4 Bridges to Nowhere Part 3

[HKHaugan]

Bridge 3

First, find. Mt.10:39 “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” In Matthew an identity is found (Gk., euron---find) that then is lost. Bridge One.

Second, save. Mk.8:35-36 “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” In Mark each moment of life seems saved (Gk., sosei) but then lost. Bridge Two.

Third, keep. Lk.17:33 “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” In Luke a lifestyle is hung onto (Gk., peripoiasesthai) and then lost. Bridge 3.

We crossed the first two bridges and now we are moving over the third. The first had to do with obtaining an identity. The second was having control over every next moment. Now we are moving over a bridge that leads to an accomplished lifestyle.

In the late 1940's a well known New York congressman was exposed in the press for taking lavish vacations, attending lavish parties, owning expensive cars, a small yacht and an upscale home. When interviewed, a constituent in his district was asked what he thought about his congressman doing all this with taxpayer monies. He replied, “Man, he sure knows how to live!” That kind of sums up many people's idea of a lifestyle.

So many people work hard to obtain a certain lifestyle thinking it is going to give them personal peace, self-satisfaction and recognition. Being economically successful, professionally successful, artistically successful, personally fulfilled, that is, if success is measured by what I believe my culture thinks is the epitome of 'having arrived.' So a general world principle is that of 'arrival.' If you get there, hang on to it.

There are several steps in that process. First, I have to choose a destination. Second, I have to choose a method to get there. Third, I have to be able to stay there when I arrive. The first is the destiny I believe in. The second is trusting the detailed strategy to get there. The third is to reap the benefits after I arrive. Each one asks a question. The first asks, “What makes it worthwhile?” The second asks, “What is the best way to get there?” The third asks, “What will I do when I get there that will make it last?”

All three make up the package of where my life in this world ends up. Notice how in all three there is built into us from our birth the need to look forward, the desire to achieve and the hope in experiencing the bliss that results from the achievement. Every breath we take is to sustain us for every next moment. The very essence of our invisible self, our personness, is set in a future outlook from day to day. This is the nature of dreaming, setting goals, painting a picture of what we'd like our lives to be. Whether it just for a day or for a lifetime everything is geared with the future in mind. It's what drives us to make plans, to set a course, to move into a future. Then, if we reach that goal we want to continue on that plateau and maintain it.

But a lifestyle is more than just culture driven accomplishment, physical security and comfortable aging. It is the goals we set, the choices, the methods and strategies we decide upon to achieve the goals. These are the things that form a process that brings some kind of ultimate satisfaction. And to what end? Lifestyle is not the achievement, the arrival, the plateau of internal peace and external security but the process to get there. This is really at the heart of the question a ruler brings to Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life (Lk.18:18)?” Here was a ruler (emphasis on 'ruler') who had reached the plateau, had the wealth, the status and the power the world promises when you follow its processes. He must have come to the realization that, “OK. I've arrived but there's something else, something more and it's not in what I can see but what I can't see. I've got everything I ever wanted but I'm still not happy inside. There is still this longing in me for something more. I've heard there is a well respected teacher in the area who many have gone to and have found answers and even physical healing. Maybe he can help me solve this emptiness I'm feeling.”

He knew from his heritage and learning that there was the promise of eternal life but even though he was raised in and obedient to all the demands of his religion his real need is not external but internal and eternal. Maybe this Jesus has the answer. So he goes to Jesus and asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus gives him a lifestyle answer prefaced by, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jesus is emphasizing the fact that only God is the source of what really counts internally and eternally. He wants the ruler to understand immediately that goodness is a living spiritual quality. So He tells the ruler “You know the commandments”...and He reels a list off to him to which the ruler replies, “But I've kept these since I was a boy.”

But Jesus knew what the ruler really needed so He says, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in Heaven. Then come, follow me.” Jesus was saying the one thing is everything. Faith in Him is the lifestyle. It's a moment to moment relational experience with the Holy Spirit guiding you. Religion was a secondary part of the ruler's lifestyle, not a relational part, not a personal dependency on God.

For a lot of people religion is a backdrop to obtaining the world's promises. Religion is a kind of goodness I can control with a certain amount of practice. The truth is however, if there is not a consciously dependent personal relationship with God, religion is empty and eternal life is impossible. You can't play both sides of the tracks. You are either spiritually led or world led. There is no salvation in religion or in a religious lifestyle, only in faith.

If we look at it in sports terms games are not won on game day. They start with belief in the sport, the obedience to the coaches and their game plan. They are won in the trenches of practice, in the details of each athlete's willingness to make every next moment in practice the perfection of his position. Game day is simply the fulfillment of his lifestyle in practice. This principle is true in every profession. The accumulation of knowledge and the precision with which it is used from one moment to the next determine the quality of the work involved. It is especially true when it comes to faith in God. Learning how to live a lifestyle of faith as opposed to an adoration of what is temporary gives us an eternal perspective in which the world becomes secondary and Jesus becomes everything. In the world's goals power comes from within but empties in the acquisition of the hollow promises offered.

When the ruler who came to Jesus for an answer heard Jesus' truth he went away sad “because he was a man of great wealth.” He applied his skills to momentary satisfaction through the wealth as though that was what was good in itself. Again there is nothing wrong with wealth. If you are blessed with it the issue is who do you depend on to place it where God knows it is best used and He gets the glory? And, was the lifestyle that helped you attain it spiritually constructed? Ultimately it is all about the heart, its character and purpose and the best lifestyle to build it as an offering to the Lord God.

I think it is interesting that a lifestyle of acquisition produces possessions and the more possessions we have the more we have to maintain so that actually we spend all our time being a slave to what we own. If we can reposition our acquisition to revise their demise to utility instead of futility, to look forward and Lordward, the world behind and the heart refined, then the 'thing'dom is replaced by the Kingdom where the believer is the achiever and trust is the must where Jesus is just and replaces the dust where faith is the kernel that brings the eternal.

So if we try to build a lifestyle without God we will lose it. But if our lifestyle is faith in every next moment we will preserve it which brings us to one more thing. If you have been blessed by being part of starting a church congregation and its buildings were confiscated, burned or lost in some way, so what? If what you helped build was hearts for God in the process, neither the world, the government nor institutional religion can't take that away. Those hearts and yours are eternally held in Jesus the Christ and the gates of hell shall not and cannot prevail against you.