"Lust" Matthew 5:27-30

Lust Matthew 5:27-30

David, the man after God’s own heart, finds himself broken and compromised, on a path that will lead him to murder. What no army could do, lust will. David defeated giants, armies feel before his leadership, yet on that day gazing from his balcony, David defeats himself.

 

The list of people defeated and broken by Lust fill the news, Bill Cosby, Garrison Keillor, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Charlie Rose. Pastors, teachers, politicians, business people and people from all walks of life, are falling before the foe of lust.

 

The world wants to catch people in their lust and sin and use it to destroy them. If your name shows up on the latest naughty list, it only proves your human. God’s desire is not your guilt it’s transformation! God already knows your guilty. He wants to lead you to a new path.

 

No one is immune to this defeater of the great and powerful. We all face this foe in some way or another.

 

In the Old Testament the word for lust is Covet

Ex 20:1-17

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

So, though Jesus is talking about sexual lust in particular, lust is not confined to this one thing.

 

Matthew 5:27&28

“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.

 

How does it work

 

James 1:12-18

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

 

Jesus brings this up not to make you feel guilty, Jesus’s desire is that we not fall victim to lust. Jesus gives this remedy for coveting or lust.

 

Matthew 5: 29&30

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.

 

Jesus is not suggesting that we all go through life without blind and handless, He is saying that we must deal with temptation in radical ways. So how do we fight this temptation?

 

Change what you love.

 

1 John 2:15-17

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

 

Stop walking by the old self

Eph 4:17-24

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

 

Avoid the path that leads there

Proverbs 5:1-8

For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol; she does not ponder the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it. And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless,

 

Don’t listen to her talk, ideas and philosophy

Proverbs 7:21-27

With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life. And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths, for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

 

Fill your mind and heart with God’s word and fix your eyes on living for Jesus

Psalm 119:9-16

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

 

Romans 12:1&2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

Do not put your energy and time into guilt, put it into transformation.