All for the Gospel (Mark #32)

I was gone last week — we took a spring break trip, primarily to take my son on his first college visit. Yes, we’re at that stage.

He had nothing to compare it to, so I dragged him to my alma mater first. They have an engineering program, which he’s interested in, and we figured starting with a small Christian school would give him a baseline before looking at larger places.

My alma mater is in Arkansas, and my brother’s family moved there last August — so we spent four or five days with them. Which meant seventy-degree weather while you had snow. Sorry. Not sorry.

“You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too”

Has everyone heard that phrase?

This is embarrassing to admit, but I did not understand what it meant until sometime in my mid-thirties. I genuinely thought: I have a piece of cake. It’s right here. And I can eat it. It made no sense.

Then one day the light came on. Once you eat it, you no longer have it. That’s the point.

And yet how often do I wish I could do both anyway?

My wife and I have a running joke. When one of us asks the other to choose between two things, the answer is always: I want it all.

Just last night the college wrestling finals were on. I love wrestling, and they’d scheduled a six o’clock start — which is exactly when we eat supper. So she asked: do you want to eat with us upstairs, or go downstairs and watch and ignore the rest of the family?

I want it all.

Maybe you’ve done the same thing. You come into some money and you want to spend it and save it. You want to eat pizza and lose weight. We want the cake and we want to eat it.

And We Bring That Into Our Faith

I think many of us carry that mentality straight into our relationship with God.

Most of us believe there is a God. Even if you’re not a follower of Jesus, you probably believe some benevolent being exists. And so we want the full blessings of that God — while simultaneously holding onto things of this world that aren’t helping that relationship at all.

We want the cake and we want to eat it.

Today Jesus says: you can’t. You’ll have to sacrifice. And he says it in remarkably graphic terms.

So I’ll warn you now — this may get uncomfortable. Some of you have been trying to live as a follower of Jesus while holding onto something, and today God may be saying: cut it off. Get rid of it. It is keeping you from the life I’m calling you to. It’s keeping all of you from coming to all of me.

The Passage

Mark 9:43–50.

Jesus says that if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off — better to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off — better to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out — better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

Then: everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

Amputation, Fire, and Hell

This sounds more like an action film than something from Jesus. So what’s happening?

Jesus is using hyperbole — deliberate exaggeration meant to shock listeners and seize their attention.

It’s the same technique as a father saying, “I’ve told you a million times,” when he’s said it eight. Or a mother saying, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” Nobody thinks she’s contemplating homicide. She’s saying: do not do that, or you are in serious trouble.

So Jesus isn’t instructing anyone to literally amputate. This is figurative.

Which may make some of you pause. I thought we were supposed to take the Bible literally.

Yes — you take the Bible literally where it is being literal. Where it is being figurative, you take it figuratively.

How Do We Know?

Look at verse 43: if your hand causes you to sin.

I assume most of you took biology. Your hand does not contain a small brain. You have one brain, and it’s in your head.

Your hand is not sitting there thinking, I know you want to be an honest person and don’t want to steal that candy bar, but I’m doing it anyway. Your hand is not deciding, that man is a jerk, and I know you want to be kind, but I’m punching him — I don’t care if he’s your boss.

Your hand does not cause you to sin. Neither does your foot. Neither does your eye.

You do. Your sinful nature — what Scripture calls the flesh, your sinful desires — leads you to sin.

So What Is He Saying?

He’s saying you can’t have it all.

You cannot hold onto sin and simultaneously have full relationship with God. You have to choose.

Because God is glorious. Majestic. Unfathomable. Incomparable. Holy. Pure. And you cannot bring sin into his presence, because sin is dirty and twisted and broken and marred.

So Jesus says you’ll have to choose — and he says it in the most shocking way available. Cut it off.

A Note on the Missing Verses

If you were more observant than I was the first time through, you noticed there is no verse 44 or 46 in most modern translations.

Is that because something embarrassing was removed? Something that would cause Christianity to collapse?

No. Verses 44 and 46 simply repeat what verse 48 says.

The scholars who added chapter and verse numbers to help us find things were working from a manuscript that contained those lines. As more manuscripts have been discovered bringing us closer to the originals, the most reliable ones don’t include them.

So this isn’t an embarrassment to Christianity — it should give us confidence. Because there are biblical scholars honest and brave enough to say, “That doesn’t appear to be original, and here’s the manuscript evidence.” They removed it precisely because they want us to have the truth.

And if your Bible includes them, nothing changes theologically, because they say the same thing as verse 48 — that hell is where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

What “Hell” Meant to Them

The word Jesus uses is Gehenna — literally “the Valley of Hinnom,” a valley outside Jerusalem.

It was a garbage dump.

To manage the waste they burned much of it, so fires were constantly going. Rotting food was thrown out there. Occasionally a dead animal. Flies gathered and laid eggs, so the place crawled with maggots — worms.

Nobody was proposing a day trip. It stank. It smoked constantly. It was disgusting.

But it was more than that. I learned this week from a longtime seminary professor that Gehenna was also the site where, back in Old Testament times, apostate Israelites had sacrificed human beings to the false god Molech.

So it wasn’t merely foul. It was a place where genuinely evil things had been done by genuinely sinful people.

Jesus takes that imagery and uses it to shock his listeners: this is what hell is like. And honestly, hell is likely worse.

I realize we live in a country where many people don’t believe hell exists. We love the idea of heaven and quietly discard the rest. But Jesus taught about hell — in fact he taught about it more than anyone else in Scripture. And here he’s showing us just how bad it is.

Is This Really Even a Decision?

When you lay it out plainly, it hardly seems like a dilemma.

Do I want God and everything that comes with him, at the cost of a hand or an eye? Or do I keep both hands and both eyes and live in the trash dump?

Imagine you’re a parent and you realize your child is trapped inside a burning house. You do not stop and deliberate: Do I run in and risk burns and scars for the rest of my life, or do I let my child die and keep pleasant skin?

That parent doesn’t think. They rush in at the peril of their own life. And if asked afterward, they’d say something like, “I didn’t think the fire department would arrive in time.” It was never a decision.

That’s how obvious Jesus is making this. Of course you cut it off. Of course you get rid of what leads you into the dump, so you can have God.

And Yet We Struggle

It should be obvious. And how many of us keep going back?

That’s what makes addiction so cruel — it lies. Just one more drink. Just one more. Just open the browser one more time. Just give in, and I promise you pleasure, relief, release.

And we take hold of it, trying to have the cake and eat it — and it almost always complicates matters and makes things measurably worse.

You’d think we’d learn. Then we hear the whisper again, and we’re right back.

“Everyone Will Be Salted With Fire”

Jesus knows this is hard, which is why he adds verses 49 and 50 — which are admittedly confusing at first.

Notice he says everyone. He isn’t being figurative there. This is literal, and it applies to all of us.

In Jesus’s day, salt wasn’t primarily a seasoning. It was a preservative. You’d sprinkle it on meat and rub it in, because there was no refrigeration — and if you wanted your meat to keep rather than spoil and breed maggots, you salted it.

But notice he uses the verb form. Not merely salt, but “salted” — salted with fire.

And he has just been talking about Gehenna, where fires burn continually breaking down refuse. So the two connect.

What he’s saying is that some of that fire will come into everyone’s life. You will be tempted. You will struggle. You will face trials. Every one of us.

Scripture teaches this plainly. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that temptation is common to man. Even Jesus was tempted. Nobody escapes the salting.

Which Is Why You Have to Be Proactive

Because if you leave the option available — if you leave the access open — what happens when the temptation arrives?

You give in.

Which is why some people take genuinely drastic measures.

I know a man whose particular struggle is online pornography. He has arranged things so that he doesn’t have the passwords to his own phone or computer — his wife does. If he wants to install an app, he has to hand her the device and explain why.

Because he knows that if he has the access when temptation comes, he’ll find his way there. So he cut it off.

Honestly, when I first heard that I thought it sounded extreme. I’m not sure I could do it. And I deeply admire his willingness — for the sake of his wife, his kids, his reputation, and his relationship with God.

Now the Bad News

This may make some of you think I’m a terrible preacher, because I’ve spent this whole message urging you to cut off the hand — and now I have to tell you:

You cannot do this in your own strength.

I know that sounds like an insult, especially to American ears. Last night, every wrestler who won a title got interviewed, and more than one said something like, “Everyone was against me, and I took that as motivation.” Tell us we can’t do something and we want to prove otherwise.

And short-term, you can.

Some of you already know exactly what you’ve been holding onto. You want God, you want the relationship, and there’s this thing. So you’re going to walk out and cancel the subscription. Hand over the passwords. Pour out the bottles. Hand someone your credit card. Cut it up. You’re going to do the drastic thing.

And a few weeks or months later you’ll subscribe to something else. Find another card. End up in that aisle at the grocery store. Find yourself back with those friends. Once again yelling at the kids, or at your spouse.

We say it constantly — I’m not doing this anymore — and our own history proves we can’t sustain it under our own power.

How God Actually Describes Us

In Romans 3, Paul assembles a series of direct quotations from the Old Testament into one devastating portrait.

None is righteous, not one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside and become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues deceive. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and ruin and misery mark their paths. They have not known the way of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

If that doesn’t sober you, you either lack a pulse or you’re doing an excellent job ignoring me.

That is how God sees humanity. He knows the truth.

We live in our small worlds and puff ourselves up. I’m something. I can do this. I’ll go cut off the hand under my own power.

And then you pull back to God’s vantage point and realize we are a speck of dust in a small Iowa town, in one country, on one planet, in one solar system, in a corner of the universe. Compared to God, we are nothing.

And Yet

He is good. And he loves us deeply and infinitely.

Most of us ignore the dust in our houses. God looks at us and says: my image is in you. You mean the world to me.

Which is exactly why Jesus went to the cross — so that this speck of dust could find true life in Christ.

So you can’t do this on your own. But God can do it in you and through you.

The Power Already in You

Scripture teaches that when you give your life to Christ, you receive the Holy Spirit. If you follow Jesus, this is true of you whether or not you feel it.

And Paul describes that Spirit in Romans 8 as the same power that raised Christ from the dead — now dwelling in you.

Which means the most foolish possible response to this passage is to march out and attempt drastic measures under your own steam.

Instead, walk out saying: God, I can’t do this. I’m weak. But you are strong. Help me lean on your Spirit rather than my own.

Jesus Showed Us How

Look at Jesus. Fully God, and through the incarnation fully man. He didn’t stop being God, but he took on full humanity — hunger, exhaustion, and yes, temptation.

In Matthew 4 he goes into the wilderness and fasts forty days and nights. No food. Completely alone. And at the end of it, Satan arrives — and knows he’s starving. Turn that stone into bread.

I would have caved instantly. That sounds like an excellent idea.

But here’s what’s remarkable. Jesus, fully God, could simply have said, “Get away from me. I do not serve you. I will not obey you.” He had every right.

That is not what he does. He does not rely on his own authority, even though he possesses it. He shows us a better way — he relies on God’s word. He answers that man does not live by bread alone but by every word from God.

Second temptation: same thing. He goes back to Scripture. Third temptation — essentially an offer to bypass the cross entirely — and again, he returns to the word of God.

Who Gets the Glory?

Let’s run a thought experiment. Suppose you could pull this off on your own. You walk out, cut it off, end the thing, and it never returns.

Who gets the glory?

You do.

But Jesus didn’t tell you to cut off your hand so people would look at you and say, “You’re so brave. I could never have done that. You’re an inspiration.”

He said cut it off so you could get rid of what is keeping you from him.

So even if you could do it in your own strength, you shouldn’t try — because the entire point is that all of you comes to all of him.

This is a spiritual journey. It is not about positioning you to look impressive. It’s about coming to God and discovering how great he is.

He’s Rescuing You From the Double Life

God is trying to rescue you from a divided life — because he knows that trying to hold both things is quietly destroying you from the inside.

So he isn’t sending you out to grit your teeth. He’s saying: come to me. Come, all who are weary and weak, and I will give you rest. I will give you strength. I will get you through this.

So go back to the gospel.

The best thing you can do is not leave here saying, “God, I’m going to be strong.” It’s leaving here saying, “God, I am weak — but you are strong.”

And then get into the Scriptures. Go to him in prayer. Go to him in song. Get around other believers who will encourage your faith. Put all of it in place to help you become the follower of Jesus he’s calling you to be.

Two Prayers That Sound Alike

Some of you would call yourself a Christian because you grew up in a Christian home and attended at Christmas and Easter. But if you’re honest, you have never fully given your life to Christ.

And now you’re hearing that you can’t have the cake and eat it too — that you’ve been trying to hold onto God’s blessings while keeping control of your own life.

Today God is saying: let it go.

Most people mark that moment in prayer — acknowledging they are a sinner, recognizing that Jesus loved them enough to go to a cross so their sin could be paid for and washed away, and saying: Jesus, because you gave your life for me, I now give my life to you. And because you went through something incomparably harder, I will now go through the hard thing of cutting this off, so I can have all of you.

And that same prayer belongs to those of you who would say you already follow Jesus — because if you’re honest, there are things you’re still holding onto.

Father, make us courageous enough to sit here and listen. For the person who isn’t yet a follower, let them hear how much you love them, and hear you calling them to give up what they think is good for what is infinitely better. And for those who follow you, let them hear you asking them to release the thing that keeps them from being fully yours — the thing keeping them straddling two camps.

Let us go all in, all for the sake of the gospel. Because Jesus, you are worth it. Help us come to you saying: I am weak, but you are strong. Amen.