Jesus is for Losers

Jesus is for losers.  Not something you'll hear from the front of many churches but something that can be heard as the strong, brave and beautiful dismiss Jesus and His people as being beneath contempt.

Sometimes this has led to the insistence that Jesus is for winners, that he makes the strong stronger, the wise wiser, the beautiful more attractive and the tough tougher.  Come to Jesus and 'overcome', come to Jesus and 'be more than a conqueror'.  There is more than a grain of truth in those calls but they are misapplied and misshapen when issued unqualified.

Jesus is for losers: "After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them,“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:27-32)

If we were winners, if we had no need of help, if we were 'well' and capable of doing all that we needed we would have no need for Jesus.  But we're not.  We all (regardless of status, finances, physical attractiveness, personal winsomeness), everyone of us, are losers. 

I'm a loser, 

you're a loser 

and we are not OK.

Accepting that (acknowledging that before God we are morally bankrupt, without means of helping ourselves) is the beginning of understanding the true nature of things.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." Ephesians 2:1-3

Telling people about Jesus in almost any other terms is getting off on the wrong footing:

"you're a really nice person and God love you because he likes you..."

"you've been hurt by this world and God wants to take the hurt away..."

"you have a great destiny and God wants you to discover your true destiny in him..."

It puts people at the centre and God at the periphery.  It leads to a discipleship of comfort and a church of well-being. Jesus, in these terms, is for winners - come to Jesus and win!

Jesus spoke openly about losers, and losers loosing what little they have in order to follow him:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12.13-21

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Luke 9:23-26

You see?  Jesus is for losers!

I'm a loser.

You're a loser.

We're not OK.

Jesus came for people like you and me.  People who have everything to gain and only a misplaced sense of self-respect to lose.  If we are willing to surrender ourselves, our petty pretenses, our shambolic dignity, our raggedy pride and wobbly morals; if we will deny ourselves and follow Jesus; if we chose to lose as losers we will gain Him.

Him, in whom, the full riches of God's glory, the depths and height of wisdom and truth, the only source of Life; 

• Jesus - whose death has paid the debt of our losses that we might be credited with the riches of Heaven
• Jesus - who rose from death, never to die again, so that we might walk through that dark valley, certain of life for all eternity because that is what he has promised to those who will walk with Him
• Jesus - who suffered the loss of all things that he might gain for Himself a people, brothers and sisters, who he is now not embarrassed to pronounce His family because He has brought us to Himself and bought us for Himself, so that God might be just and merciful

Jim Elliot was a loser.  He had so much promise in terms of this world.  He wasted his short life in theological study, preparing to go to the Auca people of the Amazon.  He and a small group of friends prayed long, and prepared intensely, to go and tell this insignificant group of people living in stone age conditions of the love and power of God revealed in Jesus.  They threw their lives away because, as they made contact with the Auca, they were killed by the very people that they wanted to reach.  They were some of this life's big losers:

"he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" Jim Elliot.

"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain" Philippians 1.21

Jim Elliot and his friends lost their lives: death is inevitable for us all.  Whether life ends surrounded by comfort or in an uncomfortable crisis it will come to us all.  Then death, the great thief, will measure how much of a loser you truly are.

The more we amass here and now the greater the loss in death.  The only thing that death cannot rob us of, because death itself has been plundered, is Jesus.

I'm a loser

That's OK.

Jesus has loved me, given his life for me and rescued me from the great Loss.  What I've lost in this world is not worth comparing to the great gain of Jesus.

Picking up the cross of Christ

I scorn the loss of 'loser' me,

In Him my soul rests long,

In Him my gain will be.

He alone, my greatest gain,

He, my Lord, my only love:

Jesus, loving losing Lord,

I, in you, and you alone,

Could not, will not, richer be.

"For me to live is Christ, to die is gain" Philippians 1.21

Normality...?

 

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." Ellen Goodman 

Ellen Goodman has it depressingly right - the normality of life for the majority of people in the west grinds us to futility of living.  I'm not so sure that the quote is so applicable outside the context of urbanised, affluent, commuter living and yet it still rings true.


But there is a better way.  Why waste your life?  Why have it consumed in commuting, working, eating, watching TV or playing sports?  Why not invest it?  Why not live it?


John Piper's excellent little book "Don't Waste Your Life " is now available free in a pdf.  Download it here . Invest a short amount of time in reading this book.  It doesn't have all the answers to the whole of life.  It does make you reflect: am I wasting my life with eternal consequences or am I investing it for eternity?

Laughing and Sighing

Last night, I woke myself in the middle of the night, laughing - a full on, gasping for breath, aching sides, uncontrollable laughter.  Hardest I've laughed for ages.  I know it started in a dream but I can't remember what was so funny.  I didn't know as I woke up.  I laughed harder as I woke up and realised I was laughing.  It subsided quickly as I thought that I had better not wake my wife, as she slept peacefully next to me.  I giggled for a while before heading back into soporific revelry.

Today, after school let out, son number 2 came home having been told off by the teacher.  I sighed and asked what had led to the telling off.  


"Me and my friend found the story about Arty Fitler really boring". 


"Who?" I inquired. 


"I don't know," came the answer. "Something to do with a war and it was really boring so I was talking to my friend and we got told off." 


"Arty Fitler.... do you think he might have been called Adolf Hitler?" 


"Oh yeah, that's him, he's SO boring..."


I tried hard not to let him see me laughing then paused and thought if it was wrong to laugh at Hitler.


I did a quick search of the ESV translation of the Bible for the word "laugh" there are quite a smattering of mentions around the naming of Isaac.  There is a fair amount of derisory laughing on behalf of the Lord toward the human schemes and schemers. There is also a decrying of the wicked laughing against the righteous.  But the word laugh occurs most in the Bible wrapped in the letters s-ter.  Ironic really.


Jesus uses the word positively "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh" (Lk6.21b). His brother, James, uses it conversely "Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom." (James 4.9)


There's a pastoral situation we're on the sidelines of in which is devoid of laughter: rather it's filled with broken promises, broken relationship, self-deception, self-justification, sadness and brokenness, sin and sinfulness, correction refused, sin denied, leaving bemused and hurting friends looking on with more questions than answers.


I don't know why I woke laughing last night; the laughter though, did me good.  


I do know that those who weep over sin, trusting in the good news of Jesus, will have laughter one day - Jesus promises it.  


I know that sometimes our laughter, our callous joy and couldn't-care-less abandonment to self, should really be replaced by sorrow and mourning and repentance.


Laughing and sighing all in one 24 hour period.


Gospel life as usual.


"You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." James 4:4-10