2025.11.23 | Freedom Found in Facing the Truth

When Pastor Jeff Potts started talking about Matthew 18 and the severity of sin, my gut reaction was to shut down. As a mom, I already live with enough guilt about my past mistakes. I had a running tally in my head: the sharp words I’d spoken when patience ran thin, the countless times I chose mindless scrolling over present engagement with my kids, or that quiet judgment I felt towards other parents. The idea of Jesus talking about millstones and eternal fire felt like too much to handle.

I came into church feeling heavy, like I had a giant tally sheet of failures. The Pastor’s words about sin spreading like mold from a leaky roof really resonated with me. I realized that my issue wasn’t just a bad habit; it was an infection in my heart that was quietly damaging everything around me, especially within my own home.

Jesus’s call to "cut off" anything that causes you to sin is shocking. It’s supposed to be. It’s a radical picture of how urgently we need to deal with the problem. For me, hearing that meant acknowledging that my phone, specifically certain apps, had become a "hand" or "eye" causing me to sin. If my eye caused me to sin, I needed to act. That morning, it meant finally deleting those specific social media apps that always led me into temptation and distraction, and talking to my husband about getting him involved for accountability with my screen time.

But the real shift happened when Pastor Jeff said: "This is not a passage of self-reform."
The whole point of those intense warnings is not to make us try harder… it’s to make us realize we can’t fix it. No matter how many bad habits I cut out, the issue is still me. The weight of my sin showed me my own total hopelessness.

And that hopelessness is exactly where the Gospel shines.

Because Jesus didn't just tell us to clean up; He came to deal with the sin we can't clean up. I needed that reminder that Jesus never had sinful anger. He went to the cross for my short temper with my kids and my selfish distractions so that I could be viewed as forgiven and surprisingly patient. He lived the perfect life and went to the cross to be the ultimate payment for my failures and my guilt. When I look at the cross, I see not a God demanding punishment from me, but a God who took that punishment for me.

My identity isn't "the mom who keeps yelling" or "the mom who is always distracted." It's "the one forgiven and made innocent through Christ." That truth makes me want to fight sin, not out of fear, but out of love for the One who set me free.

Watch the full sermon, "Jesus Hates Sin," to hear why Jesus's hatred for sin is the very reason we can have hope.