What Needs to Be Cut Away?

Proofread Broadcast Transcript

Reading from Hebrews chapter 10, verse 22. Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.

Hebrews 10, 22. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

It's Monday, October 5th, 2026. Welcome to Mark & Friends. Today, Pastor Jason Epperson of CU Church asks a very practical question.

If I really trust Jesus, what might need to change or even be cut away so I can follow him more closely? Here's Pastor Jason on today, the Monday edition of Mark & Friends. As you hear the words of Jesus today, I don't want you to miss this. As you hear the words of Jesus today, you cannot be an apprentice to an electrician or apprentice to a plumber if you never listen to their words.

They'll fire you. Now, Jesus ain't going to fire you. But hear me say, if you don't listen to him, then he's really not your leader.

If you are a GA and you're not listening to the head coach, you can't follow him. Today in this passage, it's this. You're going to look at a passage of scripture and it's going to deal with the premise that you believe in Jesus.

And when you believe in Jesus, what it is, it's like, do you believe this chair exists? And everyone can acknowledge this chair is on this stage. And yes, this chair is here. And lots of people can acknowledge the fact that there's a chair.

But until you are willing to sit in the chair and trust the chair, do you really believe? See, the word believe in scripture is not just an acknowledgement of it is I am putting my trust in. And so today in this passage, when it says as a Christ follower, what you're saying is I'm willing to sit in the chair. I'm putting my trust in Jesus to take away my sins.

I'm putting my trust in Jesus to bring me life after. Like because, you know, there's two things you can't win in sin. And I know you all, you know me like we can't overcome sin on our own.

And guess what's going to happen to all of us. We're going to die. They're going to put us in the dirt.

They're going to get dirt on our face and go back to someone's house. You could say the salad and hot wings, at least at mine. Maybe not to decide, but for sure, hot wings.

But the reality is, y'all, is that's happening to us. That's the road. Unless he comes back quicker, which hallelujah.

Amen. But until that moment, I'm trusting God to deliver me from death and I'm trusting God to cover my sins. I'm sitting in the what? The chair.

I just want to make it really simple. And so then from that moment on in this passage, what Jesus is about to lay out to you is if you're sitting in this chair, but you don't sit. If you're walking with me, if you're talking with me, if you're turning your eyes upon Jesus.

If you're following him, you keep following him. And ultimately in that you are doing your best and my best not to listen to my flesh, not to listen to my sinful nature, not to listen to that. I'm doing my best to listen to God.

I don't want to sit in the chair of the world's philosophies because that chair breaks. I want to sit in the chair of the creator of the universe who makes the world spin. My general belief is since God created the world, he probably knows the best way to live in it.

And so that is the premise of what we're going in here today. And so I just want you to hear me say that it starts this way in verse 42. Remember, Jesus has just gathered this little child.

He's holding onto this child. He's told his disciples, if you don't take care of this child, you're not willing to take care of me. Basically, what he's saying is people that have nothing to give you, if you aren't willing to give yourself to them, it's not the gospel.

It's easy to love someone when you know they're going to love you in return. It's easy to love someone when you get something from them. That's actually not love.

That's manipulation. We described it this way in scripture is in the Old Testament. Remember, we talked about Moses for like a year and we talked about there's two different people in the story of Moses.

There is the slavers. The slavers are the one that objectify people and use people for their own benefit. The slave is the person who's been objectified and they find their identity in what they do.

Every single one of us in this room have moments of our lives where we are the slaves. We find ourselves being objectified by what we do, what we say, how we look. But we've also been people in our life like all of us in the room at some point have probably objectified someone else trying to get what we want.

And what Jesus is saying is no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Follow me. I want to set you free.

This is what it starts this way. So this child, he's still holding on to in this message. 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 was thrown into the sea.

But he's going to say is if you are going to hurt people that have no ability to defend themselves, if you are going to take people down a road, if you're willing to say to someone who this child, this young person is willing to sit in this chair, or even an old person who just discovers who Jesus is sitting in this chair, and then you lead them on a path to destruction. If you treat them as your slave and you are their slaver and walk them away from Jesus, he's like, bro, just tie it around your neck and jump in the water. I'd like to say, well, we've never heard of that or thought about that.

But if you look through the history of church, and I love the church, and I love Jesus. But the history of this time, like you think about it, there's lots of times that children are what? Taken advantage of. Emotionally, sexually, physically.

It doesn't mean if that happens, you can't be forgiven. But it does mean if you're doing that on a consistent basis, it's better for you to just do what? Jump in the water. Then he goes on and says this.

Why do you think he's saying that? Because in this time and culture, religious people, people that believed in God, were using people for their own benefit. And he didn't want his disciples to be that way. He goes on and says these words.

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Oh, wee. It is better for you to enter life crippled than two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

This word hell here, let me tell you what the word means. It literally means Gehenna, which is historically like the Valley of Hinnom. It was an actual place.

So he's talking about it's better for you to go to this place, like to live in this, like it's better for you to cut off your arm. Now, all of you shouldn't come back next week with a hand missing. That's not what this is saying, but it is saying this.

I don't want you to miss this. The severity of the moment is this, is God's way of life. And whatever you have to do to follow Jesus is worth doing.

It's worth it. Because let's just be honest. Satan is in this world.

The evil is in this world. And he wants to delude the message of Jesus. He wants to destroy the earth.

Like what sin is. And just think about this. What sin is in its very core is, sin is when you do something in this world that destroys the creation that he's created.

It destroys relationship. It destroys nature. It destroys people.

Like sin is about destruction. And following Jesus is about bringing life. That's the difference.

And God has put you on this earth to bring life, to be an image bearer of the king. It's not, like literally guys, the things that we think we can do at the wrong time in this world, it destroys things around us. The reason why, like you can literally sit, I dare you, sit in a room and think, What are some of the major problems in culture today? And you can trace it directly to the sinful behavior of humanity.

And the truth is, if we would follow God's way, this earth would look a lot more like heaven than it would look like earth. Thus, the people of God are supposed to bring the kingdom of God to this earth. And so he says to cut this off.

The first question in this passage is, what in your world, like what do we need to follow of God so that we can follow him closer? Like what in your world needs to be, like do you really believe God's way is best? It doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes. When I'm following Jesus, I'm trusting in Jesus, I'm sitting in a chair. There are moments that I sit in the wrong chair.

I'm your pastor. I'm 49. I still do these things.

But when I do these things, I recognize I'm destroying my family. I'm destroying the church. I'm destroying my life.

I'm destroying my mind. I'm destroying my body. And I say, Lord, I repent.

I'm sorry. I don't want to do that anymore. And God says, Hey, Jason, guess what? I've conquered sin.

I've conquered death. I got you. That journey is a healthy journey.

Me saying, OK, God, I want you to take care of me in heaven. I'm going to do whatever the Sam Hill I want until I get there. All around me, all I find is destruction.

And so the question is, do you really trust him? You with me? Do I really trust Jesus is who he says he is? It goes on and says these words. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet and thrown into hell.

It's the same word for hell, same Gehenna. And literally what happened in this place was a place of child sacrifice in a place of idol worship. It's a place that's so far from the nature of who God is.

Like God values all life, all of it. And any place that doesn't value all life isn't of him. And what it's saying here is cut it off.

So I guess the next question is in your world. The next question is in my world is what is in my world that continually I struggle with? What needs to be cut off? Not physically. But is there anything we shouldn't be willing to do to follow him? The answer is no.

So what in our world needs to be taken away, to be cut off? In Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2, can we throw that on the screen quick? This is what it says. I want to point this out. We're going to actually talk about this passage twice.

Once now and once at the end. It says this. I'd appeal to you therefore brothers and by mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world. So in your life and in my life, the way that I say thank you to God is this. It's not for his benefit.

Like me following God isn't to his benefit. Me following God is to my benefit. And the sweet girl, yours.

Did you guys catch that? I need you to understand that. Me following God is to your benefit and to my benefit. And to God's benefit, why? Because he wants the world to know he loves them.

When me as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus, choose to do my own thing, I am pointing people in the wrong direction. And it is your detriment. It is to my detriment.

And it's against the plan of God to redeem what was broken in the beginning. And so what in your world? So it goes on and says this would be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what his will is of God, what is good, what is acceptable. See the way in which you need to cut off, what needs to be cut off in your world is your mind needs to be transformed.

Because here's the deal, the desires you have and the desires I have are real. And if I feel this way all the time, eventually that feeling will win. Behavior modification has been a miserable thing for the church historically.

So I'm not going to stop doing that, I'm going to snap a rubber band every time I say that word. Guess what, my arms would just be rubber banded. But if I can recognize that, like this is what I'm trying to get to you.

That sin actually destroys you and actually destroys the people around you. And put God on the cross, but he's taking it. But if you can recognize and I can recognize it's not better to live in both worlds, it's better to be with him.

That's the philosophy that needs cut away. You with me on that? It goes on and says this, and if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It's better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell.

It's the same exact statement. With eyes, this is the way I look at this passage. It's like in your life, the only way you can change the desires of your heart, it's the only way, is you have to look at things that lead you to godly desires versus look at things that lead you to the worldly desires.

Does that make sense? Y'all, I remember it. I remember it as a kid. We would go on these family vacations.

We'd roll in this old, it was Crown Victoria. We'd be rolling, there'd be three of us. We had my whole family rolling in the Crown Vic, driving all the way to Colorado.

Back then, it was 55 miles an hour across Nebraska. Talk about hell. But the reality is, I remember those road trips, and I remember mom packing snacks.

We didn't have any money to eat out. I remember stopping at gas stations, and you'd run in to go to the bathroom, but you couldn't buy. The drinks you had were sitting in lukewarm water the whole trip.

No gravy for nothing, you with me? But I remember those trips all the time. And then all of a sudden, one time, some guy in this church, some guy in the church, he was a farmer. He was a really good dude.

He said, hey, you're going to Colorado. My dad's like, yeah. He's like, hey, why don't you take my conversion van? Ah! And I was like, Daddy, you best say yes to this.

And he's like, well, no, we probably shouldn't. I'm like, we probably should. And so I remember that conversion van.

I remember that sliding door open up with the mood lighting. I'm like, mm-hmm, yeah. I remember crawling in the back.

My two sisters sat in the captain's chair. I had the whole back. I could lay down.

I could move. I could stand up. And I remember thinking, like, I was created to travel like this.

And then the next year, when I had to ride in the old Crown Victoria again, it was harder. What are your eyes looking at that you do not have or do not possess that makes life harder, at least for me? I say this phrase a lot. You've heard me say it a lot.

What you look for in this world is what you live for in this world. What you live for in this world is ultimately what you and I will die for, is what you're looking for in this world worth dying for. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get a conversion van.

It doesn't mean if you get bumped up to first class, enjoy it and thank the Lord. But what your eyes are looking at is what you're going to chase. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

It goes on and says it this way. Now it's talking about, like, this Gehenna place, the hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. I'm going to mention this really quick.

There's two characteristics of hell it talks about here. One is this worm is like the reminder of regret. That's what a worm in that is.

That's what it's illustrating is the moment of regret. Here's the other thing about hell we realize in this place is it's a place of isolation from good. It doesn't say how long someone's going to be there.

It doesn't say, like, that's not what it says right here. But it does say there's regret, and it does say it's in a place of isolation. The passage then goes on and says this.

For everyone will be salted with fire. Did you hear that? Salted with fire. What's it mean to be salted with fire? This is what it means.

Back to Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Say it. Read it up there again. Here it says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.

Okay, here's the deal. In this world, as I live in this world, my life, this 5'10", 240-ish pounds of walking romance you get to look at every week. This body right here, I am moving on this road with Jesus, and someday the end of my road is, my life is a living sacrifice that will be laid on the altar of heaven.

And when I'm laid on the altar of heaven, he will grab me up, he will look me in the eyes, and he will say, Jason, well done, good and faithful servant. And man, I will be salted. Salted is in this world, we will suffer.

People will say things, they will do things. In this, it's not always easy. The salt is the suffering, but the suffering is something that when we keep looking at Jesus, it is literally part of the offering that we give to the Lord.

Are you with me? Like in your life and in my life, I hate to suffer as much as anyone hates to suffer. But someday when I get to heaven, guess what? This old body is going to be salted up, and it's going to be new, and it's going to be glorious, and ain't no more salt there. But that's what we get to do.

That's what he's saying here. It was funny, if you look at the commentaries, he gives three different illustrations of salt, and we think that Mark, when he wrote it, just threw them all together, because they're talking about salt. Do you know why the commentators think that? Because they don't work with people every day.

Because I'm telling you, when I'm following Jesus, and I'm cutting off body parts, which we're not doing, but don't do that. But you recognize that you're still going to suffer when you follow the Lord. And how do I handle suffering? Man, the offering is worth it.

The next salt, it says this. Salt is good, but if salt is lost, it's saltiness. How will it make you salty again? He gives another illustration of salt.

This time, it goes back to the same thing. So we're still going to suffer when we follow the Lord, but here's the main thing. In your life, when we are salt, you are the light of the world, you're the salt of the earth.

Those are phrases Jesus says. When he says that to us, this is what it means. Your job and my job on this earth is to preserve the kingdom of God.

It's to preserve the earth. Satan wants to destroy the earth. He wants to destroy literally the physical earth.

He wants to destroy your life. He wants to delude your life. Your job and my job is to bring life.

Your job is to speak life in the classroom, not death. Your job is to speak life to your friends, not death. Your job is to love, to serve, to grow, to give.

Listen to me. We want the kingdom of God to get a hold of as much of the economy as possible so we can use the economy of God to change the economy of the world. See, the salt, when you lose its saltiness, it no longer preserves what God is preserving.

Because, y'all, when he comes back, brother's going to win. He's going to win it all. Ain't nothing getting turned over.

It will all be, here's the word, redeemed. So are we preserving. You with me? Like, that's my hope.

Like, when I walk into this room, my hope is that you and I will be, there will be something in you that, like, brings something back to life that Satan's tried to destroy. The last one it says is this. Have salt in yourself and be at peace with one another.

The last thing that really matters on this journey, when we're cutting away the sin, we're cutting away the desires, we're cutting, because here, it hurts to not do what you want. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

There's still things in this world that I want that God's not designed me to want. This concept of, well, this is just how I feel, I should follow how I feel. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's a philosophy of the world. I have to trust that God, is it best for me to give my kid a bucket of candy every night before they go to bed? If you think it is not. But you know what they want every night before they go to bed? A bucket of candy.

It's easy to think about that with a child. It's harder to think about that with a grown man. But this is saying here, it's the last thing that really matters, is have salt in yourself and be at peace with one another.

This salt here is the unity. It's the spirit of God. Another way that it's said in scripture is, wide is the road, wide is the road that leads to destruction, and narrow is the road that leads to Christ.

In this world today, all the social, all the stuff out there that's pointing us in directions and doing all these things, and we're all walking together like cattle, just moving in a direction, and all of a sudden you hear a voice in the wilderness, a voice of someone outside saying, hey, actually, life's over here. Then you start moving over here. Do you know what you need to get away from death? You need someone to grab a hold of your hand, to be peace, to be love, to be mercy.

You need brothers and sisters in Christ. You need the church. Y'all, we are the vessel, the mouthpiece, the hands.

Satan wants to take your hands, Satan wants to take your feet, and Satan wants to take your eyes, and the Lord wants you to use your eyes. The Lord wants you to use your hands, and the Lord wants you to use your feet. Why? So we can walk in peace together.

I am tired of it. I am sad. It breaks my heart.

In middle schools, in high schools, in colleges, and in the adult world today, that brothers and sisters in Christ can't get along. We can disagree. It's okay.

It's healthy for us to disagree. It is not healthy for us to not get along. It's not healthy for us to not love each other.

It's not healthy for us to not be kind to each other. Why? Because that's death, and we will not pull people away from this massive road that leads them in a direction that is pain and suffering and hurt. We can lead them into life, but the way we lead them into life is by loving, by serving, and by walking.

Every single week we come into this place, that's what it's about, is bringing life. This next week, we are having a worship night, but this is why I'm mentioning it. This week in my life, I'm going to do something.

I'm going to invite you into it. You don't have to. Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement and the Jewish Feast, which basically is the moment that they put a sacrifice on an altar for the forgiveness of sins.

Well, guess what? He's the sacrifice. We don't have to do that no more. You ain't got to kill no goat.

You ain't got to kill no sheep. But still, in my life, one thing that brings me clarity of where God is moving and who He is, is if I'm willing to cut something off in my world that maybe is not evil, but it's not a blessing, it's called fasting, so I can truly discover the blessings of God. So here's what I'm going to do this week, is this week, I'm going to fast from some things.

Not from everything. I'm not just doing water all week, unless the Lord tells me to, and hope He don't. I don't want to lose this figure that I've worked so hard to obtain.

But the reality is, is in my life, there are things that I know stand in the way of my relationship. They don't help my relationship with the Lord. And I know that that's you too.

So my challenge for you this week is to fast. And as you fast, when you are wanting what it is that it is, I want you to just say, God, help me see you clearly. Help this city see you clearly.

Help this church see you clearly. Help my family see you clearly. And God, maybe point out the things in my life that need clarity.

And then if you want to, you don't have to do any of these things. This isn't me bossing you, it's me saying, come to the worship night, and as we're worshiping the Lord, let's just share what God taught us that week. Let's just have a moment of celebration.

There's going to be food. There's going to be fellowship. There's going to be Jesus.

All we're missing is football, and it's Sunday, so you can watch it in the afternoon. When you ditch, you can go home and watch it. It's a great day, y'all.

But that's my encouragement to you. It's just next week. And like I said, you don't have to.

I'm going to do it, and I'm inviting you into doing it with me. Prayer, fasting, reading God's word, meeting with like-minded believers, all are good, recommended, and practices that should be part of our lives on a daily and weekly basis. So, listening friend, let's take Pastor Jason's advice and challenge.

Let's draw near to God. Maybe even ask him today, Lord, what in my life is getting in the way? Help me see you clearly, and give me the courage to cut away whatever keeps me from following you more closely. If you missed a portion of today's broadcast, want to listen again or pass it on to a friend, stop by GreatNewsRadio.org or WLUJ.org. Click on the Mark & Friends tab to listen anytime and access many additional ministry resources to help you grow deeper in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part of our radio listening family. This is Mark Burns with the Ministry of Great News Media.

God bless you, and have a great day and night.