Soul Care > Self Care (Matthew 16:25-26) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: All right.

We are continuing our study of all the different questions…

Well, not all of them.

Some of the different questions that Jesus asked, okay?

We're gonna be looking at…

What is that?

Okay.

We are gonna be talking about all the different things that Jesus asked, okay?

Jordan was looking really confused.

I was like, "Oh, that's why Jordan's so confused."

We'll get to that later.

That was a spoiler, sneak peek.

But, uh, we're gonna be talking about all the questions that Jesus asked.

So, um, again, we talked about this last week, but my, one of my goals,

one of my things I'm praying for for you guys, is that you get to know Jesus

the person, as we see him interact with people and ask them questions, that you

get to know Jesus as a real person, a real man who really lived and ate food

and then went to sleep and got tired, but at the same time, God in the flesh,

and that you get to know him through his words and what we're looking at.

So we are gonna be in Matthew 16 again.

Jesus asked another question in Matthew 16, and we are gonna be talking

about, um, something called your, your soul, and we're gonna be talking

about, um, why that's so important.

But first, um, and you probably know this question that Jesus asked.

It's if you, you know…

What does it profit you if you gain the whole world but, but lose your soul?

You probably heard that question.

And I tried to come up with…

Or actually, I didn't try.

I asked AI to come up with a list of people who you could

argue that they gained the world.

They actually did it.

Who are the most wealthy or economically powerful people

in the history of the world?

Who are the people who you could really say they gained the whole world?

And so, uh, our sponsor for today's sermon, ChatGPT…

No, I'm just kidding.

Um, are- Put together a list of people for me.

And so the, I did top 25, and so they started with, you know, the people

that we know, Bill Gates, right?

Microsoft.

Or Jeff Bezos, right?

Amazon.

And our friend Elon, Pastor Marc's favorite person.

Um- And then there's some people that you may have heard of, right?

Maybe you've heard of Henry Ford before.

Um, this is my relative.

Um- Maybe you've heard of Vanderbilt, this school, right?

Uh, that's…

I think that's that same dude.

Um, JP Morgan, if you, if you know anything about banks, um, that's the

guy who Chase Bank is named after.

Um, you probably never heard of this dude.

I haven't either.

Don't know who he is.

Uh, might be- But these are, these are some really wealthy people, right?

These…

If you think about how many billions of people have ever lived, right?

These are the 25 most powerful, richest people that, at least according to, to

ChatGPT, have ever, have ever lived.

And, you know, getting close to the top 10 here, we've got some,

some more famous people that you might have heard about, right?

Um, this dude, right, Genghis Khan's grandson.

We've got Charlemagne, Suleiman, right?

We've got kings, we've got dictators.

We've got, uh, very rich people.

This guy, richest American of all time, by the way.

Um- Rockefeller.

Rockefeller, yeah, richest American of all time.

And then the heavy hitters, um, the top 10 or top 9 right here.

These are the people that you could say they really gained the world, right?

Maybe it's King Solomon who really gained the world.

I had to convince ChatGPT that what the Bible says about Cha-

about Solomon is actually true.

Um, so that took some work.

Also, they didn't put Alexander the Great on the list at all.

And then I was like: What about Alexander the Great?

And they're like: You're right, he should be in the top 10.

I was like, how do you forget that?

Um, so don't trust AI.

Anyway.

But these are people, right, so Augustus Caesar, uh, the month of…

He has a month named after him, right?

Um- August … not, not many people can say that.

But Augustus Caesar, AI said, was the richest, most powerful economic

person in the history of people, right?

The…

This guy, you could say he gained the world because he owned everything, right?

He owned the Roman Empire.

He, he had everything.

But I want you to even just think about this list, these 25 people.

How many of these people would say today that it was worth it?

'Cause if you think about a lot of these people, I think all of them

would tell you that it wasn't worth it, because where are they right now?

Right?

A- Augustus, I, I don't think he trusted Jesus.

Genghis Khan, I don't think he did.

Mansa Musa, I don't think he did.

Alexander the Great definitely didn't.

Maybe King Solomon did, we think.

But all these people, if you asked them right now, if you could

talk to them, right, what would they s- what would they tell you?

Would they tell you, "You know what?

Worth it.

I had everything.

I own- I literally owned everything."

Right?

Genghis Khan literally owned, like, the known world at the time, right?

So did Augustus, right?

The Romans called the Mediterranean Sea, like, "Our lake," 'cause

they, they owned everything.

These people, they, they all owned the world, basically.

They could do whatever they wanted.

Everything the world had to offer them, right?

Whether maybe you're like, "Oh, well, I don't wanna gain the world,

I just wanna gain all the things that make me happy of the world."

Well, these guys had it, right?

But what would they tell you today?

They would tell you it's not worth it.

It wasn't worth it because a lot of them, most of them in fact,

lost their soul in the process.

And that's what Jesus says in Matthew 16:26.

Matthew 16:26

That's his question that he is asking us tonight.

He asked the same question to his disciples 2,000 years ago.

"What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"

Right?

What do you get?

You, you, you profit, right?

What, what do you get out of it if you gain the whole world but you

lost, you gave up y- your soul?

Or what can a man give in return for his soul?

If you do gain the whole world and you want your soul back, how

do you, how do you get it back?

And the answer here, right, is that you can't.

N- no matter what else you do in life, you could do anything in life.

You could, you could be really rich and famous, you could be really poor

and, and not have much to live off of.

You could have a lot of people know who you are and a lot of people like you.

Or you could have no one like you and everyone hate you.

But no matter what you do in life, if you don't take care of

your soul, it won't be worth it.

And if you think about this question, what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Jesus is asking this question from the perspective of hell.

I don't know if you've thought about that.

I hadn't thought about that till I studied it this week.

Jesus is, is asking, you've lived your life, you've given away your soul.

You've lost it.

You've said, "I don't wanna trust Jesus.

I don't wanna live for God.

I wanna live for the world."

And you've tried to gain the world.

And how can you get it back?

You can't.

That's, he's asking this question from the perspective of someone who's

already lived their life, who's lived for everything they wanted, right?

All, all the, maybe all the, the friendships they wanted, all the fun

they wanted, all the success they wanted.

And they've come to the end of their life, and they said, "I,

I, I don't want it anymore.

I want my soul.

But I've lost it."

And so you need to take good care of your soul.

But maybe you're thinking, what, what is a soul, right?

I, I thought I had two soles.

I thought they were on the bottom of my feet.

But no, not that type of sole, right?

We're talking about your soul is, it's what makes you you, okay?

Your soul, um, this is gonna be a bit of what they call, big word

for it is anthropology, right?

What makes people work?

How are, who…

What are people like?

What are people made of, right?

Um, your soul is what the Bible sometimes calls your spirit, sometimes calls it

your, your inner person, your inner man.

Your soul is the immaterial part of who you are.

So people aren't, you're not just flesh and blood, right?

You, tonight, you are not just cells and, um, blood and

organs and all of that, right?

And hormones and chemicals and everything.

You're, you're not just that.

There's part of you that you can't put under a microscope.

There's part of you that you can't study in the lab, and that's your soul.

There's an immaterial part of who you are.

James 2 says it this way.

So the, as the body apart from the spirit or your soul is dead, so

also faith apart from works is dead.

We can talk more about that some other time.

But what he's saying here is your spirit, your soul, is what animates your body.

If you take the soul out of the body, that's called death.

Death is when your body and your soul are separated, 'cause then

your body doesn't work anymore.

Your soul is what makes your body work.

It's kinda like, um, you know, when you download, you update your phone

and you get iOS whatever, right?

The soul is like iOS for your body, okay?

Your soul is like the operating system, the software for your body.

Your soul is what makes your body work.

You, you don't have a soul, your body's not gonna work anymore, right?

'Cause if you think about this, when people die, a lot of times scientists

can't even explain what exactly…

Or they can say, "Oh yeah, their body stopped working," and they can

p- sometimes you can pinpoint, oh yeah, their, their heart failed or

their brain failed or something like that, but sometimes they just die.

And now why is that, right?

Well, some- it's usually because the soul isn't there anymore.

Soul's gone, right?

Separation of soul and body, that's death, right?

Your soul, your inner person, that's where you have desires.

That's where you have values, right?

You can't take your values and say, "Oh well, these brain waves, those

are, those are your values," right?

There's an immaterial part of you, and that's how God made you.

God made you.

There's a physical part of you and there's a spiritual part of you, right?

There's your body and your soul, okay?

Um, they're related, they're connected, right?

God made you to be both of those things, right?

Um, it's not that your body's bad and your soul is good.

That's not true.

But both of those is what makes you human, right?

You have a body and a soul, and they're related and they

impact each other, too, right?

What you do with your body impacts your soul, right?

You sin with your body, and that is bad for your soul, right?

Or maybe you're really stressed spiritually, right?

Stress isn't just physical or anger isn't just hormones in your brain, right?

There's a immaterial part of you that is angry, right?

It's not just, oh, these chemicals and, and these things in my brain

happen and that produced anger.

That's how your body produces anger, but your soul is still angry.

And so they're related, they're connected.

It's complicated.

We don't have time to talk about all of it, but essentially what

I need you to know is that your soul is what makes you you.

It's your inner person, right?

Your outer person, your flesh, it's like your phone and the, the wires and

the cords and all that, and then the operating system is your soul, okay?

Now maybe you think, "Whatever, it doesn't matter," right?

"That was, that was super boring.

Why are you talking about that?"

Well, what Jesus has to say to you is, tonight, what he's, he's gonna talk

about is how valuable your soul is.

'Cause our culture, we care way more about your body than your soul.

In our culture, we care more about how you look, how you feel, than

who you really are in your soul.

And so in Matthew 16, we're gonna, gonna look at this whole passage,

what Jesus says in Matthew 16.

This is the whole conversation, okay?

He tells his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself,

take up his cross and follow me."

So Jesus is saying, "If you're gonna follow me, it's gonna be really hard.

It's gonna be the opposite of being selfish.

It's gonna be antithetical to you making it about you.

It's actually gonna be about Jesus," right?

And then verse 25, "If you're gonna save your life," if you wanna hold onto to you,

if you wanna keep you on the throne of your life, if you want you to be the focus

of your life, don't follow Jesus, right?

"Whoever would save his life would lose it."

Living for yourself is suicide.

That's what Jesus is saying here.

Living for yourself is suicide.

If you, if you hold onto to everything that you wanna live for, you're gonna

die, not just physically, but spiritually.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world?

You live for yourself.

You, you got everything you wanted out of your life, all

the success that you wanted.

You gain the whole world, but you forfeited your soul, right?

You didn't follow Jesus.

Or what can you give in return for your soul?

And then he says, "For the Son of Man," Jesus, "is going to come

with his angels in the glory of his Father, and he will repay each person

according to what he has done."

Right?

One day, you are gonna stand before God.

We talked about this over the summer, right, at Revival.

You're gonna stand before God, and you're gonna answer for what you've done.

Did you follow Jesus or, or did you not?

Did you trust Jesus or did you not?

Did you live for yourself or did you live for God?

And at that moment, it doesn't matter if you got what you wanted out of life.

What matters is did you trust Jesus or not?

So how important is your soul?

That Jesus says is it's more important than anything, anything else.

So your points tonight, they're all questions.

There are three questions about your soul.

So your first point, how important is my soul?

How important is my soul?

What Jesus is saying is your soul is the most important thing about you.

Not who- where you're from, not what you like, not what you do, not how much money

you have, not how many people like you.

It's your soul.

It's the most important thing about you

A lot of these words here are financial words.

If you really look at this question, profit, that's a financial word.

Gain, financial word.

Forfeit, I know you think that's a sports word, but it's a financial word

in what the language Jesus is talking.

He's saying profit, right?

It's, it's did you get something out of it, right?

It's a finance word.

Did…

Gain, right?

It's a finance word.

Forfeit is almost like you, you gave it up, you lost, right?

If you think about the stock market, there's gains and losses, right?

So these are all finance words here, and what he's trying to

stress is the value of your soul.

The value of not just your body, but your soul.

Not just you as a totality, but who you are really

And what he's saying is your soul is costly.

The first thing he's saying is that your soul is worth more than all the world.

Maybe you've never thought about that before, but your soul,

y- who you are, is more valuable than the whole world.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Your soul and how you take care of it is more important than what you do

with everything else the world has.

You have a soul, and what you do, the c- the condition of your soul,

the health of your soul, is more important than the whole world.

All the money you could have, all the friends you could have, all

the opportunities, experiences, pleasures, all of that, your soul

is more important than all of that

That list of people that, that we looked at, at the beginning, right?

Those are the richest people in the history of, of people, which

is kinda crazy to think about.

And most of you don't even know who half of them are.

They gained the entire world, right?

Some of them, literally everything people knew about the world, they had it.

They had access to all the smart people.

They had access to all the money.

They had access to all the experiences that they could ever want.

And one, you don't even know who they are.

And two, when they stood before God, in a sense, God didn't

know who they were, right?

They heard, "I never knew you

And right now they would tell you, "I wish I could trade all

my money to be with Jesus."

But they're not.

And there's no do-overs, and it d- they can't say, "God, well,

what if I give it back to you?

Right, I li- I lived this whole life for myself.

Can I do it over again and give it back to you?"

And God says, "No."

You can't buy back your soul.

You can't get it back.

You can't do it over

But it's not just super rich people that try to gain the world, right?

Regular people try to gain the world, too, right?

People like me and you, we try to gain the world, and maybe you're

thinking, "Well, yeah, I'm, I'm not gonna be a billionaire," but you

still want to live for the world.

Your purpose in life might be trying to get everything you want out of your life.

That's trying to gain the world.

You are trying to, to gain maybe not the whole world, but as much

of it for yourself as you can

Because your whole life, all your friendships are about

what you get out of them.

Your whole school career is all about what you get out of it.

All your sports is what you get out of it.

All of your relationships with your family is what you get out of it.

All of the money you spend, what's in it for me?

All the activities you do, what's in it for me?

You might be trying to gain the world, and Jesus says it's not worth it.

'Cause all those things, a lot of them are good things from God that He's given to

you to point you to Him, and what you're saying is, "Nope, God, I don't want you.

I just want your stuff."

And you're trying to gain the stuff, and you're losing your soul

Your soul is also worth not just more than everything the world has

to offer, uh, but it's worth more than safety and comfort, which maybe

is kind of a weird way to put it.

But if you look before that question, verse 24, Jesus says, "If anyone would

come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me."

Now think about these words.

Deny yourself, take up your cross.

Right, the cross, we've glamorized it, right?

We've turned it into jewelry or tattoo art, or we put it on top of our churches.

But this is like Jesus saying, "Take up your electric chair and follow me."

Right, "Take up your lethal injection and follow me.

Take up your firing squad and follow me."

Right, the cross was the worst way to die.

I…

Think about this for a second, what a cross entails.

Right, it's shameful to be on a cross, right?

You don't have any clothes on when you're on a cross.

You're displayed publicly.

Everyone knows, yeah, you're a horrible human being, 'cause whatever

you did to deserve to be on there.

That's what a cross represents, shame, torture, pain, horror

And Jesus says, "That's the type of life that I'm asking you to live.

Take up your cross and follow me."

And what he's saying is it's better for you to follow Jesus and endure

suffering, endure pain, endure torture, endure shame, rejection

than it is to gain the whole world and not follow Jesus

All right, following Jesus is gonna take you out of your comfort zone.

Following Jesus might make you very unsafe

And Jesus says it's worth it because your soul is more important than your safety.

Your soul is more important than your comfort.

Your soul is more important than

You might miss out on things, right?

You might miss out on, "Oh, well, I can't do this when I get older if I become

a Christian," or, "I, I can't do this right now be- if I became a Christian."

And Jesus is saying it's worth it.

It's so worth it because of what you get.

You keep your soul, right?

You keep who you, what you were really made for because you're, you're really

made to, to be with God, to enjoy Him.

You keep that, it's worth it to lose everything else

What he's also saying in verse 25 is, right, if you save your

life, you live for yourself, you, you save what your priorities

are, what your values are, right?

Maybe you don't wanna follow Jesus because it's too inconvenient for you, right?

It's too hard for you.

It's too boring for you.

It's not cool.

It's not fun.

Maybe that's why you're not following Jesus.

Jesus is saying that that easy life, that fun life, will kill you.

You'll lose it.

You'll lose your life

If you, if you live your whole life self-indulgently, right?

Making it all about you and not about Jesus, Jesus is

saying that that is suicidal.

You will die because you're gonna take in all of these things for

yourself and live for yourself.

It's gonna leave you empty.

It's gonna leave you unsatisfied.

It's gonna leave you regretting everything because you're gonna miss out

on Jesus, and so you'll lose your soul

And so if you're living for yourself, you are heading to your death.

That's what Jesus is saying.

If you wanna save your life, your priorities, your ambitions, your

desires, what you want from your life, if you're holding onto that, Jesus is

saying you're, you're killing yourself

But if you give your life away, you lose your life.

You say, "God, I don't wanna live for me, I wanna live for you."

Right?

"I don't want what I want from my friendships, I want what

you want from my friendships.

I don't want what I want from my money, I want what you want with my money.

I don't wanna do my schedule how you want me to do my schedule.

I don't wanna spend my time how you want me to…

How I wanna spend my time.

I wanna spend it how you want me to spend it."

You lose your life.

You say, "It's not about me anymore.

I'm not looking to get everything that I want out of this life.

I'm giving it away and saying, 'God, you take it.

Use it.'"

Jesus, that's how you gain it.

You find real life that way.

'Cause that's how you're really meant to live.

Right?

You're not really meant to live for yourself.

No one actually likes living for themself.

It's fun for a little bit, and it gets real old real fast

So what Jesus is saying is your soul is worth more than your plans, your safety,

your comfort, your short-term happiness.

If you live for yourself, you'll, you'll lose everything.

You won't be able to keep any of the stuff you, you got for yourself.

But you give your life away, you say, "Jesus, I wanna live for you," you gain

everything, 'cause God is so much better than what you would have had for yourself.

It's why he says it's more blessed to give than to receive.

It's better.

It's happier.

It's more satisfying

Something else that you might notice here is that your soul, what Jesus

says, is more important than your body, and he makes that really

clear somewhere else in, in Matthew.

He says that, uh, you shouldn't be worried about people who can only kill your

body and if they can't harm your soul.

Instead, you should be afraid of people who can kill your body and your soul.

You should be more scared of things that are bad for your soul than

things that are bad for your body.

Does that make sense?

You should be more worried about threats to your soul than threats to your body

Because if someone hurts your body, guess what?

You'll get a new one

You, one day, right?

You're all, you're not gonna be in his mati anymore

You're gonna be in a new body, and you're either gonna be in a real body

in heaven or a real body in hell.

But you're gonna get a new body

So if someone can hurt your body, that's bad.

But if they can hurt your soul, you only get one of those, and you're stuck with it

forever, and the consequences last forever

Our culture, we, we love to trick people to care about their

bodies more than their souls.

That our culture wants you to care more about your body, how you look, how you

dress, how much you can lift, how hard you can throw, how fast you can run, whether

people like you and like your body.

Our culture wants you to care about all of that more than your soul.

Is your soul healthy?

Maybe you've never even thought about it before.

Is your soul healthy?

Is your soul strong?

Is your soul resilient?

Is your soul happy?

I saw this stat the other day that, uh, the global wellness economy is $6.8

trillion.

So this is all the money that gets spent on these types of things, right?

That's, uh…

For some reason, these numbers feel bigger than this number to me.

Like $1,300 billion feels bigger than 6.8

trillion.

I don't know why.

But these are the things that we spend our money on.

This was more than IT, like tech.

This was more than, um, I forget what else, but it was more than

things that you'd think, "Oh, yeah, that's way more important," right?

But our culture, this is what we spend our money on.

We spend our money on healthy eating, twice as much as public health.

We spend our money on physical activity, right?

That's like gym memberships and, and all that fun stuff.

Um, this is what we value, right?

Jesus says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

This is what our culture values.

Our culture values

The outer person.

And God cares about your soul

Now your soul and your body, they're related, right?

They're, they're connected.

They impact each other, right?

So really when you think about your body, you should think about,

how does my body serve my soul?

And maybe that's a new concept for you, but for example, when

you think about exercise, right?

Exercise is good.

We'd say y- you…

if you're…

it helps you build self-control, it helps you, um, be healthy and be able

to enjoy God's good gifts, right?

We say that's a good thing, right?

But the primary reason you should exercise is 'cause it's good for your soul, right?

It helps you tell your body what to do, right?

That's a good thing for you to be in control of your body and not your

body to be in control of you, right?

So we would say, "Oh yeah, you should exercise 'cause it's

good for your soul," right?

Or maybe exercising helps you trust the Lord more because it

helps you think more clearly.

Or maybe exercising helps you serve others well because you're

in better condition to help people.

You're in better condition to help people move their things or, or carry

their stuff or protect people, right?

So when you think about your body, you should think about,

how is my body serving my soul?

Am I using my body for things that last a long- longer or am I,

am I just using my body for me?

Am I just using my body for surface level things?

Right, so it's not that your body's bad, and it's not that your body's unimportant.

Your body's really important.

Your body really matters.

But your, your soul just matters even more, right?

And they, they impact each other.

Your soul impacts your body, your body impacts your soul.

But Jesus says that you should care more about your soul than your body.

You should care about your body a lot, but you should care even more about your soul.

So maybe this week you should care, you maybe, you should even, maybe

this, this is what you should do.

Maybe you should think about, how much time do I spend taking care of my body?

And maybe you think about all the time you spend getting ready, all

the time you spend cleaning yourself, all the time you spend working out.

And then think about, how much time do I spend on my soul?

What do I, how do I care about my soul?

What does that even look like?

Well, it's your spiritual health, right?

How much time do you spend talking to God?

How much time do you spend having conversations that are good for your soul?

How much time do you spend taking in God's word?

And maybe compare those two numbers and think about, okay, what does my life say I

care more about, my s- my body or my soul?

That might be a good starting place for you.

But think about that.

Do you…

Am I investing more money, time, effort, anxiety into my soul or my body, right?

Because you'll get a new body.

You won't get another soul

And maybe this is all just big stuff, right?

You're like, "Well, that's in the future," right?

My soul doesn't matter right now, it matters in the future.

But how you get to the future is now, right?

Day by day, you are becoming the person you will be, right?

You're becoming today who you're gonna be tomorrow, right?

And so eventually you will get down the road, you live enough todays,

you, you get there, and you will be that's either a person who's given

away their soul and tried to gain the world, or someone who has given away

their life to follow Jesus, right?

And so there's…

I want you to see that there's urgency about it, okay?

So our second point, second question is why the urgency about my soul?

One reason you should care a lot about your soul immediately, and not just

wait till you're older or wait till it matters more to you, um, is, I,

I read this this week, that God and Satan both care a ton about your soul.

Maybe you never thought about it before, but think about how

much God cares about your soul.

What did God do to save souls?

Well, he killed His son.

That's how much God cares about your soul.

That's how important your soul is to God.

God said, "The only way for me to get your soul, to purify your soul from your

sin, is I have to send my son to die."

That's how precious your soul is to God

And Satan actually cares a lot about your soul too.

Satan wants to destroy your soul

And even thinking about what we just talked about, Satan would love to

give you a healthy body, a happy life, and everything the world has to offer

if it means he can take your soul

He would love to make your life super easy so you don't feel like you need God, so

that you, you think, "Well, I'm, I'm good.

I don't, I don't need to follow Jesus."

Satan would love to do that.

So maybe that's why your life is so easy, is because he wants

you to think you don't need God.

So I just want you to see there's urgency here, right?

There's, there's a…

In a sense, there's a battle for your soul, for your loyalty, for your…

what you think is important

Now, I don't want you to be urgent and, and freaked out about it, right?

I want you to be urgent and because of that, think clear-headed, right?

I don't know if you've ever seen, um, like, when people like

Navy SEALs or they try to do…

They're doing, like, an operation, and it almost looks like they're not in a hurry.

You ever seen something like that before where they're, they're, like, clearing

a building and it, it almost looks like they're, they're not in a hurry

because they're not stressed, right?

They're, they're very smooth and coordinated and all that stuff, and the

phrase that they use is they say, um, "Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast."

So if you're in a hurry, you're frantic, you're trying to, you

know, load your gun and do all things and clear the corner, right?

You never seen someone try to play laser tag, right?

And they're like…

You know, the really good people at laser tag, they're, like, jumping up

and down and they're changing the height of the, the sensors and everything.

Have you guys never done this before?

So, okay, when I was at…

One time, I was at, uh, what's it called?

Laser Quest, I think, and, um, the high score dude, like, who

had the all-time highest score played in the same round as me.

Ooh.

Like, he used to work for Laser Quest, and he, like, had the all-time

highest score at this location.

It was like, you know, millions of points, and I played with him, and he, he was…

He was like a…

I was, I think, in middle school, and he, he was at least in college.

I'm like, "What are you doing?"

Like, he, he's like the, the king of Laser Quest.

He's, you know, he's probably, like, 20 years old just shooting a bunch of

12-year-olds with his l- laser thing.

Dude was, like, jumping and, and doing all this stuff and changing

his, his angle and everything.

It was, it was crazy.

Um, you don't see, like, real soldiers doing that, right?

Real soldiers are very calm, and they're not stressed, and the whole

point, right, is if you do things slowly, you don't make mistakes,

and it's actually quicker, right?

Um, that's the whole point.

So when you're thinking about urgency about your soul, right?

I don't want you to freak out and just be like, "Oh, my God,

all this stuff right now."

Right?

I want you to, to think clear-headedly about your soul, okay?

Um, the first thing I want you to, to think about your soul

is that your soul is immortal.

Maybe you've never thought about this before.

We talked about this at winter camp, right?

Um, we talked…

Remember we talked about lines and rays and line segments?

Do you remember this?

Everyone loves geometry, right?

Um, so a line has the arrows on both ends, right?

'Cause it goes on forever in both directions.

And then a line segment has the points on both ends 'cause it, it stops, right?

And then there's the one with a point on one end and an arrow on one

end, and that's called a ray, right?

Jordan just remembered this.

This is what happens when you're homeschooled.

No, uh, I'm just kidding.

Um, no, so Jor- yeah, so array, right, array goes on forever in one direction,

but it starts, it has a starting point and not an ending point, right?

So God is a, he's a line.

He doesn't have a starting point, and he doesn't have an ending point.

You and I, we have a starting point, but we don't have an ending point.

Maybe you never thought of this before, but … 'Cause even if

you die, your soul keeps existing.

And then one day, uh, Daniel says we'll all be resurrected, and some of us are

gonna live forever with the Lord in heaven, and some of us are gonna be

forever away from the Lord in hell.

But regardless, as a, a Christian rapper once said, uh, we're all gonna live

forever, whether you want to or not.

Some of us will end up holy, and some of us will end up hot.

Um, I can't tell you who said that.

But, um, I use the term Christian very loosely, but that's the point, right?

You are gonna live forever.

You are gonna live forever

And this life is gonna be a very short percentage, very small

percentage of that, of your forever.

And that's why your soul matters so much, is you are going to live forever

But the second thing is that your, your soul is in danger.

And I want you to even think about this as a Christian.

Jesus, when he says these words, right, when he asked this question,

he's talking to his disciples.

He's telling his disciples, "Don't lose your soul."

And yes, if you're a Christian, you can't lose your soul.

But how do you keep your soul as a Christian?

You keep trusting Jesus, right?

You don't just trust Jesus once and then, "All right, I'm good to go.

Put a bow on it, I can do whatever I want now."

As a Christian, what keeps you saved is you keep trusting Jesus.

That's how God keeps you saved, is you keep holding onto him,

and you keep trusting him.

So even though you say, "Yeah, I am a Christian," there is still, right…

Uh, as we talked about in 1 Peter, 1 Peter 5, Satan is still after you.

He still wants you to do damage to your soul, right?

Maybe you don't completely lose your soul, but you could do a lot

of damage to your spiritual health.

So your soul is immortal.

Your soul is in danger.

And then also, your soul, uh, actually determines how happy you are.

Jesus says he offers rest for your soul, right?

You've probably heard this verse: "Take my yoke upon you."

A yoke, right?

Not the thing in the egg, but the thing that goes on the oxen.

Um, that's the other yolk.

That's like yolk, you know, like folk music.

Um, this is yoke like woke.

Uh, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls."

This is what everyone's after.

Every single person wants to, to feel rest, to feel peace, feel

like you've, you've made it, right?

You're, you don't have to worry about anything anymore.

Everyone is chasing that.

And we all look to different things to help us feel that rest.

Some of us think it comes from money.

Some of us think it comes from relationships.

Some of us think it comes from getting all the things we want.

We all look to different things to find this rest, and Jesus says,

"What's really gonna make you happy is if you trust me with your soul."

Right?

Jesus is ultimately who fills your soul.

And so if you really wanna be happy, you need to trust Jesus.

You won't be happy apart from God because you are made to trust Jesus

And so our third question is then, well, what do I do?

What should I do with my soul?

What should I do with my soul?

Well, kinda like what we talked about with urgency is it happens little by little.

What you do with your soul is happening with the thousands of

little decisions you make every day.

What you do with your soul is not just a couple big

decisions that you make along…

It's not just, oh, well, the, the most important things are where I

go to college and who I get married to and where I, what I do for work.

Right?

There's, maybe you think, "Oh, yeah, that, that, that's gonna

decide what happens with my soul."

That's not true.

What happens with your soul is day by day you make a bunch of decisions

to either live for God or not to.

And even if you're a Christian, that determines the health of your soul.

Is your soul happy?

Is your soul struggling?

Is your soul strong?

Is your soul resilient?

Or is your soul weak and flimsy and anxious and

stressed and worried and angry?

So what do I do with my soul?

Well, Jesus gives us two, uh, contradictory instructions,

right, in this question.

Uh, well, I'll go…

Let's go back here.

Verse 25.

He says, "You should save your soul."

Where?

These up.

He says, "Find your soul," sorry, and he says you should

lose it at the same time, right?

It's, it's contradictory instructions.

What he's saying is you, you should…

Don't lose your soul, right?

He's saying, "Don't give it away to gain the world."

Don't lose it.

We talk about that a lot, right?

Don't, don't attach your soul to the world and say, "I wish, want…

I need all this stuff to, to fill me up," right?

But what he's also saying is you need to give it away, right?

The…

It's, it's backward, and that's the point.

Jesus is saying to save your life, you give it away.

To, to really fill yourself up, you empty yourself.

You say, "God, I'm gonna live for you, not for me."

And really what happens is you get way more out of that than you ever

would trying to live for yourself.

So you keep your soul by giving your soul away, but you just

give it away to the right person.

You give it away to Jesus instead of the world, right?

Jesus asks everything from you, right?

Following Jesus, in a sense, is losing yourself, right?

That's why he says, "Deny yourself.

Take up your cross and follow me."

You're, you're losing yourself, but you're gaining the real you.

You're gaining what you're made for, because you're made for God.

And so what I, I really, what I want you to think about is

what's the condition of my soul?

Is my soul trusting Jesus?

Is my soul living for Jesus?

Is my soul healthy or is my soul selfish?

Is my soul living for the world?

And we'll talk about that more in small groups, okay?

Let's pray, and we'll get you to, to groups.

God, we are

Grateful that you tell us what we need to know about ourselves.

Um, you are the expert on who we are, and so I pray that you help us to

trust you, to remember that you know us better than we know ourselves,

and that we will remember that your instructions for us are for our good.

They come from a God who loves us, a God who made us to, to

live for you because you care.

You want what's best for us.

And so help us to, to trust you with that, to trust you with our souls.

I pray for students here who are living for the world, that you would

help them to see that it's empty, that they, they won't get anything out of

it, and they'll regret it forever.

Um, and I pray that you give them the, the clarity, the, the,

to be able to, to realize that.

I pray that you shake them awake and help them to see, um, the

self-destructive desires they have and, and turn to, to follow you.

So we pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.