Serious Responsibilities and Serious Battles, Pt. 2
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It’s not always easy to do the right thing. Have you ever had to choose the harder option because you knew, deep down, it was actually the healthier one? Pastor Nick Gatzke returns to Jesus’ shocking words about cutting away whatever leads us into sin and why lasting change so often costs something up front
Follow with me as we read Mark 9, starting at verse 42. Jesus is speaking to his disciples in private, and this is what he says to them. He says: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes 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. 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 the 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.” In his book, Tempted and tried, Russell Moore recounts an NPR program about a scientist named Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin was an autistic woman who was researching new ways to gently kill cows. It’s an important issue because if the animals experience high levels of stress prior to their death, hormones get released and it lowers the quality of the meat. And thus Grandin had been exploring how to keep cattle calm as they were being led to the slaughter.
Her research has led to one simple insight. Novelty distresses cows. So the key to keep everything is to keep everything in their lives feeling and looking as normal and natural as possible. You might summarize the techniques like this. Workers shouldn’t yell at cows, Grandin said. They should never use cattle prods because they’re counterproductive and unneeded. If you just keep the cows contented and comfortable, they’ll go wherever they’re led. Don’t surprise them, don’t unnerve them, and above all, don’t hurt them. Well, at least to the very end. Along the way, Grandin devised a new technology that has revolutionized the ways of big slaughter operations. In the system, the cows aren’t prodded off the truck. Rather, they are led in silence onto a ramp. They go through a squeeze chute, which has gentle pressure that mimics a mother’s nuzzling touch. The cattle continue down the ramp onto a smoothly curving path.
There are no sharp turns. The cows experience the sensation of going home the same kind of way that they’ve traveled many times before. And as they mosey along the path, they don’t even notice when their hooves are no longer touching the ground. The conveyor belt slightly lifts them gently upward. And then a blunt instrument levels a surgical strike right between their eyes. And they are transitioned from cattle to meat. And they’re never aware enough to be alarmed by any of it. The pioneer of this technology to the slaughterhouses, Grandin gives it an affectionate name.
It’s called the stairway to heaven. You know, forces are afoot right now negotiating how to get you fat enough for consumption and how to get you calmly and without struggle to the cosmic slaughterhouse floor. That is the work of the devil. When your sin continues to provide a source of pleasure or comfort for you, Over the course of time, it becomes harder and harder to see that it is leading you down the path of death. You might feel as though your life is really progressing quite well while abiding this pet sin of yours, and maybe you’re even going up the stairway. It’s so perfect, and it was designed for you, and indeed it was.
In many ways, the more tranquil you feel, the more endangered you are. Jesus says that these sins are much more serious than we think. That the consequence of sin is so severe that eliminating the temptation is really the only option to move forward. And it’s important to note that he repeatedly references you. You, you, it’s your hands, your foot, your eyes that he’s talking about. He never actually gives the command that this is supposed to be communal in nature. This is intensely personal. You are not called, at least in this passage, to look at the sins of others and to kill the sins in them, only your own.
And the metaphor indicates that there will be great personal pain to you as you exercise this kind of discipline to eliminate sins in your life. It hurts to cut something off. And it might hurt, at least temporarily, to eliminate sin. You know, I think sometimes we tend to think that improving ourselves is found only in adding more positive traits to our life than we had before. I mean, likely some of us have thought that increased level of discipline in my life would be a good thing for me. That increased discipline in my diet or how I use my time or discipline in learning or discipline in exercise will continue to help me to grow.
Other times we might think that… engaging and adopting in the fruit of the spirit as listed in the Bible as characteristics are good additions to my life. I want more love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and faithfulness and kindness and gentleness and self-control. Those things are good for me. And still others of us might think that if I read this book and gain this skill or have this category, that positive things will continue to grow within me as I add them to my life. And while these things sometimes are very, very helpful, and addition of these things, especially the fruit of the Spirit, is a wonderful gift of God to you, adding isn’t always enough.
Sometimes the way to growth is found through subtraction, war, fighting, killing, subtracting. Seriously kill the sin in your life before it seriously kills you. That is the message that Jesus is getting at. And he describes the horror of hell that comes. If you don’t, I’m sure it’s not lost on you as I read it just a minute ago that the word hell is mentioned many times. We don’t really talk about that very much in our culture anymore unless it’s sort of a passing curse along the way. Those certain words, damnation and hell, are used now as sort of common parlance instead of serious inquiry, but Jesus uses it very seriously right here. He says in verse 47: “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It’s better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
If you don’t engage in the discipline of self-denial but live in ongoing sin, he indicates that you’re not found in Christ, and thus hell is the consequence. Better to have the pain of self-denial than the pain of hell. And the word for hell here is the Greek word Gehenna. And that creates a picture in the mind of the disciples. Gehenna is a literal trash dump outside of town that is ever on fire and never ceasing. And thus, he indicates at least twice in this passage that literal hell is like this. The fire is not quenched and the inhabitants do not cease to exist in it.
You might not think your sin is that serious. And you might not think that the consequences should be this serious. But Jesus makes no bones about it. Kill your sin because it’s more serious than you think and the consequences are more serious than you can possibly bear. And here’s the challenge then. The challenge becomes immediately very personal. What are you doing? Where are you going? What are you seeing that can lead you into sin? What are the sins in your life that have become so comfortable for so long that perhaps you no longer even feel the sting of conviction anymore?
And as I think about this passage, I think that there’s a couple of different ways that people would respond to something like this. I think the hopeful response is all of us get lax at times about certain things in our life and maybe even with sin in our life and we’re tempted to think it’s common and it’s not that severe, it’s not that important. And so the hopeful response is, I need to start taking things way more seriously than I do. I think some, the natural response might be something along the lines of, I didn’t want to talk about this stuff. I don’t wanna talk about my sin. I don’t wanna talk about hell. I don’t wanna think about it. And I wanted to come to church today and be super encouraged. But then Jesus talks about hell to his disciples. So the pastor has to talk about hell. And now I would rather just keep it all at arm’s distance. I’d rather treat my hippo as my pet.
And this is what I would say to that. I would say, I am so thankful that the Lord Jesus actually peels back the veil and gives us a glimpse into the things of greatest importance and greatest significance so that we know, so that you don’t take a hippo home and think that it’s all gonna work out okay someday because it never ever does. I’m so happy that he actually warns us so I don’t get bit and end up at the bottom of the river. And so how do you kill it? How do you kill that sin? Well, it sounds simple, but we know it’s much more complicated as you engage it in real life.
You confess it to God. You confess to God. He knows already, but he looks for a humble and contrite heart. You bring that sin into the light. Sin loves the darkness where it’s hidden, where nobody knows about it, where it can continue to fester and grow. You bring it into the light. You tell your spouse or you tell a friend or you let somebody know. You don’t pretend like it’s not there. You don’t deny it. The light can show it for what it really is and can help you to move past it. You eliminate the things that facilitate that sin in your life. You look for the opportunities that you’re engaging in and you say, if that opportunity produces sin, then I’m gonna change what I do, where I go, what I look at, what I say.
And you recognize that God is gracious and he’s so quick to forgive. And Jesus takes the guilt and the stain of that sin away when you do turn away from it and he actually replaces it with something better. He replaces it with righteousness, with purpose and with joy. Your sin is more serious than you think it is, and so seriously kill it before it seriously kills you. Verses 49 and 50 mark the conclusion of the passage, and they feel at first glance to be disconnected, but they actually continue with some of the ideas that Jesus is telling his followers. He continues the idea of fire and he combines it with salt and the different uses of salt. This is what he says. He says, everyone will be salted with fire, verse 49.
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. In verse 49, the key to understanding it is found in the Old Testament idea of temple sacrifices that were offered to God by way of burnt offering and commanded to be accompanied with salt. This is seen in Leviticus and Ezekiel and Exodus. The salt… speaks to the purity of the sacrifice. And everyone who follows the Lord Jesus offers themself as a sacrifice to God for their entire life in response to the sacrifice that Jesus has made himself for us.
So Romans 12:1 speaks of this, how we become a sacrifice to God as an act of worship to him. And it’s related to our righteousness and to the killing of sin in our life. Paul writes this in Romans 12:1, he says: “I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” How do you present your body holy and acceptable to God? Through the forgiveness that Jesus offers and through killing sin in your life. Salt also serves to preserve food in the ancient world, as you know. So as verse 49 points to the goodness and the purity of the sacrifice, verse 50 points to the goodness of preservation. Your holiness in life serves to fight as a preservative in the world.
Jesus says in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth.” And so your sacrifice to God is no longer to atone for sin. It is to resist sin. I imagine that you’re familiar with how this relates to the gospel because here is the wonderful truth. There’s only one that can erase sin. There’s only one that can save us from the horrors of hell. There’s only one that can pay the penalty or atone for sin. Jesus is the one. He died so that you might live. He rose again to restore you to God. He dies and rose again so that we might have the ability to resist sin in a new life with him.
And only in him can you resist the sin that he warns us against. Perhaps you’ve heard the familiar phrase, a ship of fools. It was a common medieval motif used in literature and art, especially in religious satire. And one such satire is Hieronymus Bosch’s famous oil painting called A Ship of Fools. We’re gonna have it on the screen up here behind us. It’s currently in the Louvre in Paris. And you’ll be able to see a little bit of it. You can probably look it up better on your phone when you get home later today or something like that. There is an advantage to sitting in the front rows in church. Just saying. So in the painting, which is filled with symbolism, it shows 10 people aboard a small vessel, two others overboard swimming around it.
And it is a ship without a captain. And everyone on board is too busy drinking and feasting and flirting and singing to know where on earth the waves are pushing them. They’re fools. They’re fools because they’re enjoying all the sensual pleasures of this world without knowing where it all leads. And atop of the mast hangs a bunch of carrots, and a man is climbing up to reach them. Yet above the carrots, we find a small but significant detail, a human skull. This is the 13th head in the painting. Unlucky and every way imaginable. The idea is that these 12 fools who think all is perfect are sailing right to their demise.
The only pilot on board, the only figure leading the way is death. But in Christ, we are not led to death. We are led to true joy and lasting eternal life. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. So seriously kill your sin before it seriously kills you. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for warning us, warning that we need as we all too often take our sins so casually. Forgive us for that, we pray. We need your help in this because it’s hard to kill sin. We know your spirit provides us the opportunity and the empowerment to do it. And so we pray that you would be generous and show yourself all powerful in this way. As brothers and sisters, part of this family, seek to pursue holiness and to kill the things that hold them back.
Give us a deeper conviction. May your spirit prick our hearts and our conscience even more quickly as we approach the danger zone. Give us the courage to run the other direction and help us even today as we examine ourselves and look for the areas that need to be cut off. We thank you for Jesus and for the forgiveness that he gives, even for sinners like us. And it’s in his name that we pray. Amen.
This transcript was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and has been reviewed for accuracy. Minor discrepancies from the original spoken message may ex
