Taking Adultery and Lust Head-on

What does it mean that we largely ignore the pervasiveness of lust and pornography in our church culture? Is it just taboo because it is awkward? Is it inappropriate? Was Jesus being inappropriate? Is it a case of “What we don’t know won’t hurt us; ignorance is bliss.”? Is Jesus being unrealistic about his standard of practical righteousness concerning sexual purity?

This Sunday we will be preaching through Matthew 5:27-30 and hitting head-on the topic of adultery and lust. Below is a brief exhortation to our CORE Group facilitator/leaders about the need to go forward with this topic and the teaching of Jesus. Please be prayerful as we continue to go through “Exposed; The Sermon on the Mount.”

There is a reason we go through the Bible and not around it. We must deal with hard texts. This will be an uncomfortable text and topic (Matthew 5:27-30) as all difficult topics are, but keep in mind that tension is our friend because it causes us to think and act, hopefully in obedience. In times like these I see why Joel Osteen stays positive instead of biblical, though in doing so he clearly has no regard for the way Jesus or Paul or any other biblical writer did ministry and confronted real problems and sin. Adultery and lust are very taboo topics in the church and get danced around a lot. I will try to be sensitive to the complexity of this topic in my sermon. I would expect you will do the same and be tactful in facilitating. However, I will not avoid it and I implore you to hit it head-on too. The world rightly looks down on the church because we will not take on hard topics and deal with “real” issues, pretending like everything is fine when in fact it isn’t. Let that not be true of Eagle Heights for the praise of His glory in all things, especially in the depths of our hearts.

We will not be like Christ until we realize that we need Christ so that we can obey Christ. May the Spirit of Jesus convict, heal and change us as we honor the word that He inspired. HOW DO I BECOME A CHRISTIAN?