This past weekend at Zion, we continued our message series Keeping Score, where we’ve been exploring some of the different ways we keep score in life. And we do keep score—all the time.
We tally what he said. We track what she did. We log our own guilt, calculate what we’re owed, and obsess over the hidden ledgers of our lives.
Keeping score might offer a brief sense of control, but it’s a rigged game where everyone eventually loses—even the person on top.
So, what if we stopped all that? What if we kept score no more?
In Sunday’s message, we confronted one of humanity’s most destructive scorekeeping struggles: lust.
Lust is a cold, transactional form of scorekeeping. It objectifies, measures, and commodifies. It sizes up another soul—How do they look? How do they compare? What can they deliver?—and pares a person down to points.
This is why Jesus is so hell-bent—literally!—against lust:
“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.” (Matthew 5:29–30)
Over the centuries, some Christians have sometimes misunderstood Jesus’ graphic warning as an indictment of the human body. Because the body can become aroused by lust, some believers have treated it as evil—something to beat into submission or escape altogether. The fourth-century historian Eusebius reports that the third-century theologian Origen even castrated himself. But amputating appendages misses Jesus’ target entirely.
Jesus demands radical action not because the body is evil, but because the body matters to God.
This is part of what makes the multibillion-dollar pornography industry so insidious. Pornography hollows out the body by severing it from the person. It traps viewers in a disembodied voyeurism that trains them to leer at human bodies while ignoring the human beings who inhabit them.
The Indian preacher Zac Poonen once argued for the value of the body this way:
“Martin Luther reminded those who felt that the body was the cause of sin, that the Lord Jesus had a body on earth, but was yet sinless, whereas the devil who has no body, is full of sin.”
The Luther attribution is probably apocryphal, but the point remains profound: getting rid of your body will not get rid of your sin.
Sin may use your eyes and hands, but its source lies somewhere else—somewhere deeper:
“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.” (Matthew 5:27–28)
Sin, Jesus says, springs all the way down from in the heart.
This is why you cannot just chop your way to purity. You need more than an amputation. You need a transplant.
Roughly six centuries before Jesus warned against lust, the prophet Ezekiel ministered to an adulterous, idolatrous nation. God’s people Israel had cheated on Him with the gods of other nations. By the time Ezekiel gets to them, God’s judgment for their adulterous idolatry has already arrived. Jerusalem has fallen. Their temple has been destroyed. And many of God’s people have been dragged into exile. But into their seemingly hopeless devastation, God makes a stunning proclamation:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
God locates His people’s deepest problem in their hearts. And He promises heart surgery to fix the problem.
But notice the tense:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
Surgery was on its way. But Israel would have to wait a while in history’s waiting room.
Then, one day, a surgeon named Jesus arrived. The apostle Paul describes Jesus’ arrival this way:
“God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.” (Galatians 4:6)
When Jesus arrives in our hearts by faith, He goes right to His surgical work. He removes our hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh. He takes Ezekiel’s future promise and turns it into a present reality.
Does this mean temptation disappears or that we never sin again? No. Does it mean that Jesus’ forgiveness is greater than every sin? Absolutely.
If you’re struggling with lust, you don’t need to hide. After all, sin grows in darkness. Bring your struggle into the light with a trusted Christian friend, pastor, or counselor. You need honest support and faithful accountability. But while accountability can expose the struggle, only Christ can transform your heart.
So, above all, surrender your struggle to Jesus. He does not merely command you to try harder. He forgives your sin, sends you His Spirit, and goes to work at the source. He gives you a new heart.
And a new heart means fresh hope—even when the temptation feels old.