"Deployed: Gaining by Leaving" Mark 10:28-30 Sunday Morning Worship Service

We just sang as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.

That, of course, is a line from the Battle Hymn of the Republic written in the Civil War.

We understand that Jesus' death on the cross is what accomplishes our salvation.

We can't advance our salvation one footstep in this world.

Jesus has procured it through his death on the cross, has paid for our sins, and has given it freely to us.

Our response in this world is to receive the gospel by faith and live out a transformed life.

Nevertheless, there is real evil in this world.

As I mentioned in the beginning of the service, we live in a world that has had slavery and Nazism and fascism running, in a sense, unchecked through the world until God in his sovereign providence has used nations to check those kind of sins.

And certainly that's what we honor on Memorial Day is people who are willing to lay their lives down for the cause of our own freedom.

And so as he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.

It's worth asking the question as we sing that kind of lyric.

What does it mean to make somebody free?

Free from what?

Is the question I always ask.

Free from what?

Is are we talking about political freedom?

Do we think that the heart of the Christian life is tethered or tied or connected to a sort of political freedom in this world?

And the answer to that is, of course, no, because there are so many believers in the world living out a full and vibrant Christian life in places where there is no political freedom.

And so it'd be very, I think, wrong-headed to say that that kind of political freedom is the Christian life that God has intended for people to live.

Not true.

So when we sing of freedom, what are we talking about?

Well, Jesus says, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

When you come to a knowledge of the salvation that is available through Jesus Christ, his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave, that frees you through forgiveness to lead a life filled with worship, but still frees you from what?

In one sense, it frees you from the power of sin.

But I think there's even more specific manifestations of the power of sin.

It frees you from the love of this world.

It frees you from thinking that your happiness is contingent upon all the things that our world wants you to believe.

Our world tells you that you can be happy if you only have more money.

Slightly better job.

A slight pay raise at your job.

After all, it's what you deserve.

And with that slight pay raise, you can get a slightly bigger house for your family.

I mean, it's I mean, come on.

Your family deserves a slightly bigger house than the one that you have, if we're being honest.

And with that slightly bigger house, of course, you would find it in a slightly better neighborhood.

And then in your slightly better neighborhood, your kids could be at a slightly better school.

That's you're you're their father or mother.

That's what you're supposed to provide for your kids.

And you know, if you do that well, you can even advocate for a slightly better political government than the one we have now.

And and that and happiness can be found there.

Bring in a better government with your better house and your better job and your better kids.

That's what our world says happiness is found in.

But if you you know, of course, that that's a fool's errand.

That if you look to the world for your happiness or your contentment, you will be disappointed.

You will never be making enough money, your job will never be good enough, the politics will never be good enough, you will never find rewards in that way.

If you look towards happiness even in your own family, you will ultimately be disappointed.

That's the slavery that people are ensnared in.

This idea that if they do enough in politics, if they do enough at work, if they have enough money, if they have a good enough family, if they have strong enough relationships in their family, then they will be happy.

That is the big lie of the world.

And that, of course, is a lie that is pumped out by all of our American culture.

And Jesus says that you can be free from that.

In the Civil War, there was a commander, Fort Sumner, Charleston, South Carolina, named Major Robert Anderson.

He was from Kentucky.

His family owned slaves.

When he joined the military, he was positioned down in Charleston, South Carolina, given command of Fort Sumtener, likely under the idea that because he was from Kentucky and a slave owner, he would have the ability to relate to those in South Carolina somewhat, I guess, more diplomatically than most of the regiment that he was leading, which was from New York.

He arrived there trying to make good relationships with the government of South Carolina.

And a month after his arrival, South Carolina seceded from the Union.

The first thing South Carolina did after seceding was send Major Anderson a letter asking for him to hand over Fort Sumner to the South Carolinians.

He denied, he declined.

Instead, he fortified it and moved his men there and dug in.

He was put under siege.

Many of his men were on the verge of starvation.

He evacuated his wife and his families.

Many of the soldiers had families there.

They evacuated and spent a month there on the verge of death.

In fact, a camp doctor came to him and said that we have nine days left, nine days maximum before we starve to death.

And he decided that he was going to stay and protect the fort there, the little island in the Bay of Charleston.

Word got out to the governor of South Carolina that they were on the verge of starvation, and so he sent them a letter saying, We'll let you surrender, we'll let you leave Fort Sumpner and go anywhere you want to.

You can have safe passage.

And he agreed.

He said he would do it under the condition that he gets to take down the American flag flying over that fort, salute it, fold it up, and take it with him.

And the governor of South Carolina declined.

Said, you may not take the flag.

And so they said, fine, we're dug in.

It will be death.

The South Carolinians attacked, started shelling the fort.

For over 48 hours, over two days, the attack began at nighttime.

A few days later, none of them had died.

And South Carolinians again approached them and said, Okay, you can leave, will you?

And he said, Only if we take the flag, otherwise we will die.

And so this time it was granted.

He was able to lower the flag, fold it up, put it in his backpack, and surrender the fort to the South Carolinians.

I want to finish that story later on this morning, but I want to draw your attention now to Mark chapter 10, verses 28 and 29, 30 is what we'll look at this morning.

Mark 10:28

It begins in a typical fashion with Peter began to say to him, when you see the phrase Peter began to say that, began to say as a little Greek idiom that means interrupted.

Peter's interrupting Jesus here.

See, we have left everything and followed you.

Before we finish going through that passage, what is Peter talking about here?

Mark chapter 10 is one of those chapters where everything is backwards.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Everything is upside down in Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

So to get to the point of the sermon this morning, I want to kind of back us into it by a little overview of Mark chapter 10 to see what Peter is saying here and why he is so insistent on it.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 10 is a chapter that exists to show you how wrong we think about the world, how wrong we are about everything.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

The chapter begins by Jesus talking about divorce.

The Pharisees were saying, Moses, let us get divorces from our wives, will you as well?

And Jesus says, You only think Moses did that because you are so stubborn, you don't understand anything Moses said.

The Pharisees thought that the law of Moses was given to them to help them have a fruitful and healthy and prosperous life.

If only they could keep the law, then all would go well with them.

And Jesus tells them that is not why Moses gave you the law.

Understand that the surface issue is divorce.

The bigger issue is how they view God's law, how they view the Old Testament.

Jesus tells them, Moses gave you that because you are so hard-hearted.

The law shows you your sin.

The law shows you how desperate you should be for forgiveness.

And yet you don't see it that way.

You see the law as a list of things for you to do to have a prosperous life.

How wrong can you be, Pharisees?

Moses wrote that to you because you are stubborn and sinful.

So that's just a little foretaste of what's going to happen in this chapter.

Jesus tells the Pharisees, you are wrong about how you see the Old Testament.

There's nothing more basic for the Pharisees to be wrong about than the Old Testament.

From there, the disciples are trying to keep children away from Jesus.

And Jesus tells the disciples, unless you come to me like a child, you cannot come to me at all.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to these children.

Again, notice the contrast.

The standard Jewish thinking would have been that the kingdom of heaven belonged to Israel, the kingdom of heaven belonged to the Pharisees who kept the law.

They were experts in the law, or at the very least, to the disciples or to the apostles or to the men with authority.

And Jesus pushes all of them aside and gathers children to him and says, the kingdom of heaven belongs to those with child-like faith.

Those that come bearing in nothing.

I mean, you know how a child receives a gift, right?

You've had children.

They can't earn their gift.

They don't show up with Christmas morning with cash.

They show up Christmas morning with empty hands.

They want.

And that's how we show up to God with saving faith.

We come empty-handed.

We can't earn our salvation.

We can't keep enough law to get it.

We just receive it.

Again, opposite of what the world teaches about salvation.

And Jesus says, I'd rather be surrounded by these kids than by you law-touting Pharisees.

And just then, the rich young ruler shows up.

He pushes his way through the kids and he comes to Jesus.

And this is like the target demographic.

I mean, it's easy to say the Jews esteemed power and money and all of that because the Jewish worldview elevated, you know, law keeping and elevated money, and that was a sign of God's blessing.

But forget the Jewish worldview for a second.

How about the American worldview?

What do we esteem?

You see God's blessing in your life when you are rich and when you have power.

And hey, it's even the third part of this for the American dream.

When you are young, you know, Americans want to be perpetually young.

That's the target demographic.

Disposable income, you know, young.

That's why you all dress younger than you are, you know?

It's not fooling anyone.

But that's what we want to be.

We want to portray ourselves as young and powerful and rich.

And here walks in the rich young ruler.

He's checking all the boxes.

And Jesus doesn't receive him.

This guy wants to be a follower of Christ.

And the disciples, at this point in Jesus' ministry, are still thinking that the Savior is going to come, overthrow Roman rule, and usher in an era of Jewish prosperity from Jerusalem.

And they're not getting anywhere.

They're up in Galilee with a bunch of fishermen, washed-up fishermen up there and surrounded by kids.

You know, their Messiah has got kids on his lap, has got these immoral women who are following him.

That's his biggest contingent right now, and the fishermen.

This is not going anywhere, and it's not going anywhere slowly.

And in walks a powerful, wealthy synagogue ruler.

Can picture the disciples' eyes growing big.

They were trying to ward off the kids to make room for important people, and here's an important person that wormed his way through anyway.

What a great opportunity.

And Jesus, instead of receiving this rich young ruler, scares him away.

He botches the whole evangelism encounter.

The rich young ruler says, What must I do to be saved?

And Jesus says, Keep the law perfectly.

And he, notice he's called the rich young ruler, not the rich young humble ruler.

He says, I've kept the law perfectly since I was a kid.

Which is an incredible thing to say.

And so Jesus says, you know what you lack?

Sell all you have and follow me.

Is it worth it to follow Jesus if it means parting with your power, parting with your money, parting with your influence?

Any hems and haws in the sides?

No.

It's not worth it.

That's the background of this.

Totally the opposite of what the world would say.

Because what does the world say?

You don't even need to be an expert in the Jewish world.

Your American culture serves just fine here.

What does the world say is the secret to a happy life?

The secret to being a good dad or a good mom.

It is, of course, those things.

It's being able to put your kids in the right school and have the right kind of house and have the right kind of job and the right influence in society, the right politicians.

You know, you feel like you have hope in those things.

And it's not there.

That's what Jesus is saying.

You have to leave your hope in those things.

This gets to a very basic premise about the gospel here that Peter understands.

Peter says, see, he interrupts.

Jesus, see.

We have left everything.

Again, the context here, the good the rich young ruler has left, he has left sad because he had so much.

The disciples can't believe this.

If you just jog your eyes up.

Verse 22, the rich young ruler went away sorrowful because he had so much stuff.

The disciples, verse 24, were amazed at this.

Amazed.

If you're familiar with the Gospel of Mark, you know when it uses the word amazed or shocked or surprised, that's a common Markan expression.

Uh it's all over the Gospel of Mark.

It means it's almost understated.

When Mark uses the word amazed, it means their mind was blown.

Like the NIV would be, they had their minds blown right out of their head.

They were, their jaw hit the ground, they fainted in shock and had a heart attack and had to be resuscitated.

That's what the word amazed means in the Gospel of Mark.

Because what did the disciples just see?

This was the answer to their prayers.

The rich young synagogue ruler rolls in and says, I want to be a disciple too.

And Jesus says, No, thank you.

I'd rather have the kids with me than you.

If the rich and the powerful can't follow Jesus, can anyone?

That's what the disciples asked.

Now they're exceedingly astonished.

They weren't just amazed, they were exceedingly amazed.

They were super astonished.

They said to him, Who can be saved then, Jesus?

If that guy can't follow, who can be saved?

And of course we know the answer to this.

Nobody can be saved.

With man, Jesus says in verse 27, it is impossible.

And that's been the point of this whole chapter.

You have the children who don't have anything, and yet they have the one thing required, which is saving faith.

You have the rich-young ruler who has everything and yet lacks the one thing required, which is saving faith.

Everything is backwards.

But the presupposition through this is that coming to Christ, and I'll put it on the screen for you, coming to Christ entails a leaving.

Coming to Christ entails a leaving.

This is the main point.

It's so obvious you might miss it.

It's so obvious because you're familiar with this conversation, I'm sure.

This isn't the first time you've seen this.

You're probably very familiar with it.

Familiarity might numb you to the reality of what Jesus is saying here, that for those who come to Christ, they are leaving their love for the things in this world.

They're leaving it behind.

That's what's impossible to do.

Do you understand that?

That is what is impossible for a person to do.

Because everything in our society and everything in your heart is militating against that.

Your world is telling you that you have to hold on to your money, you have to hold on to your family, you have to hold on to your property.

That's what matters.

It would be impossible for you to get to a point in your life where you said, you know what, I'm not going to look for my happiness in those things, I'm going to look to my happiness in the gospel.

Nobody would ever do that unless the Lord did it to them.

And so Jesus says, with man, it is impossible.

But all things are possible for God.

Notice the supposition here is that you have to leave your trust and your love of those things behind.

Jesus was not after superficial decisions, half-hearted commitments.

He wasn't even after more followers.

He was after people who are sold out to him.

And here's the reality of this text.

Here's what I hope this text does in your heart.

I mean, I know there are many people that attend a church over and over and over again.

You grow up going to church and you keep going to church and you keep going to church, but you have never got to this point in your life.

You have never surrendered your life to Christ.

You've never really said that you love Christ more than your family.

You've never really said that you love Christ and you trust Christ more than your property, more than your money.

You've never got to that point.

If your life is filled with those things, if you have a life filled with family and filled with money and filled with property or whatever, you have the things that you need, it's tempting to add Jesus to your life.

Just put Jesus into my already filled life and he'll make life better for me.

But Jesus isn't interested in making life better for you.

He's interested in you leaving that stuff behind.

To be the father, think of at this point in Mark what he has already said.

At this point in Mark chapter 10, he has already said, if you want to follow Christ, you must count the cost.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

You must pick up your cross and follow him.

You must deny your life, you must forfeit your life, you must become like a child.

The point of all of this is that God has to work in your heart to get you to surrender that stuff to him.

And when that work happens to your heart, your life gets reoriented around Jesus Christ.

And he's talking about the things that are most important to you.

Now understand Jesus isn't saying that if you're a father, for you to become a Christian, you have to leave your children and your wife.

Obviously, Paul says a husband who doesn't provide for your wife is worse than an unbeliever.

He's talking about an order of preference, an order of love.

If you have to choose between this and that, you choose that, not this.

That's a way in the Bible terms of saying you love this and you hate that.

Let me show you another place where Jesus says the same principle.

This is Luke 14, verse 26.

Luke 14:26

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and his mother and his wife and his children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

This is a classic Hebrewism.

If you want to understand the Jewish worldview, meditate on this kind of expression.

The Jewish worldview is famous for taking two things and putting them next to each other, and you have to choose one.

And when you choose one, it said that you love this one and you hate that one.

Love and hate.

And doesn't the word hate just jump off the page at you?

We teach our kids don't use that word, you know.

You haven't even gone to a Christian parenting class, you know, don't let your kids say hate.

Oh.

The H word, they said it, uh-oh.

And here's Jesus using it about parents.

And about children.

Say you have to choose.

And if you choose right, not left, you love right and you hate left.

That's the idiom.

And Jesus is applying it to things that are central in your life.

Saying you have to love him more than those things.

When it comes down to loyalty between your family and Christ, you choose Christ every time.

That's the point of this expression.

And he's not talking about things that are on the periphery of your life.

He's not saying you have to love Jesus.

Jesus isn't saying you have to love me more than you love your lake house.

More than you love a vacation you go on twice a year.

No, he's not talking about the lake house.

He's talking about where you live.

You love him more than your house.

The closest part of who you are.

He doesn't say you have to love him over your third cousin, who you think of every four years when he sends you a Christmas card.

He's not

Talking about that person.

He's saying you have to love him more than the person closest to you more than you love your wife.

More than you love your children.

You know, we don't.

We don't talk like this.

You don't talk like that.

In your best moment of Christian parenting, have you ever told your kids that?

You need to hate me compared to your love for Jesus?

We don't say that.

But that's what Jesus is talking about here.

And that's what he's telling Peter.

That's what he's telling all of his disciples.

That's what just happened with the rich young ruler is the rich young ruler understood what Jesus was saying but wouldn't do it and left sad, which leaves Jesus with the disciples there.

The disciples can't believe that Jesus messed this one up.

And Jesus says, Nobody can follow me unless they leave those things.

And now in rushes Peter, and the thing with Peter that you have to love, I mean, he's bold and he's brash, and he's often right.

I mean, Peter is converted.

Peter did do what the rich young ruler could not do.

Do you remember Peter was at the end of his net, so to speak?

He was broken fishing, and the Lord comes and calls him and gives him a supernatural catch of fish.

The boat almost toppled over with all the fish.

He had to have his friends come help him.

And then he just gets on the shore and collapses with his brother.

He says, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinful person.

And Jesus says, Leave your nets, and I will make you a fisher of men.

And he does.

So Peter had the same fork in the road the rich young ruler had, only Peter followed Christ.

He said, I will follow you.

And he left his nets, he left his boats, he left, in that sense, he left his family behind.

Now he didn't literally physically leave his family behind.

Jesus is going to be in his mother-in-law's house in a few chapters and heal her.

They were still, that's where Jesus lived.

But the idea is that confronted with this dual loyalty, it's impossible.

You have to have loyalty to Christ over even your own family.

That's the point of this.

And so Peter is eager to point out to Jesus, I did this.

Peter began to say to him, he walked all over Jesus' words, see, Lord, see, look at us.

We have left everything and followed you.

And before you see Jesus' response, which is such a kind and pastoral response, but don't cheat and read it yet.

Hold on.

The presupposition behind it is that coming to Christ requires a leaving of those things.

A leaving of your hope in money and your hope in family and your hope in property.

The whole Jewish worldview revolved around being able to hand property down to your children.

Your family reset back to their property every 70 years.

At least that's what they were supposed to do.

That was the hope in life.

A widow with no children, you would weep.

She has no hope.

She has no family, she has no land.

It was so important to be married and to have kids, to pass it along.

So much so that even if your husband died, your brother-in-law was supposed to father children with you.

Which is so absurd from our Western worldview.

That just shows you how central property was to their worldview.

How central having heirs was to their worldview.

And he goes over it.

He says, Leave your father and your mother and your children.

In a sense, leaving them, placing Christ over them.

I mean, the fifth commandment says, honor your father and your mother.

And Jesus interrupts the fifth commandment and says, Honor me over your father and your mother.

The fifth commandment's the middle of the Ten Commandments, two tablets, it's the middle one.

And Jesus just inserts himself in the middle of the Ten Commandments and says, Honor me above these.

He supersedes it.

And Peter says, We did.

We do.

Verse 28, we're following you.

That's the presupposition.

If you're going to follow Christ, it implies a leaving your trust and your love.

And just before we go to the second point, I just want you to appreciate how impossible that is to do on your own, how countercultural that is to do on your own, how the whole world militates against it, even your Christian families militate against it.

You raise your kids, you take out student loans, you send them to a good college, and they tell you they want to go in the mission field.

What?

My grandkids can't be in a 20-hour plane flight away from me.

I didn't take$200,000 in student loans for you to go to UCLA or whatever.

And now you're gonna go be a missionary?

You're gonna teach some village somewhere how to read and write?

Yeah, right.

It infiltrates our own thinking.

Peter says we did it.

Coming to Christ entails is kind of leaving.

Secondly, coming to Christ entails, then a gaining.

You leave those things and you gain.

And the thing I love about reading of Peter and Jesus' interactions, no matter how you're all familiar with them, but no matter how many times you see them talking to each other, you never can quite figure out how it's gonna go.

Sometimes Jesus rebukes Peter, sometimes he encourages Peter, and sometimes he encourages him when I think he should get rebuked, and sometimes he rebukes him when I think an encouragement would do, but they have a dynamics of their relationship that just you can read all of your life and enjoy.

And this is another example.

Peter's interrupting Jesus saying, We did do it, Lord, look at us.

And Jesus is so compassionate and kind to him, because it's true he did do it.

And he tells him, Jesus says, Truly I say to you, even that little way of addressing him truly, Amen is the word I say to you, Peter.

There's no one who's left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands.

You'll get it all back.

I mean, here's the question when you're confronted with that kind of choice, is it worth it to leave your love and your trust in those things to follow Jesus?

Is it worth it?

Is it worth it?

And Jesus says it is worth it.

It is worth it.

He's telling him, you will get a gaining in return.

You know, I mentioned the mission field example, but there's so many other examples.

The mission field one might seem far-fetched, and you know, you maybe you're at the point in your life where I'm not gonna be a missionary, my kids aren't gonna be missionary, so that's good.

Preach about the missionary ones, because that ain't gonna affect me.

But you'll have division in your family if you follow Christ.

Because you'll have family members that don't like the way you don't like the way you view the world.

They don't see the world the same way you do, and so they don't want you to be around you, you know?

They'll say it's hard for me to spend time with you and you're talking about Jesus so much, and you say you say, okay, I won't talk about Jesus around you.

See what you just did there?

You maintained your family relationship over your identity with Christ.

It's so easy to do.

I've heard people who've had to leave jobs because they won't bow down to the idol of evolutionary thinking in our world.

Are you willing to do that?

I've heard of medical students who've been kicked out of medical school for not wanting to perform abortions or not wanting to go to the lab on abortions.

I've heard of teachers, even a teacher in Virginia who lost his job over not using preferred pronouns.

Students who lose friends over not watching the kind of movies that their friends are watching.

You know, even grown adults at work in the lunchroom and your coworkers make a joke and everybody laughs and you think I shouldn't laugh at the joke.

That's a sinful joke.

But if I don't laugh, that'll hurt these relationships.

That's junior high dynamics that still exist when you're a grown adult, you know?

And you cave.

I don't know what I'd be leaving.

I don't those are just some examples.

So the question in that moment, when the person tells a joke and you think, Am I supposed to laugh or not?

The question in the moment is, is Jesus worth it?

If you think, am I gonna share the gospel with my neighbor or with this person, you think, oh, they will reject it.

I don't know.

The question you have to ask is, is Jesus worth it?

It's hard in an American culture to even get your mind around this.

I, you know, was I had a staggering picture of this when I was in Chad recently.

In Chad, you know, in all these countless villages everywhere.

If somebody comes to faith in Christ, they have to leave that village.

If they're a business owner, they have to leave their business.

They have to go to some other village that they don't speak the language of that other village.

They don't, nobody is in that other village who will know where they're even from.

That way, nobody from the other village will find out they're a Christian or they could really be put to death.

That's the basic evangelism there.

You come to faith in Christ, you're gonna move and have to learn a new language.

And so the question those people ask is, is it worth it?

Okay, I'm at the point where I believe that Jesus is true.

I'm at the point where I believe the Bible is true.

What this book says is true.

I believe that now.

Now, is it worth it for me to follow?

Because it will cost me a lot.

That's where the Richard and Ruler was.

I believe that Jesus is the savior, I believe he's the Messiah, but I don't think it's worth it to follow him.

That's where Peter was.

I believe that Jesus is the savior and the Messiah, and I do think it's worth it to follow him.

That's the question.

Is it worth it?

And Jesus understands Peter's question, he gets it, and that's why he says, Nobody leaves those things that they don't get more of.

That's why it's such a kind response to him.

He knows what Peter's asking, and he encourages him.

If you left those things, Peter, you will get more of them.

Now notice what is surprising about this.

When you see or hear Jesus say this, you'll get more brothers, sisters, mothers, children, lands.

He lists them all again.

Fathers is not in the list, likely because God alone is our father, but all the others repeated, and you'll get more of them.

We might be tempted to think he's talking about heaven.

You leave those things in this world, that's okay.

You'll go to heaven when you die, you'll have eternal life, you'll have all of the gifts in the book of Revelation are all named for you.

The white stone and the heavenly man and the tree that bears its fruit every season, and you worship with Jesus on this throne.

Those are all waiting for me in heaven, so of course it's worth it.

But Jesus is not talking about heaven here.

He specifically says, you will get a hundredfold in this life.

Verse 30, in this time.

Not a hundred percent.

A hundredfold.

It's a ridiculous, exaggerated amount.

A hundredfold is ten thousand percent.

That's the increase in your investment.

This is a ten thousand percent investment.

Is Jesus worth it?

Of course he's worth it.

You'll get a ten thousand percent return on your investment.

Now, what is Jesus talking about?

I think he's talking about the church, the relationships that you acquire when you become part of the body of Christ.

So you step away from trusting in your own land for your future and your family's happiness.

You step away from finding your significance and meaning in life in your own family, you step away from that.

You're now united to the body of Christ.

And when you're united to the body of Christ, you now have, and in this sense, a new family.

New brothers and sisters.

A new relationship.

In many cases, this is an artificial distinction.

If your family is all believers, you have it's a double blessing to have a family that is believers because you experience this on both sides.

In many cases, this is not an artificial distinction.

You have actual strain and separation in your family relationships with those who don't love and value Christ.

And there is an exceeding blessing on you by the Lord that you receive in the church.

A new reality, a new family.

And Jesus has already laid the groundwork for this in Mark earlier in Mark chapter 3.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

Remember, he was preaching, and people came to him and said, Your mother and your brothers are looking for you.

The people thought he was out of his mind, and his mother and brothers are trying to bring him home back where he'd be safe.

You know, it's kind of has a condescending flair to it, doesn't it?

Like your mom wants you to come home now, you're getting in trouble, you're saying crazy things.

And Jesus, Mark chapter 3, verse 33, says, Who is my mother?

Mark 3:33

Who are my brothers?

They are those who hear the word of God and do it.

That's a radical reorienting of even the family structure.

Saying, I'm I'm brothers with everyone who hears the word of God and believes it, who does it.

In Christ, there's this new reality.

When you bow the knee of your heart to Christ, you surrender looking for happiness and hope in this world and place it in the person of Jesus Christ.

You're adopted into his family.

Jesus becomes your brother.

And you get a lot of other brothers and sisters.

This isn't designed to undercut the importance of family.

I'm not saying your own physical earthly family is insignificant.

It's exceedingly significant.

It's the most significant human relationships you have on this earth.

That's why Jesus uses it as the example.

He's not talking about something that's insignificant.

He's not saying, you know, if you leave your sports team, your softball team for Jesus, you get a better softball team in the church.

No, he's saying if you leave the relationships that are closest and most important and most valuable, and by leaving them, we're talking about not seeing your happiness and your hope and your contentment in them, but rather your happiness and your hope and your contentment in Christ, you receive such a blessing with your relationships in the church.

Your brothers are not determined by genetics anymore, but by the gospel.

He already said that in Mark chapter 10.

Mark 10 · chapter mention

If you want to come to Christ, you come to him like a child.

Everybody who's a Christian is a child of God then.

We are his children.

This totally reorients the Old Testament again.

In the Old Testament, I said, if you saw Ruth, you would weep.

If you saw Ruth, you'd say she has no children, she has no property, she has no husband.

What hope is there for her?

The New Testament turns that on its head.

The New Testament says, hey, if you are single for the glory and the kingdom of God to advance the gospel in this world, you are exceedingly blessed.

What was a curse in the Old Testament?

It becomes a blessing in the New Testament.

It turns everything upside down.

1 Corinthians 4, verse 15.

1 Corinthians 4:15

Paul says, right in the Corinthians, for though you have countless gods in Christ, you don't have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Paul is telling the Corinthian church that he fathered them, he gave them spiritual life.

Obviously, the Holy Spirit regenerated them and brought them spiritual life.

But Paul is identifying himself as their father because he led them to Christ.

When you lead somebody to Christ, when you're discipling somebody, when you're pouring into them, you're acting in that sense as a spiritual father to them.

That's the language Paul uses.

My dear children, he says to the Galatians, you think, oh, he's just being kind to them, my dear children.

It's just a kind term.

No, he says, I'm again suffering in labor pains until Christ is formed in you.

Here, Paul's comparing himself to a spiritual mother of somebody.

He's working on bringing this person to spiritual birth.

Using these familial terms to describe the church.

1 Timothy 1, verse 2 to Timothy, my true son in the faith.

1 Timothy 1:2

This explains the bond between Paul and Timothy.

Philemon verse 10.

Paul says, I appeal to you for my own son, Anisimus, whom I fathered while I was in chains.

Again, he's using this familial language.

I read one commentary that said Paul must have actually fathered Anisimus.

He must have been his biological father while he was in, had a whole section on you know how a slave could have relations with a woman and all this.

I want my money back on this commentary.

What kind of gibberish is this?

This doesn't get the point of the gospel.

Anisimuth wasn't physically fathered by Paul, but spiritually.

Paul introduced him to the gospel and became his spiritual father and is now interceding on his behalf and protecting him.

These are the kind of relationships you have in the church.

It's not confined to Paul.

Peter refers to Mark in 1 Peter 1, verse 5, and says, Mark is my son.

1 Peter 1:5

This is why 1 Timothy 5, Paul tells us to treat older women as mothers and younger women as sisters.

The point here is if you come to Christ and you go out in the mission fields, you might feel a sense of isolation.

You might feel a sense of loss, like Peter does here, of all that you've left behind in this world.

And Jesus says, You're not losing anything, my friend.

You're not losing anything.

You will have a 10,000% return on your investment.

In this life.

In this life, you'll see that.

What a happy statement.

What an encouraging statement.

Don't you want a period to be right there?

And then he just slides in.

Oh.

One more thing.

Also persecutions.

With persecutions.

You also get persecutions in this life.

When you elevate your trust in Christ over your trust in this world, when you the world's going to turn against you.

The world's not going to tolerate somebody stepping out of line and saying the things that you live and the things that you love for don't matter to me.

I'm not going to find my significance in those things, but over here in Christ, they will rebel against that.

If you don't say the right things, you get kind of kicked out of line, so to speak.

And Jesus says, don't be surprised when that happens.

Of course, persecutions will come.

Of course you'll have persecutions.

That's fine.

And when it happens, don't act like something amazing is happening to you.

Like, whoa, they've turned against me.

I didn't follow all the things they wanted me to follow in this life, and now they're upset at me.

Well, hello.

As fundamental as leaving your trust in this world is to follow Christ, as fundamental as Christ rewarding those who do that, that fundamental is the reality that you will receive persecutions when you follow Christ.

And you think, ah, I don't receive persecutions.

Everything's well in my life.

Everything's fine.

Nobody's mad at me for Jesus.

Just work that out.

A few more questions you can ask yourself in your mind.

Hey, nobody's mad at me about Jesus.

I have some follow-up questions for you.

Are you telling people about Jesus?

And maybe those two sides of the equation are related.

Maybe the fact that people aren't upset with you about your faith is connected to their ignorance about your faith.

And the more you expose your faith, the more opposition you may get.

I mean, that's not a hard and fast rule, it's just an educated guess.

And I mean I can say that because I know that's true in my life.

I can look at periods of time in my life where it seems like, hey, nobody's upset at me for the gospel.

Nobody's upset at me for being a Christian.

Nobody's upset at me for Christianity.

It's the times where I'm not being vocal about it.

So I recognize I can say that because I recognize it.

But you will receive persecutions and then culminating the universe 30 in the age to come, eternal life.

That's where this is all pointing.

And you understand that we're following Christ, not to receive the return on our investments in this world.

We're following Christ because we have been promised eternal life.

We're following Christ because Jesus alone has the words of life.

Jesus would continually try to provoke Peter a few times in his life and tell Peter, hey, are you gonna leave too?

When the whole crowd leads Jesus, remember?

Jesus turns to Peter and says, Peter, are you going to leave also?

And you remember what Peter says?

No.

Where else would we go?

You alone have the words of eternal life.

He's connecting this right here.

And Jesus is reminding him, You're not going to go anywhere, Peter, because I have eternal life.

You'll get rewarded in this life, Peter.

And Peter did leave his family.

You know this.

He did ultimately leave Capernaum, go to Jerusalem with Jesus, get sent to the world.

He ends up dying in Rome, a martyr's death, where he receives eternal life.

It's the famous Jim Elliott quote.

Jim Elliott, who died as a martyr while he was missionary to the Indian village in South America, he who is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

That's the lesson Jesus is teaching Peter and the disciples and us this morning.

So when you get to the fork in the road where your family wants this and Jesus wants this, where your work wants this, but Jesus wants this.

Where society says your hope and your future is in this, and Jesus says, leave that aside.

You're at that fork in the road.

The question that goes to your mind is, is it worth it to follow Jesus?

Is it worth it to turn right and not left?

To love right and hate the left?

And the answer is yes, it is worth it.

It's worth it because Jesus says it is worth it.

It's worth it because you'll receive rewards in this life for your faithfulness.

It is worth it even though you will face persecutions which vindicate your faith, and ultimately it will be worth it because the Lord promises eternal life.

He rose from the grave.

His resurrection shows you you will have eternal life as well.

By the end of the Civil War, Major Anderson, as he left South Carolina, left Charleston, went up to New York City, first to Washington, D.C., where he was promptly promoted to general.

His heroics defending Fort Sumtener were known and advertised widely in the American press.

He was promoted to general, given command of troops in Kentucky, then retired from the military during the Civil War.

And began a tour.

He began going around the country by train and getting off at every train station stop and taking out the American flag and auctioning it off to the crowds.

The crowds would come to see receive him as a war hero.

He was somewhat well known because of what happened in Charleston.

And he would auction off the flag, raising money for the troops for more uniforms, for more food, etc.

And then once somebody won the flag in the auction, they would donate it back to him.

He'd get back on the train and go to the next stop.

He went all over New England, auctioning that flag off, who knows how many times, making untold amounts of money.

At the end of his tour, he arrives in New York City, goes to the center of New York City to a massive park.

I don't know which park, but to a massive park there, and he raised the flag.

President Lincoln said that a hundred thousand people came out to see his flag.

It was the largest public gathering in American history.

At the end of the war, Lincoln reactivated now General Anderson, sent him back down to Fort Sumner, where he raised the flag again, put back on his military uniform.

I think it still fit.

And raised the flag in victory.

When he was told to retreat, he said, I can't leave without the flag.

He had to walk away.

It was a loss.

This is a small, tiny picture with 10,000 problems with it, and it the analogy fails in so many different ways.

I almost hesitated to use it.

But it makes this point very clearly that this and this, again, this it's a picture of the small way the gospel works.

You are so afraid of losing something, and you surrender it to the Lord, and the Lord rewards you in this life ten thousand times over.

With glory more than you could have imagined in this life, even that flag did so much more for the war cause traveling around in surrender than it would have done in victory.

And that is exactly how our life works.

You surrender your life to the Lord, and you will be astonished at what he does with it.

So much more than you were afraid of giving up.

Lord, we're thankful for Jesus Christ and his example of this, his resurrection, his victory over the grave, the new life he ushers into this world.

I pray for anyone who is here this morning that has been going to church just over and over and over again, but has never made this commitment, has never said in their hearts that they love you more than this world, they love you more than family, they love you more than house and lands, I pray this morning they would make that commitment.

I pray this morning they would look at you, they would look at the person of Christ, and in their own heart they would declare, it is worth it.

Give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.