Sunday Sermon, August 16, 2026 - Gospel of Mark 9:38-50 - Sin

 We touch on last week what Jesus said was the greatest in the kingdom of God. Our Roman reader might have had problems connecting the dots on that concept. His world, like our world today, is based on power, wealth, status and being able to use those things to have others do your biding. So, when the disciples had been having a discussion among themselves of who is the one that holds that power and status within the groups, Jesus corrects their understanding of what it truly means to be great, which is sacrifice, sacrifice to God and sacrifice to others. And within that teaching, Jesus opens the door what is really happening in the hearts of the disciples, which is prideful sin, them wanting to put themselves at the forefront, rather than the ministry of God as the focus. This comes out in these next couple of verses.

Mark 9:38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

John was using trademark exclusion well before it was established. There was this other guy who was casting out demons in your name Jesus, but that guy is not a part of our crew, so we wanted to put a stop to that. See you should only be able to do that if you are part of this particular group, let’s see what Jesus has to says about that.

Mark 9:39 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.

Mark 9:40 For the one who is not against us is for us.

Jesus is like, wait, why would you do that? He was freeing people from demonic influence and he was being successful, so why would you want to restrict a good thing?

Jesus here dismisses tribalism; we often get do tribal with the work of the ministry. There are many good Christians of other denominations that we can have fellowship and work together with. Jesus is noting that here, these men who were casting out demons in the name of Jesus while not directly connected to Jesus were still doing the work of the ministry and doing it in the right way, not seeking to draw attention to themselves but earnestly trying to help people. So do not get caught up in the minor things, there are more than enough people who are working against us that we should not be concerned about the minor. Sadly, there are good people who allow themselves to be caught up the minor things that they become legalistic and isolated making them ineffective for the Gospel. He taught the opinion that everyone must do everything this way, and if they are not doing it this way, they are heretics and need to be avoided, my friend it is you who is the heretic, Jesus never practice such, nor did He teach it, and those who misquote Paul to defend such behavior is just proof of their legalism.

Mark 9:41 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.

Doing and caring for others is our call. This comes from building relationships and sometimes we can build that relationship by showing kindness to others. This again is focusing the disciples back to the commandment to love thy neighbor and apply it correctly. But also part of loving your neighbor is telling them when they are sinning. Kindness does not include watching others willfully sin and you whistling past them and thinking to yourself well, they are going to hell. No that is not the way, and Jesus says as much here.

Mark 9:42 “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.

There are lots of milestones on the necks of parents and people in our society today. You do not expose young children to sexual material and behavior at an early age and think that you will be excused by God. There are church, which they are not they are synagogues of Satan, having grown men dressed as women dancing around in drag, there is a millstone just waiting for them. How is this any different than the pagans sacrificing their children to Molech? It is not, our society has sacrificed the children of this nation on the altar of tolerance, inclusion, diversity, but it is not the toleration of points of views it is the toleration of sin, it is not the inclusion of others it is to inclusion of sin, and it not embracing diversity it is embracing sin. And we must be just as bold as they are in this, but sadly we are not. Most Christians chose to stay silent on such matters because they do want to be political, this is not about politics this is about sin, and we are called to warn others of that sin.

“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, ^cand you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.” - Ezekiel 33:7-9

Guess what, Jesus is about to do just that.

 

Mark 9:43 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 unquenchable fire.

Mark 9:45 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.

Mark 9:47 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 two eyes to be thrown into hell,

Mark 9:48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

First I want to touch on that our Roman Reader is going to see a new concept introduced in this text. Hell. Now Hell or Hades was the Romans would understand it, for him it is the underworld, a place of the dead where the unworthy souls dwell. But this is the first time that he is reading this concept articulated by Jesus. So now the Roman Reader knows that this Jesus believes that there is a hell, and that you are better off being a cripple than being in hell. Now we often get focused on the cutting off of hands, feet and the tearing out of eyes, rather than looking at the deeper meaning here that Jesus is trying to teach. Jesus has demonstrated how all three of these things can be overcome, hence why it is better to endure being crippled than it is going to hell. Has Jesus not healed those who hand hands they could not use? Yes in Mark 3, Jesus heals the man with the withered hand. Has Jesus not healed men who could not walk? Yes the paralytic man in Mark 2, has Jesus not healed the blind? Yes in Mark 8, so when Jesus says that it is better to live being a crippled that it is to go to hell, then hell is a really terrible place, because living in the first century as a blind, lame or withered hand was just awful, again with our luxury and wealth we have no clue what that is like, but Jesus is making it clear that physical deformities is far better than being in hell.

Second, is that which is sending you to hell. Is it your hands, your feet, your eyes? No, but what is Jesus saying, well if you actually believe that your hand caused you to sin, then you should cut them off, if you believe that your feet are causing you to sin, you should cut them off, you believe that your eyes are causing you to sin, then you should tear them out, if you actually believe that. What is Jesus addressing here, excuses. The reason you sin is because you want to, and then when the Spirit convicts you of sin you make excuses. This goes back to the garden,

“Did you eat of the tree?” – Well, the woman you gave me, gave it to me and I ate. See it is not my fault.

We sin because it is what we want to do, not because some external force or part of our body made us sin.

Here is an example.

Men – A lot of women dress too scantly?

Me – Yes they do.

Men – Well they are making me sin by looking at them so they need to change the way they dress.

Me – That’s not what Jesus said, Jesus said that you need to tear out your eyes if they are making you sin.

Men – My eyes aren’t making me sin. Those women dress that way are.

Me – Really tell me how they held a gun to your head and made you look; do you not have control over your own body? Jesus said that if you cannot control your eyes, then tear them out. So, it seems like to me, the problem is not the women, the problem is that you lack self-control, and because you lack self-control you want to force others to conform to your standards to keep you from sinning.

Men – But aren’t they sinning by the way they dress?

Me – Yes, but they are doing it to get attention for themselves, you know how you fix that problem? Stop looking. Stop giving them the attention, stop staring at them, when they dress modestly tell them how nice they look, not about comments on how trashy they looked in the other outfit.

You want them to stop dressing immodestly? Give them the Gospel, change their hearts, help them to see the beauty that is in Christ, that the attention they seek should be to seek the attention of the Spirit.

That is what Jesus is talking about, practice some self-control, be working on you, rather than making excuses.

Mark 9:49 For everyone will be salted with fire.

Mark 9:50 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.”

But, Jesus remarks that none of this is done without a purpose, the testing of your faith builds endurance that is what salt means, to preserve, when the people in the 1^st century want to preserve something that put salt on it, so the preservation that God applies to the life of a believer is the fire of trails, it is those sins, that test our hands, feet and eyes, but see verse 50, if we give into those sins, we lose that which preserves us for the ministry and we become ineffective, we lose our salt.

See the last part, be at peace with one another. Why did Jesus says this? One because the disciples have the long discussion about who was the greatest, remember that? And in that rose contention, and with contention comes sin, and in that contention the disciples may have put their hands out towards their brothers, pointing fingers to make accusations, and they rose to their feet to get into the face of their brothers, and their eyes grew angry with hate for their brothers. But what is their hands, that sinned? No, was it their feet that sinned? No, was it their eyes that sinned? No. What made them sin? Their hearts.

Do not allow petty contentions with fellow members cause you to sin, be at peace with one another, seek and give forgiveness, love and help others, be at peace with one another.

Amen!

Darin Bracy is the pastor at Yorktown Baptist Church in Yorktown Virginia. He is a graduate of Veritas Baptist College with a BA in Ministry and a minor in History. He has a wife Stacy, two daughters, Ashlynne and her husband Justin, their daughter Harper Darin's other daughter Aftyn, and her two dogs, Eddie and Lulubelle.

You can reach Darin at his email address, Darinbracy@gmail.com and you can see his video content on YouTube – Basic Baptist Guy