Matthew 16;24-28 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds. 28 “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
For all of us in the Christian life, there is something that hinders us in spiritual progress. We don’t like that, but we see it never goes away from our life, always hindering us… that is a big burden in our life. Even today morning you feel that burden… “if this is removed, how good my life.” Why do you think God is not removing that in our life? I believe that one thing is a great means of God to help us learn the meaning of discipleship. God in providence is using that to teach us to obey the non-negotiable demands of discipleship we see in this passage.
Following Jesus Christ as a disciple is a journey… a journey you take and will never come back to where you were. So he says, “if you wish to follow me, you must say farewell to self, take your luggage of the cross, and then follow me.”
There must be a fundamental denial of self… self-centered, self-righteousness, self-will, seeking self-satisfaction… hate, deny, reject self. You deny its rights, desires, its pride, envy, its acts… when the selfish flesh raises its head, deny it in any expression of self that is opposition to God’s will. You deny it and kill it. How? Then take the baggage of the cross, you voluntarily do that, the cross—an instrument of death… willing to kill that self on the cross and accept all rejection, insults, and suffering that comes in following Christ, suffering that comes in loving attachment with the person of Christ. These are non-negotiable terms of discipleship. Luke says do this daily. This is how the Lord wants us to live daily… it is greatly important we practice daily: “Daily, when you get up, Lord, today in my family, work, society, help me to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow you.” Daily morning… my self doesn’t want to first pray, but see my mobile or do something else, I deny it and obey Christ by praying; it doesn’t want to read the Bible, I deny and read… when I get an opportunity to share the gospel, it says, “hey, don’t, what will they think, if they don’t listen, say something,” you deny it and obey Christ, that is my share.
It is a new way of living… When you deny self and kill it, it is not easy… then there is suffering for the flesh… because it doesn’t get what it wants… there is pain and brokenness inside… something like crucifixion within us. You live like Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.” But you live like this, the more you become like Jesus… Jesus Christ’s power and life flow through your denying and cross-bearing. There is a song: “dying with Christ… living with Jesus a new life divine. Moment by moment I am kept in his love. Moment by moment I have life from above.” This is the life of a disciple… last week we saw a few basic practical ways… denying self as a church by keeping the Sabbath today, worship priority, prayer meetings, hospitality, marriage, living contentment, without complaining.
Now, having set up these conditions, the Lord was very conscious these terms are difficult terms. They were flesh-humiliating, hateful terms… painful to the flesh… like crucifying… They are frightening terms… under the Roman rule, the cross meant suffering, rejection, and death itself… He was conscious these terms would cause a shock affect on the minds of the disciples and of his hearers.
As the Lord expects objections… “Lord, initially we thought it is all blessing, you have done all… we just believe and enjoy life… we came. We have not heard these conditions. These terms are difficult… so painful to the flesh to say NO to its lusts and desires, this is contrary to all our native inclinations; it is against everything we have been taught in the world. This will result in the loss of many things in life, impact on relations, friends, and many things. Lord, these conditions are strict, high, difficult… Lord, can it be the terms are beyond us… this will not work…”
Inside we may be saying, “We will hear because this is coming in a regular preaching verse, but we can never follow this… leave us alone. We know what to do. We know how to handle these deep sermons. We hear this for a week or two seriously and then forget this message and conditions. How many sermons we hear like this… This will not work. We will come to church, read the Bible, pray, call ourselves reformed… believe in your cross alone… I glory in the cross singing, and leave this world… don’t ask us to deny and take our own cross… oh this is such a loss for us.”
Anticipating the reaction of the ordinary mind and heart, verses 25-28, the Lord brings 4 powerful motives/reasons, not to dilute the terms, but 4 powerful reasons/motives to enter into the path of discipleship… in spite of whatever difficulty of terms, in spite of the stringency of the demands. Our Lord in his great wisdom flashes before our very eyes the vast eternity, the value of the eternal soul, and the coming judgment… He makes us think and realize what is important? And winsomely and with tremendous searchingness, sets these 4 powerful motives. These make us realize the greatest wisdom for any man or woman is to deny himself, take the cross, and follow him. Those who don’t do this will be the greatest fool and loser in eternity because of these 4 reasons.
Beginning itself, let me give you the structure of 4 today, and then we will meditate one by one. I intend to cover 2 today and 2 next week.
The Four Powerful Motives/Reasons
- Life’s Law of Saving by Losing (Paradox): Verse 25: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” The first one is a paradox (meaning on the surface contradictory, it contains profound truth). It is said in such a way that its apparent contradiction catches the attention of men, enters the mind and seizes/sticks in the mind, and there upon reflection we grasp the glorious deep truth… how true this is. Even if not today, one day every man will realize how true this is.
- The Question of Profit and Value: Verse 26: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” The next two come in the form of questions. Why are questions asked? Generally, in such a way asked to make us think. The word “life” here means soul. Think, you people… oh, if my these demands seem high, difficult, strict, maybe beyond you… never follow… think, think what other alternatives are. How useless and what a fool you will be if you try to ignore these conditions and live any other way.
- The Reality of Final Judgment (Evaluation): Verse 27: “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.” He takes us to the solemnness of the greatest and most important day where everything will be evaluated… The final judgment day… and put yourself there… And think, think… Don’t allow the devil to deceive your mind with vanity… Don’t allow him to keep you in a spiritual stupor in the small, daily dying life… Wake up… See a day is coming, a day that will decide your eternal destiny… where every day, every hour you live now and every act will be evaluated… whether you lived for self or lived for the glory of God… that is how it will be evaluated… where will you stand… Wake up, see seriously from that day’s perspective. He makes us evaluate our life and shows how the wisest thing it is to today live a life denying ourselves, taking up the cross, and following him.
- The Imminent Prophetic Seal (Validation): Verse 28 (the Capstone): A prophetic announcement to validate our Lord’s claims, to validate the motives, all the weighty issues contained in this call… “Not something in the future, but in your own lives now I am proving these are real truths, not some dreams I am talking about.”
So this is the structure. Oh, these are powerful and solemn arguments… and I feel so inadequate and weak to preach these. When I preach, maybe some of you look here and there… some may even sleep… think I am speaking of dreams… or “no other work, every week some verse I have to preach.” Oh, I beg you, don’t stop at my poor preaching, I am in all weakness, spending my week with a lot of workload, not enough time to deeply meditate this… weakly, with a lot of lack trying to explain to your eternal souls what the eternal Son of God has said so seriously. These are the words of the eternal Son of God… these are realities…
He is the only truth… only what he speaks is truth… not what you think or the world says or your parents say… he has the right idea of life, death, judgment and eternity and all things, he is the one who will judge everything based on that truth. He talks about the law of this life, talks about the value of your eternal soul, the coming judgment. As he explains and argues and seeks to capture our minds, lay upon us such weighty reasons for discipleship, may we listen as those who have ears. May we listen with open hearts… so the Holy Spirit may use his words to illuminate our minds, change our hearts, and affect our wills and life. May we listen not as man’s words, but God himself talking from heaven. Please don’t just rely on my preaching… this is beyond my preaching… go home, keep reading and meditating this for the coming 2 weeks… and allow these words to deeply impact your soul.
Because if you grasp these 4 reasons and see the weight and reasonableness of these, when he is through, the only thing that will keep you from discipleship—denying yourself, taking your cross, and following him—the only thing that will keep you, is if you are in real moral, mental, or spiritual insanity and so terribly blinded by sin and the vanity of the world. You are a real eternal fool. Because these motives/reasons are so compelling, all those who feel the weight and force of these great motives… will fall at Jesus’ feet and say, “these terms though difficult, though high, hateful to the flesh… in the light of the reasons you have given… what else can I say… Jesus, I hate myself, I my cross have taken, all the leave and follow thee.”
Let us see those powerful reasons.
1. Life’s Law of Saving by Losing (The Paradox)
Verse 25: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Imagine the situation they are in. Put yourself in that place. You are listening to Lord Jesus… He said, “I have to go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be killed and rise from dead.” Peter objects, “this shall never be to you.” He rebukes Peter. Now Mark tells us that at that time he summons a crowd and says in verse 24, “if anyone wishes to come after, let him deny self, take cross, follow me.” As these words are falling in their ears, and touching their minds, and their hearts start rising against this… Jesus knew what they must be thinking in mind and feeling in heart… their objection is, “but Jesus, what you are saying is nothing less than the loss of life itself, what you are saying is like burying life as I have known it this moment.”
The life I lived all these years: self-centered life, self-satisfaction seeking life, regulated by my desire, my plans, my standards, my assessment of what is good and wrong, what I like and dislike. “Lord, what you are demanding is like losing life… we have lived all these years centered around self. It is losing life…” Jesus says, “you heard me rightly… yes, it looks like losing life… but understand the great law of saving by losing.”
If you are saying, “Lord, I cannot deny myself, take cross, and follow… I may lose my life… I want to continue this life… so I am going…” If you are going… understand, by denying me… whatever you try to go and save… you will lose all that.
If you are determined to cling to life, this self-centered life… seeking self-satisfaction… if you want to save that life. This self-centered life you got from Adam… a fallen self-centered life and for the vanities of this world… When it fell, in this life was filled for women with Eve’s curses of pains in childbearing and growing, and lifelong fighting with husband and wife and disobedient children. Adam’s curses of sweat and work, and all your life like a serpent’s seed crawl on your belly and all days eat dust, and finally from dust you came and to dust you shall return. You want to save this cursed filled life, a life subjected to vanity? Okay…
See what you are losing. You will lose the real meaning of life both in this life and in eternity… Now on this earth… the only thing that can redeem you from the curses of this life is the eternal life I give… life with its full spectrum of redemptive blessings of forgiveness, salvation, true happiness, peace, knowing God, knowledge of God, communion with God now. As a byproduct of these blessings, you are delivered from Adam and Eve’s curses. As Ephesians says, in a redemptive life, following me and being filled with my Spirit, all the curses become a blessing in your marriage, children, and workplace… become a blessing instead of a curse. You want to reject me and want to save this cursed life… what you go to save denying me… you will lose horribly… now… never be able to enjoy anything in life by denying me.
And then eternal life in the future of standing with me in eternal glory… with all eternal bliss. You will lose it. If you want to save a self-centered, self-satisfying life… save the fleeting pleasures of sin, temporary ease, comfort, facility, you can never be saved and experience the true joys of this life here and you will lose eternal life.
Oh, you know what our biggest problem is in entering God’s kingdom? Because we hold this self-centered life so tightly… with a death grip… even while dying, we worry about this life… Jesus says if you don’t loosen the grip on this self-centered fallen life… you can never enter eternal life. Your grip on this life is a trap for eternal death and damnation.
Let me give an example. In old days, you know how they would catch monkeys. A monkey catcher will take a soda-pop bottle with a small neck, and put a peanut inside, and leave it out in the open. Then, he would hide in the bushes and wait. Eventually, a monkey would sneak up, reach his paw into the bottle, and grab the peanut. Then, the animal catcher would stroll out of the bush and get the monkey; because once it had its greedy little paw around the peanut, it would make a fist that was too big to pass through the neck of the heavy pop bottle. It cannot run fast or climb with one hand inside the bottle. The animal catcher would easily pick up the monkey—bottle and all—and haul it to the cage. The monkey couldn’t get away; because no matter what, it was too greedy to let go of the peanut.
This is the problem with us… we don’t realize the life we have inherited from Adam is a trap that will drag us to eternal death. With our depraved nature, we want to hold it tightly. Our Lord says if you don’t loosen your grip on this self-centered life, you can never enter eternal life.
The more you hold to this cursed life, the more you will lose the true life that I will give you. Don’t catch this peanut life, the short stay on earth—as if it were the only thing that there really is, and as if true happiness and fulfillment was found there. If you try to save this life by holding it tightly, this short, temporal life, by saying no to Jesus, you will be the greatest fool and loser. The life that we think we will have “saved” will prove to be only a momentary “vapor.” And in the process, we will have lost that real, meaningful, blessed life that our creator created us to experience in an eternal relationship with Himself… eternal life.
But by contrast, if we let go of this temporal life for Christ’s sake—if you are prepared to lose this life, realizing how this life is fallen, self-centered, vanity, is just a peanut life, and a cursed, depraved life, never allowing me to glorify God. If you say enough of this useless life, and deny that self-centered life, by taking up the cross… and following me. Come what may, suffering, rejection, insult, and even being killed. Let lose this life for my sake.
If we “lose” it for His sake—then we will know what true life is… as God created us for… true meaning in every aspect of our lives with redemptive blessings on this earth, and we will save it for eternal life in the coming world.
You have to lose your life… not for any other reason… like nuns or men who die in the military… or men who lose their lives for the nation, society… no, if you are to lose your life… for what? FOR MY SAKE… AND MARK 8:35 ADDS FOR THE GOSPEL. Only this kind of losing… not for anything else.
You lose life… How? By denying it, repudiating it, taking up the cross, and being attached to Jesus Christ… You lose by attaching yourself to me, giving yourself for obeying my word… with attachment to Christ… whatever the costs in life, you follow me… obey my word.
Secondly, you lose for my sake and the gospel’s sake. The gospel is the word of God. Not only are you ready to obey my gospel commands in God’s word, but you lose your life for spreading my word to everyone on this cursed world. Because the only way he is known is through the gospel. There is no knowledge of Christ apart from the gospel. You lose for the gospel’s sake. The purpose of that gospel is not to put some facts in your head about someone who suffered so you don’t have to go to hell… while you can live a giddy, self-centered, worldly life and then go to heaven when you die… the end of the gospel is to wrench you loose from your self-centeredness… and to bring you into attachment to the person of Christ… so you lose your life for his sake and the gospel.
Following Christ’s word and sharing Christ’s word priority should bury the self-centered life we live on this earth. Whatever the cost to self, whatever pain, difficulty to self-life, whatever insults or shame, rejection I face… my priority on this earth is deny myself, taking my cross, and follow Christ’s word and share Christ’s word. For that, I am ready to leave my safety, own facilities, own ease, his own comfort, own relations, friends, selfish enjoyments of this life, consumptive materialism. If I lose my life like this, I save it with all redemptive blessings here and eternal life. If I deny it, going away whatever excuse… that life which I want to save becomes a curse.
This is Life’s Law of saving by losing. This law is not just here. Jesus repeatedly uses this in different settings. At least 5 places, here, and then Mark 8 in the same setting, even in John 12, and in Matthew 10:39… Jesus ending Matthew 12 for preaching… preparing them for opposition… that opposition may come from even close relations… Matthew 10:34… “man against his own household”… he that finds that life… the law of saving by losing… When you face life… which is comfortable… when there is loving acceptance in dearest friends and relatives… when you are prepared to have that normal human deeper ties to be cut off in attachment to me… you are willing to suffer rejection from those who are closest to you… in losing your life… you will save it.
Luke 17, he talks about his second coming… “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.” Then interesting in verse 32, “Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.”
This world and all its pleasures will be destroyed… like Noah’s days and Sodom’s days… if you are holding tightly to this, and like Lot’s wife… remember her heart was fully joined to that world… like that monkey. Though she knew judgment… fire and sulfur falling from heaven… though physically she ran from Sodom, her heart made her turn and she immediately turned to stone… Then in verse 33… he says that you will lose your eternal life if you hold too tightly to this world… allow your heart to be filled with this world like the days in Noah… nothing else… eating, drinking, marrying… buying and selling that is the whole life and thought… until the flood came and took them all.
This law meets us in all these 4 gospels… and one united voice it says to us… if you hesitate before the difficult flesh-hating terms of discipleship… set forth by Lord Jesus… Listen to this law of life… you will never attain to eternal life blessings now or ever… unless you are prepared to lose that self-centered, self-willed, self-satisfying life with which you are born… and conceived in Adam… it must be lost. It is a cursed life… this is what made you fall and drove our parents away from God’s presence in Eden… you know what reason God gave to chase them… so we don’t eat the fruit of the tree of life. If we have to come back to God through Christ and have eternal life, the only way is first deny this self-life, take up the cross by killing it, follow me. Otherwise, no smell of real eternal life or experience in this life or in eternity you will have without fulfilling this condition.
Is that a powerful motive incentive to discipleship? Oh, this is a matter of life and death… the weight of eternity depends upon our present choice. Will you deny my demands to save this life… or will you deny self, take up the cross, and follow me? In that choice you make… depends not only your eternal destiny, but your life from tomorrow… whether you will experience the redeemed blessing of eternal life daily or hold on to this cursed self-centered life with all its curses. Whatever you go to save, you will lose it.
This is your choice… save life, lose it; lose life, save it. Here are life and death, good and evil, the blessing and the curse, set before us.
If you want to preserve a temporal life and avoid a temporal death to self, you will lose eternal life and face eternal second death, and be eternally held by it. Your self-preservation will prove in the end self-destruction. The life you saved is but for a moment, but lose eternal life and face the eternal death which is the depth of all misery, and an endless separation from all good and God.
Now, let any rational man consider of it, take advice and speak his mind, whether there is anything got, in the long run, by denying Christ’s demands. This is your choice… save life, lose it; lose life, save it.
Whosoever will lose his life for Christ’s sake in this world, shall find it in a better, infinitely to his advantage. What is your choice?
Those who have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit to see this great truth… in history… are the wisest men. Note, first, many a life is lost, for Christ’s sake, in doing his work, by laboring fervently for his name in suffering work, by choosing rather to die than to deny him or his truths and ways. Today, if we have his pure truth in our hand… it is because many, many souls lost their lives for Christ. Christ’s holy truth is handed down to us, sealed with the blood of thousands, who despised their lives.
Though very valuable ones, when they have stood in competition: “deny Christ and save life” or “obey Christ and lose life.” They chose to lose their lives and sealed the testimony of Jesus with their blood. Though many have been losers for Christ, even of life itself, yet never any one was, or will be, a loser by him in the end. They will so abundantly find eternal life.
Now what about us? They died losing life… we are thinking so much about living for him by losing our cursed life.
This is your choice… save life, lose it; lose life, save it. Do you feel the pressure of Life’s Law of Saving by Losing? Oh, this should be enough to obey… but the Lord knows the human heart… when it is entrenched in self… self-deception… blinded by sin… it is not easily woken up… so he adds the second motive.
2. Unanswerable Question About Gain and Loss
Gain or Loss? An Unanswerable Question.
You like commercial calculating… you calculate before taking a decision, right? You decide when it is profit and don’t decide when you think it is loss. You need analytics, data, ROI. Here is the data—calculate. You do the analytics and calculate the return on investment. This is a Profit and Loss analysis sheet.
Verse 26: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
“Gain, lose, profit” are all commercial accountancy terms. It is as if someone is saying… “Lord, to lose my life is to lose this and that… maybe my wealth, enjoyment, money, name, popularity, that and this… There are so many things… I may have to lose, Lord.”
The Lord says, “Okay, I will give you a paper list that has an infinite end, and take an eternal pen that can write for all eternity. Keep writing. I want you to do the work of an accountant. Put a line in the center of the paper, and on one side put your gain and on the other side loss. Assets and liabilities.
The Gain Column (The Whole World)
Under gains, write everything in the world that is important… every single commodity… write as long as your sheet goes from east to the west and south to the north, and then crosses the skies, touches Mars, and the farthest planet Saturn—1.5 billion km—and then keeps going, going… millions of light-years. All that you will gain in the world…
Fame and Popularity: You become the most famous person in the world… prestige, popularity, adulation, praise of men’s mouths, claps of men, acceptance by men and women, you become viral… you say a word, it’s an international headline… you put a YouTube video… seconds, 100 million views and likes… YouTube crashes… so famous… the world population all follows you on Twitter, Facebook… all the world yearns to see you… your word decides in every country who will win the election or form the government… just imagine… you reach that height, the top of the world… put that… you become so popular… that is so important…
Money: Write your bank balance… however much you want… keep adding crore, 10 crore, billion, trillion… quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, and decillion, vigintillion and finally… Googol (not Google, with 100 zeros)… It’s more than all the grass blades and all the grains of sand. It’s even more than the number of atoms in the universe… that much money you have in the bank… add Googol in your gain…
Power: How much power can the world give? Power over a ward, corporator, or constituency MLA, MP, CM, PM of a country… okay… president of the superpower… not Donald Trump or Joe Biden… let us assume you become the next American president… if that is too small… okay… you are the Global President of the United Nations, 193 countries under you… happy? Okay, nothing more… you have the greatest power… Next… add that in your gain…
Wealth: Now, how much is the value of 1 square site? Lingarapuram 1000 crore, Bangalore sell how much money, Karnataka, India yours… okay… the whole world itself… all that put in your gain…
Pleasures: What pleasures in life? Pleasures of the body, mind, heart… whatever this world has… the best is yours… You want pleasures of entertainment… All best rated IMDB rating 9 above… all movies theater free for all life… enjoy. Pleasures of fashion: all the latest trending dresses, cosmetics, jewelry in the world’s top shops is yours… you can select what you want. Pleasures of luxury… top palaces and hotels in the world yours. 7-star hotels… Rambagh Palace, Jaipur. Grand Presidential Suite… next Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur. Pleasures of sex… Solomon had 1000… you have 1000 women from each country… 200 x 1000… 2 lakh wives… What else? How can we forget pleasures of food… all the best food every day, every best food from every nation. Pleasures of travel… world tour… best places round and round. Pleasures of gadgets… I can go on and on… add whatever you want… include all the joys of earth… put them on the gains column… fill your list to the full… don’t worry however big.
Put the total down… the whole world you gained. Let us assume you gained it… you got it. You have all that. You gained the whole world… everything is yours… assume. That is what the Lord says… ultimate hyperbole (exaggeration). Let’s say you gain the whole world. I mean, you own the globe and everything on it. That is your gain side… wow… head spinning…
The Loss Column (Lost Soul!)
Now come to the loss column… put two words… Lost Soul! Lost Soul! Lost Soul! The verse says “life” in Tamil, but it means lost soul. One phrase… See that list deeply… both sides deeply… do your deep calculation.
Have you done difficult math calculations… when I was doing some algebra subs… my hair stood… sweating… oh what tension… what an active mind… This is the greatest math calculation of eternity… do this math… never, never fail to do this calculation… One side all the world can give and another side… Lost Soul.
Man/woman, boy/girl… please turn your mind from whatever you are doing… and do this math sum, this arithmetic… What is the profit…? What is the profit…? Who can answer this question???
Lost Soul! How terrible! Do you know what the soul is? Do you know the value of one soul? What is a lost Soul? Oh, how can I explain that to you… in a few minutes… oh, the horror of a lost soul!
There is no greater loss than the loss of the soul in the entire universe… Let me tell you, even in this world… oh, the horror of the lost soul… see the whole wealth of the world cannot satisfy the soul… unless the soul is in a healthful, saved condition… if it is lost, it is a terrible loss…
Let me give a simple example… think of the statement: “health is greater than wealth…” In a way, that is true. There is no greater tragedy than to see a fully healthy man who gets crippling diseases and suffers… I know a man very rich… but he was suffering from lung cancer and regularly not able to breathe and always coughing… He has unlimited wealth, but he cannot breathe… what will all this great wealth do to him… when he has not got his health to enjoy it… how uselessly he sees all his wealth… there is an illustration even in this world… he has all the wealth… he can go anywhere… buy anything… what use is all his power and wealth… but he has lost his health… after suffering long… he will give all his wealth to bring back his health, right? We see that happening today… “Doctor, whatever the cost… we will sell our house… take all the money… let this sickness be healed. And not die…” The woman with the issue of blood… very rich. But lost all that trying to cure her problem. If for temporary health… which again a man can lose… a man is ready to do that… what about the eternal soul? If your soul is lost, nothing will satisfy you in this world.
Beyond all that… the terrible aspect of a Lost soul in eternity… who can explain what a lost soul is? “I shall go on eternity with nothing in me I surrounded my self-centered life… My soul will have nothing… To realize what a fool I have been… beyond death and eternity… I have nothing… Lost soul… eternal separation from God… deadness to all that is of value… throughout eternity…”
What value will you place on your never dying immortal soul which when joined in the resurrection body… will according to Matthew 10:28… suffer soul and body everlasting torment, the deepest grief, pain, agony and loss… We really don’t know how horrible it is… we only have glimpses of what a lost Soul is… put all that Jesus taught: eternal weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, outer darkness where the worm does not die, the fire is never quenched… lost soul… all the frightening, horrible implications of eternal punishment.
There is no greater loss than the loss of the soul… let me give another big argument… what is it compared to the gaining the whole world…?
See it the opposite way… To lose everything else, even the entire world, doesn’t matter at all if your soul is right… your soul is saved. For example, Paul says, “I have lost everything for Christ.” See what he says, completely opposite to what the world says… “For me to die is gain…” the same commercial word… how opposite! The world says… to die is the loss of everything… want to avoid death by all means… it is the greatest loss… demise… cut off all relations… all wealth leave and go, but the saved soul says, “for me to die is gain.” It doesn’t matter what you lose if your soul is saved… Whatever the world may take, it will not matter… you will be the greatest gainer…
But you gain the whole world, and lose your soul… there is no greater loss in the whole eternity which is comparable to the loss of the soul… it is the most tragic conceivable…
Gain or Loss? An Unanswerable Question. What shall it profit a man, whoever he be… however rich or whatever age he lives… to gain the whole world… and to forfeit his soul…? Answer this.
Do this divine mathematics… do it now under the pressure of this word of Jesus… what use…? In the balance, the worth of the soul which lies at stake, and the worthlessness of the world in comparison of it… Christ asks you to compare…
You say that denying self, taking up the cross, and following me is the only way to save your eternal soul and avoid the loss of the soul. That is the only way in the whole universe… there is no other way… you say you cannot do that… because you will lose some pleasures in life… that is difficult… calculate this in your mind… it will tell you how stupid your excuse is.
For a few years of leaving that cursed life, and following me, you enter eternal life, gaining your immortal soul… Into a life where there is no pain, no sorrow, no grief… no sigh or tears… but if you barter away brief years of difficulty to go down into everlasting torment where the smoke of their torment will rise up forever… they have no rest… day or night.
Applications: Two Powerful Arguments
Life’s Law of Saving by Losing (Vs 25) and The Unanswerable Question of Gain and Loss (Vs 26).
Two applications:
- The Loss of Life Even Now: You want to save your life by denying Christ, you will lose it, people. I have seen in my experience, both as a Christian and a pastor, whatever excuses men give for not following Christ and fulfilling those demands, they lose. There was a man who said, “oh, I have to get my daughter married… if I become Christian who will give a boy…” That girl ran away with a “rowdy”… and the name that he wanted to save was terribly lost. I said there was a man who listened to life, trying to save his family and deny Christ and went to a worldly church… lost his life… Even in this life, life becomes doubly cursed if you deny Christ. This is a law at the individual level, family level, and national level. The Israelites: they wanted to save their temple and nation by denying Christ… what happened… another 37 years… the whole temple destroyed and the nation scattered for 2000 years… Today if you hesitate… you are denying Christ… “oh, I cannot deny myself, take cross, and follow Christ… I have my family responsibilities… job, pride, name, whatever…” you will terribly lose that and the family or children itself will become a curse. Be warned… learn this lesson: whoever wants to save his life will lose it.
- The Unfathomable Value of the Soul: Our Lord teaches this lesson by asking one of the most solemn questions that the New Testament contains. It is a question so well known, and so often repeated, that people often lose sight of its searching character. But it is a question that ought to sound in our ears like a trumpet, whenever we are tempted to neglect our eternal interests—“What will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?” Let our Master’s words ring in our ears, “What will it profit a man?”
Go home and do the calculation… no preacher can preach this verse properly… I just superficially taught… keep thinking… The Lord asks this question to make you think… wake up your mind… stop thinking what will you eat, drink… all temporal things… loosen your grip for some time… don’t hold it tight… Think: if you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what is your profit? There can only be one answer to this question. There is nothing.
The Value of Your Soul: The soul is you… the body is only a covering… The soul is the spiritual and immortal part of man, which thinks and reasons, has a power of reflection and prospect, which actuates the body now. When death comes… That soul God breathed when he created you… so it will live as long as God lives… immortal… no death.
Secondly, It is possible for the soul to be lost, and there is danger of it. The soul is lost when it is eternally separated from all good, and exposed to all the evil that a soul is capable of—separated from the favor of God, and sunk under his wrath and curse.
And now let us not leave these verses without serious self-inquiry as to the matters which they contain. We have heard of the necessity of taking up the cross, and denying ourselves. Have we taken it up, and are we carrying it daily? If you are trying to save life without doing it, you will lose it. If you are gaining the world without doing it, it will result in the greatest loss for you in this earth and eternity. We have heard of the value of the soul. Do we live as if we believed it?
True, it costs us everything to follow Jesus. But I hasten to add that it’s a price we can safely pay. He demands everything from us; but He never takes from us without also promising to give us infinitely more than He takes in return! He makes a promise to us—a promise that He intends for us to genuinely believe in, and trust Him fully to keep—that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
What is in your life? Like the rich young ruler, is it a symbol of idolatrous attachment of self in you and not allowing you to follow Christ… pride, love of the world, worldly worry, pleasures of the world…
Let’s respond to Jesus’ invitation, then, by asking the Spirit of God to reveal to us what may be standing in the way of our fully following Him. Let’s allow the Spirit to remove the things from us that keep us from a whole-hearted devotion to Christ.
Let’s allow Him to teach us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 