FULL SERVICE: *see SERMON ONLY below
SERMON ONLY:
Please click on link below to download and print Lifegroup questions.
Text: Matthew 5:27–30
27“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’;
28but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29“If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
30“If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
- Sometimes you have to look extra closely to get the heart of God in a passage. For instance, in this passage, what looks good (you shall not…), Jesus seems to take issue with. While v29-30 looks like Jesus is actually advocating that we all become self-mutilating surgeons! Ask yourself “what is really the issue in the passage?”
- If you were to look at the OT background of adultery, you would find that God sees the nation Israel doing this in their unfaithfulness to Him (with some very graphic language), but calls it a rejection and a betrayal. Why, particular, is adultery like this?
- V27-28 illustrates exactly what Jesus means by a “righteousness that exceeds the Scribes and the Pharisees.” Put a line down the center of a page, v27 on one side, and v28 on the other. Compare and contrast these two verses, but also the implications as well.
- Jesus points to the two most important as well as the most symbolic of man, the eye and the hand, to heighten the weightiness and seriousness of bringing the lustful thought life under the control of the gospel of God. I talked about why Jesus was solemn in His command here. He condemns the purposeful lingering objectifying of women (and of course the opposite), as something deeply offensive. But why?
- I talked about the biblical description of married life as “the greatest of all possible ways to talk about unions.” Not that we don’t marry people who are worse than they think, we do, but since biblical marriage covers all spiritual as well as physical elements, why would I still say that this is God’s intention?
- Getting rid of lust, according to John Piper involves two elements (resist and receive, or resistance and reception), one negative and the other positive. It is the putting off and the putting on that the Bible constantly talks about. We would say that it is believing the gospel of repentance and faith. Flesh all of this out in your own words.
- I say that pure sex is ultimately evangelistic. Provocative, I know, but what do you think I’m getting at?
- Lastly, these are the most difficult things to talk about in the church, and yet many marriages are struggling. If sexual health is set in the midst of a healthy relationship, how would this be important in the life of a married couple and also in raising children (modelling then mentoring)?
