BROKEN: Desires (Lust)

[Read Matthew 5:27-30]

There’s a common mistake being made on a daily basis throughout our country—and most likely our world. The mistake isn’t just being made by non-Christians. It’s also being made regularly in the Christian church. 

The mistake goes something like this: “I’m a pretty good person. I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever murdered someone.” Or “I’m not a thief. I’ve never actually stolen something in my entire life.” Or “I have my sexuality under control. It’s not like I’ve ever committed adultery.” These are all mistaken statements I hear regularly, inside and outside the church. 

Jesus encountered someone who was making the same mistake. In Mark we read this interaction: “And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”” (Mark 10:17–20, ESV). Do you see the same mistake? Teacher, all of these I have kept from my youth. I’ve never murdered, never committed adultery, never stolen, never lied. 

Yet, here’s how Jesus responds to his mistake: “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” (Mark 10:21–22, ESV). Some have misunderstood this passage, thinking that Jesus finally found the “one area” where the man fell short—his money and possessions. Yet, there’s more going on in this interaction. Jesus is actually pointing out the man’s mistake. He’s pointing beyond the man’s actions to his heart. While this rich, young ruler may have never committed any of these sins with his body, Jesus KNOWS he has committed them deep within his heart.

Jesus is doing the same thing in this morning’s passage. He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27–28, ESV). Here’s what Jesus is saying here. You know the commandments. You know that you should not commit adultery. And, you also THINK you are doing a good job on this one. You’re wrong. The issue of adultery lies much deeper than the outward actions of our body. The issue lies in our heart and our desires. So, you may THINK you’re doing a good job with this commandment because you’ve never slept with anyone outside of marriage, but if you’re honest with yourself, deep within your heart you’ve looked at a woman with lustful intent, you’ve committed this sin in your mind and in your heart, and that makes you guilty of breaking this commandment. 

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, and throughout most of his teaching, Jesus is pointing people deeper than their external actions to their hearts. He regularly teaches that any sinful action can also be committed in our minds and in our hearts. Another way of putting it is, that our sinful actions are only symptoms of a deeper disease—our sinful nature/sinful heart. Jesus addresses this in Matthew 12 when he says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit…For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” (Matthew 12:33–35, ESV). The words that come from your mouth, originate in your heart. The actions that come from your hands and feet, originate in your heart. We need to look deeper than our actions, if we don’t we can easily fall under the same condemnation Jesus brings against the Pharisees—whitewashed tombs, look clean on the outside, but the inside is full of sin and death. 

There are a couple applications that directly flow from this understanding of sin and motivations. First, this should convince us of our sinful nature and humble us a great deal. If we truly understand this teaching, it is impossible for any of us to be prideful of our own actions, thinking we’re holier than those around us. We know our hearts. We know the things that go on in our hearts. That should break us, convince us of our sinfulness, and drive us to Jesus Christ for forgiveness. 

Yet, this teaching should also cause us to look deeper than our own actions to our own hearts. It’s not good enough to be simply doing the right things on the outside. We must also be feeling the right things on the inside while we do the right things on the outside (Remember, we’ve been created Body and Soul). This means it’s entirely possible for us to be singing praises to God in church this morning, but sinning in our hearts/minds at the same time. It means we can externally be one of the most generous givers in the church, but in our hearts be sinning as we drop our offering in the basket each week. True praises to God must flow from our hearts. Truly joyful, generous giving must flow from our heart. We must not only be asking, “What should I do as a Christian?” but also “Why am I doing it? What’s my motivation? Is it for God’s glory or love of my neighbor? Or, is it for selfish, sinful reasons?” 

So, Jesus tells us that it’s not enough to remain sexually pure on the outside, we must remain sexually pure on the inside as well—in our minds and hearts. He says, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28, ESV). This causes us to ask a natural question, “What does it mean to look at a woman with lustful intent?” Adults are typically too embarrassed to ask this question. Even though most don’t fully understand it, they think they should understand it by now. So, they don’t ask. However, teenagers aren’t afraid to ask this question. Typically, when teenagers ask this question, they ask it differently: “Does this mean I can’t even look at someone of the opposite sex and find them attractive? Am I sinning when I do that?”

To answer that question, we need to understand what lust is. The greek word for lust is actually just the greek word for desire, only amplified. Dennis Hollinger gets at this point well by saying, “Sexual lust in Scripture is not mere desire, for sexual desire itself is part of God’s good creation. Rather, sinful lust is impulsive and unrestrained desire that turns those good desires into something that distorts God’s designs, the harmony of the human self, and true love in relationships” (The Meaning of Sex, 81). So, lust is impulsive, unrestrained desire that distorts God’s designs and causes destruction. 

There’s another aspect to lust that I’ve found important to understand. Since lust is impulsive and unrestrained desire, it’s also selfish. Lust moves our desires away from God and neighbor and focuses those desires on ME, ME, ME. So, we no longer desire things the way God intended them or for the love of our neighbor, but it becomes all about us. Lust is all about what WE can get out of this. At its core, lust is about using things—including people—for our own purposes. 

So, let’s get back to the question from our teenagers, “Does this mean I can’t even look at someone of the opposite sex and find them attractive? Am I sinning when I do that?” The answer is, “No, but don’t fool yourself either.” In the same way that you can see a beautiful sunset and give praise and glory to God, you can also see a beautiful person and give praise and glory to God. It’s possible. 

However, for most people, seeing a beautiful person begins innocently but quickly turns into something else. I’m assuming that going to a beach filled with bikini clad women and shirtless men hasn’t been an experience that pushes you deep into prayer or worshiping God. Rather, the initial innocent recognition of someone’s beauty, results in lingering looks and stares—using their beauty for your own purposes, to satisfy your sinful desires. That’s lust and it’s no longer innocent, but sinful and deadly. 

And notice where it begins—with the eyes. Notice that Jesus tells us this begins with the eyes—it begins with looking—but ends in the heart: “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28, ESV). The eyes are more than the “window to the soul,” but also the door to our heart. Along these lines, John Stott makes this powerful statement, “I doubt if ever human beings have fallen victim to immorality, who have not first opened the sluice-gates of passion through their eyes. Similarly, whenever men and women have learned sexual self-control in deed, it is because they have first learned it in the eyes of both flesh and fantasy” (88). 

In all of this, it’s important to remember that lust is deadly. It’s not a small thing that can be dabbled in once in a while. It will kill you—body and soul. At a basic level, lust is a sin and the wages of sin is death. Lust will slowly kill your soul and your body. But it’s also important to understand that lust—like all sins—is addictive by nature. Actually, if you look for the root of every addiction, you will find some form of lust—obviously not just sexual lust, but lust for food or alcohol or something else. And these types of addictions will kill you too—slowly destroy you and eat away at you.

This is why Jesus tells us that we need to take drastic measures. He uses some hyperbole to make his point, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29–30, ESV). 

On one level, this makes complete sense to us. Some of you have had to make decisions like this regarding your physical health. One man from my previous congregation had a severe infection in his foot that wouldn’t heal. The doctors told him that they needed to remove the foot or he would die. Of course, on one level, it’s a difficult decision, but on another level it’s easy. You cut the foot off. It’s no use being dead but having two feet. 

Yet, we don’t often think this clearly when it comes to other aspects of our lives. You don’t often hear someone say, “I’m not going to the beach anymore because I’m too tempted to lust. I’d rather keep myself alive—body and soul—and lose the opportunity to swim.” You don’t hear people say, “We won’t have a computer or a television in our home because they bring too much temptation into our home for lust. We’d rather keep ourselves alive—body and soul—and lose the enjoyment of a television.” I could keep going on, making list after list after list, but you get my point. We need to take drastic measures to prevent ourselves from being killed by our lustful hearts. 

Now, I need to provide a clarification before I wrap up. I’m not saying every Christian should remove computers and televisions from their home, or refuse to go to the beach. I AM saying that some Christians should do this. It comes down to WHAT is bringing this temptation into your life. Of course there are people who can go to the beach without lusting or watch television without lusting or read a book without lusting or go on their computer without lusting. But here’s the point: You need to pay attention to those things that are triggering lust in your heart. And when you notice those things, you need to take drastic actions to remove them—or remove yourself from them. John Stott says, “We may have had to become culturally ‘maimed’ in order to preserve our purity of mind” (91). 

Yet, in the midst of all this, we must not forget Jesus Christ. For those who look to him in faith, he has promised to forgive our sins. And we must never forget that because we are going to fail in this area. We will never do this perfectly. Just about the time we think we’ve got things “under control,” we’ll fall into another trap of lust. As Christians, we must not allow these failures to beat us up and wound us. When we fall into sin—even the sin of lust—we must acknowledge our sin, look to Jesus in faith, and trust he will forgive us, again and again and again. Not because we deserve it, but because he loves us. 

And let me tell you something important, this truth should free us from living in fear. There are some Christians who are constantly living in fear, constantly afraid of failing or messing up or falling short. God has not given us a spirit of fear. We are not called to live in fear, always worried about something possible causing us to lust. No. Of course we are to live our lives in wisdom, not foolishness, but then we live in freedom. When we find ourselves in a situation that causes us to sin, we confess that sin, ask for forgiveness, learn from our mistake, and keep walking in freedom. 

And that’s one of the beautiful promises of the gospel. Jesus not only promises to forgive our sins, but he also promises to give us the Holy Spirit to give us strength to overcome and resist when those temptations arise. He doesn’t leave us floundering in the deep end, trying to keep our head above water. No, he teaches us to swim and keeps our head above water. He gives us strength to look the other way when temptation is placed in front of our eyes, or to turn the channel when an inappropriate scene comes on, or walk away from lustful situations/scenarios. 

And, to take things even further, the gospel also promises to change our hearts. Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit, will change our lustful desires.  He will actually begin to change our hearts so that we don’t look at the things and people around us as objects to be used for our own benefit, but things to be used and people to be loved for God’s glory. He will actually begin to change our hearts and desires so that when we see a beautiful person we don’t try to use their beauty to satisfy our own desires, but will see their beauty, praise God for his beautiful creation, and ask ourselves, “How can I love and serve them for God’s glory?”