Jesus Loves You…Stop that!

Open your Bibles with me to Mark 9.

While you are finding your place, let me ask you a question: Has anyone ever told you to “Do as I say, not as I do?”

What is most astonishing about this phrase is that it is an absolute admission of guilt.

Saying this means that you know what you should be doing, you expect everyone else to live by that standard, but you yourself acknowledge that you don’t.

I once had a trainer at a restaurant tell me this at the beginning of a shift. Then, he spent the rest of the night telling me how the restaurant wanted us to things while, at the same time, doing them another way.

The same trainer later offered me some more “innovative” training he promised would triple my take home pay. I said no thanks. A month later, he and four others he had “trained” were taken out of the restaurant in hand cuffs. They had been using manager key cards in the computer systems to delete items from the bills of customers and then totaling the credit card charge to the same amount by increasing the tip they received by the cost of the deleted items. I don’t think the police found his hypocritical position as acceptable. It turns out that doing it the right way matters.

Now, most if not all of us shake our heads at this story.

We know that what those people did was wrong. We agree with and probably even applaud them being punished.

We can even say that the beginning of the problem was in their hypocrisy, a willingness to break the rules and diminish their importance in their lives.

But the tragedy in this story is what happens when we fail to learn anything from it.

With that in mind, let’s read together from Mark 9, starting in verse 42. As we read, I invite those who are able to stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

Mark 9:42–50 CSB

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. “And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and 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 should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Pray, Invite People to sit.

Last week, you’ll remember that the disciples had been arguing over who is the greatest.

Jesus had corrected them, telling them that to be the greatest in God’s Kingdom, you have to humble yourself. You have to serve everybody else, not thinking that anyone is below you.

And Jesus used the example of this little boy. And just to remind you, we were talking about how children were the lowest members of society. They had the lowest place in the household.

But Jesus told His disciples that serving such a child would bring honor and rewards in God’s Kingdom.

The point wasn’t to elevate the child, the point was to fix our lives in a posture of humility.

And as our passage picks back up, in verse 42, Jesus is again pointing us to this child as an example.

Jesus said that cutting off sin and true discipleship is the test of salvation.

and so, the challenge that this is for us is profound because in our day and age, we excuse sin.

I’m not saying that there is no room for grace-everyone stumbles.

But I’m talking about regular, habitual sin.

Many Christians accept living together before marriage as a social norm instead of heeding Christ’s call to holiness and purity.

There are churches that not only condone homosexuality and transgenderism, but celebrate it publicly and put those who practice these things into leadership positions.

These things seem flagrant and again, we shake our heads. But what about those little sins that we excuse?

In 2021, Pew-Barna research concluded only 40% of Christians tithe regularly as part of their worship.

We maintain sin habits like lying and excuse it with all kinds of titles.

Racism, chauvinism, and materialism abound with no real difference between Christians and their lost neighbors.

We cuss or we curse others. We spread rumors and gossip.

The list of sins that we excuse and diminish and justify goes on and on and on.

And I’m not here to beat you up, but we must acknowledge that we have a problem because

Following Jesus requires you cut off sin, seek Him, and lead others to Him.

In other words, today Jesus calls us to live as true disciples.

And so, in the time that remains this morning, we are going to explore three ways Jesus tells us in this passage we can pursue being true disciples. Let’s look at them starting in verse 42:

Mark 9:42 CSB

“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

The first way we see to pursue being a true disciple is to

Live to protect others from stumbling.

If you are a follower of Jesus, if you believe that the words that Jesus speaks are truth, this verse should make you stop and think.

Me, tied to a heavy rock at the bottom of the ocean is better than causing others to fall away from following Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but nothing in that statement sounds appealing to me.

It makes me want to take pause.

It makes me look really hard at my own life and at the sin that I’m excusing because others see me.

When my kids were little, my wife once found one of our children up super early in the morning

The child was 3 years old and could not yet read.

But, they were sitting in their bed, looking at an upside down New Testament.

Bethany asked the child “what are you doing?”

Their reply? “Daddy gets up early to read God’s Word every day because that’s what a man does, so I’m going to be a man like Daddy.”

It cut me right to the heart when she told me about the conversation for two reasons.

The first is that I realized just how closely others watch you, even when you don’t realize they see.

The second was the conviction that I had, at the time, lost my fervor for my own quiet time and had missed several days over the previous weeks.

Here is the reality that we are faced with, friends: discipleship isn’t just about you.

To be a disciple, you have to follow Jesus yourself and you have to be teaching others to follow Jesus.

Which means that you must actively choose to remember that others are watching you and they should be.

We don’t shy away from being watched, we lean in to it.

There is no motivator on earth like knowing that someone else is emulating what you do.

The greatest seasons of growth in my walk with Jesus have always centered around my deepest times of discipling others.

The things that you do matter: both in obedience and in disobedience

Sin splashes.

When we lived in Florida for a season, we had annual passes to an amusement park that had a large tiger exhibit program.

We loved to go to the shows and educational sessions about tigers.

Something you learn quickly is to not sit in the first two or three rows because if you do, you are likely going to get peed on.

Sin is like that. It affects others around you.

Jesus takes the way that you are influencing the faith of others seriously

You and I must choose to lean into this or we will face judgment for it.

Your life is influencing someone’s faith-make that influence positive.

Who is watching your walk and what is it leading them to?

Ask yourself this question: Does my life pull people towards Jesus or away from Him?

Let’s continue together: Verse 43:

Mark 9:43–48 CSB

“And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

The second way we see to pursue being a true disciple is to

Cut off anything and everything that leads you to sin.

Sometimes, we look at the words of Jesus, and we diminish their meaning.

We say…

Jesus doesn’t really want me to cut of my hand, does He?

Jesus wouldn’t really want me to gouge out my eyes, would He?

But we only think those things are extreme because we don’t fully grasp the horrors of Hell.

Jesus says here “their worm does not die and the fire is not quinched.”

The torment, the suffering, the agony of Hell is unending. It goes on and on and on forever.

I’ve heard people say things that diminish this suffering.

There are many today that liken Hell to a night of partying, as though it were a place appealing to be.

And I don’t enjoy talking about these things, but imagine having a resurrected body.

One freed from death. One that would never age, never stop healing itself.

And then imagine being in a place that burns you constantly, where worms eat you constantly and you heal so they can do it again. and again. and again. and again.

So, cutting off your hand, losing an eye, none of these things is as bad as experiencing Hell fire.

Jesus doesn’t wants to maim you-He wants you to start taking sin and Hell seriously.

You see, the point is not to cut off a limb. It is to cut off the excuses.

cut off the temptations.

Cut off anything that you aren’t strong enough to resist.

Cut of everything that is drawing you towards sin.

Those things aren’t to blame for your sin-but you have to choose.

You can have sin habits or you can have Jesus, but you can’t have both.

Now, I’m going to go over the top in clarifying this, because I will not risk you mishearing me.

There is no sin that Jesus can’t forgive you for.

And if you are in Christ, your sins will be forgiven.

But the sins of a Christ follower should be incidental, not habitual.

Yes, Christians are going to continue to struggle with sin on this side of eternity.

Yes, you are going to stumble.

BUT, your sins should have a diminishing return.

In other words, you should sin less and less and you follow Jesus more and more.

Choosing to remain in habitual sin is choosing sin and death over Jesus.

It’s choosing to take the chains Jesus died to free you from and to close them back onto yourself.

And so, if you are following Jesus, it means choosing to do whatever it takes to cut sin out of your life.

Nothing else that you could lose is worth losing Jesus.

To pursue being a true disciple is to cut off anything and everything that leads you to sin.

Let’s look at the last one together. verse 49

Mark 9:49–50 CSB

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

The final way we see to pursue being a true disciple is to

Be salted by Christ and live for His Kingdom.

These verses can be confusing because there are two plays on salt that Jesus uses.

The first one has to do with persecution and refinement.

Following Jesus is going to cause friction with the world we live in and the life that you had before Christ.

He is going to challenge and change your wants and desires, and that will mean leaving the old ones behind.

Following Him is going to bring hatred from the world around you.

John 15:18–19 CSB

“If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.

These things are the fire. They feed on everything in you that doesn’t belong to Jesus.

Jesus uses them in our lives to strip those things away from us so that what is left is His new life in us.

In the time of Jesus, salt was not as pure as it is now.

If you used the salt you had until their were more impurities than salt, it would seem that the salt had lost its saltiness.

And so, in this first verse, Jesus is saying that we have to embrace the persecution that we face because of Jesus.

We have to embrace the idea of dying to ourselves.

letting go of selfish desires.

letting go of sinful habits.

We have to choose to become the purified salt Jesus will use for the sake of His Kingdom on earth, or the impurities of our old lives will grow so much that no one will see the Christ in us.

In the Screw Tape Letters, C.S. Lewis wrote that if our enemy cannot keep us from the Kingdom of God, His next best plan is to make us ineffective for its expansion on earth.

Let Jesus refine you.

Don’t be afraid of a little suffering because through it you will come to be the flavor of the Kingdom of God!

The second play on salt is related to this. It’s what happens in the life of believers as Jesus refines you.

Compare salt that has been purified to salt that is full of impurities and you will tell the difference.

And so what Jesus is calling us to is towards in verse 50 is a place where His church is a body made up of true believers.

He is saying “Let your community of faith be exactly that.”

When I was a kid, my parents used to bring home a lot of generic products.

Instead of Fruit Loops, I ate a lot of Tootie Fruities

Instead of Coca Cola, we drank Check Cola.

Instead of Doritos, we ate Nacho Cheesy Chips

Instead of Reebok Pumps, I wore Voit Pumpers

And I’m not here this morning to argue about the economics of those decisions-I think we all know generics are cheaper. But there is a reason.

But what I learned at a very early age is that, friends, there is an obvious difference between a cheap imposter and the genuine article.

And what happens in the life of a believer as the call of Jesus on your life and the change it brings rubs against literally everything else in this fallen world, is that we become the pure salt of life, and not just the knock off we’ve all grown to accept because we don’t know any better.

I’m convinced that one of the reasons many people find the Gospel unconvincing in our day and age is not that it has lost its power, but that so many followers of Jesus have clung to a life that everyone else around them has, just seasoned with a little Jesus.

We have settled for being a cheap knock off.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to play Christian.

Let it be that when people come into the body of Christ, what they experience is people living in genuine relationship with Him.

Let them come, taste, and see that the Lord is good.

If there is contention and strife in your life, let it be with the world outside and the war against your old self.

But among the Body of Christ, let peace rein.

Let it be that we are known as the salt of the earth- that among us they finally taste what life is supposed to be.

Let people see the good that we do and give glory to God.

This passage is hard because our flesh makes it hard to let go of our sin.

But This morning, we can ignore it no longer.

This morning, we see that YES, Jesus loves you, but sin is still sin.

You can have a sin-filled lifestyle OR you can have Jesus.

You can’t have both.

Our worship team is coming.

They are going to lead us in a time of reflection.

I would invite you to get alone with God, right now, right where you are.

This morning, have an honest conversation with Jesus about where you are in your journey with Him. Let Him do the talking!

I don’t know what your struggles are. What I do know is that He wants to do a work in you. He wants to change you from the inside out, starting right now.

If you ask Him where you are clinging to sin and not Him, Jesus will show you.

If you ask Him now, He will show you, not in judgment, but as a gentle and loving surgeon that sees what needs to be cut out of your life so that you can experience healing.

And if you’re here, and you’re saying “Matthew, How can I talk to Jesus, I’m not even a follower of Jesus. I’ve never even prayed before,” Can I tell you that Jesus already knows you and He is ready for you to meet Him. And talking to Him is like talking to a friend.”

And after the service, if God is dealing with your heart and you would like to talk about what comes next, I would love to talk with you and pray together. Then, we can set up a time to get together and talk more about next steps, whether you have decided to follow Jesus or if you’ve been a Christian for a long time but are ready to go deeper. We would love the opportunity to walk with you in that decision.

But let us turn together towards the Lord in prayer, and then let’s go to Him as individuals. Let Him meet you where you are and bring the healing only He can.

Pray.