Remove It So That You May Live

Posted on September 29, 2024

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Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Psalm 19:7-14

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

The heart of man is an interesting thing. When created we were created in the image of God and were meant to hold the same spiritual and emotional attributes of God. However, through disobedience that image has been distorted. Just look at the time spent in the wilderness of Sinai and you will see how far the heart of man has fallen. No matter how much the Lord cared for Israel and no matter what great things he did for them, their memories quickly faded and they had the audacity to complain about their circumstances and complain about their food which God faithfully provided. The people now had grown an appetite and desire for meat and they began to complain.

This time around it appears that Moses has ad enough of this complaining as well as it seems that all of the pressure is on him to solve their problems and all on him to lead these people. Moses tells the Lord that if he expects this to continue this way then the Lord should take his life now so that he can be rid of this misery and pressure. The Lord answers his prayer and has him gather leaders and elders among the people who will share the burden with Moses. Moses gathers them up to the tent and the Lord appears and takes some of the spirit that rests on Moses and rests it on these leaders and they begin to prophesy. However, there were two other men still in the camp who were also leaders but did not go to the tent and the spirit rested on them as well and they two began to prophesy. Word of this comes to Joshua and Joshua asks Moses to tell them to stop. This is the other strange thing of the heart of man. It is jealousy. The lord is jealous for our worship so this is an emotion that bares the image of God. However, Joshua is jealous for Moses and believes that only Moses is aloud to have this gift from the Lord. However, Moses has no jealousy for he would rather have all of the people of Israel having the spirit rest upon them and prophesying. He would rather have that all of the people share in the leadership and living righteously for the Lord. What these two men were doing was not a bad thing but a good thing so why should there be any jealousy?

This same type of jealousy is expressed among the disciples of Jesus. Mark tells us in Chapter 9 about a man who was driving out demons in the name of Jesus. John explains this to Jesus and reports that they told him to stop because he was not one of the chosen 12. It appears that they were jealous that this same ability would rest on some commoner who was not among the chosen. It seems that these disciples lacked some humility for they believed themselves as someone special to be chosen by the Messiah. But Jesus points out that there should be no reason for jealousy for this man is not doing a bad thing but a good thing. He is for the ministry of Jesus for he calls upon the power of Jesus’ name in faith and there is a response for this faith. Therefore, if this man is for them then he cannot be against them. These followers must learn to humble themselves for the ministry to survive for the Lord would prefer that all would have such faith.

Jesus then begins to preach about being a stumbling block. Maybe one becomes a stumbling block because of what is in their heart whether it be jealousy or some other emotion that leads them to sin. Jesus says that if your hand causes you to sin then you should cut it off for it is better to enter heaven with one good hand than to enter into hell with two. Or if your eye causes you to sin then you should pluck it out because it is better to enter heaven with one good eye then to enter hell with two. Now I personally do not know of any Christians today who are cutting off their hands and plucking out their eyes because of sin. The truth of the matter is that cutting off your hand and plucking out your eye is not going to change the matter of the heart which desires to sin. Jesus was explaining here the importance though of radically removing from yourself the things that may cause you or others to stumble.

A man came to his pastor once because he was thinking about leaving his wife. There was this beautiful woman that started working at his office and they had started to connect with each other. The man was distraught about what he should do. The pastor told him that he should quit that job for this job was now causing him to stumble. This was a very good job though that paid well and provided for his wife and children. However, the pastor told him that it was better for him to save his marriage without that job than to keep the job and break that marriage covenant. This is what Jesus was talking about in this message. We need to remove the things that are causing us to stumble so that we may live. If what you watch on television is causing you to sin and you cannot avoid to watch what ever that may be, then it is better to get rid of your television rather than continue to in. If what you see on Facebook is causing you to sin then it is better to get rid of your Facebook account than to keep on with that and continue to sin. If you have a drug or alcohol problem and you are living right next to your favorite bar or drug dealer then it is better to move from there to some place with out all of that so that you do not have the temptation to use. Following Jesus requires some radical moves and decisions from us. Jesus is serious about sin and we should be too. Better to remove these things from our lives and live than to keep them and perish.

Being radical like this is not something that we can do on our own. We may need to call on help from the body of believers. Just as the man in our story sought out help from his pastor, we too must give help to those who are perishing if something does not change. James tells us, “Is anyone among you is in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” To be a follower of Christ we must be radical about sin. We must confess our sins and remove ourselves from the situation that me causing us to sin so that we may be healed. Confession is always best even though it may be difficult because in the end we will be better for it.

The world will be against us for living so radically and will bombard us with even more things to cause us to stumble. That is the reason that we must put on the full armor of God to aid us so that we may stand our ground. It really is a war between light and dark going on in our world today and we all have the decision to make whether we are going to hold on to the things of this world or rid ourselves of these desires and live. What do you choose today?