23rd September 2024

23rd September 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 5:27-32 focus v27-28)


Message (Alan Burke) 


This week we are going to look at a passage which I know will hit some nerves and believe it or not no matter what some people think I don’t like being controversial and rubbing people up the wrong way and I want to say that as we begin. Here Jesus begins similarly to when he addressed anger before. He wasn’t correcting the law of God or adding to it, expanding it in some way, rather he was correcting a misunderstanding of the law. Something that we are all prone to do. 


Taking the seventh commandment, Jesus expounds the full extent of what it requires of us, expounding the law to help us to understand the full extent of what it teaches us. Applying the teaching of the seventh commandment to not only the act but the desire. This teaching doesn’t just apply to those who are married rather it goes much much further, because it applies if you’re single, married, divorced no matter who you are or what stage of life you are at or relationship you are in, it has far reaching implications. Also bear in mind that adultery according to the Old Testament Law so serious was it seen that it was punishable by death, (Deut 22:22, Lev 20:10) and in the time of Jesus it was seen in such light. The seriousness of it had not been watered down as it is today.


Adultery according to Jesus does not require the act, rather just a lustful thought means that you have broken the command, you have committed adultery. Does it mean that we cannot admire someone, comment of their beauty or say that they are handsome? Well no it doesn’t. There are other places in scripture where admiring the beauty of someone or if they are handsome is not seen as sinful so that’s not what we are being told here, that would take the teaching of Jesus too far. Rather the issue here is to look at someone with lustful intent, to have the desire of your heart stirred. (See Gen 29:17, 1 Sam 16:12, 25:3). Nor does the teaching of Jesus equate the act and the look as equally heinous.


What the scripture teaches about marriage, about lust, about divorce is totally counter cultural, the culture that we live in downplays the seriousness of sexual sin and we should be careful because if sin reigns in our life it leads us to hell. Jesus here wants us to understand that adultery begins in the heart, the heart is after all sinful, in fact every inclination and fate thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually, it is the verdict of the Lord on my heart and yours (Gen 6:5 and 8:21). 


How do we respond then? Well we repent of our sin, turn from it and trust in what Christ Jesus has done. If you find yourself battling with lust in your heart it is something that you should look to address. This is something that not only effects men it is woman as well. What makes this so much worse is that today we have at our fingertips a world that the generations before us never had which can feed the fire. What we should be doing as believers is seeking to put the fire out rather than feed it and when we fail to live as we should we look to what Christ has done in his atoning work and marvel that he would die as Issac Watts so eloquently put “for such a worm as I”.




Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q 97. What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper?
A. It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves, of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.
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