How to Get A Life
Matthew 16:21-25
A Sermon by Dave Redick
Church of Christ, Sweet Home, Oregon
*(Author's Note)
Introduction
The following story appeared in Moody Monthly magazine back in 1993. It describes one man's remarkable discovery at a place called Smokey Mountain near the Philippine capital of Manila: (1)
"A gigantic man-made mound, perhaps 100 feet high, ran on before us for a mile of more. Wisps of smoke rose from fissures all over the sides and top of this municipal dump and landfill.
"'Five thousand people live on that mountain,' the guide said, 'and off it, too.' He meant they made their livelihood from scavenging useful garbage. As we walked up the side, acrid smoke stung our eyes; the stench of rotting garbage was overwhelming. Shacks made of plywood or tin lined the main street, with smaller shacks squatting farther away on the sides of the mountain. The trucks dumped fresh garbage at the top of the mound. My eyes followed the cascade of refuse down the side of the mountain to where the bulldozers were working below. Scores of women, men, and children scattered ahead of the bulldozers, then swirled back in the wake, working rapidly with homemade stick-rakes to find some salable treasure in the refuse.
"Then the guide took me to a larger shack that had a cross on it and the words 'Baptist Church' painted underneath. The guide asked if the pastor was in. A stocky small man appeared with that typical warm Filipino smile and cordial greeting. Antonio startled me with fluent, articulate English. When I inquired about his education, I learned that he was a graduate of one of the most prestigious seminaries in Asia.
"I thought, 'This man could be the pastor of any major Baptist church in Manila. I wonder why he's here.' So I asked him and heard a remarkable love story.
"Antonio, as a young seminary graduate, had volunteered for missionary work at Smokey Mountain. But the day came when his denomination discontinued work at the site. Antonio had a choice--take the pulpit of some established church or throw in his lot with his adopted people, live by faith, and love them to Jesus. So he moved on the mountain with his lovely wife and together they cared for a growing flock and raised their four daughters."
Regardless of what we might think of this man's theology and denominational connections, I believe we would all have to say that he was a man who made a great personal sacrifice to serve Jesus in the way he understood Him. Few people today would be willing to do what Antonio did.
While I'm not convinced that God would have all of us give up our jobs and homes to go and serve Jesus in a landfill in a foreign country, I do see something in this story that this man Antonio understood, perhaps better than we do.
It is expressed in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 24 and 25: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.
For the benefit of some of you in an older generation, I've called this message, "How to Get A Life" after the common expression used among our young people today that says, "Get a life!" With them it is an insult, an expression of contempt that implies something like, "You're life is meaningless. You're a zero." I don't mean it that way, of course. I'm using it more seriously to ask a question like, "How can we find life that has real meaning and doesn't end up being a zero now and in eternity." I believe that Jesus gives us the answer in these verses.
These two verses, of course, have a larger context, which I'll now read to you...
Matt 16:21-27
21 From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid {it,} Lord! This shall never happen to You."
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.
26 "For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
27 "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds. (NAS)
In the event that Matthew describes here, Jesus had just disclosed to his disciples that His mission included death on a Roman cross. Peter, I'm sure speaking for the felt horror of the others, reacted the way most of us would have in that situation: "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You!" We might say something like, "Horrors! Why would you let something like that happen?"
My curiosity compels me to wonder if that might have been like the reaction of some of Antonio's friends to his announcement that he would become a full time, garbage-dump preacher and move his family to the landfill. "Never! God forbid! How could you do such a thing?" At best, probably most of them didn't understand.
This passage puts before us two things I want to consider with you: A choice and a result. First,
I. The Choice: God's Plan or Ours.
To often we, like Peter, unconsciously want Jesus to follow our plans rather than the other way around. Things don't go the way we think they are going to.
When Jesus revealed his plans to go to the cross, Peter, in essence, said, "Wait! Such a thing can never happen. That doesn't fit so we're not going to permit it!" Peter had a plan for Jesus that did not include suffering, atonement and death. "Don't worry, Lord, we're not going to let something like that happen!"
Sometimes we, too have our plans about how God should fit into our lives and what direction things should go. When God begins to reveal to us a different agenda, we say, "Wait a minute! This can't be! This isn't the way I thought it was going to work out!"
A man strives to become an effective businessman so he can have a wider influence as a Christian in the business world. His motives are pure. But a series of events beyond his control take his business down and he loses it all. He ends up in a homeless shelter where the only one's he has to talk with about his Christian faith are those whom he used to consider losers. "This can't be happening! God forbid!," he thinks. "I'm not supposed to be here!"
A young man who is a Christian dreams of becoming a professional basketball player. Those around him concur that he has that "only-one-like-this-comes-around-in-a-generation" talent that will take him far. Opportunities are coming his way fast. One day he gets into the car with someone who, unknown to him, has been drinking and takes on a truck head on. Everyone else is killed and he is paralyzed from the neck down. His dream of being an athlete is forever gone. "This isn't supposed to be happening!" he thinks.
A young couple dreams of raising a Christian family, but they find out from the doctor that they can never have children. "With Peter, they say, "God forbid! This can't be happening to us! How will God now be able to work in our lives?"
The truth is, even those of us who have the pure motive of wanting to serve Christ have our ideas about how things should go in order for us to serve Him. Like Peter, we have a pretty good idea of how we think it will all work out. But what if it doesn't? What if it is all dashed to smitherenes and we're left on some deserted backroad of life somewhere where there isn't much traffic?
You see, Jesus wanted His disciples to submit their will to His plans. That's why He was telling them what was about to happen. When Peter objected, Jesus said, "you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." Peter had his own agenda and at the moment it didn't fit with Jesus' plans.
That's His intention for us as well, by the way. He wants us to surrender the authority we demand over our how our lives will be lived to Him.
Look again at verse 25: "For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it."
There are two key words in that verse to notice.
That word "wishes" is the Greek word THELO. According to Thayer's Lexicon, it means "to be resolved or determined, to purpose." It has to do with setting the mind on something so that it becomes a driving purpose in your life.
In the verse it describes one who sets his heart on saving his own life, or, perhaps, his own agenda - the way he thinks his life should go. (Remember, the issue here isn't one of Peter and the disciples saving their physical lives. Rather, the issue is their hanging onto the life plans they had made for themselves and Jesus.)
The second word to consider is that word "save." It is the Greek word SODZO. The word means "to salvage or rescue, so as to preserve."
Jesus speaks, then, of one who sets his mind on saving his own life plans or, as I said earlier, his own agenda. If he does that, Jesus told Peter, he will lose everything.
Have you and I come to the place in our lives where we are really surrendered to Christ's agenda for us? How do we respond when things don't go our way? With disappointment? With discouragement? With anger and frustration?
God want's us to surrender to His will, no matter what that might turn out to be. The issue is, "Who is going to run your life; you or Jesus?" You must decide; will you follow Jesus' plan or will we follow our own? Jesus said, " and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life." (John 5:40, NAS)
Well, Dave, what does that mean? Am I just to float along and let things pass me by and just be miserable? If God sticks me in a landfill witnessing to a bunch of society's cast offs, am I just to accept spending the rest of my life in misery?
No! No! No! That's the whole point and that is what I want to say next. There is a result of this "losing your life" (or your personal agenda) for the sake of Christ. The result is that you "get a life!"
II. The Result: We "Get a Life."
Alvin Vader Griend and Edith Bajema, in THE PRAYING CHURCH SOURCEBOOK, write,
"When World War II era bombers were hit [by enemy fire], a few [extra] pounds could mean the difference between life and death. . . . Discarding extra [weight] wasn't so hard if it meant impersonal items like guns, seats, and so on. But if things got so crucial that staying aloft was questionable, the order would come to throw out cameras, souvenirs, and parachutes. That's when the grumbling would begin.(2)
Most of us don't have nearly as much problem giving up some of the old sinful habits and practices as we do when it comes to surrendering the steering wheel and driver's seat of our lives to God. Much like those WWII bombers, that's when the grumbling begins.
But before we do that, we need to see the real point of all this. The real point is that's how we get a life!
"For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it..." You see, ultimately, we can't hang onto it anyway! That person who loses his business doesn't suddenly get it back when he refuses to surrender to God's purpose in his life. The only thing he gets when he fights God's purpose is bitter!
Even our admired friend, Antonio, preaching to the dweller in garbage, if he were to choose to go his own way and gratify himself in his life, would lose it all anyway. If not during his life, certainly at the moment of death!
I'm reminded of that quote from (I believe it was) Jim Elliott:
"He is no fool who forfeits that which he cannot keep in return for that which cannot be taken away."
"but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it."
Whoever gives up his own cherished agenda for Christ's sake (if God calls him to do so) will find something he never dreamed.
I'm reminded of several New Testament verses:
John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly."
Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think..."
2 Peter 1:11 says, "for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you."
Do you want like worth living? Lose your own life, all your personal aspirations and agendas that don't match God's, in the purposes of Christ, and you'll find it. You'll "Get a life!"
Do you want life worth dying for? Lose your own life, all your personal aspirations and agendas that don't match God's, in the purposes of God, and you'll find it. You'll "Get a life!"
Conclusion
When the unsinkable Titanic sank, warning after warning had been sent to tell them they were speeding into an ice-field. But the messages were ignored. In fact, when a nearby ship sent an urgent warning, the Titanic was talking to Cape Race about the time chauffeurs were to meet arriving passengers at the dock, and what menus were to be ready.
Preoccupied with trivia, the Titanic responded to the warning: "Shut up. I am talking to Cape Race. You are jamming my signals." One can only imagine how different it could have been had someone on the bridge that night listened up.
In the same way that the captain of the Titanic refused to listen to those who warned him of danger, you may be refusing to hear the words of Jesus, here. "Shut up," you find yourself thinking. "You're jamming my signals."
Will you continue to resist God's desire to give you life worth living? Will you stubbornly refuse to "get a life?"
*Author's Note:
Some of the basic ideas of this sermon, and the opening illustration, were inspired by a printed message by L.E. Brown, Jr., called DANCING WITH JESUS. A copy of that sermon may be found on the World Wide Web at the following address:
http://users.sedona.net/~budman/illustr.html
Footnotes: (Use browser "back" button to return to your place)
1. Moody Monthly February 1993, p. 39, as quoted by L.E. Brown on his website.
2. Alvin Vader Griend and Edith Bajema, The Praying Church Sourcebook. (Church Development Resources, 1990) Page 14. As quoted by L.E. Brown Jr., in his sermon, "Dancing With Jesus."
Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.
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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.