Title: Hanging on to Life
Objective: Every person must follow Christ to live a life of purpose.
Intro:
I recently saw an old 1980s bumper sticker you may remember; it said, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
I am convinced that so many people in our performance driven culture live their lives by that motto: either consciously or sub-consciously.
“He who dies with the most toys wins.”
We spend our efforts pursuing beauty, wealth, power and fame all to increase our comfort in this life.
So many of us here this morning are hard-working, morally good, and giving people who have found a purpose in acquiring toys.
I want to talk to you this morning about another point of view about living a life of purpose.
Maybe, just maybe, that bumper sticker isn’t right.
I want to share with you what one man said over two-thousand years ago about the pursuit of wealth and comfort.
I’d like to talk to you about simply hanging onto life or living life to the extreme.
I. The Futility of Hanging on
II. The Freedom in Losing
III. The Finale of Choosing
Mark 8:
34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
I. The Futility of Hanging On
vs. 34 – 35a
34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.
Many people have spoken at great length on this topic of “taking up your cross.”
People will sometimes say “well, that’s just my cross to bear in my life”, about something painful or disappointing in their circumstances.
Jesus was actually using a cultural symbol to get a point across to his listeners.
You see, Israel was under Roman rule during that time, and the most popular form of Roman capital punishment was death by crucifixion.
The Romans would force convicted Jews to carry their own cross, their own instrument of death on their shoulder to the place of execution to signify that person’s complete and total surrender to Rome.
It was a message to everybody else that Rome was completely in charge!
Jesus was using the picture of carrying your cross to illustrate the ultimate submission that is required to follow Him.
Jesus was not against pleasure.
And He wasn’t teaching us that we should needlessly seek pain in order to please Him.
Jesus was teaching the point that it requires an HEROIC effort to really follow Him.
It requires complete and total submission to Him as King to help us win the battles in our lives moment by moment.
He was showing us that it takes extreme dedication and complete devotion to Him to do His will even when life gets difficult or the future looks bleak.
Just like the convicted criminal carrying his cross as a symbol of complete surrender to the Roman rule, Christ demands us to completely surrender to Him as King!
That’s what it means to take up your cross. Nothing more, nothing less.
Jesus said to not only take up your cross, but to follow Him.
Jesus said, “If you want to be my follower”. SO the question is, do you even want to be His follower or are you happy with living a life trying to hang on to all your stuff?
Are you hanging on to your hobbies, hanging on to your paycheck, hanging on to your pension?
Maybe you are hanging on to your idea of what it takes to be “good enough to make it in to heaven.”
Are you just living your life for the weekend and hoping that you just might live long enough to enjoy retirement?
I want you to know that Jesus has a better way to live.
He said that if you continue to hang on to all your stuff and deny Him as Lord, you will ultimately end up losing your life!
But He also said in John 10:10:
10A thief comes only to rob, kill, and destroy. I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.
And when the children of Israel were living as slaves of the Babylonians, they were being tricked by false prophets into believing that God had abandoned them.
They thought that God had forgotten them.
But in Jer. 29 God promised His children this:
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
And let me tell you today, God has not forgotten about you!
He has not abandoned You!
You may look around and feel like he has, but he has a purpose and a plan for your life.
He has a life that is not wasted by simply trying to “hang on”, but a life that is filled with joy unspeakable and full of Glory by following Him!
Well, what difference does it make what this man Jesus said about life anyway?
Let me share with you what rock superstar Bono had to say about that:
Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (Riverhead Books)
Assayas: That’s a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it’s close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?
Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: "I’m the Messiah." I’m saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he’s gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that’s farfetched …
It is very far-fetched that millions of people though thousands of years would follow a nutcase.
I believe with everything in me that Christ was exactly who He said He was – The Living Son of God.
And if He really was, He leaves you with a question – will you follow Him – or will you live your life for you, just trying to hang on to life?
The futility of hanging on to life is that one day, despite all of the possessions you may gain, your life will be lost.
There is good news though! Let’s look at:
II. The Freedom in Losing
vs. 35b-37
But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
Nobody ever plans to lose.
I would say that it is usually a pretty foolish thing to encourage somebody to lose.
Imagine Jeff Gordon’s pit crew at the Daytona 500 encouraging Jeff to lose the race.
Imagine them telling him, “Jeff, just go out there and don’t worry about the outcome.
Let Mark Martin by in turn two, and use your brakes on the straight-a-ways.”
Most of us recognize how silly that would be.
We’ve been taught in our culture that winning is everything.
We fight to win. We play to win. We plan to win.
So, believe me, I understand how counter-intuitive it is to suggest that there can be freedom in losing.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Braveheart starring the now infamous Mel Gibson.
In that movie, we watch a fight for independence unfold.
We see the main character William Wallace trying to rally the Scottish forces to oust the occupying British army from Scotland.
The most powerful scene to me in that movie is when Scotland’s severely outnumbered army is on the battlefield getting ready to fight against the British.
Several of Scotland’s men decide that it is pointless to fight the British because it is almost certain that most of them would be killed.
William Wallace delivers the following speech to the troops:
I am William Wallace.
And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny.
You’ve come to fight as free men. And free you are.
What will you do without freedom?
Will you fight?
And a voice from the crowd answers: No we will run, and we will live!
Wallace answers,
Yes, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live – for at least a while.
And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance
To come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!
Alba gu bra! (Gaelic for Freedom Forever)
They had a choice to make. And none of them walked away.
Guys, our lives are very similar to that day on the Scottish battlefield.
We can continue to live our lives as slaves to our bank accounts, slaves to our desires, slaves to our jobs, to our sinfulness,
OR we can give up our desire for those things.
The Scottish army realized that they had to be willing to lose their lives in order to win their freedom.
When we give up our desire for all of the things that this world has to offer we can live in freedom, because we don’t have to worry about what we have or don’t have.
We don’t have to try to keep up with the Joneses!
Jesus said that if we will lose our lives now we can truly know what it really means to live!
We can really live a life that is filled with purpose and promise.
What purpose and promise you ask?
Maybe somebody hear feels like they have messed up so badly in the past that all is lost – CLAIM THIS PROMISE from Joel 2:25-26:
25 The Lord says, “I will give you back what you lost
to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts,
the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.
It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.
26 Once again you will have all the food you want,
and you will praise the Lord your God,
who does these miracles for you.
Never again will my people be disgraced.
Maybe you feel that God is so far away from you right now that you’ll never be able to feel His presence again. This promise from James 4:8 is for you:
8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Some of you may just be beaten down and discouraged and need to hear this promise from Psalms 42:11:
11 Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again—
my Savior and my God!
Some of you right now are battling against the very forces of evil and have no victory in your life over the enemy.
Listen to Deut. 20:4:
4 For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!’
Someone hear this morning is going through the darkest moments of their life – Jesus himself promises you in John 16:33:
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
Friends, no matter what battle you are facing – you can’t do it on your own!
Try with all your strength, and you will stay discouraged, depressed, and broken-hearted.
Only Jesus can give you the victory in your life!
And in order to let Jesus fight your battles for you, you have to give up trying to live your life in your own strength!
William Wallace’s men understood that they had to lay down their goals, their dreams, their ambitions in order to truly be free!
Have you realized that yet?
Jesus then asked us a very, very pointed question.
He said what difference does it make if you gain the whole world but in the end, you lose your soul?
That question holds in it a couple of truths that can change your life.
That question supposes that it is possible to gain the whole world!
Guys, listen, you can go out a make a million bucks!
You can be very successful in this life.
You can gain all the toys and pleasures this life has to offer!
But the second part of that question is also true:
You can lose your soul!
Jesus said that if you are ashamed of following Him in this life, he will be ashamed of you.
I’m not saying that you have to give up all of your stuff and take a vow of poverty.
Some of you have been richly blessed by God, and I rejoice with you!
Some of you have lots of money and a lot of nice toys, and that is OK! God Bless You!
Some of you might have beautiful 102 inch TVs, and the only question I have for you is when can I come over and watch it!
What I am saying is that one day you are going to stand naked before God, without all those things.
What good will they be to you then?
If you will lose your life, you will understand that nothing can compare to living a life that follows Jesus!
And He promises that if you will pursue Him, more than you pursue the pleasures of this world, your soul will be saved!
Jesus asks you this morning: Is anything worth more than your soul?
The Freedom in Losing is this: you can be free from the bondage of this world and free to pursue a life of purpose by following Christ.
That brings us to the:
III. The Finale of Choosing
vrs 38
38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Each one of you has a clear choice to make today.
Jesus says that if you reject His message, one day he will be ashamed of you.
That means that you will be separated from him and spend an eternity apart from Him.
You might say: So what?
So what if I spend an eternity apart from God.
If I go to hell, I’ll just see all of my friends there.
It won’t be so bad, it’ll be a party!
Please listen.
The very reason that God created man-kind was so that He could be our God, and we could be His people.
He wants us to follow Him.
But, the truth is, many people don’t want to follow God.
Most people want to die with the most toys, and just don’t have time for God.
That breaks God’s heart.
You see, God is Holy and refuses to allow any sin into His heaven.
God so despises sin, that even when Jesus took on the sins of the world on the cross, He had to look away – Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.
God won’t tolerate any sin.
Well, you might ask, what is sin?
Sin is anything that falls short of being perfect.
A little white lie.
Murder.
They are both as much sin to God, and He won’t tolerate either.
God says that everybody has sinned at some point in their lives.
And because everybody has sinned, God won’t allow anybody into His perfect Heaven.
Imagine living a life thinking that God was such an ogre that He refuses to allow us into His heaven because of a little white lie.
What kind of a God would that be?
Well, the good news is that even though God is Holy, He is also Love.
God doesn’t want you to be separated from Him, so He had to make a way to pay for our sins!
Because He loved you so much, even while you were still sinning, God sent His only Son, Jesus, to pay the tab for your sins, and mine.
Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins, so that you won’t have to pay for them!
He took all of God’s wrath and the equivalent of an eternity in hell so that you and I wouldn’t have to!
That’s how much God loves you!
But, as Jesus said, if you reject that message, He will be ashamed of you – and you will spend an eternity separated from God.
The finale of the choice that you make today will be revealed one day standing before God.
You can continue to live a life trying to die with the most toys, or you can lose your life now, and gain a life worth living.
A life with a hope and a future.
A life of confidence that one day, you will be able to stand before God and hear the precious words:
‘Well done my child, come on in to my heaven”.
So are you gonna keep hanging on to your way of life, or give up and follow Jesus and live your life to the extreme?
