Last week, I began our message by pointing out the fact that if it weren't for the discipline of expository preaching, we might be tempted to skip over certain portions of scripture and only preach those things which are smooth to our ears. And I feel like I need to begin that again today, begin with that introduction as well. It seems as though the things that we've already heard this morning would lead us to want to hear something comforting, want to hear something reassuring from our Lord, from his scripture. And I have to trust providence in this, that though our text for this morning is not going to pour the oil of gladness on our heads, it is nevertheless in God's providence that we come to this text in our study of the Sermon on the Mount. And so we trust in his providence and in his wisdom He knows best, and I'd like for us to turn in Matthew to chapter 5, and I want to read verses 27 through 30, but with a specific emphasis on verses 29 and 30, which are the two verses that we weren't able to get to last Lord's Day. Matthew 5, verse 27. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And now the next two verses are the ones that we want to focus on this morning. Our Lord says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Our Lord has just pointed out and has in some measure exposed the superficiality and the shallowness of the Jewish thinking with respect to the law of God. He's already shown how that their understanding of the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, was woefully inadequate. And here he shows that their understanding of the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, was also inadequate because they limited the application of those commandments purely to the outward and the external and the physical. So that the person who is guilty of adultery is simply that person who has physically, actually committed adultery with his body. And Jesus points out that that is not the case. In fact, they're missing the entire spirit of the law, the essence of the law, which doesn't just have to do with our outward behavior, but our inward motives, our thoughts and our intentions and so on. He says, even if you were to lust upon a woman, even if you were to have an evil desire, a fantasy in your mind about someone other than your own spouse, you are guilty of committing adultery before the Lord. Now, here we come to an elaboration on that point. In fact, what Jesus says in verses 29 and 30 really could be applied to any particular sin, not just to the sin of adultery or the sin of lusting after someone other than your own wife. In fact, this same phrase that we find here in these two verses is used by Jesus in a couple of other places in the New Testament. Mark chapter 9, for example, where he says even more concerning the whole issue of hell, but he uses the same metaphors, plucking out your eye, cutting off your hand. And also in the Gospel of Matthew, the one we're in now, in chapter 18, he reiterates these very same words, and it would seem that if the gospel records are merely a sample of what Jesus said, then it is quite likely that Jesus said these words often. They were to him most apropos for the description of that activity which the believer is to be engaged in his whole life in his battle against sin. And that activity that Jesus is referring to here has been called by theologians over the centuries, mortification, mortification. Now, you might have an idea in your mind what mortification might mean. I remember hearing people saying things like I had to get up and I had to speak publicly in front of everyone and I was just simply mortified that I had to do that. Well, it seems to me that that's an inadequate definition of mortification because the technical meaning of it means to kill. And so if you say I was mortified, then that means you were killed. You were attacked. You were brought to nothing. Well, the word mortification with respect to the Christian life has to do with the negative side of his growing in grace. The Christian is to grow in grace. That's the positive side. But there's the negative side. And that is he's to be about the duty of killing his sin, putting to death his sin. Now, Paul uses the same terminology in Romans eight. Colossians 3, which we'll turn to in a few moments. In Ephesians 6, the Christian life is likened unto a warfare where we have armor and then we have a sword. What are we supposed to do with this sword? What does the Christian do with that? He is to not only defend himself against temptation and the wiles of the devil, but he is also to go on the offensive against the sins of his own heart and life. And so it's speaking of this spiritual endeavor, which the Christian undergoes his entire life. He wants to be rid of sin because he hates him. And he's not just content to be forgiven of his sins. He wants his sins to be gone. The true Christian can always be Identified because he's not just interested in getting a fire escape from hell. He's also interested in becoming more and more like Christ, which necessarily implies that he will be putting to death sin, the remaining sin that is in his life. And that is the subject upon which our Lord is speaking here, whether it's apparent to you at this point or not, we'll open that up in just a few moments. But he is speaking of that whole issue of mortification or putting to death. This is the desire of the true Christian. This is the duty of the true Christian, and it's also a demonstration and evidence that the Christian is indeed who he says he is. If a person is not desirous of putting to death sin, if he is not in some way engaged in that battle, Then the scriptures plainly teach, as we'll see in a few moments, he is no Christian at all. Now, I have an outline. As you know, I don't operate without one. It's a two point outline, but we're not going to get to it quite yet because I have a couple of things I have to clarify up front before we begin. But just to let you know where we're heading, the two points that we want to consider this morning actually have several points under them. Point number one, we want to consider three principles of mortification that are taught by our Lord in this text. Three principles of mortification. Many more things could be said about the subject. But we're going to limit ourselves to what Christ actually says in this text, and we'll spend some time later, perhaps, on that subject in another study. The second thing we want to look at is five features of the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin. There are five things about the Christian life that we can gather from the words of our Lord here in terms of how the believer is to interrelate with his own remaining sin. So before we get to those things, we need to clarify two things by way of introduction. First thing we need to do is to clarify the motive of mortification. The motive when the New Testament speaks of mortification of sin. It is not referring to something that we do in order to be saved, or in order to be accepted of God, or in order to be forgiven of our sin, or in order to enter heaven. We are not given the duty of mortification as a means by which we can earn our way into God's presence. That is not the motive of mortification. Now, most of you may know that, but I want to clarify that because it might be fairly easy for someone new to the scriptures or someone unacquainted with the entire teaching of the Bible to read the words of Christ here and to see it in a fashion of work salvation that Jesus is saying, if you don't mortify sin, then you're going to hell. There's a sense in which that is true. But please do not interpret that to mean that Jesus is saying that it's because of your mortification that you're going to heaven. He is not holding out this duty of putting to death sin as a way of acceptance with God. That is not the point. And I want to be clear on this, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, who speaks of this duty, I myself would never want to give anyone here the impression that if you're a non-christian today, that we're encouraging you to go out and mortify sin in order to be forgiven of sin. Not at all. The motive for the Christian in mortifying sin is because he already is a Christian. And he has already received life from God. And he has been changed. And he has been bought by the blood of Christ. And he is rejoicing in that fact. He is grateful. He's thankful. The very first thing is our brother already reminded of us this morning that a Christian asks is, Lord, what would you have me to do? How should I then live? And the Lord says to those whom he's already redeemed. If you love me. Keep my commandments. And part of keeping his commandments is putting to death that which transgresses his commandments, putting to death sin. So the motive for mortification is not out of earning your own way. It's after you've already been redeemed and forgiven of your sin and have assurance of of your salvation. Then flowing out of that is this work of mortification in order to become like Christ, in order to, as it were, show your devotion to the one who has purchased you with his own blood. John Owen, the Puritan, said it this way. Mortification from a self strength carried on by ways of self-invention unto the end of a self-righteousness is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. So the point I'm making now is no small point. There are two religions in the world. There's the one that says you are saved by your own doings. And there's the other one that says you are saved by the doings of another, by the Savior, by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're saved all by grace. and not by works. And so Jesus is not teaching here, nor does the entire scripture teach that mortification is something that you do in order to be saved. It's something you do because you have been saved. Now, the second thing we need to clear up by way of introduction is we need to understand the metaphor for mortification that Jesus uses in this text. He says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast in hell. And he says the same thing with regard to your right hand, not just your right eye. And the idea there is that he could have probably gone on and listed every other part of the body. That is the metaphor that he's using here to explain this process of mortification. Now. Some people have taken Jesus quite literally here. to their own pain and to their own regret. Origen, one of the church fathers, was brought under such heavy conviction reading this particular passage of our Lord. He himself struggled with lust that he actually did harm to his body in trying to bring an end to his lust. And he found out that it didn't bring an end to his lust at all when he so mutilated himself Jesus is not being hyper literal here any more than he was in John chapter six when he taught men to eat his body and drink his blood. These words were spiritual words not to be taken in a literal sense. In fact, just a few just a few moments reflecting upon Christ's words here. would show that they cannot be taken literally, because then you have this whole issue of cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes. And if that were the case, if Jesus were saying this literally, then you could always tell who the true Christians are. They're the ones that have one eye. They're the ones that are hobbling around on a prosthetic, or they're the ones who are one-armed. And then you have to think to yourself, well, OK, after I've mortified my one eye, then what about my other eye? It's probably going to sin too, so I'll probably have to pluck that one out. And then you could go on and on until finally you're nothing but a stump. And then you have to think about, well, my mind is sure causing me to sin. I might have to decapitate myself. Now, I say all that facetiously, certainly not to mock Christ's words. But to mock those who would take this in a hyper literal sense, in fact, scripture interprets scripture. And we find that the apostle Paul elaborates on this very same theme, a theme which the Lord himself taught Paul. both in the records of the Gospels and also when Paul spent time with the Lord himself. And there are two places. This is still by way of introduction. The introduction is a little longer. The body of the message will be a little shorter today. But I want us to look at a couple of places very briefly that Paul speaks of this issue of mortification. The first one is in Colossians chapter three and verse five. Colossians chapter three and verse five. Paul says here, therefore, put to death that is mortify your old King James Version will use the word mortify, put to death your members which are on the earth. Now, fortunately for all of you, this is not a command given to elders to put to death the members of the church. Rather, it's a command being given to individual Christians to put to death literally their physical, bodily organs. I mean, that's what it appears to be. That's what Paul seems to be saying here. Put to death your members, the members of your body. What do you mean, Paul? You can't possibly mean that literally. And Paul goes on to say, you're right, I'm not meaning that literally. The very same verse. Notice the colon after the word earth. Put to death your members which are on earth are on the earth. What I mean by that is fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. He names just a few sins, most of which have their expression in and through our members, either our eyes, our minds, our hands, our feet, Our mouths. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart, the hands do their work out of the abundance of the heart, the eyes want to fasten themselves onto things that will provoke and stir up lust and so on. All of these things are to be put to death, Paul says, but he's not speaking literally. Chop off your members. You see, he elaborates on that very thing. Now, the other important passage to go to is in Romans chapter eight. We are to put to death sin that originates in our heart and that seeks to express itself through our bodily members. Now, in chapter 8 of Romans, verses 13 and 14, we read these words. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, You will live. There's that word. Mortify again. Put to death the deeds of the body here. He's very. He's even more clear. He says, put to death the deeds of the body, those sinful deeds, of course. If you do that, you will live for as many as are led by the spirit of God. These are sons of God for as many as are led by the spirit of God, led by the spirit to do what to put to death the deeds of the body as many as are led by the spirit to mortify sin. These are the true children of God. This is what his point is here. And if you don't have the spirit of God in you leading you to mortify sin, then you are none of His. He goes on to say that if you don't have the Spirit of Christ in you, you are none of His. How do I know if I have the Spirit? Because I speak in tongues? Because I can heal? Because I do all these wonderful things? You know you have the Spirit of God in you, leading you, if He is enabling you to put to death sin. And those who are putting to death sin Those who desire it, those who are fulfilling it in some manner, doesn't mean we're perfect, doesn't mean we're always the same in intensity, but those of you who are led to mortify sin, you are evidencing the fact that you are a true child of God. It's not earning your way to heaven. It's simply evidencing that you have been changed by the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit dwells within. So, those two things, those two verses need to be brought out and those two points of clarification by way of introduction. We need to understand then that Jesus is speaking of mortification. Paul the Apostle elaborates and not to be taken hyper-literally as some sort of form of asceticism or self-mutilation or torture. That's not what we're referring to here. Christ never meant that in these words. Okay, having done all of that now, let us consider three principles of mortification as taught by Christ in this passage and five features of the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin. Three principles. Number one, Jesus is saying here, deal directly with your darling sin. I'm using that term darling sin because it's Familiar to some of you who've read some of those old devotional books by the Puritans, they like to use that particular phrase, darling sin. Notice Jesus said, pluck out your right eye. If your right eye offends you, causes you to stumble, causes you to sin, pluck it out. Your right eye. Why does he say right eye? He goes on to say if your right hand. It's assumed here. That the right eye is the one you need the most. The right hand. Most people who aren't left handed anyway value their right hand more than their left. That which is the closest to you. That which is the most darling to you. That thing which is most precious. Even if it's as precious as a right eye. Even if that sin that you have in your life is as precious and close to you as your right hand. Deal directly with it. Mortify it. Kill it. It will cost you something. It will be painful, but do it. Deal with it. Now, it's interesting to note that when Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, he doesn't go on to say, if your right eye causes you to sin, chop off your hand. He doesn't say, if your right hand causes you to sin, chop off your leg. No, he says, if your right hand causes you to sin, chop off your right hand. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck out your right eye. The reason I'm saying this is because all too often we try to bargain whether we realize we're doing it or not. We try to make deals with God. We like our darling sin so much that to make our consciences feel better, we begin to bargain in this way. Lord, I will give up this. I'll give up that. I'll do more here. I'll do more there. But I'm still going to hang on to that one darling sin of mine. I'll do a lot of other things. I'll even excel in other ways. But I still want to hold on to that one thing. That would be like a doctor, a diabetic going to the doctor and the doctor says, you know, if you keep eating sugar, it's going to kill you. And the diabetic could say, well, you know, I'll give up asparagus. You know, I'll give up potatoes and I'll give up lima beans. Wouldn't that be good enough? No, because the one thing you need to deal with right now is the thing that's giving you the trouble, the thing that's hurting you, the thing that's damaging you. You need to give up your sugar. Well, we need to be careful that in our spiritual walk, we don't make these kinds of bargains with our own conscience or with God and think that God is going to be fooled by it. We can excel in many ways, but if we're still harboring that one darling sin and we're not dealing with it and we're making peace with it, then we are failing to mortify sin. And we can say more of that in just a few moments. But the second principle we need to point out here in our Lord's words is deal with sin immediately and radically. Deal with it immediately and radically. The Greek tense and voice, or the Greek tense and mood of what Jesus says here when he says, cut it off, pluck it out, is the aorist imperative. The aorist imperative isn't something like, take your time, whenever you feel like it, start slicing away at that hand of yours. Take your time when it's convenient to start, you know, pushing that eyeball out a little bit. No, it's instant. Do it immediately. Cut off your hand. Pluck out your eye. These are the aorist imperative, which means when we're dealing with sin in our lives, we're not to delay. We're not to procrastinate. We're not to take our sweet time. Furthermore, we're not to do things halfway. We're not told to wound lust or to wound sin. We are told to kill it. Now, somebody might say, well, isn't it true that the Christian will always have sin in his life this side of heaven? Yeah, that's true. Well, then how can we ever truly kill sin? The point is, is that you need to respond to sin and deal with sin with the motive to kill it. and with measures that will be adequate to kill it. Though it may never be truly killed, that is how you are to approach it. You're not called to wound sin, to slap sin in the face. You are called to deal with it in a very radical manner. It will cost you something. There will be pain. It won't be easy. There will be withdrawal symptoms. Especially if it's a darling sin, a darling sin of lust, a darling sin of unforgiveness and bitterness. But we need to do this because sin is not to be played around with as though it were a harmless thing. We cannot keep sin manageable. Sin will always, in its very nature, seek to express itself greater and greater until it expresses itself in the most ultimate way, in ultimate sense. It snowballs. It cannot be trifled with. It will deceive you into thinking it's only asking for this much when it really wants this much, sort of like a Kirby salesman who comes to your door. Oh, I just want to show you how to clean the blinds. No, he wants you to pay $2,000 or some other ungodly price for his vacuum. That's the way it is with sin. Sin says, I only want this much, we give it that much, we grow comfortable with that, and it asks for this much, and it conditions us until finally it's out of control and what we thought were the cobwebs of sin are the chains of sin binding us once again. Sin is destructive and therefore it must be dealt with immediately and radically, flung aside immediately, decisively. Therefore, right at this very moment, without any vacillation on your part, the obscene book or magazine must be burned. The illegitimate relationship must be broken. The sinful habit must be discarded. The sinful thoughts and desires must be rebuked and thrown away immediately, decisively, radically. You don't nibble around it. Don't nibble around the edges. Don't take your sweet time. You don't have that time. And sin will make a fool out of you if you do not deal with it in that sense and in that way. Now, the third principle that Jesus is teaching here is realize what a lack of this kind of mortification indicates. Realize what a lack of this kind of radical Violent treatment of your sin indicates about you. What does it indicate? It indicates that you are not a Christian at all if you're not interested in mortifying sin. Notice how Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, cast it from you. It's more profitable to do that than that your whole body be thrown into hell. He's speaking of hell here. Why would he be speaking of hell to these people who profess to be his disciples? Because your profession. Is not warranted, your profession is not genuine if it's not backed up by evidence that you are truly a new creature in Christ, that you've truly been converted. And if you're not struggling against sin, then what evidence is there that the Holy Spirit even dwells in you? The battle against sin is the very thing that marks you out as a true child of God, as we've already seen in Romans 8, verses 13 and 14. If you live after the flesh, if you live in a state where sin is not an issue with you, you just let it have free reign, then you will die. Why will you die? Why will you end up in hell, as Jesus puts it here? Because you're not saved. You haven't been changed. You haven't been converted. And you prove that by your manner of living. You've shown that. But those who continue to fight, no matter how discouraging the battle might be at times, no matter how many times you fail and you fall, if you just keep getting up by the grace of God and pursuing and plodding along and fighting sin, that in itself is a mark of the Spirit's presence in your life. And you're on the road of sanctification. So many Christians get discouraged with their sin, and I understand that they should. They get discouraged because they're always fighting against the same sin. But don't you see it? There's a source of assurance in that very thing. The very fact that you're fighting it, the very fact that it matters to you, is an evidence of the Spirit within you. It's not the perfection of grace in your life that marks you out as a true child of God, but the presence of grace. And the presence of grace always translates into a battle. between the flesh and the spirit. Well, let's move on to consider five features of the biblical Christian life, which can be drawn out of these words of our Lord here in this passage. There are three principles. Now, there's five features. Of the Christian life as it relates to sin, these are important to note, because even though a true Christian may indeed be troubled about his sin and be fighting against it. These features of the Christian life, as they're explained by Christ and elsewhere in the Bible, if they're not understood, then the Christian can certainly founder and he can begin to grow confused and very discouraged about the state of things in his own soul. The first thing we need to note about the biblical Christian life, it is not one of sinless perfection. It is rather, in the words of Paul, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. If we're always to be about putting to death sin, always doing that, then that implies that there will always be sin to mortify, to put to death. It will always be there, this side of heaven. It's always going to be there. The Christian life is not about perfection. It's about perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Second Corinthians seven, verse one, having therefore these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God that is completing it. God has begun a good work. Now he calls upon us in conjunction with the spirit and his power to complete the work that God has begun. And that's an ongoing process. And it will last our entire life in this world. Don't fall for the terminology and the gimmickry that is out there today with respect to the Christian life. The. The bill of goods that people like to tell Christians that you can somehow be like me, after all, I've written this book. And look how God's blessed me. Look how big my church is. Look how big I can smile. God has blessed me with all this. I must be doing something right. God can bless you in the same way he has me. He can give you a life of victory where you will have this one long perpetual uninterrupted succession of health, wealth, success and blessing because you've risen above that everyday fighting with sin and you're now living the victorious Christian life. You are now living the higher life. The deeper life or whatever life it is that they say they have the secret to tapping into where you can somehow step out of the flesh. You're in the spirit. And for some period of time, if not your whole life long, you can live in this. The state of victory. That's not the biblical concept of the Christian life at all. Not at all. And if you buy that, then you're going to be very discouraged because the Word of God very clearly states that this whole entire existence we have upon this earth as Christians is an uphill climb. It's a battle. It's a fight all the way. There's there may be seasons of refreshing and strengthening from the Lord, but there's never this static floating above it all where you're sinless now and you don't have to mind about your own sins of your heart of the devil or the world that that's just not reality. That's heaven. That's Canaan. Right now, we have to worry about these things, our sin. So don't be discouraged if you're not living a victorious Christian life. As long as you're living a fighting Christian life, that's what it's all about. Sin's not going to necessarily be expunged from you. You want it to be. But the fact that you're fighting it is what you need to realize is the evidence of your sonship. The second thing or feature about the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin is that it's not merely confessing and repenting. The Christian life is also about preventing. Preventing sin, preemptively striking. Plucking out your eye, as it were, to prevent further sin, cutting off your hand, as it were, to prevent further sin. Mortification is not just waiting for a sin to happen and then attacking it. That's part of it. It's also preventing sin from taking place in the future by taking certain steps. People grow frustrated. And they should when their whole Christian life is marked by this cycle of sinning, repenting, confessing, forsaking, sinning, repenting, confessing, forsaking, and about it's the same sin each time, usually that they grow discouraged about. I wonder how many of those Christians have done anything preemptively. So that they might, in some cases, break the cycle. Because the Christian is not just mindful of repenting of sin, he wants to prevent himself from sinning in that manner in the future, and he'll take certain steps to do it, even if it's as violent in a spiritual sense as plucking out your eye. David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin. Preventive, preemptive striking. The person who's seriously striving for holiness doesn't play on the fringes. He doesn't court temptation. He doesn't put himself in unnecessary situations where he will be tempted. He will stay far away from anything that might be the occasion for him to sin, because he's not just interested in sinning and then repenting. And woe be to you if your attitude is, hey, I'll sin in this way because I can always confess it and forsake it later. God will forgive me. That's not the attitude of a true Christian. The attitude of a true Christian is, I don't want to sin at all. It's not just that I want forgiveness. I want cleansing. I want deliverance. Now, the third feature of the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin is that the Christian life is not passive. It's active. It's not passive. It's active. Once again, we need to remember that some of the terminology that's been used in our generation is not accurate in terms of how the Bible describes the Christian life. Have you ever heard of the phrase, let go and let God? Of course you have, right? Let go and let God rely and relax. As if we are supposed to surrender all. And just become these amoebic blobs. Spiritually speaking, speaking where we just kind of ooze around waiting for the Holy Spirit to do something with us and through us. And we have really no part in the matter. In fact, some books will even tell you that your main problem is that you are striving. You are struggling. You are fighting. You need to give up the fight. You need to stop striving. You need to stop resisting. You need to stop doing it on your own and just kind of relax and ask God to do it through you. Brethren, that is not scriptural. It's not biblical. I don't know how that harmonizes with what we read in the Bible concerning the Christian life. We are exhorted to resist, to fight, to strive, to press on, to endure, to persevere, to use the words of our Lord, to cut off, to pluck out. These are all active words. There's nothing passive about them. Yes, we recognize that all of these things are only possible by the inner working and power of the Holy Spirit. We recognize that if you, through the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the body, Paul said. We know that the Spirit of God enables us. But that in no way excuses us from responsibility and action on our own part. We're to work out these things on our own, knowing that the Spirit is in, and don't give in to this idea that you need to lay your all on the altar, that you need to just become a blob spiritually that God can use and work through you. It's almost as if these kinds of writers are telling you that the problem is that you're in God's way and you need to get out of God's way and let God do his work as if anyone can hinder God from doing his work. God will get his work done one way or the other. No, you, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, with respect to the mortification of sin, are to be very active and to never let your guard down. Now, a fourth feature of the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin is that it's not easy, safe or peaceful. It's not easy, safe or peaceful. In fact, it's difficult, dangerous and violent. The Christian life is difficult, dangerous and violent. Now, it's not dangerous in the sense that Christians are going to go out and be on a jihad, hurting other people. But spiritually speaking, you're going to do violence to your own self because your own flesh craves and desires certain things which are sinful. And cutting those things out of your life is going to be very painful, just like the right eye and the right arm. It's violent. It's painful. It's dangerous. It's difficult. This idea that we just kind of float on to heaven once you become a Christian, you never have any problems, you never suffer, you never have any difficulties in life. Once again, that is a myth. And I know that this is no way to attract those of you who are unbelievers to come to Christ. Welcome to a life of misery. Come to him. You will then experience what I'm speaking of here. I realize that that sounds counterproductive, but you know what? It's honest. And Jesus turned around and reminded us of something in this text. All the pain and suffering you may endure as a Christian mortifying sin. It's worth it. Because one day in glory, when you look back. All the suffering of this present time won't hold a candle to the glory that will be revealed in us. Now, lastly, we close with this feature of the biblical Christian life as it relates to sin. It is not primarily out looking at other people, but in looking. That's what it's primarily about. The operative word here is primarily we are to be concerned about the sins of other people, yes, but that's secondary. We are to be concerned about the sins of our society, but that's secondary. Our primary focus as believers is ourselves. Jesus said, if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck out your right eye. He doesn't say pluck out your neighbor's eye. He doesn't call upon us to be fruit inspectors of our brethren. He doesn't call upon us to be the police of the world. where we're constantly decrying the sins of other people and never really taking care to look at ourselves and deal with the sin that's in our own heart. So many Christians get all caught up, not only at viewing other people's sins and weaknesses, but also at screaming and yelling at society for all of their sins and their wickednesses. And there's a place for that, especially as a citizen of the United States. There's a place for that. But I have to think that the person who truly knows that sin is in his heart and it's in there in abundance. There are yet many unconquered territories in your own heart and life. I have to believe that people who are so caught up in looking at other people's sins and the sins of society, if that's their primary focus, then they must not really know themselves quite well. Because if they knew themselves, they wouldn't have enough time, or as I say to my wife, oftentimes enough RAM to handle all of that information. Plus, it would keep us humble, keep us very humble, and we would temper the way in which we deal with other people. Don't go and do eye surgery on someone else, the speck in their eye, when you've got a beam in your own. The battlefield for the Christian is primarily in his own heart. His own heart. And the enemy is his own sin. And the weapons that he has are the weapons that are not carnal but spiritual. And the goal that he has in mind is not that the whole world would be conquered by his mighty endeavors of reform. But his goal is to see that every stray thought in his own heart would be brought into captivity to Christ. The biblical Christian life and is not primarily outlooking, but in looking all of this, I believe, arises from the teaching of our Lord here, and of course, we could say much more on the subject. We've seen three principles of mortification, five features of the biblical Christian life. And I'd like to take one more Lord's Day to look at this text. Because there's something else here. And when we compare it with the other passages where Christ uses these same words, we can open it up a little further and see what else Jesus is saying in this passage. But I think we've heard enough. I think we have enough to work with and to apply even as it stands now. Mortification, therefore, brethren, if you're a Christian, is your duty. It should be your desire. And it is a demonstration of the genuineness of your profession. I leave you with the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, Without me, you can do nothing. Except the Lord build the house, you labor in vain that build it. Remember that. You are to do all of these things, but you're always to do them with the constant recognition of your dependence upon Christ's working in you through his spirit to carry these things through. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you that you are honest in your word, honest about who you are, honest about who we are. We thank you that you call upon sinners lost and dead in their trespasses and sins not to try to be better, not to try to earn their own way, not to try to work out their own salvation apart from your grace. but that you call upon sinners to stop in their tracks and to fall on their knees and to embrace and trust in the Savior, that they might be saved from their sin, that they might be given new life. We pray, Lord, that you would enable all of those here today who are in that condition to see their need for a Savior, to be humbled, and to come to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and for righteousness and for the Holy Spirit who will then enable them to become more like Christ. And for those of us, Lord, who have come to you and have trusted our soul into your care, we find within ourselves this hungering and thirsting after righteousness. We know that it's not a hunger and thirst for self-righteousness, but to glorify you, the one we love, the one to whom we owe our all, the one to whom we owe our salvation. We pray that you would encourage us in this fight, in this battle against sin. Help us not to give in to any of these shortcut methods, which some have suggested are possible, but that we would see that this is a lifelong endeavor and it will be hard. Help us to fight the good fight as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Help us not to grow weary in well-doing. We are encouraged to know that the right man is on our side. Elsewhere, our striving would be indeed in vain. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to deal with all of those unconquered territories that still remain in our hearts. We would see progress being made in our lives unto your glory. We pray, Lord, that you would dismiss us now with your blessing and cause these words that have been said today to burn within us even as we leave this place. For we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. you. for the benediction this morning. Now, may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. You're dismissed.