Turning the Other Cheek - Matthew 5: 38-42

In the book Lord of the Rings, A hobbit named Frodo receives a great magical ring that was used to enslave all the people of the earth. But the more he uses the ring, the more it destroys his soul. He discovers that he is not the lord of the ring—the ring wants to be the lord of him.

Frodo’s ring is a powerful symbol of what violence does to people. Tolkien learned about violence when he was a young soldier serving in France in World War 1. Violence destroys people from the inside out, dehumanizing them taking over their hearts. They do violence to others, touching off a cycle of violence that never stops.

Dr. Gary Slutkin is an epidemiologist for the World Health Organization, who has spent his life fighting epidemics of tuberculosis, AIDS and Ebola.  This led him to go into areas of the world where violence had taken over. Then Dr. Slutkin had a thought. What if we looked at violence as a contagious disease? He ran figures and computer models, and sure enough, he has been able to document that violence spreads in a community in the same way as contagious diseases. It enters a community in the hearts of a few people, and soon spreads to all the people around them. Eventually some of those people become carriers themselves, acting in violent ways that cause other people to become violent, too. 

The Bible doesn’t say that we should never be violent. Jesus is not advocating absolute pacifism.  He does, however give us a severe warning against letting violence take over our heart. 

The more we use violence the more it possesses us. Even when we use violence to restrain violence, we put ourselves in danger of succumbing to its power. It’s not the violence in the world that is the biggest challenge to our Christian lives, but the violence in our hearts.

What if we could be free from the influence of violence in our hearts? Think about it--if someone walked up to us unprovoked and hit us in the face, wouldn’t we want to hit back? But if we were free of violence in our hearts, we would not desire to hit back. If we did hit back, it would not be from desire for vengeance, but because we knew it was necessary to protect others. Even then, our response would be to use as little violence as possible. We could even turn the other cheek, and let them hit us again if we thought it would keep the peace. We would not react out of anger, but out of love.

If we were free of a vengeful, violent spirit, we would react differently. Jesus talked of how a Roman soldier could make people a slave for a day by forcing him to carry his forty-pound pack along the road for a mile. They would have to leave their business and walk miles in a direction they didn’t want to go. The desire to hurt that soldier would be natural. Violence is in everyone’s heart.

But without violence in our hearts, we not only could go one mile with him, we could go two.

Jesus also talked about a man who sues you for your cloak. Coats were necessary and expensive. If you had a nice coat, someone might claim it is theirs.  They could haul you into court and claim you gave them that coat. Our love of justice is offended by this. Why should they be entitled to our coat! It’s all we can do to keep from hitting them in the face!  Our first response is to take our case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, but not give them the coat on pure principle. But if our hearts are free of violence, then we could just give them the coat and let it go!  And oh, by the way, do you like my undercoat? Have it too, and welcome! We are out a coat, which is a temporary inconvenience, but we are free from violence, which could hinder us for years. 

In Matthew 5 Jesus uses six illustrations to contrast the Kingdom of God and the morality of the world. These illustrations are about anger, lust, divorce, truthfulness, violence, and love. The one about violence is probably the hardest for us to accept. (Preaching on this passage almost got me hit in the face on more than one occasion!)  But please understand, He is not setting up some new law that is impossible to keep. If we take this passage legalistically, we’ve missed the whole point of it. He is describing the behavior of people who live under God’s authority within the kingdom. They don’t have to do these things, they really want to do these things. Jesus isn’t making a law that we must always turn the other cheek. We still need policemen and soldiers, and there may be times when we must use violence to restrain the wicked. But when our hearts are changed by God’s grace, turning the other cheek will be as natural to us as revenge is for us today. In the We are free from desire for violence that we are able to turn the other cheek. God is in control, not violence, so we don’t need to strike back. 

Violence is literally the son of sin. After Eve and then Adam sinned they had Cain and Abel. Cain then committed the first act of violence. People have been using violence on each other ever since.  Human history is written in blood, and the restraint of violence has been a constant problem. 

Sometimes we must be violent to restrain violence. But once we do then we become violent ourselves. We’ve put on Frodo’s ring, and if we can’t take it off again, we become the dark lord.

Violence is like a demon. When we invite it inside, we need  more than restraint--we need an exorcism.

Violence always scars us. Soldiers returning home are more scarred by killing than they are by being shot at. Policemen are prone to breakdowns and PTSD when they have to draw their guns.  People rightly fear becoming monsters, if they are forced to do monstrous things to others. We need governments and kings, to do the acts necessary to restrain the violence. Jesus isn’t recommending turning the other cheek as necessary policy for kings.   That is why turning the other cheek will never work as government policy. He is talking about how people behave personally when freed from violent desires.

Before governments and laws, justice was carried out within tribes. Each family was responsible for avenging crimes committed against its members. Vengeance wasn’t a sin—it was a duty.  There was no policemen or soldiers to maintain justice for you. But if we avenge the death of one by striking another, then we may have to kill his family, too. Then what’s left of that family must avenge itself on us. So begins an endless cycle of retribution, that can go on for centuries.

When Moses led the Israelites into the desert, God established a law to govern tribes and nations. God gave the law not to saints, but to sinners. Part of that law was called the lex talionis—“an eye for an eye”.  It is found first in Exodus 21: 22-25,

 “If two men are fighting and they strike a pregnant woman and her children are born prematurely but there is no harm, he is certainly to be fined as the husband of the woman demands of him, and he will pay as the court decides. If there is harm, then you are to require life for life,  eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  burn for burn, wound for wound, and bruise for bruise.”

This law was given to restrain violence, not continue it. Two men are fighting. The law didn’t forbid the fight. But while they are fighting, a pregnant woman gets in the way, and gets hurt, causing her to deliver prematurely. If the baby is healthy, the man who hit the woman is punished according to the wishes of her husband, with a fine determined by a judge. But if the child or anyone else is hurt, then the person who hurt them will forfeit eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life. 

The punishment is proportional, and by the law, not by use. If the woman or the child lost an eye you couldn’t take both his eyes. If she lost a tooth, he owed a tooth, not all of his teeth. It was a way of restraining violence, and limiting the price of justice. 

You are not allowed to kill a person who breaks into your home, but to restrain him. You can’t kill a man who only steals your bicycle. You can only demand proportionate justice. You can’t allow violence to go wild in your life. 

In the kingdom of men, justice is meted out by the government. In the kingdom of God, justice is God’s concern, not ours. You can’t just take it for yourself, and be in God’s kingdom. Being a citizen of the Kingdom of God is more binding upon you than being a citizen of the United States. God is our first allegiance. 

Will God avenge the wrongs committed against His people? Absolutely! That’s the point of the book of Revelation. God will punish the people who give in to violence.  

Consider what happened to those who crucified Jesus. Judas hanged himself. Pontius Pilate committed suicide in the reign of Caligula after having been stripped of all he owned and recalled from Israel in disgrace. Herod was also stripped of all his possessions and died in exile. Annas, the high priest was deposed from office, his son Caiaphas died about the same time. Some scholars believe that Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus was a veiled reference to Annas being in hell. A generation after Christ’s crucifixion, the Jewish leaders were expelled from their homeland for 1900 years. 

God’s vengeance is real, and more than any person could bring.

Consider what we’ve seen in our day. Hitler committed suicide in a bunker. Mussolini was shot by his own people. Saddam Hussein was hanged.  Ben Laden was shot in his home and his body dumped in the ocean. God will bring vengeance. We can leave it to Him.

Children seem to naturally be violent. But parents teach their children that some things are not worth fighting over. 

God isn’t saying don’t feel hurt when someone hurts you. He is saying, “Give that anger to me. I will take care of it.”  Don’t strike back, because He will do it for you. We as individuals are not the instruments of God’s justice. 

Jesus can help us master our violence, and forgive those who hurt us. He offers a cure for violence addiction. It is called “grace”. As Jesus showed grace to us, so we should show grace to others. He wants us to show the world that with Christ’s help, we can set violence aside, set our rights aside, and get on to bigger and better things.

Lies and Double Lies - Matthew 5: 33-37

An American tourist bought a thousand-dollar Persian rug from an Arab trader in an Israeli shop.  The Arab promised to ship it to America if he paid shipping and handling in cash. They sealed the deal with a handshake.  There was no receipt, only a bill of sale for customs purposes.  When he got back home, the rug was there at his doorstep. 

In our culture, this would be a stupid thing to do. There’s no reason this Arab merchant couldn’t just pocket the money and forget the rug.  But he didn’t. He kept his word and shipped the rug.

That Arab lived in a different world from ours. In his culture, God judged liars. He and his fellow countrymen carried out their business every day on their word.  If he cheated a stranger, no one would trust him again.  It never occurred to him to cheat a stranger, or to be anything less than honest.

I am not suggesting that we should sell thousand dollar rugs in our country on a handshake—I’m just bemoaning the fact that we can’t.  Our culture too dishonest for that level of trust, so we must sign contracts for everything.  Our world is in bondage to liars. 

This Arab trader came from a tradition  that required he cultivate a reputation for honesty. Without his reputation, he couldn’t make a living. 

Consider how  we assure honesty in America.   Remember the last time you bought a car, checked into a hospital, or did your taxes?  Do you remember having to practically sign your life away to trade cars?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a society where paperwork is unnecessary to assure honesty-- where we could just shake hands and make a deal?  Something inside us tells says this is the way it should be, living together in a world of trust.

The Kingdom of God, it is totally possible to live in trust.  When God is the head, people tell the truth.

Everyone has some horror story of being stymied by paperwork and beaurocracy.  We are all caught up in a system that must assume that everyone is lying. There’s always one more form to fill out, one more step to take, one more affidavit to sign, one more report or request to write, until our culture strangles itself on its own red tape. Paperwork increases when trust decreases.  

But written assurances comes to nothing in the end.  Instead of guaranteeing the truth, they  guarantee lies. When we rely on written assurances,  we teach people that truth doesn’t count unless it is in writing. If it’s not on paper, we don’t have to tell the truth. 

But in the Kingdom of God, people tell the truth and believe the truth, because they trust God.  God is the mediator and assurer of all transactions between ourselves and others in God’s kingdom.

Before we get to talking about the truth, let’s talk about lies.  In our world we have lies, double lies, and triple lies.

Simple lies are when people deliberately deceive others.  Deliberately is a key word. If we are wrongly mistaken, we are not lying. Lying is a matter of the heart, not the lips.  That’s why we must be careful before calling someone a liar.

People lie all the time.  In the 1950’s an American named John Noble, lived for more than two years in Stalinist Russia.  He wrote that the most prominent feature of Soviet society was lying. The government lied to the people, and the people lied to their government. Everyone lied to everyone else. In such a society, laws didn’t mean a thing.  The Soviet  constitution assured the people they had all kinds of personal freedom—but it was a lie. o one believed anything the government said. 

Noble stated that he believed the reason for this culture of lying was official atheism. Without God to assure moral honesty, there was no reason to tell the truth.  God holds us accountable to tell the truth and to keep our word. 

In Jesus’ day, there were plenty of liars, too.  Society needed some way of assuring people were honest.  They had contracts and paperwork, but not as much as we do.  So, they depended upon people’s belief to keep them honest.  People were kept honest by swearing oaths.  If you swore an oath on God, then God would hold you accountable. 

Sometimes, they would swear that some catastrophe would befall them if they broke their word.  It worked the same way as a notarized contract today.  As long as people believe their God is real, they must obey it.

This prevented people from telling lies.  But then, there were double lies.  If you swear on something you didn’t believe, you not only lied, but you lied about what you believed in. This was a double lie—to claim you have a God that you don’t have.

It does no good to say “I swear to God” if you didn’t believe in God!  Unless you actually believe in God, there’s no point in saying it.   The swearing of the irreligious is a double lie—a lie before a God that they don’t believe in.    

Eventually, these oaths became jokes—mere swear words. Swearing is not the sign of an honest person, but a dishonest one.  It is a sign of a double-liar, not a teller of truth.

Our a society that does not fear God,  people swear on the government.  We require notarized contracts, endless signatures,  all to assure people are telling the truth. They may not fear God,  but they fear laws and lawyers.  A godliness goes down, bureaucracy and paperwork go up. There are no social bonds that keep people honest other than the fear of being caught.

 Just be honest, Jesus says.  Don’t swear by anything, just tell the truth. 

We have all lied at some time--sometimes we even think it’s a morally justified.  Are there times when a person a person must lie?  If there are, they are very few.  Let’s talk about reasons people lie.

We lie to gain an advantage over others. We lie to get more money, a better house, or a better job. If we are really in the Kingdom, we don’t have to do this. God is our Father.  We have what God has.  We live under His rule, and He is generous.  When we don’t have to lie to gain when we already have all we need.

We lie for attention. There’s a mental condition called Munchausen’s Syndrome, where chronically and constantly  lie for attention.  Such people are pitiful, not to mention untrustworthy. But most of us have lied for attention at some time. We exaggerate our accomplishments or hide our faults to keep a sfrom being embarrassed.  But if we are really submitted to God,  we do not need the attention of others—God is sufficient for us.

We lie for self-defense. The problem with defensive lying it is us taking the place of God.   sometimes we need punishment.  We rely upon lies to protect us, instead of God.  If we are attacked by a burglar, what is the wisest course. To go wrestle the burglar, or call the police?   We call the police,  because we are under their jurisdiction.  They are trained to fight with burglars;  we are not.  If we are attacked by people,  what is the better course—lying to defend ourselves or calling upon God?  To live in the kingdom of God is to live in His jurisdiction. Surely He can be trusted to defend us!

We tell “little white lies” to smooth over situations and keep from hurting feelings. The problem with little white lies or withheld information is not that we are denying God, but that we are playing God. It is a way of assuming that we know what is best for the person we are deceiving.  But if we withhold information or lie about difficult situations to spare a person’s feelings, then the next time we are in a similar situation they will not trust whatever we tell them. We have ruined our reputation for honesty.

Beware of keeping too many secrets from those we love.  It has been said that secrets are to relationships what plaque is to arteries.  If we hold too many secrets, it will clog all communication, and our relationships will break down.  Keep our paths of communication clear with openness and honesty.

Let me tell you a secret—we all lie.  Honesty is something we all must work on, for God’s sake. 

Let me tell you about the most dishonest man I know.   (I’ll call him “Fred”, not his real name.)  He is strong and genuine believer, always joking and pleasant.  Everyone liked him.  But underneath that happy exterior, he was a deeply troubled man.  Financially, he was having deep problems, but he pretended he wasn’t.  For years he went on pretending,  and hurting,  but inside he was in turmoil.

Then he was given the job as church treasurer.  The church had a half-million dollar budget.  Fred couldn’t pay his bills, but he was paying bills at church with money to spare.

So quietly, Fred began to borrow from the church to pay his bills. He intended to pay it back, but soon he was in so deep he couldn’t. Without accountability, he became a their.

This went on for almost thirty years.  He essentially split himself into two people—the seemingly sincere Christian and the embezzler, who by the end had taken tens of thousands of dollars from the church.  It was a shock to everyone who knew him when he was finally caught.

How could he live with himself—being a Christian and stealing from the church?  He did it by doing to himself what he did to everyone else—by lying to himself, like he did to others. One day he was stealing, the next day he was pretending to himself that he was right with God.  This went on until his lies caught up with him. 

We can’t lie to others and to God, and still be honest to ourselves. When we lie, we lie to everyone.

There is only one cure for self-deceit—confession.  We must admit to having a problem with lying. The apostle John calls “walking in darkness” telling the truth is “walking in the light.”

John says this  “If we walk in the light as He is in the light,  we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”  Lies break relationships.  Truth restores them.

In a world of lies,  we must protect ourselves, but we don’t have to be part of the lying. Others may not be trustworthy, but we should be utterly trustworthy, so when we give our word, we mean it, and we keep it.    

Jesus on Marriage and Divorce - Matthew 5: 31-32

Today we look at the third of the six statements where Jesus contradicts the accepted “morality” of His day. Here He deals with relationships by focusing on marriage and divorce, but His words are not just about divorce, but every relationship in life. 

To this, we should look at the marriage customs of Jesus’ day. Parents chose their child’s life partner. This is still practiced in many countries, and most of those arranged marriages are mostly happier than ones where the children chose their own. If the parents love their children, they look out for their best interest. They find spouses who fit their personality, and take the child’s wishes into consideration. The whole system depends on commitment and trust between parent and child.

When a proper groom was chosen, the parents gave him a dowry, which was a promise to him of marriage. The groom gave the bride a monetary gift, usually in the form of a ring. Both gifts were intended to display trust and commitment.  

The marriage had three stages, just like it does today. First there was the ring, or gift. Then there was the contract, or ceremony. Then there was the consummation, or honeymoon. Any of these three stages constituted legal marriage. If the groom slept with the bride first he was considered married to her. The lifetime commitment was implied in sexual union. They were one flesh.  

The system worked because it depended on trust and commitment. Children trusted their parents to make a good choice; husbands trusted and committed to their wives. These outer commitments were built on inner commitments of love and respect. The idea of couples being “incompatible” never came up, because marriage wasn’t based on compatibility, but trust and commitment. A man gave his word to stay with a woman, and as a gentleman, he kept his word.  Society was based on personal relationships of trust and commitment. People loved each other and kept their promises. No laws could ever replace that. If the love and commitment are not there, no one will obey anything. 

This is still true. If people don’t trust the government, society falls apart. If government leaders don’t respect the people, society falls apart.  Society depends not on people’s outer actions, but on their inner hearts. 

But even in the old days, things didn’t always work out. Sometimes parents married off their daughters to the wrong man. Husbands broke trust with their wives. When that happened, divorce was necessary and unavoidable.

In Jesus’ day, Israel practiced “one way no fault” divorce. If a woman wanted a divorce, she had to give a good reason and be able to prove it. Even then, society blamed the woman. If a man wanted a divorce, though, he needed no reason. 

The Talmud specifically states that a man may divorce his wife if she burns his dinner, or if he finds another woman more attractive. The Talmud also states that if a woman is proven to commit adultery, then the man must divorce her even if he would be inclined to forgive. Adultery was a stoning offense—for the woman, not the man. The sexism was tremendous. 

We can appreciate how unfair this was to the woman. A woman had better learn to cook, or her husband can divorce her! She had better not get fat or unattractive, or her husband could dump her!

 But we live in “enlightened” times. How we have changed today! We have equalized marriage by giving women the same rights as men. While in Israel men were free to dump their wives, in America, women are equally free to dump their husbands.  Women have more leverage in relationships than before, more power. Because of this extra leverage we now have a 50-60% divorce rate. Women have freedom. Women have power. But none of us have trust, security or commitment.

Marriage is intended to be a life-long state.  There are only three conditions which allow divorce, and those are infidelity, abandonment, and abuse.   Malachi 2: 13-16  deals with this.    

This is another thing you do: you flood the altar of the Lord with tears, weeping and wailing because he no longer pays attention to your offering nor takes pleasure in it from your hand. Yet you ask, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord acts as a witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you were unfaithful to her, your partner, the wife of your covenant. Did he not make them one? And the vestige of the spirit remains in him. And why did he make them one? He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and don’t be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.

“Indeed, the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce, along with the one who conceals his violence by outward appearances, says the Lord of the Heavenly Armies. “So guard yourselves carefully, and don’t be unfaithful.”

God hates divorce but if a person cheats, or commits domestic violence, ­God hates that just as much. Malachi equates infidelity, domestic violence, and divorce as all bad. In God’s eyes, seeking a divorce for other reasons is tantamount to adultery and abuse.

Keep in mind, Malachi said this to a nation which outwardly followed God. Divorce, adultery and abuse aren’t just practiced by non-believers, but also by believers. Some evidence suggest that there is actually more physical abuse among Christians than among non-Christians. Don’t think that the covenant of marriage binds a wife to endure a brutal marriage where her husband treats her as a punching bag--it does not. Violence and adultery are divorceable offenses.  

But Malachi also equates divorce with domestic violence. Divorce is a form of warfare. It isn’t just breaking a vow, but since we come together as one flesh, its amputation. “Friendly” divorces are a myth. Like any other war, both sides bleed. People may become friends after divorce, (I hope they do), but divorce is still ugly and painful to both parties, and even uglier if children are involved.

If divorce is so ugly, then why is there so much of it? 

Jesus says it is because our hearts are hard. But to whom are our hearts hard? A person that is “hard-hearted” is not that way to everyone. Divorce happens not when we are hard to each other, but when we are hard to God.

Don’t ask why people should divorce--ask why people stay married. In Jesus’ day, most people stayed married for life. Today they don’t. The difference is this—they relied on trust and commitment, mostly to God. Their marriage trust was based on the assumption that they should trust God.

If marriage isn’t about God, then I have no problem with divorce. But if we have committed to the Kingdom of God, then marriage is a way of living out that commitment. 

The first vows in a Christian marriage is made to God. You pledge to God to support and live with one person. Really, you aren’t pledging to each other, but to God. When you fall in love, you are entering into a romance. When you get married, you are signing on to a one-sided ministry. Marriage isn’t just about loving each other or meeting needs. It’s an oath to God. You take on a congregation of one person, to honor, love and to accept above all else, except God. Before you marry, make sure you want it. Ask God to give you the strength to fulfill that holy promise. Take God out of marriage, that oath is empty. If you put Him in it, then your oath is to Him, not to your spouse.

In the God’s kingdom, all things are done for God’s glory. Our first relationship is to Him, it is to Him we look to have our needs met. God will provide the support that our spouses will not. Changing spouses will not meet our needs if God doesn’t, because He is the source of all our support. Every decision we make in life is really a question of whether we are doing what God wants. All our relationships are for God’s sake, not out own. We enter them for His sake.

I will not say any of this is easy—it is not. I have known many Christians who chafe at this, who feel their spouse is a “ball and chain” around their neck. But when we feel this, we are looking at it wrong. It’s not the spouse that is the ball and chain. It is our feelings. The only way that we can live up to the standards our Lord sets down is to be changed by God’s Spirit from the inside out. God doesn’t trap us with laws we cannot keep. He frees us to obedience by changing our inside desires. Christ can set us from those trapped feelings which come when our hearts desire what we cannot have. 

Many Christians live with a feeling of being trapped—trapped in jobs, trapped in addictions, and even trapped in monogamy. But Christ can change the desires of our hearts so we can enjoy the righteous path. He can make us appreciate the right way, and throw off the wrong way of sin.

This same principle applies to all relationships—friendships, neighbors, children, parents, churches, even society. We can stay where you are, with the commitments we have for as long we live, and still be free in our hearts. Society depends upon trust, and trust depends on being under God. We can love our country, even when our country is wrong. But I can only do it if I love God more. No legal or moral threats, punishments or rewards are strong enough to hold people together when we don’t believe that God is in it. 

It is not my intention to pass judgment on any who have endured the agony of divorce. Nor is it my intention for any to view these words in a legalistic or binding way. Jesus’ point in the Sermon on the Mount is not to set up a new law, but to show by example how people think whose minds are renewed by grace. If we seek God, then we won’t be seeking to break our vows to God or to another, but to follow a path of love. 

Instead, it is my hope for those who may be struggling with difficulties to consider that more is at stake than your personal feelings of comfort. Stay married for as long as you can. Work out your differences. Seek counseling. Swallow your pride.  The single greatest motivator to stay together is not how you feel about each other, but how you feel about a covenant you made before God.  f God is first in both your lives, then no power on earth or in heaven  can ever tear you apart.  

The Problem with Passion - Matthew 5: 26-30

In six statements in Matthew 5, Jesus challenges the morality of his time in favor of a life of surrender to God. These challenges are about big issues—violence, sex, relationships, truthfulness, submission, and vengeance. These statements provoke deep feelings, but  to live God’s way we must rise above feelings and follow what is right.

Rising above our feelings is going to make us unhappy. Self-control isn’t fun! But self-control is freedom. The greatest tyrant you will ever overcome are your own appetites. Is an addict free? An addict is a prisoner of his or her own desires. Only when we learn to overcome our desires can we be really free.

What do you really want out of life? Would you like to be able to run a hundred-yard dash? Would you like to be thin again?  Would you like a college degree? Without self-discipline, these are just idle dreams. Our inability to say “no” to our temporary appetites keeps us from being what we want.  Without discipline, we aren’t free to be better. 

To enter the kingdom of God, we must surrender ourselves to God. But we can’t surrender what we do not own. Without saying “no” to our appetites, we cannot say “yes” to God.

Paul says in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God.”  We can’t give our bodies to God if we don’t own them. Otherwise, our “living sacrifice” just keeps crawling off the altar!  Unless we learn to resist our urges we surrender to the kingdom of flesh, not the kingdom of God. 

In this passage, Jesus talks about one of the hardest appetites to master —sexuality. Since the 1960’s, the Sexual Revolution has dominated our culture when it comes to the way we view sex. This revolution can be summarized in three statements that most of our culture believes without question:

1.  Sex is an irresistible urge

2.  Sexual behavior is dictated by nature, not choice.

3.  Sexuality is amoral, since it cannot be helped.  

These three ideas have been around forever, but they have been affirmed and amplified through the persistent and one-sided voices of the media and entertainment and society at large. Most people growing, Christian or not, believe them today, and even accept them as “common sense.” They cannot imagine how anyone could not believe them.

The effect of this has been devastating to us. The vast majority of young people today have sex before marriage. The divorce rate among first time married people is around 40 to 50 percent. It is much higher for those who have been married before. Pornography, with its objectification and exploitation of, is the most popular side of the internet, and has a huge hidden effect on modern opinions.

It’s a huge problem for the church. The children of the church are being forced to choose between “common sense” of our day and the teachings of the church. Most choose the culture over God. Ultimately, they abandon the church and religion.

It’s also a huge problems for individuals. Most of the cases of poverty that don’t involve drugs or mental illness come from unwanted pregnancies with deadbeat dads. Many strong, brave women find themselves raising children fathered by men who accept no responsibility for the results of their sexual behavior. Forty-one percent of all children in the US are born out of wedlock. I am convinced that if the world practiced Biblical chastity, poverty in America would decrease by at least sixty percent.

 “So you have heard” Jesus would say, “But I say to you” something entirely different.

The teaching of Jesus on sex goes like this:

1.  Sex is a good and powerful urge, but a irresistible one, beginning in the mind and ending in the body

2. Sexual behavior is a matter of choice.

3.  Sexuality is a key to learning self-control in all areas of life, inside and outside of relationships., and is of great importance. 

The Sexual Revolution was right about one thing—sex is a powerful, universal urge in almost all of us. Anyone over twelve or thirteen knows this. It is a God-given appetite, meant as a way to express affection and procreate the species. 

Without sexual appetites, none of us would be here! Not only is it powerful, it is also good. Sex is a gift, not a burden.

In this, it is no different from any other appetite inside of us—food, intellectual stimulation, the desire for other people. 

But just like any other appetites, it must be governed, and it can be governed. Sex may be powerful, but it doesn’t have to be our god. Generations of faithful Catholic priests, nuns and monks have shown us that it is possible to have happy, fulfilling lives without sex.  Most generations of our ancestors found it possible to live without sex until marriage. For thousands of years, people have known that we have a choice in sexual behavior. And even though there have always been people who were promiscuous. It’s mostly our modern culture that fails to recognize the possibility and the value of sexual self-control. 

But the sexual urge was no less powerful to the ancients as it is today. But unlike us, they didn’t teach that is was irresistible.

One way the ancients tried to deal with was to restrict sexual behavior but ignore sexual temptation (we do the same thing, by the way).  Keep it in the mind, but not in the body.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day did this with a literal reading of the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” Ignoring whatever else the Bible said about not having any other rulers but God, and the many places where the Bible condemned looking at other women, they focused on this one restriction. As long as you didn’t actually commit the act with someone else while you were actually married, or with someone who was also married, then there were no restrictions. Prostitutes and concubines were really not adultery to them, as long as you owned them. This was a gross exploitation of women’s bodies, but as long as they didn’t do it with someone else’s wife, it was ok to them. They were constantly finding ways around the narrow confines of monogamy. 

But sex is about the heart, not just the body. The heart follows the body, and the body follows the heart. Sexual behavior originates inside our minds. If we don’t find a way to control our minds, then our bodies will follow into adultery. If you spend your time ogling other women, you are committing mental adultery.  

This isn’t really about sex, though. It’s about obedience to God. The same thing can be said for all the appetites that would control us. If we let our minds fantasize about things, our fantasies will control us. We may have been taught to avoid pornography and Playboy, but we feast on fantasies of food, and see nothing wrong with a Dunkin Donuts commercial, which stimulates our appetite for unhealthy food, or in the Lexus commercials which stimulate our greed. If Jesus were speaking these words today, I think he would say whoever looks on material goods or gluttonous food with lust in his or her heart also commits spiritual adultery from God.   

 “Lust” is an interesting word in Greek.  It’s epithumia. Thumia is a feeling or passion. The English word“enthusiasm” comes from it. Epi means an overwhelming uncontrollable passion. Any uncontrollable passion or desire is lust, whether it be for food, money or women. Thumias are usually for good things. Sexual desire is why we get married and start families. But when we recon our thumias to be epithumias, then they control us. Keeping thumias from becoming epithumias is what self-control is all about. Thumias drives us to do what God wants.  Epithumias drive us away from God.

God wants our ultimate passion to be for Him.  The promotion of passion for Him in our minds is a decision we make. We can stimulate a passion for God or we can stimulate a passion for sex. We deny our passion for sex, food, and money when we refuse to fantasize them. The passion is there, but we refuse to dwell on it. Luther said that we can’t keep birds from flying overhead, but we can keep them from nesting in our hair. We can’t keep thoughts out of mind, but we do have a choice whether or not to dwell on them. We can say to ourselves that sexual thoughts are good, but just not now. We save them for the proper time within marriage, at the proper time and place.

If you don’t want your thumias to become epithumias, don’t feed them. You control what your mind dwells upon. The choice of thoughts are up to you.  

To keep our passions in their place, God encourages spiritual exercises to develop self-control. The practice of chastity—sexual restraint-- prevents us from being mastered by sexual desire. The practice of fasting prevents our being mastered by food. Sabbaths prevent our mastery by work. Tithing prevents our mastery by greed. The goal of these disciplines is to put God first in every area of our life. 

How important is this?  Jesus tells us in verses 29-30. 

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 than that your whole body be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Jesus doesn’t really want us to mutilate ourselves. He is demonstrating the comparative value of God over everything else. It’s better to lose a body part than offend God. If you have to give up satisfying your sexual appetite or your favorite food to keep pure—then do it. It’s a good trade.

Jesus really doesn’t want us to maim ourselves. What He wants is for us to come to Him and seek his help in resisting sin. Losing a body part won’t help us be more holy, but seeking His help will bring us success. Jesus has the power to help us put our appetites in proper balance.

Cutting off your hand to get self-control just doesn’t really work. If our hearts aren’t changed, we won’t change. Until we change our ways, our lives will not improve. 

The power of the Gospel is that God can change our hearts so that we can master our bodies and our thoughts. When Christ comes into our lives He gives us the power to resist temptation. Don’t believe the lies of the world that says we must give in to lust. We will never be free or our desires, but we can be free enough to say “no” by the power of Christ.   

The Problem With Anger Matthew 5: 21-28

In our study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we have entered the section which is called the “Six antitheses.”  This is the part where Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say.” These six statements are meant to shock his listeners into seeing the huge difference between the way the rest of the world lives and people who live within His kingdom. What He is giving us here are six straight shots of pure Kingdom, without any watering down or compromise. They aren’t laws, but examples of what a society looks like where people are living fully under the leadership of God. 

Let’s get something straight—kingdom living isn’t the way you’ve seen church done in the past, nor is it what people call “moral” living. It isn’t being polite or civil. It’s not being a good person the way you learned it on your mother’s knee. It isn’t being a good American, Southerner, or Presbyterian. It’s being the way God wants us to be. Jesus’ community of birth was soaked in teaching about “good” morality, and Jesus makes it clear that all human morality is a compromise with immorality. Its sugar-coated godliness, designed to be livable and palatable to people who really don’t want to live in the kingdom of God. But here, Jesus gives it to them straight. 

God’s kingdom is wherever God rules. The Kingdom of God is the community of people who put God first in all things, who’s ultimate concern is God and only God. When we get together and all seek to imitate Jesus, we are living in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus uses six examples of what’s different between the way the world does things and the way the Kingdom of God does things. The first example is how we handle anger. 

We make two mistakes regarding anger. The first is that we try to deny it exists. 

We’ve all seen the results of uncontrolled anger—protests, name-calling, war, riots, physical and emotional abuse. Anger has often been called contagious, and so it is. Anger can become like lust or anxiety—it can grow to be a problem in itself. But thinking anger is the cause of all our problems is like thinking that rising steam is why a pressure cooker explodes. Without the heat, there would be no steam. Without a cause, there would be no anger. If you don’t vent the steam, then the pot can blow. If you deny your anger exists, and you think there is something wrong with venting it, then you can explode, too. When public expressions of anger are never allowed, we just create more and deadlier forms of frustration. We create impossible situations where victims are condemned for not being “Christian” enough to take abuse. The Jesus who chased the moneychangers out of the temple is the same Jesus who people quote when they say we shouldn’t be angry.  

Anger isn’t necessarily bad. We know this because God gets angry. Look at Nahum 1: 2,”The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” Look at Romans 1: 18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

I once did a Bible study on the anger of Jesus.  He sounds angry on every page of the Gospel. In fact, even in this passage where Jesus is condemning anger, He sounds angry! How can we say that Jesus does not want us to be anger, if He Himself was angry? To condemn all anger is to make Jesus a sinner.

But even so, Jesus condemns abusive anger.  This is anger that makes things worse, not better.

Jesus points out three kinds of anger in verse.

1.  The first is misplaced anger. “Whoever is angry with his brother is liable to judgment.”  Misplaced anger is being angry about something at the wrong person or about the wrong things. Some versions read, “Angry without cause,” but this is not what the best manuscripts say. The word here means “to get worked up over something.” It isn’t just feeling anger, but it’s letting that anger become divorced from the behavior or object you are angry about. Good anger is always directed at some behavior or condition that needs fixing. Misdirected anger is directed to a whole person. Good anger, like good fear, causes us to take some action that will be of ultimate and mutual benefit to ourselves and others. Bad anger, or wrath, is destructive to ourselves and to others.

Suppose I get angry at something in my work. I can’t say anything about it at work for fear of losing my job, so it stays inside, like a ball of fire in my gut.  I come home, yell at the kids, snarl at my wife, and kick the dog. This isn’t anger now, its wrath. Innocent people get caught in the explosion. 

Wrath is misplaced anger. But we can have wrath even towards people with whom we are justifiably angry. If someone accidently steps on my foot, I might flare up and say, “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” That might be justified. If I lost control and hit them in the mouth or shot them, then that would be a disproportionate response.

Wrath is what happens when we treat anger as something divorced from the situation. We seek to destroy the person, not rectify the wrong. True Christian anger seeks peace, not war; it wants change in behavior not elimination of enemies. Christians want to save their enemies not kill them.  Wrath makes permanent enemies, who must be eliminated. Anger seeks real reconciliation.

2.  Second, there is abusive anger. “Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council.”  Abuse is a major problem in our world, especially towards women and children. Some estimates estimate that the rate of abuse of women and children sexually and physically may be one in three. Most of us were bullied in elementary school and high school, and many employees are bullied on the job.

Abuse is a failure to recognize that the people we are hurting are actually good people. It is what happens when innocent people are treated as inanimate objects of wrath, because they provide an outlet for our anger. People are just outlets for anger.

Abuse takes many forms. There is physical abuse, mental abuse, and spiritual abuse. Physical abuse is beating, threatening, and pushing. Mental abuse are mind games, insulting. Spiritual abuse is where we confuse other people with the Devil, and act as if it is our duty before God to make them miserable, or to control them. 

Abuse is done by all sides. People in the kingdom don’t agree on every issue, but we must be united in the way we treat violence, name-calling, bullying, and all forms of abuse.

3. Third, there is distain. As bad as anger is, there is something worse, and that is distain. Jesus says, “Whoever calls his brother ‘moron’ is in danger of the fires or hell.” Distain isn’t an emotion. It’s a way of looking at others as unimportant and unnecessary. A moron is a mental person who doesn’t deserve to be heard—a subhuman. It’s regarding the feelings opinions and actions of others as unworthy of our attention. 

Disdainful people are not usually angry. They don’t think badly of others—they just don’t think of them at all. People who get angry at you are at least showing you some attention. Disdainful people regard others as beneath their attention. 

Distain often happens by accident. We are so busy following our own plans that we fail to see those who are left out. 

Several years ago my sister was in a traffic accident--almost killed. A man in an SUV ran a stop sign and smashed into her car. He was probably not a bad person. He was in a hurry and was talking on his cell phone at the time. He never wanted to harm my sister. In his self-absorbed state, he disregarded all other cars that were on the road. He wasn’t paying attention to others.

We all do it, and we do it constantly. We need to ask God for the presence of mind to see other people.

Disdain causes anger in those we ignore. The only cure for this is to recognize the thoughts, feelings and humanity of those with whom we may disagree.

In the second part of this passage, Jesus shows us how to deal with anger. 

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and then remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. “

First, be reconciled. Jesus doesn’t tell us to wait until our brother comes to us. If you think you have done something that has offended someone, go to them. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Don’t even ask the question whether they were justified in being offended. Just go and be reconciled. Don’t say, “I have done nothing to apologize for.” Jesus said nothing about apology here. He says be reconciled.  Agree to disagree. Our love for one another is more important than the differences that hold us apart. 

Some things are more important than being right and wrong. There are more important issues than money, more important than pride, more important than theological differences, and that is love in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Kingdom of God is not made up of people who are in perfect harmony or agreement. It’s made up of people with strong opinions who sometimes get angry. But they are people who regard the Love of Christ to be more important than our differences.  We love Jesus, so we love each other, and we can’t stand to be out of each other’s fellowship.

What is it like to be in a family? Families are places where we sometime argue, get on each other’s nerves, have differences of opinion and sometimes even yell at each other!  But families come back together, because the thought of being apart hurts worse than the thought of separation. 

The body of Christ is the same. We don’t always agree, we aren’t always perfect, we do have all kinds of personality quirks and irritating habits. But in the end we would rather be together than to be separate. We love each other, because we love Jesus more. In the end, Jesus is what matters.