Sermon On The Mount | The Dehumanizing Impulse of Desire | Bill Dogterom

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"Here as in Heaven."

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Intro/Outro: 00:01

Welcome to Garden Church Podcast. We're taking a break from our Revelation series while our lead pastor, Darren Rounce, is on sabbatical. During this time, we're gonna continue to push into the Garden's mission of creating resilient disciples by working our way through the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next few weeks, we'll have some amazing pastors from all over the world coming to impart their wisdom and insight on what is the most influential and profound sermon ever given. Enjoy.

Bill Dogterom: 00:30

Well, good morning. It's good to be with you and to continue this, conversation on, well, it's part been part of garden culture since the very beginning. I can remember, at least a couple of times doing series of sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, and, we'll probably do it again in the next 15 years of our of our history. And particularly when Darren's on on sabbatical issue and and kinda has carried the weight of the revelation series, which was getting pretty dense for me. I don't know what y'all is like.

Bill Dogterom: 01:06

Gee. One more fire falling, and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That said, it's important for us to to re anchor, isn't it?

Bill Dogterom: 01:17

Kind of at the at the center of the the the we know what's coming, and we don't need to be anxious about it because we're anchored, in in the reality. Sermon on the Mount is kind of a a midrash, a a Jewish word that talks about kind of a running commentary and development of an old testament theme. Jesus anchors it in the 10 words, the the so called we call them the 10 commandments. Even though the word commandment does not appear in either Exodus or Deuteronomy, the the the Hebrew there says these are the 10 words. This is the words these are the words of life.

Bill Dogterom: 01:57

This is how life works best. If you if you would if you if you run within these these lanes, if you will, then you're gonna be just fine. The kind of life you say you want will become will will just come to you, along the way. And Jesus has noticed how how we love to color outside the lines, how we love to say, here's the line. I had a boy once.

Bill Dogterom: 02:20

Still do as it turns out. Our our middle son who who loved the rules, so he knew exactly how to break them. We had one time we had a glass tabletop, in a on a coffee table in our living room, and and and the rule was don't touch the table, 3 year old. Right? But they're terrorists.

Bill Dogterom: 02:43

3 year olds are all terrorists. They're they're just so it was like is that touching? If is that touching? And we love to that's us. That's us in a nutshell.

Bill Dogterom: 03:00

How close can we get to the edge with falling over without falling over the cliff? Oh, help me. Help me. Help me. I fell over the cliff.

Bill Dogterom: 03:05

Well, So Jesus takes advantage of the world that we have created instead of the world which he has spoken. The words create a certain world, and we have chosen a different one by, you know, and we have chosen a different one by misinterpreting, by figuring out how to keep the rules without actually keeping the rules, and said, we gotta start over. Then he begins with the kind of the beatitudes, as you know, at the beginning of the year, these loved losers who were not qualified in and of themselves and says, even you people who have been set out with the trash, you belong. And then he says, now that you're in, you're the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world.

Bill Dogterom: 03:54

You're God's plan to save the planet, so you need to be holy. You need to be righteous in a way that exceeds the behavioral standards of the most righteous people you know. They're Pharisees. Clearly, this is an inside job before it's an outside job. It's gotta be something in us, transformed, changed, in order for it not to become performative, where we know how to behave when somebody's watching.

Bill Dogterom: 04:25

And the Pharisees had had perfected, and I know because I'm one of them, have perfected a way of behaving when others are watching, a way of keeping the rules without keeping the heart of the rule. And so Jesus just goes right after it with this first conversation, and it's fascinating to me. Jesus is a brilliant teacher. So he just gives us a couple of quick snapshots on on how this works. And the first one that he goes after is anger.

Bill Dogterom: 04:57

Anger, which I'd prefer he'd started with something else. But the reason he starts with anger, I think, is that anger is at the root of all of the rest of our brokenness. Why are we angry? Well, because we can't do what we know we ought to do. The boundaries have been violated, all kinds of things.

Bill Dogterom: 05:16

And instead of dealing with our own brokenness, we externalize blame to other people and treat them as scapegoats. We treat them with contempt. We dismiss them as fools outside of the realm of god's mercy. Right? And then having dealt with anger, he turns to the ways in which desire has gotten hijacked and has now become a trip hazard for the life of righteousness that he invites us into.

Bill Dogterom: 05:48

Apparently, you haven't been reading ahead because you're all here, because today we're gonna talk about sex. And I am, just to be fair, usually with 18 to 22 year olds at the university, so buckle up. I, and and the reason I do that, by the way, is so much shame has been attached to even the conversation about sexuality that we have lost the ability to talk about it with without with without any any context. And Jesus, of course, is not prohibited by that because he knows what is at root of this. And I just wanna say this upfront.

Bill Dogterom: 06:31

This is a no shame zone.

Intro/Outro: 06:34

This this the the this this is at least this

Bill Dogterom: 06:37

is my heart. This is not condemnation. Shame has been so much a part of my sexuality as a kid growing up in a purity culture, classical Pentecostal culture. To even think was to sin. Can I just temptation isn't sin?

Bill Dogterom: 06:54

Desire isn't sin. Longing isn't sin. Underneath that, Jesus knows, is a a desire for connection, a desire for intimacy, a desire to be held and known fully can only be satisfied in god. But we have chosen to let it get hijacked, and now desire becomes, instead of something that draws us to one another, something that others the other, objectifies them, reduces them, depersonalizes them, and with them, us. So Jesus says enough is enough.

Bill Dogterom: 07:36

We're gonna go after this, and he begins here in verse 27. You've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. I tell you, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully, looks to lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out. Throw it away.

Bill Dogterom: 08:04

Better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. Throw it away. Better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. It has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.

Bill Dogterom: 08:27

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her a victim of adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Can we just be clear? Jesus is not introducing new law, new rules and regulations. He's going after the root of our brokenness. So he says, whoever you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery.

Bill Dogterom: 08:57

That's that's one of the top ten. Right? It's one of the words. And and and he knows that that baseline condition, if we had paid attention to that, would have been able would enable us to have have created the culture of trust and and in intimacy that is necessary as a building block for for, human community. If if if if you're sleeping around, don't be surprised if your marriage isn't built on trust and foundations of trust.

Bill Dogterom: 09:29

Do do you see? And and and and he says, here's here's the problem. You figured out how not to commit adultery by not committing adultery with your body, but doing it in your mind. You've you've you've missed the point because when you when you look at a person and reduce her to an object who exists for your sexual satisfaction, you have diminished her personhood. You have failed to see her as part of the image of God And when you do that, you do the same thing to yourself.

Bill Dogterom: 10:08

This is in a nutshell what he's after here. And I think it's it he because Jesus knows it's possible, not to commit adultery physically, but have a have a commitment breaking heart. And he's against this, obviously, for good reason because he wants his kingdom to come. You wanna be salt and light? You wanna be a transformative presence in the culture?

Bill Dogterom: 10:30

Then you you you can't you can't live by the rules of the culture. You just you just can't. And and this obviously has woven its way into our brokenness at so many different levels. Right? People in Jesus's kingdom, he says, can and must move away from sin, from doing sin, and move towards being righteous.

Bill Dogterom: 10:55

So this is I mean, it's not difficult to know, kind of where where the where this is going. But let me dig into this a little bit in and unpack it. First of all, even though in his culture cultural point of reference, it would have made more specific sense to address men specifically because they had all the power in this in the spaces, this applies equally to women and men. I think one of the things that have have have have worked its way into the shame culture with regards to sexuality is that men have a different kind of sexuality than women do. The truth of the matter is we are equally built to desire.

Bill Dogterom: 11:37

Underneath the desire is for intimacy with God that gets hijacked by, by lust, and it works differently for women than it does for men. In in general, women tend to have an objectification of men reduced to roles, reduced to the positions they play, reduced to the provider, reduced to the hero, reduced to the to the to the rescuer. This is these these archetypes show up in our culture. Men tend to reduce women to body parts. So when we think through this, Jesus is just saying this applies equally to both, and we need to work at the recovery of these things, because, even though they're they're they're enculturated differently, the deep longing at the core of our being that will only be satisfied in God is still present for for each.

Bill Dogterom: 12:37

And so what he says is, not looks and lusts, but looks to lust. It's a really important distinction. Jesus is very aware that because of the desire that is built into us from the get go, that you cannot pray away. God will never remove that longing, that desire, No matter how distorted, broken it gets at this level, at the core, it's the connection to god that will not be removed. It's woven into the fabric of our being.

Bill Dogterom: 13:15

So he says, here's how you can stop that desire, which is God's gift to you that longs for home, longs for connection, longs to be known, longs to know, longs to intimacy that produces without it an existential loneliness in the world. He's built into us a a a longing to counteract the loneliness in the world right and and he says it here's here's what if if if you will if you will start to notice when you were attracted to someone Turn the corner on your attention Just take a beat take a bit don't deliberately dwell on the pulse of it of desire The desire is woven into you. You will experience it with multiple persons throughout the course of your lifetime. It doesn't have to push you around. Desire isn't permission.

Bill Dogterom: 14:24

Attraction isn't destiny. It's just what it is. It's caboose. It's not engine. It's it's the it's not the driver.

Bill Dogterom: 14:34

It's the indicator. There's some life there still in in in the system. Right? So when when I when I when I when I'm attracted to a person, when I when I notice their their beauty or their power or their strength, whatever it is that I'm longing for at the center only met finally with God, I I shouldn't I shouldn't shame myself because of the pulse of temptation. I shouldn't shame myself because that desire is there.

Bill Dogterom: 15:02

I shouldn't shame because there's no shame in that. That's part of the equipment that we were issued with. Right? The core of our being to but what ends up happening is that we, having been enculturated by, the the the violation of the words, is that we now use that desire, that pulse of of of noticing, of attraction, and it's so different for every person and it at varying stages of life, it ebbs and flows, married or not, single. It doesn't doesn't matter.

Bill Dogterom: 15:38

It it just keeps on showing up. It keeps on with with with the well, let me just finish, with with a a couple of things. This isn't the casual glance. This isn't the notice. What ends up happening?

Bill Dogterom: 15:51

He says as you sit on that you camp on that. You start to take it inside and you start to fantasize about that. You build a whole and it takes how long? That fast. Because we have gotten into the ditch of brokenness.

Bill Dogterom: 16:09

And it just we just we're just there so fast. So he says, let's notice that stirring, that first moment of and you and you know how this works. It ebbs and flows throughout the course of a 24 hour cycle. It ebbs and flows throughout the course of a week. It ebbs and flows throughout the course of a month, throughout the course of a year.

Bill Dogterom: 16:29

Pay attention. Notice. Not for the sake of shame, but for the sake of holiness. There are times when you are more vulnerable than other times. Pay attention to that.

Bill Dogterom: 16:41

There are times if opportunity, crosses weakness, we're gonna crash and burn. Right? So pay attention. And and and and and notice what's happening. Don't dwell on and cultivate the look.

Bill Dogterom: 16:58

Don't nurture or indulgence of pleasure. Invite God, and this is the hard part, into the very core of that initial desire. Don't waste your temptation. Don't waste your desire Recognize it for what it actually is Recognize it for the pulse of life with eternity in your heart that draws you to intimacy with God. And and and start to notice where is where is God present in this moment, in the in the noticing of attraction, in the recognition of of of longing?

Bill Dogterom: 17:41

How where where is god in this space? As soon as you start to bring god into the conversation, the hold on that temptation begins to loosen. Because the enemy is not stupid. He is limited in power. He has no creative ability.

Bill Dogterom: 18:00

He keeps playing the same shell game with us over and over and over again, and we keep losing. Why not just say, I'm not gonna play that game with you today. I I've learned my lesson. I know how hard this is. I really especially in a culture, remember that Jesus is writing in a in a highly promiscuous culture in the Roman empire, far more so than ours, believe it or not, in ways that we can't even begin to imagine.

Bill Dogterom: 18:28

We'll get to one here in a minute. But he is he's Jesus isn't naive. Please notice how safe women felt around him. Because he had no sexual desire? No.

Bill Dogterom: 18:45

No. No. We're clear. He he was tempted in the same ways you are, but he wasn't gonna let his temptation push him around. So here were women who had figured out how to use their sexuality as a way of survival in that culture who recognize this isn't gonna work with him.

Bill Dogterom: 19:08

I've gotta be loved on his terms, not mine. Let me say that again. I have to be loved on his terms, not mine. That makes me vulnerable. That creates risk, and it opens the door for intimacy.

Bill Dogterom: 19:29

So here, all of these women, and and and, by the way, I think because of that vulnerability, they got stuff way faster than the men did. Way faster. They knew where he was going from the get that woman who anointed his feet with oil at the at the beginning of the week that he was dying, she's days ahead of the guys who are still fighting about which of them is the greatest. Why? Because she'd already cracked open her heart to somebody who wasn't gonna take advantage of her in a way that she wasn't intended to be taken advantage of.

Bill Dogterom: 20:05

That's why. Right? So so so Jesus says, god has pronounced desire good. He has pronounced even sexual longing good, And and and and and the enemy's strategy is to hijack it for a purpose for which it was not intended. Notice the connection between anger as the first part of the conversation and sexuality as the second.

Bill Dogterom: 20:26

So much of our sexual brokenness is not about sex at all. It's about anger. It's about power. It's about weakness out of control, which is what anger ends up becoming. Because this response to anger is gentleness, strength under control.

Bill Dogterom: 20:46

So so here here's this this this this hijacking, of of legitimate desire for the purposes for which it was not intended, and it will do in which it will do unspeakable harm. Because it's a soul it it involves our whole being. You can't just sleep with somebody with your body. Your whole being shows up and gets wrung out in that moment. You I I don't like the language of soul ties for all kinds of reasons, but as a quick snapshot, this is this is I've I'm walking with somebody right now who's started to sleep with with with her boyfriend, and it's like, oh, girl.

Bill Dogterom: 21:31

That that is creating a false intimacy. You feel close, and you're really just start to move towards marriage built on a false intimacy that is not built on the friendship intimacies, social and intellectual, that will enable a lifetime of relationship. And you will never not have that image in your mind. Why? Because it's that's how God built the system.

Bill Dogterom: 22:03

The first person we sleep with is the person to whom we are bonded and and and connected. So when we sleep with multiple partners, parts of ourselves are fragmented. Parts of ourselves, and I I I I again, let me just say, friends, this Jesus is so good at putting the all of Humpty Dumpty's pieces back together again. It's not that they're out there floating around damned for eternity. It's that he will redeem and So it's it's it's not like the game's He will do that.

Bill Dogterom: 22:46

Praise god. So it's it's it's not like the game's over. It's just like, no. No. No.

Bill Dogterom: 22:51

Don't quit before the final whistle here. Let let's stay stay in the game. Our because what ends up happening is that the kingdom community, and this we see so often in the me too movement that has now got a church too fragmentation, so much of the scandals of the last several years have reflected that the that that life in the kingdom is as infected by this level and layers these layers of brokenness, and and Jesus is heartbroken. Guys, we gotta get this right, because you will be working, women and men, in collaborative, cooperative, relational community for eternity, or at least in time. So we have to figure out how to be in relationship men with men, men with women, women with men, women with women, in non competitive ways that contribute to wholeness, that have appropriate levels of boundaried intimacy, that enable us to image God.

Bill Dogterom: 23:54

You remember the image of God is male and female. Male and female. Do you understand why the enemy is so strategic in going after the relationships between women and men. If he can reduce the personhood of another by reducing her or him to an object, capacity to image God is compromised. So he goes after it.

Bill Dogterom: 24:23

And and and and Jesus knows this isn't about shaming. This isn't about and and by the way, it's worth saying, it's not about blaming the object either. Oh, if she weren't so, if he wasn't so. No. No.

Bill Dogterom: 24:34

No. No. No. No. Temptation isn't out there.

Bill Dogterom: 24:36

It's in here. It's it's it's not in what you wear wore or didn't wear. It's not in the in the catching of the touchdown pass that elevated him to trophy status. It's not those images. That's not out.

Bill Dogterom: 24:51

What's what's what's connected though is the center in which I wanna reduce that to something who exists for my satisfaction. That's the problem. So he goes after this at the center. The temptation isn't out there, but like James says, it's in here, which is why he tells the joke that he tells. We haven't heard this as, a joke, but watch the twinkle in his eye when he says to this stunned audience, if your right hand offend you, cut it off.

Bill Dogterom: 25:27

It's better to enter better to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be if your right eye offend you, pluck it out. What's he doing? He's going after the illusion that temptation is external, and I can control it by willpower alone. He's going after the notion that this is primarily physical, not existential and spiritual. So he says, go ahead, pluck your eye out, that might help the looking.

Bill Dogterom: 26:02

But it will do nothing to deal with the lusting. You have a storehouse of images and fantasies in your brain. You don't need a single other look to blow yourself up. Maybe cutting your hand off will reduce the likelihood of physical behaviors, but it it it it won't actually address the condition of your heart. So here's here's the here's the you'll you'll you'll sightless, limbless lumps of lusting rolling around in the kingdom of the heavens.

Bill Dogterom: 26:38

I don't think that's what he's after here. I don't think that's what he's after here. Jesus, this is not new law. It's an invitation to new life. Right?

Bill Dogterom: 26:50

He's pointing to becoming the kind of person for whom the kingdom of the heavens will feel like home. And so he says, look, you guys have figured out an end run around this. He's talking primarily the Pharisees. Remember, men had all the legal power, they could divorce their wife by saying the word. So I'm not committing adultery because that means sleeping with somebody to whom I'm not married.

Bill Dogterom: 27:19

But I put her out with the trash so I could marry that one that attracted my eye at the Starbucks. And Jesus is just saying, yeah, you've kept the rules, but you're not playing the same game anymore. You're you're you're you're in a culture of brokenness that have figured out how by your serial monogamy to avoid the charge of adultery so you can feel good about the way you objectify persons and reduce them to objects. That woman in John chapter, 4 who had been put out with it by the trash by 5 different husbands, that's what he's going after here. She's not an immoral woman.

Bill Dogterom: 28:05

We've miscast her. She's a victim of a legal system that was slanted towards men. So notice what Jesus is going after here. He says, you're responsible now for her. You're responsible for her.

Bill Dogterom: 28:22

You're responsible for her. Now I need to say something. 1st, divorce as was practiced in Jesus' day is what he's going after here. I, and Jesus, is fully aware, as Moses makes the case that sometimes divorce is the lesser of 2 evils. In our cultural reality, that's just true.

Bill Dogterom: 28:48

Because we are hardened of heart like Moses' people were, we are broken in all kinds of ways, and when we do that, we break other people. He's not sanctioning it in the sense of, go out whenever and however. He's just saying, for this particular situation, this particular don't weaponize divorce for purposes other than what Moses intended it for. So, sometimes we need to recognize that. And by the way, even so, divorce is not unforgivable.

Bill Dogterom: 29:24

It's not unredeemable. Jesus does amazing things with anything that he's given. He can play a winning hand with whatever cards are dealt him. So if you present him your brokenness and your dissolution and your shame at being put out with the trash, or is the one who broke the covenant in the first place because marriage is intended to to to to reflect the character, of God's commitment to us. Right?

Bill Dogterom: 29:55

And you've gotten it sideways. There's hope, there's help, there's healing, there's redemption. He is astonishingly good at whatever we put into his hands, but don't you dare try and redeem it yourself because you can't, you won't. You'll end up with a plastic rigid kind of formality that doesn't reflect the nature of the kingdom. So so when marriage loses its telos remember, can I marriage is about something?

Bill Dogterom: 30:28

It's about growth to Christ likeness. Not happy, holy. Happy comes along or not, but holy is the goal. And when we forget what race it is we're running and take an off ramp, we ought not be surprised that it doesn't work very well. Do do do you see?

Bill Dogterom: 30:52

Same thing, by the way. Singleness is is is is not about freedom. It's about Christ likeness. So so when we put these 2 together, we reckon, oh, wait, this is going someplace. And when marriage is it loses its focal point, it becomes often about sanctioned sex.

Bill Dogterom: 31:12

It becomes about the the reduction of partners to property, to objects, a legal arrangement without the covering of covenant, and that's what Jesus is pushing back against. So a couple of things. Desire is intended to draw us into intimacy with god, and in that, to appropriately boundaried intimacy with the image of god that is the other. When it is hijacked by life lust, that desire becomes about something else. Competition, conquest, possession, control, dominance, manipulation, pleasure for pleasure's sake.

Bill Dogterom: 31:59

It damages our capacity for intimate relationship with others, and finally, with ourselves and ultimately with god. We become nothing more than a collection of wants that drive behavior. So what do we wanna do? Honor and acknowledge desire without being pushed around by it. The biblical word for this is chastity.

Bill Dogterom: 32:29

It's an old fashioned word. It applies both to singles and to marrieds. It is the fruit of the spirit that is sexual self control that Paul talks about in Philippi Galatians. Thank you. Chapter 5.

Bill Dogterom: 32:45

Because because the truth is if I can't say no to my desire and and and let it have its focus, If I can't do that, it begins to push me around, which ends up me pushing other people around, bullying them into compliance. So chastity is the learning of desire without the need to possess, without the need to act on that desire. It's essential in any relationship. It is more necessary in marriage than it is before marriage. It's easier to learn before marriage because once you've started to sleep with somebody, that has a life of its own.

Bill Dogterom: 33:32

And unless chastity has begun to take root, gentleness, sexual self control has begun to take root, There's a reason why sexual problems are the 2nd largest cause of divorce in the country. There's a reason for that. And the reason that Jesus is after here, I'm gonna suggest, is that we haven't learned to be chased. We haven't learned, to to to work together as women and men in order to image god, and that's what we're after. Let's pray.

Bill Dogterom: 34:03

Oh, lord. This is a lot, and it's heavy, at least for me, because I'm still working this out like everybody else is. But at the same time, lord, I don't want to miss the opportunity to say, Jesus, can you join us in this? Or more specifically, can we join you in this? Can we offer up our legitimate and appropriate desires which we have received as part of our being created to be part of your image, intended to bind us hearts and beings to you so that we can be bonded well to others.

Bill Dogterom: 34:43

Lord, come into the center of that, especially when it starts to wobble, especially when it starts to be reduced to body parts or images or roles or other kinds of things and gets hijacked. And I pray for my brothers and sisters very specifically here in this place. I pray for garden church that your kingdom would come here here and that you would teach us and let us model the kind of chastity the kind of chaste way of being that redeems both marriage and singleness and sexuality and radiates out with wholeness, a righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees, so that we can be salt and light. We ask this in your name.

Intro/Outro: 35:35

Thank you for listening. For more information, please visit us at garden.church.