Jeffrey Heine: We are continuing our study of Mark's gospel this morning. Today, we're looking at the the last section in chapter 9. And in chapter 9, we have seen Jesus continue to confront his disciples' ongoing failure to understand who he is, what he has come to do, and who they are supposed to be his disciples. And after descending the mountain and after the transfiguration, Jesus has a series of interactions with his disciples, displaying their inability to heal a sick boy, their failure to understand what Jesus is saying about his death and resurrection that is to come, their embarrassment and refusal to even ask him to, address those things, and their petty arguments over which one of them is the greatest disciple. And at each point of failure, Jesus restates, He realigns what it means to follow Him as a disciple.
And this is where we find ourselves this morning. Jesus is gathered with His disciples. It's very likely it's in the home of Peter in Capernaum, and Jesus is teaching them what it means to follow. And so if you will, look with me in Mark chapter 9 verses 38 through 50. Let us listen carefully, for this is God's word.
John said to him, Jesus, teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us. But Jesus said, do not stop him, For no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. 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 2 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 2 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 2 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. This is the word of the lord.
Let's pray together. Oh, lord, we come to you this morning recognizing our need for your spirit to lead us away from error and to your eternal truth. You alone, oh, oh, lord, you alone have the words of life, and we desperately need them today. Whether we know it or not or know to confess it or not, our souls are weary and desperate for you. So come.
Renew our strength by your spirit. Refresh our minds in your greatness and restore in us the joy of our salvation. So would you speak, Lord, for your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.
I try to limit myself to one Soren Kierkegaard quote per year. And believe it or not, it's been a year and a half. And I know some of you are thinking, that can't be true. But that's because Joel has been quoting Soren Kierkegaard. And then others of you are thinking, I don't care at all.
And, that's fine too. But Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher in the 1800. He's often considered one of the most passionate and challenging of the modern philosophers, and and he lived only 42 years. But in his, brief life, he was a prolific writer. He he published over 40, publications in the span of about 10 years.
And Kierkegaard was consumed with the questions of what it meant to live a life before God, to be a human being in the world that God created and governs. And earlier this year, a new translation of his master for work, the sickness unto death, was released. And in it, Soren begins with a passage, a passage from John's gospel, concerning the death of Lazarus. And when Jesus is confronted with this news, that Lazarus is ill and he he needs to go to him quickly to heal him, Jesus says, this sickness is not unto death. More modern translations say, Jesus is saying this sickness will not end in death.
And yet, as Kierkegaard notes, Lazarus dies. His illness ends in death. So what do we what do we make of this? Well, Kierkegaard says that Jesus wasn't wrong because there is a sickness that leads to death. Just it's just not what we think.
Kierkegaard says that there is a different illness than a disease of the body, and there's a different death than a body failing. It is a greater sickness that leads to a greater death. It's a sickness that affects more than just the body. It affects the soul. And to understand this sickness, we need to understand what sin is.
And if we are to begin to understand the profound sickness that comes to our souls, we must see and believe how severe sin is. And sin must be more than just breaking a rule. But that is how most of culture talks about sin, talks about it in that way. It's the debate of, is this a sin or is this not a sin? Is that a sin?
Is that not a sin? It's a mindset that's only concerned with the rules, these binary options. Sin, not a sin. It's keeping the rules, condemning others for breaking the rules. It's trying to figure out if something really is a sin, chiefly by how guilty I may or may not feel.
But the Pharisees, they they knew all about this rule keeping and rule breaking. It was the focus of their whole religion. And so much of Mark's gospel has shown us just how keeping or breaking rules is not the real issue of sin. There's so much more. To better understand what sin is, Kierkegaard suggests that we look at what the opposite of sin is.
And he argues that the the opposite of sin is not virtue. It's not rule keeping. The opposite of sin, Kierkegaard says, the opposite of sin is faith. The Apostle Paul teaches us in Romans chapter 14, that everything that does not come from faith is sin. Anything that is not from faith is an offense to God.
And so when we talk about sin, we're talking about the opposite of faith. We're talking about what isn't trusting in Jesus. Consider this. Do you think that if you knew what was right and what was wrong, that you would always choose right? Of course not.
But that's how much of the world in the 1st century that's how they understood sin at the time of this writing of, the Gospel of Mark. At that time, they thought that the failure to do right was a failure of knowledge. It was a failure of information, that if we just knew more about what right and wrong was, we would always choose right. We just needed more information. But if we are honest, each of us can bear witness to having a clear understanding of what was right and what was wrong and still choosing what was wrong.
And this is what Kierkegaard emphasizes in the Christian definition of sin, the reality of defiance, choosing against faith. Choosing to sin is a defiance of faith, And in that, it's an offense to God. And so Kierkegaard wrote these words. The possibility of offense lies in there having to be a revelation from God for man to learn what is sin and how deep it goes. To learn what is sin and how deep it goes.
We need to learn how grave, how serious, how severe this sin is. Because we will not follow Jesus' teaching on resisting temptation. We will not guard others from temptation if we don't know what sin is or how deep it goes. And that's exactly what Jesus is instructing his disciples in here at the end of Mark chapter 9. The disciple John, he has not spoken directly at all in Mark's gospel until now.
John was the youngest disciple. And eventually, he would live to be the oldest. He would be the only one of the 12 not to be executed as a martyr. But here in Mark 9, young John speaks up with what he assumes will be a helpful account regarding an encounter that he had had with a man who was healing people in the name of Jesus. So what did John encounter?
Well, there was a man who was not among the 12 disciples, nor was he a part of that larger group of disciples who regularly traveled with Jesus. And John specifically notes to Jesus that this man was not with us. And yet 2 things stand out about the man. First, he's effective. He is healing people.
And second, he's doing this healing ministry in the name of Jesus. That phrase, in the name of Jesus, it means that the man was doing this healing in the power of Jesus. He wasn't healing in his own name, his own power. He wasn't just trying to pretend to be like Jesus, like in a charlatan fraudulent way. He was calling upon the name and the power of Jesus, and people were being healed.
And young John, strong in spirit, but not strong in understanding, like a dog bringing you a dead animal, thinking it's the greatest gift that you've been waiting for. John says to Jesus, I tried to rebuke this man to stop him from doing these healings in your name. Aren't you proud? And this scene is intentionally ironic, I believe, because it follows it's immediately following the account of the disciples of Jesus failing to heal someone. They failed, Jesus notes, because the healing required prayer.
And what is prayer but an appeal to the name and the power of Jesus? When we say at the close of a prayer, in Jesus' name, now that's not like an email signature saying kind regards or sincerely yours. It's an emphatic confession that all that we have just said, all that we have pleaded, all that we have asked for has been dependent upon the power of Jesus. Not our status, not our merit, not our name, it's an appeal for the power of Jesus. Just because His name is invoked though, that doesn't mean that the prayer is gonna be answered in the way that we want it to be answered, but it certainly won't be answered if we are trusting that the power lies in our name.
And so the disciples, they failed to heal this boy. And we can assume it's because they did not pray. It was not in Jesus' name. And next, they meet a man who's not a part of their group. Remember, this is the group that was just arguing about who is the greatest disciple of Jesus, because surely the greatest disciple would be one of them.
But these 12 just failed to heal in the name of Jesus. And now a stranger is doing greater acts and miracles in the name of Jesus. And John's report is, don't worry, Jesus. We tried to stop Him. And once again, the disciples of Jesus, so great in their own minds, don't understand Jesus' teaching.
They don't understand what it means to be great or even what it means to be a disciple. And once again, Jesus is going to instruct them in what it means to truly follow Him. Last week, Joel and Ford looked at Jesus telling the 12 that a great disciple is a servant to all. A great disciple welcomes the needy and the helpless and the child in the faith. A great disciple humbles themselves to receive the humble.
A great disciple receives what is good. And now, after John reports rebuking a man who was healing in the name of Christ, Jesus now instructs his followers that a great disciple also rebukes what is evil, receiving what is good, rebuking what is evil. Two lessons in redefining what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus that walks in authentic discipleship. Jesus responds to John. Let's look together at verse 39.
Jesus says, do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Jesus informs his disciples that if this man is doing a mighty work in his name, appealing to his power, then this man is not going to turn and speak lies about Jesus right after. The man is not an opponent that needs to be rebuked. The man may need further instruction regarding who Jesus is and all of his teaching, but the man does not need a rebuke to be stopped. And then Jesus, holding this issue in his mind, turns his attention back to the young child he's still holding, still holding in his arms, likely a son or a daughter of Peter.
And he instructs his disciples on what truly deserves rebuking, what truly needs confrontation and prevention. It isn't the man healing in Jesus' name. It isn't mighty acts of deliverance in the name of Jesus. What necessitates confrontation and rebuking is sin. Specifically, in in this verse, he's talking about leading others to sin.
Let's look at verse 42. Jesus speaking here says, 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. Nearly every time we read of the sea or the ocean in the scriptures, it's supposed to call to mind chaos, danger and judgment. The seas were where men and women regularly lost their lives in storms and crashing waves, attacked by sea creatures. In the Old Testament, we see in, the story of Jonah, that the sea was judgment for Jonah.
His shipmates were discerning that the storm and the crashing waves, they they must be because someone on the boat had offended a deity. Jesus uses this symbol of chaos and judgment to describe where those who cause the vulnerable to sin, that's where they will be judged. To see this in context with what has just been spoken in these verses, Jesus says that what deserves rebuking is not the mighty acts of healing. What what deserves rebuking is anyone who causes a little one who believes in him to sin. That must be stopped.
But what does Jesus mean by little ones who believe? Well, I think that there are two meanings that Jesus means at the same time. First, Jesus means young children, those who cannot care for themselves or defend themselves, literal young children. And then secondly, I think he means those who are little ones in the faith, the new believers. And whoever causes a little one who believes in Jesus to sin deserves the harshest of rebukes.
They are the ones who must be stopped. Jesus said it would be better for them to be thrown into the chaos of the sea than to cause a young believer to sin. Why? Because sin isn't just about breaking the rules. Remember, the opposite of sin is faith.
So causing the vulnerable, the young and the faith to sin means to lead them away from faith, away from trusting in Jesus. That is why Jesus gives such a severe teaching. And just as we are to receive the young believer in the name of Jesus, We are likewise to rebuke in the name of Jesus anyone who provokes the young to move away from faith. Jesus' aim in the past few chapters has been to redefine the concept of a disciple, what a great disciple is and does. Great disciple looks out for the young and the faith by receiving them and stopping anyone who might bring them harm or tempt them away from the faith.
And so that means that the church, the local gathering of the disciples of Jesus must be a place of safety for the vulnerable. It's not an option. Do not miss how clearly and fiercely Jesus is issuing these instructions. Jesus says it's better for a person be at the bottom of the sea than to lead a young believer away from him. This teaching of Jesus, it got endless applications, but I I wanna highlight 2.
The first, you are to be watchful over the little ones in the family of faith, to rebuke any threat that may come toward them, guarding against any influence that would encourage them to sin. Secondly, you are to be watchful over yourself so that you yourself do not cause anyone to sin. And this is not hypothetical rhetoric. This is direct teaching from Jesus to his disciples. Since I've already cashed in on one Kierkegaard quote, I'm gonna go with another one, double down.
This is a paraphrase, but but Kierkegaard said and this is one of the one of the lines of his that that really endeared me to his teaching. And he says, so often we pretend like we don't understood what it said, we would be compelled to follow it. So we pretend. Jesus is being so clear here. This direct teaching from Jesus to his disciples about protecting the young believers in the community.
Think about the people in your life who may be young in the faith, who are vulnerable to your influence. Are you leading them toward faith or away from it? Passages like ours today, it requires us to take stock of these things. Are you encouraging those who are young in the faith around you toward obedience or disobedience? Are you encouraging faithfulness or things that you know are against what God wants for them?
Because this this teaching of Jesus is for us today, for you and for me. So take it seriously. Consider your life and the influence that you have over children, teenagers, young adults, new believers of any age, are you encouraging them toward faith? Are you engaging in gossip? Are you thoughtful about your witness at work, or are you demonstrating deceitful practices and selfish gain?
Are you watching over your words carefully? Do they build up or do they tear down? What about social media? What are you posting or reposting for anyone who follows you to see? How might you be tempting the little ones who believe in him away from the faith?
If the question that Jesus is asking is, what truly deserves rebuking? Then the first answer that he offers is, rebuke those who cause the young and the faith to sin. The second answer that Jesus gives, what deserves rebuking? It might just be yourself. Jesus gives 3 hyperbolic, emphatic instructions regarding our temptation to sin in verses 43 through 48.
Let's look at those together. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with 2 hands to go to hell to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. For it is better for you to enter life lame than with 2 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 2 eyes to be thrown into hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. All three warnings, they follow the same threefold structure. 1st, identifying the problem. If blank causes you to sin, if something, if anything causes you to sin, this hyperbolic language, I think it can also be understood, if even your hand causes you to sin, if even your eyes, if even your feet are leading you towards sin, And the second, the faithful response, get rid of it.
Cut it off. And 3rd, the eternal perspective. It's better to enter heaven without that thing than hell with it. I know the word hell can evoke a lot of images in our minds. Perhaps you remember a preacher shouting about the horrors of hellfire.
I do. Or maybe you attended one of those judgment houses in the nineties, or churches tried to scare teens into salvation? I do. Perhaps you hear the words sin and hell, and you immediately feel guilt or shame or fear. And while it might seem impossible, if you could, try to hold back those previous conceptions of hell.
And I'm not presuming that you have any incorrect understanding, but I but I want us to engage these topics with a fresh clarity. This passage is obviously not only about hell, but it is the first time in Mark's gospel that the concept of hell is being talked about explicitly. There are vivid descriptions in these verses regarding hell. But it is helpful to see that heaven, what's called here entering life or the kingdom of God, it's mentioned just as many times as hell. But we have already encountered that language of the kingdom of God in Mark, and so I do think that it's important for us to spend some time orienting ourselves into what Jesus is saying about hell.
Throughout the Bible, no one teaches about hell more than Jesus. Specifically, Jesus is using here the word Gehenna. Now, you may be familiar with that word or or even that location. It was a valley that surrounded the old city of Jerusalem on its west and southwest sides. It was first referred to as the Valley of the son of Hinnom, but in time became Gehenna.
We first read about Gehenna in the Old Testament in the book of Joshua, but later, it's described more in detail by the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah tells us that it was a place where the kings of Judah, the kings of a part of Israel, where they had abandoned Yahweh. They had abandoned God, and they have turned to worship idols. And they go to this place, Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom, to sacrifice their own children with fire. These are supposed to be the people of God.
We read this in Jeremiah chapter 7. For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. For they have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth or the Valley of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
This is the place that Jesus is referencing as he holds this young child in his arms. He warns his disciples that true greatness is serving the children, receiving them, guarding them from all evil, the exact opposite of what the people were doing in Jeremiah's time. And just as Jeremiah cursed the Valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, Jesus warns his followers to rebuke any evil that may tempt them to sin, to turn away from the faith, lest they enter the place of Gehenna. Jesus references Gehenna three times here. The place where the people had forsaken God and sacrificed their own children with fire.
Jesus says, there is a place of life, the kingdom of God, and there's a place of death and evil, Gehenna. Rebuke what is evil, whatever the cost. Gehenna was a real place where real evil occurred. And Jesus is calling that place to his followers' minds to describe the opposite of his kingdom, the opposite of the kingdom of God, the opposite of life. The endless fire, the worm that never dies, it's symbolic.
And some people, they can be relieved when they hear the teaching that hell is not a bunch of fire and pitchforks, that they miss, that it's worse. With any symbolism, it's only a shadow of what is real. And the opposite of life is real. The opposite of the goodness of the kingdom of God is real. And it's understandable today that this teaching of hell is distressing.
It's supposed to be. It's literally life or death. It's the bedrock of the seriousness of our life before God. And when Jesus says that he is the way and the truth and the life, that means that there's an opposite. There's a way of deceit and death.
The great late theologian C. S. Lewis wrote about this distressing response we can distressing response we can feel concerning the doctrine of hell. I'll paraphrase it from the problem of pain. He says, to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, here's a question for you.
What then are you asking God to do? To wipe out someone's past sins at all costs, give them a fresh start, to offer them miraculous help. God has done so on Calvary, yet they reject him. What are you asking God to do? To forgive the person?
They refuse his forgiveness. What are you asking him to do? To leave them alone? Alas, I'm afraid that is what hell is. Jesus is giving His disciples a picture of the seriousness of sin, which is the severity of building your life on anything other than Jesus.
Hell isn't simply a place of torture for people who break rules. Hell is the opposite of life. It's opposite of the life of Christ and his kingdom. Hell is the opposite of worship, which is what each of us were created for. Hell is the opposite of flourishing, the opposite of freedom.
And it's the desired outcome of the rebellious heart that refuses its creator and seeks to be its own god. It's the sin that goes all the way back to Eden. In the question of what deserves rebuking, Jesus says, what is worthy of rebuking is whatever tempts you to build your life on anything other than him. What is worth rebuking is whatever tempts you away from trusting him. So even if it's your own hand, even if it's your own foot or your own eye, it's better to rebuke those things, to cut them off, to be rid of those things than to let them lead you away from life.
Because the opposite of faith is sin, and the opposite of life is Gehenna. Our passage then includes a brief teaching by Jesus on sanctification in verse 49. Let's look together. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good.
But if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you ever make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. The continued imagery of fire now pivots from the symbolism of judgment to the symbolism of refinement. Since the giving of the law in the old testament, the people of God have offered sacrifices, and many of these offerings were burned to the lord. These sacrifices were salted before they were put to the fire.
We read in Leviticus chapter 2 verse 13, with all of your offerings, you shall offer salt. The people of God carried out this practice every single day. And Jesus uses this image of an offering salted with fire, not a fiery judgment, but a sacrificial fire, a refining fire, an altar fire in which the followers of Jesus were living sacrifices to God. The apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians in chapter 12 of his epistle, I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. A living sacrifice.
We put to dead death the things that are not faith, the things that are sin, Not because we simply want to avoid breaking the rules, but because we are called into life, abundant life in the kingdom of God through Christ. Whatever leads us away from that life, that faith, that flourishing, we turn from it. We put it to death. And we're salted with fire to be offerings acceptable to God through Christ. And when we believe, and we're so often tempted to believe the lies that whatever we desire, whatever is self centered, whatever is self first, whatever is self fulfilling, We we believe that disobedience is freedom, and it's better than obedience to God.
Whenever we are tempted to believe these things, then we will view the biblical teaching of sin and hell as bad news. They're an overreaction from an angry god. But to those of us who through the work of the Holy Spirit trust and believe that Jesus is who he says he is, that his promises are true, that the grace of his cross and his kingdom lead us to life. And the biblical teaching of sin and hell, it resolves for us. It explains for us the emptiness that we have known and experienced in pursuing our own way to build our lives on anything other than Jesus.
It explains the emptiness of building our lives away from Jesus. This understanding of sin and hell, it clarifies for us that the opposites of faith and life, they are sin and death, and that the opposites of these things, the opposite of sin and hell, faith and life are far greater and far more beautiful, that what Jesus has actually saved us from is ourselves. And every time we turn from sin, every time we receive the goodness of his kingdom, and every time we rebuke the great sickness that leads to the great death, and we guard ourselves and others from temptation, there, there we will find the abundant life promised to us in Jesus Christ, our Savior. So let's turn to him now in prayer. Oh, Spirit, would you help us to see Jesus in this moment?
No matter how dim or dark our eyes might feel, by your light would you help us to see Jesus, to behold him, to behold the the wonder of his grace, his greatness. And spirit, would you help us to believe, to believe that that forgiveness is for us because Christ is for us, that his blood and his cross are sufficient not just for a moment but eternally, and that we can be made right not for a moment, not for a day, not just until we sin again, but forever. May we know the peace that comes from knowing you, Lord. So be with us now. Help us to meditate on what is true and good that we might honor you and love you and trust you, and obey you all the more.
We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.