The Radical Demands of the King

Mark 9:42-48

Transcript

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Well, good morning, church family. It is good to see you. Good to be with you. Opening the word together. We're going to be in Mark chapter nine, if you want to be turning there. And we've had our uh, this is a fifth Sunday, so this is a youth Sunday where we um allow some of the kids to serve in different areas, and they've been uh done a great job with that this morning. Uh we're always it's always a you know, kids are precious to us, amen. And we we want to show them that they're they're just as much a part of our fellowship and they have a role here too. And um, so it's been wonderful. Thank you, kids, each each of you that served in the different areas this morning. Yes, amen. Um, yeah, it's always a special time, I think, to have to have them uh kind of join us in in those serving areas. Um this is uh kind of a bittersweet Sunday for us, because this is going to be Kate's last day for the summer for us. And so Kate and Seth, uh, if you're if you're not aware, are going on mission to LA uh in in just a couple weeks, right? Uh and they'll be gone for six weeks, six weeks out in LA. And so it's sweet because we we love to send them out, you know, as missionaries, and and and the Lord calls us to go and reach the unreached. And so um we are we're so proud of them and and thankful to be able to do that. But uh it's also a little bit bitter for us, isn't it? So we'll um we will miss you guys dearly. Seth, I think we'll still be here next week, but um, but this is Kate's last Sunday, and so um, but you know that that's what it's about. You know, we we uh we love each other and love being with each other, but we we've also got to send out sometimes, right? And send out to the world and um you know build up here and then send out and go go reach the unreached. And so this is part of that. It's a uh bittersweet day for us, but uh we're excited for you guys and uh so excited to send you out. So before we do anything else, I want to uh just spend just a couple minutes to pray for for Kate and for Seth and just that the Lord would go before them and and prepare hearts and he would be with them, that their his presence would be so felt um this whole summer while they're away from us and uh doing the Lord's work. So if you'll join me, let's let's bow and and and pray for for Kate and Seth. Father, I thank you so much for um your your great gospel, Lord, and it's a message that uh, Lord, it's not just for us in this room, Father, but we have to get it out there. We have to get it to the unreached, Lord. And let that be heavy upon our hearts, Lord. How how am I reaching the unreached in my personal life right now, Father? And let that drive us um to maybe make some changes in that area if we need to, Father. Um, but Lord, we're we're so thankful for for Seth and for Kate and for the heart that you've given them for LA this summer. Um, we're thankful for the church there that they're gonna be working working with. Um we're thankful for the community that they're gonna be uh working in, Lord. And God, we just pray um, Father, first of all, that that you would just purify their hearts as they go. Lord, that you would uh these these last couple weeks would just be such sweet fellowship with you, um, sweeter than it's ever been, Lord, that that you would do do the hard work of of Lord uh removing any any sin that might be hindering or any um any baggage or that might be hindering their time this summer, Father. I pray that um I pray that these these couple weeks as they have uh still at home that um that you would do that work, Lord, in them and that you would fellowship greatly with them. And Lord, I pray that as they go, you would give them strength, you give them boldness, um, you give them courage to go. Um and and just speak your word in love. Uh, but Lord, stand firm on your truth, which is the truth. Uh, Lord, give them the the power of your Holy Spirit to stand firm even when it's difficult. Lord, give them encouragement when they need encouragement. Father, help them to know and and fill our prayers here at home. Um, and uh Lord, I just pray that they would be comforted by the love of this church family as they're there and the love of the church family that they'll be working with, Lord. Father, as they go, will you prepare the hearts of the people they're gonna encounter? Um, Lord, just miraculously, supernaturally go before them. Lord, I pray that you put them in situations that um immediately it's just like that you did that, Lord. It's so clear that you did that, Lord, and that this would be a time to um strengthen their faith. Um, Lord, and also grow your kingdom. Father, we um we want your kingdom to be grown in LA uh this summer, and we want you to use Kate and Seth to do that, Lord, in in supernatural and miraculous ways. Um, Lord, we're so thankful for their willingness um to go, as your word says, to go. And Father, I thank you for them following you in obedience in this. And as they do that, Lord, just strengthen them. Just strengthen them, Father. Help us to be thinking about them often. Um, help us to reach out and and and keep contact and and see what's going on, see what the Lord is doing over in LA this summer. Um But Father, we're we're so thrilled to send them out and and to watch and and see what you'll do through them this summer. Uh so Father, you just do your thing and help them to be your obedient vessels in that. And Lord, we're so thankful for them, uh both of them, in our church family and uh the difference that they make here at Risen Life and in this community and uh Lord on that college campus, Father, in so many areas they make uh such a difference for your kingdom um right here, Lord. And now we we pray that they would make that same difference and even more um as they go and just be with them, Father. And uh we love you and we we pray for our service this morning as we open your word that you would just speak, Father, and um we love you, we thank you for Jesus, and we ask all these things in his name, amen. Amen. All right. Well, uh, if you will turn with me to to Mark chapter nine, and we're gonna jump back into our study uh through this wonderful gospel, uh, where we're in this section learning much about what it means to follow Jesus as his disciple. And so we're gonna pick it up in verse 42 this morning, in the middle of Jesus' private teaching with his 12 disciples in a house in Capernaum. But before we pick it up there, let's briefly review what we've been learning the past few weeks about discipleship. So this section began in uh chapter 8 and verse 34, where we saw that discipleship requires following Jesus in sacrifice. And so that's where we read those difficult words of Jesus. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. If we would truly follow Jesus, we must be willing to follow him in living a life of sacrifice. And then in chapter 9, we saw that discipleship also requires complete dependency upon God. And we exercise that dependency upon God through spiritual disciplines. And we looked at that early in chapter 9. So the disciplines, time with the Lord in prayer, time studying his word, memorizing his word, fasting, um, time with the people of God and many other spiritual disciplines that we could talk about this morning, but discipleship involves those spiritual disciplines and growing closer to Christ through those disciplines. How can we say that we follow him if we have no desire to spend time with him? Amen? How can we say that we follow him if we we we do not spend time with him? And so then last week we we looked at verses 30 through 41, where the disciples are are arguing about who is the greatest, right? After all of this from Jesus, and they're arguing who is the greatest, and we learned through Jesus' rebuke of them that discipleship requires following Jesus in service to others. Jesus says that if anyone would be first in his kingdom, he must be last of all and servant of all. For the disciple, the greatest concern must be building the kingdom of God, even at the expense of building my own kingdom and the things that maybe I want here on earth. And so we're learning that that though Jesus has paid it all, Jesus has shed his blood to die for our sins and pave the way to heaven for us completely by his work at the cross. There's nothing we can earn. Though all that is true, it is a high calling and a difficult calling to follow Jesus as his disciple. But Jesus doesn't ask us to go anywhere that he himself hasn't first gone. And he has gone much further than we ever will. So this morning, as we continue with Jesus' teaching to the 12, we're going to add two more lessons for them and for us about discipleship. And just buckle your seatbelts for this passage, because this is some of the strongest language we'll find from Jesus in the New Testament. And this is going to be a hard sermon, and this is going to be a hard passage for us to get here through this morning. Um, but we need it, right? We need what God says to us. So our title this morning is going to be The Radical Demands of the King. And so I'm going to ask you to stand with me. We're going to read chapter 9, verses 42 through 48. So Jesus is kind of in the middle of speaking to his disciples here, and he continues. He says, Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell, and if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Let's pray one more time. Father, help us, Lord, as we uh we see these difficult words of Jesus. Um Father, they're they're hard words for us. And Lord, I pray that your message would go out this morning, that you would speak through me uh to these people and to myself, Father. We need to hear this, Lord. Um, you have us here for a reason. Um, Father, I pray that you would help us to take as seriously um the things in this passage as you take them. Lord, change and transform our hearts. And if there's anyone who doesn't know you, Lord, help them to know that they can come to you. Lord, that the gift is free. They can come and they will receive forgiveness of sins and newness of life. Um, Lord, I pray that if there's one who needs that this morning, that you would save them. Um, Father, and I pray that we would get serious this morning about attacking the sin in our lives, Lord. And I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. All right. Well, as I mentioned, these are some of the strongest, most jarring words that we find in Scripture from our Lord. There's no way around it. We we tend to be more attracted to the sweet words of Jesus, don't we? We like the sweet words of Jesus. Oh, I'm always with you. I give you peace. Not as the world gives you peace, I give you even better peace, right? Take heart. I have overcome the world. Right? I am gentle and lowly, my burden is light. Come to me, all who are weary, and I will give you rest. We love those words of Jesus, right? Amen. We love those sweet words of Jesus. And while all those words are very true and quite comforting for us as disciples, um, those are for another day, and these words are for today. Um, and these words are just as true, and we need to hear them just as much. We need to hear them just as much as the easy words of Jesus. In this section, Jesus gives two very strong warnings that come from two very clear realities. And those two clear realities are that one, Jesus deeply loves and cares for those who put their trust in him. Jesus deeply cares for believers. That is clear. And two, Jesus deeply hates, hates the sin that took him to the cross and causes separation between us and God. Jesus hates sin. And so springing up from those two truths, Jesus calls his disciples to follow him once again. So let's look at two radical demands of Jesus here. Only two points this morning, but probably going to be just as long. So don't uh don't be thinking that we're gonna get out early or something. We're probably not. Um, just two points, though. First point, radical love for the king's little ones. Radical love for the king's little ones. Now, remember with me from last week that Jesus has brought into the midst of himself and the disciples a little child. He's brought a little child in. Um perhaps this was the child of Peter, as some have speculated, but um we don't know. It's that the child is not named or mentioned. Uh, we can't be sure whose child this is. But he brings this child inside their circle. And Matthew 18 records that he instructs these disciples, who have been arguing over who is the greatest, that unless they become like this child, they will never enter the kingdom. In other words, they must become humble. They must become dependent upon God, bringing nothing to the table but trust in Christ. And so Jesus uses this child as an illustration and a symbol for those who believe in him. And he goes further in in verse 37 that whoever receives one such child in my name, or receives another believer, receives also him, receives Jesus, and ultimately receives the Father. Now, for this reason, this symbolism here, this illustration, um, many commentators go straight to that symbolism in verse 42, saying that Jesus is not talking about children, but he's strictly talking about believers. And I do agree that the primary meaning here is this strong warning is against causing believers to stumble. And we're gonna get to that. However, I don't find it insignificant at all that Jesus is using a small child to make his illustration. And surely he must have had children also in mind when he gives the warning. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. As I mentioned last week, children in the Roman Empire, and also in ancient cultures, ancient Jewish culture, were really considered insignificant. You know, um, for a rabbi and during a rabbi's teaching, that they would be considered a hindrance. Like they get the children away. This is not children time, right? This is uh a distraction from the teaching. And many even today would view children in that way. And we'll see that that view in chapter 10, where Jesus addresses children once again. So we're gonna talk about children once more in chapter 10. But what is clear in both of these, uh both of these passages, so chapter 10 and here, and throughout the ministry of Jesus, is that children are very precious to Jesus. He makes that very clear in his ministry. I don't want to cover too much on the topic because, again, we're gonna see that in a few weeks. But Jesus takes the protection, the care, and the love for children extremely seriously. I hope we understand that this morning. So seriously, in fact, that I believe at least part of the warning here in Mark 9 is that if you mess with children, violate children, abuse children, mislead children, cause a child to stumble in faith towards him, it would be better for you to have an enormous millstone that only a donkey could move. Have that millstone tied to your neck and be drowned in the sea. Those are big words. Jesus takes this very, very seriously. There is a punishment even far worse than this type of terrible drowning that Jesus describes here. There's a punishment far worse reserved for those who would destroy the faith of a child. And we need to take that seriously in this church and in our lives. This message needs to be loud and clear to us in a world that in many ways seems to protect and even elevate to high positions those who have sinned greatly against children. Although the world may excuse this more and more, and they will continue to do it more and more. The world is going to continue to be okay with these things. At least to the degree they're comfortable with. Though the world may continue to excuse this more and more, do not be deceived into thinking it escapes the eye of our God. And that God will not have his vengeance. He will have his vengeance, which is far worse than any vengeance that could be enacted here on earth. You may get away with something here on earth, but you will not get away with it in the eyes of God. Jesus abhors evil done to children. So let's get that straight. Um, let's not miss that picture before we move on. The preciousness of a child and the protection children deserve in the Lord's eyes. I think every every time one of these precious babies is born into our fellowship, I believe the Lord smiles. He is so happy about that because he loves children deeply. And praise the Lord that we have a church full of them. Amen. And praise the Lord that we have a church full of them. So let's be a church that protects children, loves them deeply, and includes them in our fellowship and even in serving in some ways, and and displays the kind of atmosphere that would lead children into the loving arms of our Savior. Okay, not push away, but lead them straight to Jesus. So before we move on, let's not miss what really seems to be obvious here, and then I'm surprised a lot of commentators really don't even mention as they want to get to the next point here. Because there is another context for verse 42, as I mentioned before, and it does involve. That symbolism of this child representing all believers in Christ, especially a younger, weaker, newer believer in Christ. He says, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin. That's a believer in Christ who has made himself like a child to enter the kingdom. And the same strong warning applies. If you were going to choose on Thursday to cause another believer to stumble in the faith, it would have been better if you instead on Wednesday had a millstone tied around your neck and were drowned in the sea. These are such strong words from Jesus. And part of this warning as believers should give us great comfort. Just look at the love and the protection Jesus has for those who follow him in faith. Jesus loves you deeply, believer. As believers, those who have placed our faith in Christ, those whose sins are covered by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, we are precious to him. Be encouraged this morning. You are precious to God, believer. Though we may continue to struggle in sin, continue to slip into periods of doubt in our lives, rest assured that the love of our Savior towards you is more than you can imagine. And he's very protective over you. In Acts 9 verse 4, when Jesus calls out Saul on the Damascus Road, he says to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now Paul wasn't, Saul wasn't persecuting Jesus directly. Saul was persecuting who? Christians, the church. But Jesus says, Why are you persecuting me? Jesus identifies with his people. We're called the body of Christ, his very body. We are made one with him in the mystery of salvation. He's placed his spirit within believers, and our bodies have become his temple. To display love to another believer is to display love to Christ himself. But to display hatred or to cause us to be a cause of stumbling for another believer is to display that also to Christ Himself. And he takes that more seriously than we could ever possibly fathom. Now remember, he's replying to John here, who has just told him he was bragging about how he shut down the ministry of a man who was casting out demons in Jesus' name. He says, Well, we told him to stop, though. We told him to stop, Jesus. Don't worry. And Jesus says, Don't do that. He is for me. This man is for me. And surely when Jesus gave this warning now, John may have been a little bit shaken to hear that. Oh, have I done that? Is he talking about me? Have I caused him to stumble? Surely John, that must have been on his mind. What we're learning in this warning is that the disciple of Jesus is called to radical love of others, especially other believers. We're called to radical love of others, especially other believers. The faith of others should be at the top of our list of priorities as his followers. We must be careful not to cause others to stumble into sin or weaken their faith. So let's talk about some ways that we can cause other believers to stumble or sin. Well, first of all, by directly enticing someone to sin. Asking a believer to lie for us, to cover up something. You're directly causing that believer, enticing them to sin. How about when we choose to engage in gossip and we pull others, other believers down with us? Gossip is a sin that we do not take seriously enough as the church worldwide. First of all, we're we're sinning against that brother or sister that we're talking about, right? That's bad enough. But then let me invite somebody else to join me. Let me entice them to sin with me in the evil thoughts that I may be having. Boy, we don't take that seriously enough. There's, of course, enticement to sexual sin. That ought to change the way that we view dating and even marriage. That is a daughter of the king. Don't mess with her. How dare we cause her to sin? How about tempting a brother or sister to watch something that you you well know that God is not pleased with, and you shouldn't be watching? You know, we could really we could go on and on with this, ways that we directly tempt another believer to stumble into sin. And I don't think we take this warning seriously enough. I don't think we we love the brethren like Jesus loves the brethren. Another cause for stumbling is indirect temptation. So when we choose to dress immodestly, indirectly tempting, immodest speech, unkindness, just being unkind to others, tempting them to be unkind to you, provoking words of anger. We may not be directly causing sin, although we are sinning ourselves, but certainly making it very difficult for that believer to stay pure in speech or in deed or in thought. Husbands, I always pick on the husbands, don't I? I'm sorry. I'm not sorry, guys. I'm not sorry. We do need it. Husbands, you are called to dwell with your wife with understanding. I've said that many times from this pulpit. 1 Peter 3 7 says, you are called to dwell with your wife with understanding. We're called to seek to understand, to care about the things bothering our spouse. To gently listen. And show affection. You say, well, I'm just not the affectionate type. Well, don't get married. You're called to show affection to that woman. And to seek to understand her. And when we choose not to seek to understand, we indirectly tempt our wives to sin against God and us. Now she's responsible for her behavior, yes. But can we make it a little bit easier, please? Could we make it a little bit easier on our wives sometimes? Likewise, we could talk to the wives this morning. And we could say, is there time maybe you can make it a little bit easier for your husband to not sin against God and sin against you? Again, his actions are his actions. He's responsible for them. We're each responsible for our own sin. But we must help each other out and not cause each other indirectly or directly to sin against our God. It's clear that God would give strong warning against the one who would tempt another. Parents, we're called in Ephesians 6 4 to not provoke our children to anger. And there's many ways we can do that. By maybe being too overbearing. Or, you know, maybe not having any discipline whatsoever. That's another way, actually. No structure in the home. By being unkind to our children. Or would you talk to an adult the way you talk to your child? By lording our authority over them. You have authority and you need to step into that authority. But do we need to lord our authority over them? Are we provoking our children to sin? We ought to read this warning again. If we are, we could spend a lot more time on this, and we need, you need to spend time with this. I need to spend time with this individually. We don't have time to go through the list of ways that we might be causing others to sin. But you need to seriously ask yourself, ask the Lord, Lord, please show me any ways that I am either directly or indirectly tempting another brother to sin, weakening his faith by my actions. There's at least a third way that we cause others to stumble, and I'm going to call this matters of conscience. There are things that are lawful for believers to take part in that aren't sinful according to Scripture, but provide sort of a great area for us as believers because they may cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians chapters 8 through 10. And so go and read that if you want more context on this. But uh he talks about it in regards to meat sacrificed to idols. Not really an issue of our day, but it was an issue of the early church. And we don't have time to get into the whole argument here, but essentially Paul is saying for the believer, all foods are lawful. You can eat whatever you want to eat legally, and it's not sinful. But if eating something is going to cause my brother to sin or weaken his faith, I need to love him enough to not eat that. Paul sums up his argument in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians 8. He says, Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble. We could use that mindset. That is God's word speaking to us about how well we love one another and the things that you know are going to tempt them. That maybe we need to decide, you know what, it's not worth it for me either. I don't want to cause my brother or my sister to stumble. We ought to love other believers enough in our lives to put their needs above my own. That's difficult to do, yes. But that is your calling. You're a disciple of Christ if you are indeed a disciple of Christ. So you fill in the blank. If drinking this, watching that, partaking in this, going there causes my brother to stumble. Do I love other believers enough to say with Paul, I will never do it again because I love that brother or sister. It may not be sin to me, but it's heavy on their conscience, and I need to love them enough to help them in the faith. This is the mindset of a mature disciple who has become a servant to all. We don't hold anything with a clenched fist, saying, That's mine. You're not going to take that habit of mine. No, you're not taking that. We need to hold everything with an open hand. Saying, Lord, if you want to deal with that area, I know it's not sinful according to your word, but if it's causing someone to stumble, it needs to go. Help me, Lord. So we love other believers enough to care about their stumbling. My goal ought to be to do whatever I can to strengthen, not weaken the faith of another. There's some things that aren't sinful that I ought to be able to, I ought to be willing to give up anyway. If it hurts someone Christ died for. How dare we show indiffer indifference to those for whom Christ died? How dare we show indifference for their struggle, for their stumbling, as we hold so tightly to our preferences and our own convictions or lack thereof? We tend to greatly underestimate Jesus' love and protection for those that are his. And we need to really dwell on this warning. It's better to drown in the sea than to cause one of his little ones to sin. Do you take the body of Christ as seriously as Jesus takes the body of Christ? If we find ourselves in a position where we're being convicted this morning of areas where we are either indirectly, directly, or in matters of conscience, causing others to stumble, we ought to fall on our faces in repentance, begging God for his mercy through the forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ. And we will find it. You will find that mercy and forgiveness. But let's not leave here today without considering this warning and searching our hearts for ways we just do not take this seriously enough. God help us. I read something like that, and I say, God, help me. Help me. Conform my heart into your heart, Lord Jesus. Give me your heart for the brothers and sisters in Christ. Discipleship requires radical love for all, especially for believers. We're called to love and pursue others like Jesus loves and pursues others. But this kind of love for others is impossible without the next warning of Jesus. We're called to radical love, but that flows first from radical warfare against the king's enemy, which is our second and last point this morning. Jesus turns from warning about not causing others to stumble to now warning us about dealing violently with the sin in our lives. And it is violent what he says here. Establish requires going to war against personal sin. Are you at war this morning? You should be. And the warning words here go from serious to even more serious than these verses. Just when you thought Jesus couldn't ramp it up, he does with this warning. Now, but before we unpack this altogether, we need to note that in the ESV and newer translations, you're not going to find verses 44 and 46. So if you were looking for those, um, they're not there in your newer translation. Um if you have the ESV, which we read from here, um you're not gonna find verse 44 or 46. You'll probably find a note at the bottom of your Bible explaining that. And if you have a translation that does have those verses, you'll see that those verses are identical to verse 48, which says, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. So it says that three times and not uh just once in those other translations. And even without it being there three times, we see we still hopefully see how chilling these words are from Jesus. But the reason you won't find them in newer translations is because those verses aren't found in our earliest and best manuscripts. So it's likely they weren't in the original and then were added by a scribe for emphasis later. But again, this doesn't change the meaning at all, and the emphasis is still very clear. This is a fierce warning against sin that we would do well to heed this morning. In fact, the warning is so fierce that Jesus says to not heed this warning would result in eternal punishment. He says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Because it's better to enter life, that is, the kingdom of life, his kingdom, crippled, than with two hands to go to hell, which he calls the unquenchable fire. And then he repeats this with your foot, cut it off, and your eye, tear it out, if it causes you to sin. Because it's better to enter heaven maimed than enter hell with everything. Whole. And that hell is described as a place where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This is Jesus speaking. This is graphic and terrifying. Now, the word Jesus uses for hell is derived from Gehenna, and we need to understand the background a little bit. Gehenna is a transliteration of two Hebrew words that mean together the valley of Hinnan. Now, this was a deep valley in southwest of Jerusalem where in pre-Israelite times, so a long time ago, this was a site of child sacrifice to Molech. And there were times even in Israel's history, namely under King Ahaz and King Manasseh, you can read about this, where Israel adopted this practice as well of child sacred. Can you imagine? And this is that's right. That's exactly right. This is disgusting and deeply tragic. And to Karen's point, we do this here every single day in what we tidy up and call abortion, right? A woman's right. We do this very same thing. Sacrificing our children to pagan gods, worshiping other gods in the process, destroying those sweet children whom God says is precious to him. We need to look no further than our society today to get this picture of child sacrifice. It's disgusting and deeply tragic to our God. And we need to put an end to it. And as Christians, we need to fight to put an end to it. So this site of child sacrifice, even in Israel, they would do these things at certain times in their history. Now, King Josiah came along, and he was a good king who followed the Lord, and he later destroyed this site, and it later became the dump for garbage and sewage. And they burned a fire there 24-7. Even during Jesus' day, there would be a fire burning there 24-7 in this southwest corner of Jerusalem. And so there was always fire and always worms consuming the waste in this valley. This became a symbol for the eternal place of punishment. Hell, as Jesus uses it here. And he quotes Isaiah 66, 24, and verse 2048 to describe this eternal punishment. Jesus talks a lot about hell. And in other places, he uses that word Gehenna to talk about hell, and he calls it eternal fire, a furnace of fire, outer darkness, eternal punishment. Here he says unquenchable fire. It's clear that Jesus. Has an eternal destiny in mind here with this warning, as he warns us against the seriousness of sin. If you refuse to take sin seriously, if you refuse to hate sin as he hates sin and to not deal with your sin, you will find yourself in eternal torment in hell. That is the picture here. That is what Jesus himself says. Now you say, doesn't, wait a minute, doesn't that undermine the gospel? I thought we get to heaven by believing in Christ's sacrifice for sin. Like it's about Jesus and what he did. Well, yes, it is. It's absolutely true. It's by repentance of sin and faith in Christ that we have eternal life. However, as Jesus points out here, the heart that is cavalier towards sin, the heart that continues to allow sin to hang around and have its way, is not a heart that understands the cost of sin on the cross and is not a heart who has received the gospel. That's what Jesus indicates here. The heart that refuses to deal with sin has not surrendered to the Savior. It's not saying that you can earn heaven by some sort of asceticism. You can't, like a monk or something. You can't earn heaven that way. You can't cut off all your limbs and suddenly you're in heaven. Don't do that. But it's saying that if sin means nothing to you, then you don't understand and have not believed in this gospel and need to repent today. And you need to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ today. Jesus takes sin extremely seriously. And so must his followers. So must his disciples. It ought to grieve us. And we ought to have a heart that desires to put sin to death. That's the heart of true belief, of true discipleship. Now, some in history have taken these verses literally and have physically dismembered themselves to fight against sin. But Jesus is not saying that sin dwells in your hand or your foot or your eye. Cutting off a hand or a foot or gouging out an eye will not fix your problem. It won't fix your heart problem. In fact, we just saw this principle in Mark 7, verse 21, where Jesus said, For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft. He goes on with the list, and he goes on, and he says, All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. It is our hearts that must be changed. And that is only possible from humbling ourselves and receiving the free gift of salvation paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. And then by continually being dependent upon him. Continually drawing ourselves back to that blood shed for us. But if we've received that gift, if we value the blood that was shed, if there be any love of Jesus in us, we will hate sin and deal violently with it in our lives. We will deal violently with the sin in our lives if we're truly following him. Whatever endangers spiritual life in Christ must be removed from us. There's no attitude of negotiation with sin or no thought of how close can I get to sin? Jesus is not instructing us here literally to cut off body parts, but don't let that cause you to miss how serious he is about this. Jesus is calling us to be willing to look crippled to our culture, if that's what it takes to rid ourselves of sin. Jesus uses three representative body parts: the hand, what we do, the foot, the foot, where we go, the eye, what we see and behold. So if going to the gym or the golf course or the maw tempts you to sin against God, cut it out. Stop going. If watching TV has become a cause for sin or an excuse to forget the spiritual disciplines, then tear it out of the wall. If having an iPhone causes you to forsake time with your family or fall into sins of lust or comparison or whatever it may be, then throw it in the ocean. And go back to a flip phone. Oh, heaven forbid. Will you look like a maniac walking around with a flip phone? Absolutely. You will be crippled to the world. You will be awkward. You will be ridiculed. You will be thought weird and extreme. But if it causes you to actually make headway in a war against sin in your life and causes you to take more seriously time with your family and your Savior, then destroy it with a smile on your face. Gladly accept the social awkwardness. Why has social awkwardness become our number one goal as Christians? It affects everything we do, including our evangelism, right? We just, oh, I don't want to push. I don't want them to think I'm this or that. Oh, it affects everything we do. Take some time and dwell on how much that concern bothers you. Because if you're honest, I think you you would say, it does bother you. You don't want to be socially awkward. Jesus says, if you know all the social cues, if you know all the news, all the latest politics, all the shows, the the TV, the Netflix, what if you know it all, and you go to hell, is it really worth it? If you cannot control the time you spend on social media, and honestly, even if you can, maybe, maybe you ought to consider, get rid of it. We ought to seriously consider our relationship with social media this morning. We're gonna be reading a book here in the parenting class about technology and our addiction to it in the coming weeks. And if you want to join us in the 9 o'clock hour, then feel free. We're gonna start that in a couple of weeks and we can get you the information on that. But we we need to take this seriously in our lives. Our relationship with technology, our relationship with social media. Will it be weird if you don't have a Facebook or an Instagram to the world? Probably, yeah. But will you be whole again? Will you begin to win the war against materialism and comparison and gossip instead of always talking about, you know, I need to do something about that. As disciples of Christ, we need to get a lot more comfortable with being socially awkward. Our need for entertainment is paralyzing our relationships with Christ and with the other real people in the room. So if it is, then cut it off. Cut it off. Can you honestly evaluate your life this morning? Can you heed this warning of Jesus? This eternal warning. This is no minor thing here. You know, if a surgeon said tomorrow we need to cut your foot off, or you're not going to live. We would hasten to schedule that surgery. Okay, I don't the foot, it's under, I want to live. I'm gonna schedule the surgery to save my life. But when Jesus says there are some things in your life you need to take much more seriously and you need to cut it out because your eternity is at stake. How often we just kind of shrug our shoulders? Ah, I'm not ready yet. I'll deal with that later. I'm okay. I'm okay. It's not that much time, it's not that distracting. Yes, Jesus is calling for something painful and drastic here. And nobody's saying it won't be painful or drastic. It is, it will be. But if it saves your marriage, if it restores a relationship with a child, if it helps you walk in joy again, most importantly, if it gives you eternal security in Jesus, isn't any cost worth it? We tend to take sins of commission way too lightly. Those are things where we actively sin against direct commands. Oh, that slipped out of my mouth. Shouldn't have said that. I had a dirty thought, slandered a coworker, I drank too much again. Oh well. We just we take sin far too lightly in our lives. And then sins of omission we hardly even think about. I didn't I didn't have time for the Bible again this week. Pray for me. I had to catch up on my shows, you know. I was gonna do it Tuesday night, but Tuesday night is survivor, you know? I don't know if that's true or not. We hardly even think about the sins of omission that are starving us because we will not spend time with our Savior. Again, we read this warning and and should cry out, God help us. God help us, help us see the sin the way you see it. Help us deal with sin in a way that honors you. Help us stop making excuses and rationalizing our sin. Let's ask the Lord to help us believe what he says in Romans 8 13. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And we see verse after verse after verse in the New Testament. We can go through many of them. We don't have time this morning. Many verses about putting to death the sins of the flesh, making no provision for the flesh. Don't even go there. Don't even give the flesh an opportunity for sin. Know yourself better than that. Because the stakes couldn't be higher. Disciples deal violently with sin. So let me ask you: do you hate sin? If you do, then it's time for war. It's time for war. And you need soldiers by your side for this war. Do you have someone in this church who holds you accountable to the sin in your life? What about to the time you're spending on your phone or watching TV? What about uh the fellowship that you have with the Lord or with your wife and children or with others? Is there anyone holding you accountable in this church? If not, I beg you to look around and find someone and ask them to begin to start this kind of accountability relationship with you, this discipleship relationship with you. We need each other. I love this church family. I love this community. It's family to me. There is a sweet spirit of being with you all. But we can kind of lull ourselves to sleep and forget to ask each other the hard thing sometimes. Real authentic biblical community holds each other accountable. As the elders of this church drew and Patrick and I, we've we've talked about, but we we were going to be committed to finding more ways to do that, to breed that spirit of accountability. As an individual, though, if you claim the name of Christ, you need to take this upon yourself. This is a hard, hard sermon. Hard warning from Jesus. And if you think I've been too hard this morning, just read it again. I don't think I can match Jesus here. Maybe I've not been hard enough. But the worst thing we can do is just look at our lives and automatically think, you know what, this doesn't apply to me, or I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm not really struggling too much right now. And so as we move into a time of invitation, let's truly evaluate our lives. Are there areas where I need to just cut the hand off, so to speak? I need to just cut it off. Areas where I just need to be taking sin a lot more seriously. Both sins of commission, breaking his word, and omission, ignoring fellowship with him. Are there areas where my actions might be causing someone else to stumble? I'm gonna ask the band to come on up. We're gonna move to a closing point here. You might be hearing this today and thinking, I'm trying. I've tried, I'm I'm trying to cut out this specific sin. And I want to, but I'm just failing again and again. And maybe even hearing this sermon, you're feeling the weight so heavy upon yourself. You know, if you walk out of here continuing just to fight in your own power, this battle is helpless. We talked about the real root of sin being the heart this morning. But the real remedy is another look at the Savior. Throwing an iPhone into the sea or refusing to go to a certain place or even literally gouging out your eye can only go so far in your own strength and willpower. The remedy is transformation, it's a renewing of your mind with what God says. Restructure the highways of my brain, God, with your word. It's a restructuring of your heart that He is the authority. Boundaries are great and they are necessary in the life of a believer. But understand the root is always the heart. And to change the heart, we must look to the cross once more. Do we realize that Jesus is the fulfillment of this text? He did what he's asking us to do. Not with his own sin, because he didn't have any, but on our behalf. Jesus has seen you in your worst moments, in your worst sins, and he has decided to be maimed for you. His hands and feet, which never sinned, were nailed to a cross for you. His eyes, which never looked with lust, were swollen, shut, and spat upon for you. His body was broken for you to take your place, to take your punishment, to save your soul. What a beautiful Savior. Let's look to him this morning. He is going to have to change our heart. He knows we can't do this in our own strength. And so he's made a way for his spirit to live within us by cleansing us from sin. Have another look at the Savior this morning. We don't have to leave here in despair and just heaviness. We leave here with great hope. But hope we got to leave here with a new resolve to draw near to the Savior. To say, God, you are the authority. Change me. Lord, help me to view people the way you view them. Help me to view sin the way you view it. Teach me through your word and be committed to that word. Draw near to Him. Dwell on the Savior's love. And begin walking in gratitude for the price that was paid for your sin. Fall on your face in repentance and receive His grace. Made possible by the cross. By His being broken for you. And let's walk in newness of life this morning. Daily walk in the Spirit. It's daily walking in the Spirit moment by moment. How do I walk in the Spirit? I ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes as we consider these things. And if you've never come to Jesus for salvation, come today. And you cannot come with a heart who wants to hold on to your sin, who loves sin. You've got to repent of that mindset. Understand that that sin took Jesus to the cross, killed the Savior of the world. And so to come to Him this morning, it's a free gift. You're not going to come by chopping off your hand. You don't have to do that this morning. You come through humbling yourself before Him. Humble yourself before this God. Receive His love. Receive His grace. And change your mind about the sin in your life. And say, God, I repent of my sin. Will you please save me? And it's only because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross that we can even be forgiven. But because of that, we have assurance that if you will come in humility, if you will come in repentance, he will not cast you out. He will receive you and he will save you. So come this morning. Christians, set the boundaries. Add the accountability. Cut off the things that need to be cut off. But above even that, draw near to the Savior. Be transformed. Draw near to him, and he will draw near to you. And as we're transformed, he will show us what those next steps are in obedience. Let me give you a few moments. Maybe God is talking about a specific way with you right now that you need to be obedient. So do it. Maybe God's dealing with you in some other way this morning. I don't know how he's dealing with you, but you let the Lord, you let the Holy Spirit deal with you. Ask him, Lord, how would you apply this to my life? What areas does this need to apply this morning? And I pray that the Lord would give you the boldness to walk in that. Walk in that obedience. Let's spend some time with our Savior, and then we'll close in worship.