“I'm trying to find myself.” Have you ever used such an expression? People talk about “trying to find themselves,” especially when they are young. What do they mean by that?
At first hearing you might be tempted to tell them: “Why, you're right here. Just look in the mirror and you'll find yourself.” But their dilemma is more complicated than that, isn't it? Those who use such an expression don't really know who they are, why they are here, or where they are going in life.
In our text Jesus spoke of people “finding” themselves, too. He says: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” What's He mean by that?
If people find the meaning of life in their own self-esteem and whatever the world has to offer them, then they don't know what life is about. If they don't know God, the Savior, and what is in store for those who believe in Him, they are lost. And if they continue that way until they die, they will perish eternally and be lost forever.
But those who know God and trust in Christ as their Savior have found life in Him. They've found His righteousness and forgiveness; they've been restored in His image the way God had first made it and intended it to be. So, He makes up their life and their eternal happiness. Lost to the world, but found in Christ.
Think of it this way. Have you ever known someone who seemed to lose himself in something that he liked most – music, sports, hobbies? I had a brother like that; he was a great musician, always at the piano playing. It didn't matter what was happening around him, he found meaning, enjoyment, and his “life”, you could say, in his piano playing. He “lost” himself in it; but by doing so he also “found” himself and his happiness.
A similar thing happens as in faith you follow Christ. You become nothing, and He becomes everything. He is your life, your identity, and your purpose before God. He is the “music” that you can't and don't want to live without. In Him you find the real you.
So today, as we consider Jesus words here, our prayer is: Oh Lord Jesus, Help Me Lose My Life in You.
I. It won't get me worldly peace…
But if you lose your life in the Lord Jesus, you're going to lose other things, too, things that will cause you some pain and grief. Jesus said it this way: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'”
Oh, that doesn't sound good at all, does it? Friends, yes, even family members are going to turn against the believer for following Christ. And it's going to set up disappointing and unrestful, yes, even tense situations on earth in our relationships with them. You're going to lose some peace in this life – all because of the Lord Jesus.
That seems to be a contradiction from what Jesus came to give. Think of it. When He was born, what did the song that the angels sang to the shepherds say? “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom His favor rests” (Lk.2:14). Well, what is this? On the one hand God says He sent Christ to give us peace. But on the other hand Jesus says He didn't come into the world to give us peace. It sounds like He's not going to live up to the claims that God made about Him.
It's kind of like listening to some of those advertisements on TV, isn't it? You know, the ones that seem to promise you “the world” if you buy their product. Take this pill and you're going to have oodles of energy all the time. Use this cream and you're going to get rid of all your wrinkles and look young again. Drink this and you're going to be slim and trim and strong as an ox. If you get this or if you get that it's going to be the biggest, best, fastest working, and most effective thing you've ever had – guaranteed or your money back. I wish that I had the money back on some of the things that I've bought in the past. The point is products don't live up to their guarantees.
What about the Lord Jesus? God promised that in Him we'd have peace; Jesus said in Him we'd not have peace but a sword and conflict with others, some of whom might even live under the same roof as we do. Does Christ not live up to God's guarantees? Is this like those false advertisements on TV?
No, because God was talking about heavenly peace; and Jesus was talking about earthly peace. They are not the same thing. God sent Jesus to make peace between Him and sinners by dying on the cross to pay for it all. In that way we were reconciled to God and He lays aside His wrath towards our sin. Like Paul said in our Epistle Lesson today, when Christ died and was raised from the dead, we found a new life, a forgiven life in which we were reunited with God. No longer enemies in sin but united with God. (Ro.6:4f) That's the kind of peace God promised and sent us in the Savior. And He delivered on it. It's invisible, but, oh, so real.
But, sadly, not everyone believes it, desires it, and wants to follow it and that causes hostility among people. Even in the beginning after Adam and Eve's fall into sin, God said there would be enmity between those who want to follow the devil's way and those who want to follow the Savior's way. Believers will make enemies in the world because of their faith. In other words, losing your life in Christ won't get you worldly peace.
Knowing this perhaps doesn't make it any easier when a family member doesn't feel a need to go to church with you and may even ridicule you for it. It doesn't make it any easier when a child seems to despise his or her Christian upbringing and walks further away from God down the pathway of sin. But it does help to remember that we were all the same at one time – enemies of God because of our own sin. So He sent the Lord Jesus to be our peacemaker with Him by dying for our sin, and He sent the Holy Spirit to bring us back into His family by faith when we were lost. It also helps to pray for and to witness to those nearest us of the joys that we have in our Savior. The sword still hurts, but all these things help to overcome the hurt.
But most of all what helps is the Savior. He's so important to us, eternally important, that we don't want anything to get in the way of our relationship with Him – not even family ties. If we do, we will lose Him for ourselves and lose His eternal peace. We can't do without Him as the center of our lives.
You see, all too often we're tempted to view the Lord Jesus as just another piece of the pie of life that we want to enjoy. But He isn't just another piece of pie for us. He's more like the hub of the wheel around which everything in our lives revolves. Take that hub away and everything falls apart. But with Him as the hub. His redeeming love binds us to Him. We never want to lose that.
So we pray, Oh Lord Jesus, Help Us Lose Our Lives in You. It may not get us worldly peace…
II. …but it gets us the rewards of grace.
Jesus said it this way in our text: “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward”…and so on. Then He finishes by saying, “I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
The one word that repeats itself here is the word “reward.” Obviously, to the one who knows God's Word and what Christ means to us, the reward that Jesus is speaking about is not a reward the one earns or deserves. Rather, it's a reward of God's grace and kindness. It's something like this.
Did you ever find a purse or a wallet that was lost by someone else? When you took it back to that person, maybe you received a reward for returning it. But did you really return the purse or the wallet so that you would get a reward? No, you didn't do it for the reward. But you received it when it was offered. The rewards of God's grace are something like that.
When you go through the difficulties of life, when you choose to follow Christ over against the wishes of your friends or family, when you take up the cross of persecution for your faith and endure ridicule or mean talk from others who don't show that the love of Christ is in them, and you do it without retaliating or bearing a grudge or getting your revenge, when you eagerly listen to God's Word as the preacher preaches it, or cheerfully tell others about it, or you show simple acts of kindness to others in your faith – all because Christ is the hub of your life – God grants you the rewards of the Savior. You didn't do any of these things to get a reward – you do them because you are saved from your sin in the Lord Jesus and it's what you do as one of Christ's redeemed. As you live such a life, you get the rewards of His grace – the blessings of knowing and living in the Savior.
So live, dear friends, a life that is different in Christ. Lose Your Life in Him. It may not get you worldly peace, but it will get you the rewards of grace with which the Savior will bless your life now and forever.
O Lord Jesus , give us your help and grant it to us for your name's sake. Amen.