The Cost of Sin

Go ahead and find Mark chapter 9 in your bibles. We will be in verses 42-50. If you want a preview of what this sermon is going to be about, we will be talking about sin and hell. I know that you all got really excited when I said that. If you want to get even more excited, you will see in your bible that next week, we will be looking at divorce. I know that just really got you motivated to want to invite your friends to church next week. This is one of the benefits of preaching through books of the bible. Because if I was a topical preacher, we would probably never touch the verses for next week. But, God has put them in his word and we are going to read his word and preach his word. Just like today, we will not glaze over what God’s word has to say about hell and sin and the severity of sin.

Mark 9:42–50 KJV 1900

42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 46 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: 48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 49 For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. 50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

Prayer

Everything has a price. I remember hearing this all the time growing up. When I was 14 years old, I got the chance to buy my first car. It was my grandpa’s old car. Nothing special but I paid $500 for it. Couldn’t even drive yet and I owned my own car. Even though it was my grandpa’s, it still had a price for it.

Inflation has affected much of how we view money today. The price for everything continues to go up. Our focus in the passage today though in not on material costs, but the cost of sin. The bible is very clear about the cost of sin. Romans 6:23 “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The price for sin is death. This is what clears our debt. I hope y’all came in ready because we are diving in the deep end first thing here. This is the payment of the gospel. We are born in the image of God, but because of the sin of our father Adam, we have this separation between us and God. This is a gap that we cannot close on our own. In the OT, they would do sacrifices to make payment but this was never enough. They would have to continue doing this every year. So God made a way where the payment was made once for all. He sent his son Jesus, who is God in human flesh, to live a spotless, sinless life. He went to the cross and it is there where he literally and physically died to make the blood sacrifice for our sins. He defeated death and God raised him from the grave to prove that he was not just human, but God. And now, he has ascended and is in heaven waiting to return.

This is the gospel. Last week, we talked about theological triage. This is primary. All Christians must believe this.

Jesus paid for our sin. Past, present, and future. But, we still sin. We are not perfect. So how do we reconcile this. Jesus paid for our sins yet we still sin. Do we not worry about it and keep on sinning? Paul answers this for us. Romans 6:1–2 “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

We still have to personally fight sin. And Jesus tells us how important it is in our passage to fight this sin.

Main Idea: There is a high price for sin

We may think that cars and houses cost a lot of money but sin has a much higher price. It sent Jesus to the cross to pay for it.

We don’t want to elevate any sin over another because they all sent Jesus to the cross. Yes, murder and adultery and addiction all sent Jesus to the cross. But so did gossip and envy and partiality. So the little ones are just as deadly as the big ones. They all sent Jesus to the cross and therefore they are all severe.

Probing question - What are you willing to do to get rid of sin?

In our text today, we will see how severe Jesus views sin. And we need to make our view of sin the same as Jesus’s view of sin. So let’s look at our text for today. There are 5 sub-points that we see in our text.

The Cost of Influence

There is a desire today to be what they call a social media influencer. What this means is that you have a lot of people follow you on a certain digital media platform and you get paid to influence people with products and ideology. The reality is that we are all influencers. There are people who look to each and every one of us, it doesn’t matter if we are 12 or 100, people look to us. But, there is a cost of influence.

Mark 9:42 ESV

42 “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.

Jesus used a little child as an illustration about how to accept brothers and sisters in Christ. Here though, when he talks about little ones, it isn’t necessarily about the age. There are levels of maturity in believers. There sermon last Sunday was dealing with how important it is to be spiritually mature. Well there are little ones and older ones on the maturity scale. This has nothing to do with how long you have been a believer either. You can mature really fast sometimes but there are others who have been Christians for 50 years who are very immature.

But he starts this verse off with “whoever”. This is not scaling a level of maturity but it involves anyone. Anyone who makes immature believers to sin. Sin is all encompassing. He is not talking about big sins only. Yes, we should not cause someone to be an adulterer or a murderer. But this is also what we might call more insignificant sins. Like gossip.

So let’s replace the word sin for some particular sins here. (replace sin with gossip, envy, lie)

Anybody ever watch the old mobster movies? This is what Jesus is describing. What the mobsters would do to people. It would be better for you to go “swimming with the fishes”, than to cause someone to sin. This is how severe it is when someone causes another person to sin.

But also, on the other hand, we can be good influences. Point people to maturity, call out sin instead of causing sin. So be a good influence. But head the warning that Jesus gave that there is a cost to influence.

Next, Jesus give 3 categories and situations. They each have their own sub-point, but I am going to use one application for all of them.

The Cost of our Actions

I love watching cop shows. The other night I was watching one and they got into a car chase. It went one for quite a while and they wrecked the guy out. They surrounded the car and then drug the guy out. They got him to the ground and were putting him in cuffs. And you will never believe what he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong”.

Our actions have consequences. We want to teach kids this at an early age so that they learn that when they get older, their biggest problem of them getting into trouble is themselves. Our actions have a cost. Jesus is teaching this to his disciples here in this verse.

Mark 9:43 ESV

43 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.

Our actions have consequences. Godly actions are pleasing to the Lord while on the other hand, sinful actions are what sent Jesus to the cross. You can’t, as a believer, sin and then say, “I didn’t do anything wrong”. God has given us commands and law that we must follow. Jesus tells us that it is better to end up a cripple than to go to hell with both of our hands. Sin is serious. But it isn’t just our actions.

The Cost of our Direction

Have you ever been to the Blue Ridge Parkway? It is a very beautiful place. I once read a story about someone who went to the Parkway to tour it on a motorcycle. He said he needed to fuel up and got off the parkway and filled up. He said when he got back on the parkway, he thought he was going the right way. Now, on the parkway, there are not any mile markers like on the highway. So he went 40 miles before he realized he was going the wrong way.

You may have a similar story. The direction that we go in is important. Especially if you have a destination in mind. To get to the destination, you have to have particular directions of how to get there. The Christian life is no different. We have a destination, God’s glory. There are certain directions that we must follow to get there.

Mark 9:45 ESV

45 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.

Our hands represent our actions, our feet represents our direction. Life is a journey. As believers, it matters which direction we go in. The world will always be trying to drag the believer down its path to distract them. (give examples)

Jesus says, if you start going down the wrong path, cut your foot off to stop it. Why? Because it is better to go to heaven lame than to go to hell with both of your feet. Sin is serious. There is a cost to the direction that we go in.

The Cost of our Desires

This one probably hits home a little more than the others. We desire so many worldly things. We have had it engrained in us that we should want, want, want the things that the world says we should want.

Mark 9:47 ESV

47 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,

He is dealing with our desires and our covetousness here. Us wanting things that we shouldn’t want. It is sinful because you are telling God that what you have is not good enough. That what the creator and the sustainer of the universe has given you is not up to par. Who do you think that you are? Telling God what you should and should not have. That is what we do.

Jesus tells them that if your eyes cause you to do this, then you need to tear your eye out. So let’s put this all together now. If we just deal with the sins that Jesus talked about, we are gonna be walking around with one hand, one foot, and one eye. This is gonna be a pretty rough thing to go through.

What Jesus is not doing here is advocating for self harm. The bible forbids for you to self harm. So Jesus is not telling us we need to actually and literally do these things. Jesus is painting a picture for us of the severity of sin. He is not advocating for self harm but instead self denial. This is the Christian life. He is saying that it is better to lose this physical body than to lose the spirit. And he tells us what happens when someone will not do this.

Mark 9:47–48 ESV

47 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, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

They will be thrown into hell. Let’s distinguish something though. Jesus is not saying that you will lose your salvation. He is using this as a picture of what happens to the person who will not repent of their sins and turn to Jesus. They will be thrown into hell. The place of unquenchable fire. It doesn’t matter if it is your hand, your feet, or your eyes. The fire in hell will not be quenched.

Jesus speaks for about hell than anyone else in scripture. Hell is the place of eternal punishment. God’s wrath will forever be poured out in hell for sin. The Greek word here is gehenna which comes from the Valley of Hinnom. This is where King Ahaz and Manasseh offered up child sacrifices to the pagan god Molech. This place became a symbol of final judgment.

There are people that believe that there is no literal hell and that when Jesus is talking about hell that he is actually speaking of this place. But this is backwards. This place is an earthly picture to us of what the literal place of hell is. Hell is a very real place.

So what do we do? We fight sin. To do this, we must constantly be renewing our minds to the things of Christ. Romans 12:2 “2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We stay in God’s word and let God’s word change who we are to be more and more in the image of Jesus.

And we take what we know the bible to teach and take it to others. There is someone that you will come in contact with this week that will be wrestling with this right here. Is hell real and how do I know that I won’t go there? And God has sovereignly put you in this persons life to share the hope of Jesus with them. This right here is the cost that we must be willing to pay because of the cost that Christ paid for us. But as we finish up, we have one last sub point.

The Cost of Preservation

With live in a technologically advanced society where we are able to get in our cars, drive to the grocery store, and pick up whatever food we want to eat. But it hasn’t always been this way. Back a century ago, people would have to preserve their food themselves at home to store it and be able to pull it out later to eat. It doesn’t matter if it is meat or vegetables, there is one main ingredient when you are wanting to preserve something and that is Salt.

Mark 9:49–50 ESV

49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 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.”

Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is a preservative. So to be salted with fire is a picture of someones relationship with Christ. We get a 2 for one deal with this picture. Because this fire means two different things. Remember in our passage last week, Jesus made a distinction that you are either for him or against him. There is no middle ground. Dealing with the fire he is talking about, if you are against him, this fire represents hell. The unquenchable fire. But on the other hand, if you are for him, this fire is a refining fire. This is the trials and suffering that we go through that ultimately grows our faith in Christ.

We want to be salty in this world. Not in the negative way but in the biblical way. We want to leave a taste for Christ in the world. This is why it is so important for us to strive for Christlikeness. Because if we aren’t purified by the fire and our witness is compromised, then we will have no effect on the world that we live in.

Conclusion

And this is the cost of sin. Our sin effects the world that we live in. It effects our witness and our testimony. So keep ourselves pure and pursue to be Christ like.

I want to challenge you this week to take a piece of paper and write down the top 3 sins that you struggle with right now. And then write down 3 ways to fight this sin and then do it. This is maturing with Christ. This is killing sin. And to kill sin, we must first identify it, then confess it and repent of it, and then keep fighting against it.