Sermon on the Mount | Directing Desire | Matthew 5:27-30 | Week 5

If you have your Bible, turn to Matthew 5.  We're continuing our series of the Sermon on the Mount.  We are about six messages in.  Let me give two disclaimers as we begin this morning.  Number One -- You got a service guide when you came in and it has an outline to follow along with the message.  You can make a big 'X' on said outline and flip it over.  There are three days between when I made that outline and today and God's done some different things in my heart and soul in that amount of time, so I want to be true to where I sense God leading us.  Secondly, we are going to be dealing with an issue this morning that may be an issue that has more pain surrounding it than anything else in our culture, and the by-product of it has destroyed many lives and many marriages.  I want to take as pastoral an approach as I can to this difficult subject, but I also want to hit it head on because I believe Jesus wants to bring some freedom this morning, and I believe the Scriptures want to invite us to live more in the kingdom of God, and I believe that's possible for us.  So let's pray and ask that God would invade this space of our hearts and minds and lives.  Spirit of God, we ask that you would do what we cannot do by will power alone.  Lord, we don't want the enemy's voice of condemnation in our ear, so we rebuke that voice.  Lord, we do receive your conviction, in order to lead us to a better way.  Lord, help us to discern those two voices in our own hearts and minds, and let us move in line with your Spirit as you lead us to life.  We pray this in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said. . . .Amen

When I was 10 years old, I had a friend of mine invite me to go to his parents' beach house in Oceanside, California.  We were good friends from school, so my parents let me go.  He had this tent in the backyard, sort of on the patio of their beach house, and we were sleeping out in the tent.  I can remember vividly him grabbing a stack of Boys' Life magazines and us walking into the tent.  He told his mom that we were going to be looking at the Boys' Life magazines before we went to bed.  In addition to the Boys' Life magazine, there was a Playboy magazine tucked in.  I can remember for the very first time in my life seeing pornography.  I'm almost three decades removed from that, and I can tell you, those images are still with me.  They did something to me.  They messed with me.  They imprinted themselves on my imagination...