Have you ever heard someone say they talk about sin too much? Has anybody ever said that about you? I'm pretty sure they've said it about me. I think they've said it about our church. They talk about sin too much. Too much compared to what? Where do we get our idea about sin? Who is our source for how we should talk about sin? Who could warn us how to cut it out of our lives and of the consequences that will come if we don't? I want to invite everybody to open up your Bible and turn with me to Mark, chapter 9, verses 42 to 50, and Jesus is going to teach his disciples about sin. Jesus is the source for how we should think and talk about sin in our lives. So, if you’ve got a Bible, please grab it and turn with me to Mark 9:42-50. If you don't have a Bible, there's a handout there in your bulletin, where these verses are printed. And these verses come to us when Jesus is teaching his disciples. They're in a house in Capernaum, and we've been studying this teaching of Jesus now for a few different weeks. They were having a conversation about who was the greatest, and he said, if you want to be the greatest, then you need to be a servant. If you want to be first, then you need to be last. In fact, Jesus taught them, make sure you receive those who come in my name, because how you treat my people is how you treat me. And he was teaching them this. And then he says this. This is Mark 9:42-50. And out of respect for God's word, I want to invite everyone to stand up for the public reading of Scripture. And I encourage you. You need to hear what Jesus says about sin here, and then you can decide who talks about sin too much or not. After you really take to heart these words of Jesus, Jesus is going to be talking about you and your sin in these verses. So please follow along as I read Mark 9:42-50.
“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.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead, grab your seat. And if you do have the handout from the bulletin, there's a key word that shows up four times in the Greek language. It's this word skandalizo, which is the idea of being a stumbling block or a cause to sin or a temptation. And so, if you could underline, if you're taking notes, right there at the beginning of verse 42, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin.” Okay, so that gets right there. You don't want to cause anyone else to sin. And then look at verse 43, “If your hand causes you to sin,” underline that. Verse 45, “If your foot causes you to sin.” Underline that. Verse 47, if your eye causes you to sin. So, we can see in this part of the teaching of Jesus with his twelve disciples, we're talking about what scandals could happen. What's a scandal you could do with someone else? What's a scandal that you could do even with your own self? What causes you to sin? What Avenue do temptations come into your life?
And Jesus speaks in a very intense way here, using strong language that is designed to get your attention and to make these disciples remember. He's teaching his disciples. He's not blasting the crowd with this. He's talking to his followers, and he wants his followers to know you don't want to cause anyone else to stumble. You don't want to be the cause of anyone else sinning. Go with me to Matthew 18, just a few pages over to the left, Matthew, chapter 18 is a parallel passage where Jesus warns about sin in the church, and he says in Matthew 18, verse 5, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” So, maybe you remember, if you were here a couple weeks ago, we talked about that. How do you respond to people who come to you in the name of Jesus? Do you receive them as if you're receiving Christ himself? He used a child to represent his little ones, those who believe in him. But then look at what he says here in verse 6. “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin…” Notice, this is the same as Mark 9:42, “It would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Now he expands on it here. Verse 7, “Woe to the world for temptations to sin.” The world is going to be judged for causing people to sin, “for it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptations come.” You don't want to be the source of someone else's temptation, the source of someone else's sin. And then he gives the warning there in verse 8, “About your hand and your foot.” Verse nine, he talks about your eye. We'll get back to that in Mark 9. Look at verse 10. He says, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my Father, who is in heaven.”
Are you despising one of Jesus's people. Remember what's the context of Jesus teaching his twelve Disciples in this house in Capernaum? The context is they were having a conversation about who among them was the greatest, and if you're the greatest, guess where you're ranking yourself above other people. Guess what you're doing. You're despising them. You're looking down on them. You're thinking that you're better than them.
And so, let's get this down for point number one: We want to “Eliminate any cause to stumble others.” Eliminate any cause to stumble others, including just the way you would think about them, where you're putting yourself first above them. And sometimes, if you're going to build yourself up, you're going to do that at the expense of tearing others down. Under point number one, write down Romans 14:13. Does anybody remember when we did a series on judgy church people? Does anybody remember that when we went through the book of Romans, and we saw that it says in Romans 14:13, where it uses this same idea of causing someone to stumble, and “Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer”. Don't think you're better than one of Jesus' other people. If the Father is ready to send his angels to minister them, and here you are judging them. You don't have a different thought about another Christian than what God thinks about them. So, watch out if you're trying to be the greatest is that means you're putting others down. Could you, insisting on your own way, cause others to sin?
So that's the kind of issue that Jesus is addressing here. He's saying, you should serve, you should receive others, because you don't want to cause them to sin. Now go back to Mark 9, because it gets very graphic. The pictures that Jesus gives of what will happen if you do cause one of his little ones to sin. He says, it would be better for you to have a millstone around your neck and to be thrown into the sea. Okay. Now remember, they're in Capernaum, where they are in this house that is right next to the Sea of Galilee. And if you’ve ever been to the Sea of Galilee, some of us are going to go there this summer. If you get to go to the Sea of Galilee, it's a substantial Lake, and so to think that someone would drown at the bottom of the lake with the mill stones. You can see mill stones if you go to Israel, these massive rocks that they use to roll over things and crush things. If you had one of these massive stones around your neck, and they pushed you over the side of the boat, you're going straight down to the bottom of the sea of Galilee. That's the picture that Jesus uses here. It would be better for that to happen to you than to cause one of these little ones to sin, compared to the judgment that will happen if you cause somebody else to sin, if you're their temptation.
Now, this sounds like a game that would happen at high school camp, where they would say, would you rather? Have you ever heard of this game before? Like, hey, would you rather be burned alive or drowned in the sea? Have you ever been to high school camp before? These are the conversations that happen. I've been to a few high school camps. I'm just trying to eat my lunch. Why are you asking me this? Why are we talking about this? Is there a C option, please? There's got to be a better way because if you were burning, it would be like this. But if you were drowning, it would really go down like this. Which one would you prefer? No. Can we stop talking about this, please? Right? Jesus is actually bringing that up. Jesus is bringing up this, would you rather? Because if you cause someone to sin, it would be better for you to drown. If you continue in sin yourself, you're going to go to the fire. I mean, Jesus is bringing up these severe consequences of what happens if you cause someone to sin, or if you keep sinning yourself, like we’ve got to take these scandals seriously. Don't cause somebody to sin. In Romans 14, where people were judging one another in church, some people according to the law of Moses, there were certain days that were set aside, there were certain foods that you didn't eat. Now, a lot of the believers knew they weren't bound to the law of Moses in the new covenant with Christ, and so, they could celebrate any day, or they could eat any food. But some people there thought, no, we've got to have these days, and we’ve got to not eat this food. And Paul says that he would even change what he does, because if he knew it was going to bother one of his brothers or sisters, and he knew that if he ate this food, that he knows it's fine to eat, but they don't think it's fine to eat the food, if he would stop eating the food just to consider them, because he wouldn't want to cause someone to sin.
Are you willing to change the way that you conduct yourself out of preference for the other people of Jesus, or are you putting yourself first? Because if you're putting yourself first, watch out. You don't want to cause them to sin. It would be better for you to drown in the Sea than to cause another Christian to sin. Wow. Jesus is putting thoughts into our head to make us take sin seriously. In fact, not only does he say, don’t cause someone else to sin, look at verses 43, 45, and 47 he uses our hand, he uses our foot, and then he uses our eye. And maybe you've noticed there's no verse 44 and verse 46; we'll get to that more in a minute. But he gives three different examples of your hand, your foot and your eye. And if it's your hand where the sin comes in, what should you do with your hand? He says, cut it off. If it's your foot where the sin comes in, what should you do with your foot? He says, what about your eye? Is it your eye? Tear it out, he says. So, he's like, wherever the sin comes, whatever it is, and we all have sin. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've all missed the mark of God's righteous standard. So, everybody here, we're all sinners before a holy God. Now your sin and what you might be tempted to do might be a little bit different than what you're tempted to do. I mean, all of our temptations are common. There are other people that can relate to our temptations. But where is it for you? Is it your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Whatever it is that causes you to sin, you’ve got to get rid of it. You’ve got to cut it off. You’ve got to tear it out. You’ve got to amputate that. You’ve got to kill your sin, or your sin will kill you. That's what Jesus is teaching. And he's saying you can't have this casual attitude about sin. You hear people today say so many things have become common for people to say at church, but I don't understand how they fit with the teaching of Jesus, just like well, we all sin, this whole casual attitude that we have about it. Well, we all sin. It's okay, it's all right. It's not that big a deal. That's not what I hear Jesus saying here. Oh, you’ve got sin. Okay. Where is your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Let's talk about what tempts you and then let's cut it off right there so you don't keep doing that sin. Because if you keep doing the sin, you go to… where does he keep saying over and over? You go to hell. And so, we’ve got to take this sin seriously. You either get rid of this sin or you're going to end up facing the consequences of sin.
And so, he says, point number two, let's get it down like this: You’ve got to “Amputate your own temptations.” You’ve got to cut them off. You’ve got to tear it out. You can't act like it's acceptable or it's tolerable or it's okay. What are we going to do? We all said, no. Jesus is saying, here's what you should do, cut it off, tear it out. Now Jesus, we know he's not encouraging anyone to cut off their physical hand, their physical foot, rip out their physical eye. He's using strong language to help you see how seriously you need to take cutting off the sin in your life. For example, I think of Luke 14, where Jesus says you hate your father and mother, your wife, your son, your daughter. Does Jesus actually want us to hate the members of our family? No, he doesn't want us to hate them. He wants us to honor our parents, to love our wife, to teach our kids, but what is he saying? When you put Jesus first, even to your own family members, it might feel like you're rejecting them because you're choosing Christ instead of them. What he's saying here is whatever it takes to put away that sin, you've got to be willing to put it away. You can't just let it continue in your life. You can't just keep doing that sin.
Go over to Matthew, chapter 5. Let's go over to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches for three chapters here in Matthew, and he says something very similar in Matthew, chapter 5, starting in verse 27. See, this is always what happens. God says something, and then over time, people kind of change what God says to something they're more comfortable with. And that's what happened to the law of Moses. Over time, the Jews made it things that they could do, and they could feel good about themselves, and they could feel self-righteous. There was a lot of self righteousness among the religious Jews at the time of Jesus. And look at what he says here to confront them. In verse 27 he brings up a lot of different sins, but verse 27 of Matthew 5, he says, “You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” So, you’ve got some people thinking, well, I'm not doing anything wrong. I haven't committed adultery; I haven't been with someone outside of my marriage. And Jesus is saying, yeah, but even if you're looking that way, it's already in your heart. Jesus isn't just judging by external standards. He's judging by what is inside of you. What is the temptation to sin inside of you? And even if it's just a look, look at what Jesus says about a look. Verse 29, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if it's your right hand that causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Jesus is saying, you’ve got to take even a look with lustful intent so seriously that, what were you looking at? Where was that? How did that go down? You’ve got to cut all of that off. Because if you want to really make it to life, if you want to really make it to the kingdom, you can't bring your sin with you. You’ve got to cut it off.
Go back to Mark 9 now, and we'll get this picture here where he's talking about you want to enter life. He says in verse 43, “You want to enter life,” in verse 45 and then in verse 47, he says, you want to enter the kingdom. And he's implying that if you're really going to make it all the way to the end where there's eternal life and the glorious kingdom of our God, well you might lose a hand or a foot or an eye on the way. You're going to have to really cut off that sin to make it into the kingdom, is what he's saying.
So, what have you left behind? What are the sins that you've had to say no to? What are the temptations that you've had to resist? What are the fundamental things that you used to live this way, but now you live this way because of Jesus. There are way too many people who say, I believe in Jesus, I believe he died for my sins, and then they keep doing the very sins that Jesus died for. Jesus is teaching something different here. He's saying, what have you cut off? What have you torn out and thrown away from you so that you don't continue in it any longer? Let's think through the three examples that he gives. Let's think through the hand, right? The hand, how I grab things, how I hold on to things, how I touch things.
Let's put this down for our first dash under point number two there: “What should I not have?” What should I not have? Are there things that I have that become temptations for me to sin, things that I hold, like if I pulled my wallet out, or I pulled my phone out, things that I have at my house that are mine, I grab onto them with my hand. See what are the things that you have? Are there drugs that you have? Is there alcohol that you have? Is there a desire for money that you have, a desire for possessions that you have? And you can tell that these things that I have, I end up sinning with these things. Well, then are we willing to cut them off? Are we willing to throw them out? Are we willing to remove those kinds of temptations? How about the foot?
Let's get this down for the next dash: “Where should I not go?” Where should I not go. Are there places as we use our feet to walk around to get where we go? Are there places that when I go there, I know we're going to gossip and I know we're going to talk bad about other people, and I know we're going to laugh at inappropriate jokes and we're going to use crude language and the whole tone of the conversation and the whole thing that we're doing there, and the whole point of being in that place, it's going to tempt me to sin. Should I maybe not even go there in the first place if I know I'm going to be tempted to sin when I go there? What are the things I have myself? Where are the places I might go?
And then let's talk about our third dash: “What should I not look at?” What should I not look at? There are so many things that the world is pumping out, things, shows to watch, movies to watch, books to read, songs to listen to, all of this entertainment for you to consume. Well, are you just watching whatever the world's watching and just listening to whatever the world's listening to? Are the things that you're like, no, if I keep looking at that, that could cause me to sin? So, I'm going to cut that off. I'm going to tear that away. I'm not even going to let myself think about that, because I don't want to sin in this way. I would think every Christian, we would have, hey, these are things that tempt me, and so to stay away from those temptations, I cut it off here. I don't even go near it. I don't even touch it. I don't even look at it. That's what Jesus is talking about. Not oh, I fell into sin again. I guess there's nothing I can do about it. No, Jesus is saying there's something you should do about it. Is it your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Youve got to take action. You are responsible for your own actions.
See, I hear a lot of sincere people praying things like, God remove this sin from me. God, make me stop being angry. God, make me stop lusting. God, take away my anxiety. The thing is, we're asking God to remove something that Jesus is telling us we need to remove. Jesus is telling you, cut it off. Jesus is telling you, throw it out. Jesus is telling you, you’ve got to stop that sin. And we're over here praying, God, I'm getting frustrated with you that you're not taking my sin away. Here's the Son of God teaching you how this works. You have to own up to your own sin. You have to address the sin in your own life. Yes, God will provide the way that your sins can be removed through the death of Jesus. But are you confessing that sin? Are you really owning up to that sin, and are you removing the avenues of temptation, so you don't keep doing that sin?
See, a lot of people are like, God, why don't you do it? And here's Jesus saying, what have you cut off? What have you torn out? When did you get radical to amputate something out of your life so you didn't keep sinning? That's what he's calling for here. And go with me to Proverbs, chapter 4. There's wisdom in the book of Proverbs about this that I want to make sure all of us are familiar with. Proverbs, chapter 4. A father is pleading with his son in the book of Proverbs, giving him wisdom. And he wants his son to listen to him. He knows, just like Jesus is teaching his disciples, this father is saying to his son, if you listen to me, you'll live. If you take my words to heart, oh, it'll be a blessing to you. And that's what he says. Look at Proverbs 4, verse 20, he says, “My son, be attentive to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart.” He says, get it inside of you. Take my words and get them inside of you. “Look at my truth that I'm saying to you and keep it within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh.” And then this line, underline this. Write this down in your notes, Proverbs 4:23, “Keep your heart with all vigilance.” The idea there is, like, keep custody of your own heart, like if someone was evil and they were locked up, because we thought, if we let them loose, they're going to do evil and hurt other people. So, we’ve got them locked up. So, they're in custody. We’ve got to watch on them. We’ve got a guard on them. We’ve got that evil locked up. We're not going to let it out. He's saying, think that way about your own heart. What are the evils that you would want to do? What are the temptations that would rise up within you? Keep a custody of your own heart, guard your own heart, make sure you don't end up doing those things. And then look at all that comes out of your heart. Out of it flow the springs of life. And look at the examples here. Verse 24 “Put away from you crooked speech, put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.”
See, God is the one who grants repentance. God is the one who enables us to turn from our sin. But there's a responsibility that you and I have to actually turn our feet, to actually make sure our gaze is straight ahead, to actually silence our mouth or to stop grabbing on to certain things. What are you doing for the fight of sin, for your own soul? See, Jesus isn't talking like people talk at church today. Have you already believed? Oh, then you're already fine. Everything's good. No, Jesus is saying what's really going on with your sin? Because you could be one of my disciples. You could believe in me. But if you continue in sin, you'll still end up in the fire. So, we have this false sense of security. I go to church. I know it's true. I believe Jesus died, and we think, therefore I must be okay. Well, but if you continue in sin, are you okay? Just because you say you believe it, if you keep doing the same sins, Jesus is saying, no, if you keep doing the sins, you go to Gehenna.
Go back to Mark 9, and let's look at what he says, because he says it at the end of all three of these, the hand, the foot, the eye. He mentions hell. And that word for “hell,” there is this Greek word “Gehenna”. And this place, Gehenna, was a dump outside of Jerusalem. Okay, So, they had a real vivid word picture of what hell meant, or what this word Gehenna meant. This is where they would take all the trash to be burned, all the dead things would go out here, and the worms and the maggots would eat it all up. This was not just a physically disgusting place, but the actual place where they would burn the trash outside of the city of Jerusalem. It was this particular valley where some of the old kings of Judah would sacrifice their children to idols out in this valley. So, this was a cursed place. It was a place known for its abominations, where there was a time where some of the people were not worshiping Yahweh, they were worshiping false gods. And one of the ways they would worship the false idol of Molech is they would burn their children to justify their sin and make themselves feel right with God. They would offer their own children as sacrifices. And if you read about this valley outside of Jerusalem, it's very disturbing. You'll hear it talked about as the valley of the beating drums. Why were they beating so many drums? So, you couldn't hear what was happening to the children. That's Gehenna, a cursed place, an abominable place where there's always a fire burning, where the worms are always eating. You're going to end up there. Jesus is saying, if you don't get rid of your sin, if you don't cut it off, if you don't tear it out.
Okay, so let's get this down now for point number three: Let's “Evaluate the consequences of continued sin.” Let's think this through together. I've heard, and I would imagine you have heard as well, I've heard people say at church, well, I don't want to do it just because I'm afraid of going to hell. Have you ever heard somebody say that I don't want to do it just because I'm afraid of going to hell? It seems to me that Jesus is trying to say we should be afraid of going to hell. Here, you don't want the fire option. You don't want that consequence, you don't want to go to Gehenna, where the fire does not die and where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. See, I understand that, yes, we want to live our life out of love for Jesus. Yes, I understand that love is the motivation. We love because he first loved us, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of what, everybody? Wisdom. And I don't know why people at church are downplaying the reality and severity of hell. That's not following what Jesus taught his disciples. Jesus taught his disciples like here are some things you, for sure, don't want to do in your life. Number one, you don't want to cause one of my people to sin. Number two, you don't want to stay in sin yourself. And so, you need to learn your own temptations. You need to learn how to pray, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
And so, what are the avenues that cause you to sin? And let's cut them off right now. Let's come up with a game plan over here. Let's tear that out and throw it away so you never do it again, because if you continue in sin, you will end up in Gehenna. That's what Jesus is saying. That's how he's spelling it out. Who's he talking to in the context here? His twelve disciple. Don't think that just because you're one of the disciples means you have this Get Out of Jail Free card when it comes to your sin. Don't take the grace that God gives us in Jesus and turn it into some kind of license where sin doesn't really matter. In my life, if you continue in sin, there's only fire that awaits. That's what Jesus teaches.
I don't think we're talking about sin too much. I don't think people at church are talking about sin enough at all. So, Jesus is saying you should be afraid of what will happen, what the wages of your sin will really be if you keep doing them. And he quotes, look at verse 48 because this is a quote where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” Maybe you can see the little quotes around it there. Now, some scribe thought that was such an important line where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” that he actually put it after the hand, and he put it after the foot, and he put it after the eye. So, that's where verses 44 and 46 came from, is that some scribe, I guess, when he was copying the gospel of Mark, he thought, yeah, people need to be afraid of the worm and the unquenchable fire. So, I'm going to put it after hand and foot and eye. But we have other manuscripts where it's just at the end of all three of them. And so, it seems like some scribe, he got fired up and he copied it a couple more times. Okay, but Jesus, at the end of the warning, you don't want to go to Gehenna, so you got to cut it off. You don't want to go to Gehenna, you’ve got to cut it off. You don't want to go to Gehenna, you’ve got to throw it away, tear it out. At the end of that, he says, because let's just really think about that. The worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched. Now, I don't know if you know when Jesus says that he's quoting Isaiah 66:24, which is the very last verse in the entire Book of Isaiah. So, if everybody could grab your Bible and turn with me, let's go to the end of Isaiah, and let's try to understand why would Jesus quote that verse? In fact, maybe he's even expecting that the disciples would be familiar with the picture of that verse, and that's why he's bringing it up as a reference point. So, let's make sure we understand the reference of the last verse of Isaiah, if you've ever read through Isaiah, it's a masterpiece of prophecy. It's epic prophecy of what's going on in Israel at the time of Jesus being born, of Jesus dying, even of the future kingdom of God that's still yet to come. Isaiah has just awesome things that you can read and behold. But the way that Isaiah ends, look at verse 24 of Isaiah 66, it says, “They shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men. And then this is the key line who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
So maybe you're thinking, well, why is sin such a big deal? Why are you talking about it like this? Why is Jesus saying this? Sin doesn't seem like a big deal when you just compare sin to other people. In fact, one of the big lines you hear these days is, well, who's it really hurting? Who's it really harming? It's not doing anything bad to anybody. The idea being therefore it's okay. Well, sin is not in comparison to other people. Sin is in comparison to God. And God says about Israel that they have rebelled against me. That word, therefore “rebelled” in Hebrew is sometimes translated, “transgressed”. They have crossed the line against me, God says. Don't do this. You know, God says, don’t do it and you do it anyways. That's a transgression. That's what he's saying. These people have done and now you can see them. There they are, and the fire is burning and the worms are eating. That's what happens when you rebel against me. That's the picture the book of Isaiah ends with. And remember, Isaiah is prophesying to God's people, to the Jews, the chosen nation, the covenant people of God, the people that God loved. And he brought them out of Egypt, and he delivered them out of slavery, and he brought them through the wilderness, and he put them in a promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. These are God's chosen ones, God's beloved, God's people, and yet they sin against God, and they don't listen to what God says, and they keep doing even though God sends prophet after prophet to warn them, to turn to him and cease with these evil ways. They keep doing their sin. Even if you think you're one of God's people, if you keep doing your sin, he will see like you are rebelling against him, like you are crossing the line that he told you not to cross.
Go back to Isaiah, chapter 1, and go all the way to the beginning of the book, and you'll see that this is the prime, both at the beginning and at the end of the book of Isaiah. This is the reason Isaiah is writing, and this is the profound point he wants to leave at the end; you can't rebel against God and get away with it. You can't keep sinning and think, well, I'm one of God's people. It'll be fine. I have some kind of exception, God, I'm one of God's favorites. God's okay with it? With me, that's not true. That's not consistent with the character of God. Look at what it says here in Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 2, it says, “Hear O heavens and give ear O earth for Yahweh has spoken.” So when we call for the heavens to come as a witness, and we call for the Earth to gather as a witness, this is a reference to Deuteronomy, chapter 4, where God says, “I'm going to make the heavens and the earth my witness, and I'm going to tell you what my covenant is with you, and if you break my covenant, I will have to call heaven and earth against you.” That's how Isaiah begins. And here's what God has to say to them. He says, “Children have I reared and brought up? But they have rebelled against me. They have transgressed.” So, I'm very concerned, because I think there are people who are like, well, I go to church, and I believe in Jesus, and I know it's true, and I trusted in Jesus. Okay, well, I want to ask everybody here today, what did you trust in Jesus for? What did you trust in Jesus that saves you?
I completely agree, salvation is a gift of grace. There is no work we can do to earn our salvation. Salvation is all something that God gives to us through His Son, Jesus by grace, and it is to be received through faith, and we need to believe in Jesus to be saved. And what are we believing Jesus did? Jesus, what he died for? Our what, everybody? Our sins, and then he rose again on the third day, and there's life, eternal life, abundant life for everybody who believes in him. So, what are you believing? That he died for your what? So, then you just keep doing those sins that he died for. I know that's common but it's not common sense. That's not the way it was ever supposed to be. You're not supposed to have people thinking, oh yeah, I know Jesus died for my sins, and then feel comfortable to still keep doing those sins in their life, the sins that nailed him to the cross. You're acting like they're okay. You're acting like they're no big deal. It's such a big deal. The Father sent his one and only Son, and the Son laid down his life to take the wrath for those sins. And you're like, well, I don't need to cut them off. This is too intense. This is too hardcore. It doesn't really matter if I keep doing them. It mattered to the point of his body and his blood. It mattered, and it matters between God and you, whether you rebel against him, whether you transgress it. Just because you know the line is there doesn't make it okay to cross it. In fact, it makes it worse if you keep crossing it.
Go with me to Isaiah 53 verse 12. Isaiah 53 verse 12 talks about this, these transgressors, these rebellious people. And if you know Isaiah 53, this prophecy of Jesus dying, what a beautiful prophecy it is. This man of sorrows who bore our grief. It says in verse 5, “He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought his peace and with his wounds, we are” what, everybody? We are healed, not with his wounds. We are excused. Not with his wounds. We get away from it, no, there's a sense of healing where we're able to turn away from our sin and learn a new way to live. Look at what it says in verse 12. Here's a part of Isaiah 53 that we may not be as familiar with. It says, “Therefore, I will divide him,” referring to the resurrected Lord Jesus. “I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and because he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many, and now he makes intercession for the transgressors.” What a description here of Jesus! Jesus on the cross, pouring out his soul to die. Jesus on the cross, bearing the weight of the penalty of all your sins. He's pouring himself out for you. He's under the burden of all the judgment for your sin, and he's numbered with you, the transgressors. Man. Does that matter to us? If Jesus died for my sins, can we all agree, then I should do everything I can to stop living in those sins? Does anybody want to say, Amen to that? Like he died for it, so we could keep doing it. That's like finding out your child stealing your money and saying, hey, here's more. Doesn't make sense. Like he was numbered as one of us. He took your place that sin that you're acting casual about, like, oh, I'll do it. It's okay. He'll just forgive me. No, he died for that sin. He took the wrath of God for that sin. He poured out Hhs life and gave up his last breath for that sin. It should mean something to us. It should change us. If, yeah, it may start out as a fear of hell. You don't want to go there. But what does it mean to you the sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf? You can't have the same attitude about sin if you know the cost that Jesus paid for your sin.
Go with me to 1 Peter 2. Look at how 1 Peter talks about Isaiah 53. Peter, he writes this in 1 Peter 2, I want everybody to write down this verse, because I think it makes it so clear in first Peter 2:24, clearly referring back to the language we just read in the book of Isaiah. 1 Peter 2:24, he says, “He himself,” Jesus “bore our sins in his body on the tree.” So, Jesus, don't just think about all the physical pain that Jesus went through. It's also the fact that he's paying for your sin. He's experiencing judgment and wrath. Anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed according to the law of Moses. So, it's like Jesus is experiencing the curse, the penalty, the punishment of all your sin. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might, what does it say here, everybody? That we might what? Die to sin and live to what. Righteousness.
Jesus didn't die for our sins so we could live in our sins. He died so that we might die to sin and live to a new way of his righteousness. Just because you go to church, read the Bible, know it's true, profess to be a Christian. The issue is, Are you dead to your sin? Are you putting your sin away? Are you putting your sin off? Is that the old way of sin and now you have a new way of righteousness that you're putting on in its place, because you can believe all the right things, and you can even do good things in Jesus’ name. “But there are going to be many on the day of judgment that say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this for you, and did we not do this in your name?” And then Jesus will say to them, “Depart from me. I never knew you, you workers of what, everybody? Sin is lawlessness. Jesus, you're my Lord. Jesus. I did this for you, yeah, but his question is, when did the sin stop? When was there the change? When was there the turning? When did you stop being a worker of lawlessness and start to put on the good works of righteousness and whatever it takes? Is it your hand? Is it your foot? Is it your eye? Whatever it takes. Cut it off, eliminate the sin, amputate the temptation; otherwise, consider the consequences where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For those who transgress God's laws, where they cross God's lines.
Go back to Mark, chapter 9, because he has something to say about salt here in the last two verses, verses 49 and 50. So he's explained, you don't want to cause someone else to sin. You want to cut off all the causes of sin in your own life, and you’ve got to consider the consequences of what's going to happen if you sin against other people or keep sinning yourself. But then he brings up salt, and he says, for everyone, verse 49, “Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?” I feel like I'm back in high school camp with this question like this. Somebody's giving me a riddle at lunch. Now, how do you make the salt salty again when it's lost its saltiness, like whoa. And then he just says, “Have salt in yourselves.”
I think the point here, number four: “Stay salty.” I think that's what he's telling us right here, like I'm just not scientifically ready to consider the lack of saltiness among salt. Right now, when Jesus talks about salt, we have to understand salt in their context, the disciples in the room in the house in Capernaum, because I think of salt, and then what's your other option, everybody? Pepper. And there they are at the formal dinner. There they are at the restaurant. Would you like some salt on this? And I think, well, I could have the salt. I could not have the salt. It could add some flavor. It's not that big a deal. No. Now let's go back to where we're fishermen in the Sea of Galilee. We're farmers out in the fields with our harvest. We have these animals, these livestock that we're raising, and we have this one time of the year where we get all our crops, but we need that food to last all year long. And so, if we want to preserve things like meat, what is the preservative that's going to help us? It's salt. This is essential. This is important. Salt had many necessary uses. And so, to try to picture now salt losing its quality. Well, that makes it a preservative, and now it's not able to do that anymore. What good is unsalty salt? That's how Jesus wants to end this teaching, because Jesus referred to his people as the salt of the earth, or the light of the world. We're the ones bringing the life, we're the ones bringing the truth. We're the ones bringing the grace. And if the people that are meant to be set apart from the world, the people that are meant to be set apart from who they used to be in their sin, the people that are set apart for God's purpose, that are made new according to his righteousness, if even the salty people have now lost their saltiness, what's the point of that Jesus is saying? If you keep on sinning, just like somebody who clearly doesn't believe keeps on sinning, then what's the point of being the salt of the earth if there's no preservative?
Go over to Luke 14, where he says this again at the end of Luke 14, another intense teaching from Jesus in Luke 14. Luke 14 is where he says, you’ve got to hate your father and mother, your wife, your son, your daughter, and he's like, you’ve got to put me first over your family. You’ve got to be willing to even leave your family, to follow me. You have to be willing to even lose your own life. See, Jesus is constantly teaching, if you want to make it to the kingdom, you're going to have to lose some things here in the world. Nobody's just going to the kingdom, and everything's fine. No troubles here. Just got cruise control straight to the kingdom. I got my new electric car. It's going to drive me, or I don't even have to drive, it's just taking me right into the kingdom of glory. Jesus isn't talking like that. You ever talk to that person in your fellowship group? I've met many a man over the years here in Huntington Beach. Hey, how can we pray for you? This guy just poured out his soul. This guy over here just started crying. Hey, bro, how can we pray for you? I'm going to type it into my phone here. What can I be praying for you? Oh, you don't need to pray for me. I'm fine. That's code for I don't want to get real about my temptations. I don't want to tell you what hand I need to cut off, or what foot I need to cut off, or what I need to tear out. I want to just act like I'm going to the kingdom and everything's fine. That's not how Jesus describes it. Jesus describes it like, well, you lose your family relationships. Will you lose your own physical life if you don't renounce all that you have? What kind of material possessions are you going to lose? Like, what is it going to cost you? It costs Jesus' body. It costs Jesus' blood. Are you even willing to give a hand or a foot or an eye? It's going to cost you something to get to the kingdom. That's the teaching of Jesus. And here in Luke 14, look at verse 33 where he says, “So therefore any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Whoa, that's intense. You can't even be one of his disciples unless you say no to all that you have. And then look at how he ends it here, after another intense teaching, “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use, either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him” what, everybody?
We got some people claiming to be the salt of the earth, but they have no preservative of life. And if you're one of those people, I really hope you have the ears to hear what Jesus is saying to you today, because if you think you're a Christian, but you have let sin continue in your life, and you're not cutting it off, you're not tearing it out, you're not throwing it away, the only person you're deceiving about that is yourself. And so, Jesus wants it to be taught. He wants His disciples to know that the salt can't lose its saltiness, and so I would imagine there are some here at this very hour, at this very service. Or maybe you need to confess to God, I'm still doing those same sins, and you need to cry out to him for not just for forgiveness and not just to confess your sin, but to grant you repentance. God help me to remove these avenues of temptation in my life. And if you want to talk to somebody, there will be people out there in the courtyard. I'll be here right up front. We would love to see you actually leave your sin behind. We'd love to help you with that. But everybody, we all have to be on guard in our heart against the temptations that are going to come into our lives.
In fact, if you've got the handout, flip it over and let's talk about our fellowship groups. This week, we're going to have just the men meet together in your group, and just the ladies meet together, and we're going to get right to is there sin we need to confess so we can pray for one another so that you may be healed. Okay, and we're going to talk about, hey, we all have temptations. Let's not act like we don't have temptations. Temptations are common to man. We all were born into sin. We all have to turn from it. So, what are your temptations? And how can we pray for you? What should we be asking you? How's it going? What are you cutting off? What are you tearing out and throwing away in your life? See, that's kind of real. Oh, they talk about sin too much. No, the question is, are you willing to talk about sin? Jesus is talking about sin with his disciples. Jesus is expecting these disciples to get radical about removing the sin in their lives. How can we then be the disciples of Jesus together and never talk about sin with each other? A lot of times in church these days, when you ask people questions about what's really going on in their life, in their heart, they're like, why are you asking me these questions? Well, I'm asking them because I want to be a disciple of Jesus with you, and I don't want there to be a scandal in my life. I don't want there to be a scandal in your life. I don't want there to be scandals here at our church, and that's why we have to deal with our sin. That's what Jesus is saying.
And so, when we take communion, communion is meant to be a time for us to remember that Jesus died for our what, everybody? And to hold a little wafer that makes us think about his body being the atoning sacrifice, the Lamb of God, and a little cup that makes us think about his blood that purchased our redemption. His righteous blood is what paid for our sins. And so, it's a time for us. Every time we take communion, I don't know how you could take communion, just thinking, oh, Jesus died without thinking about what he died for. He had to pay for my sin. He had to relieve me of my debt. For him, it was a great cost so I could go free. And how could I know what Jesus did in his body and his blood and then go home and think it's not a big deal if I keep on sinning, it is a big deal. And so, this is a chance for you to confess your sins. In fact, if you know that you're in sin against someone else, it might be appropriate for you not to take communion until you go get that right with that person. In fact, if you know that there's sin continuing in your life, and you've been living in hypocrisy allowing sin to continue, it might be appropriate not to take communion and just focus on that sin, because there's a warning in 1 Corinthians 11 not to take communion in a what? In an unworthy manner. And what would be an unworthy manner? How can we remember that Jesus died for our sins while we continue in those very sins?
Turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 10, and I want to leave you with one thought, as we go into our time of communion. Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 26 and following here, this was the text, or at least part of the p sermon that Jonathan Edwards preached, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That was one of the sermons that God used to spark the Great Awakening, a time of revival. Over 250 years ago, before America was officially a country, we had an awakening, and it was because people started really dealing with their sin. And here in Hebrews 10:26 it says, “If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.” What is the knowledge of the truth? That Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins. Jesus is the Son of God, and he loved you so much to pour out his soul to bear your sins. Do you know the truth that Jesus is the Savior who died on the cross, and do you know the truth that you're a sinner and you need the death of Jesus to pay for your sin? Well, if you know that truth and you deliberately keep on sinning, look at what it says, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. How can you think that his sacrifice will save you from your sin? If you know about the sacrifice and decide to keep on sinning afterwards, that sacrifice isn't going to save you, you're not trusting in the sacrifice to save you. You're knowing about the sacrifice, and you're continuing in sin. No, all you have after that, verse 27 is a fearful expectation of judgment, and Jesus taught us what that looks like, “a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” Adversaries to whom? God. They transgress. They rebelled against me. So, then it says this, let's think about this, verse 28 “Anyone who set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.” Now, I don't know how much time you spent in the Law of Moses, but there's the death penalty very strongly in the Law of Moses, not just even for killing someone else, there are a lot of sins you can do, where you will get put to death, where they will pick up big rocks and stone you and put you to death because you broke God's law, you transgressed, you rebelled. So, I'm thankful I don't live in the Law of Moses. I don't know if anybody else feels that way, but I read the law of Moses, and I think that's intense. That's hardcore. I would prefer not to be a part of that. Thank you very much. But then look at what it says right here. Verse 29, “How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the spirit of” what, everybody” Grace.
You can see Jesus is the Son of God on the cross. You can see the blood at the foot of the cross. The spirit is convicting you of your sin. He's opening your eyes to see Jesus. You're receiving the grace of God to show you that there is salvation for sinners like us, that we can be rescued and delivered from all of sin's consequence, because Jesus already did it. You can see that by the Spirit. And then you decide to step over that blood of Jesus and just keep on sinning. You don't think the Father's going to be mad when you know what his Son went through and you decide to keep on sinning? It says, “worse punishment will be for the people who knew the good news, the glorious gospel that Jesus came to save sinners like us,” and after we heard that glorious good news, we decided it was okay to keep sinning. How much worse punishment do you think we will get for we know him who said, VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY and again, the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That is in the context for people who know the truth about Jesus and deliberately keep sinning, that's something to be afraid of.
And so, if that's you here today, I strongly encourage you to confess your sins to the Lord, and we would love to come alongside and encourage you how to cut that off, how to tear that out, how to learn the new way to be dead to sin and to live to righteousness. So, I'm going to pray for you, and then we're going to give you a chance to pray so you can deal with your sin before God, and then we will come and take communion together. So let me pray for us now.
Father in heaven, thank you for this teaching of Jesus to his disciples in the house in Capernaum, and thank you that we could hear what Jesus taught them. And God, we're hearing different things today. Father, we're all hearing that people can talk too much about sin. Father, we're all hearing that people are praying for God to remove our sins, rather than us for take responsibility for them, we're all hearing things like, well, we shouldn't be afraid of hell. That's not the real motivation. God, I pray that we could drown out what we're hearing from other sources, and we could really hear what Jesus is teaching to his disciples. And I pray that every single one of us would think to our hearts right now, I don't want to cause somebody else to sin. I don't want to scandalize anybody else. In fact, I want to be very careful about the way sin comes into my life. And I want to cut it off. I want to tear it out. God, I pray that every one of us would take sin seriously, that we would see the body, that we would see the blood, we would see what it cost you, your son, and what it cost Jesus, his life, that that would mean something to us in our hearts here today. So, God, please don't let anybody take this communion in an unworthy manner. Let this be a real time to remember the death of Jesus, because he died for our sins, and let us confront any hypocrisy, any casual attitude. It's not that big a deal. It's okay. Let us confront all of that in our own hearts right now before you, God. took the transgressors to make intercession for them. So even if we've crossed the line and rebelled against you, we can confess our sins in the name of Jesus, and you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, let this be a time where we can confess our sins to you. Let this be a week where many people at our church talk about sin. They don't even wait for someone to ask them. They offer it freely, they open up. They're honest. I want to confess my sin to you. Will you please pray for me, because I want to be healed. I know he had the wounds. I want to be healed from this sin. I want to know the victory that he died for. I want to know the righteousness that he gave me. I want to learn his way of life, because I know what he paid for with his death. Please don't let us be American Christians. Let us be real disciples of Jesus. Let us all make it to the kingdom. Let us all see that glorious life, and let us leave behind hands, feet, eyes, whatever it takes, to cut off our sin. Let us be willing to do that here today. So let this be a time of confession to you. Please hear our prayers in Jesus’ name. Amen.