25th September 2024

25th September 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matthew 5:27-32 focus v29-30)


Message (Alan Burke)


Body modifications are all the rage these days, from tattoos to piercing and there are some people who seem to take it to the extreme and have had surgery to modify their bodies. Here Jesus teaches about severe body modifications and he does it to confront us with just how serious sin he says if your right eye causes you to sin gouge it out and throw it away and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. Now that is some extreme body modification. The reason given for both gouging out your eye and cutting of your hand is that it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 


But Jesus isn’t teaching us that we literally need to get a rusty spoon to our eye or the meat cleaver to our hand rather what Jesus is doing here is using a hyperbole. A Hyperbole is a metaphor, an exaggerated statement that is not meant to be taken literally but it is used to emphasise to the disciples who were sitting at his feet as well as us just how serious our sin is. 


How many of us think that it would be better to be disfigured in some way today than spend eternity in hell, to loose a hand, a foot, an eye are all favourable than to spend an eternity in hell. To the Jew’s they saw these parts of the body as gifts from God, they were to be precious possessions, and Jesus says to cut them off or remove them rather than to go to hell with them. 


Although cutting off your hand or gouging out your eye you still have another hand and another eye, rather what the point is the seriousness of sin here is not downplayed. It would be better for us to loose a body part than to face hell. It is not the hand or the eye are the true problem, it is the sinfulness of the human heart, it is not the hand or the eye that are the source of sin it is the heart. 


It may be your hand, your foot, your eye, it could be any number of things that we are not willing to be without that are precious to us what is most precious to us because Jesus wants you to know that what ever it is, if that thing is preventing you from entering the kingdom of God, if that is causing you to sin, if that thing is holding you back from salvation, from trusting in him then it would be better for you to not have it than risk being thrown into hell. 


If you are a believer and you are struggling with sin and it’s weighing you down then what you need to do is come before the Lord, confess your sin, and seek to mortify that. It’s not going to be easy, mortifying sin isn’t easy but we do it and we try even when it is hard because we know that sin displeases our heavenly Father and it can destroy. Romans reminds us in view of God’s mercy to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, this is our spiritual service, let us not be conformed to the patter of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:1-2). If you are struggling with sin seek help from a trusted brother or sister in the Lord. 


And if you are not a believer your sin will lead to hell, when that desire has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death (1 Jam 1:15). Just as the case with Jesus teaching on anger, and now adultery the trust of what is being taught is your sin matters before God and the only way that your sin can be dealt with is through Jesus because there is not one good, only God is good and our sin means we are deserving not of his grace but his wrath. So if you haven’t yet sought forgiveness from the Lord, bowing the knee before him then do it before it is too late.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q 99. What rule hath God given for our direction in prayer?
A. The whole Word of God is of use to direct us in prayer, but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called, The Lord’s Prayer.
​