Better for You (Mark 9:42-50)

Some things are much harder than they look.

I've been surfing seriously, though inconsistently, for 25

years. I learned the basics when I was

a little kid, and I started to get real serious about it when I

was about 13. Over the years, I've had the

opportunity to try to teach several friends and family

members how to surf. What almost all of them discover

very quickly is that it's harder than it looks.

Before you try surfing, you think it will be an idyllic

paradise, the sun beaming down its golden rays on you, the

waves gently Bob under you. You effortlessly glide across

wave after wave while you're adoring friends and family

members chew you on from the beach, videoing your every move

and high resolution. Yeah, the reality?

Not so much. Depending what on where and when

you're learning to surf, the water might be cold, the weather

might be rough, and you pretty quickly discover that there is

nothing effortless about it. Paddling a surfboard is hard.

Pushing out through row after row of waves breaking on you and

shoving white water on you is hard.

Even sometimes figuring out how to sit up on the board and rest

and not fall off is hard. That's before you even try to

catch a wave. Spotting the wave, figuring out

how to line up, paddling into it, trying to jump to your feet

at exactly the right moment, also hard.

You might find yourself flying head first over the nose of your

surfboard dozens of times without catching a single wave.

If you fall in shallow water, you might come up with a

mouthful of wet sand. You might get hit on the head by

a 30 LB surfboard. You might get a six inch

fiberglass fin to the thigh. You might get stung by a

jellyfish. I could go on and on and on.

There are glories in surfing. There must be, or nobody would

do it. But for a beginner to taste any

of those glories typically involves quite a lot of effort,

even hardship, even suffering. Lots of people try it once and

then give it up forever. You call this fun?

What is wrong with you? If I wanted to get beat up, I

would sign up for boxing. Surfing is harder than it looks,

and so is Christianity. Lots of people make some kind of

decision to embrace Christianity, or as they

understand it, start following Jesus, but without really

understanding the difficulty of what they're signing up for.

What makes Christianity hard? One of the biggest factors is

this. To become a Christian is to sign

up for a lifelong battle against sin.

It's one thing to have to endure hardship and suffering that

comes to you from the outside. Every religion or philosophy in

one way or another has to confront that.

I would still submit the Christianity's resources for

enduring suffering are the best, but it's another thing

altogether to focus not on the threats that come from outside,

but on the continual threat that comes from inside.

If you're a Christian, your greatest enemy is not out there,

it's in here. If you're a Christian, you are

locked in a life and death battle against sin until this

life ends. But don't take my word for it.

This morning we continue our series in Mark's Gospel with

Chapter 9, verses 42 to 50. If you don't have a Bible,

please raise your hand and someone will bring you one.

If you're not familiar with expository preaching, we are

just continuing to preach section by section through the

Gospel of Mark. Every time I'm up here, I'm

preaching through Mark. When Michael's up here, he's

preaching through numbers. And we'll soon start a series in

First Thessalonians. So we're just taking the next

passage of Jesus's teaching and actions in the Gospel of Mark.

In this section, Jesus continues instructing his followers about

what it means to be a disciple of his.

And his main goal in these verses is to shock you into

taking your battle against sin more seriously.

He is telling you it's harder than you think.

He is telling you it's more serious than you think.

Here's Mark Chapter 9, verses 42 to 50.

Mark 9:42–50

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.

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.

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. 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 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

has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

Here's the main point of the passage in one sentence.

The path to life is putting sin to death.

The path to life is putting sin to death.

Sin is an enemy inside you, and you have to put forth constant

spiritual effort to execute it, to eliminate it, to demolish and

eradicate it. We are not saved by killing sin,

but only those who kill their sin will be saved.

Killing sin is not the cause of our salvation, but it is a

necessary means to the end of obtaining eternal life.

That's Jesus main message for us and in the passage he gives us 3

reasons for it. There are three sections in our

passage. In verse 42, Jesus warns us

about the impact of our sin on others.

Then in verses 43 to 48 He warns us about our need to kill our

own sin for the sake of our own eternal destinies.

Then in verses 49 to 50 he uses the metaphor of salt in a couple

of different ways to show us our need to be different from the

world and totally devoted to Him.

The path to life is putting sin to death.

Why should you kill sin? 3 reasons, one from each of the

three sections of our passage .1 on verse 42.

Kill sin to protect others. Kill sin to protect others.

Looking at a verse 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 was thrown into

the sea. If you were here last week,

you'll remember from verse 37 that Jesus uses a child as a

symbol for all believers. In ancient Mediterranean world,

children had no status, and believers in Jesus are those who

have willingly surrendered any claims to status in order to

follow him. So when Jesus has these little

ones who believe in me, he's not talking about literal children,

nor is he talking about children who happen to be followers of

his. He's simply means all believers,

and he's warning of the consequences for everyone who

causes any believer to suffer spiritual harm.

His wording here is wide open, universal, whoever causes.

But throughout the context, Jesus is instructing his

disciples about how to be a disciple.

So I think his target audience for this warning is all who

claim to follow him. If you say you're a Christian,

listen up. Jesus has a warning for you, but

what exactly is he warning against?

The Greek phrase that the ESV translates as cause to sin is a

little bit tricky to bring into English.

The Greek verb is scandalizzo, from which we get our words

scandalized, but it doesn't exactly mean to offend.

It's literal meaning is to cause someone to stumble, to make them

fall. Like you put a stumbling block

in front of someone and they trip over it.

Now, in Jesus teaching here, it means to lead or influence

someone into wrongdoing. The stumbling is metaphorical.

It means to trip someone up so they sin.

But the implication is that you can trip up someone else in the

way of their following Jesus. They are trying to walk along as

a disciple of Jesus. You cause them to fall, and

maybe even in such a way that they don't get back up.

That's what Jesus means when he uses the same word in Mark 417

about those who look like followers of Jesus but whom

persecution causes to fall away. Same Greek word.

And it's also what Paul has in mind when he uses the same word

in First Corinthians 813, where he resolves not to use his

freedom of conscience in any way that would make a brother or

sister stumble. In other words, both Paul and

Jesus are teaching that your example and influence profoundly

affect whether others faithfully follow Jesus, and that has

eternal consequences for both them and you.

What's the consequence of leading another professing

believer into sin? Jesus offers a graphic warning.

It would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around

his neck and he was thrown into the sea.

Now, you probably haven't seen a great millstone unless you've

visited like a historic preserved farmhouse or something

where they show you how people used to make grain.

There could be small millstones you would use by hand.

A great millstone is so big it would have to be pulled by a

donkey in harness. It's huge, it's massive.

Jesus is using this image as if you could take that huge

millstone, put it as a collar around someone's neck, and then

deposit them into a body of water.

That's a gruesome death. That is a way to ensure that

someone is dead, stays dead, is really dead, super dead.

It's a shocking image. What's he saying?

He's saying that God's eternal judgement is infinitely worse

than a gruesome death. He's saying there are eternal

consequences for you and others, whether you obey Him and

influence others to obey Him, or whether you disobey Him and

influence others to do the same. What will happen to you in that

latter case is worse than having a heavyweight tied around your

neck and being plunged into the sea.

Jesus is teaching that a basic part of following Him is being

concerned for others spiritual good.

An element of basic Christianity is being diligent to do

spiritual good and not harm to other people who claim to follow

Christ. How can you do that?

Here's a rule we can distill from Jesus teaching in the whole

passage that we'll unpack more later.

The more seriously you take your own sin, the better spiritual

influence you'll be on others. The less seriously you take your

own sin, the worse a spiritual influence you'll be on others.

In other words, kill sin to protect others.

If you are indifferent to Christ's commands, if you think

this one's not such a big deal, this one I don't really need to

be concerned about. Your life lies to other

believers. It tells them, yeah, it's safe

to ignore Jesus. You can be His follower, you can

be on your way to heaven, and you cannot really pay attention

to how he says you should live. Whatever truth your words might

be saying about Jesus, your life is lying about Jesus and it's a

dangerous lie because of the truth of your words you're

saying about Jesus. Other people will look to you as

an example of how to follow Jesus and then they will learn

from you not how to follow Jesus, but how to be self

deceived and on your way to hell.

That lie endangers other people. If someone sees you as a

professing Christian sin in a certain way and not care, not

repent, not turn away, not take it seriously, you're paving the

way of their disobedience and potentially they're turning away

from Christ. Instead of setting an example of

indifference to Christ's commands, put your own sin to

death. We'll talk much more about how

to do that in the next point, but for now, the point is change

starts at home. Putting sin to death is good for

your soul, and it's necessary for your spiritual impact on

others. Influence on others is

inescapable. There is no way to live your

life sealed off in a little bubble that other people cannot

see and will not notice. You will influence how other

people follow Jesus. You will influence whether other

professing believers around you go closer to Him or farther away

from Him. You don't have a choice in that.

Your only choice is what's the character of your influence on

other believers you only choose whether you will help lead

people closer to Jesus or farther away from him.

Kids and teens in the congregation.

I know many of you have departed the Trinity kids, but some of

you are still here Kids and teens in the congregation.

I know teens wouldn't go to Trinity kids, but you know what

I mean Kids and teens, this starts now.

It doesn't matter if you're six years old or 16 years old.

Your attitude toward Jesus commands will have a spiritual

impact on your siblings, classmates, teammates,

neighbors. You will impact how other

people, what other people think it means to follow Jesus and how

they will do it. When I was 15/16/17, one of the

best spiritual influences on me was a friend of mine who went to

high school together. His name is Jason Farrar.

He was very serious about following Christ.

He was a cool kid, he had cool friends, and yet even more than

that, everybody knew he was a Christian and it was a big deal

to him. When we were in maybe sophomore

year, junior year of high school, he got me to memorize

the book of James with him. We did the whole thing and it

stuck. Memorizing James with him 20

plus years ago still bears fruit in my life today, and it helped

kick start a habit of scripture memory that has served me well

on and off for 20 plus years. Jason is still faithfully

following the Lord today. He's a father of five, he's an

elder of his church in Colorado, and he had a pivotal impact on

my discipleship to Jesus as a teenager.

If you claim to follow Christ, whether you're 5 or 15, you will

influence others and you can have that kind of impact on

other believers. Who can you influence positively

in the way of following Christ today?

No matter how young you are, seemingly small decisions can

have eternal implications. Do you watch that movie?

Do you say that word? Do you visit that website?

In verse 42, Jesus wants you to consider what's better.

Not what's better for your short term selfish interest, but

what's better for your soul. And not just what's better for

your soul, but what's better for other people's souls.

To follow Jesus is to care about not just what's good for you,

but what's eternally good for others who follow Him.

Kill sin to protect others. Point #2 Kill sin to pursue

life. That's Jesus teaching of verses

43 to 48. Kill sin to pursue life.

And as part of the passage, Jesus says essentially the same

thing three times in a row. That means it's important.

Look with me again at those verses 43 to 48.

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.

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. 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, where their worm does not die and the fire is not

quenched. Here's Jesus point in a

nutshell. You must always be killing sin

or sin will be killing you. You must always be killing sin

or sin will be killing you. Because he says the same thing

in three different ways. I'm not going to sort of walk

through the verses in order, but I'm going to itemize 3 main

ingredients. The danger, the duty, and the

destination first, the danger. Either sin must die now, or you

will die eternally three times. Jesus says it's better to get

rid of a part of your body than to be thrown into hell.

Here we need to first note that Jesus explicitly teaches that

God will punish sin and sinners in hell.

This is not a doctrine that Christians made-up.

This is not a doctrine that later church tradition invented.

This is straight from Jesus own mouth and he says it three times

in verse 48. He adds emphasis.

He adds a detail to drive the point home.

He cites the very last verse in the book of Isaiah, chapter 66,

Isaiah 66:24

verse 24, where their worm does not die and the fire is not

quenched. Both of those images are of

everlasting torment. The worm is an image of being

gnawed away, eaten, tormented. The fire is not quenched.

It always keeps burning. Now, sometimes people are quick

to say, well, these are just metaphors.

He's not speaking literally. They'll use that observation to

suggest, maybe not in so many words, that hell isn't as bad as

these kind of gruesome metaphors make it out to be.

After all, they're just metaphors, brothers and sisters.

That has it exactly backward. The reality is just the

opposite. Jesus uses such horrifying

metaphors because the reality is worse than our minds can

comprehend. He speaks figuratively because

the reality is worse than literal language can capture.

Hell is real. Hell is God's just judgement

against sin and sinners. Hell is forever.

Hell is, scripture warns, where many, many people will spend

eternity, and it is nowhere that you want to be.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, I imagine you kind of

instinctively resist or reject the doctrine of hell.

You might bridle at it. You might find it emotionally

abhorrent. You might find it intellectually

unrespectable, but I want you to take a step back.

I want you to hop around and look at it from the other side.

What if the Bible is true? What if the God of the Bible is

real? If the God of the Bible is real,

then it is not your job to tell him how to run the universe.

You do not need to sit in judgement of God.

Instead, the most crucial task for you is to learn how you can

escape and be spared the judgement of God, and we will

talk about that. In order for all of us to

rightly relate to Jesus warning about hell, we have to keep a

glorious truth in mind. The eternal judgement of hell is

what Jesus has already endured on the cross for everyone who

believes in Him. On the cross, Jesus suffered

God's wrath that would otherwise be poured out on everyone who

believes. Our sin really is that big and

that bad that it took the crucifixion of God the Son to

pay for it. God's holiness, as we've sung,

Holy, holy, holy, God's holiness really is that absolute and

pure, that to do anything less than judge sin in that way would

be sweeping it under the rug. And God is not a janitor

cheating at his job and just sweeping sin under the rug as if

it doesn't really, it's not that big of a deal.

You can just kind of hide it. God's holiness is that pure,

that perfect. God's mercy is that vast that He

didn't just give us up to sin. He didn't just hand us over to

sin. He sent Jesus to die on the

cross and to rise again as an outpouring of mercy.

God comes to us in mercy. We don't work our way to Him in

righteousness. He comes to us in mercy and love

through the real events of what really happened in Jesus dying

and rising again and Christ's sacrifices.

That's sufficient. It really does pay for all the

sins of everyone who will turn from sin and trust in Him.

His love for us is that great that He would endure hell itself

on the cross in order to deliver us from sin.

If you're not a believer in Jesus, Jesus teaching about

putting sin to death is important for you, but it is not

the first thing you have to do. You would completely

misunderstand everything I'm saying in this entire sermon.

If you went home and thought, OK, what's the sin I got to go

take care of? The only way to begin to fight

sin is to be reconciled to God through trusting in Christ.

Have your sins forgiven, paid for, done away with by the blood

of Christ, and receive from Him the gift of the Holy Spirit that

you can change inwardly. You do need to fight sin, but

first you need to repent of sin and trust in Christ.

And if you do, you will be made right with God now and forever.

The glorious truth of the gospel is that everyone who believes in

Jesus is safe from hell through what he's done for us alone.

That's glorious truth. That's reassuring.

That's encouragement we all need.

And yet it still leaves us with kind of a lingering question

about this passage. If everyone who believes is safe

from hell, why does Jesus warn his disciples about failing to

kill, sin, and thereby being thrown into hell?

Again, consider his very words from verse 43.

It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two

hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

Now I think both these things are true.

Every believer is safe from hell through the blood of Christ

alone, and this is a real warning about what we must do to

stay on the path of life. How can we put those two things

together? One key truth is that Jesus came

to rescue us from sin, not to leave us in sin.

Jesus came to deliver us from the penalty of sin and He

accomplished that in his death and resurrection.

One day when He returns, he will perfectly deliver us from the

presence of sin. At Jesus return, there'll be no

more sin in the glorious new creation that he establishes.

There'll be no more sin in us. We will be perfect.

The creation will be perfect. He came to deliver us from the

penalty of sin. He came to deliver us eventually

from the presence of sin. And in the meantime, here and

now, in the course of our lives, he means to deliver us from the

power of sin that begins in every believer's life.

When you first believe you are not only forgiven of your sins,

but sins, power in you is decisively broken.

That's what it means to be born again.

That's what it means to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As Paul puts it in Romans 6, you are no longer a slave to sin.

To trust in Christ is to be set free from sin.

And yet, as Paul also puts it in Romans 7, even those who trust

in Christ still have sin dwelling within them.

So Jesus delivers us from the power of sin, but in this life

he accomplishes that progressively.

He accomplishes it through the power of the Spirit in US, and

He accomplishes it through empowering our own effort.

He does not do that without us, but through us.

He doesn't do it despite us, but by enabling us to put sin to

death. As we read in Romans 8.

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you

will live. Paul's echoing Jesus's teaching.

So what does all this mean? It means that a mark of every

genuine believer is constant warfare against their own sin.

If you do not put your own sin to death, you show that you are

not a genuine follower of Jesus. Putting sin to death proves the

genuineness of your faith. Putting sin to death is not the

cause of our salvation. We are not saved because we put

sin to death. We are not saved by putting sin

to death. But putting sin to death is the

path we walk to heaven. It is not the cause, but the

means to the end. So what's the danger Jesus warns

of? The danger is that if you do not

kill your own sin, if you do not mortify your own sin, you fail

to walk the path to heaven. As John Owen put it in his

fantastic book on the mortification of sin.

Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who

walks not over the bellies of his lusts.

He who does not kill sin in his way takes no steps toward his

journey's end. He who finds no opposition from

it and who sets not himself in every particular to its

mortification, is at peace with it not dying to it.

So that's the danger. Next is the duty.

The duty is puts into death. Why does Jesus talk about your

hand or eye or foot causing you to stumble?

It's because those are different ways in which we access sin.

The hand is the instrument by which you commit sin.

The foot is your means of transportation to some place

where you can sin, and the eye is the means by which temptation

enters in. So Jesus is pointing out that in

different ways. Rather, he's using different

images to point out that sin still dwells within us.

Whatever evil impulses you experience come from within.

No one forces them on you. In the believer, sin is like a

foreign, hostile force occupying territory that doesn't actually

belong to it. Sin is not you, but it is you,

and yet you're still responsible for it because sin is in you.

It's in your mind and heart. You're responsible for every

evil thought, every sinful impulse, and all the actions

that break the surface, that start out as evil thoughts and

impulses. So the duty Jesus is urging on

us is this. Don't commit sins.

Don't go anywhere near a place that would tempt you to sin.

Don't even think about or inwardly entertain sins.

Instead, kill sin. That's the point of Jesus

graphic hyperbole. When he talks about cutting off

your hand or foot or gouging out your eye, he doesn't mean that

literally, but he does mean it seriously.

He doesn't want you to harm your body.

Instead, he wants you to kill your sin.

Jesus point is that in order to kill sin, it's worth making any

sacrifice, it's worth suffering any inconvenience, it's worth

foregoing any earthly advantage. To kill sin and thereby pursue

eternal life is worth any earthly loss, even something as

dear as your hand or eye or foot.

Jesus saying that a test of whether you're serious about

killing sin is what you're willing to give up in order to

do it. How long does a gardener have to

keep pulling weeds? The answer is as long as they

keep growing. You must always be killing

weeds, or weeds will be killing your garden.

The only way to get rid of those weeds is to pull them up by the

roots. There's a nasty little weed in

our yard that grows on this kind of vine structure and then

shoots out all these little round green circle things.

It's a pain. It's everywhere.

It's gaining ground as I preach this very sermon to get rid of

that weed, what do you have to do?

Mowing doesn't do it. Pulling up handfuls of the

shoots doesn't do it. You got to get down on the

ground, feel around with your hands and find the vines that

all those stupid little things are going on and pull up as much

of the vine as you can. That's the only way to get rid

of that weed. That's a little picture of what

killing sin is like. You'll be tempted to perform

quicker, easier, more superficial solutions.

You'll think that just running it over with the lawnmower is

going to do the trick. It won't.

You have to pull them out by the roots indwelling.

Sin remains in every believer this side of glory.

The need to fight lasts as long as this life lasts, as the

Puritan John Flavell put it. The Saint, when he draws the

sword in this warfare against sin, throws away the scabbard.

No end of this combat with sin till life end.

Their life and their troubles are finished together.

So how, how can you put sin to death?

We're going to camp out here and have kind of a big long

application point on how to kill sin. 7 Practical Points of

Counsel for How to Kill sin #1 Resolve to obey God

comprehensively. Determine in advance that

anything God hates, you'll hate. Anything God loves, you'll love.

Anything he forbids you'll forsake.

Anything he commands, you'll do it from the heart.

Obedience that holds something back is not obedience #2 Know

what sin is and what is sin. Study the whole of Scripture to

educate your conscience. Labor to progressively bring

your conscience into line with everything God commands and

forbids. Third, learn to name your sin

with biblical language. Which of the 10 commandments

does a particular sin violate? Or does it express any of the

lusts of the flesh that Paul names in Galatians 519 to 21?

Does it express any of the vices Paul identifies in Colossians 35

to 9? Consider Paul's teaching just in

Colossians 35 how it echoes Jesus teaching here.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, Sexual

immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness,

which is idolatry #4 Pray and search your conscience.

What sin have you committed but not confessed?

Confess it to the Lord. Ask for forgiveness.

Resolve to turn from it if you think it would be helpful.

Confess that sin to another believer, especially not a

fellow church member, and ask for their help in fighting

against it. Another crucial step here, which

is essential to the whole battle, is this #5 aim at heart

change. This is how we pull up sin by

the roots. Aim at heart change.

Every sin you commit outwardly comes from a disordered desire

in your heart. That's where it started.

That's where it comes from. As Jesus teaches in Mark 7, it's

out of the heart that all types of uncleanness come.

And as John Owen put it, every unclean thought or glance would

be adultery if it could. Every covetous desire would be

oppression. Every thought of unbelief would

be atheism. Might it grow to its head?

So how can you work to change your own heart?

Seems like a paradox. It seems like you're trying to

turn around and like, use your own eyes to look at yourself.

How do you work on your own heart?

The key is to cultivate a love for God that drives out love of

sin. To do that, meditate on the

greatness of God's character. Meditate on the infinite depths

of His love. Meditate on the love

specifically He showed you on the cross.

Meditate on His promises of heaven in the new creation.

Meditate on the heinousness and hatefulness of sin.

Part of how sin gets a foothold in our minds and hearts is that

we don't see it in its evil, gruesome, true, ugly colors.

It's especially crucial to unmask sin's deceptions.

Sin always lies. And sin doesn't just bait its

hook to lure you. It baits the hook to hide the

hook. It baits the hook to hide its

true intentions. Sin seeks to enslave you.

Sin feels like freedom until you're trying to stop, so search

your heart for the roots of disordered desires.

What sins are you particularly prone to?

You might be tempted by sins in a certain direction that another

believer barely struggles with. Even on a similar kind of issue,

your temptations might go in opposite directions.

Are you prone to be too ambitious and to let others pay

the cost for your ambition? Or are you prone to defer your

ambition for the sake of someone else, but then quietly smoulder

and bitterness and resentment? Search your heart for the idols

you're tempted to serve, and then find targeted biblical

remedies. Find truths that counter sins,

lies. Find glories in God and his

promises that answer and undermine the false promises of

idols. Find biblical prescriptions for

your specific struggles against sin.

If you need help with that, talk to a church member you trust or

one of the elders. That's all on how to aim at

heart change. Number six, take every action

necessary to stop the sin. It's easy to think you've done

everything you can when you've barely gotten started.

What action is needed to prevent you from falling back into this

sin? Is there any habit you need to

change? Is there any access to a

particular sin you need to cut off?

This is where you need to apply Jesus test of cutting off your

hands. And in all of this number 7.

Finally seek others help. Getting help killing your sin is

a great reason to join a local church, and as you consider your

relationships with other church members, assess whether they

involve any elements of helping each other kill sin.

Ask yourself what sin would keep you from heaven or drag you into

hell? Who knows about it?

Who's helping you fight it? And who are you helping to fight

their particular temptations? If you're not a committed member

of a healthy local church, you are in massive danger.

You're at an enormous disadvantage.

You're fighting alone when you should be fighting in a

squadron. A Christian who's not a member

of a healthy local church is an easy target for Satan.

One last element of Jesus teaching in these verses 43 to

48 to consider the destination, the danger, the duty, the

destination, killing sin is the path to life.

It's the path to heaven. That's what makes the hardship

worth it. Jesus says three times what's

better to enter life, to enter life, to enter the Kingdom. 3

Two different ways of saying the same thing.

For instance, verse 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. Now, when Jesus talks about

entering eternal life crippled or with one eye or lame, he's

not speaking literally. He's not implying that harms we

suffer due to our fallen condition persist into the new

creation. Instead, his point is simple.

Any sacrifice is worth it. Anything you give up is more

than compensated. Any sacrifice you make, any

price you pay to fight sin is nothing compared to eternal joy

with Him. The hope of heaven is one of

your greatest motivations to fight sin.

Every loss of pleasure now will be infinitely compensated by

better, purer, richer pleasures with Jesus in heaven.

What does Psalm 1611 say? In your presence there is

fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures

forevermore, though it lasts as long as this life.

Your struggle with sin is short, and eternity in God's presence

is gloriously long. Throughout this passage, Jesus

is telling you what's better for you.

There is a death that needs to take place, death to sin, the

death of sin. There's no way around that

death. And yet the whole point is, this

is better. The whole point is eternal life

is better. The whole point is the joys of

knowing Him and following Him are better.

Jesus is saying what's better for you, and what it means to be

a follower of Jesus is to believe him and to act on it.

Jesus is not a killjoy. Instead, he is only a killer of

false joys. He wants you to kill false joys

in order to pursue true ones. He wants you to kill fleeting

joys in order to pursue lasting ones.

He wants you to kill poisonous joys in order to pursue joys

that will make you healthy now and happy forever.

That's what Jesus saying is better for you.

Trust Him, He knows what he's talking about.

A third reason to kill sin in verses 49 and 50.

Kill sin to preserve devotion. Kill sin to preserve devotion.

Devotion to whom? To Jesus above all, and also to

his people. Let's start with verse 49.

For everyone will be salted with fire.

This verse is challenging. I think one key to interpreting

it rightly is to understand that Jesus is echoing an Old

Testament instruction about how to offer sacrifices.

Sacrifices are offered with fire.

There's one text in the Old Testament that says they should

all be offered with salt. So we get salt plus fire.

Leviticus 213 You shall season all your grain offerings with

salt. You shall not, you shall not let

the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your

grain offering. With all your offerings, you

shall offer salt. So the point of Leviticus 213 is

that every offering is to be offered with salt.

What happened to every offering? It was burned up with fire.

That burning symbolized the offers, devotion, and dedication

to the Lord. The sacrifice was completely

consumed, symbolizing that the one making the sacrifice is

completely handing themselves over to the Lord.

So salt symbolizes covenant. Salt symbolizes commitment.

Salt symbolizes devotion and communion.

What does Jesus mean by saying that everyone will be salted

with fire? I think he's trading on the many

different associations fire has based on the many different

things that fire can do. Fire can consume, fire can

destroy, but fire can also purify.

Fire can also reveal by bringing to light.

I think in verse 49. So in verse 48, fire clearly

stands for eternal judgement, eternal punishment.

But I think in verse 49, fire stands for purification,

testing, and revelation. In a nutshell, Jesus is teaching

in verse 49 that to be his disciple means to be totally

devoted to him. Not only that, but Jesus says

everyone will be salted with fire.

I think this means that as a disciple of Jesus, this offering

by fire is something you'll undergo, It's something you'll

suffer. It's not just something you do,

it's something that will be done to you, like an offering being

handed up into the flames. I think Jesus is implying that

every believer's devotion to him will be tested.

It will be tested through the process of killing sin.

It will be tested through suffering.

It will be tested through persecution.

Note that Jesus uses the word for to begin this verse.

He's giving us another reason to kill sin, or perhaps an

explanation of why it's necessary to kill sin.

Killing sin is one of the ways we prove our devotion to Him,

and it's one of the purifying fires that every believer will

pass through in this life. Everyone will be salted with

fire. The test will differ, but every

believer will be tested. The struggles will differ, but

every believer must put their sins to death.

The fires that God uses to purify us will differ, but every

single believer has to pass through the flames.

In verse 50, Jesus uses salt in a slightly different way.

I think he's kind of teaching from different angles, using a

kind of keyword to link his teaching.

So in verse 48 fires judgement. In verse 49 fires purification

of revelation. In verse 49, salt is devotion.

In verse 50, I think it stands for difference.

Verse 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.

Here I think salt is what makes us different from the world.

So what is that salt? It's our holiness.

It's the result of putting sin to death.

If you put sin to death, you'll be different from the world.

If you put sin to death, you'll be conformed to Christ's

character. Now sometimes people stumble

over Jesus saying about salt losing its saltiness.

Strictly speaking, the compound that salt is, sodium chloride,

is stable. It doesn't go bad.

That's true of refined salt. It has no expiration date.

But in Jesus region and time, the salt that people commonly

used may have been unrefined salt gathered from deposits

around the Dead Sea. It wasn't pure so it could leach

out and leave other minerals behind.

But that is all beside the point.

Jesus is not offering a chemistry lesson.

Instead, he's offering a vivid picture for something that is

utterly worthless. Good for nothing.

You have salt so that it can flavor or preserve your food.

If that salt is not salty, it's worthless.

If you accidentally put in sugar when you meant salt, the recipes

not going to work. If you put in baking powder

instead of salt, strange stuff's going to happen.

Salt is only good for what it's good for, and it has to have

that distinctive character or it's good for nothing.

What is he saying is worthless when you translate the image?

An unholy Christian, a believer who lets sin win rather than

putting sin to death. He's saying that we need to put

sin to death in order to be devoted to him and distinct from

the world. All the purposes that Jesus has

for us in the church and in the world depend on our holiness.

A holy Christian is useful for anything and everything.

An unholy Christian is useful for nothing.

Then Jesus points to one more payoff of killing sin and

pursuing holiness. He says have salt in yourselves

and be at peace with one another.

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

I think he's implying that the first one have salt is the cause

of being at peace. Holiness enables unity.

Devotion to Christ empowers devotion to other Christians.

Sin divides the church. Mortifying sin unifies the

church. Putting pride to death makes you

more able to receive instruction and correction from other

believers. Putting fear of man to death

makes you more able to give instruction and correction to

other believers. Subduing selfishness makes you

more forgiving. Subduing ambition and

covetousness and envy makes you more loving and selfless and

caring. The better you know the sin of

your own heart, the more gracious and gentle you'll be in

dealing with others sin. The more you mortify the sin in

your own heart, the better you'll be able to deal with

others sin in a way that actually unifies the church

rather than dividing it. Why kill sin?

To protect others. To pursue life and to preserve

devotion both to Christ and to His people.

There is no way to faithfully follow Christ without giving

yourself up to Him as a living sacrifice.

There's no way to give a sacrifice without handing it

over, putting it on the altar. You have to pay the cost.

You have to give it up. There is no way for you to live

as a burnt offering without your whole self going up in flames.

Jesus gave everything for you. Jesus is worth giving everything

for. Jesus promises to give

everything to you. Jesus is worth giving up

everything in order to gain Him. Following Jesus is harder than

you think, and it is more worth it than you can imagine.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you

for these loving warnings, and we thank you for these bracing

instructions about the path to life.

We pray that we would pursue them by your grace.

We pray that we would pursue them by faith.

We pray that we would believe your promises and so have the

confidence to make sacrifices now in order ultimately to

receive an eternal reward with you.

Father, we pray that by faith we would choose to give up anything

rather than giving up Jesus. We pray in his name.

Amen.