keep all temptations away, but with God’s help you can keep them from making a home in your heart.
Well, now that we’ve addressed the issue of how we can very easily slide into sexual sin, I want to take us beyond the letter of the 6th Commandment, beyond the literal sin of adultery, and I want to spend some time looking at the spirit of this law because again, that’s what Jesus was so good at doing. In fact, we see him doing it in our text for today where he says: “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.” So one way in which we can violate this commandment is through lust. But what exactly is lust? Well, on the Internet I came across this Christian definition for lust: “Lust is having a self-absorbed desire for an object, person, or experience.” I think the key phrase there is “self-absorbed.” Lust doesn’t care about the other person. It’s only interested in what this person can do for me. When David saw Bathsheba taking a bath in the privacy of her home, he lusted after her. He wanted her as his own even though she belonged to another man. He was only interested in what she could do for him so he had her brought to his palace and no doubt used his kingly power to lead her into the sin of adultery.
I remember hearing a Christian speaker once tell about a time when he was on the beach with his teenage sons. He said that there were all these girls walking by in their skimpy bikinis and it was pretty obvious that his boys were quite interested in what they were seeing. So recognizing this as a teachable moment, when one particularly fine-looking lady walked by, he said to his boys: “Hey guys, God did a good job with her, didn’t he?” It was his way of trying to slay the dragon of lust in their hearts by helping them to see that members of the opposite sex are not objects to be ogled but rather creations of God to be valued and respected.
Then a 2nd way we can violate this commandment is through off-color jokes and vulgar language. Heaven knows there are more than enough of those things floating around these days, especially on the Internet, and as Christians we really have no business passing them on to others or even listening to them. In Eph. 4:29 the Apostle Paul says: “Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word or worthless talk ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others.” (The Amplified Bible) So you might consider following this simple rule: “If you wouldn’t want Jesus to hear it or read it, then don’t pass it on.”
Then a 3rd way we can break this commandment is through improper dress. Sometime ago one of our members sent me an email after she had been on a business trip and asked me if I was ever going to address this issue from the pulpit because she was shocked and appalled at what she saw many teenage girls and young ladies wearing at the airport. It was almost as though they were inviting men to look at them and tempting them to lust after them. Now I have had some parents of teenagers talk to me about this issue and they are absolutely frustrated by it because they find themselves at the mercy of a fashion industry that is bent on having females show a lot more skin than what they have ever shown before and what many of them are not comfortable with. Because of that, modesty in dress has become a rare commodity in our day and age, though I do know from talking to some mothers that while it isn’t easy to find decent clothes that is not quite so revealing it can be done. You just have to look hard for it.
But you know what? This isn’t a new problem. It was around even during the days of the Apostle Paul who wrote in I Tim. 2:9-10: “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” Now understand that Paul is not saying there that it’s wrong for a woman to braid her hair or wear jewelry or dress nicely, but rather it’s what is in her heart that is most important. And if in her heart she is dressing a certain way so that men will look at her or men will be attracted to her or lust after her, that’s when it’s wrong.
Well, I think we’re going to stop at this point and pick it up again not the next time I preach which will be Reformation Sunday 2 weeks from today, but the time after that as we look at a few more ways whereby the 6th Commandment can be violated. Then we’ll examine some ways in which we can fight and overcome temptation in this area so that we can be victors over it rather than victims of it. And for those times when we have failed, there is some good news – the good news that in spite of our many faults and shortcomings we have a God who still loves us and who has done everything possible and everything necessary to rescue us from the eternal consequences of our sins, even going so far as to put his own Son to death on a cross as the supreme sacrifice and payment for those sins. And because of that, he now offers us full and complete forgiveness as well as the life-changing power of his Holy Spirit who alone can take a sinful, imperfect, impure heart like mine and like yours and transform it into his beautiful and glorious temple. I pray that every one of us here today will receive those gifts by faith and experience the victory over sexual sin and temptation that God wants us all to have. Amen.