Tom Hawkes
The advice we receive about life often sounds like this: “you have to look out for No. 1,” or “prioritize yourself because no one else will do it for you.” We can see the result of the me-first way of living: road rage on our highways, cutting ahead to board planes and people eviscerating others online.
Jesus offered another way to find life. “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 15:24-25). Jesus presents us with the ultimate paradox, a counterintuitive way to life: the way up is down, the way ahead is back, the way to find life is to lose it.
Jesus exposes the problem with the me-first mindset: the one who tries to save their life —focusing on themselves, their needs and wants — ends up losing their life. And by losing life, Jesus means that they live with little purpose, fleeting satisfactions, no real joy and finally, losing their own soul.
We have all seen those living the me-first way. They talk without listening, they take without giving, they dismiss without caring. As a result, people avoid them. Their world grows smaller and smaller. They are deeply self-indulgent and unhappy people. They are like the dog that spends all its time chasing its own tail. They may be intensely busy but are not making any real progress.
On the other hand, Jesus tells us that by actively losing our life, in service to him and to others, we, surprisingly, find the very life we surrendered.
Jesus offers three keys to losing our own lives for him. First, we deny ourselves. Rather than indulging our every ego need or material want, we put the interests of Christ, his kingdom and others ahead of our own. Second, we take up our own cross. Christ suggests that we embrace, rather than avoid, the hardships that providentially come into our lives. This leaves us rightly humbled, dead to ourselves in a sense, and alive to God. Third, we are invited to follow Christ. This means not only looking to Christ in faith as Savior, but living a life under his Lordship, his leadership, looking after his interest.
This Christ centered, other-centered, way of living frees us up from our overly self-centered lives, releasing us for lives of service, lives of deep relational connections, lives of meaning and joy.
Decades ago, I significantly experienced this dynamic as a pastor. We had started a new church in Charlotte that had grown and was preparing to plant its first daughter church. I was excited about this — theoretically — until the cost became apparent. About 52 of our leaders decided to be part of this new church. And hardest of all, one of my closest friends in leadership told me he was going with the daughter church as well. It felt to me as if I were only losing life, and I resisted and hated that feeling. Then I came again upon Jesus’ advice on finding losing life to find it.
This verse helped me in a surprising way. When Jesus says we should “lose” our lives, the original term means something more powerful. You could translate the word lose, as destroy. Jesus was asking us — me — to voluntarily destroy my life, to take it apart and give it away. To send out perfectly good tithing members and close friends, for Christ’s sake, and their sake, and for the sake of those whom they would reach.
It was incredibly freeing to understand what Jesus was really asking of me. And, as is always the case, he was good to his word. My life was returned manifold through the sense of purpose fulfilled, the new relationships born, the freedom from fear of failure, and the closeness of walking with him. I had lost my life a bit for him, and he had given me more than I had given up. Jesus is our faithful guide to discovering the best way to live, paradoxes and all.
Dr. Tom Hawkes, a native of nearby Atlantic Beach and a graduate from Episcopal High, is the founding pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, a new mission church on the island. It is a congregation of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, an historic and biblically conservative denomination, founded in 1782 and headquartered in Greenville, S.C. He also serves as Director of Church Planting for the Florida Presbytery. He and his wife, Ann, are delighted to call Amelia Island home. Contact him at tom@christpresfb.com, or visit www.christpresfb.com.