"That's a you problem." You've said it, or you've had it said to you. Somebody brings you a complaint, a need, a situation they're carrying, and the answer comes back: that's a you problem. Not my issue. Not my responsibility. You figure it out. It's become one of those phrases we use to deflect — a way of drawing a line, sometimes a healthy one and sometimes not, between what's mine to carry and what belongs to someone else.
Hold onto that phrase, because Jesus is about to use it on us. He's just going to flip it in a direction most of us aren't expecting.
We're in a series called We Don't Do That Here, walking through Matthew 18 — the chapter where Jesus lays out the internal culture of the Kingdom of God. Last time we talked about becoming like a child: the posture of smallness, the lowly position, the Kingdom completely inverting the world's idea of greatness. And I said at the end that childlikeness isn't only personal humility — it's communal protectiveness. The same passage that calls you to become small also calls you to protect the people around you who are most vulnerable. Today Jesus takes that further, because He has something to say about what we put in other people's way. And it turns out what you leave in the road is very much a you problem.
"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble. Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come. If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away." (Matthew 18:7-9)
Woe
Start with a word we don't use much anymore, and Jesus uses it twice in one sentence. Woe. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble. Woe to the person through whom they come.
Woe isn't a casual word. In the Hebrew prophetic tradition Jesus is drawing from, woe carries grief and judgment at the same time. It's what you say when something is so serious that the normal vocabulary isn't heavy enough — a lament and a warning wrapped into one. When Jesus says woe, He isn't saying watch out, be careful, here's something to think about. He's saying this is grievous. This breaks the heart of God.
And He says it twice. First, woe to the world — He acknowledges the stumbling blocks exist. The world is full of things that trip people up, knock them off course, become the reason someone who was moving toward God stops moving. Jesus doesn't pretend otherwise. But then He shifts the weight from the general to the specific, from the world to the person. Woe to the person through whom they come. Not just woe to the stumbling block. Woe to the one who becomes it.
It stops being about the world out there
Here's the part we need to sit in. Most of us, when we read about stumbling blocks, think about the world out there — the culture, the media, the broken systems, all the things that make it hard for people to believe. We shake our heads and agree. Yes, woe to the world. Somebody should do something about that.
And Jesus says, yes. And also you.
This passage isn't primarily about what the world is doing to people. It's about what you and I might be doing to people — what our choices, our attitudes, our inconsistencies might be putting in the path of someone who's trying to find their way to Jesus. That's the most uncomfortable thing in the text, and it's the most important. Because most of us don't think of ourselves as stumbling blocks. We picture the obvious stuff — major moral failures, public disasters, people who actively harm others — and we say, that's not me. But Jesus isn't only talking about the extreme examples. He's talking about the subtle, everyday ones nobody is paying attention to except the person who tripped over them.
Someone is watching you. Someone at your work, in your neighborhood, in your family. Someone who used to go to church and stopped. Someone curious about Jesus who hasn't made a move yet. Someone right on the edge, leaning in or leaning out, and part of what's informing that decision is what they see in you. Your life is either making it easier for them to get to Jesus or harder. And which one it is — is a you problem.
What a stumbling block actually looks like
Let me get specific, because we need to move past the abstract. A stumbling block is rarely dramatic. Most of them are quiet. They accumulate over time, and you don't even realize you're doing it until someone tells you it affected them — and by then they've usually already made up their mind.
It's the gap between what you say you believe on Sunday and how you live the rest of the week. Somebody is watching that gap, and every time they see it, the distance widens in their mind between the Jesus you claim and the Jesus they're trying to decide about.
It's the way you talk about people who've hurt you — the bitterness that leaks out, the unforgiveness that's still visible years later. Somebody watches that and thinks, if Jesus can't change that in a person who follows Him, why would I need Him?
It's the way you treat people who can do nothing for you. The waiter. The customer service rep. The employee who made a mistake at the worst possible time. Somebody is watching how you treat people who have no leverage over you, and it tells them whether your faith is real.
It's the attitude you carry toward people who are different from you — the subtle condescension, the assumptions, the way you talk about people who don't look or think or vote like you. Somebody is watching whether your Jesus is big enough for everyone, or just for people like you.
It's even the way you handle money — how you talk about what you have and what others don't, whether generosity is present or absent.
None of those make headlines. But every one of them is a stone in the road that someone has to step over or trip on while they're trying to find their way to Jesus. And whose problem is that?
The severity of what He says next
Don't rush past how severe Jesus gets. If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out. That's extreme language, and let me be clear — Jesus is not prescribing literal self-mutilation. He's using the most visceral language possible to make the most serious point possible. Whatever it is in your life that's becoming the reason someone else stumbles, treat it with the same urgency you'd treat a hand that was causing you to sin. Cut it off. Don't negotiate with it. Don't make excuses for it. Don't keep it around because it's comfortable or familiar or because letting go of it would cost you something.
Better to lose something valuable than to be the reason someone doesn't make it.
That's the level of seriousness He's bringing. And the question underneath it isn't whether you're willing to feel bad about the thing, or willing to acknowledge it. It's whether you're willing to actually remove it. If that feels extreme, good. The stakes are extreme.
This isn't pressure. It's purpose.
Let me land this in the right place, because I don't want anyone walking away crushed under the weight of it. This isn't Jesus piling guilt on you. It's Jesus telling you something profound about the weight of what you already carry.
You carry something. Everyone who has been encountered by Jesus — changed by Him, freed by Him, healed by Him, found by Him — is carrying something the person next to them in line at Publix desperately needs. And what Jesus is saying is: be careful what else you're carrying alongside it, because the way you carry the thing that's precious can make it accessible or inaccessible to the people around you.
You're not just a person trying to get through your life. You're a carrier of the Kingdom. You are a living demonstration of whether Jesus actually makes a difference. And what you put in the road — whether you leave stones in it or clear them out — is part of your calling, not just your conduct. That's not pressure. That's purpose.
The humble person, the childlike person we talked about last week, is the one who takes this seriously — not because they're scared of getting it wrong, but because they love the people around them enough to ask the question. What am I leaving in the road? What in my life could be the reason someone doesn't make it? What am I willing to cut off — what preference, what habit, what attitude — to clear the path instead of blocking it?
Before you move on
Don't rush past this one. Sit quietly for a minute and let the Holy Spirit show you the specific thing — not a category, a specific thing. A specific person you interact with. A specific attitude, habit, or behavior that could be a stone in their road. Then be honest with God about it — not condemnation, honest acknowledgment. And make it specific: not "I'll try to do better," but "I'm cutting this off. I'm taking it out of the road."
Then ask Him for the humility to keep asking, not once but every day: what am I putting in people's way today? And the courage to cut it off when He shows you the answer.
If you don't have a church family walking this out with you, we'd love to be that. This is the culture we're after at Kingdom House in Concord — clearing paths, not blocking them.
Written by
Pastor Cody
Lead Pastor
