We are guilty of adultery when we desire sexually what we are not committed to relationally...

At the church where I serve, we just started a brand new sermon series entitled Jesus uncut. During this series, we are spending our time together looking at perhaps the most famous sermon that Jesus ever preached, which is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. During this series, we are going to see Jesus reveal to the crowds listening to His sermon, and to us here today, the true nature of what God demands of humanity in order to experience a right relationship with Him and what it truly means to obey the message and teachings of the letters that make up the Bible.

And during this series, as we see Jesus uncut, our hope and prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in a way that enables us to wrap our heads, hearts, and hands around the lifestyle that Jesus calls us to live as one who is living in a right relationship with Him.  This week, I would like for us to jump into the next section of this famous sermon that Jesus preached, called the Sermon on the Mount, which is recorded for us in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew, where we are going to discover another timeless truth from Jesus uncut. So let’s discover that timeless truth together, beginning in Matthew 5:27:

"You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY';

As Matthew continues to give us a front row seat to this famous sermon that Jesus preached, we see Jesus quote from a section of a letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the Old Testament called the book of Exodus. As we discovered last week, in the book of Exodus, God used a man named Moses to deliver the Jewish people from slavery at the hands of the nation of Egypt. 

After spending over 400 years living as slaves in a nation that worshipped a multitude of false gods, the Jewish people had been delivered from slavery by God and were now a free people. However, while free from slavery, the Jewish people were not free from the influence of living in a culture that worshipped other gods instead of the One True God. And because of that reality, in this section of the book of Exodus, God began to enter a covenant relationship with the Jewish people as His chosen people. In other words, God and the Jewish people agreed to enter a committed relationship with one another that was based on the fulfillment of various promises and responsibilities.

God promised the Jewish people that they would enter a special relationship with Him as His treasured people that would live lives that were distinctly different from the other nations of the world in that the Jewish people would be wholly devoted to God and God alone. As part of that special relationship with God, the Jewish people were to live according to a set of principles that would establish them as being distinctly different from the other nations of the world. As a result of this special relationship with God; as a result of living their lives according to a set of principles given to them by God that would result in them living lives that were distinctly different than the world around them, the Jewish people would be the vehicle that He used to reveal Himself to the world around them.

In Exodus 20, God began to give these principles to Moses, who would in turn deliver these principles to the Jewish people to follow. The entirety of these principles were referred to by the Jewish people as the Law. The Law contained the list of commandments that revealed to the Jewish people God’s nature, God’s character, and the type of nature and character that humanity would need to possess and display in order to live in a right relationship with God. The first set of these principles we know today as the Ten Commandments.

Here, we see Jesus quote from the seventh of the Ten Commandments, which is recorded for us in Exodus 20:14. In Exodus 20:14, God commanded the Jewish people “You shall not commit adultery". Now, to commit adultery is to engage in sexual activity with someone other than one’s spouse. Now for those in the crowd listening to Jesus sermon, no one would be surprised at Jesus words here. For those in the crowd listening to Jesus sermon, no one would disagree with Jesus words here.

For those in the crowd listening, it was a common and accepted principle that a person who engaged in sexual activity with someone other than one’s spouse would certainly be guilty of breaking this commandment. However, what the crowds listening to Jesus were not prepared for was what Jesus had to say next. We see what Jesus said next in verse 28:

 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Now to fully understand what Jesus is saying here, we first need to understand a few things. First off, when Jesus uses the word look, this word conveys the sense of taking in the sight of something. This word conveys the sense of observing something so as to take it all in. This word would be used to describe someone who scans the horizon at the Grand Canyon so that they could take it all in the sights of the Canyon. 

Now that leads us to the second thing that we need to understand, which is what Jesus means when he uses the phrase with lust for her. This phrase refers to having a strong sexual interest and desire for another. The final thing that we need to understand is what Jesus means when he refers to the heart. In the culture of Jesus day, the word heart was used to refer to the center and source of one’s emotions, wishes and desires.

Now with all that background information in mind, let’s jump back to Jesus statement. "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 lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Jesus statement here, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: You have heard that is was said “you shall not engage in sexual activity with someone other than your spouse, but I say to you that everyone who takes in the sight of someone else’s wife with a strong desire to have sex with her or whoever looks at a woman who is not your wife with a strong desire to have sex with her has already had sex with her in their heart.”

Now I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in the crowd listening the Jesus words. Can you imagine what the response must have been like? Can you imagine the body language? The facial expressions? Can you imagine the pushback? Maybe you are here this morning and you find yourself pushing back.

Maybe you are wondering, questioning, or even challenging Jesus words here and if we could have a conversation, the conversation would sound something like this: “Really? Does Jesus actually think that thinking about having sex with someone is that same as having sex with someone? Does Jesus actually think that desiring to have sex with someone is that same as having sex with someone? I mean Jesus can’t really be serious here. After all, to think about having sex with someone is not remotely the same as actually having sex with someone. After all, to desire to have sex with someone is not remotely the same as actually having sex with someone. So, what is Jesus point here?”

If those question or pushback is running through your mind, I want to let you know that those are fair questions. And my response to that question and pushback is this: Jesus is addressing the temptation that we all face, which is to look at the message and teachings of the letters in the Bible as though they simply address external behavior. Jesus here is addressing the temptation that we all face, which is to make our lists and charts for what we believe is spiritual and what we believe meets God’s standard of obedience, while missing the reality is that our lists and standard looks nothing at all like God’s standard.

Jesus here is taking an external commandment and is revealing the internal realities that drove God's true intent behind this command. Jesus here is revealing what true obedience to this commandment as given by God would look like. And it is here that we see Jesus reveal for us a timeless truth about the true nature of what it means to obey the message and teachings of Jesus and the true nature of a lifestyle that is living a right relationship with Jesus.  And that timeless truth is this: We are guilty of adultery when we desire sexually what we are not committed to relationally.

You see, once again, Jesus is confronting us with the timeless reality that our words and our actions are the overflow from what is going on inside of our hearts. And because of that reality, we are guilty of adultery when our heart desires something sexually that goes against God’s desires for our sexuality. We are guilty of adultery when we undress with our eyes someone who walks by who we are not committed to relationally in marriage.

We are guilty of adultery when we watch online porn to satisfy our sexual desires with someone on a screen who we are not committed to relationally in marriage. We are guilty of adultery when we participate in sexting or snapchat images of others who we are not committed to relationally in marriage. We are guilty of adultery when we use tinder as a means to satisfy our sexual desires with someone who we are not committed to relationally in marriage.

We are guilty of adultery because Jesus is not simply concerned with our external behavior. We are guilty because at the end of the day Jesus is concerned with our internal heart condition. Jesus is concerned with our internal heart condition because Jesus knows, and human history has shown, that eventually what is in the heart will spill out.

Human history has shown us that when we desire something sexually in the heart, that desire will ultimately spill out into the sexual activity that occurs in a hotel room or a bedroom. And because of that reality, as Jesus continues His sermon, we see Jesus reveal how we are to respond when what spills out of our heart results in us desiring sexually what we are not committed to relationally.

Friday, we will look that response…