INTRODUCTION
• A 104 year-old woman was being interviewed by a Christian reporter. The reporter asked, Is it easier or more difficult to live the Christian life the older you get. The lady thought for a second and said, “Well, there is less peer pressure!”
• If you have been a Christian for a short time or a long time, what is one of the toughest things you face each and every day?
• Getting out into the world. It is easy for a person to live for Jesus when we are sitting in the church because the environment is safe for us. Once we step out of these doors to go to our homes, jobs and other activities it gets tough because the world is pulling at us.
• People are subtly trying to get us to join in with them in what they are doing. Some people try to lead us down the wrong path on purpose because they take joy in seeing a Christian stumble, but I believe the majority of people just want company as they go down the wrong path of life.
• It seems as when things seem to be going well with us, something gets put in our path that trips us up. A stumbling block. Sometimes we see them and avoid them, but other times we do not and we trip over them. Some people fall so hard they never get up.
• There is a lot of pressure on Christians to conform to the world. The world is always trying to pull us away from God.
• Many times when we fall, we feel ashamed and we feel like we like we failed God to the point we never pick ourselves up and ask God for forgiveness, strength and help.
• When we give our lives to Jesus, we did it by choice. When we stumble, we do it by choice. Someone puts the stumbling block before us and we fall over it.
• As Jesus speaks about who is the greatest in the kingdom of God, He now turns His attention to the stumbling blocks that would cause a person who has given themselves to Jesus to fall away from Him.
• It is bad enough that the world would try to cause us to stumble, but even worse is when it comes from another “Christian.”
• Today we are going to look at why you do not want to be a stumbling block for a person who belongs to Jesus!
SERMON
You do not want to be a stumbling block because:
I. CHRISTIANS ARE GOD’S SPECIAL CHILDREN (5)
• Notice how special Christian’s are to Jesus. He is saying that whenever we receive one, we are receiving Jesus Himself! Jesus is not speaking of little children, He is speaking of those who have humbled themselves and become one of His children.
• In profound terms, Jesus affirmed this amazing reality to His disciples, “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and the one who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me” (Luke 10:16; cf. John 13:20). When Saul was persecuting Christians, the Lord confronted him on the Damascus Road with the words, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4).
• Paul was persecuting the church, yet Jesus asked him why he was persecuting Jesus?
• All over the New Testament we are told that Christians are part of the body of Christ.
• When you mess with a Christian you are messing with Jesus. You are messing with the body of Christ!
• When we sin, in a sense Jesus is there with us, His name is stained, much in the same way we bring shame on our family when we do something bad.
• 1CO 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!
• His name is dragged through the mud and His work is hindered when His people sin, just as His heart is blessed when His people are received.
• The word “receive” comes from a word which means to deliberately and readily take something or someone to oneself. The term was often used of welcoming honored guests and meeting their needs with special attention and kindness. Jesus’ primary point here is that the way a person, believer or unbeliever, treats Christians is the way he treats Jesus Christ. When anyone welcomes with an open heart a Christian as an honored guest and friend, he welcomes Christ as his guest and friend. When he treats any Christian with tenderness and kindness, he treats Christ in the same way.
• If you belong to Jesus you are special. God still loves everyone else, but if you are a Christian, you are special to Jesus.
• I love all your children here today, but none of them get the same level or intense love that my actual daughters get from me. This is how Jesus is with people. When you belong to the body of Christ, you are special to Him. You need to know that.
• Studies have indicated that many young girls get into problems with boys because they did not feel special to their fathers. When a young girl feels like she is special to her father, it helps them to feel loved. If they feel loved, then they do not have to go out and look for it with some boy.
• When you understand you are special to Jesus, you will not have to feel you need to do something that will make you feel accepted by the world. You will not have to allow yourself to stumble.
• Understanding just how special a Christian is to God will help you to understand that:
You do not want to be a stumbling block because:
II. THE CONSEQUENCES ARE SEVERE AND THE STAKES HIGH (6-10)
1. Stumble
• Since Christians belong to Jesus and they are special to Jesus, the consequences are severe for the person who causes a Christian to stumble because the stakes are high!
• Jesus now emphasizes the extreme measures to which one should go so as to avoid being instrumental in the downfall of a “little one.”
• Jesus is speaking of moral and spiritual stumbling, that is, of sinning. The verb “to stumble” literally means “to cause to fall,” and the Jesus is therefore speaking of enticing, trapping, or influencing a believer in any way that leads him into sin or in any way makes it easier for him to sin. A person who is responsible for causing a Christian to sin commits an offense against Christ Himself as well as against the Christian.
• Can you imagine how you would feel toward the person who got your child hooked on drugs or alcohol? How would you feel if you child died as a result of the addiction? Would you look too kindly toward the person who started it? What about the young man who defiled your daughter. Who took her purity away from her just to gratify himself?
• Jesus says concerning the person who causes one of His to stumble or fall that they would have been better for him to have a heavy millstone placed around the neck and drown on the sea.
• The Romans and Greeks practiced this kind of execution, the Jews did not and to them it was one of the worst forms of execution that could happen to a person.
• Jesus is saying leading a person away from Him is about the worst thing a person could do!
2. How to make it happen.
• There are several ways in which we can cause one to stumble.
Direct cause to sin (Adam and Eve)
• Eve ate and told Adam to give it a go also
Sinful example
• Several decades ago actor Charles Coburn told that when he was a teenager his dad always tried to dissuade him from ever going to see a burlesque show. He would say, "Don’t go there son, you’d see things you shouldn’t see. But some time later he went anyway. Coburn said, "My dad was right, I saw things I shouldn’t see, I saw my dad there!"
• Without having a word said to them, believers can be led into sinful attitudes and practices simply by following the bad example of others. Here again, parents need to be on guard, because they are continually setting examples, both good and bad, for their children to follow.
• Parents can have a big influence over there children. Do you want to be responsible for your child rejecting Christ or worst yet, when they give their lives to Christ, because of your example, leave Him?
• There is another way we can cause others to stumble. Paul spoke at length about this.
Flaunting our liberty
• Even when a person himself is not sinning, it is possible for him to lead others into sin. By carelessly flaunting one’s liberty in Christ by participating in an activity that is not itself a sin and is perfectly appropriate for a strong Christian, it is possible to cause weaker brothers and sisters to stumble. If they follow the mature believer’s example while still being convicted in their own immature consciences that the practice is wrong, they are led into sin. Although the practice itself may not be sinful, it becomes sinful for the weaker Christian because it is done against what he believes to be right, and therefore against his conscience.
• I need to read you a scripture in 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. I will read it and give you an application to make the point.
• We have a lot of freedom in Christ. Today one of many issues Christians deal with concerning liberty is alcohol. Some say it is all right to drink and others say no.
• Listen closely to me so there is no twisting of what I am going to say. God’s word does not tell us we CANNOT drink. It condemns getting drunk (Gal 5:21 among other places) Timothy was told to use it for medicinal purposes (1TI 5:23 No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.)
• I do not drink alcohol. The reason I do not is because of 1 Corinthians 8. Am I free to take a drink? Yes. I choose not to because of what my taking a drink could do to others. If you see me packing a 6 pack out of the store, you would think that is not something I should be doing.
• Drinking beer and liquor in the USA will cause people to stumble so I chose not to do it. Whenever we do something that we know will cause another to stumble, we are treading on thin ice.
• Today young people are doing some let us say interesting things with their bodies. They will say you should not judge by the way a person looks. That is so true. I agree! But if I do interesting things to my body for the world to see and by doing so causing people to judge me, am I not a stumbling block? Just a thought.
• We are called to lead each other to righteousness and to love and good deeds. Hebrews 10:24. Instead of me demanding my right to drink or paint my body or poke holes in myself, maybe I need to spend my time trying to figure out how to lead people to love and good deeds. Maybe I need to look at others as more important than myself?
• Heaven is such a great place that Jesus says if our eye, hand or foot causes us to stumble, we are to cut it off. Jesus says it is better to enter into Heaven lame or blind than to miss it because we fell away.
• WE are not to literally cut the off or pluck our eye out. Jesus is trying to get us to see that the stakes are high. Under no circumstances do we want to miss heaven!
• Jesus says we are so special in verse 10 that those watching over us have a continual audience with God! In Hebrews 1:14, it says this concerning the angels, “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
You do not want to be a stumbling block because:
III. GOD HAS A SPECIAL LOVE FOR CHRISTIANS (12-14)
(The outline for this point came from William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew)
God’s love for Christians is:
1. Individual
• Notice that there are 100 sheep. God loves all 100 individually! He left the 99 to get the one back! One was missing and God knew it and He went looking for the one. God loves YOU! He loves all of us, but He loves YOU individually. He knows you. He knows how much hair you have on your head!
God’s love for Christians is:
2. Patient
• God is patient towards you. Sheep are dumb. They get themselves into trouble. When we get into trouble, many people will say, “I knew it was going to happen.”
• The sheep might be foolish but the shepherd would still risk his life to save it. Men may be fools but God loves even the foolish man who has no one to blame but himself for his sin and his sorrow.
God’s love for Christians is:
3. Seeking
• The Shepard did not wait for the one to return. He did not say, “oh, well, I still have 99.” He went after the lost one. The Jews could not understand the Christian view of God’s love. They could understand one having to come crawling on their belly to God and beg forgiveness. They did not understand that God seeks after us.
God’s love for Christians is:
4. Rejoicing
• When the Shepard found the lost sheep, He beat it and called it stupid! NO! There was nothing but joy over the fact the lost one was found!
God’s love for Christians is:
5. Protective
• This passage finishes up by telling us that it is God’s will thank none of His children should perish. Once a person belongs to Him, He does not want to lose them! God saves us so we can serve Him and serve others! He wants us to be with Him for eternity!
CONCLUSION
• Everyone is important to God! God desires ALL people to be saved! Once you are saved, you have a special place with God.
• You are special to God.
• Jesus tells us that we are not to be a stumbling block for others. If we or anyone else causes another to fall away, let us say, they will be in hot water!
• Do not let another person ruin your destiny. You are special to God. Do not let someone rob you of the salvation you have in Jesus!
