10 Things I Wish Jesus Never Said Part 6 Cutting Out the Cause 31 July 2016 Ross Lester

Transcription

1 10 Things I Wish Jesus Never Said Part 6 Cutting Out the Cause 31 July 2016 Ross Lester Proposition Statement: Sin is serious and followers of Christ should follow his example in fighting temptation and pursuing holiness and obedience. Intro: Week 6 of 10 Things I Wish Jesus Never Said. This week we will look at something that Jesus said that has caused a great deal of drama and confusion in the church, and has even caused people to question if Jesus can be taken seriously at all. It has caused some people like the church father Origen to actually practice self-mutilation. Origen took the teachings of Jesus to a logical conclusion and castrated himself. Here is what Jesus says: If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. - Matthew 5:29-30 (ESV) This should cause all of sorts of tension in us. This comes from Jesus. We believe he is truth. He is calling for a pretty extreme approach to holiness from his followers. This is why he says elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, we can have no part in the Kingdom of God. 1

2 Jesus knows some stuff about sin that we don t know. Here is my real problem with the text. I enjoy sin. I like doing sinful things. I wish it wasn t true but it is. So when Jesus comes along and speaks like this, he is trying to take away something that I enjoy doing, and so it feels like he is trying to diminish my joy. That s the truth, and it is why most of us ignore him. Okay, so what is Jesus actually saying here? We are taught elsewhere that embodiment matters. That there is something magnificent in this human form that shouldn t be defaced, and also that the issue of sinfulness can t be solved in purely physical terms, because real sinfulness comes from within people. So what is Jesus saying? Main Points: 1. Sin is serious a. At its base and foundational level, sin is rebellion against God, and so it is an act of high treason against our creator. Every time. b. It doesn t feel like that though, or I don t think we would do as much of it. It feels normal, and pleasurable, and natural to my instincts. c. When Jesus speaks here about sin, he speaks about eternity and death and separation from God. It is stark. Rather be maimed than be separated from God!! d. Jesus has real authority to say this too: i. He is Divine and so there is a way in which he has seen the consequences of this play out from the first time it happened. ii. He is human and so he has faced it, and fully faced it. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that in Jesus, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 2

3 - When we speak of the life of Jesus, we go from his birth to his ministry and the miracles he performed there. - We forget the miracle of him saying no to sin for 30 years. Every time he is tempted and he is tempted in every way, even as a teen, he by the power of the Holy Spirit, but with the full yearning of the flesh, says no. iii. He is the Saviour and so he knows that he is going to pay the price for sin. He knows the agony that awaits. He knows the separation from the Father that he anticipates as a result of sin, and he says, don t mess with this. Why would you mess with this?? e. What s the context of what he is saying? You have heard it said, but I say to you You have heard holiness is here, but it is here. You have heard that sin is this, but it is this. You have heard that marriage is this, but it is this. f. He is saying that it is a much bigger than you thought. How many of us have paused recently to consider the seriousness of our sin? 2. Sin is supposed to be fought against a. Jesus is clear here. Fight temptation. Fight sin seriously he is saying. Just because he knows that he is going to win righteousness for us doesn t lead Jesus to suggest for a second that our own personal holiness doesn t matter. b. But if righteousness is won for us then why should we fight sin? If we get grace anyway, then what s the point of denying ourselves some things that might look like fun? c. John Owen, the 17 th century Puritan preacher wrote a seminal work on the fight against sin called The Mortification of Sin in Believers. d. In that work he gave 6 reasons why sin is supposed to be fought by the believer. Here is what they are: i. Sin abides in us - In Philippians 3:12, Paul talks about the abiding power of sin when he says that even though he has been made righteous by Christ, he hasn t yet attained the righteousness that Christ calls him to. He isn t perfected yet and neither are you. 3

4 - We are forgiven for our sins and yet we are still under the influence of the sin nature and will be until Jesus returns. ii. That sin is alive and active - Romans 7:23 tells us, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. - In other words, your sin isn t just a passive thing that you live with, it is an actual thing that wars with you from within. - Owen said, If sin be subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we be slothful, negligent, foolish, in proceeding to the ruin therof, can we expect a comfortable event? iii. If left alone to act, it will sin in the utmost - Ever noticed the sneaky and creeping nature of sin? Because it doesn t satisfy and never can, it also never settles because it has never had enough. - So left unchecked it gets worse and worse. - People don t wake up one day and just have adultery. It is usually a hundred small compromises all of which were sin but none of which satisfied. iv. We are given the Holy Spirit - Remember the war we mentioned from Romans 7? Well there is an opponent to that war living within you who gets lots of airtime in Romans 8. That is the Holy Spirit. - God dwells in you and God doesn t want you to sin and so he gives you the Holy Spirit to fight. To not fight is to subdue and grieve and suppress that Holy Spirit of God. - Owen again, Not to be daily employing the spirit and new nature for the mortifying of sin, is to neglect that excellent succor which God hath given us against our great enemy. v. Neglect will make the soul sick 4

5 - The wages of sin is death, and so constant defeat to sin brings about a gradual weakness and deadness inside of us. - People become discouraged, guilty, defeated and ultimately go cold towards God and his ways. - Owen suggests that this can manifest in Christians in two ways: legalistic pride or defeated licentiousness. vi. It is our duty to perfect our holiness in the fear of the Lord - This is a summary that says that because of all of these things it is our duty to fight against sin. - 2 Corinthians 7:1 says, Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. e. At the end of his argument Owen reckons that many Churches and most Christians don t do this and as result bring dishonor to Christ and his church. Let s hear from him one more time. If vain spending of time, idleness, unprofitableness in men s places, envy, strife, variance, emulations, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness, be badges of Christians, we have them on us and amongst us in abundance. f. Okay, so that is the why of fighting sin. What is the how? i. Know the predictable pattern of temptation and sin - 1 John 2:16. For all that is in the world the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. - There is a pattern there: desire of the flesh, desire of the eyes, pride of life. - Our sinful nature wants something contrary to God. Our eyes find ways to stimulate our mind. Our pride says that we know better than God in the moment. - Worked like this in the Garden. The fruit was good for food (sinful craving). It was pleasing to the eye (desires of the eyes). 5

6 It was desirable for gaining wisdom (pride of life - you will be like God). - Works like this in Christ s temptation. Christ was hungry - desire of the flesh. Satan takes him up to see the kingdoms of the world - lust of the eyes. Satan offers him a chance to prove his divinity through the rescue of angels - pride of life. ii. Know and believe the word - Trust it when it says that resisting is possible. Look at 1 Corinthians 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. - Trust it when it says that obedience is better. Like when Jesus says being maimed is better than being without him. - Trust it when it says that suffering of temptation is temporary. I love Hebrew 11:24-25 which speaks of Moses saying, By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. It is telling us that there is an eternal reward that is far better than anything sin can offer in a moment. Live for that. - Trust it when it says that your identity has been switched. Like when it calls us saints and dressed in robes of righteousness and transferred into the Kingdom of the Son he loves. Paul uses this tactic all the time. Know who you are whose you are, then act accordingly. iii. Rely on the Holy Spirit - Mr Owen spoke about this briefly earlier on but it is worth reflecting on. - Look just so quickly at Romans 8:5-6, For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, 6

7 but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. iv. Fight sin - One of the promises of the scripture is that when we fight sin we in a way get a relief from sin as Satan flees. - James 4:7 says, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 3. Jesus Defeated sin, granting both forgiveness when we sin and freedom so that we don t have to a. I really love what John said in his first epistle. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. - 1 John 2:1 (ESV) b. Look at this wonderful double edge. Don t sin. When you do, Jesus righteousness has got you. So again, don t sin. Conclusion: - God takes sin seriously. - So seriously that it is punishable by death. So seriously that his Son is killed for it. - So seriously that he warns us to fight against it with our lives. - Do we take it seriously? Are we willing to make sacrifices for holiness? 7