Riverside Community Church
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“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall 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 stumble, 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 stumble, 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.
Scene 1
In the very beginning our God made a man and a woman in His very image, God performed the first marriage ceremony by giving this man and this woman to each other and God blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply. It was perfect, it was beautiful, it was Holy and God was very pleased and then He rested.
Scene 2
And then we sinned, we disobeyed God, we deliberately did the one thing God told us not to do. The sin broke the perfection, our sin in Eden corrupted every part of us, twisted our entire thinking, broke our communion with the Creator and severely damaged the intimacy the man and woman had with each other. Our first reaction when we sinned was to run and hide and between us, we were ashamed of our bodies.
Scene 3
As time went on, we men and women, we kept messing our relationships up by twisting them around so badly that God destroyed the soiled sin of Sodom and Gomorrah where the enflamed passion of same sex rape caused God to say NO with fire and brimstone.
We kept sinning and twisting the martial relationship with prostitution, adultery, beastiality, sex within kinfolk and we even engaged in a wilderness orgy of play around the golden calf.
Scene 4
So, God, the Creator of this beautiful thing called marriage, came to Moses, and wrote down a few rules to help protect us and our marriages, to guide our thinking, to help us know what works in relationships and to remind us clearly what sin is and to how to avoid it.
This is what the Creator wrote about marriage:
Exodus 20:14 NIV14 “You shall not commit adultery.
And then God added something about our thought life.
Exodus 20:17 NIV 17 … You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, ….”
Scene 5 is with Jesus Christ
Finally, God came in person and right at the outset of His earthly ministry, when He speaks directly for the first time to men and women He tells us clearly, bluntly, Christ voices the Creator’s thoughts (He was and is the Creator).
Don’t commit adultery, don’t even think about it, in fact don’t lust in your heart for anything outside of the Holy marriage arrangement.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall 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.
Scene #6 is in my mind, our minds.
I imagine we are sitting in front of Jesus, listening, trying to understand as He speaks these Sermon on the Mount words of ‘don’t commit adultery and don’t lust. And then His eyes meet our eyes and His eyes speak to us, they pierce our hearts with ’Do you understand?
Marriage -1 man -1 woman, don’t lust for anything else. This is how I created you. Be holy as I am holy.’
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Lust is a strong word; it is a strong craving for sex. We can lust for other things like lust for power, possessions, or position but in this context of Christ’s words it is lusting for pleasure, for sex. Lusting a little or lusting a lot is lusting. Christ simply says pointedly -don’t, it’s sin and it will harm you.
Adultery is not the initial sin, it’s the result of sin, the sin of lust. The Bible refers often to this hidden sin of the heart and mind as the lust of the flesh, this depraved thinking and craving leads people into many twisted forms of imagined sex.
-We Christians are often accused of being narrow minded, not inclusive and certainly not ‘woke’, We’re restrictive, bias, prejudiced and unfairly ultra conservative. We’re old-school and old-fashioned and out of touch.
Yes, we are guilty of that, guilty of not modern-thinking but we are most guilty of hearing Christ’s words, most guilty of believing Christ’s words and most guilty of practicing / obeying Christ’s words.
Yes, guilty as charged and our feet firmly planted.
Christ’s very words -don’t commit adultery, don’t lust Hear, believe, obey.
An aside
Some of you here are divorced, some of you were ‘the innocent’ in the divorce and some of you not so innocent. If any of you are not so innocent ask God for forgiveness for your wrongful part, follow His instructions and continue to follow Christ.
Christ told the woman caught in adultery, neither do I condemn you -go and sin no more. How can I condemn you when I have sinned, failed and fallen short myself? Rather than condemn you I commend you to follow Christ with your whole heart.
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Scene 7 is the final scene.
This scene includes us today, in ‘modern society’ looking back in history to these words of Christ and seeing what else was written in the New Testament Scriptures by people who were with Christ, those who met the very Creator who made us.
Let me summarize carefully what Christ and the apostles are saying, so that there is no misunderstanding or unclearness.
-ogling, leering, viewing pornography 🡪which leads to lusting,
About pornography, Jesus would add –‘figuratively’ gouge your eye out 🡪 don’t do it at all, rid it from you, avoid it, flee from it DON’T.
James 1:14-15 NIV
14 but each person is tempted (pornography is a temptation) when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Listen to these Bible verses:
1 Corinthians 6:9 NIV
9 … do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men.
1 Corinthians 6:18 NIV
18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
Galatians 5:19-21 NIV
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
I have never had to preach about sexual sins. It is a delicate topic, a relevant topic, a topic in the Bible and a topic on Christ’s lips. Don’t miss that, Christ spoke of this from the standpoint of He created us, He knows us, and He sees that we need His Words on this.
Here are 5 things that you can do to Obey Christ in this.
Colossians 3:5 NIV
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed…
3. Avoid. Avoidance is key to prevent lust from tempting you. If the TV show, the YouTube channel are presenting things to tempt you. TURN IT OFF. Switch. Change your circumstance. Flee from it, run from it immediately.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 NIV
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified (made holy): that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, …;
4. Get and stay close to God, moment by moment every day.
Galatians 5:16
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
5. Keep your marriage pure. If you are engaging in premarital sex, or any kind of fornication, stop. Obey Christ and surrender to His will for you.
Galatians 5:24 NIV
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Hebrews 13:4 NIV
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
I am a Christian. I follow Christ.
Christ is my Saviour and my teacher.
I will hear Christ’s Words today.
I will believe Christ’s Words today.
I will obey Christ’s Words today.
Come O Christ and awaken your words in me. AMEN
