Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain • Luke 18:28-43

1:05:50 Teaching begins

Notes

I remember some reasons for not being a Christian.

If I became a Christian, I would lose all my friends and my parents wouldn’t understand me. I would lose the things I like to do. I’d lose my freedom and have to do a lot of things I don’t want to do. I didn’t want to be embarrassed by hanging around Christians. They’re harmless but they’re dumb.

Here I am, teaching the Bible. I’m a missionary pastor. How did I get here?

Just like the people we’ll read about today.

I found out I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

I’m reading in Luke 18 from verse 28 (to 30).

1. Peter wonders about the future.

A. He’s been listening to Jesus tell a wealthy young man you need to sell all you have, give it to the poor, come follow Me. And the guy can’t do that, because he realises he doesn’t want to do that. And Jesus says, a camel is going to go through the eye of a needle before you get to heaven. That makes everybody gasp. Who can be saved?

B. Peter makes the connection, we did that. I’ve left my business, my wife’s at home, I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. I know how this started, but what’s going to happen to me, to us? It might be a little late to start examining the terms and conditions. How’s the retirement plan? What’s my future?

C. That’s why Peter asks “what will we have?”

2. Jesus answers “whom will we have?” Everything Jesus mentions are relationships, even the idea behind a house.

A. Wives, brothers, parents, children really describe “family.” The family relationship powerfully constrains us. We are social, made for relationship because we’re made in God’s image. That acceptance and approval means more than anyone else’s.

B. You don’t leave a house but the idea of “home”. It’s a familiar environment with a certain security, stability, and comfort. At least you know it. You also know the culture and the language. You fit in.

C. Your relationship with your Creator and your Redeemer comes first. It’s your fundamental, primary relationship because that’s eternal life. Everything else organises under that primary relationship, no other relationship can compete or conflict with Him.

1. Jesus isn’t saying leave your husband or wife. Remember He made up marriage.

2. You no longer base your life on your wife’s acceptance and approval. Your life is based on Jesus’ acceptance and approval. You might not get that from your wife or your husband, but that doesn’t govern what you do or not do.

3. What if your parents don’t approve of you following Jesus? What if your children don’t approve? Will you change your mind, walk away from eternal life to make peace and not disturb the family?

D. When I began following Jesus my whole family didn’t like it. Nobody understood what I was doing or why I was doing it. They thought I was crazy. I still lived in the house with the family but I was a foreigner to them, and the house was no longer home.

E. But you have to give up the idea of security and comfort in people and a place, because when you come to Jesus your old life ends and your new life begins in Him.

1. You become a citizen of heaven, that’s where you belong. You are a foreigner on earth, like Jesus.

2. Because He is the Lord He could send you anywhere to serve Him. He might have you learn a new language and culture.

3. Even if you stay in the same place, that place will be foreign to you, and you to the place. It’s no longer your home, heaven is. That house and all your things belong to Jesus because He redeemed you and bought you out. You’re the steward of His things, including the house.

F. From here on in your happy place is Jesus. He’s home no matter where you live or go. You cultivate that relationship and find the same intimacy and security and stability.

G. Here’s Peter thinking, I used to have a family, and now I’m a nothing. What am I going to have?

3. Jesus says: many times as much family and homes.

A. Really? Homes? Yes! Not the physical structure but the belonging and the acceptance and the approval that says “home”.

B. They feel like home because of family. You get many more parents, brothers, wives, and children, in a figurative sense: He means FAMILY.

1. I’ll never forget being in Australia, so sick the band had to leave me behind while they went on the next concert. The wife in the house took care of me like she was my own mother. I’ve experienced that many times.

2. You will have many dear brothers and sisters, and parents and children in the Lord. What an amazing group of people who love, accept and approve. They give when you need it. They support you like you were related.

C. I’ve lived in many houses, driven many cars, none of which were mine, but I got to use them as if they were mine.

D. I feel like Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He was a medical doctor who was the protégé of Lord Horder, personal physician to the king of England. He was on the fast lane right to the top of the medical profession, and he walked away from it all when he repented and received Jesus. He became a missionary pastor in South Wales. He’d get newspaper reporters try to find out why he gave up his whole future. He said, “I gave up nothing, I received everything!”

4. Jesus tells the disciples again what’s going to happen in the near future, even if they don’t get it, vv. 31-34.

A. This is the third time in Luke that Jesus has told the disciples that He’s going to be crucified in Jerusalem. They’re on the way now, almost there.

B. He includes that He’s going to be raised from the dead. All these terrible things will happen, and He will be raised from the dead.

C. He’s trying to prepare them for shock and give them hope.

1. Jesus will be rejected, condemned, executed. As far as they’re concerned you can’t get much worse than dead.

2. He’s going to overcome death by rising from the dead.

D. Jesus is okay with death because He understands what the Father wants and is in complete agreement. He’s going to end their old life of sin and give them new life in Him. He understands that after He has done the will of the Father, the Father will raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus understands resurrection.

E. The disciples’ understanding breaks down here because of  their natural inborn sin. Sin doesn’t depend on God, doesn’t reckon that He’s even present in life, and always preserves self. I wouldn’t do death, I’d do it differently, some way that would preserve me. The disciples only understood after Jesus rose from the dead and they were born again of His Holy Spirit.

F. Nothing is going to make sense to you about Jesus until you are born again of the Spirit.

5. A blind man has nothing to lose and everything to gain, vv. 35-43.

A. Jesus approaches Jericho, some 18 miles from Jerusalem.

B. A blind man is begging, and on this road he would get a lot of traffic. It raises the chance that someone is going to help him. I think he also hears a lot of news of what’s going on elsewhere.

C. This man has heard about Jesus, that He can heal anyone of anything. He raises the dead and heals the blind. I’m sure they passed on to the man Jesus’ teaching, words that no man ever spoke before.

D. The blind man hears these things, thinks about it, decides no one could make this up, this has to be the Messiah. I wonder if he prayed, “O God, could you send Him to heal me?”

F. I know this because when he hears the approaching crowd, asks what it’s all about, they tell him that it’s Jesus of Nazareth. When he cries out, he cries out Jesus, Son of David, and that is a Messianic title. He’s heard about Jesus and he believes He is the Messiah promised by God to save His people.

G. Here is another example of sin. This man gets no encouragement or acceptance from the crowd around Jesus.

1. People try to shush him. He annoys them. They don’t approve of him making noise and trying to get to Jesus. They don’t mind going along with Jesus, but having some noisy beggar clamour to see Jesus is too much. Now, you be quiet! And he gets even louder! Why, you impertinent crazy man!

2. It’s clear that they’re not thinking about the suffering and the needs of the blind man, or thinking, hey, let’s help him get to Jesus, wouldn’t that be great? All they care about is their own comfort.

H. Because the blind man believes Jesus is the Messiah he doesn’t care what people think. The only thing that matters is what Jesus thinks. He is free to yell louder.

I. Jesus hears the blind man in a noisy crowd of people and says, bring him here. Again, Jesus did only what the Father showed Him. So the Father showed Jesus the blind man, and says, go ahead and call him.

J. Jesus says, “What do you want Me to do for you?” “Lord, that I may regain my sight.”

K. Jesus says, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”

1. Faith isn’t a power in and of itself. Faith is depending on somebody outside oneself.

2. The blind man depended on Jesus, that He had the power and the willingness, the goodness to heal him.

L. Notice that the man follows Jesus and glorifies Him, and the crowd follows the man as he follows Jesus. There’s a lot of people in the crowd but that doesn’t mean they’re right. They’re fickle, nothing to depend on. You don’t follow the crowd. Jesus is dependable. You follow Him.

6. So what?

A. The principle here is you have nothing to lose in following Jesus and everything to gain.

B. Your life is nothing to hold onto. It’s temporary. You can’t keep your possessions. You can’t keep your soul, it’s sinful and contrary to God. Your life is leading you to destruction. You don’t need that.

C. Jesus was born a human being like us, except without sin. He died in order to end our sinful lives. He rose from the dead to give us His life from the dead.

D. We have everything to gain. God gives us much more than we lose and eternal life.

E. None of this will make sense until you are born again. Why don’t you ask the Father, make me born again of Your Spirit? Let me see Your ways, let me understand You.

F. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Let’s pray.