Straighten Your Aim
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Straighten Your Aim
Straighten Your Aim
Straighten Your Aim
Stay pure. Stay on purpose. Lust for money, power, and sex destroys lives. Jesus teaches us how to live in the kingdom of God. Jesus is inviting us to take a drastic measures to keep our aim pure, especially in our sex life.
Stay pure. Stay on purpose.
Lust for money, power, and sex destroys lives.
We’ve seen this tragedy play out far too often. A leader slowly gets caught in a trap of lust filled greed for money, power, and sex. The desire for more is hard to quench.
The lust for validation → using position → protecting what they have taken and don’t want to lose → escalating to cover it up.
The destruction of unquenchable lust destroys and far too often ends in death.
Lustful desires seek to satisfy the self at the expense of reason and the well-being of others. - Thomas Aquinas
All types of lust are self love.
Lust never has enough. One way we know it’s lust is that we fantasize about what we can get next — self remains the focus.
Who’s Kingdom Are You Building?
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is now here on earth (Matthew 4:17) and invites His followers to join Him in building it now — on earth as it is heaven (Matthew 6:10).
All day everyday we are invited to do excellent work His way for the glory of God and for the blessing of others. This truth is so simple we can graph it!
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How Destruction Happens
- Lust / Greed is selfish
- Lust / Greed is addictive
- Lust / Greed leads to fantasies that leads to more and more and more debased thinking
Kingdom Life
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us how to live in the kingdom of God. He is inviting and instructing His followers to join Him in building the kingdom. Reminding them of the blessings He has bestowed upon them and paid for! Then He lays out the ideal way to live — success criteria — for abundant, joyful life. In receiving His invitation to follow Jesus we become friends (John 15) and partners with Jesus to build the lasting kingdom of life.
This is our purpose in life and work!
Jesus says this about lust and kingdom life -
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 5:27-28[.no-reftag]
Wait, is Jesus raising the bar? Not at all! He is talking about a life of integrity where your actions are aligned with your deepest beliefs and feelings on what's right.We are always with God. He is in us (Colossians 1:27). Money, power, and sex can all be used purely for the kingdom of God. As coheirs, (Romans 8:17) we don’t want to use anything for our own selfish desires. This separates us from God.
Jesus offers us what seems like an unrealistically drastic solution.
“If your right eye causes you to stumble, 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. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, 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 go into hell.” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 5:29-30[.no-reftag]
Jesus is not calling us to mutilate our bodies, even if He is saying it’d be better to have a mutilated body then to go to hell.
Jesus is inviting us to take a drastic measures to keep our aim pure, especially in our sex life.
Sex Is for Good?!
God created sex as a sacrament not as a consumer transaction. Tim Keller makes this clear in an outstanding sermon on Love and Lust.
[.indent]The Bible says sex was not designed to be a consumer good it was designed to be a covenant good and here's what that means: In a covenant when you have made a promise sex becomes like a Sacrament [with spouse and God].[.indent]
[.indent]Even inside marriage you can be guilty of sexual idolatry. If she doesn't love Jesus and get love from Jesus at a level. If her relationship with Christ is not more important than a relationship with me then she's going to look to me and I'm going to look to her. I have to do the same thing of course. If we're going to look to each other to fulfill each other in a way that only God can do it and we're going to crush each other. Everything that goes wrong, anytime she doesn't live a certain way you know it'll fall into a consumer relationship… “you have to adjust to me” “no you have to adjust to me.”…[.indent]
[.indent]If Jesus isn't our main spouse…if the spousal love of Christ isn't the main thing that gives us a place of acceptance where we can be ourselves. The main thing that gives us freedom the main thing that gives us that deep rich sense of being loved, then I'm going to be guilty of sexual idolatry….[.indent]
[.indent]You will never be well married unless Jesus Christ is the spouse of your soul and his love is the most important thing in your life and you will never be single well [unless Jesus Christ is the spouse of your soul.]. - Tim Keller[.indent]
What Can Satisfy?
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - [.no-reftag]John 4:13-14[.no-reftag]
Resources:
Video: Receive Your Blessing- Accept Your Call | Howard Graham
Article: Hunger and Thirst for More - Much More | Howard Graham
Sermon: Lust and Love | Tim Keller
Stay pure. Stay on purpose.
Lust for money, power, and sex destroys lives.
We’ve seen this tragedy play out far too often. A leader slowly gets caught in a trap of lust filled greed for money, power, and sex. The desire for more is hard to quench.
The lust for validation → using position → protecting what they have taken and don’t want to lose → escalating to cover it up.
The destruction of unquenchable lust destroys and far too often ends in death.
Lustful desires seek to satisfy the self at the expense of reason and the well-being of others. - Thomas Aquinas
All types of lust are self love.
Lust never has enough. One way we know it’s lust is that we fantasize about what we can get next — self remains the focus.
Who’s Kingdom Are You Building?
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is now here on earth (Matthew 4:17) and invites His followers to join Him in building it now — on earth as it is heaven (Matthew 6:10).
All day everyday we are invited to do excellent work His way for the glory of God and for the blessing of others. This truth is so simple we can graph it!
How Destruction Happens
- Lust / Greed is selfish
- Lust / Greed is addictive
- Lust / Greed leads to fantasies that leads to more and more and more debased thinking
Kingdom Life
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us how to live in the kingdom of God. He is inviting and instructing His followers to join Him in building the kingdom. Reminding them of the blessings He has bestowed upon them and paid for! Then He lays out the ideal way to live — success criteria — for abundant, joyful life. In receiving His invitation to follow Jesus we become friends (John 15) and partners with Jesus to build the lasting kingdom of life.
This is our purpose in life and work!
Jesus says this about lust and kingdom life -
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 5:27-28[.no-reftag]
Wait, is Jesus raising the bar? Not at all! He is talking about a life of integrity where your actions are aligned with your deepest beliefs and feelings on what's right.We are always with God. He is in us (Colossians 1:27). Money, power, and sex can all be used purely for the kingdom of God. As coheirs, (Romans 8:17) we don’t want to use anything for our own selfish desires. This separates us from God.
Jesus offers us what seems like an unrealistically drastic solution.
“If your right eye causes you to stumble, 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. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, 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 go into hell.” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 5:29-30[.no-reftag]
Jesus is not calling us to mutilate our bodies, even if He is saying it’d be better to have a mutilated body then to go to hell.
Jesus is inviting us to take a drastic measures to keep our aim pure, especially in our sex life.
Sex Is for Good?!
God created sex as a sacrament not as a consumer transaction. Tim Keller makes this clear in an outstanding sermon on Love and Lust.
[.indent]The Bible says sex was not designed to be a consumer good it was designed to be a covenant good and here's what that means: In a covenant when you have made a promise sex becomes like a Sacrament [with spouse and God].[.indent]
[.indent]Even inside marriage you can be guilty of sexual idolatry. If she doesn't love Jesus and get love from Jesus at a level. If her relationship with Christ is not more important than a relationship with me then she's going to look to me and I'm going to look to her. I have to do the same thing of course. If we're going to look to each other to fulfill each other in a way that only God can do it and we're going to crush each other. Everything that goes wrong, anytime she doesn't live a certain way you know it'll fall into a consumer relationship… “you have to adjust to me” “no you have to adjust to me.”…[.indent]
[.indent]If Jesus isn't our main spouse…if the spousal love of Christ isn't the main thing that gives us a place of acceptance where we can be ourselves. The main thing that gives us freedom the main thing that gives us that deep rich sense of being loved, then I'm going to be guilty of sexual idolatry….[.indent]
[.indent]You will never be well married unless Jesus Christ is the spouse of your soul and his love is the most important thing in your life and you will never be single well [unless Jesus Christ is the spouse of your soul.]. - Tim Keller[.indent]
What Can Satisfy?
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - [.no-reftag]John 4:13-14[.no-reftag]
Resources:
Video: Receive Your Blessing- Accept Your Call | Howard Graham
Article: Hunger and Thirst for More - Much More | Howard Graham
Sermon: Lust and Love | Tim Keller