Sermon on the Mount

We're gonna take up our bibles now, and we're going to read from Matthew's Gospel. It's a sermon on the Mount. It's a series we're doing here on Sunday evenings, working our way through this fantastic sermon that Jesus gave, this very famous sermon. And it's called the Sermon on the Mount because he was on a mount when he did it. And we're in this little section of you have heard it was said.

Jesus keeps repeating himself. You've heard it was said. You've heard it was said, but I say to you, And we're on verse 27 of Matthew chapter 5, and we're reading to verse 30. You've heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully, has already committed adultery her in his heart.

If your right eye causes you to stumble gouge it out, throw it away. It's better for you to lose 1 part of your body and for the whole of your body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, for throw it away. It is better for you to lose 1 part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Strong words, aren't they?

But really helpful words, I hope. And Daryl's gonna come and open those that that passage up to us for a little while. Good evening. Let's pray. Heavenly father, this is a challenging word.

This is a difficult teaching. So please would you help us now to humble ourselves before you and throw ourselves on your mercy? Lord, we confess that we have not lived according to this teaching. Set the captives free, lord. Please help us to live in accordance with your words, empowered by your Holy Spirit, looking to your son.

Our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. We pray in his name. I'm in. If you know the story of Jonah, in the old testament, you'll remember how it starts God asked Jonah to go and preach against Ninevah because of its wickedness. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and went in the opposite direction.

Now I know how Jonah felt. When I saw the rotor for tonight with my name next to this passage, I was so scared I booked a 1 way ticket to Tarshish. I must have read those words of Jesus a hundred times before, but this time they hit me like a ton of bricks. Because without getting too personal, for me, this is the front line. I've never had an affair.

But to my shame, Jesus just said, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully. This is the battle that rages the fiercest, and it's 1 that I fight every day. Maybe you're the same as me. We want to be the kind of people who practice what we preach. We want to be people of integrity.

We don't want to be hypocrites. But this is a hard teaching, isn't it? These words are uncomfortable. So I was quite nervous about being here tonight. But then, I could also hear God speaking very loudly and very clearly into my life.

And I began to think, what if What if this is part of the process? What if preaching through this text is part of the way that God is going to help me to grow up in this area. And what if I'm not alone? Surely, there are others out there who also feel like this. My brothers and sisters.

What if they need to deal with this too? What if during lockdown, it's gotten worse and not better? And I thought, if God can use 4 thieving unclean lepers, to let the starving city know where the food is? Or maybe just maybe he could use me now in weakness. To help my friends to ask for help.

I became a Christian in 2006. So for 27 years, I lived my life with no reference to Jesus Christ whatsoever. I wouldn't say I'd seen it all, but I've seen enough of it. I've seen things that I can't unsee, and I've done things that I can't undo. And the memories of those things still haunt me today.

And we don't change because most of the time we just stumble through life just trying to get on with it. And typically, people don't want to talk these things because they're embarrassing and humiliating and shameful. So we hide sin in our hearts and we keep it a secret. It's only us and God that knows, and everyone else thinks that we're alright. We suffer in silence, thinking we can handle it, but we can't.

This is a fight and we need to fight. Because if we don't fight this and it grows into a stumbling block, then Jesus is warning us how serious the consequences are. So not taking any action isn't an option. I've been a Christian now for 15 years and I'm still learning what these words mean for me practically. That Jesus is calling us all to a radical obedience here.

It's easy to make excuses about what is lust and what isn't as if the totality of what Jesus is saying here isn't really that all comprehensive, but it is, isn't it? He's saying, Don't look. Don't look with any kind of lustful intent. More than that, Don't even think, don't intend, don't think that way. In this world, in 20 21, don't look.

Believe me when I say, I'm preaching to myself here. But if you also need help to fight this sin, then please come and speak to 1 of the pastors, 1 of the elders, or to me, or to someone you trust after the service. Don't suffer in silence because there is hope. There is good news for sinners like me. Our God is powerful to help you to become more like Jesus.

And he has already made complete provision for your failures on the cross of Christ. But we do need to fight. There's far too much to say, on the topic of Christian purity, good books have been written on this subject. We're not going to have time. In the next 3 hours.

To do this topic any kind of justice. Maybe there's demand for another flight club or sisters act session on this topic. All we can do tonight is look at these words Jesus is saying. And introduce some ideas to help us to put them into practice. There are practical things you can do to fight, to cut it out.

I'll be sharing some of them later. They will be costly, but it's much more costly not to fight. So this is how we're going to frame it because when Jesus starts preaching the good news in Mark chapter 1, he simply says this. The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news. And that's how the fight goes. Repent and believe repent and believe. Repent means to stop sinning to turn around and go in the other direction. That is towards Jesus instead of away from him.

And believe the good news means to look at Jesus, and to trust the promises that he has made, to save his people from their sins, repent and believe. That's the format. So, will you fight with me as we look together at these verses tonight? Let's begin by reminding ourselves of the situation that Jesus is speaking into. Firstly, repent.

You shall not commit adultery. Jesus is in the middle of correcting misunderstandings that people have about the law. He refers to the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery. No doubt the people of the time thought that was quite an easy command to keep. I'm sure most people in our world today think the same thing.

It's easy. Right? All you have to do is not have an extramarital affair, and you've kept that commandment. This is particularly easy if you're not married. Jesus original here is probably thought they hadn't broken it.

That in this respect at least, they're good enough for God on their own merit. So you don't need to ask for forgiveness or mercy because they think they haven't done anything wrong. I'm not a cheat, they say. Jesus isn't changing the law. He's come to show them the true spirit in which that law was originally given.

You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus is God the son he knows what he meant when he gave Moses the 10 commandments. So he's the perfect person to explain their fullest meaning. And so he takes what sounds like quite an easy law to keep, and he broadens it out so much.

That everyone who hears incorrectly goes from being innocent to guilty as charged in a moment. Now, I'm not a member of this website, but I've heard that there is a Canadian online dating agency marketed to people who are already in a relationship, Ashley Madison. They're best known for their advertising slogan, life is short, have an affair. It's the opposite of what Jesus is saying here. You shall not commit adultery.

It's anti Christ. Apparently, the service is so successful, that it helps to create up to 1000000 new affairs every month. But in 20 15, hackers stole all of their member's data and published it online. That must have been awkward. Can you imagine the horror of being found out like that?

You don't think you're doing anything wrong, and then everyone knows. And suddenly it's very clear that it's wrong. And that's good test actually, isn't it? If you're not sure, if what you're doing is wrong, Just think, how would you feel if everybody knew if it was on tomorrow's front pages. Would I be proud?

Or ashamed. Yet despite the Ashley Madison scandal, 4 years later, the company had over 60000000 members in 53 countries. Before we look at what Jesus means when he explains the commandments fullest meaning, it's probably worth mentioning that the original word still stands. Perhaps there's someone here who knows the pain of being a victim of adultery, only too well. God commands his people not to do this to each other.

But perhaps there's someone listening who is having an affair. Or he's flirting with the idea of having an affair. Can you repent in the middle of an affair. You can quickly repent from looking at someone sinfully, But clearly, it's much harder if you're in an ongoing adulterous relationship. It's like being in a contract to commit sin regularly.

In order to fully repent from an affair, it has to end. Now, I'm not pointing the finger at anybody because Jesus just put most of us in the same category. As he says, in verse 28, I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now, what does that mean? In Jesus' day, there were no films or TV.

There was no internet pornography. No 50 shades of grey, no Game of Thrones. People you passed on the street dressed a lot more modestly in Jesus' day. So what is on his mind here? A thousand years before Christ, when King David looks out from his rooftop and he sees bathsheba in the bath, What happens to him?

Despite all the privileges of his faith, and all the promises of God and all that he had seen, something inside him took over, a powerful force a selfish, sinful nature. The next thing you know, he slept with her and he's trying to kill her husband to cover it up. Now, it's not a sin to notice that a woman is beautiful. But why linger on that thought? What are we doing when we dwell on it?

Why deliberately take that second look? What did David want with that look? Well, there came a point when he intended to commit adultery with her. He wanted to. Bring her to me.

I think originally, Jesus meant something like, don't commit adultery, don't even intend. To commit adultery. Don't want to. Don't fantasize about it. Don't even flirt with the concept of adultery.

Don't go looking for it. Don't go to the place where it can be found. Don't entertain those lost full thoughts in your mind. Don't act on them. Those things are timeless In 20 21, we've just invented new ways of doing them, but that's not the way of the kingdom.

Now, it's not surprising that we find this difficult because we live in this tension between these 2 truths. Firstly, God has designed us to be sexual beings. Sex itself is not the problem. No. It's a good gift from God, which is designed to unite man and wife together as 1.

So the first man, Adam, he sings for joy when he meets his wife, Eve in the garden. And in fact, the first command given to the first couple and the first page of the first chapter in the bible is this. Be fruitful and increase in number. Have babies. So, Men are supposed to be attracted to women like this.

If we're not, how could anyone ever meet somebody and fall in love? So if you're a young man or woman desiring to be in a relationship, but battling with these temptations, you've got to know It has to be like this. It's not a sin for you to feel attracted to someone that you're seriously thinking about marrying. In fact, you have to be attracted to them in order to marry them. The question is, how can something so right go so wrong?

And that's the other thing, isn't it? Because also, we're fallen beings, aren't we? Sin has literally perverted all of our hearts. The sinful nature takes what God has made to be good and destroys it. Sin turns us in on ourselves and makes us seek selfish gain over the good of others.

And that's the context we're fighting in. That's the battleground. On 1 hand, we are meant to be sexual beings, but on the other hand, we're fallen beings. And so we live in a world full of sexual sin. Is there an industry left So it hasn't uncovered some kind of sex scandal.

Movies, music, football, aids charities, schools, the church, This is why we have to fight. We have to fight against the sinful nature. It seeks to destroy the good gifts that God has made. We all have to fight for self control. And that's true whether you're married or you're single.

Now, the words, adultery, comes from the Latin verb to alter or to corrupt. And the concept of adultery is loaded with meaning in the rest of the bible. In the old testament, God is described as the faithful husband of Israel, but she commits adultery. She corrupts his marriage covenant. She is unfaithful to him, and she runs off to worship other gods.

And in the New Testament, the church is described as the bride of Christ. And God, the son, is a completely faithful husband to his bride, the church. He will never betray her. So God's people are always called to be faithful to him. When Israel were unfaithful, they were sent into exile.

They were sent away from God, which is what Jesus talks about next. Secondly, repent. Cut it out and throw it away. Have a look at verse 29. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.

It is better for you to lose 1 part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose 1 part of your body then for your whole body to go into hell. Disclaimer 1. Please do not go home tonight, convicted of sin and gouge out your eye or cut off your hand.

Please don't do that. I'm not disagreeing with Jesus, and I'll explain why in a moment. Carson says the word hand is likely a euphemism for something else anyway, let the reader understand. But don't do that either. You need it.

The legend has it that in the second century, 1 of the early church fathers, Oregon, took this command a little too literally and castrated himself. That's what a eunuch is, by the way, someone who cuts off the temptation, so that they can serve the women at the royal court. Please don't go home tonight and commit any acts of self mutilation. It won't work. I'm sorry, but this is gonna get a bit gruesome.

So if you're a bit squeamish, then cover over your ears for a second. If you gouge out your right eye, you'll probably lost with your left eye. So then you'd need to gouge out your left eye as well. But then you'd probably remember the things that you'd seen when you did have eyes, and start fantasizing about them. So then you'd have to scoop out your brains.

Basically, self mutilation isn't going to cut it. You can uncover your ears now. So what is going on? I think Jesus is powerfully illustrating that he wants us to deal radically with sin and cut it out. His point is this.

It's clearly better to make this lesser sacrifice now, that is the cutting out the sin item in your life than to not do that, carry on sinning and go to hell, which is sin's reward. And when you put it in such stark terms, it's obvious, isn't it? What's worse, an eternity in hell? Or losing an eye. And the point stands.

So I do think that Jesus wants you to make costly sacrifices to obey his commands and avoid this sin. No acts of self mutilation, But what do you need to cut out that is just as dramatic and costly? For example, viewing pornography is not the only way that someone might look at a woman lustfully. There are many others, but we'll deal with this first as a major example. We absolutely have to completely cut pornography out of our lives.

There is no room for continuing to use pornography in any form after this command. So if this is a problem for you or your children, think about how you or they might access pornography, and imagine Jesus telling you to cut it out. So Do you use your phone? What would you say if Jesus had said, If your phone causes you to sin, smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer. It's better for you to lose your phone than to keep on sinning with it and end up in hell.

Would you do that if that was in the bible? Yes or no? I thought about dramatically smashing my phone to pieces in front of you all to make the point. That would have been a powerful illustration. You'd have remembered that.

But then I thought, what would I do if I actually did that? I'd go to the shops tomorrow and I'd buy another 1 and then I might as well have not bothered. No. You need something that works. These ideas will be different for everyone.

But you've got to be honest with yourself about what you need to cut out. So I'm not gonna suggest anything that I've not already done myself. But here's a few ideas. Lock it out. Number 1, remove apps.

Imagine this. If an app on your phone causes you to sin, delete it, and remove your access to the App Store so you can't get it back. I'm sorry. I can't speak for Android because I just don't know. But the parental controls on the iPhone are good.

If you look at the content and privacy restrictions, there are lots of helpful tools. Investigate them. Find out what they do. For example, you can set a passcode and disable the function that installs new apps. If your friend or housemate knows the passcode.

You don't need to know it. If you do need it, they can put it in for you, then you can download chess or whatever, whatever you want, and then you can they can take it off for you again. I haven't got a clue what my passcode It's probably 1, 2, 3, 4. You can do this and you won't die. It's better for you to lose an app on your phone than to not repent keep sinning with it and end up in hell.

2. Remove internet access. If having internet access on your phone causes you to sit in, block all websites and delete or turn off all your browsers, you can turn the Safari web browser on or off. Mine is off. If you wanna block all websites through other apps as well, in that same section of content and privacy restrictions, just click web content, and you you've got a choice.

You can choose between unrestricted access to all websites. Or you can choose limit adult websites, or you can choose allowed websites only. Mine is on allowed websites only. That will block everything unless you tell it it's okay. Your passcode that you don't know then locks you out so that you can't undo it.

Ask your friend to help you with this as well. I can't browse the internet on my phone and it's fine. Just use a computer. It's better for you to lose access to websites on your phone than to not repent keep on sinning with it and end up in hell. You've got to remember that the internet is not a passive thing.

It's not like a pen or a knife that you can use it for good or evil, but it in itself is neutral. The internet's not like that. Why? Because advertising relies on persuading you to spend money on stuff, and so you go online and you get bombarded by images that make you wanna click on things, and people are employed to actually to get you to look at pages that you don't wanna see to make money. You need some kind of defense.

3, covenant eyes. You can install filters on all of your computers and devices that block access to inappropriate websites. You can even ask your internet provider like Sky or Virgin or your mobile internet provider, to block all access to adult websites at the router level. So it can't come in the house. I use a filter and a reporter on my laptop called Covenant and Eyes.

It's trained to look for inappropriate images, and it sends random screenshots of everything I've seen directly to my wife. Now, listen. That's not gonna work for everyone. Most people ask a friend to hold you to account. It depends on how much trouble you're in.

For me, this is great because I know I'm never gonna use my computer in that way because my wife knows everything. But there's no point in having these kind of barriers if you're just gonna go and get around them on another device. You've got to commit to it completely. If having total anonymous freedom on your computer, causes you to sin, cut it out, and throw it away. It's better for you to lose your computer than to not repent, carry on sinning with it and end up in hell.

Now, we don't have time this evening to consider every single device that you or your kids can access porn on. Nor do we have time to consider all the different ways that you can look with lust for intent on someone in the street. But you do have time. You've got time to put controls on what you see and do. And to think about it very carefully.

To map out the times and the places and the devices that are a stumbling block for you personally and to ask for help. And to even want to put those things out of your reach. And to insert those ways into Jesus model here, if your blank whatever causes you to stumble, cut it out and throw it away. Why, Jesus? Because it's better for you to lose it than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Now, pornography is not the only way that somebody might look with lustful intentions. So, if your book causes you to stumble, if going to the gym or the beach causes you to stumble. If flirting with that person in the photocopying room causes you to stumble, cut it out, we do need to do this. We need to fight. And the rest of the bible is pretty clear on this as well.

Listen to Paul. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. But second disclaimer, it's not enough.

Even that won't work on its own. Listen to what Paul says a few verses before. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch these rules which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom with their self imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining central indulgence. Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Here's the disclaimer. If you cut it out and deal radically with the root cause of your sinful behavior, it will give you space to fight and repent, but it won't change your heart. The second you take those protections away, it will be King David and bathsheba all over again. In order to change the sinful nature, you need to set your hearts and minds on things above, not on earthly things.

We need to repent and believe the good news. So finally, 3. Believe. Look at Jesus. And trust his promises.

If you're feeling pretty poor in spirit, or if you're mourning over your sin tonight. Remember how blessed you are. Bless. Of the pouring spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Bless are those who mourn over their sin. For they will be comforted. Jesus isn't just the teacher, who has come to explain the fullest meaning of the 10 commandments. By the end of Matthews's gospel, he's also the savior who has given his life for his people on the cross. And we need this salvation because clearly, we are guilty.

Jesus says, unless your righteousness Sorry. Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Faracies and the teachers of the law, you'll certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. In ourselves, we're not righteous. No 1 is righteous, not even 1. We've seen that tonight as we've looked at these verses.

But here's the good news. The righteousness of God can be yours, and it does not depend on your performance. Listen to Romans 3. We're made right with God by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone has sinned.

No 1 measures up to God's glory, The free gift of God's grace makes us right with him. Christ Jesus paid the price to set us free. God gave Christ as a sacrifice to pay for sins through the spilling of his blood. So God forgives the sins of those who have faith. Repent, and believe the good news.

Think about that. All of your sin, all of your lustful intent can be forgiven through the death and resurrection of Christ. No matter what you've done. If you repent, and believe the good news, you can be forgiven. Just think, why is Jesus on the cross?

Because of our sin. Because of all the sin that we've looked at tonight and even more. For your sin and for my sin, past, present, and even future tense sin. Jesus paid it all. But that's not all.

Jesus is alive again and that's our hope. New life. In Christ, a new heart, a future world where there is no sin. You know, it's not your fault If you're walking to work or driving and you see someone beautiful walking down the road, because you didn't go looking for it, I hope. But the temptation is there every day.

You've got to think, what am I going to do with this? Every day, you've got a choice to make to look or to fight. We have a sinful nature, but those in Christ are given his holy spirit to change and become more like him. It happens slowly, but it happens. And God is more committed to making us like Jesus than we are.

Now, you're going to fail. But God has always made provision for the failures of his people. And with the right heart, Failure can be an opportunity to look at Jesus, and thank God for what he has done. So no, you won't be perfect in this life. But you will be perfect in the next life.

And you will become more like Jesus in this life too. By cutting out some of the sin, we can give ourselves the space and time to look at Jesus instead. We can believe his promises to save us. And allow his holy spirit to change us. Instead of intending to lust after the flesh, dealing radically with our sin, shows out intent to follow Jesus even where it's most costly.

It gives us an opportunity to show that we treasure him more than anything that causes us to stumble. So, we must repent. But we must also believe the good news that Jesus paid it all and he washes the stain of sin, whiter snow. If you'd like help with this battle, please come and speak to 1 of us after the service. Thank you, Daryl.

Daryl mentioned in his sermon about King David found in the bible, of course, who saw bathsheba bathing on the rooftop, and that led to adultery and murder. After that, David did write a psalm of repentance and faith. And it's a really powerful song. I'm just gonna get that put up on the overhead. And it's Psalm 51.

I'm gonna read this and stop after I've read little sections. For you to use this as a prayer of repentance and faith and ask God, speak to him now. So let's use these words. Have mercy on me, oh, God? According to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So you are right in your verdict and justified in when you judge. Surely, I was sinful at birth, sinful, from the time my mother conceived me, yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb.

You taught me wisdom in the secret place, cleanse me with Hisop. This is the This is the real picture of the cross of Christ. So Hisop was used in the sacrifices when they drip the blood. In a sort of hip stops like a sort of bush and little branch thing. They drip drip the blood in that.

It's like the cross. Cleanse me with hiccup, and I shall be clean, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have crushed rejoice, hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Created me a pure heart o God and renew a steadfast spirit within me, Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.

Holly God, we thank you for those remarkable words. We pray please that you would cleanse each 1 of us, and you would cause us by your spirit to be stored and renewed and renewed for this battle. And so help us we pray. So much damage and hurt and pain and money and abuse that's going on. With adultery in this world.

So many people laugh at it and treat it as a joke when it does so much destruction. And we know personally this battle that can just destroy us as we imagine people that are just products to be used and to be taken and dumped. And so do forgive us. We thank you for the hope in in the gospel. We thank you that Jesus came for sinners like us to restore us and save us, to take our judgment, that we won't need to go to hell because he took our hell for us.

Thank you for that amazing truth. And we thank you in his name.