Anger & Lust
ANGER & LUST
Matthew 5:21-30
Radical Requirements
- Jesus pierces our hearts by allowing the full weight of God’s commands to bear down on us.
- There were 613 laws and God said every one of them mattered
- God’s ultimate demand is for perfection because he is perfect (Matthew 5:48)
HEART CONDEMNED | ANGER
- Not just the outward behavior/action of murder
- Inward posture toward of person of unwarranted anger and name-calling
HEART CONDEMNED | LUST
- Not just the outward behavior/action of adultery
- But the internal thought-life and “lustful intent” of our imagination makes us guilty
TRANSFORMED HEART | ANGER
- Leads us to have concern for others, specifically those who may have a grievance against us.
- Come to terms quickly…
- Kent Hughes, “Perhaps you are sensing a dryness in your life. You pray you try to be as religious and good as possible, but somehow it just does not seem to be working. The reason might be that you have not faced up to your sin in a fundamental relationship.”
TRANSFORMED HEART | LUST
- Tear your right eye… cut off your right hand – means to remove the things that you see and do that lead you into sin.
- John Stott on Spiritual Mortification, “What does this involve in practice? Let me elaborate and so interpret Jesus’ teaching: “If your eye causes you to sin because temptation comes to you through your eyes (objects you see), then pluck out your eyes. That is, don’t look! Behave as if you had actually plucked out your eyes and flung them away, and were now blind and so could not see the objects which previously caused you to sin. Again, if your hand or foot causes you to sin, because temptation comes to you through your hands (things you do) or your feet (places you visit), then cut them off. That is: don’t do it! Don’t go! Behave as if you had actually cut off your hands and feet, and had flung them away, and were now crippled and so could not do the things or visit the places which previously caused you to sin.” That is the meaning of “mortification.”
- John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, “Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt dies a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet.”
- John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”