You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Amen so far. The reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Lord Jesus starts this section the same way they started the previous one with you have heard and Again, what they have heard was that it was said to those of old And so what they're hearing about is something else that was said to someone else who heard it. Namely, you shall not commit adultery, which was announced, thundered by God from Mount Sinai. It was said to those of old before it was written by the finger of God. It was said, and so he's talking specifically about at the mountain when the Lord was thundering and he thunders, you shall not commit adultery. Now they have heard about this other hearing. They have heard about this other event. because God in his mercy caused it to be written by his spirit and the scriptures and Has preserved those scriptures and now their teachers and their synagogues have the scriptures to tell them about and so they have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. And again, there is the danger, thinking that that is all that is required, just not to have the intimacy of a husband and wife with someone who is not your wife or with somebody who is not your husband. But when he says again, but I say to you, he's reminding us, first of all, that he is the Lord who spoke these things at Sinai. And second of all, that therefore he is the one who authoritatively interprets for us and teaches us what morality is, what obedience to the commandments is, what the commandments require. This he does, of course, because he is God and the commandments are the applications to our lives of the implications of who God is and what God is like. But he also teaches as the Messiah, the Christ, who is fully man, and who himself fully obeys these commandments, that we might understand what his obedience is on our behalf. the marvelous obedience of the Lord Jesus, who always obeyed fully, sincerely, entirely with all the heart, always loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, always loved his neighbor as himself, which as Sophia has been telling us this week, is the sum of the 10 commandments. And we know that that's the sum of the 10 commandments because that's what Jesus has taught us. And so he teaches us here that he wants our hearts, that this commandment places an obligation upon us, upon our hearts and our whole self, and that this is necessary if we are to enter the kingdom. Remember that we came into this section of Matthew chapter five with this statement of Christ's, For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And so the Lord Jesus is describing to us that which we must be to enter heaven, that which he is doing now, and that which if it is not done at the last, we will be cast into hell. And so holiness is necessary for entrance into heaven. And if in the last day we are not found with the work of Christ finished in us, which of course, if he has begun the work, he will finish it. But if we were found in the last day without the work of Christ finished in us, then our whole self, our whole body, as he says here in verse 29 and verse 30, will be cast into hell. And so that which is in our hearts, that which... that with which we look upon another. There are some who, actually I think the ESV sadly, translates verse 28, say to you that whoever looks at a woman with lustful intent, the text does not mean with intent to act upon his lust, but with lust in his heart. He looks with the lost in his heart. So even our hearts and especially our hearts must be offered to God in all of the commandments. We saw that with anger under the sixth commandment. Now we see it with lost under the seventh commandment. because God is the one with whom we are interacting, first and foremost. Yes, the last six commandments teach us, as Sophia so helpfully learned to tell us, our duty to our fellow men. And that is the context in which those commandments are obeyed. But even when thinking about our duty to our fellow men, the first and great part of what the commandments require of us is a right heart towards God and therefore under God, a right heart towards our fellow men. So the second great commandment is like the first. First great commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like it in part because it flows out of it. Because God is the one who made people in his image. And God is the one who has assigned to us our portion of whatever we have. God is the one who is the one before whom we live. And whenever we speak or bear witness, we do so first and foremost before the face of God. And so the whole law is first and foremost, primarily something that we are to think of in our interaction with God himself. And yes, there is, of course, the further application that which is not just in the heart, but also with the hand. And so you see the parallels. The heart as in control of the eye, verse 29. And this is related immediately to what proceeded in verse 28. If your right eye causes you to sin. And then in verse 30, if your right hand causes you to sin. So yes, the law of course does govern our actions as well. It's just that the heart is primary and from the overflow of the heart, the action proceeds. And if we have not positively transgressed in an action, we must not think therefore that we are innocent because the Lord makes demands upon our hearts. Now, what our hearts must do then is our hearts must belong to the Lord and control our eye. and our heart must belong to the Lord and control our hand. To use the language of Romans 6, we are to offer our members as slaves unto God for righteousness. To use the language of Romans 12, we are to offer our bodies, and there it uses the word corpses, as living sacrifices unto God. as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing unto God. So this isn't saying that you should pluck your eyes out and cut your hands off and cast them from you. It is saying that you should crucify your whole old self. If your eye is being used sinfully, Is that from your new self in Christ that is going to enter heaven? Or is that from your old self that ought to have been and was, by faith, crucified with Christ? You see, the sinful man must go to hell either. He goes through hell, suffers hell, in union with Christ on the cross, and the person that we were is crucified with Christ, or we will actually be cast into hell. There's only two options, union with Jesus or being cast body and soul into hell. And so what this is saying is, don't let the old man eye or the old man hand continue. It should be cast into hell and you should cast it away from you. And it's actually the casting it from you that is the main thing here. Block it out, cast it from you. Cut it off, cast it from you. By using the two different body parts, he actually emphasizes the casting away. And we should think like that. These eyes belong to the Lord Jesus now. These hands belong to the Lord Jesus now. The eye as it used to be, no thank you. The hand as it used to be, get away from me. Our eyes and our hands, our legs, our tongues. Remember the lesson in James chapter three? They all should be slaves to God for righteousness. They all should be offered as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is how they live. who are entering heaven in union with Jesus. And if we don't live that way, then we can be sure we don't have union with Jesus. And if we don't have union with Jesus, we will be cast into hell. Because it's Christ alone who saves, only who he is, only what he has done. So my dear children, whenever you catch your eye doing something that it shouldn't, or whenever you catch your tongue saying something that it shouldn't, or your hand doing something that it shouldn't, make the exchange immediately. Confess it to the Lord, repent, and then refuse for that hand or that eye or that tongue to be used that way anymore. Use it to serve the Lord. Use it like someone who is entering heaven one day, body and soul. We can even use these decaying eyes the way we will one day use our resurrected eyes. We can even use these decaying tongues the one day we will use our glorious resurrected tongues. We can even use our decaying hands the way we one day will use glorified, resurrected hands, because we are already united to Christ. So let us live as those who belong to the King. Let us live as those who belong to his kingdom and who are entering one day. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray that you would Grant to us the ministry of your spirit to keep us mindful of Christ and believing in him, living in fellowship with him. Thank you that you have delivered us from what we were. We pray that you would give us clean hands and pure heart. that as you sanctify us, you'd prepare us for the day that we will ascend to your holy hill and we will enter with our Lord Jesus. How we thank you for giving us your son to be our righteousness, to be our sacrifice, that in union with him, we could survive crucifixion because in union with him, you have given us resurrection. And so we thank you and praise you. And we ask that you would help us to offer ourselves to you through him. In his name we ask it. Amen.