So tonight we are going to continue in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. We are breaking up Jesus’s sentences that came one after another, and we are taking two or three sentences and doing one week on them. I want to remind you, though, that the audience sitting there listening to Jesus teach had just heard the Beatitudes. They just heard Jesus say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for it’s only them—they shall see God.” What looks like it’s important in the world, and what the world counts as blessed, isn’t so in the kingdom. And what looks like loss with eyes in the world is actually true blessing in the kingdom of God.

Then Jesus goes on and says, “Remember, you are salt; you are light, to be different in this world.” Jesus didn’t come to make the standard of the law less or to get rid of God’s requirements; He came to fulfill them. He actually teaches us that God’s standards are far, far higher than what the teachers of the law were saying. Do you remember? He said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds—unless you are more righteous than the most righteous people you can think of, the scribes and Pharisees—you’re not getting to Heaven.” If you were to sit and listen to Jesus’s words rightly and humbly, and say, “I believe You, Jesus. Unless my righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, I won’t enter the kingdom of Heaven,” that should be devastating. If you’re not in the Kingdom of Heaven, where are you for eternity? Jesus doesn’t mince words, because He goes straight on from that: “You’ve heard it said, ‘Don’t murder.’” You might think, “Okay, good, I’m not a murderer,” but if you’re angry in your heart, you’re guilty and going to be judged with the same judgment as a murderer. Anger is tantamount to murder.

He just said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the most righteous person that you can think of”—in fact, God puts it one higher: you have to be holy like God is holy. And I’ve been angry before; I’m a murderer before God. Then He goes on, “You’ve heard it said, ‘Don’t commit adultery.’” It’s not just the external act that God cares about but the intent of your heart, a heart-level desire. Now every single hearer is guilty of murder, guilty of adultery. Jesus’s words should capture your attention. This is where we are as we get one level further, where Jesus says, “Oh, you think I have your attention now? Let Me really get your attention.”

Matthew 5:29: The Weight of Sin

Look down at Matthew 5:29, and we’re going to read what Jesus goes on to say. I’m going to give us a running start; you can remember this from last week, verse 27:

“You have heard it said (Matthew 5:27 while you’re turning there), ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” We learned it’s the heart, not merely the externals, that truly matter. Externals do matter, but the heart matters all that much more. And then He goes on—this is our verse—He says:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.” That should get your attention. Why should you throw it away? “For it’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” All right, that escalated. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven; if you say to your brother, ‘You fool,’ you’re liable to the hell of fire. Tear your eye out. Throw it away.”

He goes on, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” These words are startling. They are a little offensive. They feel like an overreaction. “Jesus, You’re getting a little intense here.” Can you think of anything more dramatic than saying, “Rip your eye out, throw your arm away”?

Sin’s Seriousness and the Need for Radical Action

Let’s go back and look at what Jesus is saying. He had just said, “If you look at a woman with lustful intent, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.” You might be like, “Okay, well, why is adultery that big of a deal if that’s the standard? Maybe everybody’s a sinner, so if we’re all sinners, maybe sin’s not that big of a deal.” Have you ever thought that way? One of my kids said to me—they were young, and we did this thing after discipline where we’d sit down: “You lied, right? Why did you just get punished? Why did you get a spanking?” “I lied, Daddy.” “What’s lying?” “It’s a sin.” “Who did you sin against?” “You, me, Mommy, and God.” Yeah, that was sin. “What did Jesus have to do to save us from our sins?” “Die on the cross.” And then the child said out loud something maybe you or I have said inside: “But everybody sins, Daddy.”

Have you ever thought that? “My sin’s not really that big of a deal, because everybody sins.” “I know what the Bible says, but everybody sins. I’m trying. I don’t sin as much as that person over there. Everybody sins.” In case that thinking was on the hearers’ minds—Jesus said, “If you even look with lustful intent…” This would be lust in general, but we can expand it to all sin in general: It’s not merely the external. If you don’t lie but had a deceptive intent, that’s sin. If you have greed—the Bible calls greed idolatry. If you covet, if you have lustful intent, just that second look of desire and your heart starts going away—adultery. You’re angry, roll your eyes, say, “Fool”—murder. Your heart might protest, “But everybody does it; it can’t be that big of a deal.” Jesus says, “All right, listen up: This is how big of a deal sin is.” It’s such a big deal that if your most precious organ—He had just addressed if you look with lustful intent—“if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away,” because it doesn’t matter what the cost is to keep yourself from sin. Sin is that big of a deal.

Why? “For it’s better for you to lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” What’s more precious to you than your eye? Maybe only your whole body. Jesus is saying it doesn’t matter what the cost is; sin is that important because the reality is, you will either do everything you can in the fight against sin, or your body is thrown into hell. These are the stakes. The wages of sin is death. This is shown throughout all of Scripture. Sin entered the world, and death through sin. The second Adam and Eve sinned, death entered. Ever since then, we die. There was a vivid picture for Israel: sacrifices. “You guys sinned; the only way for you to get to God is for the sin to be dealt with.” That’s why there was blood everywhere. Sin leads to death—not just in this life, but eternally.

So Jesus’s point, I’m going to tell you, is not that you actually rip your eye out or your arm off, and I’ll explain why. But He does want to get your attention, and He does want you to say nothing is too high a price in this fight against sin, because your very life for eternity is at stake. Why do I say it’s not that He literally wants you to rip your eye out, since He literally says, “Tear your eye out”? We have to take Jesus’s words seriously. But He just said, “Where does sin occur?” In the heart. If you rip one eye out, you still have the other eye, right? It won’t help you sin less. If you ripped both eyes out, you could still lust in your imagination, in your heart. Jesus’s point is that nothing is off-limits in this fight against sin. You actually need to radically cut off the source of temptation. The eye isn’t where sin occurs, but you use your eye sinfully, so cut off the source of temptation.

James says temptation doesn’t ultimately come from what’s out there; you sin when you’re lured and enticed by your own desire. But if you know you struggle with something, if you know the temptation comes via your eyes, no sacrifice is too big to keep your eyes from seeing that thing. I want you to think specifically about yourself: what’s something you see your heart drawn away after in sin? Identify it. God already knows, but it’s helpful if you pinpoint it. Ultimately, it’s not that thing. If we’re talking about lust and adultery, maybe whenever you’re near that sign on the road or that website with certain ads, or around that person, or let’s move outside of that category: whenever you play video games, you find you’re drawn away from diligence. You don’t do what you ought to do because you’re gratifying the desires of your flesh in video games, or it moves you toward violence, or fill-in-the-blank. Whenever you’re around certain types of food, you have no self-control and you’re gluttonous.

The food isn’t the problem; the girl isn’t the problem; the guy isn’t the problem; the video games aren’t the problem. But they are a source of temptation for you. Just like your eye isn’t the real problem of sin, but if your eye were the problem, it’d be worth it to rip it out and throw it away. Whatever lures your heart away—nothing is too radical to get rid of. It’s not ridiculous to say, “I know all my friends have cell phones, but I can’t handle it. It draws my heart away. I don’t trust myself. That’s a window to a world that just leads to sin for me.” You might say, “That’s ridiculous—my parents can’t get ahold of me; I can’t check my email.” But is it really? Isn’t it better to throw that phone away than for your whole body to be thrown into hell? That is a worthwhile trade.

Internet access, certain friends, playing on a sports team, being in a band—I don’t know what it is for you, but if there’s something that lures your heart away and you can’t handle it, the battle is in the heart. It is worthwhile not to put your heart next to tempting things. Even then, there’s a warning. Jesus’s point here is: don’t focus on externals. Don’t be like the Pharisees—whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside. “Look at me, I don’t have a cell phone, I’m so holy.” You might not sin the way you used to sin, and then you feel like, “Problem solved.”

The Danger of Only External Solutions

I had a really good friend, one of my best friends actually, right around the time I became a believer. It was in the context of these verses. He struggled with a particular sin that involved using the internet in grossly sinful ways. His solution was, “I’m going to get rid of all computers in my house for a whole year. If I can go without sinning for a whole year, then I can get my computers back.” You know what? He got rid of his computers, turned off the internet, even got rid of his TVs. You know what happened that year? He didn’t commit that sin. Mission accomplished, right?

Well, maybe—if those were means to root out heart-level desire and say, “God, You care about my heart. What am I desiring? Do I desire to honor You with my members—what I look at, what I do—or do I merely want to deal with externals?” Because you know what? If you were locked in a cave until you died, there would be a lot of sins you just wouldn’t do. Unless God saved you and gave you a new heart, you’d still find sins to do, and you’d still earn hell. Locking yourself in a cave, gouging out your eyes, cutting off your arms and legs—you’d just be a blind sinner locked in a cave in a wheelchair. You would still sin.

This friend of mine, after a year, said, “Praise God, Jake, I’m getting my TVs back, my computer back.” You know what happened that night? He returned to sin. Why? Because he didn’t address the heart. There’s nothing too radical to get rid of; he did the right thing, but what should have happened in that year is, “God, thank You for freeing me from that sin that was all around me. This is worth it—I’m not sinning in that way. Let me pursue You with my whole heart.” Jesus gets us at the heart. It’s at a heart-level obedience to the Lord. While you are pursuing that, be pure in heart for the Lord, get rid of temptations to sin. Nothing is too radical in that aim.

What does Jesus say next? “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it’s better that you lose one of your members”—He repeats—“than your whole body go into hell.” Radically cut off the source of temptation, and radically cut off the means of sin. How do you sin? Maybe you sin with your phone; maybe you sin with money; maybe you need less money. I don’t know what it is, but I want you to solemnly, with help in your discussion groups, with your parents, with your friends, or maybe just in your own heart before the Lord, think: “Where am I tempted? I will cut off that source of temptation in order to pursue God with my whole heart. What do I sin with? What do I find my hands doing that is sinful?” Nothing is too radical in throwing that away, because if I don’t, God will throw me away in hell.

This doesn’t mean you’re saved by works or saved because you do radical things. The Pharisees—whom Jesus was addressing—did radical things. They tithed down to the ounce of dill and cumin. They said, “We’re supposed to fast once a year? I fast twice a week. Look at how radical I am.” They didn’t address their heart. Jesus isn’t saying, “Be radical like the Pharisees.” He’s saying, “Be more radical than the Pharisees, because they ignored the heart.” It focused on externals only.

Christ’s Radical Provision for Our Fight Against Sin

Anything you do externally—“I refuse to sin, I throw my right hand away, I won’t sin in that way”—nothing is too radical in stopping sin if it’s from the heart. “I’m throwing away all my means of temptation. I’m not going to take that road on the way to work. I’m not going to walk that hall at school. I’m not going on the internet, or if I do, I’ll use a browser my parents monitor.” Nothing is too radical as a means of honoring God from your heart. This puts into perspective what it means when we say, “I’m struggling with sin.” Have you ever heard that? I say that. But am I truly “struggling” with anger, or am I just giving in a little less? Jesus says we’re probably not struggling enough. We can up our game in the fight against sin.

God isn’t being unsympathetic or simply demanding. Hebrews actually says we have a High Priest who’s like us; He went through those same temptations and yet was without sin. Hebrews 12 says, “Consider Him who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” It says, “Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself,” so that you won’t grow weary. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. No matter how radical we get in our fight against sin, we have never struggled to the point of shedding blood. Why does Hebrews say that? Because Jesus did. No matter how radical you or I are in our fight against sin, we will never be as radical as God was in that fight. God is not demanding something from you that He doesn’t provide.

You might hear, “Oh no, if I don’t work really hard, I can’t get to heaven.” That’s sort of true, but you have it backwards. If you are a sinner—meaning if you give yourself wholeheartedly to murderous anger or adulterous lust, or you give yourself to sin—you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven. So turn to God. Confess your sin. We say it almost every week: Confess your sin, and He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse. Christian, your body was purchased and made part of Christ’s body. He doesn’t actually want you to throw your arm away or cut your eyes off. He wants you to use them for His glory.

This is 1 Corinthians 6:15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” He’s speaking to Christians, saying your physical body was purchased to be Christ’s. “Shall I then take the members of Christ”—when you look at your arm and say, “Yes, this is a member of my body”—“shall I take it and make them members of a prostitute?” That’s why adultery is so bad: you’re taking the body Christ bought and using it for your own purposes. “For it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’” Then he says, “Flee sexual immorality.”

Or do you not know, 1 Corinthians 6:19, that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, Christian? That means God saved you, forgave you, cleansed you, and now He lives within you. He is supposed to be in control by His Holy Spirit of your members. You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body. He has a much higher call for these eyes and your hands than simply throwing them away. If it were necessary, you should do it, but His plan is that you use them for His glory.

He says in Colossians 3, “Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you,” meaning what is not of the Spirit—sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness. Put to death sins of the heart. Don’t you dare use your body to accomplish what your sinful flesh wants from the heart. John Piper writes that the point of this passage is not that inward desires can be controlled by external maiming. The point is how serious the stakes are. They are so great that we must do what we have to do to defeat the bondage of sinful desire. It’s astonishing how many people deal with their sin casually. Jesus demands otherwise. Fight for a pure heart with the same urgency as tearing out an eye or cutting off a hand. Look at what’s at stake: it’s hell. “It’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be into hell.”

Did Jesus deal with your sin casually? He did the very opposite. Is there anything more radical Jesus could have done to win this fight for you? Can you imagine anything more radical than the eternal, infinite God of the universe taking on flesh? That’s radically humble. Then He lived a sinless life and was murdered; He gave His life in the most humiliating, painful way possible. But that wasn’t the pinnacle: He took on all of the Father’s eternal wrath against all who would ever believe. Your sin, each time you earn hell for eternity, and how many times a day do we earn that? Infinity times a lot is still a lot—and all of it was placed on Jesus, and He absorbed that wrath completely. Thank God He wasn’t casual in His fight against our sin. He struggled to the point of shedding blood, so we can struggle, and nothing is too high a cost.

Presenting Our Members to God Instead of Sin

Romans 6:12 says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.” If there’s something tempting to look at over there, say, “Eyes, I’m not going to present you to sin. You were saved at the price of Christ’s blood. You were saved for holiness, to honor God.” Same with your hands—“Hands, you were bought with a price. I’m supposed to glorify God. I’m not going to use my hands to sin.” Same with your mouth—“I’m going to speak words that build up, not tear down.” Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

“For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” God did what you and I could never do. He didn’t just change our members; He changed our hearts. “Thanks be to God,” Romans 6:17, “that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart, and have been set free from sin. You’ve become slaves of righteousness.” God did the most radical thing in your fight against sin: He bought your members, and He changed you from the heart. He bought you and set you on a path to glorify Him.

There is no middle place, no in-between, between renouncing sin and allowing sin. Charles Simeon said there is no middle state between heaven and hell; the alternative is clear, definite, irreversible. You cannot be Christ’s unless you crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. You can’t say, “I want to be Christ’s and I want to sin, too.” It’s one or the other. You will be mastered by Christ, or mastered by sin. One leads to death and seeks to ruin you; the other loved you with an everlasting love, redeemed your soul, sanctifies your body, and wants you at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore.

Do not be deceived. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Well, if adulterers can’t inherit the kingdom and if you look with lustful intent, you’re an adulterer; if murderers can’t get in, and you’re angry, you’re a murderer—who can enter the kingdom of God? All who turn to God in faith. God separates that sin as far as the east is from the west. This is why Romans 8 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Did you do it? Yes. You deserve condemnation, more than you know. Is there condemnation? No. Why? Jesus took it. He didn’t just forgive you; He cleansed you. Now there’s hope.

Paul says, “Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” So don’t throw your physical eyes away or your physical arms away. Instead, do what God already did. Paul says, “I was crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh”—with these eyes and these hands—“I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 5:24 says all who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh along with its passions and desires. That is what God does in the gospel.

If you are a Christian, this is the hope. Nothing is too high a price, but your hope doesn’t come from your ability to try harder or do better. Your hope is in what Christ has accomplished. He has provided everything needed for life and godliness. Walk in faith. Don’t present your members—eyes, hands, mouth, any part of you—to sin. When tempted, say, “No, hands, that’s not what you’re going to do. Christ bought you, and I’m going to glorify God with my hands. No, mouth, I’m not going to speak like that. No, mind, don’t think like that. You, too, brain, were purchased with a price. I will glorify God with you.”

If you’re not a believer and you think, “I’m sure God will be okay with me because I tried hard,” or “I’m not that bad,” or maybe you think there’s no heaven or hell, Jesus says otherwise. He knows. Turn from your sin; turn from trying to do better. No amount of church attendance or reading your Bible will get you to heaven. You can’t out-external the scribes and Pharisees. Turn to God in repentance and faith; He will deal with you from the heart.

Conclusion and Prayer

I went long; I’m sorry. I want us to go to our discussion groups now. Let’s pray. If you are aware of a sin that convicts you, that you’re hiding, that nobody knows but God—maybe your parents will be mad if you tell them, maybe you’ll lose privileges, maybe it will be embarrassing—the consequences might be high. If you confess this sin, you might think the cost is too high. But what does this say? Is the cost really too high? Especially if you’re going to God with it, then going to your parents or the one you sinned against. “Help me. I don’t know exactly what I need, but I need help cutting that off.” It might involve losing your phone, or who knows—but it is worth it. It’s worth it to have anything thrown away, rather than at the end of your life say, “I wanted this one sin so much I was willing to sin against God to keep it.”

Think about that sin or temptation you’re unwilling to part with. Right now, as I pray, confess it to the Lord. Agree with God—it’s sin—and trust Him that He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Then walk away saying, “I’m going to walk in repentance. I’m not going to use these members the way I’ve been using them—my eyes, my mouth, my brain, my hands, my feet—because He saved me.” Then go to your parents and say, “Mom, Dad, I need help. Here’s where I’m sinning. God knew; you never knew. Or maybe you knew a little, but it’s worse than you know. Here’s what’s going on. Help me.” If you need help with that next step, talk to your discussion group leader. I promise you—it’s worth it. It’s scary, but it’s worth it. That’s what Jesus wants you to know: nothing is too high a cost.

Let’s pray. Pray in your heart as I pray. Pray with me:

God, I’m up here preaching a message that I need. Apart from Your gospel—the good news of what You accomplished at the cross in our place—our only eternal destiny would be hell, and You would be right to throw us there. We’re separated from You because we are sinners and You are holy. Yet You did what we could never do. You’re perfect, and yet You made Jesus, the sinless One, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

If we are Your children, from before the foundation of the world, You had good works prepared for us. You saved us so that we could glorify You with our eyes, not looking at worthless things, but worshiping You in what we look at, honoring You from our hearts. You sanctified our mouths—I pray You would keep us from using our tongues to tear down, to curse, to insult, or to express anger. Instead, we would build up. You gave us these hands and abilities to honor You, to work hard, to glorify You with our bodies. Too often we use them to hurt, to please ourselves, to sin. Forgive us, cleanse us, use these for Your glory.

I pray for the students here who have sin they’re very aware of and they want to fight. God, first, I pray You would forgive them, that You would grant them faith. Help them to walk in faith regarding that sin. I pray that they would believe what You say about it, and that they would desire to honor You more than they desire that sin. May they trust that You are indeed faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness—that if we do sin, we have an Advocate with You. Satan condemns, and Jesus says, “No, I already paid for that sin. He or she is wearing My righteousness. I died for that sin.” And the Holy Spirit is in them so that they use their body to glorify You.

God, I pray that You would give them the confidence to confess their sins freely to You, and then go to their parents—even if they’re scared—willing to do radical things to cut off temptation, to cut off means of sin. I pray that parents, discussion group leaders, and friends would be faithful to patiently walk alongside them as we fight sin. This is our lot in life: Christians confess our sins and pray for one another so that we may be healed. Thank You for putting us in a church not of perfect people, but of sinners saved by grace—who know we’re sinners saved by grace—and I pray we would help each other fight sin.

We know one day there will no longer be a fight. We’ll see You as You are, and we’ll be glorified in an instant. We will no longer sin. There will be no more pain or death or tears. Sin will be done away with. So will death. We long for that day. No matter how hard we fight now, it’s not even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. These slight, momentary afflictions are preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. God, I pray that we would be strong and courageous. Help these kids, these leaders, and me do radical things in our fight against sin, in our fight to glorify You with our bodies. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.