Eddie Rickenbacker was America’s most famous army aviator during World War I. During World War II he was appointed special consultant to Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson; and it was Rickenbacker’s task to inspect the various aspects of war.
During one tour in 1942, Eddie and seven companions made a forced landing in the Pacific Ocean. There, they experienced 24 terrifying days drifting in a lifeboat until they were rescued by a Navy plane. After his recovery from the ordeal, Rickenbacker said, “Let the moment come when nothing is left but life, and you will find that you do not hesitate over the fate of material possessions.”
Eddie understood that, at such a time, one is concerned about the fate of something far more precious than material goods – a person is concerned about life itself.(1) There are likely some of us here today who feel like Rickenbacker, trapped at sea, about to sink and drown. We are lost in a sea of material things, and bills, and debt; and some of us may already feel like we’re drowning and that the very life is being sucked right out of us. When we get to this point we begin to reach out and grasp for life, because that is the only thing that really matters.
This morning we will look at the trap of “Seeking the World,” and learn how the world, along with material things and possessions, will suck the life right out of us. I hope we will begin to see that in order to have true life in the Lord, that we must seek life in Jesus instead of life in the world.
Mark 8:34-37
34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Jesus said, “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it” (v. 35). The life that Jesus spoke of trying to save is not true life in the Son or abundant life in the Lord. Jesus defined what He meant by seeking one’s life. He said, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul” (v. 36). We lose life if we strive to gain life in the “world.” The first application of significance is this: If we seek after the pleasures of the world and continue to deny the call of Jesus to receive Him as Savior and Lord then when we will die. Our soul will be lost and we will experience spiritual death in hell for all eternity. That’s a hard, but true biblical fact!
The second application comes from a parallel passage to this one. In Luke 9:25 we can read some more of what Jesus shared. This verse declares, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” We not only lose life in heaven by seeking the world, we can lose ourselves. We can lose life now – quality of life, our identity, our emotional stability, our relationships with other people and with the Lord – as we ourselves are destroyed, and as our own world comes crashing down around us.
Seeking the world is something that can suck the life right out of us. So, what is seeking the world? What exactly did Jesus mean when He spoke of the world? The word that Jesus used(2) is the same one from which we obtain our English words “cosmic” and “the cosmos,” whenever we speak of outer space. The word utilized in this passage means: 1.) the universe and the sum of all created being, and 2.) the “inhabited world”(3) or the earth. I think we can see that the “world” is anything and everything other than Jesus!
The world is “this present life.” In 2 Timothy 2:4, we read, “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him [or Jesus] who enlisted him as a soldier” – meaning, that if we are seeking to serve the Lord, we must keep focused on our Captain, Jesus Christ, and the battle at hand. We actually know for certain that when Jesus spoke of the world that He was referring to life in this world, for in John 12:25 we read where Jesus stated, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
We must not allow ourselves to be distracted by this present life and the things of the world. When Peter walked on the water toward Jesus he was able to do so, so long as he kept his eyes fixed on Jesus, but when he took his focus off Jesus and saw the wind and the waves – things of this world – he began to sink (Matthew 14:22-33). Looking to the things of the world will cause us to sink and drown, sucking away our very life.
Jesus provides us with examples of things associated with the world and this present life that can steal our true life in the Lord. In the account of the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus reveals that the world consists of material things and possessions. In Mark 10:21-22, we read, “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.’ But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” This young man was not able to live a life of sacrifice, and take up his cross and follow Jesus because he held on to a life of worldly possessions. His world and his life consisted of “things” and “stuff.”
Here in America it seems that we just can’t get enough stuff. Who uses their garage these days? We can’t even park our car because it is full of the things we can’t fit in the house – things we think we will find a use for later on. How many people are paying a mortgage, while at the same time renting an apartment for their possession to live – better known as a storage unit? Someone once pointed out that you never see a Hearse towing a U-Haul. How many of us are in credit card debt up to our eyeballs, and we feel the pressure of trying to make the payments, while the bill collectors keep calling? It’s been said, “The world is full of people who are making a good living, but living poor lives,” and, “Life is tragic for the person who has plenty to live on, but nothing to live for.”(4) Because of this servitude to earthly things, we can feel our life slowly, but surely, being sucked out of us.
Jesus also reveals that family is something from this world that can distract us to serving Him. In Matthew 10:37-39 He stated, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” Luke 9:59-62 tells us this: “Then He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.’ And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God’.”
Family may not be a big hindrance for some of you, because here in America we don’t tend to be as close these days. We seek independence from our family as quickly as possible after high school and college, and it’s all too common for families to spread out across this country due to work or just a preference for living in a certain area. In other countries, and especially in Jesus’ day and time, family was extremely important, and you find many generations living under one roof – similar to what is portrayed on the TV show “The Waltons.” The longer we live the more we begin to realize how important our family really is, and often our family is all that we’ve got; and Jesus will sometimes ask us to let go of what seems to be the only true thing we really have in this world. Corrie ten Boom once said, “I’ve learned that I must hold everything loosely, because when I grip it tightly, it hurts when the Father pries my fingers loose and takes it from me!”(5)
In verse 35 Jesus said, “But whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Whenever we lose our life in the world, we must do it for “Jesus’ sake” and the “gospel’s sake.” We do it to glorify Jesus, and to win the lost to Christ through preaching the gospel message of salvation in Jesus. Denying the world, and losing one’s life for Jesus and the gospel is making Christ your heart’s sole desire. One praise song says, “Give me one pure and holy passion. Give me one magnificent obsession. Give me one glorious ambition for my life – to know and follow hard after You . . . This world is empty, pale and poor, compared to knowing You my Lord – lead me on, and I will run after You.”
We read in Colossians 3:1-4, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Our life – true, genuine life – is “hidden in Christ” and “Christ is our life.” Amen? True life is not found in the world. It is found only in Jesus.
1 John 5:12 says, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” John 8:12 says, “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life’.” As the contemporary Christian group Third Day sings, “Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing you, Lord.”
Many of us have a difficult time letting go of the things in this world, because we are afraid that if we store up for ourselves treasures in heaven that it means being poor here on earth (Matthew 6:19-21). I won’t lie to you. Sometimes you will be very poor if you abandon the world in order to follow after Jesus, but this won’t always be the case.
In Luke 18:28-30 we read, “Then Peter said [to Jesus], ‘See, we have left all and followed You.’ So He said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life’.” Jesus told Peter that if he abandoned all to follow Him, that he would receive many times more in this “present time,” meaning this present life. For example, if you are a local business owner and you decide to honor Christ in all that you do in your business then you could actually be blessed more in a material sense, as Christ multiplies your finances to use for the kingdom. However, if you sell your business in order to become a missionary in another country, you could be very poor in a material sense.
When Jesus told Peter and His disciples that they would “receive many times more in this present time” he was referring mainly to “spiritual blessing” and “spiritual life.” True life in Jesus is a spiritual kind of abundance. It is being spiritually satisfied, having joy, peace and true life. Peter later came to realize this truth. He tells us in 1 Peter 1:3 that Jesus’ “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life.” We have all that we could ever want or imagine in Jesus, and that is true life! Martin Luther said, “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”(6) If we place our hope in Jesus, we will always hang on to true life!
Time of Reflection
Life in the world can sometimes appear to be easier than trying to serve the Lord, for life in the Lord can be difficult and often require numerous sacrifices. Many of us who are saved still hold back from serving the Lord wholeheartedly. We don’t want to let go of possessions, or maybe a particular lifestyle, or perhaps a certain set of friends. We even fail to share our faith for fear of losing family and friends.
A man once asked the evangelist Dwight L. Moody, “Now that I am converted, must I give up the world?” “No,” Moody said, “You need not give up the world. If you give a ringing testimony for the Son of God the world will give you up pretty quickly. They will not want you around.”(7) We think that if we give up the world that we will lose life, but it is just the opposite – if we give up the world we gain life!
In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” There are only a few who find true life, because the way to life just seems too hard.
Jesus told His disciples in Mark 10:24-25, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” If we hold on to riches too tightly, or possessions and the things of this world, a camel can fit through the eye of a needle easier than we will enter through that narrow gate to the pathway that leads to life.
Let go of the world and hold on to Jesus, for Jesus is the way to life. In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved.” When you open your heart’s door to Jesus (Revelation 3:20), then Jesus becomes the door to salvation and eternal life for all who believe in Him! Come today and receive true, abundant and everlasting life in Jesus! (Share Romans 10:9-10).
NOTES
(1) “Materialism,” taken from the Internet in July of 2007 at http://www.sermonillustrations.com; originally found in Morning Glory, January 18, 1994.
(2) Paul R. McReynolds, Nestle Aland 26th Edition Greek New Testament with McReynolds English Interlinear (Oak Harbor, WA: 1997), taken from Logos 2.1E on CD-ROM; the word for “world” that Jesus used here is the NT Greek word kosmon, derived from kosmos.
(3) Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Editors, “Kosmeo,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985), taken from Logos 2.1E on CD-ROM.
(4) “Materialism,” taken from the Internet in July of 2007 at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.
(5) Ibid.; originally found in Charles Swindol, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p. 114.
(6) “Materialism,” taken from the Internet in July of 2007 at http://www.sermonillustrations.com.
(7) Paul Tan, Encyclopedia of 7,700 Illustrations (Garland, Texas: Bible Communications, 1996), taken from Logos 2.1E on CD-ROM.
