Tough Sayings of Jesus

Throughout this series we are committed to navigating our way through some of Jesus’ most challenging declarations. We believe that Jesus wasn’t just saying these things to draw a crowd, we believe that he was communicating truth, painting pictures of life in his kingdom. He was giving guidance for his followers.

Often these sayings are tough for us because they shine light into the dark corners of who we are, they take us places within our hearts that we would honestly rather not go… they show us our great need for healing.

So, our goal is not to do some fancy footwork and somehow make these texts easy- we believe that the bible is God’s whole truth, and we are committed to working through the tough parts too.

Today we wrestle with Jesus' words "If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away"

That is a tough and even gruesome saying- its shocking and quite honestly, hard to even hear. But we need to hear- that’s how seriously Jesus took sin.

Here is the hard truth: WE sometimes struggle to take sin seriously

We tend to want to wait to deal with it…

Or to only address it in small and comfortable intervals

Or maybe, we don’t want to deal with it at all because we like it, or it feels good in the moment.

But, for followers of Christ- that’s not how Jesus said we should treat sin in our lives.

Our teaching text today is found in Chapter 5 of Matthew’s gospel in what’s known as the sermon on the mount. Jesus has been teaching in the local synagogues, healing all kinds of sickness and infirmities and now, large crowds are following him. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 record Jesus teaching about his kingdom. It's important to consider, this was Jesus teaching to his disciples, people who had were following him. This was NOT Jesus teaching on how to ENTER the kingdom of God.

The call of Jesus to deal so explicitly with sin in our lives, will cause some discomfort
- It may be hard, uncomfortable, or costly.
- It may mean the loss of some relationships
- It could mean the withdraw from a substance
- The long struggle of breaking free of bad habits.
- It may mean saying a hard NO to our body desires and sexual desires

Jesus understood, that cuts across the grain of our natural self. But Jesus urges us to deal with sin NOW, to suffer any loss any inconvenience NOW rather than allowing that to separate us from God for eternity.

Our perspective about sin is almost always about the NOW, But Jesus has a bigger perspective- and eternal perspective of sin.

The one who bore the whole world’s sin on the cross sees and knows the immediate gruesomeness of sin, the pain and suffering that it can cause now, but he also has all of eternity in mind.

To be clear, this is not Jesus saying every mistake you make you are in danger of hell- that’s not it at all. But there is danger every time we knowingly choose sin over what we know God desires for our lives.

So, anything and everything you do in your life to combat sin by his grace is worth what you do. Every step, every sacrifice.

I hope that it has become clear enough that Jesus was not talking about literal body parts. Our teaching text in Matthew 5 was framed around dealing with adultery specifically, but to be sure, Jesus well intended the principal to extend beyond just that.

So not in the literal, but in the fullest sense that Jesus meant- to cut off sinning- What would that look like for you today?

We need Jesus to do that deep heart cleansing, to forgive and restore our hearts. We need his spirit to enable and empower us to live holy lives.

Along with that prayer and his Holy Spirit’s leading, we need to take action.

In whatever it is God is calling you to, will you trust that his perspective is best? That he has your eternal good in view as he is guiding your heart?

In prayer and reflection, I would invite you to confess and repent- that can be a simple prayer.

“Lord, I am confessing to you today that I agree with you, this area of my life is wrong. I am sorry Lord. I want to repent, I want to stop doing that and live in right relationship with you”