Proper 8A (Pentecost 5) 2023

Text: “39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

What Did You Sign Up For?

The question that I’d like to challenge you with today, based on the readings you just heard, is: “What did you sign up for?”

Are you a Christian because you look at Jesus and His example of love and you see the path to a better, more peaceful world? Are you a follower of Jesus because you expect to learn principles for building a stronger family? Are you here because you want to find out how to discover and tap into God’s “purpose” for your life? Is one of those what you thought you were signing up for when you became a member of the church? Is one of those the reason why you continue to consider yourself a Christian?

If so, then let me be blunt for a moment. You’re in the wrong place.

We talked about the first of those a couple of weeks ago and we’ll have a chance to focus on the second next week or the week after. So let’s focus just on the third: the temptation to make Christianity about discovering and tapping into God’s “purpose” for your life.

One woman wrote in to a popular televangelist, asking, “I want to know my purpose. Life is stressful,” she said, “and the clock is ticking. I know I have a God-given purpose, but I’m frustrated that I don’t see any change on the horizon. I don’t have any answers. My fear is that I missed the mark. Why does it seem that God is not answering me?” (Viewer submitted question, “How Can I Know My Purpose?” Joyce Meyer Ministries Channel, YouTube.com. Posted July 24, 2021.). What is this woman looking for from God? What does she think that she has “signed up for”?

If I might read into her words a little bit, what I hear her saying is that she’s frustrated because, even though she’s a Christian, she doesn’t like her job. She really wishes she could do something that was more fulfilling; she wishes she had a job that people appreciated and valued; and maybe even a job that earned her more money so that she wasn’t constantly worried about that next big car repair or major appliance that suddenly quits. She’s a Christian, but her kids still don’t listen to her and her husband just comes home every night, sits in the recliner, and plays games on his iPad.

She has been told that God has a purpose for her life— that God has some mystical plan to help her have “deep relationships, a rewarding job[,] and a sense of direction that compels her to hop out of bed each morning with a spring in her step” (Ward, Mike. “What Is God’s Purpose for Your Life (and How to Find It).” www.cornerstone.edu. January 17, 2017, accessed June 29, 2023). She’s even seen people like Chip and Joana Gaines reflecting on their success and saying "I can look back now on the pattern of my life and really believe God has a purpose for me, but He also has purpose for you." The longer she goes without finding that meaning, that success, the more she doubts God— or, at least, doubts her own faith.

That’s the real danger here. If you look to God for something that He never promised, you’re going to be disappointed. And many people have made a ‘shipwreck’ of their faith on those sort of false expectations.

It is certainly true that God has been carefully carrying out His plan of salvation from the moment Adam and Eve fell into sin all the way to this very moment. He has been overseeing the acts of nations and the events of your life. But that is much different than what many Christians mean when they say that “God has some great purpose for your life”— that God has a mystical plan to help them have “deep relationships, rewarding jobs[,] and a sense of direction...” (Ward). Those are two different things, aren’t they? Did Jesus come to show you how to find your life in this world? Jesus didn’t think so. “Whoever finds his life will lose it,” Jesus warned.

If you have come to Christ’s church to find some great purpose that God has for your life, then, with due respect, you’re in the wrong place.

In fact, Jesus even cautions people who chase after those things: Whoever finds his life in this world will lose it.

What did you sign up for?

What Did Jesus Sign Up For?

Let’s turn the question around for a moment and asking: “What did Jesus sign up for?”

I suppose there is a bit of irony here. Jesus absolutely came to earth with a very clear and singular purpose. Every moment of every day was spent living in the purpose that the Father had for Him in His life. But even here, if Jesus is the exception to what I’ve just told you, He is the exception that proves the rule.

The Father’s purpose for His life went far beyond deep relationships and a rewarding job. I don’t know that the Father’s purpose for His life compelled Jesus to hop out of bed each morning with a spring in His step. Jesus could have found that life here in this world. He could have built deep relationships rather than the relationships He had with a group of disciples who never actually quite understood Him. He could have had a rewarding job, been a pillar of the community there in Nazareth with a sense of direction that had him hopping out of bed every morning. And that would have left you and I doomed to hell.

Jesus came to this earth because, no matter how appealing the devil tries to make this life, you and I are still dying. “Whoever finds his life [in this world] will lose it” (Matthew 10:38).

No, Jesus did not come to find His life in this world. He came to give up His life for yours.

We can actually take that statement one step further. Jesus did not come to find His life in this world. He came to give up His life for yours. He came to take your life from you. He came to take your sinful life upon Himself, to take the death that you deserved, and to suffer the full wrath of God for those sins, to die that death in your place. He did it to give you a new, eternal life.

What Has Jesus Brought You?

There is a more important question than “What did you sign up for?” That question is: “What has Jesus brought you?”

In a word, He brought you a cross. His purpose wasn’t to help you find your life in this world. His purpose was to help you lose it for His sake.

That’s what He sent out His church to do. He sent His church out, into the world, to baptize. And what happened in baptism? He killed you. You lost your life there for His sake. “[You] were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, [you] too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). You were joined to the death that He died on the cross so that you died there, too, in order that you now live a new life.

“39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). He did not come to help you find your purpose in this life. He came to make you new.

If it helps at all, that new life makes this life not less important, but more. It sanctifies everything you do. It gives a depth to every relationship that you have in this world. You aren’t just loving your wife or your husband, you are living out a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church. You aren’t just parents doing your best to raise children, you are loving Christ by loving them.

Your new life sanctifies everything that you do in this world. “Whatever you do for the least of these,” Jesus said, “you do for me” (Matthew 25:40). Jesus isn’t just talking about what you do for unimportant people, He’s talking about the many things that you and I do that seem monotonous, that seem mundane, that seem trivial— things that have never, in the history of the world, caused anyone to bounce out of bed with a spring in their step. By faith, whatever you do in those quickly forgotten moments, you do for Him.

Final thought: That changes what it means to be part of Christ’s church, too. In most churches, the expectation is simply that you live an upright life; that you’re a good citizen, a good member of our community; that you don’t cause any public scandals (Lane, Charles. “Ask, Thank, Tell.” Fortress Press, 2006. p. 13). And the members who have built successful businesses in the community, for example, they’re the ones who are really strong in their faith. They’re the Christians that everyone aspires to be.

Except that is not what Jesus brings you. That’s not the new life that He promises when He says “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). Your new life is the life of a disciple, not just a member. The ministry of this church belongs to all of us, not just our paid staff. The life of a disciple is marked by daily prayer, daily scripture reading, weekly worship, giving regular offerings in proportion to how God has blessed you, serving others in Jesus’ name, witnessing to your faith, and just simply living as part of a community here, in this place. Those are the marks of the life that you have found here in Jesus Christ.

Whatever you thought you signed up for, today is your chance to rediscover what Jesus came to give you; what Jesus has called you to. Not to find your life in this world, but find it by losing it for Jesus’ sake.