SUPREME VALUES
This in one of the most pregnant teachings in our Bible. And, perhaps, the most important for us to understand. Jesus did not set out to please the public … He was not a men-pleaser … When a young man came to him and said, “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” (Jesus did not respond with the same kind of enthusiasm. He saw that this young man did not understand what discipleship involved) and Jesus said unto him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.” (Luke 9:57-58)
The price of real discipleship is sometimes high … Put it this way …
In the days of street cars … in Sioux City … there was a roundhouse down town from which they departed for all parts of the city. I boarded the streetcar for Morningside College … about two miles down the track a gentleman literally yelled at the conductor to stop … He was on the wrong street car and had to walk all the way back to the round-house. Best we know where the train is going before we board.
It is so with life … Jesus makes the arresting statement, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Matt. 16:26) Sounds old fashioned but in it is one word that is thoroughly up to date.
It, in fact, is a word that is as at home today as it was when Jesus said it 2000 years ago … the word is “profit”. What shall it profit a man … it is right and proper that we ask about the profit … all of us are interested in one kind of profit or another. The tragedy is that so many ask it with an eye only for one kind … we call it earthly…..
When we set out to acquire a grant for the building of a non-profit day care center … rooms for Sunday school … community gatherings … etc. … the question was asked often … “Who gets the profit and how much will there be?” It is even asked in the application for the grant …
Jesus gets right to the point … there are two kinds of profit … Let’s cut to the chase … Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world” … What does He mean, “world”? The world is all the fame and fortune that our present dwelling place has to offer. Of course the world itself is not an ugly and evil thing. It is beautiful and desirable. God Himself looked upon it and called it good.
Some years ago there was an old gentleman who loved the color changes in the Fall in Colorado. His name was Gordon … He owned a number of companies but had no family in the Denver area … He was really a solid Christian and had a fine house, etc.. For several Fall seasons I drove him into the mountains to see and enjoy the colors … in his beautiful Cadillac … One conversation I’ll never forget … I commented on the car as we drove along and was … sorta covetous … and he said, “Don’t ever feel that way … this car is beautiful – it takes me to work and brings me home – it never smiles at me or greets me in the morning … it never mixes my orange juice … nor rubs my back … Just look at those colors in the Aspen … They give me a feeling and make me aware of the power and presence and love of God that my car has never given me-
Get this!!! The world only becomes evil when it ceases to be a servant and becomes our Master. As a Master it becomes self-pleasing … To choose the world therefore is to seek to please ourselves – to save our own skins – to be independent toward God.
When Jesus was about to be rejected and killed … Peter couldn’t take it … even though he knew what Jesus stood for and why He came … and Peter said, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” (Matt16:22) Jesus turned to him and said “Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” In other words, you are talking the language of the world … not the language that is of God.
Jesus said to the young man that was so rich, “Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” (Luke 12:15) To save the soul is to come into the possession of values that are moral and spiritual. It is a quality of life that is not measured by length of days nor power amassed. That is the reason for my emphasis that it is our relationship to God that is No. 1.
Consider this - If we put the world first … we may surely find worldly acclaim. And in the experience we will readily admit that it is a dog-eat-dog existence. A survival of the fittest. And, you will believe that your last breath is the end of the book. But if you can see the continuity in this Book … in the historical accounts that tell us who Jesus was and is … and that His teachings have become the foundation stones of surviving civilizations and happy families … as well as individuals … then we begin to get the picture … and remember Jesus’ words, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38)
A little personal testimony … You know, I have never known a person who has honestly and truly trusted in God … put God first … who was not a pleasure to know … who was a good neighbor and friend … saw the glass half-full instead of half-empty … and was always able to make lemons of life into lemonade …
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt: 25:34)
We really do pass through this life/world but once … it’s a preparatory school … Old Testament Joshua said it, "choose you this day whom ye will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)
Isaiah described it this way: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31) -LJS
