The Seriousness of Sin

It is rightfully true that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I asked for and the elders graciously allowed me the time to preach on Covenants, something that I thought needed to be taught. And now, this week and next week, I have been handed the passages on Sin and Church Discipline. So there you go. Made life hard on myself.

Main Point: Our Love for God and each other requires that we take sin seriously

English Standard Version Chapter 18

5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,

English Standard Version Chapter 18

6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 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.

English Standard Version Chapter 18

6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 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.

English Standard Version Chapter 18

but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 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.

Temptations to Sin

7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

English Standard Version Chapter 18

7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

So what we see first in this text is

The seriousness of leading others into sin

Look at what Jesus says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones”

Who are these little ones that Christ refers to?

Mike mentioned this last week, they are believers!

As believers, we are emissaries of the Kingdom. We are emissaries of Christ.

The definition of Emissary is a an agent or messenger sent on a mission especially someone who represents a government or head of state.

As believers, we are emissaries of the Kingdom. We are emissaries of Christ.

In politics, to offend an emissary can have devastating consequences. To please an emissary is to please the one he represents. To offend an emissary is to offend the one he represents.

Christ here shows the same relationship. Christ identifies with His Children. To receive one of Christ’s Children is to receive Him, and to lead one of His children into offense is the same as offending Christ.

So what is the outcome of this offense? Look at verse 6 again

English Standard Version Chapter 18

6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 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.

So in terms of the Mob, it would be better for the person to get concrete shoes and go swimming with the fishes!

The millstone Jesus refers to here is used for grinding corn. There would be two millstones, one on top with a handle for the women to turn, and a much larger millstone on the bottom that had to be pulled by a donkey in order to be turned.

The fact that Christ refers here to a “great millstone” shows the seriousness and the awfulness of the condemnation. A solid stone so large that it can only be moved by donkey tied around your neck and thrown in the sea is a death there is no escape from.

And Jesus, knowing how the heart of mankind is full of excuses, immediately addresses a key rebuttal. Look again at Verse 7

English Standard Version Chapter 18

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!

Christ says Woe to the World, because temptations are everywhere! We live in a world and in a culture where temptations of various kinds are all around us.

And Christ knows and says that those temptations are going to happen. They are not something you can hide from. Like the air we breathe, temptation is all around us.

But this does not excuse the one that leads the believer into sin. Woe to the world because temptation is all around, but woe to the one who tempts one of God’s Children into sin!

Both in Verse 6 where we see Christ saying whoever causes a little one to sin, and in verse 7 where He says temptations to sin, the greek in both places literally says to stumble with a stumbling block.

We have heard that before haven’t we? Talking about eating the meat sacrificed to idols, 1 Corinthians 8 says

English Standard Version Chapter 8

9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

This is the attitude of Christian Community. This is to be the attitude of the church. And it is WHOLLY contrary to everything we are immersed in on a daily basis.

We just saw that Jesus said that the world is full of temptations. And when we say that, what comes to mind?

Temptation to lust? Temptation to covet? Temptation to idolatry?

How many times do we consider temptation to individuality?

We are surrounded all the time by voices that say, “you do you” “you can’t help other’s reactions” “that’s just who you are. Don’t apologize for who you are”

And all the while, we are being tempted to yell out, as Cain yelled, “AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?”

And Jesus here answers emphatically. Yes. You are witholden to your brother or sister in Christ to see to it you don’t cause them to stumble into sin. Holiness is a group effort.

Now how do we do that? How do we actively work to keep others from stumbling?

The seriousness of dealing with our own sin

Christ says if your hand or your foot or your eye causes you to sin, cut it off, tear it out.

John Owen once said “Be Killing Sin or it will be killing you”

One of the greatest lies that believers have adopted is that there is a neutral in life. You are either growing, or you are dying. You are either killing sin, or it is killing you. There is no neutral. There is no pause button.

And what Christ says here is odd.

I can promise you that if you walk up to someone and just slap the fire out of them, and the cops come, you cannot hold out your hand and be like, “It was Him! I don’t know why he did that”.

It’s not going to go well, it’s not going to work!

Why

Why? Because we know that Sin doesn’t come from the hand, sin comes from the heart!

If I slap you and cut off my hand, that doesn’t deal with the issue at hand, which is my anger and hatred. My slapping you is just a symptom of the disease.

So why does Christ say what He does?

Just as Christ’s picture of the Millstone shows the seriousness of leading others into sin, the imagery here that Christ uses shows us the importance of dealing with our own sin.

Remember that the culture that Jesus was teaching to was not the adaptive culture that we have today. Not having a hand, or a foot, or even an eye was a much more debilitating issue!

Without a hand, without a foot, possibly without an eye, the person may not be able to work, and be resigned to a life of begging at the city gates, and yet, Christ says that is still preferable to the consequences of sin.

And you may be thinking but wait, Brandon aren’t we talking about believers here? The little ones are believers, and isn’t Jesus still talking about them? Cause Jesus paid for our sin. So hell isn’t an option anymore is it?

And this I believe is why we don’t see our sin rightly. We constantly forget who God is and what He has done in order to forgive our sin.

That sin that you think is no big deal, if that sin was the only sin, it still would have cost Christ His life

As believers, we are being made more into the likeness of Christ, so what He loves, we should love. (Like His people)

But we also hate what He hates. (Our sin)

Make no mistake. We do not continually atone for our sin. That atonement was purchased 2000 years ago on the Cross of Christ. We are not continually trying to purge ourselves of sin so that we can stand before God blameless. We are already blameless.

But we constantly address the seriousness of our sin, and the seriousness of leading others into sin because our love for the Lord drives us to get rid ourselves of anything that God hates.

And this keeps us from living lives of sin. We are not our sin. We are not identified by our sin, nor are we able to live lives that accommodate our sin.

I saw a quote on twitter this week that said

“The Devil knows your name but calls you by your sin. God knows your sin but calls you by your name”

The relentlessness of the Savior

The Seriousness of your sin is matched by the relentlessness of your savior

English Standard Version Chapter 18

12 What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.

These are Christs sheep! If you are a believer, this is you!

Owen Strachan said “God’s Love is covenental at its core. Given our depravity, this means that God’s love is a pursuing Love”

Even as believers we walk away from the Lord sometimes. We want what we want. We refuse to listen to others trying to warn us. We are convinced we know what’s best, and we want what’s best.

But Christ does not just let us go.

We do not serve a God who sees us straying and says, “eh, they will be back”

We do not serve a God who knows we are pursuing unrighteousness and waits to be able to say “I told you so” when we cant get out of the trouble

We do not serve a God who gives up on us.

We serve a God who came in the flesh, dwelt as the God-Man, and voluntarily laid His life down so that our sins would be removed from us.

We serve a God who pursues. That pursuit doesn’t end when you become a believer. God loves you too much to let you stray.

Scripture says that the one who began a good work in you will be faithful to bring it to completion.

He does not give up on His Children.

And as we will see next week, we are supposed to love each other too much to give up on each other.