Love and Lust – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

our scripture reading tonight is on page 8 from the gospel of Matthew 5: 27 through3 you have heard that it was said do not commit adultery but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart if your right eye causes you to sin gouge it out and throw it away it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it

away it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell this is the word of the Lord all right now you read heard the text you know the music at the offering very hard to sleep through and you're going to and and this particular text in sermon would be also pretty hard to sleep through Jesus um in The Sermon on the Mount is telling us how he wants us to live in every area of life well love and sex is one of those areas of

life and so he gets to that here and when you first read it it makes it would be natural when you hear this R to have a negative response because it looks like on the surface Jesus is saying if you have sexual desire you're going to hell and it it would be very natural for somebody to say aha see that's that negative view of sex that everybody says Christians have but that's a great misunderstanding and I'm going to show you that the biblical or Christian understanding of sex while it is very different from that which

the culture gives you nevertheless in the grand scheme of things it's one of the most attractive things about Christianity three things we see here the Integrity of sex the challenge of lust the future of love the Integrity of sex the challenge of lust the future of Love Now first Integrity the Integrity of sex why do I talk about this as Integrity look he starts by saying this you have heard it said do not commit adultery and then he goes on and says but I say to you and he's he's going to build on that which

very clear that he's accepting the Old Testament principle the Old Testament law Thou shalt not commit adultery now what is the Old Testament sex ethic what's the biblical sex ethic I can give it to you we have to understand it because Jesus is building on it I can give it to you in one word no sex outside of a covenant or more positively let's try to be positive tonight sex only inside a covenant that is to say the Bible says no sex outside of marriage so somebody's there saying ah Covenant that's a kind of archaic

word could you you could you give me a more upto-date word a more modern word and my answer is no I can't because Covenant is not just a word it's a category of thought and there isn't any other word I know that conveys this category of thought and what is that category a covenant is a a covenant creates a relationship it's a relationship far more loving and intimate than a merily legal relationship but it's also far more binding and enduring than a merely emotional relationship a covenant creates a personal relationship which is more intimate and

loving because it's legal it's more loving because it's legal let me make my case you say how is that let me explain a consumer relationship in a consumer relationship you relate to a vendor and you have a relationship as long as the vendor is giving you a product at a good price but you're always looking for an upgrade and so what you say to your vendor is you say we have a relationship but you better keep adjusting to me because if you if you don't meet my needs I'm out of here because my needs are

more important than the relationship we have a relationship but my needs are more important if I can get my needs met somewhere else that's where I will go but a covenant relationship is the exactly the opposite a consumer relationship says you adjust to me or I'm out of here a covenant relationship says I will adjust to you because I've made a promise and and the relationship is more important than my needs my needs are less important than the sustenance of the relationship now if two people get into a relationship one as a consumer and one

as a covenantor that'll be bad for the Covenant or that Covenant will be exploited so if you get into a relationship if you're not both covenanting it's exploitative but if both of you get into a relationship and say we're done with a consuming relationship we're in a covenant relationship which is what it means to get married if you get into a covenant relationship oh my let me there's three things that result the first is you finally have a zone of security a zone of safety a place where you can finally be yourself see in a

consumer relationship you're always marketing you're always selling yourself you've got to perform you got to meet the other person's need or they're out but in a covenant in a marriage in a covenant you finally have a zone of safety you can finally get rid of the facades you can finally let them know let her know about your insecurities you can finally let be yourself you finally have a zone of safety a place where you can actually stop spinning and stop marketing and stop selling and start being yourself secondly in a covenant relationship ironically when you

are committed to a person in spite of your feelings deeper feelings grow if you are committed to a person in spite of your feelings deeper feelings grow grow so for example uh the other Covenant relationship between except besides husband and wife is the relationship between parents and children and all of you know whether your parents or not all of you know that in parenting uh you get very little back for a long time and they never catch up you give and you give and you and you never it's not a consumer relationship at all you

adjust to them you give and you give and you give and what's weird is you do it and you do it and so you're so invested in your children that even when they really in no way act in a lovable way you love them there's a deeper richer kind of feeling because you're invested in them and in the same way if you treat your marriage if you treat a relationship between a husband and a wife as a covenant relationship if you're committed in spite of feelings deeper feelings grow and the third thing that comes the

first thing is you have a zone of safety where you can be yourself secondly you have a place to develop the Richer deeper feelings that come when you commit in spite of your feelings and number three there's a freedom covenantal relationships bring freedom and here believe it or not I'm relying on kard the the Danish philosopher kard put it like this he says if you're in he didn't use the term consumer relationship of course but if he if you're in a relationship in which I have to feel it if you're not meeting my needs if

I don't feel the love if I don't feel fine well then I'm out of here he says if you're in a relationship like that you are a slave you're not free you're a slave to what your feelings you're a puppet on the string of your feelings and think he says where do your feelings come from huh these these things you're out of here if I don't have the feeling anymore oh so now you're controlled by your feelings and where do the feelings come from they come for your physiology to some degree your body chemistry they

come from your past she reminds me of my mother everybody else saying well there's nothing wrong with her she reminds me of so what well you know she reminds me of my mother these bad feelings because nobody else has a problem you do in other words your past creates feelings your physiology creates feelings your circumstances create feelings do you want to be a puppet on the string says kard make a promise say I'm here I I don't you don't adjust to me I adjust to you because the relationship is more important than my feelings and

my needs and when two people do that together you have a place for you to be yourself you have the New Freedom you have the richer okay what's this got to do with sex everything because what the Bible says is sex is a cons not a consumer good it's a covenant good a consumer good is a way you keep someone in a relationship because they have you have a need I need sex every so often sex is a way for me to feel good about myself it makes me feel adored and loved so I go

out and I find somebody who will meet that need sex is a consumer good the Bible says sex was not designed to be a consumer good it was designed to be a covenant good and here's what that means see in in a covenant when you have made a promise sex becomes like a Sacrament like a Sacrament when I say like a Sacrament what's a Sacrament a Sacrament is an external visible sign of an invisible reality it's a symbol an external symbol of an invisible reality that's why it's so meaningful when you use sex inside a

covenant it becomes a vehicle for engaging the whole person in an act of self-giving and self-commitment when I in marriage make myself physically naked and vulnerable it's a sign of what I've done with my whole life because by giving up my Independence and by by making this promise you're not just uh sex is sex is supposed to be a sign of what you've done with your whole life and that's the reason why sex outside of marriage according to the Bible lacks Integrity you're asking someone to do with their body what you're not doing with your

life you're saying let's be physically vulnerable to each other let's do physical dis disclosure but not whole life vulnerability that's the reason why CS Lewis puts it perfectly this is a perfect um description of the biblical sex ethic he says the monstrosity of of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of Union the sexual from all other kinds of Union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total Union to have physical Union without having whole life Union is a lack of

integrity and if you have sex inside a covenant then the sex becomes a covenant renewal ceremony it becomes a commitment apparatus it becomes something that you're getting married all over again you're giving yourself all over again it's incredibly deepening and solidifying and nurturing but if you use sex outside of marriage where it really see if you say in marriage when you're having sex you're really saying I belong completely and exclusively to you and I'm acting it out that's what sex is I'm giving you my body as a token of how I've given you my life

I'm opening to you physically as a token of the fact that I've opened to you in every other way that's how it's supposed to work and then sex becomes a deepening thing a nurturing thing it it's like Covenant cement it's like Covenant glue it's a covenant renewal ceremony but when you use sex outside of marriage what are you saying you're saying is I I love the feeling that I get when I'm with you you're taking not giving you're receiving and holding on to your life you're holding on to your Independence so you're receiving and you're

not giving it's a consumer good and when you use sex like that you damage its ability to be a commitment apparatus um John White Christian psychiatrist years ago wrote this he says the listen this is very much like what lwis said the bodily exposure that aroused and accompanies sex can be profoundly symbolic and powerfully healing if it's the concrete sign of what's happening in the whole relationship so it only makes sense that sexual relations be confined to marriage for Mutual discl Ure and tender acceptance is not the activity of a moment but the fabric of

a lifetimes weaving and each time sex is physical disclosure without being complete personal disclosure and commitment some of its lifegiving and healing nature is destroyed in other words it that you damage your ability to use it inside this is one of the reasons by the way why there's all these books coming out I'll refer to a couple of them in a minute and articles coming out very carefully even in places like the New York Times pointing out that cohabitation seems to be counterproductive uh there was a very carefully worded article in just April 14th um

in the New York Times it was it was written by clinical psychologist it was called the downside of cohabitation pointing out the fact that there's more and more studies showing that people who live together before they get married are more likely to divorce than than people who don't which is totally counterintuitive to the average young adult especially in New York City because 2/3 to 3/4 of all young adults say that if you live together before you're married you're more likely to make a good decision because you'll figure out whether you're compatible the clinical psychologist very

carefully points out that's impossible here's why she says in the article one thing that men and women she was doing a lot of interviewing and studies of men and women who live together one thing men and women do agree on is that their standards for a in partner are lower than they are for a spouse and as one woman said quote I felt like I was on this multi-year NeverEnding audition to be his wife now here's what she says if you're living together it's a consumer relationship why because you're always looking can I do better

than this so you're trying to find out whether you're compatible was a nice way of saying I'm trying to figure out whether this person is good enough to marry or whether I could do better so you're looking out for an upgrade so what is sex in a situation like that it's marketing it's attracting it's enticing it's trying to keep the relationship going it's not trusting it's not resting it's not giving which means sex outside of marriage in no way prepares you for sex inside marriage it's not the same thing and what they're doing in the

cohabitation is they're learning to live together as consumers instead of as married Partners as Covenant Partners which is a completely different thing now look I see some of you like this I know what I'm doing I realize I I realize how difficult this is to listen to and I also realize how absolutely and completely countercultural it is and counterintuitive this is but that's just the first point the Integrity of sex is there must be an Integrity between body and life you must not do with your body what you're not willing to do your with your

whole life and that's the first point that's just the ethic of sexual activity but now Jesus says on top of that all right you've heard it said you mustn't have sex outside of marriage but he says I want to talk to you about your mind and your thinking and then he goes on and says but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart ah now right away people say oh there we go by the way some of you are too young to even remember

this but years ago Jimmy Carter when he was the president made a comment you know he was a Sunday school teacher in a Baptist Church in Georgia and he made a comment that sometimes he was guilty of having lust in his heart for women and I'll tell you the the the comedians the you know the night the late night comedians had a field day for months with him and he was just trying to be honest on the other hand what they think he means and what they think Jesus means here is that any kind of

sexual desire to find somebody sexually attractive or phys physically attractive is terrible and you're going to hell but that's not what Jesus is saying first of all we know that because there are perfectly good words that he could have used for sexual desire but he doesn't use them he doesn't use Matthew who translated this into Greek Jesus who spoke in Aramaic there are perfectly good words that he could have used he doesn't use he uses a particularly interesting word we'll get to in a minute but the other point is if you look at the whole

Bible there is no way that the Bible is negative about sexual desire in fact I'm looking at my time if I had the time and I had the desire and it wouldn't have been so distracting so even though you're New Yorkers if I go to passages of the Bible and gave you literal translations of what it says I could even make you blush I could do it I could do it let me just listen in the very beginning of the Bible Genesis 2 2 chapter of the Bible what do we have remember when do you

remember when God brings Eve to Adam and Adam bursts into song He bursts into a poem a love poem this is now at last his bone of my bone is flesh is my flesh it's either a love poem or it's a song do don't forget they're naked and so you start the here's how the Bible starts with a naked man singing rapturous Love Songs over a naked woman in the presence of God and that's how the Bible starts and that's just the start and if you get to go to Book of Proverbs BS it's a

great passage where it says a wife needs a a husband needs to be ravished with his wife's breasts there's kind of No Way Around that one and then you get as somebody wants to a lot of people say you're not one of those fundamentals that takes the Bible literally are you and so well sometimes there's an advantage to taking the Bible literally you you and if actually if you go to the great love poem uh which many of you may have heard of The Song of Solomon which is a a rapturous celebration of the glory

of married sex sexual love there are plenty of poetic places where the translators kind of chicken out there's plenty of places where it's very clear that poetically uh a man and a woman is being described in a state of physical arousal and they're being described as being in a state of physical arousal see my point is the Bible is filled with barefaced exuberant rejoicing in the glory of sexual love and therefore there there's just no way you can get out of the Bible a negative view of sexual uh desire per se but that's not what

Jesus is saying here Jesus uses a word and it's an unusual word to be used with in connection to sex it's a word that means idolatry and particularly greed he's using a word that is us always means idolatry and usually refers to Greed and if you want to understand the kind of attitude toward sex that Jesus is talking about let's think about Greed for just a second greed is there something wrong with making money in the Bible or having a lot of money no that's another sermon all right but the point is like Abraham job

lots and lots of wealthy men uh people with money who were blessed by God so the idea of having making money and having a fair amount of money isn't necessarily wrong well what is greed then first of all it's the desire to have the money for selfish reasons you're selfish you want it for you you don't want it to share and to you want it for you you want to acquire things it's selfish number one number two it's addicting greedy people are addicted to money they have to have it they must have it so they'll

cut Corners to get it they'll trample on people to get it they'll work too hard to get it they'll be Workaholics they're addicted so first of all greed is selfishness with regard to money secondly it's addiction thirdly there's fantasies one of the ways you know you're greedy is you're always fantasy fing about what you're going to do if you make this much or if you have this much you're fantasizing I'll buy this I have this I'll be able to retire I'll be able to do that in other words you're looking to money to give you

the kind of deep affirmation and deep security that only God can give you that's greed and Jesus says it's very possible to have that same idolatrous attitude toward M toward sex how do we then see what is is he talking about when he's talking about an idolatry making sex into an idol like greed something that is used selfishly something that is addicting something that is filled with fantasies some some way in which you're looking to sex and sexual love to give you what only God can give you what are the forms of that let me

give you four number one pornography and masturbation with the pornography listen if I just remember we just said sex is not for consuming it's not a consumer good it's for giving it's for serving it's not just for receiving it's not just for your self- fulfillment my goodness well think about pornography and masturbation I mean it's so completely focused on yourself you don't even have another person is a consumer good par excellance you have it in the way when you want it you know in the particular kind you want it you know you buy it it's

frictionless it's everything the Bible says sex is not supposed to be it's the exact opposite of everything is it addicting sure is it selfish absolutely does it bring about fantasies I guess okay here's the second form all sex outside of marriage to some degree remember we've already talked about this all sex outside of marriage is essentially using sex selfishly rather than using sex unselfishly it's it's it's also certainly you know uh there's a book that you need to read I'll mention it again uh two sociologists wrote a book a great book Oxford University press an

empirical book a scientific book Mark Mark regnerus and Jeremy uker it's called premarital sex in America a sort of a snapshot and in the book they mention that the vast majority of people who have sex outside marriage when asked why are you doing it say in order to keep the relationship going in other words we've been going together for a certain number of weeks gone together for a certain number of months and at a certain point you have to do it just to to keep it going which is which is the consumer approach of course

which is that you adjust to me or I'm out of here or I'm looking for an upgrade of course that's what is that is that a self assu of sex of course it is it's not there for serving it's not there for renewing your Covenant it's there it's selfish here's a third version by the way just the belief when I'm talking about sexual idolatry just the belief that you can't be a whole person and have a happy life without sex just to believe unless every so often I'm having sex I mean I'm not a whole

person I can't be happy the only person the only object that you can look at if you're a Christian and say I have to have that to be happy as God to say to anything else well I need God but I also have to have that to be happy anything else you're putting that thing up to where God should be and don't believe what the what the culture says which is it's absolutely impossible for you to be a whole and developed person and to have a happy life unless you have sex and lastly and here

is the most subtle form of sexual idolatry of all it doesn't feel sexual a bit do you have in your mind this fairy tale dream of having the perfect marriage having the perfect little family perfect children perfect home you just does does that make you say if all that happened then I'd finally be happy then I'd finally feel good about myself that doesn't seem to be a sexual fantasy at all but you're making sex and romantic love into an idol oh yes you are I'll get back to that one second why is Jesus so strong

about sexual idolatry these various forms look suddenly he goes into this tiate it looks like he's getting into he says if you're right eye causes you to sin gouge it out and throw it away it's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell if your right hand caused you to sin cut it off and throw it away it's better for you to what is that now he's not speaking he's not literally telling his disciples to pluck out their eye to cut off their hand

but he is talking about drastic Behavior why this book by regnerus and yuker called premarital sex in America has a certain SE has a section in which it shows that scientifically uh these particular myths are untrue so they make a list of commonly held beliefs about sex and they show that scientifically they're just not true empirical evidence is not true one of them is this one of the things that they hear all the time from people is pornography won't affect your relationships you can have you can use pornography and it's not really going to you

know it's your private thing it's not really going to affect your relationships and they counter and say quote on the contrary pornography now affects virtually everyone's relationships everyone not just the people who use pornography pornography now affects virtually everyone's relationships and they say three things they can they prove empirically number one people who use pornography have crushingly unrealistic expectations regarding physical appearance and sexual performance first of all crushingly unrealistic expectations about what a part A a love partner a marriage partner must look like and how they must perform secondly they said it says a significant

number of male porn users experience a diminished tolerance for the difficulties of real relationships and the shrinks the marriage pool for women they say Studies have proven that men who use pornography are far far less interested and willing to get out into the messiness of real relationships and as a result far more U pornography diminishes people's desire to get married and is one of the reasons why the marriage uh that why the pool is shrinking and why the marriage uh number of people who are getting married is going down and here number three all women

they AR we argue is a quote all women we argue are increasingly being forced to accommodate sexual behavior and their appearances to the images and the style of pornography whether you know it or not the fashion industry is doing it your boyfriend's doing it other people are doing it women they argue are increasingly being forced to accommodate sexual behavior appearance sexual behaviors and their appearances to in style of porn now you see why Jesus says look how this damages you look how this damages us and when he uses the ey in the hand he's just

saying it does be drastic what does it take what do you have to do what lengths do you have to go to who do you have to see whatever it is get it out of your life stop it the idolatry of sexuality and love will destroy you the learning to use it selfishly making it a consumer good getting addicted to it looking to it to give you the kind of deep affirmation and closure and consolation that only God can give you and that leads us to the last Point how are we really going to be

delivered how can we be delivered Jesus hints at it when he talks about hell some people say this is over the top why does he talk about hell well you know there's several words he could have used for hell and the word he uses here is the word gehenna and it's a word that it's one of the images for hell in the Bible and there really was a gehenna place it was a place outside of Jerusalem where the garbage was burned and so gehenna gets at the idea that hell is a place of unquenchable thirst

and unfulfilled longing when you God we were built to know him and therefore if we lose God the ability to have our deepest needs satisfied we lose as well and so hell means when you lose God this is only one aspect that the Bible tells us about hell it means among other things it means unfulfilled longing deep deep unquenchable thirst and what Jesus is saying here is sex outside of marriage points toward that does it not because sex holds out the promise of such consolation of such closure of such affirmation and yet as we've seen

sex outside of marriage destroys your ability to really be yourself it makes it destroys your ability if your freedom and so there's a certain sense in which if you're out there having sex thinking sex is going to give me what I really want you're a little bit like a person dying of thirst on a raft in the ocean water water everywhere and not a drop to drink and Jesus says if sex outside of a covenant points toward hell sex inside a covenant points to what why is it in Romans 7 why is it in Ephesians

5 the Bible says that the most rapturous sexual love between a husband and a wife is just a dim foretaste and pointer to what it's going to be like to fall into the arms of your true spouse at the end of time when Jesus was talking to the woman at the well Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 he says I have got a water that if you drink it you will never thirst again in other words I can satisfy your deepest needs those unfulfilled longings and needs I can satisfy them I have a water that

if you drink it you'll never thirst again and she says sir give me this water remember what he says then bring me your husband kind of a nonse her she says sir I don't have a husband he says no no you've had five husbands and the man you're living with right now is not your husband why does he why is he talking about her messed up sex life and the answer is he says I can satisfy your longings she says well tell me how I can have my longings satisfied and what he's actually saying is

you've been looking for it in men you've been looking see this is lust this is what Jesus is talking about you've been trying to find in the arms of men the kind of deep consolation deep love and deep closure that only I can give you and she said to him sir I see that you're a Prophet this morning at the 9:15 service my wife Kathy was sitting right over here I looked down at her and she knew what I was going to say and that was this if she doesn't love Jesus more than she loves

me she's not going to be able to love me well why even inside marriage you can be guilty of sexual idolatry if she doesn't love Jesus and get love from Jesus at a level if her relationship with Christ is not more important than a relationship with me then she's going to look to me and I'm going to look to her if I don't I have to do the same thing of course if we're going to look to each other to fulfill each other in a way that only God can do it and we're going to

crush each other everything that goes wrong anytime she doesn't live the way you know I it'll fall into a consumer relationship you have to adjust to me no you have to adjust to me see in other words if Jesus isn't our my main spouse if Jesus isn't her main spouse if the spouse of Love Of Christ isn't the main thing that gives us a place of accept where we can be ourselves the main thing that gives us freedom the main thing that gives us that deep rich sense of being loved that I'm going to make

even my own marriage I'm going to I'm I'm going to be guilty of sexual idolatry I'm going to be trying to make Kathy into something that only Christ can be for me and she's is going to do the same thing for me you will never be well married unless Jesus Christ is the spouse of your soul and his love is the most important thing in your life and you will never be well you'll never be single well you'll never be married well sir she said I see you're a prophet look to his spouse of love

and then and only then will you be in a position to avoid the Great danger that we have that especially in this culture that we're living in and our Approach To Love and Marriage will be a pointer to our relationship with him let's pray Our Father uh a great subject an important subject a difficult subject many of us are sitting here thinking about our lives and Lord I pray that you would speak to every person here and encourage them and say this is the way I want you to go this is the way way in

which I will meet you and help you grow father forgive us for what we've done in the past be with us to move into the future and help us as a church be a counterculture showing forth showing the world a whole different way to think about all these matters in the way in which we live our lives together we pray it in Jesus name amen for more of this series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit www.gsp.ro