This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to week five of our look through the book of Matthew, day two. Today
we're going to look at chapter five, verses 27 to 32. Yesterday we looked at the
truth that Jesus taught us that anger ruins relationships.

So what do you do about it? Jesus said, "Make your relationships a priority. See
them as a priority or your life gets ruined and other people's lives get ruined.

" Today Jesus tells us he teaches us his answer to lust. In verse 27, beginning
there, Jesus taught, "You have heard that it was said, 'Do 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 sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It's 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 sin, 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. It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a
certificate of divorce. ' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife,
except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress and anyone
who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

" Now when we read these verses, there's a lot that makes you scratch your head.
But let's go to the clarity and then see what Jesus has to teach. Jesus'
teaching is very clearly here that lust destroys relationships.

Now there are a lot of people who try to build a relationship on lust. That's
ridiculous. That's about as wise as someone building a house on the side of an
active volcano.

It's not going to work because lust destroys relationships. Lust has to get.
Love wants to give.

Lust is simply Satan's way of twisting our God-given desire to give ourselves to
one another in marriage into this consuming desire to get, to conquer, to take
what we want when we want it. You have to understand just a few things if you
walk through this. Lust is not found in being tempted.

You can be tempted to lust without choosing to lust. Lust is found in answering
temptation's call. It's not the knock on the door that's the problem.

It's the deliberate decision to open up that door, to open up that way of
thinking, to begin to want that person, to begin to want that thing, to begin to
want that that somebody else has that you should not have. And Satan's trick is
to make lust look more exciting than the thing that you have. It's been his
trick for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years.

And so many people have fallen for it. He's going to keep using that trick. But
the truth of the matter is there is nothing but devastation for a relationship
in lust and following that way.

So Jesus has a shocking answer to the struggle that we have with lust. He has a
shocking answer for our relationships. And you heard it.

He said, "You got a problem? Well tear out your eye. That'll fix it.

Cut off your hand. That'll fix it. " What?

We say that's how you deal with lust? What is he talking about here? Jesus is
saying, let me put it this way.

Jesus is saying you need to take your heart seriously by acting radically. That
lust that you have in your heart, that you've allowed to come into your heart,
not the temptation, not the fact that you've noticed that someone else is
beautiful, but you've decided to want that someone else who is beautiful. Not
the fact that you've noticed someone else who is handsome, but the fact that
you've dwelt on the fact that you want to be with that person who is handsome.

You've allowed it to grow into a lust in your heart. And Jesus said you need to
take your heart seriously by acting radically. Obviously Jesus is talking about
our heart attitudes here and not our hands and eyes.

If you were to cut off your right hand and you still wanted to sin, you could
sin with your left hand just as well. Jesus is saying here not to let anything
get in the way of a radical heart change that he wants to work in our lives.
Throughout the Bible, the right hand is the picture of that which is most
important, that which is most precious, most valued.

And what he's saying here is what you allow into your heart is serious business.
There are people who said, "Well, I never actually committed adultery. " No, but
you have allowed your desire for that person to ruin your relationship for year
after year after year maybe.

So take it seriously, Jesus is saying. Be willing to say, "I will do anything
that it takes, anything that it takes to make sure that my heart's in the right
place. " Because what you allow into your heart affects every relationship in
your life.

So when you recognize that there's some unforgiveness, some bitterness, some
lust in your heart, Jesus is teaching here, don't try to taper it off. Cut it
out. Cut it off.

That's why he says, "Gouge out the eye, cut off the ant. " He's saying, "Deal
with it immediately. Cut it off, deal with it as quickly as possible because
what's happening in your heart is having a negative impact on your relationship
with God, on your relationship with others.

" That's why Jesus says, "Cut off your right hand. Take your heart seriously by
acting radically. " Lust creates powerful emotions.

The question is, are you going to let those emotions that you've decided to
allow to be built into your heart to determine your future, are you going to
choose to do what's right and ask God to build a new set of emotions into your
heart? Jesus here talks about, at the end of this, marriage and divorce and
adultery. He talks about a certificate of divorce.

We might tell ourselves that divorce is just a matter of a piece of paper, but
you talk to anyone who's been through a divorce and they can tell you about the
hurt to the heart, the damage that it does to our relationships that is so much
deeper than that. Jesus is specifically addressing here some man who legally
rejects his wife in order to be with another woman. He's saying a legally
accomplished sin is still a sin.

The reason you gave her that certificate is so you could be with this other
woman. You say, "It's right, but it's just as wrong," he says. Let's get to our
hearts today.

The honesty of this, Jesus is talking about lust and adultery, about staying
married to the person that God put into your life, that you chose. You may
think, "Well, God didn't put him into my life. " Well, the minute you chose him,
the minute you got married, you decided, "God put that person into my life.

" What do you do if you're caught up in adultery or in temptation to adultery?
You've allowed it to grow into a lust in your heart. Will you choose a
relationship with that other woman, that other man?

Are you going to choose your marriage? Having walked through this with a number
of people, I can tell you that when answering this question, I know what most
people choose. They say, "Well, I want both.

I'm going to choose both. I still want my marriage. I want it to work, and
nothing will happen with this other person, but I still want to see him at work,
and maybe lunch every once in a while.

Maybe not that. We'll just see each other at work. It'll be okay.

" The truth of the matter is, what's happening is the pain of dealing with our
feelings is so great, we want to take the easy way out. We want to pretend that
those feelings really aren't an issue. You might think that allowing your mind
to wander even briefly towards a lust towards adultery with someone will not
affect your marriage.

Jesus says it will, and I trust Jesus. I don't trust the way that I feel about
this, because I can fool myself about this one. We can fool ourselves on this
one.

Jesus says it will, and I trust Jesus on this. You may think that the feelings
of anger that you're nursing won't affect your relationship. Jesus says it will,
it will.

What's happening in your heart is serious business. You may think that the
self-pity that you heap on yourself every day isn't affecting your
relationships. Jesus says it is.

So when we hear Jesus say here, "Cut it off," we sometimes feel like, "I don't
know how to do that. I can't change my heart," we say to ourselves, "I'd love to
do that, but I can't change now the way that I feel. " And you're right.

You can't change the way that you feel, but you can change the circumstances
that are causing the way that you feel, and then your feelings will eventually
change. When someone talks to any of our pastors here at Saddleback about being
tempted toward an adulterous affair, we always advise him or her to change the
circumstances and escape that temptation. Sexual temptation is a very powerful
temptation, and God's advice is that we don't try to battle this temptation in
hand-to-hand combat.

He tells us to get as far away as we can from it. Run away from sexual sin. No
other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does.

For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body, 1 Corinthians 6, 18 says.
So if you have to leave your job and go to a different job, do that if that's
what it takes. If you have to leave the neighborhood you're living in and go to
a different neighborhood, if that's what it takes, do that.

Is staying at that job worth losing your marriage, losing your family? Is that
neighborhood you're living in worth losing a relationship with God, a closeness
to God that he wants to have for your life, all the rest of your life, the kind
of ministry that he wants in your life? You may say, "Oh, I can handle it.

I can handle these feelings. " Jesus is saying, "No, no, you can't. Cut it off.

Cut it out. " Because what you're allowing into your heart, it's serious
business. It's going to affect your life and your relationships in multiplied
ways beyond what you can imagine.

So you take your heart seriously by being willing to act radically. Let's take a
moment to pray together. Jesus, we need to hear from you on this one.

Speak to our hearts. Help us to trust what you're saying. It's so easy for us to
get caught up in our own emotions so much that we trust ourselves more than we
trust you.

But Lord, we know, we don't always think right. We know we can wander the wrong
direction. So help me help us to trust you because you're trustworthy, to trust
you with our relationships, to trust you when we struggle with anger, and to
make relationships a priority, make it right with the other person, and to trust
you when we struggle with a lust, and to take our hearts seriously by acting
immediately, acting radically, doing something now.

We pray that you strengthen us to do this. Thank you for your love towards us.
Help us to hear in the tenderness of your love an invitation to change.

Strengthen us to do this, we pray. In your name, Jesus. Amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to look together at Jesus' answer to the relational
struggle sometimes we have with honesty.