Scripture Reading Mark 9:42-50

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Good morning, Northgate. My name is Zoe and I go to Banisha High School. I'm reading Mark 9, 42 to 50. 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 was 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 two hands to go to hell, to the uncrunchable 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 eyes cause you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two to be thrown into hell. And where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, forever won't be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourself and be peace with one with another. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks be to God. Thank

Why We Teach The Hard Passages

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you. Thank you for those encouraging words. Today is so violent. Welcome to church. This is good. My name's Lawrence, one of the pastors here. Hey, if um you didn't grab one of these papers and you came in and raised your hand, maybe someone could bring you. You're gonna need this a little bit later today, a little piece of paper. Did you lose a bit? Um we uh we are going through the gospel mark. We're gonna finish chapter nine today. Um, and this is like red letters. There's a whole bunch of red letters, and what red letters mean, if you're like um looking at a different translation uh as you're reading that stuff, and you're like, why is there red letters there? That's actually Jesus' word. So just as a real quick caveat, I'm not saying anything today. I'm just reading what he said. So before we get into any of that stuff, um I'm just talking about what he talked about. And that's one of the fun things I love about here. We teach the Bible and we do it verse by verse, expository. So that means we don't get to skip stuff like this that's like confusing or hard or interesting, a lot of stuff kind of thing. So we're gonna unpack all of this uh together. And that kind of goes into like why we unpack this. Well, it's because like everybody wants to like change at some point, right? You want to make something better about your life. Uh, I think that's true of most all of us until it actually costs us something, right? We we we love the idea of transformation. We just prefer transformation that doesn't interfere with anything. Like we want to get healthier, but we also would like French fries, right? We'd love financial freedom, but apparently Amazon has decided we need a package that arrives every 48 hours or so. We want we want better relationships, but preferably without having awkward conversations. I think a lot of us actually want less anxiety, right? But we also want to just keep checking the thing uh that makes us anxious 17 times before breakfast. And I think a lot of us we want to follow Jesus, but then what happens is like right here, Jesus starts asking us to cut things off and tear things out and fire and hell and salt, like very Halloween of this week to be happening. And then suddenly everybody's like, Hey, you remember a couple weeks ago when you were talking about Jesus, he was like holding that child. Can we get back to that, Jesus, please? Because really the fact is, is this this passage today is intense. And honestly, if you're skeptical about Christianity or the atheist or the agnostic, Muslim Buddhist, uh, you know, religious but not spiritual, or spiritual but not religious, like somebody whose friend promised you that church would be really chill. I owe you an apology. You picked a really interesting Sunday. Because Jesus is about to say some things that if you pull them out of context might sound really extreme, like this. Like he's gonna say, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Like that's actually in the Bible. And somebody's already thinking, like, okay, this is escalating very quickly.

Do Not Trip Up The Vulnerable

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But here, here's the deal. And what we're gonna discover is content matters because Jesus hadn't suddenly changed subjects. Here's what I want to do. I want to help you remember. Remember what's just happened. If you weren't here, the disciples have been arguing uh among themselves who's the greatest. And Jesus responds by placing then a child in their midst and then talking to them about greatness and his kingdom, what it looks like, and that it looks like uh receiving the overlooked and serving uh the powerless and and becoming last. And rather than uh, you know, always fighting and clamoring to climb the letter and become first. And then John, uh, who's like says he's loved most by Jesus, he opens his mouth uh in the middle of that conversation from Jesus and he says, Well, speaking of Jesus, uh uh greatest Jesus, uh, we actually found someone who was doing ministry who wasn't part of our group, and so we told him to stop, which is almost comically perfect in this scene, because right here, Jesus has been teaching humility, and the disciples immediately start gatekeeping, right? Jesus says, Become servants, and they say, like, well, great, but we made sure other people knew we were in charge. And so what happens is right here is now he he's gonna begin to push a little bit deeper because the greatest danger to the kingdom isn't always the evil out there. Sometimes it's what the people who claim to represent Jesus do to other people. And so he 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 were thrown into the sea. Okay, so this is escalating very quickly. He is not easing into this. So, first off, this little phrase right here, little ones, uh, connects naturally to what has been taking place here, to the child that literally Jesus is just placed in uh the midst among them. And it's likely it's reaching beyond the literal children. So, what is he talking about? He's talking about the vulnerable, the overlooked, the spiritually young, the people whose faith is fragile, the people without power or who are trying to just figure out whether they can trust God. And he says, Hey, how you treat them matters enormously. That phrase right there, causes to sin, actually comes from the Greek word, which means to cause someone to actually stumble. It's where eventually we get our word scandal. And this is really just a picture of someone placing something in someone's path that causes them to fall. So Jesus is saying, hey, do not become, you all of you, you and I, we should not become the obstacle that actually makes it harder for someone else to trust God. And I think church, friends, family, we need to hear that. Because some people don't struggle with Jesus because of Jesus. They struggle with Jesus because of people who claim to represent Jesus. I mean, come on, anybody who's used scripture to control someone, somebody who shamed someone else or abused authority, somebody, you know, told them that their questions that really they didn't even have the answer to, it was, it was a it was them just lacking faith. There's been the people who have cared more about winning the argument than loving a person or preached grace and then practiced judgment, told them that God loved them, well, then treating them like they weren't welcome. And Jesus doesn't just shrug at that. He doesn't say, well, like, well, people aren't perfect, right? Of course they aren't perfect. He knows that. But he says, causing vulnerable people to stumble is so serious. This is crazy. That it would be better to have a massive stone tied around your neck and then thrown into the sea. He says, a great millstone. So this wasn't just like a little household stone you use to like grind some stuff up in the kitchen. The Greek here refers to the kind of enormous grinding stone that was turned by a donkey, like hundreds of pounds. So nobody listening misunderstood this image right here. You aren't swimming back from this, right? And Jesus, for this Jewish audience, drowning actually carried its own horror because Jewish burial customs placed tremendous importance on receiving proper burial. So being swallowed by the sea meant losing even that dignity. And so he intentionally, right here, friends, is choosing disturbing language because he wants his disciples to understand hey, how you represent me to the vulnerable people matters. And if you're here and you've been hurt by Christians, I want you to actually notice something here. He's not minimizing what has happened to you. He, I think, is angrier about spiritual abuse than some churches have been. If someone used his name to like manipulate you or control you, exploit you, shame you, or push you away from God, Jesus does not defend that. He confronts it. And if you're the Muslim, perhaps some of what you have heard about Christianity has come through Christians who have behaved nothing like Christ. And Jesus himself says that his followers can misrepresent him. Or if you're the Buddhist and you're checking this stuff out and you're trying to figure it out, and you look at you know, religious hypocrisy and think, you know, attachment ego and status and power creates suffering. Well, he literally hasn't spent this entire section dismantling the disciples' attachment to status. Or if you're my uh atheist friend or you're agnostic, or one of your objections to Christianity is actually hypocrisy. Well, Jesus apparently shares your concern. He just refuses to stop with other people's hypocrisy, because this is where the passage right here actually becomes uncomfortable, because it moves from what we could actually do

Cut It Off As Serious Hyperbole

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to others, which is what he's just talking about, to now what's happening inside of ourselves. And this is this is so classic, Jesus. Because you guys, we love sermons about what other people are doing wrong, right? Those are fantastic. Where we just sit there and we're thinking, like, I really hope Steve is listening, right? Jesus, he's saying, like, we're actually talking about you. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go to hell to the unquenchable fire. So there it is. And before anybody starts removing body parts here, I just want to know this is deliberate hyperbole right here. This is not commanding self-mutilation. How do we know this? Uh, because we already covered this in Mark chapter 7, where um he told us that the deepest human problem doesn't originate like literally in our hands. It actually comes from our heart. And so if you know this, you could cut off your hand and still have greed. You could lose an eye and still have lust. You could lose a foot and still have pride. Removing a body part cannot transform your heart. And so Jesus is using shocking language to communicate the seriousness of discipleship. See, see, your hand represents what you do, what you reach for, what you participate in, what you keep touching, even though you know it's literally destroying something inside of it. And he says, there are moments when following him actually requires decisive action, not just managing our sin and our woundedness, not just neglecting or negotiating with it, not putting it in a folder labeled like I'm gonna deal with this labor. No, no, no, this is extreme. He says, cut it off. Like some of you hate this, right? Because it's just it's cold turkey. Cut it off. We we like gradual plans. Some of you like the 12 steps. You want three books, two podcasts, and a spreadsheet, and then preferably six months of implantation. Like, I'll gradually get there. Just what do you mean, cut it off? No, others are thinking, there's some of you in this room, you're like, finally, just tell me what needs to go and I'll get it done before service ends. I'm ready. And then some of you in here, when we're reading this, you're just anxious. You're like, well, what if I mess this up? What if I cut off the wrong thing? What if I can't actually change? And then other people, I think right now, as I'm looking out here, are quietly thinking, can we please just make this a little less intense? Let me just say he loves every person and personality that's sitting here listening and wrestling with this in the room. But, but, but he refuses to pretend that everything we carry is harmless. Because grace doesn't mean he just leaves us enslaved to whatever is destroying us. Sometimes grace looks like forgiveness, and sometimes grace looks like Jesus saying, that that thing can't come with you where I'm trying to take you. Maybe it's an app. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's pornography. Maybe it's getting drunk every weekend, or the secret conversation you know crosses the line. Maybe it's gambling. Maybe it's the way you talk about people, or the ambition that has slowly become your God. Maybe it's the need for everyone's approval, or it's the anger you keep justifying because technically you're right. Maybe nobody else thinks it's that serious, but you know what it does to your soul. Jesus says, Stop treating spiritually destructive things casually because he doesn't. And then he says something that I think uh makes modern three

Gehenna And Why Judgment Matters

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year even more uncomfortable. This whole line: go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. So this word translated hell right here, this is important, it's Gehenna. And Gehenna was connected to an actual location outside of Jerusalem in the valley of Henam. And this valley carried horrible memories to Israel's history. Uh uh centuries earlier, some of Israel's kings participated in idolatrous worship, and that included actually like child sacrifice. And so prophets condemned it. And Jeremiah, one of them, spoke judgment over it. And so by Jesus' time, Gehenna had become this powerful image associated with divine judgment. So when Jesus here uses this word, he's not borrowing imagery from like this medieval painting of, you know, demons holding pitchforks. He's literally reaching into Israel's own history and saying, evil is real, judgment is real, and what we do with our lives matter. And maybe that bothers you. Because if you're skeptical, you might be thinking that's exactly the part of Christianity that I struggle with. Why? Why would a loving God talk about judgment? That's that's a fair question. But this actually notice who's speaking right now, right? This is the same Jesus who uh literally like touches lepers, welcomes children, feeds you know, hungry people, he he crosses boundaries for outsiders, defends vulnerable, uh, restores broken. And he's literally, in this moment, we're watching him walk towards Jerusalem, knowing that he'll give his own life. And so this warning about judgment is coming from the one who's going to the cross to rescue us from it. He isn't standing safely away, you know, from human brokenness, yelling, like, you guys really need to do better. He's literally walking directly toward the consequence of human woundedness and sin. And he loves us too much to pretend that what destroys human beings doesn't matter. I mean, think about it. Like we actually want a God who cares about evil, right? If God just looked at genocide and shrugged, like we wouldn't call him loving. If God looked at abuse and said, you know, everybody makes mistakes, we wouldn't call them good if he if God watched oppression and exploitation, racism, violence, greed, trafficking, and the cruelty or betrayal and destruction, and simply just said, you know, no judgment here, like that wouldn't be mercy. That would be moral uh indifference. And so the question Christianity forces us to confront isn't merely like, how could a loving God judge evil? Eventually, I think what we have to ask is, how could he not? And the uncomfortable part is that he refuses to let us place evil only in other people. And he brings this conversation home. He says, My hand, my choices, my heart,

Where Your Habits Are Taking You

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my sin, my woundedness, and then he keeps going. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. So the foot represents where you go, the direction your life is moving, the environments that you repeatedly place yourself into. And Jesus is asking a question every one of us eventually has to answer. Where is this thing taking me? Because every choice has a direction, right? Every habit is taking you somewhere, every relationship is forming something in you. Every uh repeated compromise is creating its own type of trajectory. And all of all of these things that we do, decisions that we make, eventually kind of create their own path, right? Uh, over time as we're going through. And sometimes the most important spiritual question isn't, is this technically allowed? It's actually, where is this taking me? And if you're asking this technically, you're fine. This very youth group of you, like that is youth group questions. I remember being a youth pastor, and it was always like, hey, where's the line? Like, is this allowed or is this allowed, right? This whole conversation is not a do this or do this or do better, you know, check it off the loud. That that's not this conversation that he has for us. But you got to ask yourself, where is the thing that I'm doing or participating in, taking me? And sometimes what that does is that actually means creating distance before you ever even get to the moment of failure. Because sometimes the thing that you need to actually cut off isn't even the sin, the sinful thing itself, right? It's dangerous because of what it actually does to you. You might be able to walk in, let me put it this way: you might be able to actually like walk into a bar, right? Have dinner with friends and never think twice about drinking. Fine. But but if you know for yourself, this is for yourself, that walking into a bar puts you three steps closer to getting drunk again, stop debating whether the bar is technically sinful, right? Just cut it off, get a little bit further away, right? If being around a certain person keeps pulling you back towards the relationship you know is destructive, get further away. That's what he's saying here. Like, if one app repeatedly takes you towards pornography or comparison or anger, jealousy, or just an obsession that you can't control, cut it off. Get further away. That's what he's saying. If having access to something continually becomes the first step towards something that is destroying you, stop asking how close can I get without technically sinning. Start asking how far away can I get from what keeps pulling me away from life. Because I'm telling you guys, there is no spiritual trophy for standing three inches from the thing that almost destroyed you, saying, like, look at how much self-control I have, right? Sometimes, sometimes the most mature thing that you can do is leave. Change the route home. Delete the number, cancel the subscription, put somebody else between you and the money. Tell a friend the truth. Jesus' language is intentionally extreme because sometimes our response to destruction needs to be equally decisive. Let me put it this way: don't just fight sin at the finish line, friends. Create distance from what repeatedly starts you down the road toward it in the first place. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. If your foot keeps taking you there, change where you walk. And in a moment, he's gonna say, and if your eye keeps feeding the desire, change what you allow yourself to see. Not because he wants less life for you, because he knows where the road goes. He wants you further away from destruction and closer to life. Because here's the deal Jesus is not. Merely interested in whether you believe the right things about them, he's forming you, he wants to form you into someone who actually follows him, and following him eventually means deciding that there are some things that you would rather lose than to allow them to make you lose yourself.

What Your Eyes Train You To Love

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And friends, he's not finished because our feet aren't the only things that can take us somewhere. Sometimes you never physically go anywhere, but your eyes take you places your soul was never meant to live. And so he continues. And 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. Again, he's using intentionally shocking language here. So he's not saying remove body parts, he's not saying, you know, he's what he what he's saying is stop treating casually what is destroying you. So the hand is what you do, the foot is where I go, and the eye is what I allow myself to desire. Like what gets my attention? What am I constantly looking at or comparing myself to? What am I consuming? And that might hit our generation, I think, a little harder than anything else Jesus said. Why? Friends, we live in an economy built around our eyes. There are billion-dollar companies whose business model is basically how long can I keep you looking? Just one more video, one more post, one more person's life to compare yourself to, one more thing Amazon says you desperately need, even though like 14 seconds ago you didn't even know it existed, right? One more body to desire, one more outrage to make you angry or argument to keep you afraid. And eventually what we repeatedly look at begins shaping what we love. That's why Jesus doesn't simply just ask, Did you do something wrong? He goes deeper. So say, friend, what is forming your desire? Because sin almost always begins before action. Here's the deal: it begins with attraction. And maybe following Jesus means like you delete something. Or maybe you install a filter, or unfollow somebody, or stop watching something, or stop checking their profile, or some somebody when I said that one just got really uncomfortable. You're like, hey, um Jesus, can we go back to the millstone thing? That sounded like not as real. No. Because here's the deal it gets so graphic. He loves you too much to only deal with the visible behavior while ignoring what's literally happening inside of you. And then we come to one of those strange um Bible number moments. I don't know if many of you caught this. Depending on whichever translation you're holding, I'm I'm using the ESV, some of you guys using the NIV, some of you just using it up here, whatever pops up within your phone. Um, depending on which one that you're holding, you may have noticed that Mark 9 goes from verse 43 to 45, and then goes from 45 to 47. And some older translations include verses 44 and 46 here, both

Missing Verses And Manuscript Footnotes

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repeating the same warning, uh, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. So Mark 44 also repeated in some manuscripts in Mark 46. Um, if you're skeptical of Christianity, this is actually worth talking about for just a moment because somebody inevitably sees you know a missing verse online and says, like, see, they've been changing the Bible, right? So I just want to explain this. It's actually the opposite here. Uh, the earliest Greek manuscripts that we possess do not contain those repeated sentences in verse 44 and 46, while later manuscripts do. So modern translations that we have usually place them in a footnote, which is on the bottom right here, explaining this, rather than pretending the manuscript's difference doesn't actually exist. And here's what I think is interesting: nobody's hiding the sentence because Jesus unquestionably says it in two verses later. He says, um, in 48, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. So the manuscript question changes absolutely nothing literally about what Jesus teaches. And if anything, I think that the footnote shows you that biblical scholarship is actually willing to put up the evidence right there in the page and let you see it for yourself. The other thing that's worth noticing is he's actually quoting scripture, specifically the final chapter of a book in the Old Testament written by a prophet Isaiah. Uh, Isaiah chapter 66 ends with like this really disturbing picture of rebellion and judgment, death, destruction. And Jesus literally is reaching back into Israel's prophetic imagination. And what he's doing is he's applying that language here. Again, this is his context of his audience. So notice the imagery. You have a worm and fire and decay and destruction. And so he's saying sin or our woundedness. I'm going to replace that word sin with our woundedness, is not just breaking arbitrary religious rules. Our woundedness, our sin destroys things. Our woundedness, when when given to ourselves or overlaid on someone else, destroys trust and intimacy. It destroys families and destroys bodies, communities. It destroys our ability to see other people as people and ultimately sin literally separates us. Our woundedness separates us from the life of God. And so for my atheist and agnostic friend, maybe you're not sure that you believe in hell. I understand. But you have probably seen little versions of it. You have watched addiction consume somebody. You have watched bitterness hollow somebody out. You have seen greed destroy a family. You have watched hatred turn human beings into enemies. My friends who work in the hospitals, you have watched someone unleash hell on themselves because they're experiencing some of it. That ultimately leads to their destruction. Or you have watched someone where hell has been unleashed on them from someone else's actions that they did not ask for. You've watched someone get exactly what they thought they wanted, and then somehow become a little less alive. And Jesus says those destructive trajectories matter, not just internally, but eternally. You know, from my Muslim friend, Christianity, I'm going to tell you right now, agrees that God is holy and that evil matters. But here's the shocking center of Christianity is that the judge does not remain distant from the guilty human. Jesus, we got to remember this, is heading toward Jerusalem, toward rejection, toward suffering, toward a cross. The one literally warning us about judgment will ultimately place himself in the place of sinners, the wounded. So Christianity, again, is not clean yourself enough, uh self up enough so God might accept you. It is that God literally comes toward us in Christ, rescues us, rescues us, and then loves us enough to refuse to leave us enslaved to the things

Salted With Fire Spiritual Formation

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that are killing us. And then he says something really strange. For everybody will be salted with fire. I'm like, what? Salted with fire? That sounds like one of those hip chef shows, you know, like you salted with fire. And it's like, I'm going to eat there, right? That sounds awesome. But but here's here's the deal with this. So Jesus' uh Jewish audience would hear echoes here that we I'm gonna say we all miss. Most of most of us miss. So in the Old Testament, there's a sacrificial system. Uh, salt and fire both belonged around an altar. Uh, and if you want some uh sleepy reading, go to Leviticus, Tale's favorite book. Uh chapter two, verse 13. It specifically talked about it, commanded uh Israel to season their offerings with salt, even calling it the salt of the covenant. And so what what it was is salt represented preservation and purity and this covenant faithfulness. And so then the fire consumed the offering. So Jesus actually, uh, what he does is he's combining these two images. And so everyone will be salted with fire, means literally, in other words, following Jesus involves purification and formation, like things that are being burned away. And nobody loves that part. We we love the Jesus who adds things to our life, right? Like peace and purpose and community and hope. Like we want more of that. We are less excited about the Jesus who starts removing things, like pride, resentment, lust, greed, self-importance, our need to always be right. But sometimes the grace of God looks like an addition. Sometimes the grace of God actually looks like subtraction. There are things God wants to burn away because they cannot produce life in us. And if you come from this Buddhist background, there are actually, there may actually be something recognizable here for you. You already understand that uncontrolled desire can create suffering. And so Christianity actually agrees that our desires need transformation, but Christianity does not say that the goal is ultimately the extinction of desire. That's very important to know that over there. So, Jesus, what he does is he redirects our desire that we would learn literally to desire God or to desire uh goodness or to desire justice or to desire our neighbors flourishing, to desire life that looks like Jesus. So Christian formation is not becoming less human, it's actually becoming the kind of human that you and I were actually created to be. And that brings us to his final statement. He said,

Looking Like Salt Without The Taste

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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. There it is. Be at peace with one another. Remember again how this whole conversation decided started. The disciples were arguing about which one of them was the greatest, and John got upset because somebody outside of the group was doing ministry in Jesus' name. You know, who's the greatest, who's in, who's out, who's got the position, who has recognition or the credit. And Jesus ends this entire conversation with be at peace with one another. It's almost like he's saying, like, you guys were worried about everybody else. I need you to start paying attention to what's happening inside of you. Don't obsess whether somebody else belongs. Deal with your hand. Deal with your foot, your eye, your pride. Deal with whatever inside of you keeps causing you and others to stumble. Have salt in yourself. Let God form something distinctive in you and then become a people of peace. By the way, just because I think that you're in here, someone that's scientifically minded is already sitting here going, like, wait, hold on, time out, Lawrence. Um, salt is sodium chloride, and so salt can't actually stop being salty, right? You're correct. Nerd alert. Pure sodium chloride does not suddenly wake up one morning and decide it identifies as sugar. I get it. But here's the deal context, remember? The salt people used in that region, this is why he's using this example, was not always the purified salt, right? That's sitting at your kitchen table. It actually included uh and could be mixed with other minerals. And so the actual salt leached away, and what remained could look like salt while having lost its usefulness. And that might be one of the most haunting pictures Jesus gives his disciples, that you can still look like salt and not be salty. You can know the Christian language, attend church, post the verse, wear the cross, know when to raise your hand during worship, even when arguments about theology and somehow completely miss becoming like Jesus. Because the evidence that Jesus is actually forming you is not merely that you know more religious information, it's that you increasingly look like him. Again, what does that look like? More loving, more courageous, more truthful or generous, more humble, more willing to serve, more willing to forgive, more committed to peace. And maybe that's the invitation in this really difficult passage. Jesus isn't trying to terrify people into pretending to be good. He's inviting us to take seriously the kind of people that we're actually becoming. Because you are becoming someone. Every habit is forming you, every relationship is forming you, every screen is forming you, every ambition is forming you, or resentment you rehearse is forming you. Every act of forgiveness is forming you. Every time you serve someone who can't repay you, something is being formed in you. So maybe the question today is not simply, what do you believe about Jesus? Maybe another question is, what is Jesus asking me to release so I can actually follow him? Maybe there's something that you already know. Something you keep negotiating with, something that you keep saying, like I'm just gonna deal with that later. He says, take it seriously. Not because he hates you, but because he wants you free, the hand, the foot, the eye, whatever keeps pulling you away from life. And notice where he ultimately points us, not towards fear, toward life. Three times, three times if you read back into this. He says in some version, it is better to enter life. That's what Jesus wants for you. Life, the kingdom of God, wholeness, freedom, peace. And soon we will see Jesus Himself will walk into Jerusalem, show his disciples exactly what greatness looks like, not climbing higher, but going lower, not taking power, but giving himself and not demanding to be served, but serving and not destroying his enemies. Get this dying for them. The disciples wanted to know who is the greatest, and Jesus answered by becoming a servant. And then he says to us, friends, cut away whatever keeps you from becoming like me, and let my grace transform what you do with your hands, where you walk with your feet, and what you desire with your eyes. Let me reshape your heart, have salt in yourselves, and then be at peace with one another. Because maybe one of the clearest signs that Jesus is actually changing us is not that we finally become better than everyone else, it's that we finally stop needing to be.

Release What Destroys You And Pray

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You've been sitting here just looking at me, being like, oh, stop it. Why am I here today? What is that thing? And then we're gonna kind of create an opportunity for literally for you to become at peace with it. Um, we've got some little fires on the side. Uh, last service, a couple hundred people took these. We're gonna sing a song, and they contemplate what that was, wrote that down, and then you have an invitation on your own time to come up here and release it. You can chuck it in there, you can throw it in there, you can put it underneath. But this is just your invitation to ask yourself, what is it that is literally unleashing hell in my life? And then potentially as a result, unleashing hell on another's. Cut it off. At least start that process today by being real and identifying it. So that's gonna be your invitation. Um, I'm gonna invite you. We've only been in here for 67 minutes if you've even gotten here on time. Don't rush this moment. Like, just don't leave and go out into the lobby. Sit with this, sit with this song, stand up and do this, and then go back and be at peace with one another, with God, reconciled as you begin to do this work this week. Just don't let this be another thing you just heard and you move on from, and you're like, well, that was a cheery message. It gets better, by the way. I mean, if you read ahead for next week, like I gotta get into it. But that's the invitation. So, with that being said, uh, let me just pray for us as we step into this space. God, Father, God, would you give us courage to be real with ourselves? Thank you for the invitation to not just stay enslaved to the thing. May we in this moment, together collectively, and us just as individuals, children, experience just a glimpse of heaven and peace, releasing the thing. God, thank you for your grace in this moment. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your strength to do this. And would you continue to walk with us throughout this week as we begin to recognize where we are unleashing hell in ourselves and those around us, and may we pause and experience and allow other people to experience just a little wink of heaven. Because we encountered you. We ask all of these things in your son's precious name. Amen.