Upside Down - Overcoming Lust and finding Freedom in Christ
This past week, I sent out a church-wide email to provide parents with a word of caution about today’s message. Not to deter them from coming, but to let them know that this weekend would be a good weekend to consider checking your child into our kids' ministry. The reason is that today is a suggested topic for parental guidance. Lust. Pornography. And sexual addiction.
So, if you are a guest today, we are talking about sex.
Sex is not dirty, wrong, or something only “preverbs” do. Sex was not something discovered by accident. God designed males and females in such a way that they could bring great pleasure to one another. God created sex. It was his idea.
A slogan I used to teach my students when I was a student pastor went something like this: “Sex is good. Sex is great. It’s for marriage, not your date.” But, just like everything else that man touched, because we are sinners, we have corrupted, twisted, and abused the gift he gave to us.
Just like a roaring fire inside the fireplace of a home brings great warmth, a fire outside a fireplace can burn a home to the ground. So too, sex outside the boundaries of marriage can burn down families, people, and destroy lives. And, the reason why so many people are damaged by sex is because they haven’t learned to practice self-control and not give in to lust.
So, today, Jesus offers us some very practical advice that NONE of us should put into practice.
Let’s read:
Matthew 5:27-30 (NLT2)
“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, 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 hand—even your stronger 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 be thrown into hell.
Jesus uses some strong language in this passage.In context, most of the people listening understood that being unfaithful to their spouse was a sin, but they never went further and addressed their heart issue of lust.So, Jesus swings for the fences and hits the ball deep.
Jesus says you may have never physically cheated on your spouse, but if you lust after somebody, you have committed adultery in your heart. In other words, lusting after a person who is not your spouse is just the same as cheating on them.
Why did Jesus use such strong language in this passage?
Lust turns people into products
Lust dehumanizes people. Whether you lust after a man or a woman, when we look at someone through the lens of lust, we stop seeing a person with a soul, mind, emotions, and potential. Instead, we only see that individual as something to be used. We reduce that person's value and worth.
Last week, I pointed out that the use of the word “raca” or “idiot” strips a person of their dignity and worth…Lust does the same thing. When you give in to lust, you don’t care who that person is. Their voice, their dreams, their fears, their childhood, their soul, none of it matters. You reduce them down in your mind until they’re nothing more than an image you use.
Lust takes a human being, made in the image of God, and turns them into a tool for your own gratification. Lust trains your brain to see people like porn thumbnails. Click. Swipe. Use. Discard. There’s no covenant, no relationship, no respect. Just appetite.
When you give in to lust, you’re not just sinning against God. You’re actually sinning against that person. You are reducing them to a product on a shelf you can pick up and put down when you’re done. And if you do that often enough, you start seeing every person through that lens. People at the gym, at the grocery store, even people you love. Lust rewires you to think of people as objects. That’s why Jesus treats lust so seriously.
So, what do we do with the language Jesus uses about gouging out our eyes and cutting off a hand? The point that Jesus is trying to make regarding lust:
Don’t manage your sin, cut it loose
Matthew 5:29-30 (NLT2)
So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, 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 hand—even your stronger 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 be thrown into hell.
Now, Jesus isn’t calling us to self-mutilation. We aren’t going to begin handing out eye patches and hooks for hands along with free Bibles in the bookstore. Jesus is using shock language to make a serious point. You and I cannot manage our sin. We can’t negotiate with it.
We’ve all tried to manage lust at some point. We have said things like:
“I’ll just reduce my screen time.”
“I’ll set some boundaries.”
“I’ll only do it every now and then.”
Your brain loves dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that makes you feel good. When you eat something that tastes amazing, when you exercise, or if you use illegal drugs like cocaine, your brain lights up with dopamine. When you do something you enjoy, your brain says, “Me likey! Give me more!” And the reason you develop an addiction to some things is because the brain wants more dopamine!
Research shows that watching porn hits the “pleasure button” in your brain that produces dopamine. Push that button, and your brain wants more. That’s why lust is such a trap. Every time you give in to lust, you create a deeper groove in your brain. You build a pathway from your eye to that pleasure spot in your brain that craves more, not less. That’s why small compromises rarely stay small. The brain keeps demanding more, and your soul gets dragged deeper into shame. You can’t “moderate” yourself out of a sinful habit.
Almost every study done in the area of addiction proves that the first step to freedom is elimination, not moderation. You can’t taper off sin. Jesus says, “Cut it off.” That doesn’t mean you cut off your hand. Nowhere in the rest of the New Testament do we see followers of Jesus mutilating themselves.
But it might mean deleting an app. It might mean you trade in your smartphone for a rotary phone that sits on your counter. It may mean breaking off a toxic relationship. It could mean confessing your struggle to someone you trust.
Yet, Jesus never tells you to cut something out without giving you something better to replace it. Jesus wants you to give up the addiction, to walk in freedom. The apostle Paul gave some advice to followers of Jesus who struggled with lust.
Colossians 3:5 (NLT2)
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
If you are a follower of Jesus, you understand that putting to death the lust that lurks within you is called self-control. It’s called denying yourself. Jesus doesn’t want you limping through life chained to lust, shame, and secrecy. He wants you to live whole. He wants you to live as free as he has made you. That’s why His language is so strong…Jesus wants you to live as free as he made you. When he paid the price for our sin on the cross, he freed us from the power of sin.
Paul writes:
Romans 6:7 (NLT2)
For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.
I know it can feel like you are trapped and powerless with the sin of lust. But you are not. Jesus addressed lust then because he wanted his followers to live in freedom. We address it today not because we want to be the “cool” church but because Jesus preached about it in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus wants you to live as free followers of Jesus, too.
So, begin to live in freedom and name that sin. If you struggle with pornography, say that you struggle with it. If you struggle with lust, say that you struggle with lust. If you feel temptation, tell somebody when you are feeling tempted.
Sin you won’t name will eventually name you
Sin doesn’t stay quiet forever. If you won’t call it out, it will call you out. If you won’t drag it into the light, it will drag you into the dark.
John was a close follower of Jesus. He spent three years observing, watching, and learning personally from Jesus.
1 John 1:7-9 (NLT2)
But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
If you are a follower of Jesus, you live in the light by confessing your sin. And, John learned that Jesus will forgive us of our sins, and cleanse us…But it only happens through confession. Confessing sin actually proves we are living in the light!
But, in the Christian world, we have so often seen men and women with influence, with platforms, with thousands of people looking to them…who refused to confess sin. They preached sermons, led churches, and wrote books. Yet behind the scenes, there was sin they refused to name. Lust. Affairs. Addiction. Secrecy. And because they refused to name their sin, their sin named them.
It came out in headlines. It came out in courtrooms. It came out in tearful confessions and broken families. Whole churches, crushed. Faith shattered. People walked away from Jesus because a leader refused to deal with sin that was rotting away beneath the surface.
Nobody wakes up one day and says, “I want to destroy my life, my family, my church.” That’s not how it works. A whole life destroyed begins with one thought you don’t confess. One click you don’t tell anyone about. One compromise you convince yourself is “no big deal.” You refuse to name it…And then one day, it names you.
It says, “I own you. I own your marriage. I own your reputation. I own your life.” That’s why Jesus uses such strong language. “Cut it off.”
Don’t manage it. Don’t hide it. Don’t try to negotiate with it. Kill it. Name it. Drag it into the light. Because sin you won’t name will eventually name you.
So, what sin are you refusing to name? What struggle are you hoping no one sees? Because the longer you keep it in the dark, the darker and more twisted it becomes. Jesus offers another way.
Call it what it is. Name it, and drag it into the light. Bring it before Him, and let Him rename you as forgiven, free, and loved.
If this message stirred something in you and you’re ready to take another step, here are some resources for you to check out:
EverAccountable.com - a simple app that sends your browsing activity to someone you trust.
CovenantEyes.com - adds accountability, filtering, and screen monitoring for those struggling with online habits.
Bark.us - helps parents by flagging dangerous messages and content on their kids’ phones.
Axis.org - offers digital tools to help you talk with your kids about culture and technology.
Remember, you don’t need to fix it all today. But you can stop hiding today.