June 19, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are going to spend the next two weeks together as a church reading Jesus\u2019 teachings in the Sermon on the Mount! The Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus\u2019 major teachings recorded in the gospel of Matthew. In it, Jesus explains the ethics and values of the kingdom of Heaven as opposed to the ethics and values of the world. The values and principles that are to govern our lives as followers of Jesus and citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are wildly different from those that govern the various cultures of our world, including the culture in which we live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next two weeks, allow the words of the Lord Jesus to challenge the way you think, expose the worldly and idolatrous values and desires of your heart, and transform you to live in the new way that He has laid before us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like yesterday\u2019s text, Jesus is exposing the sinful heart which lies behind a sinful action in this passage. Today Jesus exposes how the act of adultery is merely a symptom of a heart filled with lust. He goes so far as to say that merely looking at a woman with lust is equivalent to committing adultery with her in one\u2019s heart!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus is not saying that lusting after someone is just as bad as committing adultery with them, just like being angry at someone is not just as bad as murdering them. What He is saying is that, behind the explicit command to not commit adultery is an implicit command to not lust at all, because lust is what leads to adultery. So truly obeying the command to not commit adultery means keeping one\u2019s heart pure from lust as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus then goes on to explain the severity and extremity we should go to in fighting sin. Jesus makes clear here that the end of sin is death and condemnation; we have to understand just how deadly and dangerous it really is and, consequently, fight it with the most uncompromising seriousness!<\/p>\n\n\n\n