Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Intro

Please open your bibles with me to the Gospel of Matthew.

We'll be looking at verses 27-30 for today.

As you're turning there, we are in the second week of our short series on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

So far, we have studied what it means to be the Salt of the Earth and how we are called to make a lasting impact on the Earth.

As we said at the beginning of this series, the commands Jesus gives throughout the Sermon on the Mount are not so much centered on what one must believe; instead, they are rooted in what one must do.

After telling His followers that they are the salt and light of the Earth, Jesus explains that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.

He also told His followers that they would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless their righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees.

We must understand that while the Scribes and Pharisees took great pride in displaying outward obedience to many extrabiblical rules and laws, they still had impure hearts.

Jesus emphatically explained this in Matt.

23:5, 23, 27–28, saying:

5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,

23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.

These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.

28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Therefore, Jesus set out to teach His disciples that righteousness works from the inside out because it produces changed hearts and new motivations (Rom.

6:17; 2 Cor.

5:17; Gal.

5:22–23; Phil.

2:12; Heb.

8:10).

In this way, the actual conduct of Jesus' followers does, in fact, "[exceed] the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees."

So, beginning with verse 21 of Matthew 5, until the end of the chapter, Jesus corrects the misunderstandings of the OT that were prevalent at the time.

In doing so, He helps us see the kind of heart He wants His followers to have.

We'll look at a passage within that section of His Sermon, as we see that Jesus took physical and sexual sins very seriously.

In our time together today, we'll see that Jesus wants us to avoid sin intentionally.

Jesus will make deliberately extreme overstatements to get the point across that even things of great value should be given up if they lead a person to sin.

With all of that said, let's look to the Scriptures together.

As we study together, the big takeaway is that Jesus teaches us to avoid sin.

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Sin is destructive.

There's an old adage that I've heard so many famous speakers say that I can't figure out who it's supposed to be attributed to, but it's worth sharing.

"Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay."

Sin is nothing to play with.

Toying with sin is like playing with fire.

Eventually, you're going to end up burnt.

As followers of Christ, we must set up safeguards in our hearts and minds so that the risk of sin might be avoided.

That said, however, it's sad but true that humans tend to be terrible at assessing risk.

An article from 2020 in the New York Times reports the following:" 'The more control people think they have, generally, the less worried they are,' said Dr. Helweg-Larsen.

This is why, for many, driving a car seems safer than flying in a plane.

The car, of course, is statistically much more dangerous—in 2018, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, 36,560 Americans died in car accidents compared with 381 Americans killed in aviation accidents" (A. C. Shilton, "Why You're Probably Not So Great at Risk Assessment," New York Times, June 30, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/smarter-living/why-youre-probably-not-so-great-at-risk-assessment.html).

Meanwhile, we find ourselves avoiding things that aren't dangerous—and doing harm to ourselves in the process.

For instance, I remember seeing a small bump on the sidewalk several years ago while jogging.

I didn't want to trip on the bump, so I hopped over it, twisted my ankle, and fell over.

I did more damage trying to avoid a small bump than I probably would have had if I had just kept going.

That said, Psychologists say there are five major categories of avoidance: situational avoidance ("staying away from people, places, things, or activities that feel activating to you"), cognitive avoidance ("turning your mind away from distressing thoughts or memories"), protective avoidance ("actions in your physical environment that help you feel safer in your inner world"), somatic avoidance ("steering clear from situations that elicit a physical response similar to anxiety"), and substitutional avoidance ("replacing certain feelings, like sadness or grief, with something that feels more acceptable to you, like anger") (Hillary I. Lebow, "What Are the 5 Types of Avoidance Behavior?,"

Psych Central, June 23, 2022, https://psychcentral.com/health/types-of-avoidance-behavior).

Despite being excellent at avoiding things that pose little to no danger, all too often, we don't avoid sin—which is a major danger!

So, let's look back through our passage and see how Jesus teaches us to avoid sin.

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After dealing with murder, hatred, and sinful anger, Jesus turns His attention toward sexual sin.

In saying, "You've heard it said, 'you shall not commit adultery,'" Jesus was about to correct the misunderstanding of the day.

While we should be safe to say that we probably aren't worshiping alongside physical murderers today, it may be that in a group this size, adultery might not be entirely unfamiliar to us, either by those who have sinned and hopefully having repented of it or by those who have felt the pain of having been sinned against in this way.

In First Century Jewish culture, the average Jewish person was married by age of 20.

The greatest temptation for these people was not premarital but extramarital sexual sin.

In today's hyper-sexualized culture, where people are delaying getting married until later in life, the primary temptation often faced is a little different, though the application is the same.

There was a, and you've probably heard someone refer to it this way, "look but don't touch" type of mentality.

The Jews in that era believed as many do today, that as long as they weren't acting on their adulterous thoughts, they weren't actually sinning.

Jesus struck down this way of thinking by digging deeper than the action.

He went straight to the heart.

René Descartes is the famous philosopher who gave us the statement, "Cogito ergo sum."

That is Latin for "I think, therefore I am."

I'm sure you're familiar with that statement.

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His point, as he wrestled with doubting his own existence, was that he must exist because he is capable of thought.

I mention that statement because many have launched from that point (presuming existence because of thought) and added additional statements not so much to prove existence but rather to define it, though usually in less philosophically weighty ways.

I'm sure you've heard things like, "You are what you eat." "You are, or become, what you hate." "You are what you do."

While those may or may not be accurate in certain situations, it could be said that Jesus was, in a sense, saying, "You are what you think."

By saying, "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart," Jesus was essentially saying, "If you think adulterous thoughts, you are an adulterer."

Some scholars have pointed out that verse 28 could actually be translated, "Everyone who looks at a woman so as to get her to lust, has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Either way, the point Jesus makes is clear: Sin begins in the heart and with our thoughts long before it becomes actions.

In order to avoid such sins, we must be intentional.

Through hyperbolic statements, Jesus clarifies that the personal purity of those claiming to follow Him must be maintained at any cost.

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Is Jesus advocating for self-harm?

Certainly not.

Jesus takes sin seriously and expects his followers to do the same.

Ultimately, the point Jesus is making is that we must keep ourselves from the things that cause us to sin and help others avoid the things that cause them to stumble.

The word Jesus used for sin in verses 29 and 30 is skandalizō, meaning "to entrap, trip up, entice to sin, offend."

It seems that Jesus felt strongly enough about avoiding sin that he would rather we lose a limb—or anything that might cause us to sin—than keep falling into the same enticing scandal.

We should personally avoid the things that seek to entrap or trip us up.

It can be simple, such as a friend of mine in college who wrote out Psalm 101:3 on an index card and mounted it to the top of his computer monitor.

Depending on the severity of your propensity to sin with your eyes, you can do as another friend did when his struggle with sexual sin nearly ruined his marriage.

He finally arrived at the place where he decided that his television was no longer profitable to him because of his struggles, so he literally cut it out of his life.

Now I'm not suggesting you throw it out your second-story window as he did but to each his own!

One way to help yourself and our community succeed at removing themselves from sin is to help reduce the frequency with which they will have to face stumbling blocks.

For instance, you wisely wouldn't invite a recovering alcoholic out to eat at a bar.

This same rule can apply to any behavior someone is working to eliminate.

One commentary says this, "adultery was considered an extremely serious offense (cf.

Ex.

20:14) because, in addition to violating another person, it broke the marriage covenant (Mal.

2:14) that was a reflection of the relationship between God and his people."

Because of the severity of the sin, Jesus uses hyperbole to show that nothing, not even things of the most significant importance and benefit to humans, such as hands, eyes, or feet, should ever become more important or valuable to us than God.

The words "Eye" in verse 29 or "Hand" in verse 30 probably also stand for something related to them.

For Jesus, they can represent the sins that can be committed with these body parts.

I've heard it taught that the word "eye" might stand for the sins of coveting, lust, or adultery, whereas the term "hand" might represent the actions of theft or murder carried out by the hand.