Taking Sin Seriously

2/18/25 Bible Thought (Mk. 9)

What lengths would you go to in order to avoid sin in your life? Honestly, I find one of the saddest realities to be the number of Christians who remain trapped in cycles of sin. Now, we know that none of us will be entirely without sin. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t ever excuse our sin or take it lightly. I think one of the most helpful portions of Scripture on the subject comes in the apostle John’s first letter. He writes, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8) likewise, he writes, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). He hits both present tense and past tense. He points out so clearly that we not only have sinned in the past, but we have sin in the present. It’s a fact of life that on this side of glory none of us will be perfect.

Yet, what we do with that knowledge is crucial for the Christian. For one, John points out that we can confess our sins and receive forgiveness and cleansing (see 1 Jn. 1:9). What we want to avoid though, is believing that since we’re going to have sin in our lives no matter what, that we should be nonchalant about it and not take it seriously. For after talking about the existence of sin and the wonderful opportunity of forgiveness, the apostle John writes, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 Jn. 2:1). Furthermore, he later writes, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8a).

What a paradox for the Christian life! Sin is inevitable. We’re imperfect. We’re not going to get it right all the time. But we can’t use this knowledge to justify our sins. As Paul puts it so plainly in Romans, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! (Rom. 6:1-2a). We know sin is going to be present somewhere, we’ll all fall short somewhere, but this is never to be used to justify our sinful practices.

Instead, the Christian ought to put serious effort into killing their sin rather than justifying it. We are to, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Col. 3:5a). This is what the Lord Jesus shows us in Mark 9. “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Mk. 9:43a). Foot? Cut it off. Eye? Tear it out. It’s better to enter heaven maimed than to be whole in hell.

I don’t know how anyone can read this passage and come away thinking that sin is no big deal and should be treated like a pet. If you’ve got a pet sin, it’s sick and needs to be put down. Our sin is so horrible it put Jesus on the cross, are we really going to play kissy-face with it? If it killed the Son of God, ought we not to kill it? The Lord Jesus shows us how serious sin is in this passage and that it’s not to be taken lightly.

It's amazing how if you make something harder to do, you’re less likely to do it. That principle taken to the extreme is what Jesus shows us with the tearing of eyes. If you want to spend less time on Facebook, take the app off your phone and make it less convenient. Then you’re apt to spend less time on there. Take a similar approach and think of sin in your life and what roadblocks you could set up or actions you could take to put a stop to the sinful practice.

One of the ones I think of often is pornography. Pornography is an epidemic in our world and according to many statistics it’s no better in the church than in the world. How many people set up a computer in the basement or take their phone into the bathroom with them, or something like this? You’re literally walking into the lion’s den and praying they’re not hungry. It’s foolish. This is a thing that has caused many marriages to collapse. Perhaps you don’t need to literally tear your eye out, but you might need to literally get rid of your smartphone and get a dumb phone. You might literally need to put a hammer through the screen of your computer. You might literally need to do something drastic to part ways with sin.

Whatever ongoing sin we might have in our life needs to be taken incredibly seriously. It’s not something to be cared for but killed. It’s not to be provided for but starved. It’s not supposed to be taken lightly. If my sin is so serious to God that it put my Lord Jesus on the cross, why would I ever want to be gentle in dealing with it? Rather, I should treat it like the Romans treated my Lord.