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Introduction:
Romans
7:14-25 is an important passage. It reminds us what
happens when we are in control of our own lives. Even Paul said
when he was in control of his own life, it always ended in sin and
failure. His only hope was Jesus. How can we say any different?
Whether the sin is gossip, pride, lust, or sexual immorality if we
are simply following our own path, we will always end up right
back in sin and eternal destruction. Jesus’ path, however, leads
to life (Matthew
7:13-14). Where we struggle is Jesus’ path is not always
the easiest. In fact, Jesus’ path is not a set of dos and
don’ts. Jesus path is one of total surrender. Walking Jesus’
path means giving ourselves and everything about ourselves
completely to Him. In many cases, it means sacrificing everything
in order to know Jesus and his way. The disciples found this out
after Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler. When Peter
bragged to Jesus about what the disciples had left in contrast
with the rich young ruler, Jesus gave what is perhaps His most
shocking bit of teaching. We can find the accounts in Matthew
19:28-30; Mark 10:29-31; Luke 18:29-30. There are six
principles we need to note about freedom in Christ from this
teaching. Discussion: I.
This is not a command to leave. A.
I know this first point is a bit shocking. We are so used
to reading all of Jesus’ statements as commands that we may
overlook Jesus did not command anyone to leave houses, land,
parents, children, spouses, or anything else. This statement is
not a command. B.
Rather, if you read it again, you will note that Jesus is
merely stating a fact. Those who have left these things will be
rewarded. Jesus’ point is the sacrifice is worth it. Jesus’
statement is not that every Christian has to sacrifice all these
things. Rather, He is merely commenting on the fact that some will
and they will be rewarded. C.
As a specific example demonstrating God was not commanding
this. Consider Acts
5:4. Some of the earliest Christians were sacrificing
their lands to provide relief to needy brethren. Ananias and
Sapphira were lying. They were not sacrificing everything but were
acting like they were. As Peter rebuked Ananias, he pointed out
Ananias was not commanded to leave his lands. They were his and
were at his disposal. II.
We must be willing to give up our life as we know it. A.
Having said that this is not a command, we must not close
the book on this scripture and skip on our merry way thinking
Jesus is asking nothing of us. We need to recognize Jesus’
statement does in fact mean we may be called on to sacrifice
everything. We may have to leave our homes, lands, children,
parents, siblings, spouses…everything. However, these are not to
be considered exhaustive lists. Rather, this list is given as a
figure of speech. The figure is called Synechdoche and is commonly
referred to as “using a part for the whole.” B.
In Luke
9:24 and Luke 17:33, Jesus explained, “For
whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for my sake will save it.” Jesus’ point is not merely
about giving up these specific items. Rather, His point is that we
need to be willing to give up life as we know it. Being a child of
God may mean change of jobs. It may mean a complete change of
career path and goals. It may mean losing your land. It may mean
being ostracized by your family. It may mean leaving or being left
by a spouse. It may mean being in a completely different
socio-economic class. It may mean totally changing your worldview.
As we said above, it may not mean any of that. But, then again, it
may. C.
In Philippians
3:3-11, Paul demonstrated this willingness. Before turning
to Jesus, he was on the fast track to power, influence, and
popularity among the Jews and their leaders. He was head and
shoulders above everyone else his age. He was on the fast track to
be on the Pharisees speaking circuit, if you will. He would
receive accolades and praises by all the Jews. However, when he
turned to Jesus, all that changed. Suddenly, he was no longer the
golden boy. He was the traitor. He had gone over to the other
side. What did this mean about the specifics of Paul’s life? We
don’t know. Perhaps his parents disowned him. He pretty much
gave up his tentmaking work to travel the known world for Jesus
(cf. Acts
18:3). He lost his prestige among the Jews. He was run out
of many cities. D.
We may not know exactly what we’ll be called on to
sacrifice. The point is we need to be ready to sacrifice it all;
we must be ready to give up life as we know it in order to live
for Jesus. III.
Sacrifice comes for various reasons. A.
Some people look at our key verses and try to very
specifically define what it means to “leave” all these things.
I know that especially happens for the statement about leaving the
wife. However, Jesus did not explain exactly what He meant by
this. Instead, we need to consider what the Scripture says in
other places. We see that sometimes these sacrifices are demanded
and other times they are voluntary. B.
For instance, consider the idea of leaving houses, lands,
and possessions for Jesus sake. 1.
Jesus makes this statement on the heels of the story about
the rich young ruler. He was commanded to sacrifice his material
goods because they were coming between him and God (Matthew
19:20-22). He had to give them up; otherwise, he would be
lost. 2.
On the other hand, in Acts
4:32-37, many of the disciples were selling their houses,
land, and possession in order to help their brethren. Was this a
command from God? No. Would they be lost if they didn’t? No. But
were they leaving all of it for Jesus’ sake? Absolutely. 3.
Then again in Acts
8:1-3, a great persecution arose and many Christians in
Jerusalem were driven from their lands and houses. They were not
commanded by God to do this, they didn’t volunteer to do this,
but because they were faithful to Jesus, they gave up their lands
through persecution. It was for the kingdom’s sake. C.
Because the statement about leaving a wife is so shocking,
let’s consider what this could mean. Is Jesus saying a man can
just leave his wife because he became a Christian or does the
scripture indicate something else? The scripture shows three
potential means to fulfill this statement. 1.
First, we shouldn’t immediately assume this means divorce
as so many are want to do trying to find excuse to put spouses
away for numerous causes. Keep in mind that Jesus said this based
on Peter’s statement, “We have left everything for you.”
Peter had done what Jesus was talking about. We know in Matthew
8:14, Peter was married. Did he divorce his wife to follow
Jesus? No. We know from I
Corinthians 9:5, that Peter had a believing wife who
traveled with him. However, in Matthew
19, he claimed to have left everything. He didn’t mean
he had sold his house, forsaken his family, divorced his wife. It
meant that in order to follow Jesus at this time, he had left his
wife at home. He did not use his wife, his job, his home, his land
as an excuse to stay home instead of traveling with Jesus. Did he
absolutely have to do this in order to be right with God? Not
necessarily, but Jesus says he would be rewarded for making that
choice. Clearly, in later travels he was able to take his wife
with him. By the way, let’s not miss the sacrifice Peter’s
wife was making as she let Peter travel with Jesus instead of
taking care of the home front. 2.
In the Matthew
and Mark contexts, this discussion happened after Jesus’ teaching on
divorce and remarriage. According to Matthew
19:9, whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman
is committing adultery. The only exception to that teaching is if
he divorced her because she committed sexual immorality.
Therefore, if a man turns to Christ and finds that he his marriage
is adultery, the only alternative for him is to leave the unlawful
wife, to cease the marriage that is adultery. Interestingly, in Matthew
19:12, Jesus referred to folks who were in this situation
as “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” That is,
they were celibate for the kingdom’s sake. 3.
I
Corinthians 7:12-16
provides another time in which someone might “leave” a spouse
of the sake of the kingdom. If an unbelieving or unfaithful spouse
refuses to live with the Christian spouse, the Christian is not
obligated to follow the unbeliever around trying to make the
marriage work. The Christian can let the unbelieving spouse leave
as sad as it seems. D.
I know this is tough and the use of spouses in this context
really demonstrates the degree of sacrifice Jesus asks of us.
Sadly, too many will choose their spouse over serving God His way.
They may find they are unlawfully married, but won’t choose God
over the marriage. Or the spouse may threaten to leave so the
Christian backs off in his/her commitment to God and God’s path
in order to keep the spouse happy and the marriage together. While
the sacrifices may come from various reasons and take on different
forms, we get back to our last point, we need to be willing to
give up life as we know it in order to follow Jesus. IV.
We will lose whatever we put before Jesus. A.
The rich young ruler put his possessions before Jesus (Matthew
19:21-22). He simply couldn’t sacrifice his possessions.
He couldn’t give up his life as he knew it. Here is the problem;
he couldn’t actually keep his possessions. Do you remember the
story of Mary and Martha in Luke
10:38-42? Jesus’ statement to Martha was that Mary had
chosen the good part that would not be taken from her. The
implication is what Martha had chosen would be taken away. B.
The fact is, everything we put before Jesus will be taken
from us. We will not be able to hang on to it as much as we try.
Some of it may be taken from us even in this life. First, the sins
that enslave us when we do not surrender to Jesus will steal much
of what we want to hang on to—our family, our
money, our health. Additionally, the more we worry about
money, often the more we cause our own downfall through money. The
more we try to hang on to people, the more we learn they are
fickle and won’t always play by our rules anyway. C.
Here is the really sad part, if we put our possessions, our
families, our careers, our lives as we want them before Jesus, we
will eventually lose all those things. Sadly, when we have lost
those things anyway, we won’t have Jesus. We will have lost it
all and we will be lost. It is true, when we turn to Jesus, we may
have to sacrifice many things, but if we don’t turn to Jesus we
are going to lose those things anyway. V.
Stop hanging on to life as you want it, but grab hold of
life as Jesus offers it. A.
If we are going to lose all those things anyway, we might
as well quit trying to hang on to life as we want it. We must quit
trying to hang on to our lives as we planned them. If we keep
trying to hang on to that, we’ll lose it, plus we won’t have
Jesus. However, if we sacrifice life the way we want it and accept
the life Jesus offers us, we’ll be so much better off. B.
Yes, perhaps we’ll lose our land, possessions, family,
career, goals, but we’ll gain Jesus. Remember Luke
9:24-25. What profit will it be to us if we gain our
houses, lands, possessions, spouse, children, parents, siblings,
career, fame, power, influence, glory for a little while but then
lose it all along with our soul later? What good is that? C.
Quit trying to hang on to life as you would have it. Quit
trying to preserve life as you want it. Let go. Surrender to
Jesus. Start reaching out to life as Jesus offers it to you. VI.
Life as Jesus offers it is better. A.
All sacrifice will be rewarded. If we lose these things
because of persecution, because we had to sacrifice them to stay
with Jesus, or because we voluntarily gave these things up to
serve Him, we will be rewarded. Did we give up our possessions? We
gain so much more through the sharing of the brethren. Did we lose
family? We’ll gain family through the body of Christ. B.
However, more importantly, we’ll gain eternal life. The
wages of our sins is death according to Romans
6:23. However, the free gift in Christ is eternal life.
There is nothing we are holding on to ithat can provide this for
us. Our parents won’t. Our children won’t. Our spouses
won’t. Our houses won’t. Our cars won’t. Our possessions
won’t. Our portfolios won’t. Only Jesus will. C.
The real question comes down to whether we believe Jesus.
Do we really believe He has a better offer? Or do we think having
a nice house, lots of land, a great retirement, is the better
offer? Do we think letting our parents, children, spouses, and
friends be happy with us is a better offer? A man named Jim
Elliott once made an amazing statement: “He is no fool who gives
up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” If you
decide to hang on to and preserve life as you want it and have
planned it, you will lose it all. If you are willing to give it up
and reach for life as Jesus offers it, you will be rewarded
eternally more than you can possibly imagine. Conclusion: The question we need to ask is found in Matthew 16:26. “What shall a man give in return for his soul?” Are we willing to give our lives to Jesus and let Him lead us wherever He wants us to go? What if that means giving up our possessions, our families, our homes, our goals? What is the eternal life of our soul worth? It is not an easy question. Oh, it’s an easy question to answer correctly. However, it is not an easy question to live. Trust me, the life Jesus offers is better than the one you have planned. Are you ready to surrender to Him?
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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