When Less is More

Matthew 16 (TNIV)

 21 From that time on 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.

 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

 23 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.”

 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?

      Matthew 16 (The Message)

 21-22Then Jesus made it clear to his disciples that it was now necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, submit to an ordeal of suffering at the hands of the religious leaders, be killed, and then on the third day be raised up alive. Peter took him in hand, protesting, "Impossible, Master! That can never be!"

 23But Jesus didn't swerve. "Peter, get out of my way. Satan, get lost. You have no idea how God works."

 24-26Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for? 

Questions for Reflection:

Where are the places in your life where you most need to grasp the principle that less is often more?

Where are the places in your thinking that God is inviting you to consider inverting things and seeing them from a different perspective?

Where are the places in your living that God is inviting you to consider inverting things and living them from a different set of assumptions?

How does Ephesians 5:1-2 have bearing on the way we respond to the above questions?

Jesus did not come to make life easy, but to make life great - William Barclay.

Paradoxes     Misconceptions           Stumbling Stones Paradoxes are, well, paradoxical.  At the very least they mess with the way we tend to think about things, and force us outside the bounds of what some would consider "common sense."  They go against the grain.  They don't conform to our expectations or the thought patterns that our culture work so hard to embed in us.  The more we cling to the ways we are used to thinking and the boxes we use to organize and explain our world, the more difficult they are for us to deal with.  Perhaps that's why they are often resisted, rejected, remodeled, or sometimes just quietly set aside (with the hope that they will not be too much trouble, or with the idea that we'll get back to them later).  As the scripture passage to the right shows, Jesus seemed to have a way of creating those kinds of moments for His disciples.  He still does.

Despite our very real tendency to try to get Jesus to conform to the way we have organized our lives, the values of the Kingdom He came to establish tend to invert the way we think about things.  The first shall be last.  Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  What good will it be to gain the world and lose your soul?  These are the kinds of things that we sometimes stumble over and make us feel a bit off balance.  And even when the light finally dawns upon us, we still have our moments of vertigo.

This week Pastor Jon invites us to explore one of the rich paradoxes of faith, that less is often more.  If you would like to listen to the sermon once again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library by clicking here.

Additional Reading:

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