Gaining the World, Losing Our Souls

Today's scripture reading comes from Matthew chapter 16 verses 21 through 27. Let us hear these words. Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said. This shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Well, good morning, church. It's good to be here with you on this fall break Sunday morning in person and those who are worshiping online. It's good to be together, connected through the Holy Spirit. I want to share, I had the opportunity to kind of dip my toe in the waters of professional sports early on in my professional career as I served as the Director of Faith Knights for the National Sounds baseball team from 2005 to about 2009. It was a thrill for me to be a part of sports. Anytime I can be by a sporting event, I'm happy. I'm thrilled and to be able to say that I was employed by the National Sounds was a huge thrill to me. But I'll tell you this, we really had nothing to do with the actual baseball team itself. My favorite part, though, about being a part of what I did with the people that I got to meet, though. There were many larger than life personalities that were always around professional sports, always around the National Sounds. And I'm thankful for those. And I want to share with you, too, that I really got to meet and be around and know Chuck Ross and Craig Partner Ball. Both of these individuals had special needs.

Chuck is still living. Both are incredible human beings. I don't have time to share all the stories, but I will tell you, there's a book written about Chuck Ross, and it reads like Forrest Gump and all the places and things that Chuck did. I'll just share with you really quickly. He wanted to meet the legendary Chicago Bears football coach, George Papa Bear Hallis, and the Bears were coming to Nashville to play in an exhibition game, a preseason NFL game at Vanderbilt Stadium. And Chuck wanted to meet him, and nobody was cooperating with him. And so pregame Chuck snuck out on the field and went out to the 50-yard line and introduced himself to Coach Hallis. He also, after an Alabama Vanderbilt football game, irritated legendary Alabama coach Paul Bear Bryant so much that Bryant had to stop the postgame press conference and said, will somebody do what that guy once done so that we can get on with this press conference? I'll also tell you that Chuck Ross single-handedly rained out a Lipscomb baseball game on a sunny day, and he also saved a Lipscomb basketball homecoming from being ruined, just to tease you a little bit. Partner, as we called Craig Ball, was a larger-than-life personality. He was made known in any room that he was in, you knew that Craig Partner Ball was there. My favorite partner story was one time when he called my brother and said, hey, I want you and your brother to take me out to lunch. That was his introduction there. He said, I want you to take me out to lunch. And so we grabbed another guy from the Sounds Front office, and we took him out to lunch. He wanted to go to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, and so we did that. He ate more pizza than I've ever seen eaten in my entire life. I mean, he put away a pile of pizza like that and went back for more. And after we got done eating, we went back to Greer Stadium, and I was fixing to head back to the church. I was working in the church still at that point, and my brother and the other guy were going back into Greer Stadium to work, and we saw Partner leave with three other guys from the Sounds. They were taking him to lunch at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, and he put away the food there. I loved watching them interact with people, and I loved watching how people treated them.

Chuck lived in an assisted living facility. He couldn't drive. He required somebody to take him or carry him, as he would say, to anything he went to, yet he never missed a Sounds game, a Vanderbilt game of any sport, or a Lipscomb game of any sport college or high school. Most took care of Chuck. Most would accommodate and love the time they got to spend with Chuck, but it was sad, as I watched many who missed out on the opportunity of being Chuck's friend, because they had more important things to do, more important people to be with in their mind. Partner would keep the sweets clean for the National Sounds. That's how I got to know him, but his main job was he was a locker room attendant for the National Predators and became beloved in the hockey community. So much so, he got to know all the players, and again, some didn't have the time of day for him, but others were just taken with Partner, and his larger-than-life personality. One was Eric Lindross, one of the great NHL players of all time. He got a concussion when he was playing in Nashville and had to be hospitalized, and Partner decided he was going to go visit Eric Lindross in the hospital. He cared for his friend. Partner loved people, and he said, I love you, buddy. That was what he always would say when he'd leave you. Lindross had said no visitors, absolutely no exceptions, no visitors, but Partner was not going to be denied, and he is loud, if anything, and in the outside area of the floor that he was on, he was making noise, trying to get to see his friend Eric Lindross. Everybody in the whole wing heard him, and finally, Eric Lindross heard him, picked up the phone, called the nurse's station, and said, that's my friend, Partner. He can come back and visit me. Another time, the Predators had just traded for a new player, and he was having a bad game. He came in after one of the periods and just trashed the locker room, and Partner said, you don't treat the locker room like that, and he started yelling at Partner and was rude to Partner, and he pushed Partner. Well, the Pred's captain, Shea Weber, I'm not going to tell you everything he did, but he made it clear to this new Predator that you don't mess with his friend, Craig Partner Ball. And when Partner was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the entire Predators and NHL community rallied around him, supported him, and did fundraisers for him to help him in his battle with cancer. I start off today's sermon by talking about these two national icons, because I learned a lot from them, and I learned a lot by how people interacted with them. I think it's important to mention Chuck and Partner in a sermon series in which I'm talking about faith and politics, because they offer us an opportunity to stand in direct contrast to the way the world works. There's a quote that's always stuck with me that I always try to keep in my mind, because I know those temptations are there in me, and I think in all of us, it's attributed to Sue Fitzmall, but the quote says this, I'm not interested in whether you stood with the great. I'm interested in whether you sat with the broken. I'm not interested in whether you stood with the great. I care about whether you sat with the broken. That's the gospel that Jesus taught.

Politics is all about standing with the great, right? It is. It's about looking for photo opportunities with people who can elevate our status. Politicians love a good photo op. It's part of their gig. It's part of what they do, and listen, I readily admit that part of what I do as the senior pastor of this church is political. It's part of what I have to do so that the church can live out its mission most effectively, but that's not what our mission is. Our mission, quite clearly, is in sitting with the broken. Jesus talks about judgment in Scripture, about how we sit with the broken. He says there will be a time when I will separate the sheep from the goats based on whether they cared for the homeless, the naked, the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, and the imprisoned. And Jesus says that based on whether you did this for me or whether you did it for them or not, it's as if you did it to me. And if you failed to do it to them, it's just as if you failed to do it to me. Jesus clearly states, and how we as his followers will be judged is about how we sit with the broken. Our faith compels us to sit with the broken. Failure to do so indicates a lack of understanding of who Jesus is. Politics is about getting what you want. That's what it drives it. That's what it's for. It's about getting your candidate elected. It's about getting your policies enacted. It's getting what benefits you accomplished. And so we give money and we campaign and we vote to try to make those things get enacted.

Jesus says in our text that we read today that the way he operates is totally different from that. It's opposite from that. He said if anyone wants to come after me, if anyone wants to follow me, then they must deny themselves their desires, what they want, and take up their cross and follow me. Jesus carried that cross. It was the instrument of his death carried out because he would not play the political game because he wasn't about standing with the great and endorsing them and making them feel good about themselves. And you know what the common knock was against Jesus throughout his earthly ministry? It's recorded in scripture multiple times. They would say look at him pointing at Jesus. He hangs out with sinners and tax collectors. Jesus sat with the broken. Then Jesus says whoever tries to save their life, they'll lose it. But whoever loses their life for me, for my sake, will find true life. Jesus is telling us that those who are in it for themselves will lose their life. They will become inwardly focused. They will only care what happens for them and in doing so will lose their life and everything life is supposed to mean. But anyone who's willing to give up their life, give up what they want, what benefits them, what their desires are, what their wants are, for my sake, well those people will find true life. They'll get the understanding what life truly is about. Now this isn't easy, but we know that, right? The way of Jesus is hard. It requires sacrifice.

Jesus sacrificed. It requires selflessness. Jesus was selfless. He modeled that for us. But the way of Jesus is life-giving. It's how we can find true life. It's where we can experience joy like we've never experienced it before in this life and in the life to come. And this life helps us to overcome the ways of the world. It helps us to find the meaning, what true life is. Then Jesus offers two questions in our text for today and they're really warnings for us. They're things that we need to hear and understand. It's a cautionary tale for us if we're not careful that we need to heed that, especially in how we as followers of Jesus engage in the political world. There's a warning for it and we've seen it happen over and over and over. He asks, what good would it be for someone if they gain the whole world and yet lose their own soul? At what cost can they get their soul back? At what cost can they find that soul again, Jesus says? And you know what? In this world, I've seen so many people that have gained the whole world and yet have lost their soul. I've seen it in politics.

We see it all the time in politics. But you know what? I've seen it so much in religion, enough to make me sick. We seek power. We seek influence. We gain riches and we make compromises. You probably have names that come to your mind of preachers who had so much of all of that, so much power, so much influence, so much status, and so much wealth, and yet they lost their own soul in the midst of it. I could rattle off name after name after name of high profile people who fell greatly. But there's plenty of others that became king of their own little kingdoms, not near the level of some of these that gained status worldwide, but they gained enough status to where they got everything they thought they wanted and in process they lost their own souls. You know, my heart on them, I genuinely believe that when they started off, they had the right intent in mind. They felt a call of God in their lives and they wanted to serve God. They wanted to give their lives to God. They wanted to do good and they wanted to answer that call and to help the work of building the kingdom of God on earth as it was in heaven. And as they started having successes, as they started climbing the ladder, they started gaining power and favor and wealth and influence, they started gaining all the world. They ended up losing their own souls. I think the same is true probably for a lot of our elected leaders who have fallen. I believe they went into it for the right reasons. They went into it with a desire to serve others and to make our counties and states and country better. But that same power and success and influence caused them to compromise their integrity and they sold their souls for the whole world.

Do you remember last week, I kind of talked to you about a little aside in scripture. It really didn't pertain to the overall focus of my sermon last week, but it was a place where Jesus said, be weary of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. And in this point, we said yeast can represent evil. It could also represent good here. It was representing evil that if we're not careful, just a little bit of yeast can ruin an entire batch of bread. And the yeast of the Pharisees, religion, and the yeast of Herod, government, if we're not careful, can ruin everything that we're trying to do.

Well, in Matthew, Matthew tells a similar story and quotes Jesus saying a similar thing. Be wary of the yeast that can permeate from religion and government and do harm. It's actually at the beginning of the chapter in which Pastor Rebecca read the end of it. What Matthew said, quoting Jesus at the beginning, culminates in our text that we read today, to be wary of the yeast that can corrupt just a little bit, can infiltrate and ruin a whole batch, a whole nation. What does it cost a person to gain the whole world and yet lose their own soul? What can you give in exchange for your soul once you have lost it? The famous evangelist, Billy Graham, he warned about this. He warned about it often. You can go look it up. He warned about religion creating partnerships within politics. And he said that the only interest politics would have with religion would be to manipulate it. That's Billy Graham. We'd fill entire stadiums and bring thousands to the Lord. So the only interest that politics would have with religion would be to manipulate us for their purposes.

As followers of Jesus, we need to be weary about standing with the great. Because our focus given to us by Jesus is to sit with the broken. That's where we need to be spending our time and our efforts, our thoughts and our hearts where we need to be trying to move the needle. Because that's how Jesus transformed the world. And that's where we can transform the world. We need to stay focused on our mission so that we don't find ourselves not heeding Jesus's warning and instead seeking to gain the whole world at the expense of our soul. Because once we've lost our soul, we simply just can't get it back. The church isn't called to operate like the government. It's called to operate like Jesus.

Thanks be to God. Amen.