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So today, if you were here last time, we're in part two of our series. A better question, because it's the beginning of a yearand this is the season that's kind of about us thinking about ourselves and evaluating ourselves. It's really like the season of self-improvement or a renewed commitment to self-improvement where we're painfully aware of where we are and where we aren't, where we thought we would be by this point in our lives or maybe by this point in our year, we're consumed with the things that we need to start and stop, the things we need to do more of and less of, the food we need to eat more of and less of. So it's super easy, of course, to get focused on and remain focused on this question. What should I do about me? How can I make myself better? How can I make myself slimmer and stronger and stronger and healthier and wealthier? I think we should all address all of those things. So this isn't an instead of, I think if you're trying to finish a degree, finish that degree. If you want to get out of debt. You should get out of debt. If you want to break a bad habit, break that habit.
But last time I suggested an additional question, and I do think it's a better question, and if you'll take this better questionseriously, it will actually help you with the what should I do about me decisions and the what should I do about me resolutions that you have. It really will. It will get you in a position to actually doing those things are going to get you in a position to be able to follow through on your answer to our better question. And the better question is, what breaks your heart? What breaks your heart?
Like me, you're bothered by a lot of things. You're irritated by a lot of things. You're offended by some things locally or in our culture or nationally or maybe internationally. But the question is that we're asking, is there one thing that bothers you more than all the other things? Is there one thing that irritates you a little bit more than all the other things? In fact, it's more than sad if you're honest. When you think about it for very long, it makes you mad. You're like, this should not be in the world. We should not have this in our community. This should not be an issue for these people. People shouldn't be treated that way. Is there anything that kind of goes from mad, excuse me, from sad to mad, to the point where you almost wish you didn't know about it, you wish you hadn't read about it, you wish you hadn't heard about it, you wish you hadn't seen it, because now you can't unsee it.
But you tell yourself, like we all do, Well, it's too big. There's nothing I can do about it. And maybe there's nothing you can do about it. But generally speaking, if you focus on it long enough, there's always something you can do about it. Because somewhere in the world there are people working on it. And if nothing else, you can decide that every month you're going to send them a check to say, Hey, I can't tackle this, but you're tackling it. And I want to partner with you to address this thing that I just don't think this should be in the world. So whether you know exactly what to do with it or not, it's worth thinking about it. It's worth letting it bother you.
Now, as we said last time, if you don't have an answer to this question, what breaks your heart? That's okay. For now, don't just come up with something. Don't manufacture something. But think about this. You should ask this questionbecause, and I gave you some examples last time, we're not going to do that again today. But for some people, and this may not be the case for you, but for some people, this question, or a question like this, is actually the gateway to purpose. Now, want to talk about this for just a minute. We're moving on. You were created for purpose. It is purpose in your life or finding purpose in your life. And we'll talk specifically about what that looks like next time. Purpose is an essential.
I mean, there's food, water, shelter and purpose. And here's why, just to go a little bit deeper on this. The pursuit of happiness, and we all want to be happy, and we're all kind of on a happiness quest to some extent. The pursuit of happiness alone. When it becomes your objective, the pursuit of happiness becomes a doom loop. That means you're stuck in a cycle over and over and over and over and over because the pursuit of happiness keeps you focused on you. And the result isn't happiness. You know what the result of that is? The result of that, believe it or not, is insecurity. And do you know what insecurity is? Insecurity is fear. It's the fear that we're not enough. And newsflash, we're not.
And let me tell you what I mean by this. I don't mean that you don't have extraordinary worth and dignity when it comes to God's love for you. God loves you so much, He sent His son into this world to redeem you and to reconcile you because He wants to have a relationship with you. So this isn't about your personal value. This is the idea that there is not enough of you to fill you, that you are not enough to fill yourself up. And when happiness becomes the chief pursuit, I just got to figure out how to be happy. You get in a doom loop where you're constantly trying through relationships and experiences to fill yourself up. And I'm just telling you, this is why the earlier you figure this out, the better I'm telling you it's impossible because of how God created you.
In fact, let me say it a different way. We talk about people who are full of themselves. She's full of herself. He's full of himself. Here's the thing. That doesn't mean they're full. It just means the only thing in there is themselves. You look in there and the only thing in there is them, but they are not full. In fact, they're half empty. There's lots of room. But that room wasn't created for them to fill. That room was created for something more. And according to Jesus, we're about to unpack one of the most important things he ever taught and one of the most complex things he ever taught.
So we're going to crawl through it word by word in just a minute, but just kind of giving you the big picture. According to Jesus, being consumed with you will ultimately consume you. Being consumed. This is why, if you're in your 20s, you can figure this out. I'm telling you, you're going to be so far ahead of the rest of us, being consumed with you will ultimately consume you. Here's what He's going to sort of tease out for us in just a minute.
When I am on the doom loop happiness quest, it's all about me, all about me, all about me, over time, that eats away at me from the inside out. You will use yourself up, trying to fill yourself up. And in the process, you may fill up a house or two. You may fill up a garage or two. You may fill a bed or two, but you'll never fill you. This may be the ultimate paradox. You all know what a paradox is. A paradox is two doxes. There's a unidox. I'm just kidding.
No, a paradox, we'll make sure you're paying attention. A paradox is a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement that when considered carefully, turns out to be true. A paradox is something you hear and you're like, Wait a minute, that doesn't even make sense. And then you kind of investigate it and spend some time with it and you're like, Oh, my goodness. That makes total sense. A paradox is not intuitive. It's easy to dismiss. And if you dismiss the paradox that Jesus is about to lay out for us, you miss out. Because according to Jesus, again, I'm kind of giving you the headline before we look at the details. According to Jesus, filling is achieved through emptying. Like, that doesn't make sense. Hang on. Gaining is achieved through giving.
It's like, wait, that doesn't... Just hang on. Winning is achieved through losing. And this is so countercultural, for sure. It's so "Un-American" to some extent. And it's certainly counterintuitive. So no wonder this is why. No wonder we push back on actually following Jesus. And then you live a few years, then you get toward the end of your life and you look back and you're like, Oh, my goodness. That made perfect sense. So it should be no surprise to discover that following Jesus is characterized by self- denial, not self improvement. But, and again, this is why you gotta spend some time thinking about this. Follow Jesus and you will improve. It's the result, It's not the focus.
But the challenge is, it's why we push back. I get it. Following Jesus is going to cost us something. Jesus is about to tell us that refusing to follow him will cost you even more because you can accumulate everything and have every imaginable experience and lose yourself. And so He tells us how to avoid that. You ready? One day He's walking along and he looks over His shoulder and there's this crowd, because everywhere He went, there's crowds. It's so interesting. Okay, so there's this crowd, and He realizes this is just another crowd of what's in it for me people. And He decides to thin the herd. So here's what the text tells us.
Mark, who got this information from Peter, tells us, and Jesus summoned the crowd. He stops walking and says, all right, gather up, everybody and His disciples. That's the group that follows him everywhere, including the 12. And He said to this large group, if anyone wishes to come after me, of course they're thinking, Well, what do you mean, if we wish to come after you? Another way of saying this is if anyone wishes to follow me. And they're like, What do you think we're doing? Everywhere you go, we go with you. Of course we're following you. He's like, No, no, no. I'm not talking about that. We're about to take this to another level. Anybody who wishes to follow me or come after me must deny himself.
Anybody who wants to follow me, He says, you're going to have to say no to you. Then He says this, which means nothing to us, but because we've never seen this, we've never experienced this, we've never smelled this, we've never turned our eyes away from this. We've never seen the aftermath of this. But they had, this was staggering. He says, if you're going to follow me, you're going to have to say no to yourself. And here's how far you're going to have to take this. You're going to have to take up a cross. You're going to to have take up your own cross. Follow me.
In the first century, second century, before the first century, second century, if somebody was carrying a cross or a piece of a cross, they had forfeited their independence. He says, you want to follow me? You want to come after me? You want to be one of my disciples. One of my learners. Then you can't be a free agent. You're going to have to embrace my agenda.
And then He dives into the paradox of all paradoxes. Ready? This is amazing. You've read this before? You've heard this before. You've heard it taught on before. The language is clunky and confusing because of the translation. So we're going to tease this out together. He says, for whoever, that would be all of us. If you're not a Christian, He's including you. He just put the funnel out as wide as he possibly could, cast a wide net for whoever. Believer, non believer, Jew, gentile, doesn't matter. Man, woman, doesn't freeze. For whoever. For whoever wants to save their life, to which I'm in, I want to save my life, will lose it. I don't know. Okay, wait. What? What do you mean? If I'm going to save my life, I have to lose it? What do you mean, lose it? Like die or how.
And this is so interesting, this little Greek words, apollumi, it's used all over the Greek New Testament, and it's translated different ways, even in our English New Testament, depending on the context, what it means is to lose out, to ruin, to destroy. Here's what He's saying. Whoever wants to save their life will ruin it.
Whoever wants to save their life, He's going to define save in just a minute. Whoever wants to save their life is going to ruin it. This is cause and effect. This is sowing and reaping the whoever that's trying to save their life, they lose their life or they ruin their life, not because something happens to them. He says, no, that's not what I'm talking about. In seeking to save their life, cling to their life, they actually ruin it themselves.
That in their attempt to hang on to all of their life, everything that represents life to them, in their effort to cling and hang on to everything that represents life to them, it slips away through their fingers. But come on, Jesus, you gotta be more specific. Help us out. What exactly slips through our fingers? What exactly is lost? What is whosoever? What is whosoever trying to save? It's not physical life. He makes that clear. This isn't about dying. It's something else. What's He getting at?
Well, He's about to tell us. But even if He didn't tell us, you have seen this played out in someone's life. You've seen this played out and maybe in the life of somebody you love and care about, you may be currently watching this very dynamic that He's talking about playing out in front of you in the life of somebody that is a friend or a neighbor or a coworker, maybe one of your kids, or maybe an ex-husband or wife, or maybe your husband or wife. But here's the real kicker. This may be playing out in your life and you don't know it. And what is this that we see sometimes playing out in the lives of other people that Jesus is unpacking for us? Simply this, that those, you've seen this, those who devote themselves to themselves eventually lose themselves.
In the end, they only have themselves to show for themselves. And some stuff that people line up to divide up. And Jesus is trying to save you from that. And Jesus is trying to save me from that. And those of you with influence and authority over other people, either at work or at home, Jesus wants you to save those people from that. His point, again, there's more to come, is that I am not enough for me to live for. That I am not enough for me to live for, and you are not enough for you to live for either, because if you attempt to live for yourself, you'll always be half empty and you will never be happy. And you'll always assume it's somebody else's fault.
And so you will be tempted to go from somebody to somebody, to somebody, to somebody. And by the time you figure it out that the common denominator in all those relationships was you, you will have wasted your time and your life. But worse, you'll have wasted an opportunity for purpose. You've seen this. He's trying to rescue you from this. And again, it's a paradox. It's like, Wait a minute, what are you asking? What are you asking? What are you asking?
And Jesus is like, Would you quit backing up? I'm inviting you. I'm inviting you to live your life the way you were created to live. It just doesn't work any other way. Have you not seen what happens to people who are consumed with themselves? They're afraid of what they're losing? And what they don't understand is they're losing what's more important, in their effort to hang on and to cling, it slips through their fingers.
Then it continues. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. In other words, the people who clinging to it, it slips away. But, and here's the flip side, but whoever loses their life, now, again, you read that and you're like, whoever dies? He's not talking about dying. And He's not talking about, oh my goodness, where did I put my life? I've lost... Hey, everybody, stop for a minute. I've lost my life. Has anybody seen... No, he's not talking about that kind. This is an interesting little play on words in the Greek language, here's what he's saying. And He's saying, look, those who, this is a decision. You don't lose it like it got stolen from you or you misplaced your life.
He says, no, this is all your choice. You're a part of all this. This is about intentionality. This is about deciding, it's about pre-deciding. Those who choose to give a portion of their lives to something that's not them or for them, people who choose proactively to make sure that not everything that's about me and comes to me is for me, the person who chooses to distribute their life. Again, the person who treats their capacity, their talent, their resources like seed that they just scatter, He says, that's what it looks like to lose your life. You choose to lose it because you choose to distribute it. You choose to make it available to other people that aren't you. And then he clarifies exactly what this looks like. Again, in the English text, it's a little bit difficult to understand. This is what this looks like. This is what this acts like. This is the application. He says, Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for me, this isn't about martyrdom.
Again, and this was not an invitation to do something for Jesus. Very important. Remember, this entire discussion began with a group of people who were in it for themselves. And Jesus is like, I'm going to thin the herd. And so the question was, do you want to follow me? Do you want to be one of my disciples? Do you want to really be a part of what I'm doing? Yes, we do. So this is about becoming like Jesus. This is about embracing the way of Jesus. So when he says, whoever loses their life for me, he means that whoever decides to live their life the way I have instructed you to live your life, the person, anybody who chooses my agenda, they're choosing it. And in choosing it, they are going to give themselves away in some capacity, just like I came to give my life away in some capacity.
He's saying, to lose your life is to choose to follow me and to live as I've instructed you to live. I didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many, you have to look for ways not to be served, but to serve others and to give your life away. He says, I've come... I'm all about the one anothers, And you're to be all about the one anothers. In fact, this is what the Apostle Paul does in his letters. He takes the teaching of Jesus, this core teaching of Jesus that we're to love as we've been loved, and he teases it out into all these relationships. So the Apostle Paul says, here's what it looks like. You forgive one another, you accept one another. You care for one another. You encourage one another. You submit to one another.
You serve one another. Jesus is like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. If you choose to lose your life for me the way I lost my life for the people around me, didn't lose it like I can't find it, didn't lose it like I died, lost it because I chose to give it away. It's the story of the good Samaritan. It's his instructions to go the second mile. He says, the person who will give their life away the way I gave my life away for me and for the good news, or in your English text, it says the gospel. And this is important as well. He says, I want you to live your life in such a way that you are scattering the seed of your life, that you're looking for opportunities to do for other people. And then when it happens, I want you to make sure that you connect the dots between why you're doing what you're doing, why you're living the way you're living, and your appreciation for and your love for your father in heaven.
That's the good news. Jesus said it this way in the Sermon on the mount, let your life or your light, let your light, the light of your life, let your light shine in such a way that people see your faith? Uh-huh. That people see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. He says, I want you to live your life in such a way that people are like, Wow, wait, really? Thank you. I don't deserve, really. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Why are you doing this? Ah, because this is what God did for me. This is what we do. We're Christians, we do for others what God through Christ did for us. He says, this is how you save your life.
This is how I save myself from myself. This is how I save myself from becoming all about myself and dying on the inside. This is how you save yourself from yourself. Now, this is so brilliant and it's so true, and let me illustrate it in your life now. Isn't it true that your worst moments were all about you moments?
Isn't it true that your greatest regrets were in the season of you? Did you have a season of you? It's all about me. I don't care what people say, I don't care what people think about me. It's all about me. It was all about you. All about you. Your worst, most selfish self-centered regret filled moments were the all about you moments season of you because you weren't doing for others, you were doing to others.
And Jesus is like, Ah, that's what I'm trying to save you from. If you don't follow me in my ways, you will eat away at yourself and you will lose yourself even if you have everything. And the flip side is true as well. Isn't it true? The fullest, the happiest, the securest, the most content, the most fearless people we know are the emptiest of themselves?
Yeah, the people that actually embrace, whether they knew it or not, embrace the others first. What can I do for you? My stuff is your stuff. I'm going to keep my hands wide open way of Jesus. The do what you wish you could do for one, do for one what you wish you could do for everyone type of person. I can't change everybody, but maybe I can change you. I can't do this for everybody, but I'm going to certainly do it for you. The people who pause and give a part of their life away, aren't they the greatest? Aren't they the most inspiring?
We save ourselves from ourselves by choosing. It's a choice. You're not going to lose it like you lost your car keys or your cell phone. It's a choice. We save ourselves from ourselves by choosing not to be all about ourselves. So, to wrap it up. If the only things that concern you and disturb you and just keep you focused in terms of keeping your emotions all amped up and ramped up, if all those things are just about you, you have some work to do. You may be on the path that Jesus is trying to wave you off of, you may be on the path that leads to losing you and you will not be happy because you will be half empty.
So this is a big deal. What breaks your heart? This is an important question because it forces me to look in the mirror and say, Andy, are the only things that really break your heart things that have to do with you? You got work to do. And if there's something outside of me that breaks my heart, I need to pay attention to that. This is my invitation, as I said up front. This is my, and this is your invitation to purpose. Even if it's not the ultimate thing, even if it's not some global cultural thing, even if it's a small thing, the moment you step out of your comfort zone to do something that might positively impact even the smallest thing or a family or individual, then you're on the right track.
And last thing, if you're not a Christian or you used to be, you're not a church person, let me, here's something that you may be thinking about. You may be thinking this. Well, finally, finally. Well, it's, I didn't, I never thought I would actually hear a pastor say this because I'm not one of you but I thought that's how all of you we're supposed to be., And that's not what I've experienced. So I'm glad you're saying that. But do you really have to tell the Christians to try to act like Christ? Yes. And you're not wrong, and we certainly don't always get it right, but here's something for you to think about while we're thinking about what we're thinking about. We don't always get it right, but Jesus did. He's like the return carriage on the old-fashioned typewriters, up, start over. He's the through line. He's the center line, the sermon on the mountain, the teaching of Jesus. This is what brings us back to where we are today. So you are not wrong. You're not wrong If you feel like you are justified in holding us accountable to looking a little bit more like Jesus.
But just remember, please, we don't get it right, but he did. And that makes Jesus worth considering. That makes Jesus worth following inspite of some of us. So between now and next time, we've got some things to think about. You've got some things to think about, and we will pick it up right there next time when we conclude a better question.
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