Losing Our "Selfie"

And so when Kevin said I could preach on anything today, so I have a more relaxed style, so

actually I hoped that I could finish in a time where we could have a question and answer time

afterwards. But he said you could preach on anything today, and I said, okay, what can I

preach on? Because I know we always want to be about the Word and God's Spirit and what God's

doing in his life and so in people's lives. And so I thought I would just preach on this verse

that I have been working on in my heart for 43 years, 43 years. So you would think that

God came into my life and opened my eyes to Jesus when I was 10 years old. My family were

not Christians. They were just, my dad was a military man. So, but Jesus came into my life

and showed me God, the Holy Spirit, and just, I fell in love. And not soon afterwards, this

verse, the verse that you read today, was this verse that came into my mind and to my heart,

and I started to struggle with it. So I have been struggling with this for 43 years. So

you would think if you've done something for 43 years, you should have it perfect, right?

And the amazing thing about the Christian life is, is that God and the Holy Spirit always

has a way of turning your life upside down and showing you different aspects of who you

are and how much you really need him. Because often we think we have our life all together

and we can do it. And so this is the passage today. So I want to share it with you and hopefully

you can struggle with me now for the next 43 years. So when I come back in five years,

you can tell me how much I bothered you by giving you this verse to think about, which

is awesome to be bothered by God's word. So I want to start with a story. A friend told

me this story. He and some buddies were canoeing down a river in Northern America. The water was

very, very, very, very, very cold. And they were on this canoe trip in Maine. And as they were going

down this river, they looked up ahead and they saw this waterfall in this dam, this big dam.

And most of the people left. They got out of the water because they said there's just no way,

the water was freezing, there's no way they can navigate, they could do it. But one guy said,

I can do this. And so he went and he tried to navigate his way through the dam and he got

caught in the waves of the water and he went over the waterfall. And when he went over the waterfall,

like my notes just did, when he went over the waterfall, he fell out of his canoe. And he fell

out of his canoe and the water was very, very, very, very cold, right? And the dam is like this.

And at the base of the water where he fell into was this whirlpool. And this whirlpool was swirling

around and he's trying to fight this whirlpool because this whirlpool is trying to suck him in.

And in his mind, he thinks, if I go into this whirlpool, I'm going to die. It's going to kill me.

I'm going to drown. Now his friends are helpless because he's so far into the water. The water is ice

cold. They can't help. They're yelling. They're screaming. They're throwing ropes. No ropes can

get to him. And he's just fighting. And he about to get away from the whirlpool and then it sucks him

back in. And he's swimming and he's swimming. He's about to get away from the whirlpool and it sucks him

back in. And the water is so cold that eventually he dies. He dies of hypothermia. And the friend said

that the moment he died and his body relaxed, his body went into that whirlpool and it went under the

water. And like three seconds later, the body popped up 20 yards down the river.

And if he was alive, he could have swam to the shore and saved himself. But he spent so much

time struggling and struggling against the current that he had died. And his friends looked at this

and they thought, what a tragedy. Because the thing, the whirlpool that he thought was going to kill him

would have actually saved him. Because he would have gone down three seconds. He would be over here. He

could climb out and he could survive. And the reason I tell you this story is because in his world,

safety looked counterintuitive. The safe thing would have been to go into the hole.

But in his mind, he thought that would have brought death. And that's the message of this story today.

That often when we walk with God, God's going to take us to places that look at the world.

That it's going to look like it's death. That it's going to look like it's very dangerous.

That it looks like it's going to be impossible. It looks like there's no way that I can get out of it.

And to save ourselves is going to be counterintuitive. You know, counterintuitive

means the opposite of what you think is going to happen. And so many of us today in the world

are going to struggle like my friend did in the cold water trying to fight God in their walk with God.

But if they've just given up and let God take control of their life, they would be free.

Does that make sense? So I ask a lot. I ask a lot of times. I'm going to ask,

does that make sense? Because sometimes it doesn't make sense to me.

So the passage we read today is in the life of Jesus.

And it's the last five days of Jesus' life.

So for the last three years, Jesus and his disciples have been going around to Galilee.

They've been doing amazing things. They've been feeding 5,000 people.

They've been healing people physically. They've been healing people spiritually.

They're casting out demons. They're raising people from the dead.

They're bringing people hope. They're bringing people freedom.

And all of a sudden, Jesus and his followers are coming into Jerusalem for the Passover.

Now, Jerusalem is a city that's normally like 20,000 people,

like the size of Pokh Fulam or like Baggio Villa.

But in this celebration, there's over 1 million people there.

I mean, everybody comes to the temple because they want to celebrate.

And Jesus is coming, and he's riding on this white donkey.

And it's this prophecy that happened many, many hundreds of years ago

about the Savior coming to Jerusalem.

And all the people who have been following Jesus,

they're on the road, and they're waving these branches,

and they're singing, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna,

which means, come save me, come quickly, I need you, come save me.

Because in their mind, they think that freedom's going to happen

because Jesus is going to come, and he's going to bring power.

And he's going to fight the Romans.

And he's going to bring power.

And he's going to fight the leaders, the religious leaders.

And so they want this freedom that's going to happen.

But the passage in the Bible says that that's not what Jesus came to do.

Jesus came for one reason.

Jesus came to die on a cross.

And we're told later on that he came to die for you and for me.

And that if he didn't die, if he didn't give his life,

then you and I would be lost.

We would still have God's wrath, God's judgment,

that we'd have to fix on our own, but we can't do that.

And so Jesus, all the noise, save us, save us, power, strength.

But what he really is going to do is he's going to save you and me by dying.

Does that make sense?

And so the passage says that Jesus is probably in the temple and he's teaching.

And we're told that these Greek men come up to talk to Jesus.

Now Greek just means anybody who's not Jewish.

So these non-Jewish men come up to talk to Jesus and they go to Philip and Andrew

because Philip and Andrew have Greek names.

And so they said, hey, we're going to go talk to the Greek men.

The Greek men are going to bring us to Jesus and Jesus is going to answer all our questions.

We really don't know why they're there.

But the interesting thing is that when Jesus hears that men are there to visit him,

he answers very strangely.

He doesn't say, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on in, let's do dinner.

Or he doesn't say, no, no, no, I'm too busy.

Or he doesn't say, yeah, yeah, put them on my schedule.

Schedule them in and I'll see them Tuesday.

He says something really strange.

He says this, he says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

And what he's saying there is when he says the hour, he means the hour of his death.

That the time for him has come to die.

Glorified.

And that word glorified there is a really, really powerful word in Greek.

And it means to be made heavy.

To be made important.

To be made of ultimate importance.

To be made of ultimate significance.

To be made the most important thing.

And so what Jesus is telling all of us is he says, hey, when I go to the cross and I die,

God's going to do something counterintuitive in my death.

Instead of making me weak, he's going to do something awesome.

And because he's going to do something awesome, you and I are here today at Watermark.

Because he chose to give his life instead of keep his life.

So what I want to do is I want to quickly, and I don't know how much time I have,

but I want to look at the passage and I want to look at three things really quickly.

I want to look at a principle.

I want to look at a practice.

And I want to look at a promise.

You got that?

A principle, a practice, a promise.

A principle.

First, a principle.

It's found in verse 24.

So when you look at your verse 24 and you read it,

whenever you see the words truly, truly, in Greek it actually means amen, amen.

So usually you put amen, amen after a really important statement.

Like so-and-so is going to win the World Cup.

Amen.

Like really important, right?

But when Jesus uses amen here in the beginning,

when he says amen in the beginning of the statement,

what he's saying is, hey guys, listen up.

Because what I'm about to tell you is the most important thing you need to know.

What I'm about to tell you as my followers is this is really important, so listen up.

And so this is what he says.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

So Jesus uses this illustration of farming.

And it's like he has this piece of grain or rice in his hand.

And he says, if you just keep the grain of rice in your hand and keep it here, you think you're keeping it safe.

But you're not really.

Because it just stays by itself.

And it's not safe.

But if you open your hand and you give your life away, that grain of rice falls into the ground.

And it looks like it's going to die.

But it doesn't die.

It produces this fruit over and over and over of more rice and more rice and more rice.

And so Jesus is saying, hey, this is what's going to happen to my life.

I could guard my life.

I could fight off the Romans.

I could do anything.

But instead, I'm going to give my life for you.

So that 2,000 years later, you are the fruit of his life.

But what he's also saying is we as watermark, we need to hold our life open also.

And we need to be willing to give our life in anything that God gives us back to God.

And that is scary.

And that's difficult.

And sometimes I struggle with that.

Because I want to keep my life.

And I want to keep control over my life.

And when I look around Hong Kong, and I talk to my friends who aren't in church,

they tell me things like, oh, man, you need to look out for yourself, dude.

That sounds Mexican, didn't it?

Whenever I try to sound Chinese, I always sound Hispanic.

I'm sorry.

Too long in Texas.

But Hong Kong, my friends say, look out for yourself.

Take care of yourself.

You only live once.

If you don't take care of yourself, no one else is going to take care of yourself.

You need to watch out because they're out for you.

Don't be too friendly to people because they're going to use you.

That's the message I hear.

But the message of the Bible and the message of Jesus,

and the messages he wants for us at Watermark,

is that don't worry about yourself.

Because God will take care of you.

The same God who took care of Jesus will take care of you.

And so there's this principle, and the principle is this.

Life comes by dying.

Can you repeat that for me?

Life comes by dying.

If you try to keep your life,

Jesus says you're going to lose it.

But if you give your life to God,

he's going to do something awesome and something amazing in it.

So that's the principle.

The second thing I want us to look at is the practice.

And the practice is found in verse 25.

And this is a word that we get in trouble with all the time in my family.

And the practice basically is paraphrased,

and this is what the practice says.

The practice says,

If you love your life,

and the Greek word there is suke.

Suke.

Suke means me,

my stuff,

my schedule,

my honor,

my pride,

my power,

my reputation,

my job,

my family,

my three houses in Hong Kong

where I live in one,

I rent two.

All these things, right?

That's the way it used to be, right?

It still is, right?

So those are mine,

mine.

And Jesus says,

If you love your suke,

what's he say?

You're going to lose it.

But if you hate your life,

now this is a really strong word, guys,

because in my family,

we can't use the word hate.

Whenever the kids say hate to each other,

I hate you.

Wow,

we just get in trouble,

and Christina gets all angry,

and when Christina gets angry,

everybody gets angry,

and, you know,

it's just,

it's not good.

But what he says here is,

if you hate your life,

if you,

if you love God

more than the things of the world,

that if you love God

more than the things of Hong Kong,

that if you love God

more than comfort

in health,

in your reputation,

in your money,

in the awesome schools

that your kids go to,

in the country club memberships,

that if you love God

more than those things,

then you're going to have

this amazing,

amazing life.

Because those things

in the culture of Hong Kong

look so good,

but in God's kingdom,

they bring death.

And so the passage says this,

and I'm going to say something

that's going to be very hard,

and you can argue with me later,

you could peeping me,

criticize me,

right?

But you can argue with me,

but this is what the passage says.

The passage says,

in this room,

the passage says,

in Hong Kong,

there are only two types of people.

Two types.

They're the people

who love themselfies.

And they're the people

who love Jesus.

They're the people

who worship themselves.

And they're the people

who worship Jesus.

They're the people

who try to build this kingdom

so that when people look at them,

they go,

ah.

And they're the people

who give their things away.

So then they look at them,

they go,

God.

They're the people

who live

and look like Hong Kong.

Or it's the people

who live

and look like Jesus.

So I've got to ask you the question.

Which one are you?

Be honest.

If I were to follow you around

today

or tomorrow

or next week

and I were to look at

how you use your time,

how you treat your family,

how you use your money,

how you love people,

how you sacrifice for others,

which person

would I say

that you are?

Maybe I should ask the question,

which person

do you want to be?

Because I struggle

in that area.

And the interesting thing

in this passage

is that Jesus

doesn't hide anything.

You know,

I was coming over

on an airplane

and we used our frequent flyers

to come here

and we thought,

great,

we're going to come to Hong Kong,

we have frequent flyers,

free miles.

But then we tried

to use our free miles,

there were all these rules

and regulations,

stipulations,

and some of the reading

is like really,

really,

really small,

right?

And I was just thinking,

I get free miles.

No.

You have to do this,

you have to do this,

you have to do this,

you have to do this.

And the awesome thing

about the gospel

and this passage

is Jesus doesn't hide anything.

Jesus says right away,

hey,

my gift of eternal life

to you is free.

It's this gift.

I gave it to you

on the cross.

I love you so much,

I'm an innocent man,

I died for you,

I give it away.

It's a free gift.

Now after we take that gift,

Jesus says,

we start to change.

Because we thought

of that free gift so much

and we thought of

how God loves us so much

that we start to treat

people differently.

We start to love

people differently.

We start to take

people differently.

We start to take care

of people differently.

So the gift is free.

But when you come

into the family,

you start to act

like the family.

And you can see

my kids up here,

we all start to act

like each other

and they look like each other

and some of us

are more handsome

than other people.

But we act the same,

right?

And that's what Jesus

is saying in this passage.

It's interesting,

in verse 25,

he says,

he who loves his life

loses it.

He who hates his life

in this world

will keep it

to life eternal.

And that word hate

there in Jesus' world

means a comparison.

So what Jesus is saying

is like this.

I love pizza

and rice.

I don't really like rice.

Okay, so that's a bad,

that's a bad example.

I've eaten too much rice.

But let's say,

I love pizza and hamburgers.

Compared to my love

for pizza,

I hate hamburgers.

Ming Bai,

make sense?

I said,

I love my wife

and I love my children.

But compared to my love

for my wife, Christina,

I hate my children.

Now, I love them both, right?

You got to hear me.

Because sometimes people hear this

and they go,

oh, Jesus wants us

to hate people.

No.

What he's saying is,

compared to your love

for dim sum,

you should hate

Diet Coke

or something like that.

Does that make sense?

So it's a very,

very powerful word.

What Jesus is really saying

is this.

When we come into his family,

our love for him

our love for Jesus

should make everything else

that we used to love

in the world

look like hate.

Look like nothing.

So that's what happened

in that passage

we read about Mary.

Mary,

Sister Martha,

and Mary is there

and she comes into this meeting

in verse 8,

1 through 8,

and she comes into this meeting

and Mary does

some very strange things.

Mary comes into the meeting,

she lets her hair down.

You never do that.

Mary comes into the meeting

and she's weeping and crying

and showing emotion.

You would never do that.

She's losing her dignity.

She's losing face.

Everything's bad.

No good.

Mary comes into the meeting

and she gives this perfume bottle.

This perfume bottle

was 300 denarii.

Now there were not banks

in Jesus' day.

People lived one denarii

for one day.

So this thing that Mary had

maybe was the most expensive thing

in her house.

It was something

that she was guarding.

She was protecting it.

She was hoping that one day

if life got really difficult

she would have this money

to save herself.

And so she comes in

and she breaks this bottle

and pours it all onto Jesus

as a sacrifice and an offering.

And everybody around her

is like,

what are you doing?

You need to take care of yourself.

One day you're going to have

a rainy day

and you're not going to have a job

and who's going to take care of you?

But what Mary was saying

was this.

Compared to my love for Jesus,

everything else

looks like hate.

And I can give Jesus

the most important things

in my life

because Jesus

is going to take care of me.

And so Mary was willing

to get rid of her sacrifice,

her reputation,

her wealth,

her security,

her ego.

She just laid it all out there

and gave it to Jesus

because she was in love with Jesus.

So every time I read this passage

for 43 years,

I have to ask myself,

do I love Jesus like that?

Am I willing to just give him

my ego,

my reputation,

my American Express card

that I always rely on,

my kids,

my pastorate?

Do I love Jesus more

than all those things?

And the passage says

that as we look at

what Jesus has done for us,

we realize

how much he loves us.

And that if we build our life

on anything else

but Jesus,

we're going to get lost.

We're going to fall apart.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

You got a Dan?

Yes or no?

Yes, makes sense?

No, it makes sense.

Dan?

Dan, I'm glad to see

you finally married Soda.

I'm glad.

Yes.

I grew up in the north,

Montana.

So if you're from Canada

and here we call

Canada Northern Montana.

Because you want to be

just like Montana.

Right, Millen?

I remember hearing this story

of this lumberjack.

And he was told

to go out

and cut down

all these trees.

It was about three acres

of trees,

a lot of trees.

His boss said,

you need to go in there

and you need to chop down

all these trees

because we're going

to cut them all down

and we're going to use them

for lumber

and then we're going

to plant new trees.

And so the guy

went out there

and he's looking

at all the trees

and he starts to chop

on one tree

and as he's chopping

on this tree

he looks up

and about four trees

down there's an eagle

and the eagle

is building his nest

in this tree.

And the lumberjack

is thinking,

oh, crap.

Can I say crap here?

Okay.

I get in trouble

when I say crap

in America.

They're like,

oh man.

So the lumberjack

says crap.

I'm going to have

to cut that tree down.

And the eagle's

building a nest in it.

So he goes over

to the tree,

he takes his axe

and takes the flat end

and he just kind of

beats it against the tree.

Boom, boom, boom.

The eagle freaks out

and the eagle gets up

because the eagle's

building the nest

and the eagle sees

the lumberjack

and the eagle flies away

and the eagle flies away

to another tree

about 20 yards away.

So the lumberjack's

watching that

and he's like,

I've got to cut

that tree down too.

So he goes over

to that tree

and he takes the axe

and he hits it

against the tree

and it shakes

the bird up

and the bird stops

making its nest

and it flies over

to another tree.

The eagle does this

four times.

Finally,

the lumberjack

goes over

and he hits the fourth tree

and the eagle flies away

and there's a mountain

and the eagle starts

to build his nest

in the mountain.

And the story tells us

that no matter what tree

you build your house in,

in the end,

all the trees

are going to come down.

You're going to build

your life on your health.

You're going to build

the tree of success.

You're going to build

a tree of popularity.

You're going to build

a tree of reputation

or money.

In the end,

all those trees

are going to fall down.

And the only tree

or the only thing

that's going to stand

is the rock.

that rock

is Jesus Christ.

So if you build

your life

on anything else,

if you love anything else

more than you love Jesus,

you're going to be lost.

Jesus wants us to know that

so that we can love him.

So there's a principle,

there's a practice,

hate your life,

and there's a promise,

and the promise is this.

if you trust God,

if you let that piece

of rice fall to the ground,

if you start to look

more like God

instead of the things

of Hong Kong,

if you hate the things

that you used to think

were awesome

because now Jesus

is even more beautiful,

the promise is that

God will never leave you,

that he's always there.

and that he will honor you

just like he honored his son.

And he's going to do

something awesome

in your life

if you let him.

Does that make sense?

I was counseling a friend.

One of the great privileges

I have as a pastor

is I get to talk to people

whose lives are in trouble

often.

And this friend

three weeks ago

was talking to me

and he said,

I've made some choices,

I've actually made

some choices for God

and I feel like

my life is out of control.

My wife is leaving me,

my kids are crazy,

my kids are crazy,

I feel like God

has abandoned me.

Have you ever felt like

God has abandoned you?

The passage says

it's God's children.

God has abandoned me.

God has abandoned me.

I feel like God

is Jesus.

That the only person

that God has ever abandoned

is Jesus.

Because Jesus hung on a cross

and he cried out,

my God,

my God,

why have you forsaken me?

And the message

of the gospel

and the message

of the passage

is God

forsook his son

so that one day

he would not have to

forsake you.

There's a principle,

you've got to die

to live.

It looks counterintuitive.

When you're doing it,

he's going to ask you

to do these things

and you're going to go,

man,

if I really tithe that much,

if I really give up

one of my houses

for God's kingdom,

who's going to take care of me?

It's going to be death.

If I really trust the Lord

with my children

instead of trying to guard them

and manage them

and do these things,

what's going to happen to them?

If I really speak up

in my office space

the next time

somebody says something

that just isn't right,

what's going to happen to me?

The passage says

that God's going to take us

to a place

that's going to look like

death,

but if we trust him,

he is going to do

something awesome.

There's a practice,

hate your life,

and there's a promise

that God is always with you

and he'll never leave you

and he's going to honor you

as you trust him

and walk with him.

We're about to enter

into a time of communion

and I was praying

about how to end this sermon

because I have no idea

because I've been praying

about this sermon

for 43 years,

but my prayer for you,

Watermark,

as an awesome church,

I don't know what God

is calling you to die to.

I don't know what God

is calling you to hate

more than you love Jesus.

You know that.

God's Spirit will teach you that.

about 150 years

after Jesus died,

150 years,

there was a large plague,

you know,

plague like a disease.

The disease hit

every city

in the Roman Empire.

You can read about it.

All the historians

talk about it.

There is a plague

and this bubonic plague

or some kind of plague.

It's hitting every city

in the Roman Empire

about 150 years

after Jesus died.

Thousands and thousands

and thousands

of people are dying.

I mean,

people are just leaving

their family

in the city

to die

because they are

so afraid of dying

they're escaping

and they're running away.

And so the cities

are just filled

with sick

and dying

people

except for the Christians.

And the Christians

said,

hey,

Christ died for us.

We don't have anything

else to fear.

What would it look like

if we stayed

and we loved

these people?

people?

What would it look like

if we stayed

and we took care

of these people?

And so the Christians

did it.

And you know what?

The Christians

died

by the thousands

because they were

giving their life

to help their enemies

and helping the relatives

of their enemies

and they were taking

care of people

and they didn't

have immunity.

They actually died

serving what God

wanted them to do.

But a little while

after the plague

left

and all the people

came back

into the cities,

the church,

which just used

to be really small,

exploded

because all these

people said,

I don't know

too much about Jesus,

but I know love

and I know

when people

sacrifice themselves

for their enemy

and I know

that's what Jesus

did on the cross.

And so because

the Christians

in the early church

were willing

to give their life,

the world

was changed.

I don't know

what the next

plague in Hong Kong

is.

I know that

there's a lot

of serious things

happening in Hong Kong.

I know that

there are a lot

of difficult decisions

you have to make

as a church

and as individuals.

But I do know

that as you

walk with the Lord

and hold your life

and your church

with open hand

and ask God

what does it look

like for me

to die

at my work?

What does it

look like for me

to die

in my marriage?

What does it

look like for me

to die

in my friends?

What does it

look like for me

to die

in my sports club?

What does it

look like for me

to serve

people

who I don't

like?

The passage

says that

as you do

that

God will

honor that

and he will take that little bit of sacrifice

and do something awesome for his kingdom.