Violent Christianity

Last week we started with a story about the man who thought he could continue a life of sin simply because he had prayed a prayer when he was 13. And in the sermon studied some big ideas: God’s plan for the world is to demonstrate his glory through a redeemed people who are holy. And it is our calling to be holy as he is holy.

Now let me introduce you to Paul Shirley, co-author of the book Free to Be Holy. He was a new, young believer, and the Lord had given him an insatiable appetite to read the Bible. He began devouring it - personal reading, attending Bible studies, taking notes on Sunday mornings.

One Sunday morning he eagerly got out his pen and notebook, ready to jot down anything that might help him in his walk with the Lord. 45 minutes into the sermon, he looked down and realized he had written nothing down. As he wrapped up, finally, he said something he thought was good. He could write it down and reflect on it later: “Let go and let God.” Oh, finally something pithy and powerful I can use!

But as he wrote it down, and thought about it, even before he was done writing down the phrase, he was more confused. What did that mean? No further explanation was given. He went home, got lunch, and figured maybe on a full stomach the words would make more sense. After about 15 minutes of thinking and praying, he realized the phrase was empty. It went great on a t-shirt, but could by no means sustain the soul in battle against sin.

I think, unfortunately, there are a lot of popular, pithy, memorable statements - like “Let go and let God” - that are vacuous at best, and misleading at worst. I wonder if you can identify with him. That spiritual growth has been frustrating and discouraging; and perhaps you’re beginning to think this whole idea of overcoming sin and temptation is for other people, not you.

This morning we need to discuss an under emphasized, often ignored, massively important part of the Christian life. And that is the violence of Christianity.

Read the Bible carefully and you’ll see that God wants his followers to know they’re in a spiritual war. Paul tells Timothy to “wage the good warfare” (1 Tim. 1:18) and to “fight the good fight of the faith.” In Ephesians 6 he goes into detail about the armor every Christian should be wearing - indicating the reality of the spiritual war we’re in. He says, “share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him” (2 Tim. 2:3).

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says that “though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.” We are in a battle, but it’s not against people, not against countries, not even against other religions. It’s a spiritual battle, waged with spiritual weapons.

You are in a war, but interestingly, one of the greatest ploys of the enemy is to convince you that there is no war at all.

It reminds me of the scene in C.S. Lewis’ book, The Silver Chair. Jill Pole, Eustace Scrubb, and Puddleglum are all in the Underworld with the Green Witch, and the Green Witch has begun enchanting them with a spell to make them forget the real world, Narnia. The witch gently questions everything they thought was true, saying things like: “Tell us, little maid, where is this other world?” and then “what is this sun that you speak of?” And when they explain it she says, “It hangs in the sky? Hanging from what?” And when they bring up Aslan, and they explain what he is to her she says, “What is a lion?”

Lewis makes an important point, describing the girl Jill: “And this time it didn't come into her head that she was being enchanted, for now the magic was in its full strength; and of course, the more enchanted you get, the more certain you feel that you are not enchanted at all.”

“The more enchanted you get, the more certain you feel that you are not enchanted at all.” This is the parallel of the work of our enemy, and he is so experienced in his craft. His scheme is to convince you there is no war, there is no battle to fight, there is no urgency, there is nothing to get amped up about, there is nothing to take too seriously, there is nothing to fear. Just relax. Mow your lawn, watch your movies, eat, drink, be merry, make your money, establish your career, travel the world, make memories, and then rest in peace.

Lewis again, this time his Screwtape Letters: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

The world, the enemy, our own deceptive, disillusioned hearts - all form a kind of enchantment that prevents us from being able to grasp the real world in which we sin - the world where God is, where sin is serious - like cosmic treasons - where every human being will end up in either heaven or hell for their eternal destiny.

How seriously do you take your sin? What lengths are you willing to go to eradicate it?

Read Mark 9:43-48. Until you believe that you are in danger, you will probably play at Christianity. But if we hear the words of Jesus, we will sober up. This is no game.

After demonstrating the seriousness of causing another believer to stumble, Jesus now addresses the problem indwelling sin - that is, not when the source of stumbling is from the outside, but from the inside (your hand, your foot, your eye).

I want to explain this passage using four questions: 1) Who is he warning? 2) What is he warning against? 3) Why is he issuing this warning? 4) How do we heed this warning?

# 1 Who is he warning?

Let’s start with the context. He’s talking to his disciples. In fact, this whole section is still Jesus’ response to John’s statement that they tried to stop another guy from casting out demons. He’s telling them the seriousness of falling away, stumbling into sin. He’s speaking to disciples.

But let’s zoom out a bit and take another look. If we were to look into the hearts of the 12 disciples he’s addressing, we’d see that only 11 of them were genuine. 12 of them made professions of faith, 12 of them had given up much to follow him, 12 had been busy doing the work of ministry with Jesus. But only 11 went on to live faithful lives and have fruitful ministries. One of them - Judas Iscariot - who will fall away to his own eternal ruin.

This warning goes toward true followers and “in-name only” Christians. This warning goes out to all of us. Hear Jesus speaking to you this morning: “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.”

# 2 What is he warning against?

He says, “If your hand causes you to sin;” vs. 45 “if your foot causes you to sin,” vs. 47 “if your eye causes you to sin.” The word “sin” in each of these three verses is the Greek word “skandalizo,” which is not the ordinary word for sin. It’s the word for stumbling, falling away, drifting from truth and righteousness. You might think of backsliding or finally, apostasy.

So he’s saying that there are things you can do with your hands, with your feet, with your eyes that can cause you to drift away from God, away from holiness, away from obedience, away from truth, away from love. And he’s warning against making peace with that.

The BIble teaches that you, even if you’re redeemed, will always have to deal with indwelling sin. While we are in this world, and in these bodies, we will have to deal with hands, feet, and eyes that are corrupted by the influence of sin. 1 John 1:9, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Now indwelling sin remains, and it remains active. Your sins are like cockroaches, inhabiting the dark places in your life you’re not paying attention to. Sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing, always tempting. John Owen writes, “Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting; but, if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins.”

Jesus is saying that if there is anything in your life - even if that thing is precious to you, as precious as your own hand or foot or eye - if there is anything in your life that tempts you to be untrue to God, you must deal with it aggressively, decisively, promptly.

Because of the reality of indwelling sin, there are things in this fallen world that can capture the imagination of our fallen hearts, and we can, in a sense, fall under their enchantment, and if we’re not careful, those things that cause us to drift away from God. It could be money. It could be a job. It could be a relationship. It could be material possessions. It could be dessert. It could be a phone. It could be a social media account. It could be a show. It could be a hobby. It could be any number of good things. It could be a hand, a foot, an eye. Good things.

Paul says: “make no provision for the flesh.” That is, don’t give sin an opportunity. He’s not merely saying don’t do the sin. He’s saying get rid of the thing that tempts you to sin.

# 3 Why is he issuing this warning?

Because we do not naturally see the seriousness of sin. There are many people who have no conception of the seriousness of sin; the sinfulness of sin. We make light of sin. And because we make light of sin, we trifle with sin, we play with sin, we fiddle around with it.

There may be some here who are thinking, “But isn’t my sin just a little sin?” Or, “Yes, I know this is wrong, but God, I know you’ll be merciful to me even as a sin.” Or, “I know this is bad, but it’s certainly not as bad as those other sins I’m not committing.” All of these are examples of how we fail to see the guilt of sin.

There may be some here who have been trying to reason your way out of guilt. And this is exactly what your sin does in you: it rationalizes, it explains it away, it excuses, it minimizes. It darkens your mind so that you can’t see sin as sin.

But this passage demonstrates that sin is more dangerous than the mutilation of your body. The imagery invoked here is that of a diseased part of the body that needs to be amputated before it kills the rest of the body. Amputation is sometimes necessary. You may remember the film “127 Hours,” made in 2010, about the hiker whose arm got caught under an 800 lb boulder, and after days of struggle, had to cut off his own arm to set himself free. There are times such violence is life-saving because it frees you from something far more dangerous.

Sin is far more dangerous than you think. Consider these dangers:

First, Sin will harden your heart. A little indulging here, a little compromise there. Give in a tad here, cross a boundary there. Ignore the Word here, suppress the Spirit’s conviction there, violate your conscience, shirk your responsibility, bury your guilt in amusement. And wake up months, years, decades into the future, cold, hardened, calloused.

There may have been a day when thoughts of your own sin upset you, stories of grace thrilled you, dreams of heaven excited you, temptations to sin grieved you. And it may be that through careless, thoughtless compromises you have grown hardened. Hebrews 3:12 “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart!” We ought to “exhort one another every day so that we’re not “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin!”

Sin will make you stupid. Your sin will make you think stupid thoughts and do stupid things. And because your stupidity grows, you go deeper into sin. Sin breeds more sin. It never stays put.

Second, sin will invite God’s discipline. And it is a law of God’s moral universe that sin has consequences in this life. Consider the life of David in the Old Testament, after he plunged himself headlong into sin with Bathsheba. David was redeemed, but do you know what his life was like after his downfall? See David fleeing into the wilderness, being pursued by his own son. See him agonizing over the loss of his own child. See his bones trembling with guilt and regret. See his kingdom splitting before him. God does discipline, and he does not discipline us all in the same ways, but we must know that God disciplines his children - do we want to invite the discipline of the Lord and experience the consequences of sin?

Church, we see it in Scripture, and we see it in real life: you may be saved, but your sin will have devastating consequences. It can ruin a marriage, ruin a child, ruin a church, ruin a ministry, ruin a life.

Third, sin will destroy inner peace and strength in this life. One of the greatest joys of a believer is to be able to walk through life with inward rest in God, peace in our hearts; the joy of obedience. It is to have a clean conscience. To know that the Father is pleased with your obedience, even as imperfect as it is.

Sin, if left alive, will be a leech upon your soul, it will suck out all your vitality, all your joy. Did you know there was about a year from when David committed his adultery with Bathsheba to when the prophet Nathan confronted him? One year of hiding, of guilt, of shame, of the nagging conscience, of the darkness. How was that year? Psalm 32 gives a little insight: “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”

You’re being offered a drink that tastes really good - as it went down - but will tear up your insides for decades to come. Does that sound reasonable?

Are you on the verge of committing a great sin? Or have you been quietly and secretly indulging in what you think are small sins? The guilt, the shame, the nagging regret, the pain of looking into the eyes of those who trusted you, the loss of joy - it won’t be worth it.

Fourth, Sin will put you in danger of eternal destruction. “It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

The clear threat here is this: those who have made peace with sin are in danger of hell itself. The word hell is used several times here. The Greek word is “Gehenna.” It’s a place outside that was used, in the Old Testament, for the worship of false gods where sometimes even children were sacrificed in fire. It eventually came to be a desolate place where trash and refuse and sometimes even corpses were thrown. It is described as a place of constant burning and stench. This is the word Jesus uses to help his listeners understand the final destination of those who have chosen to make peace with sin.

He calls it a place of unquenchable fire. The fire doesn’t go out. “Their worm does not die.” This is not an earthworm, but to the maggots and larvae that eat the rotting flesh of the dead.

What Jesus is saying here is that those who have made peace with sin have made peace with hell itself, and will one die find themselves enchained there. If a person says they know and love Jesus, but in their hearts adore sin, and in their action are committed to it, they will go to hell.

There are many motivations God gives us in his word to kill sin. Is not this one of the weightiest?

Here, Jesus motivates us to kill sin by saying, “If you don’t kill sin, you’re in danger of hell.”

I remember hearing a story about a couple who had grown up in the church (the girl was a missionary kid), but they had moved in together, not married, sleeping together regularly. And they met with the pastor, and the pastor lovingly but firmly looked them in the eye and said, “If you don’t stop that, you’ll go to hell.”

That girl had never been told that her salvation was in question because of her unrepentant sin. And 30 years since, every single year, that girl sends that pastor a Christmas card, and on it writes him a thank you note for speaking the truth to her.

O how I pray that if there are any here who are living in sin, thinking that God will wink at it and simply ignore it, I pray that if that’s you, you will hear me: if you don’t stop that, you’ll go to hell.

# 4 How do we heed this warning?

Jesus' directions, considering the guilt of sin, the danger of sin, the effects of sin, is to “cut it off.” It is to get violent. Let’s be clear: Jesus doesn’t mean you get out the knife to cut off your body parts. He’s speaking in powerful metaphor, graphic hyperbole. And the way we obey his command is to take radical measures in every way to avoid sin.

In other words, the way to grow in holiness is to get violent against your sin. Every impulse to love something more than God, every impulse to lust after sex or money or fame or pleasure, every impulse to be a people pleaser rather than a God-pleaser; every impulse toward laziness; every drift toward coldness - must be dealt with immediately and aggressively.

You need holiness more than you need your hand. You need holiness more than you need sight. We obey Jesus here by eliminating anything in our lives that causes us to sin. It could be a credit card, a computer, a phone, a social media account, a video game console, a boat, a relationship, a career, a Netflix account, a car, a gym membership - you name it.

Now, I’ve counseled people who finally want to start getting serious about dealing with their sin. They are sometimes even excited; finally a plan to that will help me overcome my sin. And then you start telling them what they might do. “What will I do without my smartphone? But...that’s where I check my sports scores. What about the text messages? What will the guys think?” Or, “You want me to tell someone? You want me to confess?” Are you serious?

To which I respond; was Jesus serious when he said those who are committed to their sin will one day be committed to hell?

It’s because so many people don’t want to kill sin, they want to domesticate it. You’re not trying to kill it, you’re just trying to tone it down, keep it under control. You know it’s bad, but you think it’s private, that it’s not hurting anyone, and so you just need to keep it tame and under control.

You need to hear this. Jesus isn’t telling you to tone it down; he’s saying kill it. Stop watching movies that cause you to sin. Stop listen to music that feeds your lust. Stop reading articles that stir up your anxiety. Stop reading books that enhance your discontent. Stop arranging your schedule to prioritize selfishness. Stop walking into stores you can’t exercise self-control in. Stop perusing websites that are tempting you.

We wonder why we can’t beat a sin, we complain about our “struggles” and then we go on making peace with all the things the cause us to stumble. Get violent!

There’s an illustration I’ve never been able to forget that I’ll use here: Have you ever seen that show “When Animals Attack!”? There was an episode where they were filming a commercial for shampoo or something and there was a girl who was supposed to come out and sit down with this lion as part of the commercial. And as they’re filming, this lion attacked the girl. Just mauls her; she’s like a rag doll with this lion.

And in the show they interviewed the lion trainer and he was in complete shock - he didn’t see it coming! Really? That’s what lions do! Lions have teeth and claws for a reason! And what was interesting is that the trainer talked about how he had the lion since it was a little cub, how he fed it, how he trained it, how he nurtured it, how he tamed it. The problem was, however, that the lion is still a lion.

Sin is sin. You think you have it under control, but one day it will bite back. John Owen: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

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