Sermon Tone Analysis

In the chapters we’ve been through recently, Jesus has been slowly but surely whittling away at our self-centered worldview, and drawing our eyes inexorably upward.

He showed us how God sees the resources he has given us; he showed us how he sees the relationships he has given us.

And in some ways, these things are fairly easy to wrap your mind around.

You can break positive attachments to things that are valuable to you if you have a greater incentive to do it.

Here’s what I mean: most people who love money, love money for reasons they feel are pleasurable.

But once they believe that in Christ, there is superior pleasure, the pleasure they used to find in money doesn’t seem so important.

When our marriage is the most important thing for us, that’s because we’re happy in that marriage; but once we believe that in Christ there is superior happiness, we no longer feel obligated to put all the weight of our happiness on another person who can’t possibly sustain it.

That, we can understand.

But it is much harder if the “thing” we’re holding on to doesn’t come from something positive, but from something negative.

There are things we hold on to—opinions, or feelings, or habits—that are born out of negative experiences.

And few negative experiences are more formative than the experience of being sinned against.

Here’s where Jesus is going to go here.

He’s going to talk about the way we handle our own responsibility in others’ sin; then he’s going to talk about how we approach the situation when others sin against us.

He’s going to show us the faith that this kind of thinking requires; and then, perhaps the hardest thing for us to hear: he’s going to remind us that living our lives this way is absolutely possible.

The thing is, this is a lot harder

Watch Yourselves, For Your Lives May Lead Others to Sin (v.

1-4)

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”

Causing Others to Sin

Jesus wasn’t naive.

He knew perfectly well that being tempted to sin is part of what it means to live in a fallen world.

It’s important that we define some terms here.

“Sin” is the word the Bible uses to talk about any thought, word or act that goes against God’s character and revealed will.

The Bible is full of descriptions of who God is, and commandments of what God tells us to do.

He calls us to “be holy, as [he is] holy” ().

Sin is anything in us that is not in line with God’s own holiness.

Temptation to sin is different.

Temptation, in itself, is not sin.

Jesus himself was tempted: the letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus was “in every respect…tempted as we are, yet without sin” ().

Being tempted means being put in a situation where the opportunity to sin is there, and that opportunity can be taken or passed by.

We can be tempted to do something sinful, and say no.

We can be tempted to dwell on a sinful thought, and decide to not give into that line of thought.

Increase Our Faith

1 And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

It’s important that we don’t conflate temptation and sin: they’re not the same thing.

So we should be careful to not conflate the two, and imagine that to be tempted is the same thing as to sin outright.

Now, that is something most Christians have learned.

But knowing the difference between temptation and sin can make some Christians go to the other extreme, and take temptation too lightly: because temptation is common to all human beings, we think of it as no big deal.

Temptation in itself is not sin.

The letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus was “in every respect…tempted as we are, yet without sin” ().

So we should be careful to not conflate the two, and imagine that to be tempted is the same thing as to sin outright.

But temptation is not to be taken lightly—neither our temptation, nor the temptation of others.

And that’s what Jesus is getting at here: ultimately, the way Christians live their lives will do one of two things: it will draw people to Christ, or push them away from Christ.

However, recognizing the difference between the two can sometimes cause us to take temptation too lightly, and imagine it as something harmless or “normal.”

An alcoholic can tell you that it is during the very beginnings of temptation that the end result is decided: that’s why you don’t see alcoholics who are serious about not drinking hanging around outside of bars, under the pretense that they’re not doing anything wrong.

People will always find abundant reasons to run away from Jesus.

That’s the sad reality of living in a world corrupted by sin: people are naturally drawn toward sin and away from Christ, because we are all sinners, and everyone naturally acts in conformity to our nature.

When it’s our own temptation, we often act nearly on instinct.

If we are prone to a certain sin, and we desperately want to stop, we set up safeguards for ourselves, to not put ourselves into a position to be tempted—an alcoholic knows how dangerous it is for him to be near a bar, so he stays away.

(Even if it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem for someone else.)

But Christians are called to counteract that draw: we are “new creations,” Paul says in —we are no longer under sin, but under Christ.

As such, we can resist that pull toward sin and run to Jesus; and we are called to act as ambassadors who draw others in that same direction.

And part of what that looks like is taking into account the unintended effects of the things we say and do.

But here’s what Jesus is getting at in today’s text: somehow we forget about how insidious temptation can be when we’re with other people—we think about our own temptation, but we rarely think about theirs.

For some reason we assume that if we don’t struggle with something, the folks around us don’t either.

When we say things that are not true, we dishonor the gospel and drive people from Christ.

The so-called “prosperity gospel” promises wealth and happiness if we follow Christ, so people flock to it; and then when they see that become a Christian doesn’t mean that they’ll get rich and have everything they always wanted, they run away, feeling they’ve been lied to (because they have).

When we act in ways that run counter to God’s character, we dishonor the gospel and drive people from Christ.

How disillusioning must it be for unbelievers to see people who call themselves Christians, and yet who show a shocking lack of love and understanding towards, say, people who live with same-sex attraction?

And yet, leagues of evangelical leaders are not only supporting his policies (that’s one thing), but positively singing his praises.

They regularly talk about how there has been no better president for Christianity in American history, no president that better exemplified “Christian values.”

How disillusioning must it be for believers to see their brothers and sisters—people they trust—encouraging them to watch and enjoy things that are sources of temptation for them?

Christians who are new to the faith—and I’ve seen this happen—have left the church because their fellow believers have led them into situations where they’ve been exposed to temptation, and they can’t find any help in coping with these temptations because the people they would turn to for help are doing the things they’re trying to avoid.

And so, in one fell swoop, unbelievers have a

Jesus calls us to think hard about other people’s temptation when we say or do anything—how our words or acts may drive people away from Christ.

It would be better, he says, to die a slow and painful death here on earth than to have a lifestyle that leads others away from Christ.

Rebuke and Forgive, For Others Will Sin Against You (v.

3-4)

When I read, I can pretty easily separate books into one of three categories.

Category 1 books are books that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone.

Books like To Kill a Mockingbird, or the novels of Marcel Pagnol—those should be required reading for every human alive.

Category 3 books are books I simply can’t justify reading under any circumstances.

These are books about which I will unequivocally tell everyone, “Stay away.”

The tricky part comes in between the two.

Category 2 books are books that I love…but that I won’t recommend until I know someone quite well.

In reality there are very few people I know well enough to know what may be a source of temptation for them, and what won’t.

And that’s the crux of the matter: Jesus is calling us to take not only our own temptations into account in our lives, but the possible temptations of other people.

Now, sometimes you can’t really know what’s going to tempt someone, and you can’t always avoid it.

Let’s say I’m talking with someone who, unbeknownst to me, has been struggling to have children.

I happily talk about my kids, and that conversation may tempt that person towards despondency.

That’s not my fault, because there’s no way I could have known to not talk about my kids around that person.

We can’t always avoid it.

When Jesus talks about the one through whom temptations come, he is talking about those people who knowingly place other people in front of something that will be a source of temptation for them.

I say “knowingly” because you never really know what’s going to tempt someone, and you can’t always avoid it.

Let’s say I’m talking with someone who, unbeknownst to me, has been struggling to have children.

I happily talk about my kids, and that conversation may tempt that person towards despondency.

We can’t always avoid it.

However, that is a very different scenario than, say, my encouraging someone to expose themselves to something I know not everyone can handle.

The classic example from the Bible is found in , in which Paul talks about a man who would tempt his brother to sin through eating meat.

That sounds strange to us today, but at the time Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were still learning to mingle.

There were some meats that were, under the Law of Moses, ritually unclean.

A Gentile Christian would have no problem eating these meats, because he knows that in Christ, as Paul says, “nothing is unclean in itself” ().

However, for a Jewish Christian, eating certain meats could provoke a serious crisis of conscience, because even if they know intellectually that Christ accomplished the Law for them, emotionally they still can’t handle the idea that eating these meats is now okay.

So Paul tells the Christian who feels free to eat to take his brother’s conscience into account—if what you see as “good” may expose your brother to temptation, then don’t do it!

Your brother’s conscience is more important than what you may or may not eat for dinner.

Jesus says this is a very serious matter.

There are temptations everywhere, in every moment, waiting to spring on us, and we all react differently to them.

Forgiving Others of Sin

If we thought the first two verses were difficult, it gets much worse.

Let’s take the first half of v. 3 first.

3 Pay attention to yourselves!

If your brother sins, rebuke him...