Audio Transcript:

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Good morning, welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, I'm one of the pastors here at Mosaic along with Pastor Shane, and Pastor Andy, and if you're new, or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. We do that either through a connection card in the worship guide that you received on the way in, or the virtual connection card in the app, or on our website. If you fill it out, we'll get in touch with you over the course of the week.

Would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a good God, and a good Father. And we thank you, Lord that you, before the foundation of the world, you imagined us into existence. That we are a product of your imagination, that in your heart, you foresaw who we would be and you made us so.

And we thank you that you created us in your image with an imagination, and you have given us this imagination so that we use it for good to imagine realities of how we can serve people, and do good, and further the common good instead, Lord we've sinned. And so often our imaginations are used as a weapon for evil and sin.

And Lord, we thank you that you did not leave us in our sin, but you sent Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. We thank you Jesus, that you lived the perfect life, that you never sinned against anyone, and not God, not people. You love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your imagination. And you love neighbor as self. You never treated anyone as an object, and you never dehumanized anyone with sin.

And you went to the cross and Lord, you bore the weight that we deserve, the punishment that we deserve. You experienced hell being forsaken by God, so that we would not have to be. And we thank you. Holy Spirit, that you give us access to the gospel by grace, through faith. And I pray today Lord, give us a deep faith for your Word, that when you say something is sin and that something leads to pain and depravity, and shame, let us believe it.

And when you say that we can be free of sin because where the Spirit is, here freedom is. Let us believe it and act upon that faith. Bless our time in the Holy Scriptures, we love you, and we pray all this in Christ's name, amen. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Perfect, perfect day for a nice sermon on lust. And that's what we're talking about today. The title of the sermon is Lust and Imagination.

As we're going through a Sermon on the Mount, the context is that Jesus Christ is King, and he says, "The kingdom of God is at hand. The way that you enter into the kingdom of God is by repentance through faith." And once he gathers his disciples who have repented of sin, he explains to them this new order of life. It's a manifesto he's given us of the christian life of how we as Christians are to live. And he's given us the same standard that God gave in the very beginning.

And just a word here on theology to set a meta narrative of what we're talking about, the theology of creations that God created everything by the power of his word. And he created us humans in his image, and he created us to enjoy him primarily, him first and foremost, secondarily creation. He gives us good gifts in creation to be used according to his guidelines, according to his laws.

And he created us in such a way that the more we live according to his will, the more we glorify him, the more satisfaction we experience. Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they find the rest in you." It's like there's a missing piece in our hearts, and that missing pieces is Jesus, it's worshiping God, is being in trance with him. It's adoring him, loving him, being captivated by him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind.

It's like those security websites. When you get on some of these financial websites, and they show you the puzzle, and there's a puzzle piece that you need to move into the empty spot. And on a daily basis, God is saying, "Jesus is that piece that we need to be filled with satisfaction." So God created us with a need for him. And the other thing I want to connect that with as he created us in his image and were a product of his imagination.

So he imagined us, and created us in his image. So the fact that we're in his image is we have an imagination. It's an incredible gift from God to have an imagination, and that imagination... And if you just think about how much of life you live in your imagination, two thirds, more? As you're sitting, especially if you get good at your job, you could be all day without even thinking about your job. You're just doing your job, and you were imagining realities. Every time you think about the past, and memories, that's imagination at work. Anytime you think about a better reality here, anytime you think about future realities, it's imagination at work.

And one of the things that scripture teaches is that every single part of our person has been marred. The image of God in us has been marred by sin, and therefore imagination has been marred by sin. So that imagination which was created to do good and think of better reality, that imagination is sinful. So this is what Jesus Christ is talking about today, and he talks about lust, and he talks about this deep desire, he's talking about the capacity to imagine good things and act upon them, or imagine bad things and act upon.

And this is a very relevant sermon for everybody. The latest statistics say that 95% of people struggle with lust. The other 5% struggle with lying. It's everybody, every single one of us. As my wife says, "Everybody have dirty mind, everybody." We all need Jesus. We all need cleansing. We're all on level playing field there. So that's the context with it. And we'll look at this text from the perspective of, is your imagination captivated by God? And that's the only place you'll find satisfaction. If not, there's things we have to do by grace through faith, with repentance, fighting those areas in order to be faithful to the Lord.

With that said, would you look at the text with me? We're in Matthew 5:27-32, "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. 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 then 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's better that you lose one of your members then that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual morality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

This is the reading of God's Holy and fallible authoritative Word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Four points to frame up our time. First, what's the big deal with lust? Second, lust is never satisfied just physically. Third, fighting lust with faith, and forth, we'll talk about marriage and divorce. So first of all, what's the big deal with lust? And I asked this because from our cultural perspective where you, and this is a secular humanist worldview, where humanity, humans, people are at the center of the universe and there is nothing above them. So, whatever you do, as long as you're not harming anybody that's good.

So, why the radical language that Jesus is using. First in verse 27, I'll point out that Jesus emphasizes the heart. Verse 28. "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in heart." It's the heart. We see in the 10th commandment "Thou shall not envy. Thou shall not desire your neighbor's spouse." We see the desire there in commandment number 10.

Jesus here goes into commandment number seven and says, that's the same thing. "Thou shall not commit adultery." It begins in the heart. The other thing I want to point out here is that from the perspective of Jesus. Jesus, primarily talking to his disciples, primarily talking to men. Men, you need to listen. You need to heed this commandment. And obviously it doesn't apply just to men, but he's talking to his disciples, so it applies to everybody.

The assumption here is behind this commandment, behind this call to purity command to purity of the heart is the assumption is that sex is a lot more powerful than you know. It's mysterious, it's an untamable power. That's the assumption here from God's perspective. That's why Jesus uses such strong language and giving a prescription of how to deal with it. How to deal with it. This is verse 29. "If your right eye causes you sin, tear it out, throw it away for it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell."

And he uses the same language with the hand. "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away for it's better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." Jesus, why are you bringing hell into this? We're talking about lust, we're talking about adultery and Jesus says the consequence for this is hell. It's being forsaken by God forever. Why such strong language? Why this importance, this gravitas of lust. And partially other times I've preached this sermon and I'm like, look at the wisdom behind God's commandment. God cares about the individual. And God also cares about other individuals. And God cares about the family and God cares about society. So there is divine wisdom and fighting lust then leads to more blessing.

That's not how I'm dealing with it today. Basically what Jesus is saying is, "I'm God, and I'm telling you how to live. And if you do not obey my Word, there are consequences, you are liable to judgment." That's how Jesus talks about. Back when I started my ministry, when people come to me, and say, "I'm struggling with lust and Pastor Jan, can you help me?" And I would give them like practical things to do. "Hey, put some filter on your computer. And if it's your phone, that's causing you to sin, get a flip phone, and get an accountability partner, and all that." Now, whenever anyone comes to me and says, "I'm struggling with sin." I say, "Pluck out your eye. Cut off your hand," because it is that serious. Obviously Jesus isn't talking about doing this physically literally, it's a hyperbole.

But it's hyperbole, in a very arresting language, in a very extreme language. Hyperbole to say this radical measure is an index of how radical, and dangerous this sin is. In order for you to overcome this sin, you need to first understand that God hates it, and that there are dire consequences over it. And God is a God not just over your actions, but over your desires. God is a God over your imagination. That God has jurisdiction over the realities that you imagine, over your fantasies. And here he brings in the word hell, and it's Gehenna.

And Gehenna was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where the fire would just keep burning. And he says, "That's a metaphor for what hell is." He's not saying that's exactly what hell, it's a metaphor. And whenever God uses a metaphor to describe hell, sometimes it's darkness, sometimes it's this fire that can't be quenched. The reality is always worse than the metaphor.

So what are you saying is the reality is of this lust. If it keeps burning, and if you don't deal with this now, and then you die, and we are eternal beings. Well, if you have been forsaken by God in this world, then you will be forsaken in the next world and this fire just keeps on growing. And the assumption is that sex isn't just an appetite, that it is powerful, it's like a fire. And the right context in marriage to one man, one woman in covenant for a lifetime. It can lead to goodness, and a blessing from God. In the wrong context, can lead to devastation, just like a fire in a fireplace leads to light an ambiance, warmth, wrong contest, devastation.

And that's the problem with our culture. We have mishandled this. We have absolutely mishandled this because we assume it's just an appetite, and we don't take God at his Word because we think it's just an appetite. Well God says, "No, it's not just physical, it has all kinds of spiritual manifestations, and consequences." And Satan's temptation here is the same temptation that he brought in the very beginning. The temptation is even as you're listening right now, even as I read the text the temptation is, is it really that bad? Is this sin really that bad? Did God really say? Did God really say that if you eat of it, you will die. Did God really say that?

And what Satan did with Eve the very beginning, by tempting her to eat the forbidden fruit, he does today in terms of lust, and sex. Did God really say, and does God really have jurisdiction of this area of your life? And basically what Satan is doing is it's a power play. You don't have to submit to God. You can be your own god, and you decide what's good, and evil. You decide what's blessing, and what's cursing.

He comes in and he attacks the imagination. Just imagine a world without God. Imagine a reality without God, with no consequences for your actions. This is John Lennon's signature song. Imagine a world without God. Imagine a world without God, without religion. Imagine that above is only sky. If we imagine such a world, one lacking country's, possessions, when we imagine all the people living in peace, unity, happiness. I think what John Lennon did was trying to create this flower power paradise that has no basis in reality.

Nietzsche was more right. "If there is no God, and people do whatever they want, it leads to absolute chaos, and nihilism, and just abyss." But this is what seeing does is imagine. Imagine a world without God. Well, okay. Let's imagine that world without God. Most people live as if there is no God, and how's that going? Look at the consequences of sexual sin in our culture. I want to flip that around, and say, imagine a world where people obey this. Imagine a world where people will obey the sexual ethic of Christianity, of the gospel, of Scripture.

Imagine a world where people understood the power of sexuality. Imagine a world of people would fight lust, and not have sex unless it's in a committed relationship of a husband and a wife. The greatest pandemic in the world today is not COVID. The greatest pandemic is fatherlessness where men do not submit to God, do whatever they want, and now everyone bears the consequences of that. You know this cliche, when a man has a daughter, and he's like, "Oh, now I understand. Now I understand that I've been objectifying women my whole life. Now I'm going to protect my daughter. And I will protect my daughters. I got four of them. If anyone ever tries to objectify my daughters, I've got guns my left, and my right. And I have a permit to carry those. I will absolutely obliterate everyone in Jesus name."

No, but imagine viewing every single person, the way God intended you to view each other, as image bearers of God, not just an object of gratification. And that's what Satan comes in and he perverts our eyes where now we view people as objects instead of image bearers of God. The other objection is to the sexual ethic and lust is, if I don't express myself sexually, then I'm not being true to myself, and understand that if self is all there is, that's a fair objection, but self is not all there is. There is a God and you are not central, he is. And if there is a God and his Word is true, then being true to yourself is actually a terrible idea because what does it mean to be true to yourself, to act on every single impulse from the inside that's false.

Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately seek who can understand it." Their sin inside, and we can't act upon single inclination that we have. Genesis 6:5. This is the text right before the flood. God says this, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually." Intention of the thoughts is an imagination of the thoughts. That sin starts in the heart, and it captivates the imagination. And if it's not dealt with here, it leads to all kinds of brokenness.

The other objection I hear from young people when it comes to lust and sexuality is, "I just need to get this out of my system. While I'm young, I need to get this out of my system." That's false, that's like pouring gasoline on fire. You're just jacking up your system, and that you're creating memories that can never be removed and heartache that you're going to deal with for years to come. The other objection is, "I'm not harming anyone." Well, that's false, there is a God. And when you break his commandments, you're not just harming yourself, you're harming others, and you're breaking the heart of God.

Lust adulterates you, it adulterates the people around us. So that's what's the big deal because God says it's a big deal. So second, lust is never satisfied just physically. Let's define our terms. What is lust? It's the Greek word, (speaking in foreign language). It's used 62 times in the New Testament, only twice it's used for sex. What does it mean? It means not just desire, but inordinate desire. It's desire out of control. It's when you take a physical thing and try to get from it, transcendence or spiritual satisfaction. You take a good thing, and you try to get from it only what you can get from God.

So in this sense lust is more than just in the context of sexuality. If sex is your ultimate desire, you'll never have sex enough. If money is the ultimate desire or fame, or acceptance, or things, or attention, or food, or cars, or drink, or success, security, beauty, you will never have enough if this is the ultimate thing. And how do you know you're making something the ultimate thing? It's when you look at the commandments of God, and say. "No, getting this is more important than obedience to God."

Now it becomes an idol, and it begins to control us. The more you try to satisfy lust, the more this desire grows. And if you try to quench lust with sex only, it'll just continue being unsatisfied, and grow. And this is why there's rehab centers for sexual addiction. And you go to these rehab centers, and ask people, how did this start? You don't wake up addicted to illicit sex. It starts little, by little, by little, and the fire keeps growing, and growing, and growing and all.

The other thing I want to point out is, on the one hand our culture says, "Sex is no big deal, have a good time." On the other hand, we know that the consequences are grave. We know that there's shame and a regret. We know that people do things that should not be done. We know this. We know when people get caught on Zoom for doing things that they should not be doing. Our culture condemns that. Why do we do that? Because we understand it's written on our heart that this is wrong. There's a lot wrong with it.

Lust is a black hole that's never filled with just sex, or things. And this is why we need the gospel of Jesus Christ. What we're desperately longing for isn't just a physical experience. We're longing for intimacy, we're longing for a true love, we're longing to be filled deep inside, and only God can do that. That's why the gospel of Jesus Christ is so powerful. When you look at Jesus Christ who never committed a sin with his eye, or his hand, and never lusted in his heart. And then he goes to the cross, and on the cross, he dies for our sin.

He bears the penalty as if he had lusted. As if he had committed adultery, and he's dying on the cross. And he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What's he talking about? He's going through hell. He's experiencing God forsakingness. And which is hell, why does he do that if he was perfect, he's not dying for his sin. He's dying for our sin, and when you realize that this is how much you're loved, that despite all of your sin, despite lust, despite everything, you are still loved, and God died on the cross for your sins, you accept forgiveness. Now you have access to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit fills us, and now we have the power to overcome the sin. And now we have the power to take every single one of our imaginations and take them captive.

Okay, real quick imagination audit. We're going to do a little imagination audit. How's your imagination? How are you doing with... And am looking at less from the perspective of imagination to show you that it's a lot wider. The scope is a lot wider than just looking at porn. Porn's included, but it's a lot wider. It's when we fantasize realities, and create these realities that are forbidden by God.

So imagination audit, what are you feeding your imagination on a daily basis? And are those things leading to satisfaction of the soul, or are they creating a dissatisfaction, and a fire that's pulling you away from God? What are you looking at? What are you listening to? What are you reading? And the visual input is really important. Jesus connects lust here, it starts with the heart. And then he says that it leads to adultery in the heart. Lust in the heart, adultery in the heart. And then you look.

The looking is a third part. What he is connecting is less than the imagination with images. And there is this deep connection. So as Christian, we need to be very careful at what are you looking at? What do you spend your time looking at in TV shows? This is movies. This is social media accounts, and content. What are you feeding? And I will tell you, the smarter you are, the more careful you got to be with that stuff. The better memory you have, the more you gotta be careful with that. So what are you listening to in terms of podcasts, in terms of music, how much of pop culture and pop music is built around inflaming people's lust?

And then it goes deeper than that. It goes deeper than the stuff we consume on a daily basis. What about memories? What memories, dreams, or mental pictures have been particularly vivid in your mind that you keep going back to, and you know you shouldn't be. How have they been impacting you? How did they make you feel? And which of these mental pictures have been encouraging, and life-giving, and how do these mental pictures stack up against God's Word?

When you're daydreaming about the future, are you daydreaming in a way where your God is in those daydreams? God is in those fantasies. Is God in those realities? Or are you doing this in order to escape God, escape obedience, escape God's Word. And it has to do with people, not just realities. It has to be dreaming about doing things with other people. Do you find yourself daydreaming about a person, or interactions you wish to have with that person that you shouldn't? Do you reach out with hopes of getting specific response? Would you be embarrassed if that person knew about your fantasies, or imaginations about them? Would you be embarrassed if the people closest to you knew the things that you were imagining?

Are you building up expectations about how things are going to turn out? Are you spending a lot of time analyzing past interactions, and to the point where it's idolatrous. And the big idea here is that once you become a Christian, you come to the cross of Christ, you repent of sin, you got to make it a practice of putting off old imaginations, and putting on the new. We need to practice fighting back against evil imaginations. And just real quick, the easiest way to do that is the very second you have a fantasy, or imagination that you know you shouldn't, an image pops up, you need to repent of that, and ask for the Lord's forgiveness, and ask for the Lord to purify the heart.

And Scripture says that those who are pure in heart, they see God. How do we see God? With our minds eye, with our imagination. Third point is, how do we do this practically fighting lust with faith? When you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in way that captivates your whole being, that's true faith. It's not cerebral in the mind. We are called to believe with all of our being. And when we come to the Lord, we repent of all of our sin. The Lord justifies us and the Lord justifies us and says, "You're acquitted and you're not guilty, you are forgiven of all sin." And if you are a true Christian, you have a desire to fight sin.

So justifying faith is lust fighting faith, where you want God above all else. And this is how the gospel redeems our imagination. Romans 6:14, "For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace." So when you come to God, you realize that he loves you so much, that he gave his son. He fills your heart with a great love. Once you experience the Holy Spirit, once you experience the cleansing power of the blood of Christ, once you experience all of that, you want to do everything you can to stay as close to him as possible.

This why lust is so dangerous because it pulls us away from God. But once you've experienced that, he's re-calibrated the taste buds of your soul, and you want to do everything you can to be as close to him as possible. It's like when you know real food, when you know delicious food and you know exactly where I'm going with this, when you have a steak, a delicious ribeye with asparagus, if you'd like. When you have like this is real food you have that, it's not that easy to go back to junk. Yesterday we took our girl, Tanya, took our girls to just walk around Beacon Hill, and we walk them by Upper Crust. And my daughter Milan, my youngest one, she stops and she goes.

She's got my nose, which I'm really sorry about. And the flaps go and it's just so cute. And then we're like, "No, we're not having pizza. We're going to be good." My wife made Borscht at home, because that's what we do she's Ukrainian. So my daughter's like, "Oh, no." So then we keep walking, and we go to the Boston Common, and then we're walking by the McDonald's. And then my third daughter stops, and she goes, and I knew at that moment we're going to McDonald's.

And when you go to McDonald's, you know what you're doing. You know like you are sinning, you are breaking all kinds of commandments. And as you eat, it is so good. Then you're like, "Ah, yeah." And then you know you're going to hate yourself as you doing it. You're going to hate yourself five minutes later. And then five minutes later goes by, and you're like, "I just consume like 4,000 calories. I still feel a little hungry, and I hate myself." That, that right there.

So something like that happens on the spiritual level. When you taste God, taste, and see that he is good. That's love for God, that fills your heart, and that gives you power to fight lust. You know where this is going to lead, plus it's going to pull you away from God. You know it's not going to satisfy. So your heart is filled with love for God. And that gives you power to fight lust, and not love that lust. That's why Jesus in verse 28, he emphasis on the heart. "But I say that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Then progression is heart then adultery. Then the look, then the action.

You're loving something more than God. So how do you fight that? You fight that desire with a greater desire, you fight that fire with a greater fire. You fight the lust with the love. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is, Thomas Chalmers, the 1840s, and the famous sermon called the Expulsive Power of a New Affection. He says, "The only way to break the hold of a beautiful object on the soul is to show an object even more beautiful."

So true change for lust doesn't come from the outside. That's not where it starts. It doesn't start with self-discipline. It starts from the inside, repentance, and faith and God fills your heart with love, and then on the outside. So, it's a clean heart that leads to clean eyes, and clean hands. The other thing that you got to believe God's Word, you got to believe that his Word is true about the importance of fighting it.

The other thing you have to believe is that you can be free. I mean, so many Christians, when I counsel them on this topic, they're like, "It's impossible to be free of lust. It's possible to have victory over the sin." And that right there, that faithlessness always leads to defeat. Do you even believe that you can be victorious over this lust? Do you have this vision for your life? In the imagination, can you right now imagine being free of lust today? Let's string the wings together. Can you imagine having freedom from lust tomorrow? Do you have that? Can you imagine that? And as you imagine that, ask for the Lord's help, and fight the good fight, and be free of lust tomorrow. Can you imagine being free for a week?

Can you imagine being free for 21 days? And that's what they say. It takes 21 days to break any addiction in 30 days, whatever it is. Can you imagine this new reality for yourself? Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. But it's got to be like we look at the charts of the stock market, stocks always keep going up. You go up, up, up, up, down, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and you keep going. A year goes by five years, ten. It just keeps going up. That's what growth, and righteousness must look like for every true Christian.

One of my favorite illustrations of this topic is Augustine of Hippo, struggled with one of the greatest minds that ever existed, struggled with lust as a young man. And then one time after his conversion walks by, he's walking through town, walks by a former sexual partner, and he doesn't acknowledge her. And then she turns, and calls out, "Augustine it is I." And he turns and responds. "Yes, I know, but it is no longer I. The transformation at the core, that changes your identity. Once you're baptized into the faith, by the Holy Spirit, and baptized with water, there is a baptism of the imagination that needs to happen.

Scripture says, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." And Augustine writes about his conversion so poetically, he says this, "Late have I loved you, O Beauty..." He's talking about God. "so ancient, and so new, late have I loved you! You were within me and I was outside and I sought you outside and in my loneliness fell upon those things that you have made. But you called to me, and cried to me and broke my deafness. And you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness, you breathe your fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now I pant for you. I tasted you. And now I hunger, and thirst for you."

Like that true relationship with God. That true spiritual connection with God through prayer, through meditation, upon Scripture, through silence, through solitude, through fasting, that's where the victory begins. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." So that's where you start love for God. I believe in you, I love you. He fills your heart with that love. And you want to honor him and delight him as you delight in him. But you can't, that's not just where it stops.

There are things you got to do in terms of mortifying the flesh. Love for God, and mortification of flesh are the one-two combination of knocking out lust in your life. And the mortification of the flesh means, you have to take physical actions. As Jesus says, like it was a hyperbolic, "Pluck out your eye and cut off your..."

But you have to take radical actions where you know that the things are causing you to sin, and stoking up lust in your life, igniting that. You need to cut that out of your life. And you see the one-two combination, Colossians 3:1-5, verse five, "Put to death therefore, what is earthly in you." But it starts with filling your imagination with God, Colossians 3:1, "If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds."

And this is what he's saying, imagine, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." That's the imagination. That's your heart filled with, you're in trance with God, and then "Put to death therefore." So you will stop there. "Therefore." Based on all of that, "put to death therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual morality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." Put it to death.

He's not saying incrementally choke the life out of it. He's using this language of crucify the sin in your life. Galatians 5:16, "But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." To feed the Spirit weakens the flesh. The other really just practical point is make no provision for the flesh. Make no provision. Don't put yourself in places that stoke the flesh, and lust and put yourself in places that draw you near to God, and give you a desire for purity. This is Romans 13:13-14.

And by the way, I've said it before, oh 2020, 2021, our present day. This is the hardest time to ever be sexually pure, and fighting lust and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think that's true in the Roman Empire, Saint Paul is writing things like this, "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness." It's not talking about 2020, he's talking about the year like '70. So this has always been an issue, "Not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual morality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires."

So simply he's saying, don't put yourself in a place where you will be tempted, simply stay away. The father in Proverbs 5 tells the son to not go near the door of temptress, because she can't tempt you, if you can't see her. She can't tempt you if you're not in a place where you can be tempted. You know yourself, and you know the situations that cause you to lust, stay away from those situations, and pursue righteousness. Job says in 31:1, he says, "I've made a covenant." Meaning I made a decision. Ironclad decision. "I made a covenant with my eyes. How could I gaze at a Virgin?" Another translation says, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl." And later in the same chapter, Job admits that God would judge him if he had given in to the temptation, Job 31:7-9.

"If my step has turned aside from the way, and my heart has gone after my eyes." So sometimes your eyes go after your heart, and sometimes your heart goes after your eyes "If any spot has stuck to my hands then let me sow, and another eat and let what grows for me be rooted out. If my heart has been enticed toward a woman and I have lain in wait at my neighbor's door." So he's saying the sexual sin has to be cut out, stamped out before the temptation can take a foothold in the mind.

The other way that Scripture talks about dealing with lust is this language of putting it to sleep, and awakening it. Meaning we have control over this, Song of Solomon. "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases." That you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. So there things that we do with our imagination that awakens things that should not be awakened. Speaking of imagination, Satan attacks our imagination by showing us the worm of whatever the action is. And the way that we can fight that is by imagining the consequences. So Satan definitely wraps the stain of sin, with a tasty worm. The wiser prudent Christian can see through the worm. And this takes a little practice. You can see through the worm to see the hook where you know...

Think about the consequences, think about how this is going to hurt you. Think about how this is going to potentially become a new rhythm. Think about how it might impact the people in your life. Either people who are close around you now, or people who will be in your life in the future. James 1:13-15, "Let no one say when he's tempted, 'I'm being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it's conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death."

The emphasis there of responsibility is not on someone else. O someone else caused me to sin, or someone else tempted me. No, it's from the heart. Therefore, we bear responsibility, and when God tells us to not sin, and put to death, he's telling us we have power to do it by the power of the Spirit. The famous illustration in Holy Scripture of this is King David. King David doesn't go to war with... When he was supposed to go to war, he's on his roof of his palace. And he sees Bathsheba bathing. And the issue there wasn't that he saw that. Scripture says that he gazed on her. "She was beautiful to behold." He saw and he continued to see, and that led to all kinds of brokenness.

So, the question isn't like, "Are we going to see content that's going to create lust in us?" The question is, are you going to gaze? Or are you going to fight it? We have control of our eyes. We have control of our ears, what we hear, what are you going to focus on? And finally here in this just practically, Christians are good at repenting of sin. We run to Jesus after we sin. We also got to learn to run to Jesus before we sin.

When you're tempted, as soon as you're tempted run to God, and ask for forgiveness, and ask for cleansing of the Spirit, and the power of the Spirit. Finally, marriage and divorce. The reason why Jesus talks about lust and adultery in this text, and then he connects to the marriage is because it's all intertwined. That's important to note. And then Matthew 5:31-32, "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual morality, makes her commit adultery. Whoever marries a divorced woman, commits adultery."

What's Jesus talking about? He said that you have heard it that it was said, he's not talking about Scripture, which is what he would have said. "You have read what is written." And he's talking about the interpretation of the rabbis, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the lacks interpretation of the law when it comes to faithfulness, and loyalty in marriage. According to the rabbis, a man could divorce his wife for basically anything. If you look at the Mishnah, if you liked another woman better, if his wife spoiled the dinner or if she was barren, and if he consider her lazy, if he didn't like her looks, basically at any point, he just divorced her if he choose to. Now, that was the interpretation of the rabbis.

And what happened was... And basically that's how marriage, and divorce works in our day. We fell out of love, and that's it. And the rabbis took the biblical understanding of marriage and flipped it on its head. The Bible understanding of marriage is a covenant. It is a covenant between one man and one woman for life. And they turned into a contract and in a contract, here's your terms, you're going to meet your terms. Here's my terms, if you don't meet your side of the bargain, where out, there's no more contract. And within covenant, you do what God does with us. God made a new covenant with us, and he says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." And that's the intention of marriage to be a picture of God's love for us.

And this is exactly what the rabbis did. They flipped it into a contract. Whenever I officiate a wedding, I say the same thing every time, "Dearly beloved we're gathered here today in the sight of God on this face of this company, et cetera, et cetera." And then I say, "What we are witnessing here today is a miracle. We're gathered to witness a miracle. And the miracle isn't a confession of past love, and it's not a profession of current love. It's a promise of future love, no matter what, until death do us part." That's the miracle of marriage and that's God's intention for marriage.

And the rabbis came in and they realized that that's impossible. God's standard of marriage is impossible. So we need to lessen the law. And the clarification of this text happens in Matthew 19:3-9. "The Pharisees came to him and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' And he answered, 'Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning, made them male and female and said, 'Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.'

And they said to him, 'Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away?' And he said, 'Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual morality and marries another commits adultery.'" So it was the rabbis looked at the law and like to become one for life? Ah, we can't do that. They lessen the law, and Jesus comes in and says, "No, this is the standard. Divorce isn't allowed." And the reason why people divorced because of hardness of heart, and this is as real as it gets. And if you're married, you know exactly this hardness that comes. You got to deal with it.

And the way that we deal with it is through the gospel. You audit your heart. Is there bitterness or hardness of heart toward my spouse? Go to the gospel, receive grace and mercy and that softens the heart. In terms of divorce, the reasons for divorce that are permissible in Scriptures, death, then you're separated from the spouse and so you can remarry. Adultery or sexual morality and desertion, that's 1 Corinthians 7. So in these cases, divorce from a biblical perspective is permitted though it's not desired. Reconciliation is to be saw instead, but it's permitted.

Why such a high standard of marriage? Because it's sacred from God's perspective. If anyone remarries for any reason, other than sexual morality or desertion or death, that sin, however, our God is gracious and forgiving and whoever repents and confess his sin is forgiven immediately. So if someone remarries, or divorces and remarries for any other reason other than these three, the new marriage is initially adulterous, but not perpetually if there is repentance and if people seek repentance. And then if someone does remarry and seeks repentance, and you're like, "Oh, I shouldn't have remarried. I'm going to go back to my former spouse." No, once you're married, that's God's will for you.

Finally, I'll close with this. In terms of imagination, in terms of what we're imagining about our past and present and future, one of my favorite texts is Philippians 4:8-9. It says this, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you."

Don't just think about and imagine whatever, instead think and imagine about whatever's good and true and beautiful so that we can live lives that are good and true and beautiful and image forth the glory of God, amen. Let's pray, Lord, we thank you for this Word that you've given us. Lord and Jesus, we thank you for you are King and that you are King over every single square inch of our lives that you call us to faithfulness and fidelity in the same way that you are faithful to us. Lord, we pause right now to ask for forgiveness, if there's any hardness of heart in us, and if there's any place in our life where our imaginations have been captivated by things that they should not be captivated by, and we pray, forgive us and cleanse us. And by the power of the Spirit, ignite our imagination to think about you and love you and think about how we can do good work and how we can further the common good for your glory and our joy. And we pray this in Christ's Holy name, amen.