Sacrifice

This morning, we're going to be looking at one of the gospels in Matthew 19, talking about something very, I guess, relevant to what we've just talked about here as well, the aspect of sacrifice. I'm sure you've heard it before. Jesus had some very specific things to say about the life of discipleship, the cost of discipleship, especially when it comes to what we invest in life. And this is one of those hard hitting messages and opportunities of teaching that Jesus had in the gospel of Matthew, but it's also found in Mark 11 or 12, I believe, and in Luke. So it's one of those things that a lot of the early disciples found really, really important and want to share with everyone.

So if you want to turn with me to Matthew 19, we're going to read from verse 16 to 30, to the end of the chapter. Matthew 19, verse 16. Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied.

"There is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, "Well, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbour as yourself."

"All of these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth. It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you. What then will be there for us?" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth. At the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And then everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."

"But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first." So far, our reading this morning. We see a man, a rich, decent, upright, morally good man coming to Jesus, and he has a burden on his heart. He has a burning question that he needs answered. And it's to do with discipleship.

It's to do with a life of following Jesus. It's something that he feels he's not right with the Lord yet and needs to fix and needs to sort out. And the first thing I thought when I read this again this week was this question. If this morally upright man, a rich, well-together businessman eager for eternal life, eager to do what is right, came to Jesus knowing that something wasn't right, how do we judge today who is a worthy disciple or not?

If a savvy businessman walks into this church with a really nice shirt, nice clean-cut, does he or does he not need our help as a church? How much focus sometimes we place on that down and outers and forget that there might be these savvy, rich, moral people who seem to have it all together and yet feel like they're missing out, feel that there's something that's still not right between them and God. This man asked Jesus this question: "What good thing must I do to inherit or to get eternal life?" You can see that he assumed, firstly, that eternal life was something to be earned, something to be received or achieved by doing a good thing.

But Jesus, in answering him, undermines the entire premise by questioning the man's understanding of goodness in the first place. This is what Jesus tells a man: "There is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." Isn't that interesting that Jesus would say that?

How many times have we heard on our TV show Christianity about being a good person, about being a good person and then going to heaven. Jesus hints to that idea actually by saying that no one besides God is good. No one besides God is good. In fact, goodness is not so much found objectively in a system or a law set, something that can be attained, something that's codified and easily to identify.

Goodness is found in relation to God, comparing us to God. Goodness is found when we compare ourselves to a good God. And so to keep God's commandments is actually to reflect His goodness because the Bible indicates that His law is actually the summary of God's character. The ten commandments is who God is. So God is good because He epitomises these laws.

He is a God who hates oppression, a God who cannot stand manipulation, a God who will not tolerate violence. And so we see this man, and I think he genuinely wanted to be good. He genuinely wanted to be righteous. And he is recognised as a good man, but he still has this consciousness of missing something. He still knows that there's something missing in his life, and he's looking for something additional to do.

And Jesus responds in verse 21 with this. Okay, first of all, He says, "No one is good. But if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and then come follow me." Now, again, this word perfect is astounding.

It refers to completion. It is the same word that Zed preached on last week and when he mentioned Jesus on the cross saying "It is finished. It is completed. It is perfected." He says, "If you want to be completed, go sell your possessions, give to the poor, and follow me."

Now this response just knocks the man for a six. And it undermines everything this man had built his life on. To leave everything, however, and this was what Jesus was going at, to leave everything, to sell everything meant that he left everything in God's hands. But the man went away sad because he had great wealth, the gospel writer Matthew writes. Now, before I go into the area that you think I'm going to go into and talk about financial wealth and all those sort of things and sacrifice, I want to point out that Jesus didn't require all His followers to become destitute.

Jesus didn't require all His followers to become destitute. In fact, His demands varied for different individuals in different situations. So some, like James and John, had to give up businesses in order to follow Jesus, in order to become His disciples. Others, like Matthew the tax collector, had to forsake some dodgy lifestyles. As a tax collector, earning a little bit of money off other people's oppression.

Others, like Peter, had to leave a wife behind to follow Jesus. He was the only married disciple at that time. And at least he had to leave her for a while. We see that his wife was then part of his ministry in Acts and so on. So for at least three years, Peter wasn't around.

And so Jesus didn't require everyone like this man to sell their possessions, but, and this is the point, but following Jesus often meant a sacrifice. It is so easy. It is so easy to wear the mantle of Christianity, to click on a like on Facebook on some nice little Christian cliche or to forward a nice email rather than to make hard decisions that will almost certainly influence your life long term. When it came to following Jesus, it was a lifestyle choice. It was a lifestyle choice.

A decision to move from one reality, owning a fishing business, to give it to someone else and walk in the dust of the rabbi Jesus. We mustn't forget that Christianity is not a clubhouse that we can go to once in a while for a nice schnitzle and chips or a nice parmi, Seb. Christianity is a lifestyle. Christianity is a lifestyle. You can't switch it off.

You can't put it on and then take it off. You can't tone it down. Christianity is a lifestyle. It is a way of life. It is who we are.

It is a lifestyle, not a fashion style. It's not a flavour of the month, but a day in, day out decision to live in a certain way. The man went away sad because he thought it would be an impossibility to give up something he treasured so much to follow Jesus. It was an impossibility. Now for us, it is true that Jesus might not require us to sell all we have in order to be His disciples.

But the Lord will call upon different sacrifices of all of us from time to time. His demands varied for different individuals in the New Testament, and therefore, I believe His demands will vary for disciples today as well. But before we head into, you know, being comfortable with the truth, or seeing it as a convenient truth to say that, okay, He might not require that of me, I was again confronted by what Robert Gundry, a New Testament scholar, writes. And he puts it very pointedly in his commentary on Matthew. He says that Jesus did not command all His followers to sell all their possessions.

Possessions gives comfort only to the kind of people to whom He would have issued that command. In other words, if you're thinking, "Phew, I'm glad He didn't tell that to me," then it might just be that you are the person Jesus might have given this command to. Because Jesus gave this command to a man who had everything right. He had the clean-cut. He had the business suit.

He was a very moral man, a good man, a decent man, and yet he was imperfect because his wealth stood in the way from him following Jesus. In fact, Jesus was teaching that wealth can go so far as to keep you out of the kingdom of God. He goes on. He says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The self reliance, in other words, the self reliance of wealth, the building of that security, speaking theologically now, may mean that you worship yourself as God rather than living in submission to the living God.

Now these words are radical, aren't they, for us this morning? They always make you uncomfortable. And it makes total sense that it is uncomfortable because most of us have more wealth than we need. We even have to invent ways sometimes to spend it. Now these words seem radical to us because they were also radical to the disciples first, and that is why Matthew, Mark, and Luke included it in their gospels.

Listen to the response of the disciples when they first heard this. Verse 25: "When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, 'Who then can be saved?'" If this is the requirement, if a moral, upright, decent man like this, who simply wasn't willing to sell everything he had and become destitute, if he wasn't able to enter the kingdom, then who was? Seriously.

Who in their right mind does that? But not only is this difficult, Jesus says, it is impossible. It is impossible. As impossible as it is for a giant camel to go through the eye of a tiny needle, that little hole that you thread your thread through, as impossible as that is, so impossible is it for us to sacrifice like that. At their astonishment, Jesus replies, however, verse 26: "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

And so we see the other aspect to this story. Not only does being a Christian have a cost, not only will there be times where we must forsake things, even good things to remain obedient to our Lord, but secondly, God's involvement to make it happen is also our greatest encouragement. God's involvement to make it happen is our greatest encouragement. You see, so often I've heard talks about making these decisions for your life.

We've got some student life kids here and the university campus ministry. And man, you get smashed as a student there, you know? Give everything you have. Give everything you have for Jesus.

But I've also seen where there is real lack in this preaching, in this teaching because it stops with us. It stops with us. Sacrifice stops with our willpower. It stops with our emotional state. It stops with our lack of discipline.

But Jesus says that if it were up to us, it would always fail. It would always fail. Not sometimes, always. God, through His Spirit, can empower even the weakest individual to make great sacrifices to follow Christ. When Jesus says to individuals, "Repent and believe," it means there are addictions that are going to be given up.

There are relationships, bad relationships that are given up. There are sins that feel awfully good that are given up. And humanly speaking, these things would be impossible to completely leave behind. But it is not impossible when we have the empowering work of God in our lives. And this is what Jesus is getting at here.

Friends, we should be continually inviting God to take over more and more aspects of our heart, of our lives, to give Him authority to rule over our time commitments, over our preferences for entertainment, over our financial spending, even because the reality is the fact that you are even tithing to this church, you are donating to this group of people is a sign of God's work in your heart. Because you would not be doing that if He hadn't radically shaken you up. The fact that you walk a different path to your friends, your colleagues, is already a miracle of God. And Jesus says it is the biggest miracle that God has ever done in your life.

Because it's something that would have been impossible to do if you relied on it yourself, if you relied completely on yourself to do it. And I've seen amazing sacrifices, friends. I've seen amazing sacrifices. I studied with a man who was a farmer out west, sold his entire farm to study at Bible college and shipped overseas to become a missionary.

A self-funded missionary with his entire family. Talk about taking the Bible literally. Incredible sacrifice. And I've been contemplating saying this, but even in our church, we've had an anonymous donation of twenty thousand dollars come in in the recent weeks. And I can tell you, friends, there are no millionaires in this church.

Incredible sacrifice. Like I said before, this may not be something that Jesus will ask of all of us, but neither should we get too comfortable to think that He might not, and in all areas of life. The rich young man walked away sad that day because he saw the impossibility of the command from Jesus to sacrifice something that stood in the way of him and a meaningful, intimate relationship with Christ. And unfortunately, we don't know how the story ended. I would like to believe that the man went away sad, broken, but that God through His grace was able to move this man, that he may have even become one of the greatest contributors to the gospel in that time, that he may have funded the church, that he may have looked after the apostles.

I hope. I hope. We see a very interesting just editorial remark that Mark in his version of this puts in that Jesus saw the man and loved him. He saw the man and loved him. Nevertheless, I guess it's not included because it's not important.

This man saw the impossibility of that command, but friends, I want to say that today we know the possibility of God's empowerment in our lives. He saw the impossibility of that command, but we know the possibility of God's empowerment. The Bible makes it clear that it is only God's action that causes us to believe and follow Christ in the first place. Romans 2:4 says this beautifully: "Do you not realise that it is God's kindness that leads you to repentance?"

It is God's kindness that leads you to repentance. Or Ephesians 2:8: "It is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God." What is impossible for man is possible for God. And this morning, I want us to remember this, that this verse is not a throwaway verse about miracles of healing or provision.

Now, what's impossible for man is possible for God. Although, obviously, that can relate to it. What this verse is talking about is the miracle of eternal magnitude. It is about the impossibility of converting a sinful heart. But today, if we are totally honest, we know that it is only God who could have transformed our lives to the state we find ourselves in now.

It is only God who could resurrect the saint from within the wretch. If it was up to us, it would never have happened. What is impossible for man is possible for God, and this has all sorts of implications. When we think about evangelism, for example, we realise that it's not our persuasiveness or our logic that will convince or convict. It has all sorts of implications for our church ministry because we know not even our beautiful logo and our nice marketing or a pretty building will draw others to Christ.

It can only ever be a miracle of God with eternal magnitude. And lastly, we see Peter say to Jesus, "Now what about us, Peter? What about us? We've left everything for you, Jesus." Jesus tells the disciples that they will have places of prominence on judgment day, that they will even be involved in judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And just to clarify this, judging not so much as in saying who's in and who's out, but this the word here refers more to the reigning. The reigning. They will have places of authority over the twelve tribes of Israel, which is the church. But then Jesus goes further in those last final verses, and he widens it and says that everyone who has sacrificed, even had to say goodbye to some good things, who may have had to lose friends or family to follow Christ, children even, or friends, or fields, who will receive a hundred times, will receive a hundred times what they've had to give up. Now, before we start thinking too much like some extremists about the seven virgins in paradise or something like that, biblical commentators say the emphasis here lies much more in the sharing of Christ's kingly glory than individual rewards.

Although other places in scripture do seem to talk about personal rewards in heaven, the idea here, the idea here, is far more on a comparison between the magnitude of joy and fulfilment of the renewed heaven and earth compared to the loss we have endured for the sake of Christ. Like the apostle Paul would later write in Romans 8:18: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." And when Jesus says it's multiplied a hundred times, it's not literally, you know, you're going to sacrifice one dollar to the church, you get a hundred back. It's to talk about just the enormity of it. The hundred is a metaphor.

It's an exaggeration of just the immensity of the glory that Jesus is referring to. Jesus overturns all human valuations and possibility and says that those who would by human terms be considered last or lowest because of their sacrifice, again, a sacrifice that no human person is going to understand apart from the grace of God, that person that follows Jesus Christ will understand. He overturns that and says those who are lowest in terms of human valuation will be the highest in God's eyes.

But again, this is part of the work that God does. This is what God does. Salvation is not something to be earned either by wealth or earned by poverty. It is an impossibility that God makes possible in the hearts of His children. But there is an aspect that we should remember, and that is to keep everything in this eternal perspective.

That's why Jesus gave this teaching. If an immense treasure awaits us, you know, a hundred times more than we can imagine, a hundred times more than we can have now, what is my discomfort worth right now? You can talk about all the financial terms like net present value and all those accountants will understand that as well. If I live as a citizen of an eternal kingdom, why invest in things that will pass away? And this gives us a sense of peace and security and allows us not to hold onto things too tightly, but to say to God, "Do as you see fit.

My life is yours." The rich young man asked Jesus what every human being, whether they think they do or not, asks: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus replied, "Get rid of your closest held possessions, your deepest loved values which may conflict with me, and then come follow me." If this seems impossible, friends, it is. But God will make it possible because He can change even our very hearts.

And He's the one that does it. Let's ask Him to do that in our lives as He sees fit. Let's give Him the permission to do that, and let's be willing to comply when He requires it of us. As we read in that Romans 8 passage this morning, that God is the one who reached out to us, who predestined us, who called us, who justified us through Jesus Christ, and who will glorify us. It is His work.

Without Him, it would be impossible. Let's pray. Lord, You are big. You are huge. You have existed before eternity.

You will exist until eternity. And Father, our life and our breath and everything inside of us is so dependent upon You, and yet we struggle to keep that in perspective at all times. Our mind wanders, Lord, and our confidence is built again on sandy shores, on crumbling soil. Father, we build our houses and our fortunes and our skills and our status. And Father, then we are greatly dismayed when those things start crumbling, and we are so shocked. Father, thank You that You have stepped in.

Thank You, Lord, that You have called us and that even sitting here this morning, we know that we are miracles in and of ourselves, Father, that You have already started this work in our hearts. But, Father, this morning, we are reminded and we ask You to remind us continually that following You may require something of us. At the same time, Father, I thank You for the many people in this church who are sacrificing, not just a little, but a lot. Lord, I thank You for the energy and the time of this little church punching way above its weight in so many aspects and individuals who are really pulling their weight. Father, I thank You for them.

I thank You, Lord, that there is so much good news that trickles down to me and to our elders and through our various leaders, Lord, of amazing things that You are doing in the lives of Your people here, in their workplaces, in their schools, in their universities. Father, I pray that You will continue to do this. Lord, it is impossible without Your help. It is impossible. Not simply difficult, not simply complex or complicated.

It is impossible to do anything without You. So, Father, I pray that You'll shore up our confidence in You this morning again. We lay down those things in our lives, and we will make changes in our lives from this day onwards of things that need to be changed, of things that need to be given up, that we feel that You've already spoken to us about again and again and again. And today, Father, may for the last time just need that final reminder, that final hammer hitting the nail. Father, I also pray that You will give us a joy and a freshness and a rejuvenation knowing that we are obedient to this call as well.

Father, that this will not be done begrudgingly or with guilt or with shame, but Father, with hearts of joy knowing that You can use us so much better than we can. You can use us so much better than we can use ourselves. Father, I place this church, this little church that I've been called to as pastor, I place it in Your hands as well. And I know, Lord, that this is Your church. This is Your people.

This is Your flock. And I just ask, Lord, do with it as You see fit. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.