Jesus on Sexual Attraction
Part 5 in series Hearing Jesus Again
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
June 7, 2008
Many scholars have suggested that the Sermon on the Mount wasn’t actually a sermon but rather a random collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. However, if you haven’t already begun to see it, you will certainly see as we continue on that the Sermon on the Mount has a very tight structure to it – that one thought and section flows logically into another thought and section. It begins with the Beatitudes, Christ’s words on who the Kingdom of God is for (all those willing to cultivate the kinds of hearts that can be at home there). Then Jesus gives us examples of the difference between the old system of righteousness (based on observance of rules) and the new system he is introducing (based on what’s in the heart). Jason talked to you two weeks ago about anger and contempt and how Jesus showed us that they are at odds with a kingdom heart. Today we move into sexual attraction. Now let me ask you this question and you will see how organized the Sermon on the Mount actually is. What if I could snap my fingers and eliminate from the planet right now all violence (which springs from anger and contempt), and all sexual sin? How close to perfect would the world be? In Jesus’ first two comparisons of the old righteousness with the new righteousness, he takes up the topics of violence (anger/contempt) and sex. Are we not embroiled to this day in controversy over these two subjects? Do not our media pundits and pastors and teachers and scholars endlessly go round and round about how to deal with sex and violence? (Here I am not saying sex itself is wrong, only that many of the greatest problems in both individual human life and in society spring from it). Apparently things in Jesus’ time were no different. And why should they have been? People in Jesus’ day were people. They were people who got angry, people who got horny, people who craved both relationship and revenge, people who, like us, were often torn between the need for commitment and the desire for casualness. Like us, they were spiritual and physical. Heroic and cowardly. Authentic and artificial. They were just people. This is who Jesus spoke to and advised and healed and taught and loved, and whose hands he suffered and died at – and whose sins he redeemed. Just people.
In week 3 we talked about the Kingdom heart – how God created us to live from the heart, but how that has gone wrong in our hearts that are darkened by sin and how our hearts often steer us wrongly into doing harm to ourselves and/or others. When you take the need human beings have for spiritual/physical connection (expressed partly in sex), and our tendency to flare up into anger when we have been hurt, and the depth with which we can hurt and be hurt with our sexuality, then you have a potentially very explosive concoction with sex and violence.
Jesus began dealing with contempt by using one of the ten commandments – you have heard it was said, “do not kill.” Likewise he begins this section by using another of the ten commandments.
Matthew 5:27-30 (NIV)
27 "You have heard that it was said, ’Do not commit adultery.’
28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29 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.
30 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.
Just like the Jews had been under the impression that as long as they didn’t kill they were okay in regard to the fifth commandment, they also believed that as long as they didn’t commit adultery, they were okay in regard to the sixth. But Jesus pointed out that it’s not enough to simply not kill, one has to deal with anger and contempt in the heart that give rise to violence. And here Jesus says it’s not enough to simply not commit adultery. One has to deal with the lust in the heart that gives rise to it. And so in this passage Jesus is actually talking not about adultery, but about lust.
Much of the material in this series is from a book written by my favorite spiritual writer, Dallas Willard and so most of the sermons will contain quotes from The Divine Conspiracy --- the book on which this series is based. I will do this because there are times that the way Willard says something is simply unbeatable in my opinion and I would be doing you a disservice trying to put it in my own words. He writes:
Jesus was confronted with a multitude of men who thought of themselves as good, as right, in their sexual life because they did not do the specific thing forbidden by the commandment. They were like those who thought they were right in relation to their fellow men because they had not killed them.
But Jesus was aware, as we may easily notice today, that the very same people who thought of themselves as sexually pure and right would follow a woman with their eyes, lavishing their lookings upon her, tracing out by sight the lineaments of her body with a look of absorbed lusting upon their face and posture. They obviously take great pleasure in this activity, fantasizing what touching, caressing, and entering this body would be like.
Everyone knows about this kind of activity, and there are few who have not at some time engaged in it to some degree. No doubt the same was true even in Jesus’ day. But it goes on among all types of men, including ministers and university professors, and, in this day of equal opportunity, among women as well and between members of the same sex. Jesus’ teaching here is that a person who cultivates lusting in this manner is not the kind of person who is at home in the goodness of God’s kingdom.
The 31st chapter of the book of Job contains a pretty good analysis of the course of sexual involvement. It says,
Job 31:7-10
If my feet have carried me to the wrong places, or if my heart has walked after my eyes, or my hand is defiled because it has touched what it ought not to touch, then let my children belong to others. And if my heart has been captured by the wife of another, and I have sought for an opportunity with her, then may my wife be possessed by other men.
Look at this. Job mentions his feet (going to the wrong places), his eyes (looking at the wrong things), his hands (touching people or places he should not touch). Then he mentions his heart (desiring the wrong things). Job just nails this. After he mentions his heart, having a wrong desire for someone, he then gets right down to it. His will. If my heart has been captured by the wife of another – and I have sought an opportunity with her. See, there Job gets to what really happens. We desire someone, we lust after them in our hearts, and that desire builds up and builds up to the point where we may very well “seek an opportunity” with them. Job talks about his heart “walking after his eyes.” Think about that. Have you ever had your heart walk after your eyes? Have you ever seen a person and desired them, and that desire turns into longing, and out of that longing you then pursue them, mostly out of the desire of possessing them sexually, or even emotionally? I know a ton of people who would say, “My heart walks after my eyes. I see something and I want it – BAM – right now – no questions asked – don’t worry how much it costs me now or later, I want it and I want it fast.”
Does this begin to tell us why it runs contrary to the Kingdom Heart to cultivate lust? Lust involves the whole person. Feet, eyes, hands, heart, and will. Lust says, “I must have this person right now.” Now let me ask you something. How often would it be good for the other person or yourself if you were to get what you desired? Almost never, right? Lust is a desire for gratification without commitment.
Sometimes when I am counseling young couples in my office, they will say, “If lust is strong desire, then am I not lusting when I strongly desire to have sex with my spouse?” But lust is much more than simply the presence of strong desire. Lust is the presence of that strong desire, and the entertaining of it, when the fulfillment of that desire would bring harm to yourself and/or the person you lust after. Anytime commitment is lacking, sexual involvement brings pain and confusion. So to entertain lust is to desire what would bring harm to yourself and someone else.
So let’s say a guy is imagining having sex with a woman who is not his wife. He’s really thinking it through, imagining all those details like Dallas Willard talked about, taking a lot of pleasure in his lust. Then a half hour later he imagines having sex with his wife. He thinks it out, plans out what he will do and all the details – the same desire for two different people, one of whom is his wife and one of whom is not. Fantasized desire for the woman not his wife is lust and that same desire for his wife is not. Lust is the desire for something or someone that if we had it would be immoral. Lust has nothing to do with the intensity of desire, and everything to do with the object of desire.
What would happen if a man went up to a woman he didn’t know and said, “If only you could read my mind and know what I’m thinking about doing to you right now.” Now he’s only thinking, right? He hasn’t actually hurt anybody. And even in telling this woman, he has simply thought and spoken, right? So why does this woman get so offended? The answer is similar to what I said about anger. Just as there is something in the nature of anger that is inherently destructive, something upsetting that naturally causes you to get angry in return, there is something in the nature of sex that is inherently repulsive when directed inappropriately. It’s not just thoughts and not just words. The woman to whom a man says this feels what? She feels violated! She feels like he DID something. And in a way, he did. He imagined himself in a place that he had no right to be. That is lust, and it’s lust whether we’re talking about lust for money, lust for power, lust for recognition, or sexual lust. BTW, in the event this woman is not repulsed but turned on and they go back to her apartment and do it, are those two people going to better off or worse off? That’s important. Lust is wrong because it can lead to a huge variety of things – from her feeling hurt and threatened, to him demeaning and embarrassing himself, to them going back to her apartment and having meaningless sex – all things which are harmful to human beings and to our ability to relate in healthy ways to one another, to God, and to ourselves.
Now imagine this same man, instead of lusting after this stranger, has those same sexual thoughts about his wife. He goes home and shares them with her. She may accept his advances or she may not. It might lead to hot sex, or it might lead to frustration for the guy, but in any case he is not wrong for having the thoughts, nor is he wrong for sharing them, as long as he observes the common rules of context and sensitivity about how and when it is shared. It simply is not lust if it is aimed in the right direction. That’s God’s entire point about premarital sex, about adultery, about homosexuality. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the most intense sexual desires, as long as they are directed toward the appropriate person in our life. Fantasized desire directed the wrong way is damaging to our souls.
Some might say, “Aren’t you getting nitpicky? We’re just talking about thoughts, here.” But those who say that probably aren’t those who work day in and day out with people and have the opportunity to see the damage that fantasized desire does to people. So you might say, “I’m not going to actually DO it – I’m just going to THINK about doing it. That makes me happy, it excites me.” But it ultimately cannot continue to make you happy. Men, the continual entertaining in your minds of desire for women you cannot and should not have will eventually produce frustration that you cannot have them. Women, the continual entertaining in your minds of desire for men you cannot and should not have will eventually produce frustration that you cannot have them. Men, for you usually it’s that perfect body, whatever that means to you. You’re looking for the perfect body, and you fantasize about that body, like Dallas Willard said. You might look at pornography because some woman there has that perfect body. You have that ideal in your mind and your wife next to that ideal – well, maybe she doesn’t quite cut it. She stands guilty of being normal. Women, for you it’s Romeo. He may have a perfect body, or he may not, but he’s so wonderful. He always pays attention to you, regards you like your husband does not. He always knows just what to say and how to act around you. He gets you and makes you feel listened to and heard and understood. Next to him your husband looks – well – normal. So we fantasize not only about people and situations we should never be involved with, but our fantasies remove us from the actual commitments we have made to real human beings. Men, your wife has a real body and it is your privilege to learn to love it. It houses an immortal spirit made by God. Whether it’s perfect right now or not, one day her body, like yours, will lose its external appeal. It will age and things will droop. Sooner or later you will have to accept that there is a lot more to this woman than her body and learn to love her for who she is. There may be stuff about her body that bothers you, but one woman on the face of this earth loved you enough to give her body to you, along with all the rest of herself. I’d say take it and run with it. Have some fun with it.
Proverbs 5:18-20 (MSG)
18 Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!
19 Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose— don’t ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted!
20 Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?
Yeah, guys, why would we make that trade, in our bodies or in our minds? Be grateful for what you have and don’t live always pining for what you lack. Out of all the men on the planet, this woman has committed to you. Other guys may have been better looking. Other guys might have been more romantic. Other guys may have been better listeners. But do you know who those guys are now? They are the ex-boyfriends of the woman who loved you enough to say I Do. For some reason, they didn’t do it for her, but you did. She loves you. We need to get into our heads how fortunate and blessed we are.
And guys, I can tell you what a dead-end fantasized desire is, because I’ve counseled tons of guys stuck in it, some of them who have wives with awesome bodies. Both men and woman might think, “His wife has a beautiful body, why would he think about other girls?” Remember a few years ago when Hugh Grant was caught with a prostitute? Did you see the picture of the prostitute? I don’t want to be unkind but – uh – I don’t get it. Have you seen Elizabeth Hurley? In my opinion she is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Guys, it’s not about beauty and bodies and booties and boobs. It’s about something in you that is missing – something you’re going to have to face or you’ll always be looking to fill that spot with things that won’t satisfy.
See, it’s not about finding that woman with the right body, it’s about becoming a man with a right heart. Get your heart in line, stop entertaining fantasized desire and you will immediately find your eyes and heart beginning to fix on the person God has given you. This dream of yours is a dream and that dream can never come true in a way that will not devastate you and everyone you love, despite what you may have read in Penthouse Forums. And even if you keep it to yourself and never pursue your fantasy, the fantasy itself will keep you from seeing your wife, the person God gave you, as God’s perfect gift. As a result you will feel restless and resentful and irritated. Men, address the hole in your soul, the sickness in your heart, your inability to develop true intimacy with your wife, and your concerns about your wife’s body will fade away.
Women, your husband has a real personality and he annoys you precisely because he’s the one who is committed to you. He may not always know what to say, he may seem insensitive sometimes, but the only reason you’ve seen this is because he has committed to spend enough time with you for you to see his flaws. I realize he doesn’t always know what gift to get you for your birthday and that he probably isn’t as romantic as that man you read about in Cosmo or Ladies Home Journal or whatever, but he loves you. That’s why he’s there. Maybe he sometimes goes weeks without showing it enough, but out of all the women on this earth he has chosen you. There may have been better-looking girls in his life; some of them may have actually had better bodies! Some might have taken better care of their homes or enjoyed watching sports with him. But you know who those girls are now. They are the ex-girlfriends of the man who loved you enough to say I do. That’s something, ladies, and don’t ever forget it. For all his flaws, he’s there for you. He’s a real person, and your challenge is to learn to love a real person, not the caricatures you read about in magazines and see on soap operas. Loving someone is always a lot harder, and quite a bit less romantic, than what you see in the movies. But when we settle in and commit to it, it’s always more fulfilling than any magazine or movie could ever let us in on.
Both men and women are stuck in fantasized desire. We dream of genie, and genie is always someone other than who we actually live with and are committed to. And every time we pursue genie, genie will always do what genies do – disappear. Genie is a fantasy. Ultimately genie is meant to live in the bottle and unless we understand that, we’re going to spend our lives living for the moments when we can coax genie out. But Genie is a fantasy. That’s why we can only see Genie when we’re dreaming.
Do you see the danger of entertaining fantasized desire? On a common sense level, if it would be wrong to do something, isn’t at least pointless, and probably wrong, to spend time thinking about doing it? Only in a society like ours, which denies that we have souls, could pop psychology advocate that fantasized desire can be unrestrained and wild and explicit, as long as it happens only in the mind. This is in direct contrast to:
Romans 12:2 (NIV)
2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…
And how do we renew our minds?
Philippians 4:8 (MSG)
8 …I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.
In other words, do not allow your mind to dwell on things that in their nature are evil because they can only lead to evil. Would you say a person is healthy if he didn’t kill anyone, but constantly went around wishing he could kill people, dreaming up ways he could kill them, and imagining how much fun it would be to kill them? Of course not. We all know murder is wrong, and we think a person is evil and sick who constantly fantasizes about doing it. So why do we think we are okay spiritually if we do not actually have illicit sex (adultery, fornication, etc.) but merely take pleasure in wishing we could do it, dreaming up people we’d do it with and ways we’d do it, and imagining how awesome it would be? What’s the difference?
And then we add to this that lust and either physical or emotional violence often go hand in hand and here, at the beginning of his Sermon, Jesus has addressed some of the most destructive forces in human life. If everyone consistently followed Jesus’ ethic about lust, sexual harassment would disappear from the planet. The world’s most attractive people would no longer feel like food for the fantasies of everyone else, and the not-so-attractive would no longer feel the sting of noticing lustful looks not being directed at them, and pointing out their unattractiveness.
The Kingdom heart is incompatible with lust. Most Bibles label this section as being about adultery, but it’s not – it’s about where adultery begins – in lustful human hearts.
I don’t want to finish without addressing the controversial words here about cutting off limbs and throwing them into the sea.
Matthew 5:29-30 (NIV)
29 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.
30 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.
I don’t need to spend much time on this. This is an oration technique called hyperbole – deliberate exaggeration for the sake of making a point. It’s pretty effective, as this passage has shocked many people through the years, but anyone who has even casually studied the words of Jesus knows that Jesus in not actually advocating self-mutilation. Only that we take sin seriously and do what it takes to root it out of our lives.
Jesus lays out for us why the person who aims to have a kingdom heart – to be at home in God’s world – must root out fantasized desire from their life. Do whatever it takes. Come see me. Read books and articles about it. Commit your whole way to God and stop returning to the donut table of fantasized desire. You cannot live close to God with this in your heart. Let’s pray.
