JAN 14 2018 | Matthew 5:27-30

Sea Change Church · "Matthew 5:27-30" · Adam Stadtmiller · January 14, 2018
Matthew 5:27-30
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi, my name is Christopher Fromm, and I'm one of the new elders that has been installed here. So, I just wanted to take a little bit to shout out to Chris, and that was just an amazing time. I guess I'm Chris 2.0, we have an Adam 2.0, so I'm the male Chris. So, today we're reading out of Matthew 5, 27 through 30. You can find your scripture reading in the bulletin.

So, we'll begin with Matthew 5, 27. 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. 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.

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. The word of the Lord. Thanks, Chris. Awesome. New elder extraordinaire. Good to have you. I hope it's too far away from you guys. I like being close. Right on. So, hey, good to see you.

Hey, just so you know, office is officially closed tomorrow. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so we won't be in tomorrow if you're looking for us. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist, which this church has been for about 90 years. A really interesting history as I've been studying him and some of the other reformers from the American Baptists that have come out.

And it's been really, really interesting and exciting to read that and to see what was happening on that front. But it is part of this church's heritage. And so we're excited about that. I want to give you a knee update from me. I went in. Ten days out of surgery, right? ACL. I'm going to fall over. I almost fell already, already once. And went into my doctor.

And, you know, no pain, which is awesome. I mean, ACL surgery, no pain. It's so much different than 20 years ago. Like now it's four holes where when they did it on my other leg, it's like a seven-inch incision and it's like Frankenstein. And I'm there and he goes, you know, you were one of three patients that we have ever had that really has no pain, high pain threshold.

There's no medical explanation for it. And he goes, the fact that you're doing so well, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just feeling like, you know, LaDainian Tomlinson at that moment. Like, you know what I mean? I'm just feeling like a warrior. Hashtag warrior. And I go home and I tell my wife, my beautiful wife over there what a warrior I am. And she goes, you know the whole church is praying for you, right?

And I was like, oh. So, darn it. I wanted to take credit, but I can't. Glory to God. Glory to God. Hashtag not a warrior. Let me set my phone here so we can get after this. We are talking over the next three weeks about human sexuality. I'm adding one week to it. Every year I start with, I think, two very crucial topics. One is human sexuality. I think Christians need to know how to speak cogently and pervasively about human sexuality.

And it's something that's in the culture. And I find that many Christians are ill-equipped to have the conversations or to know what to say and how to have answers that come not only from Scripture, but make sense to a population that doesn't follow Scripture as their general rule. For the last ten years, when I saw what was coming on the horizon of the culture, I began to take notes on a Google spreadsheet or something like it and began to look into these different topics, and God has began to speak to me.

And I had two messages last year. We talked about non-binary relationships last year, homosexuality. We're not going to be getting so much into that this year. If you want to hear those two, they were on the website back in January. And I think we gave some very interesting biblical understanding of what God has to say about this. This year, I'm going to take on three pretty easy topics.

One is lust. Two is divorce. And three is the role of women in the world and the church. So simple stuff. Not afraid. Hashtag warrior. Not afraid. And I would still pray for me. Keep praying. Keep praying. I want to say a few things as we begin. This is very provocative. Jesus was provocative. And he's speaking about divorce and lust. And so this is the passage.

We're going to be in this passage, in this chapter, in the Sermon on the Mount, for the next two weeks. And then we'll be speaking. I'm really excited about the one on the role of women in the world. Well, I'm not going to tease it, but don't miss it. I think it's going to be great. I think you'll be interested in what God has to say. We're going to look at these topics.

And we're going to be looking at this passage in particular. And there's a few things that I think we need to say at the beginning. And mostly, I said them last year. And I think I'm going to say them every year. Because I think it's a good foundation for where we start on these conversations. As biblically based people, I realize that much of what we talk about has no relevance to people who are not biblically based.

People who do not have faith as their rule. And it will make no sense. The scripture even says that these things will be foolishness to the world. And I understand that some of the things I believe are seen as foolishness in the world. Here's a few things that are not in your notes where I want to start. First of all, when we look at these passages, are we committed to what the Bible actually says?

Or are we more committed to what we want the Bible to say? And this is a question we all have to ask ourselves as biblical scholars. Every one of you who reads the Bible is a biblical scholar of sorts. And scholarship has gotten easier with the coming of, just like the printing press did. The modern printing press was the website, was the web.

And it gives us now the ability to research and have different opinions and be more educated into the scriptures. But I have to ask you the question, as a biblical scholar, are you willing to let the Bible say what it says? Or does it have to say what you personally want it to say? We're living in a culture today that is be your own physician.

That you can pick and choose what you want your philosophical life or religious life to be about. And you can have a hodgepodge mix of often contradictory philosophies and opinions. But they all work as long as it makes you feel good. I would say that God's primary purpose in giving us the truth of the word of God is not so that you can feel good.

The primary purpose is so that you can have a relationship with God for eternity and feel more than just good. But feel the presence of an eternal God in your life. And so, being honest, are you willing to let the Bible say what it says? And when it doesn't speak, be able to wrestle in the silence and not to try to create something out of the silence.

One of the tools that we learned in preaching class when I was in seminary was the ability to allow the scripture to be silent and not have to create something out of the silence. If the Bible doesn't say it, I'm not going to make it say something it doesn't say. And when we get into the issues of divorce, I think there's a few things it doesn't speak on.

We'll talk about that. Next is this. Jesus had the unique ability to care deeply for people. We all know that. But not care what people think. Let me say that again. Jesus had, I would say it would be innate, but the unique ability to care deeply for people. All types of people came running to Jesus, broken, hurting, wounded people, running to Jesus because he had something.

He had life. And he said, I have the truth. And the truth will what? Set you free. Jesus did not hide the truth because he knew that if he didn't speak the truth that you would never be free. Jesus wanted freedom. And he had a higher priority than just making people happy in the moment. And so he cared deeply for people. I don't even see, I've actually, I've never seen it said that Jesus, by anybody, liberal non-Christian scholars, I've never heard it said or tried to argue that Jesus didn't care for people.

It's just not an argument. Now maybe you have seen that argument. It's just not an argument we see. But Jesus was divisive and Jesus was willing to say, go away and come back when you're ready to follow me. He cared deeply for people. But he didn't have his moral, emotional compass set by what people think. We are living in a day and age like Paul lived in, where the philosophies of the day and believing the right things are how you get credibility in our society.

We saw this with Paul in the first century and in Greece. They were all about knowing the right arguments and believing the right things. And that would be changing based on what man thought in the moment. There is no constant in regard to what man thinks is right. If you have seen human history, man has shown the incredible ability to validate any type of behavior, whether it be human sacrifice, the eradication of other cultures, the eradication based on race.

Man has proven an innate, or excuse me, has proven a deep ability to validate anything as long as the thought is accepted and becomes common. Now with the Bible we see something different. We see an absolute anchor rule that is good for all generations. But as the conversation changes and the culture changes, people often say to me, shouldn't we update the Bible to make it more relevant today?

The answer to that is hell no. We do not update the Bible. We update how we present the Bible in new and unique and fascinating ways, in provocative ways, and in ways that attract the furthest person out to come running to say, you have something to offer. However, yesterday I was at the YMCA, and I was with a friend, and I was telling him what I was going to speak on, and we were alone in the stretching room, and he was getting excited about it and has a lot of opinions, and a lot of them I agreed with him, a lot of them I didn't.

And he's speaking loudly, and people started walking in. Now at this point, I'm not comfortable anymore, okay? I'm like, we can have this conversation between Christians, but we look like idiots if we just talk like this in front of people, because this is Christian conversation, and I think some conversations just need to be had within the group of people who believe.

And so I'm really worried about what this kid walks in. He's stretching, you know, and doing the whole thing. And I walk out, and, you know, I'm cool. I can hang. You know, I can hang. So I walk out, you know, but I kind of end the conversation. I said, hey, I got to go stretch out. You know, my leg's hurting. And so I go out. I'm getting on the bike, and this kid walks up, and he goes, man, I was so encouraged by your guy's conversation.

He's like 19 years old, redhead kid, and he goes, and I just, you know, I never hear people speak truth or willing to speak truth in public. Now, I'm the guy that didn't want to speak truth in public. I wanted to kind of run. It's this other dude. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know what it is. And he goes, this is what he goes. He goes, bro, can I hug you?

I'm like, here at the Y, bro? We're at the Y. Why not, dude? So jump on in. Gives me a hug. I cuddle up. No, I didn't cuddle up. It was quick. Awkward side hug. Hug it out. He said, I'm trying to get free of drugs and alcohol. And basically, he said this, and I'll paraphrase it for him. I've tasted of the world, and I found it wanting. You know, me too.

I've tasted of the world, and I found it vastly wanting. It has nothing to offer me. But I find with Jesus, the more I get into it, the more it offers me. God is so good. And so that was an interesting thing yesterday as we spoke. I have a couple more things I want to say. First of all, there's a thing in culture that says don't judge. There's this thing, don't judge, don't judge.

You can't judge anything. Let me do what they want. Don't judge. I would agree with that because the Bible says don't judge. But let me tell you what the Bible says about judging. The reason we don't judge is because God has already judged, and we don't need to make judgments. We do not add to the judgments of God. But agreeing with the judgments of God is not judging.

Judging a person's worth based on how we think they are following the judgments of God is judging. But knowing the difference between right and wrong is not judging. God is the judge, and we agree with the judgments. Or we might not agree, but we still follow the judgments. Certain people don't agree that 70 miles an hour should be the speed limit or 65 or whatever it is.

I'm giving myself away at 65, right? But they follow it anyways. They follow it anyways because they know that there's consequences, even though they don't agree with it. And so I would say that we are not judging and knowing God's judgments and adhering to the judgments of a higher call. Because if we're not following God's judgments, then we'll just follow man's judgments.

Because the culture is a religion unto itself. We'll speak about that in a few weeks. It's just a different religion. It's losing my religion, basically, like the REM said back in the 80s, of it's just religion in a different package. And so they have faith in what man thinks, but it's a constantly changing thing. And I said to my friend when he was questioning me on some of my ideas the other day, he's considering himself a, he says, I'm more of a liberal Christian these days.

I don't like those terms conservative and liberal as much, but he basically began to push me on these topics. And I began to say we had to have a rule because man has the ability to validate anything. He goes, that's not true. That's fear-mongering. I said, you don't know history. Fear-mongering. And I said, what about this? What about polygamy? That's fear-mongering.

We're not going back. We've evolved into a better society. We're not going back. And so all of a sudden it was like I had nothing else to say because it was just fear-mongering. It was just fear-mongering. So perhaps I'm a fear-monger nonetheless. So the next thing in regard to after judgments as we build to talk about these things is this idea of discrimination.

The greatest sin in the world these days is discrimination, meaning if you tell someone that you disagree with what they do and you don't want to be a part of it. Now I'm not saying we discriminate because you're Irish Catholic like the country did in the early 1900s. And if you look back and study, you know, European immigrants, my family being one of them, that changed its name because of persecution from Statenmuller to Statenmuller.

I don't think that really hid the fact that we were German much. They should have gone with like, I don't know, something else. I won't even venture to what we should have maybe have gone for. But there was great discrimination. Matter of fact, there were signs up that said Irish need not apply. Has anybody read that in their history? Discrimination is part of mankind's DNA.

And we have proven the ability, if you know history, to discriminate against any type of people, social class, because people want to differentiate themselves so that they can have power for one reason or another. And while the different discriminations have changed throughout history, all have been discriminated against. And the Bible is not discriminating because of who you were born to be.

The Bible is not discriminating because you were black or Irish or German, Anglo, or whatever it is. The Bible discriminates against sin. And the Bible discriminates. Let's just say that Christianity discriminates. And when I tell, you know, I'm honest with non-believers, non-faith-based people, or people that have kind of left the faith. You know, they say, well, don't you discriminate?

I say, yeah, they absolutely, yeah. Just so everyone knows, the Bible is discriminatory. Jesus discriminates. He says to a guy, you know what? If you can't follow me under these conditions, go away and come back when you can. The Bible discriminates against sin. Now, there's different arguments today that would say, well, on your sexuality, it's not something that you can choose.

Well, you know, let's give that argument away. Let's say that's true. There is no, you know, sexuality is not something you can choose. Is that true for the pedophile? And if it's true, do we agree that he is born with that desire? But do we say to him, you cannot fulfill that? Or do we say, of course we say that to the pedophile. Or what about the man who is attracted to 57 more women than his wife?

Do we say to him, discriminate in the church and say, you are not allowed to be in church leadership or be a part of this church if you are going to continue to cheat on your wife and move out from that? Do we discriminate? Absolutely we discriminate. And while sexuality might not be something that we choose, what we do with our sexuality is.

And everybody has a choice on what you will do with it, no matter how your attractions are built into you, perhaps. Let's just give that argument away. And so to the pedophile, we say, we ask you to choose not to abuse children. Of course we all agree with that. And when I pressed my friend on that, he said, you're fear-mongering. Perhaps. Perhaps I'm fear-mongering.

But the Bible discriminates. We love to pick and choose and say, well, this one group of people, we, you know, that, you know, we're going to focus on them. But I want to say we need to focus on the entirety of mankind when we talk about the Bible's standards for holiness. And so let me just say this clearly. That I will agree. I don't want to say I'll agree.

I will give the argument. I'm not sure I agree. But I will give the argument that you can't help who you're attracted to. But I will also give the argument that no matter who you're attracted to, whether it's 38 men besides your husband or a child or another man if you're a man, that you have a decision on what you're going to do with that sexuality.

And so that is where I want to begin the argument. I will give the other piece up. Because God has called all of us to, I would say, self-mortification that we might find him and go according to his purposes. All right. The final piece before we move into this. You don't have to. And this is the one I like. And so many Christians have said to me, thank you for saying this.

As a Christian, you don't have to agree with everything you believe. Okay. Or like it. You do not have to. Look, look. If I was God, I don't care how many husbands you have. I really don't. You know, I just, if I was God, go do whatever you want. Just leave me to my own life. God seems to be a little different than me in regard to this because he seems to know things that I don't.

But I don't like everything. I do have gay friends who I'm very, that I wouldn't say I'm very close to, but I'm close to. And who have what seem to be very good relationships. Beautiful people. And here's the thing. Jesus loves people. He doesn't compartmentalize people and say, oh, I dislike that whole group of people because of this or that. But he says to them that he just loves people and he's willing to die for all people.

And wherever we start on this argument as believers, we have to start with loving people. I've got to say, I was saying to God, God, I need more love in my heart. I cannot preach this without loving people more. I can't get up there. It's too difficult. It's too hard to speak on these issues. And I need you to change my heart because I need a better heart.

Three or four mornings ago, I woke up and I was having a dream and I was talking to my daughter. And her and I, my 10-year-old, in the dream, were weeping over the lost. And I woke up crying in an emotional place and in a spiritual place that there's no way I could ever get there on my own. I just, whether it's my own wounding, whether it's the things that I've gone through, whether it's just my DNA and how my personality is built, compassion in the immediate moment is something that takes a while for me to steep into.

And part of that probably has to do with, there was so much going on as my kid, I had to build up a wall so you don't feel your feelings. Because some of us, the only way you can survive is to learn how not to feel your feelings. And so being a pastor, it's not a great tool, by the way. You know, and I've had to learn and do that. But those feelings don't come to me immediately.

One of the things that God began to do, and I think in that moment, is I woke up that morning in a place that I couldn't have got to on my own. And you know how I got there? Prayer. There's no way I could have done it on my own. God said, hey, I'm going to give you what you need to preach. I've got to say, I love people. I just, I love people. I do love people.

And I love God's creation. And the more you love God, the more you will love people. But let's just have that as our starting place. But at the same time, realize that we have a book that God has given us, the written word of God, so that it is a how-to book to give relationships and meaning and purpose to life. We're going to jump in. I know what time we are, and we will get through this soon and quick.

Here's the one thing I want to say to you. And we're going to be speaking about lust today. And I want to take it back into your court now. We kind of just did the 30,000-foot view. What does Google think? What does Twitter say? I love how news reports are like, Twitter's like a human being. So-and-so did this, and Twitter is upset. Like, who's Twitter?

Like, go harvest 12 opinions, and now Twitter is upset, you know? Facebook's mad. Like, I care what Twitter thinks. Like, I absolutely can. No. Here's the one thing. Let's put it back. Let's put the ball. Let me just serve, okay? I was a bad tennis player, but I could serve really, really well. My brother and I went to CIF finals. We lost, but nonetheless.

6'8 at the net. He was great. I'm going to serve this into your court right now. Lust, and not just sexual lust, because lust is a desire beyond the boundaries of what God intended. Okay? We'll talk more about that in a second. But here's back in your court. I want you to know that lust, if you allow it into your life, will destroy the totality of your being.

That if you allow lust, lust for money, greed, pride of life, the Bible puts all these together. Lust of the eyes, lust of flesh, lust for position, lust. Obviously, we're going to be speaking about sexuality in this, but the Bible is way more comprehensive in lust. That if you do not have a control over the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes in your life, it will destroy the totality of your being.

You are in, you are drinking poison, the Bible says. And so as I serve in far deep corner, up high, into that corner, I want you to be able to get to that ball and look at yourself and say, do I have lust in my life? And is it destroying my life? If you look at, there's an article out, I think it's even a book now, it says the brain on porn that talks about how pornography destroys the brain.

Porn is just one example. It's an easy example. It's just one example of how lust, and the Bible actually says it, that these spiritual things have the ability to change your body chemistry, to destroy your bones, to destroy your soul. You are drinking poison with lust. That's where I want this to begin. We can talk about the world. We can have all these conversations.

You want to know who I care about? Because I'm your pastor, and I really only want to pastor you. I don't have a desire to pastor outside of this corner. I want to be a local church pastor that pastors you, and if we reach the rest of the world, that's your guys' job to go out and do that. But I want to pastor you, and the question is, is lust destroying your life?

Lust for a relationship. Lust for a change. Lust, an unhealthy desire. In this context, in this passage, Jesus is doing a social justice work when speaking to the Jewish leaders about lust and divorce, and the idea is because he ties up lust with divorce in this passage together, what he's saying is, you Jewish leaders have all the power. Women have no power.

Women are property, although Jesus was beginning to free women, and he's freeing women from the results of the curse in this passage when he says to these leaders, you basically have lust in your heart. You want a new wife. You want a different wife. You want one. And so you can just write a certificate of divorce and cast this woman aside like she was property.

And that's what they could do. And the Jews at the time in the Jewish synagogue would validate these just so they could go on and get a different wife. Women had no power in the situation, and they were being cast aside. And it was the church, it was the church in the first century that began to look after these Jewish widows. You see this in chapter 7 of the book of Acts, and it is that ability to go into the social culture and make a difference in the culture that caused them to have validity and caused fire to catch with other Jews and the pagans and the Gentiles when they saw that the church meant business about caring for the oppressed.

And so the church began to care for these women, and Jesus said to him, basically he's saying in an offhanded way, you're filled with lust. You just want another woman, and you're just going to cast this woman aside to be a widow, and she has no one to care for her. That is what is happening in this passage. And Jesus is committed to social justice.

I want to tell you, we're going to start a relationship with the Salvation Army at some point here. I'm meeting with the directors soon. One of the board members of San Diego Salvation Army began to come to our church recently. Him and his family go to our church. We're going to meet with them because I see them as one of the only organizations out of the social gospel movement of the 1950s that has held their course.

Recently, a guy won, that was a year or ten years ago, he won $10 or $100 million or something in the Powerball, and he gave, I think it was $20 or $30 million. It was a lot of money. Okay, I'm just making the number up. It was like $20 million, $30 million, to the Salvation Army. And they said, no thanks, you got it through gambling. I was like, yeah, that's so awesome.

I'm not saying I'd do that, but nonetheless. The Salvation Army is hardcore. If you go study the Salvation Army, they are hardcore when it comes to preaching the gospel, preaching the truth. But why does the NFL have a commercial over the Christmas holidays that is validating the Salvation Army? We're partnering with Salvation Army. Have you seen the title of it?

Salvation Army. Why does this organization have the ability to be partnering with the NFL? Why do they get to stand out in stores, and people give them money as they ring their bell, and it says Salvation? And no one ever speaks ill that I know of. I've never seen anyone speak ill of the Salvation Army. Why? Because they care, and they help the poor.

And they care for social justice, and they care for abused women, and go to their website and look what they're all about, and why groups like the YMCA have moved away from their Christian calling, in my opinion, and now we're just the Y, and I used to work at the Y, and these different things. Great organizations, but they're no longer central to the mission of what they were called.

And so we see that with Jesus here in this passage, that if we are going to be able to speak the truth of the gospel, it's going to have to come with some boots on the ground caring for people, because no one cares what we think if they don't know how much we care. And we have got to get to the business of caring for your corner, caring for who you live by, and people not being able to deny that I disagree with what you think about human sexuality, but I can't deny how much you love me or love people.

That is where the rubber meets the road, and if we don't do that here, then the church will be lost, and we will shrink into nothingness. But if we begin to step our game up, speak the truth, in love, God will make us a force and lead us in a triumphal procession till the end of time, which he says he will do, because the bride is being beautified right now.

The scripture says the bride is being beautified. And the end of the church and the reports of its demise are perhaps a bit premature, let's just say on this corner, thanks to you. He's defending women who were defenseless against being cast aside by their current husbands. Right now in our culture, it's interesting as we're looking at these different things that are happening in these movements in regard to sexuality, sexuality is all in the news.

Right now we have the Me Too movement, hashtag Me Too, Harvey Weinstein. I talked to two people yesterday, I'm like, hey, you know about the Me Too movement and the Harvey Weinstein thing? They both said, what? I'm like, really? You don't have no idea? They both were like illegitimate. No, I don't watch the news. I was like, you know, I do that sometimes too.

But nonetheless, this is happening. You know, as I look through this whole movement, the one thing that I don't hear said is a discussion about sin or lust. It's about power. It's about holding people down. It's about all these other reasons. But rarely do we go back to the issue that man's heart is broken and there is no one good, not even one, and we are all sinners.

But we don't want to peel the onion back that far. Because in the secular religious society, we believe that we can build an earth, a utopia on earth, which is what they believe, and that all people are essentially good. It is the exact opposite of what the scripture says. And so we see that here in this movement that very few people are talking about the depravity of man.

Let's say the scripture says no one is good, not even one. And that lust, when it comes to especially the sexual lust, is not just a man issue. I know the narrative works better and granted. Look, when it comes to the totality of history, men are leading the charge in regard to lust, in regard to, you know, sexual oppression and these things. But women are on a fast track to catch up.

Right now, let me just give you a few statistics that I looked into. One, you'll see it on your notes there. I have a footnote. Porn amongst women is not just a man problem anymore. It's skyrocketing. And if you want to go type in that 400 character thing on your computer, you can look, and that's statistics from a research website, so you're not going to be entering into anything salacious there.

But it is skyrocketing. I don't need to go into all those statistics. If you Google the Canadian Children's Rights Council, you are going to see a list of 200 teachers over the last couple of years. Teachers. 20 and 30 year old women who have sexually abused their male students. Men, excuse me, boys, girls, that have preyed upon them. But yet, we see that.

That's just 200. I know of 50 in America this year. Over and over again, what is happening? Nielsen shows, if you go look up the Nielsen ratings, 51% of all fiction novels sold, all fiction novels, are romance novels. 51%. Of these, 84% of those romance novels are bought by women. Of that, now this is Nielsen, okay? Of that, 84% that are bought by women, 46% of those women read one every week.

They are mass consumers. People will say, well, they're not reading it for the same reasons. That might be true, but I will say, they're reading it because there is a void in their life that needs to be filled. And it might not be the same reasons that men read it, but there is something that is happening in our culture where women are, you know, the mass consumers of, you know, romance novels like the Twilight series.

Or, which I also think is so interesting about the Me Too movement because the whole thing is about men abusing women and abusing power, which women should hate. But yet, one of the number one books sold to women is a book called Fifty Shades of Grey about a woman deciding to sign, whether or not to decide to sign a submissive dominance contract to get the crud beat out of her by some dude.

Women, you need to answer that question. Well, not now, okay, so don't speak out. Just answer me how you can be so angry about men abusing, I guess it's consensual, I guess it's because you're deciding, I guess that's the answer. But why in the heck would it be so exciting to get the crud kicked out of you by some dude where it dominates book culture and is changing the entire culture?

Why? Why? Well, I think I have an answer in week three of this series. We'll get to that. Teaser. I don't get it. Well, ladies, you can explain it to me. Maybe not. Explain it to my wife and then she can explain it to me. That's probably a better idea. Lust. Lust. Lust is a desire that causes one to be consumed with desire. This is a secular definition. In their physical, spiritual, and emotional self.

That part was my definition. This comes from the scripture. Jesus peels the onion back and says this in verse 28 of the scripture. Jesus connects lust to what? Anybody know what it says he connects it to? The heart. That lust is within our bones. It is within our heart. It is part of who we are. But secular religion will tell you that that is not the case.

They have no idea where love comes from. They have no idea where evil comes from. And where we are on the map in regard to secular evolution and religion, this is true, if you go look it up, is that love is a chemical reaction in your brain. Some things are going squirting in your brain and that's what love is all about. It's just that. I have to believe the amount of faith it would take me to believe that love or beauty comes from a bunch of random things that happened in the universe or things squirting in my brain is so far beyond what it takes me to believe that there's just a God that has love and beauty and he created in the world.

I mean, it's just, I can't even get there. Secular religion, I don't even, I don't have the faith to believe in evolution or secular religion. I just don't have the faith for it. It's too hard for me to look at the universe, at the sky. By the way, come on Wednesday and hear about the Cassini Space Project. One of the men that went, who designed the Cassini Space Project and ran it, goes to our church.

He's going to be teaching on space and God on Wednesday night and as I look at the Hubble telescope pictures, you saw those up there today and I look at those, I think, there's no way, what are the odds that this could all work or just looking at a dandelion and saying, wow, how does this happen? I don't have the faith not to believe in God. It's too hard for me.

Faith is easy. It's a crutch but I'm crippled. The scripture points to lust having the ability to affect the totality of our being. If you want a really interesting read on your flesh versus your spirit and what to live by, Romans 8. This week, go consume Romans 8 like it's a ribeye. It is so good. It'll talk about how there's this battle of the spirit and the flesh in your life and how, you know, and how one will bring you life and one will destroy you.

It is so rich. I think every Christian should consider memorizing Romans 8. I haven't done it but even as I say it now, it is one of the most powerful pericopes in scripture and I wanted to use the word pericope because it makes me sound smart. Maybe not. Lust is mostly used in reference to sexual sin but sexual sin is just one form of lust. 1 John 2.16, great verse, for everything in the world, everything, not just some things, the lust of the flesh but then also what?

The lust of the eyes and then it ties it in and the pride of life comes not from the Father but from the world. Let me say again and maybe some of you have as well, I have tasted of the world and I have found it wanting. It has nothing to offer me other than saying I have more to offer you that that last thing you tried to fulfill yourself with did not offer.

Jewish leaders are trying to check off the boxes of obedience but Jesus peels back the onion and looks at the source and so back, let me just, okay, my first serve might not have hit but my second serve, I'm not even gonna, you know, try to, you know, I forgot what the word was but nonetheless, my tennis analogies are horrible but let me serve it back to you again and ask this, are you willing to look at your heart and say, I've got a lust.

I've got a lust for this and it doesn't have to be porn. It's so easy to write off lust and just say, I don't have a porn issue but do you have a lust issue in your life? Is it a lust for that next drink? Is it a lust for, you know, sensation? Is it a lust for whatever the thing is? It is the desire that makes us less human. Talk about that in a moment but God made all pleasure but when we get beyond that and we begin to want to experience pleasure beyond what God designed us for, it actually causes us to be sub-human but the world will tell you that you're becoming more human.

The more that you go into these things, the more you go after your freedoms, the more after you just dive into all these pleasures of the flesh that no one should shame you. God forbid we should shame anybody for anything. There are some things that are shameful in the world, FYI. And maybe it's not my job to tell you that it's shameful but there are things that are shameful in the world.

But moving forward away from these things, Jesus peels it back to the heart and I ask you, how's your heart? It says in scripture, I'm going to circle a tower now, coming for a landing soon, it says it's in our bones that lust is embedded in our flesh like a virus often laying latent until awoken with desire. As long as we live in this body, we will have the power of the flesh which is like a virus of sin.

You know, you get the flu season right now and when sin came into mankind's world, all of a sudden our flesh became tainted, became tainted with this virus and it lays there sometimes latent, sometimes dormant until it is awoken with your own desire. James talks about this. How do we wake up lust? Lust will never go away. Sin will never go away. You can have control if you live by the spirit but until you die, we have a sinful flesh.

Jesus was not born of man or a man's decision but born of the Virgin Mary and part of the theology that matters is Jesus was not born with the desire to sin. He did not have the latency, the latent virus of sin within his flesh. That's why that doctrine is so important. So Jesus didn't have the desire, I want to sin, that sounds awesome. We have that. I want to sin.

That sounds awesome. We see something that will destroy our life and we think, yes, that is what I want. I remember the first time I did methamphetamine in Pacific Beach at the Oakwood Apartments, hashtag, whoo-hoo, Oakwood Apartments, 1980s, and I did methamphetamine and I'd gone to Mexico and I had a paper and my friend said, hey, this will keep you up and I did it and I was so high and I thought to myself, this is what I want for my life.

I made that decision. I don't know if I said it verbally but I remember saying it sitting there, it was demonic in nature and I said, this is what I want for my life and that became my life for a year and a half until I had a heart attack. That became my life and I let my dealer move in with me and I said, just pay me my rent and blow, you know, and so he moved in and I had a pile and I'd wake up and I had a pile of methamphetamine and cocaine by my bed and I would wake up and I would just, that's how I'd start my day.

The first time I ever did methamphetamine, I stayed up five nights in a row, five nights straight. You do not look good at the end of that. Multiple binging and things like that. I don't want to glorify that past or whatever but I remember thinking to myself, yes! This is awesome! Till about killed me. Back into your court. What's killing you? And do you want to change it?

It's awoken by our desires. Each person is tempted, it says in James, when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to what? Sin. And sin, when it's full grown, gives birth to death. It starts with that little, that little, that little thought. Man, I'm married but she looks good. Or, you know what?

This man gives me the emotional support my husband doesn't. Or, you fill in the blank. Lust is the unnatural affection that causes us to be less human because we become, because we are more than flesh. So that's the deal. See, the world says, you know what the world says in secular religion? There's no spirit. You're flesh. But we are more than flesh. We are spirit and we are eternal beings and the flesh will pass away.

Lust is too much of a good thing, as it says in your notes. A desire for pleasure run amok or a deviation from God's intended purpose. All good things come from God. I'm going to skip over this next section. I want to get down to this question of all sin being the same. Because one of the questions that I get asked on a regular basis is, isn't all sin just the same?

When it comes to physical sexual sin, the answer is no. And one of the arguments that a lot of my friends who aren't believers and believers who are questioning come into me and they say, well what about this sin or what about this sin? We tend to cherry pick these certain sins and we say that you can't be part of the church but these we let in all the time and I think that is absolutely correct.

We need to be as strong against all sin. But not all sin leads to death and not all sin destroys the body. And so if anybody asks you, isn't all sin the same? The answer is yes and no. Isn't all currency the same? Well yeah, it's all currency but if I offer you a hundred dollar bill or a nickel, which one do you want? There's a difference. So they're the same and they're different and let me give you two verses.

1 John 5 16 We are definitely in for a landing here in a moment. 1 John 5 16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin, what? Not leading to death. Meaning we sin but it's not leading to death. It's not the kind of sin that is going to lead us too far off the path. If you see him, correct him it says. He shall ask God and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

You're going to need to look up that on your own what that means. But it shows a differentiation that there are son that lead us to death. The other thing is sexual sin is differentiated from all their sin and the Bible says that it destroys your body. It destroys the totality of your body. It is a sin against the body. I would put addiction into that same category.

I would say that these things destroy the body and so I would also say that if I was the devil which I'm not although I've been accused on occasion back in high school and college nonetheless that if I was the devil I would try to move people towards agreeing with sins that destroy the totality of the person. The flesh, the body, the emotions, and the spirit.

And few things have the ability to do that like addiction and sex. Few things have the ability to do it. And if you have been in a family that have been destroyed by that you know exactly what I mean. And what I would also do if I was the devil is I would do a massive marketing campaign on how awesome it is for you to be able to choose whatever you want as long as you want be the God of your own body the God of and rule over your own self and it is a blessing for you to chase after the fleshly desires.

That's what I would do and I would call anybody that says anything against that a bigot. That's what I would do. I would call them a bigot and hateful and I would get the whole thing to change and I would call what is sin good like the Bible says and I would take what is good and call it sin. That's what I would do and by the way that's what's happening. I'm not afraid to be called a bigot.

I really don't care. I care for people I don't care what they think and if I was into this business caring what people think or I set my emotional compass by what everyone else thought about me or what I said it would be a miserable life and let me just this is free. If you set your emotional compass based on what everybody else's opinion is by the way it's what internet talk rooms and Facebook do.

Oh, you think everybody will like this? Okay, then I'll post it. Oh, I better erase it. You're going to have a miserable life. I'll tell you what is a good life. Set it according to the compass of God's word and according to the spirit that gives life and truth will set you free and you can walk around and actually enjoy your life. You know, miserable, horrible things are happening in the world and the more I'm chasing after God you know what?

The more I'm enjoying my life and you know what? I don't tell anybody because if I tell somebody I'm enjoying my life they think you're crazy. How can you enjoy your life right now? You have to be angry. I am angry. Just about different stuff sometimes. We're done. Gone long. I always go long on this talk but it's a good talk. Scripture says sexual sin is comprehensive in its destruction.

It'll lead to the desolation. It is an abomination that leads to a desolation of society and if you want to look at countries and civilizations that have been taken down a lot of because their sexual practices don't go any further than Greece and Rome. Just go back to those. Look at Thailand right now. What's happening? I mean my friends work in Cambodia and Thailand with the sex trade.

I can't go into all that today. These countries are being consumed by that and Europeans coming over and Americans coming over and well I won't go any further into that but they're being consumed. Cultures are destroyed by what they think and how they act sexually. It's happened throughout history but we'll just have a different narrative and say you know what?

It's empowerment. You go girl. You go boy. As your nation consumes itself and destroys itself. That's what I see happening but maybe I'm wrong. What's the answer? Three things. Jesus practices a radical repentance. He says verse 29 if you have this issue gouge your eye out. Now some saints have done that. They've gouged their eyes out. They've emasculated themselves.

I don't think that's what Jesus is getting at. He's saying be radical in your repentance. Do whatever it takes. If you have an issue right now back to your court hard serve back to your court far corner are you willing to do whatever it takes? Maybe you need to go to your spouse and say I have a problem with pill addiction. You probably know it anyways but you're a codependent so you never say anything to me about it and I need to go whoops but I need to go to some addiction counseling.

Maybe I need to go for a 28 day retreat and I need to get sober. Maybe there's an issue. What I'm saying what does it mean when Jesus says to you with your lust are you willing? Is God worth more than your lust? And he can help you out. He helped me out of mine. I'm not telling you what to do. You know. You know what your thing is. You have to. It's a relationship with you and God.

Number two tip the scales and direction of the spirit. If you want to move away from lust and into the spirit it's easy. Just fill yourself with the spirit. Binge listen to the Bible. Listen to worship. Show up to community. Go to community group. Fill your just surround yourself with the spirit and he will fight the battle for you and you will see the temptation will decrease by passive activism of putting yourself in the way of the spirit.

If you want to read the news if you want to look at salacious movies if you want to read romance novels don't be surprised when your compass is pulling you to a different north that is not true. Here's your answer. All you have to do binge listen to the Bible like it's Netflix. Binge pray. Get friends. Do the things that the scripture says and God will fight your battle for you.

It says when you stand do everything you've done to stand stand strong. Put on the armor of God. Does it tell you to fight? No. It says put on armor and stand there and the final thing is this reject the arguments of the world. I reject the arguments of the world but you can't reject the arguments of the world if you don't know the truth of God's word. Love this verse.

Colossians 2.8 see to it that no one takes you captive. We have a whole tons of young Christians that I know and millennial Christians raised in the church and the ones that seem to be the hottest in regard to following God in their teens are the ones that seem to be struggling the most now. A lot of the 20-somethings I know that really didn't follow God in their teens but now they're coming back to God or you know they seem to be pretty grounded in God's word.

It's just me but all the ones that were super into it I just keep seeing them posting the lies of the enemy on the site going, the church should change and do this and do that. The Bible says it's deceptive. Look what it says in this scripture. It says in that final scripture see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and elemental spiritual forces.

Some scriptures say demons meaning they are deceptive arguments that come from demons. Do I believe in demons? Yes. Of this world rather than on Christ. Why do these arguments and I have the worship band come up why are these arguments so provocative? Why are they so presenting as angels of light but they're not? Because they're created by demons and as you look into society you will see these arguments are deceptive and hollow and I'll tell you what you are not going to know right from wrong without the truth of God's word.

God's word is true God's word brings health and God's word brings victory. Do you want victory? Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand. Stand.

Stand. Stand.