And so when Kevin said I could preach on anything today, so I have a more relaxed style, so
actually I hoped that I could finish in a time where we could have a question and answer time
afterwards. But he said you could preach on anything today, and I said, okay, what can I
preach on? Because I know we always want to be about the Word and God's Spirit and what God's
doing in his life and so in people's lives. And so I thought I would just preach on this verse
that I have been working on in my heart for 43 years, 43 years. So you would think that
God came into my life and opened my eyes to Jesus when I was 10 years old. My family were
not Christians. They were just, my dad was a military man. So, but Jesus came into my life
and showed me God, the Holy Spirit, and just, I fell in love. And not soon afterwards, this
verse, the verse that you read today, was this verse that came into my mind and to my heart,
and I started to struggle with it. So I have been struggling with this for 43 years. So
you would think if you've done something for 43 years, you should have it perfect, right?
And the amazing thing about the Christian life is, is that God and the Holy Spirit always
has a way of turning your life upside down and showing you different aspects of who you
are and how much you really need him. Because often we think we have our life all together
and we can do it. And so this is the passage today. So I want to share it with you and hopefully
you can struggle with me now for the next 43 years. So when I come back in five years,
you can tell me how much I bothered you by giving you this verse to think about, which
is awesome to be bothered by God's word. So I want to start with a story. A friend told
me this story. He and some buddies were canoeing down a river in Northern America. The water was
very, very, very, very, very cold. And they were on this canoe trip in Maine. And as they were going
down this river, they looked up ahead and they saw this waterfall in this dam, this big dam.
And most of the people left. They got out of the water because they said there's just no way,
the water was freezing, there's no way they can navigate, they could do it. But one guy said,
I can do this. And so he went and he tried to navigate his way through the dam and he got
caught in the waves of the water and he went over the waterfall. And when he went over the waterfall,
like my notes just did, when he went over the waterfall, he fell out of his canoe. And he fell
out of his canoe and the water was very, very, very, very cold, right? And the dam is like this.
And at the base of the water where he fell into was this whirlpool. And this whirlpool was swirling
around and he's trying to fight this whirlpool because this whirlpool is trying to suck him in.
And in his mind, he thinks, if I go into this whirlpool, I'm going to die. It's going to kill me.
I'm going to drown. Now his friends are helpless because he's so far into the water. The water is ice
cold. They can't help. They're yelling. They're screaming. They're throwing ropes. No ropes can
get to him. And he's just fighting. And he about to get away from the whirlpool and then it sucks him
back in. And he's swimming and he's swimming. He's about to get away from the whirlpool and it sucks him
back in. And the water is so cold that eventually he dies. He dies of hypothermia. And the friend said
that the moment he died and his body relaxed, his body went into that whirlpool and it went under the
water. And like three seconds later, the body popped up 20 yards down the river.
And if he was alive, he could have swam to the shore and saved himself. But he spent so much
time struggling and struggling against the current that he had died. And his friends looked at this
and they thought, what a tragedy. Because the thing, the whirlpool that he thought was going to kill him
would have actually saved him. Because he would have gone down three seconds. He would be over here. He
could climb out and he could survive. And the reason I tell you this story is because in his world,
safety looked counterintuitive. The safe thing would have been to go into the hole.
But in his mind, he thought that would have brought death. And that's the message of this story today.
That often when we walk with God, God's going to take us to places that look at the world.
That it's going to look like it's death. That it's going to look like it's very dangerous.
That it looks like it's going to be impossible. It looks like there's no way that I can get out of it.
And to save ourselves is going to be counterintuitive. You know, counterintuitive
means the opposite of what you think is going to happen. And so many of us today in the world
are going to struggle like my friend did in the cold water trying to fight God in their walk with God.
But if they've just given up and let God take control of their life, they would be free.
Does that make sense? So I ask a lot. I ask a lot of times. I'm going to ask,
does that make sense? Because sometimes it doesn't make sense to me.
So the passage we read today is in the life of Jesus.
And it's the last five days of Jesus' life.
So for the last three years, Jesus and his disciples have been going around to Galilee.
They've been doing amazing things. They've been feeding 5,000 people.
They've been healing people physically. They've been healing people spiritually.
They're casting out demons. They're raising people from the dead.
They're bringing people hope. They're bringing people freedom.
And all of a sudden, Jesus and his followers are coming into Jerusalem for the Passover.
Now, Jerusalem is a city that's normally like 20,000 people,
like the size of Pokh Fulam or like Baggio Villa.
But in this celebration, there's over 1 million people there.
I mean, everybody comes to the temple because they want to celebrate.
And Jesus is coming, and he's riding on this white donkey.
And it's this prophecy that happened many, many hundreds of years ago
about the Savior coming to Jerusalem.
And all the people who have been following Jesus,
they're on the road, and they're waving these branches,
and they're singing, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna,
which means, come save me, come quickly, I need you, come save me.
Because in their mind, they think that freedom's going to happen
because Jesus is going to come, and he's going to bring power.
And he's going to fight the Romans.
And he's going to bring power.
And he's going to fight the leaders, the religious leaders.
And so they want this freedom that's going to happen.
But the passage in the Bible says that that's not what Jesus came to do.
Jesus came for one reason.
Jesus came to die on a cross.
And we're told later on that he came to die for you and for me.
And that if he didn't die, if he didn't give his life,
then you and I would be lost.
We would still have God's wrath, God's judgment,
that we'd have to fix on our own, but we can't do that.
And so Jesus, all the noise, save us, save us, power, strength.
But what he really is going to do is he's going to save you and me by dying.
Does that make sense?
And so the passage says that Jesus is probably in the temple and he's teaching.
And we're told that these Greek men come up to talk to Jesus.
Now Greek just means anybody who's not Jewish.
So these non-Jewish men come up to talk to Jesus and they go to Philip and Andrew
because Philip and Andrew have Greek names.
And so they said, hey, we're going to go talk to the Greek men.
The Greek men are going to bring us to Jesus and Jesus is going to answer all our questions.
We really don't know why they're there.
But the interesting thing is that when Jesus hears that men are there to visit him,
he answers very strangely.
He doesn't say, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on in, let's do dinner.
Or he doesn't say, no, no, no, I'm too busy.
Or he doesn't say, yeah, yeah, put them on my schedule.
Schedule them in and I'll see them Tuesday.
He says something really strange.
He says this, he says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
And what he's saying there is when he says the hour, he means the hour of his death.
That the time for him has come to die.
Glorified.
And that word glorified there is a really, really powerful word in Greek.
And it means to be made heavy.
To be made important.
To be made of ultimate importance.
To be made of ultimate significance.
To be made the most important thing.
And so what Jesus is telling all of us is he says, hey, when I go to the cross and I die,
God's going to do something counterintuitive in my death.
Instead of making me weak, he's going to do something awesome.
And because he's going to do something awesome, you and I are here today at Watermark.
Because he chose to give his life instead of keep his life.
So what I want to do is I want to quickly, and I don't know how much time I have,
but I want to look at the passage and I want to look at three things really quickly.
I want to look at a principle.
I want to look at a practice.
And I want to look at a promise.
You got that?
A principle, a practice, a promise.
A principle.
First, a principle.
It's found in verse 24.
So when you look at your verse 24 and you read it,
whenever you see the words truly, truly, in Greek it actually means amen, amen.
So usually you put amen, amen after a really important statement.
Like so-and-so is going to win the World Cup.
Amen.
Like really important, right?
But when Jesus uses amen here in the beginning,
when he says amen in the beginning of the statement,
what he's saying is, hey guys, listen up.
Because what I'm about to tell you is the most important thing you need to know.
What I'm about to tell you as my followers is this is really important, so listen up.
And so this is what he says.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.
But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
So Jesus uses this illustration of farming.
And it's like he has this piece of grain or rice in his hand.
And he says, if you just keep the grain of rice in your hand and keep it here, you think you're keeping it safe.
But you're not really.
Because it just stays by itself.
And it's not safe.
But if you open your hand and you give your life away, that grain of rice falls into the ground.
And it looks like it's going to die.
But it doesn't die.
It produces this fruit over and over and over of more rice and more rice and more rice.
And so Jesus is saying, hey, this is what's going to happen to my life.
I could guard my life.
I could fight off the Romans.
I could do anything.
But instead, I'm going to give my life for you.
So that 2,000 years later, you are the fruit of his life.
But what he's also saying is we as watermark, we need to hold our life open also.
And we need to be willing to give our life in anything that God gives us back to God.
And that is scary.
And that's difficult.
And sometimes I struggle with that.
Because I want to keep my life.
And I want to keep control over my life.
And when I look around Hong Kong, and I talk to my friends who aren't in church,
they tell me things like, oh, man, you need to look out for yourself, dude.
That sounds Mexican, didn't it?
Whenever I try to sound Chinese, I always sound Hispanic.
I'm sorry.
Too long in Texas.
But Hong Kong, my friends say, look out for yourself.
Take care of yourself.
You only live once.
If you don't take care of yourself, no one else is going to take care of yourself.
You need to watch out because they're out for you.
Don't be too friendly to people because they're going to use you.
That's the message I hear.
But the message of the Bible and the message of Jesus,
and the messages he wants for us at Watermark,
is that don't worry about yourself.
Because God will take care of you.
The same God who took care of Jesus will take care of you.
And so there's this principle, and the principle is this.
Life comes by dying.
Can you repeat that for me?
Life comes by dying.
If you try to keep your life,
Jesus says you're going to lose it.
But if you give your life to God,
he's going to do something awesome and something amazing in it.
So that's the principle.
The second thing I want us to look at is the practice.
And the practice is found in verse 25.
And this is a word that we get in trouble with all the time in my family.
And the practice basically is paraphrased,
and this is what the practice says.
The practice says,
If you love your life,
and the Greek word there is suke.
Suke.
Suke means me,
my stuff,
my schedule,
my honor,
my pride,
my power,
my reputation,
my job,
my family,
my three houses in Hong Kong
where I live in one,
I rent two.
All these things, right?
That's the way it used to be, right?
It still is, right?
So those are mine,
mine.
And Jesus says,
If you love your suke,
what's he say?
You're going to lose it.
But if you hate your life,
now this is a really strong word, guys,
because in my family,
we can't use the word hate.
Whenever the kids say hate to each other,
I hate you.
Wow,
we just get in trouble,
and Christina gets all angry,
and when Christina gets angry,
everybody gets angry,
and, you know,
it's just,
it's not good.
But what he says here is,
if you hate your life,
if you,
if you love God
more than the things of the world,
that if you love God
more than the things of Hong Kong,
that if you love God
more than comfort
in health,
in your reputation,
in your money,
in the awesome schools
that your kids go to,
in the country club memberships,
that if you love God
more than those things,
then you're going to have
this amazing,
amazing life.
Because those things
in the culture of Hong Kong
look so good,
but in God's kingdom,
they bring death.
And so the passage says this,
and I'm going to say something
that's going to be very hard,
and you can argue with me later,
you could peeping me,
criticize me,
right?
But you can argue with me,
but this is what the passage says.
The passage says,
in this room,
the passage says,
in Hong Kong,
there are only two types of people.
Two types.
They're the people
who love themselfies.
And they're the people
who love Jesus.
They're the people
who worship themselves.
And they're the people
who worship Jesus.
They're the people
who try to build this kingdom
so that when people look at them,
they go,
ah.
And they're the people
who give their things away.
So then they look at them,
they go,
God.
They're the people
who live
and look like Hong Kong.
Or it's the people
who live
and look like Jesus.
So I've got to ask you the question.
Which one are you?
Be honest.
If I were to follow you around
today
or tomorrow
or next week
and I were to look at
how you use your time,
how you treat your family,
how you use your money,
how you love people,
how you sacrifice for others,
which person
would I say
that you are?
Maybe I should ask the question,
which person
do you want to be?
Because I struggle
in that area.
And the interesting thing
in this passage
is that Jesus
doesn't hide anything.
You know,
I was coming over
on an airplane
and we used our frequent flyers
to come here
and we thought,
great,
we're going to come to Hong Kong,
we have frequent flyers,
free miles.
But then we tried
to use our free miles,
there were all these rules
and regulations,
stipulations,
and some of the reading
is like really,
really,
really small,
right?
And I was just thinking,
I get free miles.
No.
You have to do this,
you have to do this,
you have to do this.
And the awesome thing
about the gospel
and this passage
is Jesus doesn't hide anything.
Jesus says right away,
hey,
my gift of eternal life
to you is free.
It's this gift.
I gave it to you
on the cross.
I love you so much,
I'm an innocent man,
I died for you,
I give it away.
It's a free gift.
Now after we take that gift,
Jesus says,
we start to change.
Because we thought
of that free gift so much
and we thought of
how God loves us so much
that we start to treat
people differently.
We start to love
people differently.
We start to take
people differently.
We start to take care
of people differently.
So the gift is free.
But when you come
into the family,
you start to act
like the family.
And you can see
my kids up here,
we all start to act
like each other
and they look like each other
and some of us
are more handsome
than other people.
But we act the same,
right?
And that's what Jesus
is saying in this passage.
It's interesting,
in verse 25,
he says,
he who loves his life
loses it.
He who hates his life
in this world
will keep it
to life eternal.
And that word hate
there in Jesus' world
means a comparison.
So what Jesus is saying
is like this.
I love pizza
and rice.
I don't really like rice.
Okay, so that's a bad,
that's a bad example.
I've eaten too much rice.
But let's say,
I love pizza and hamburgers.
Compared to my love
for pizza,
I hate hamburgers.
Ming Bai,
make sense?
I said,
I love my wife
and I love my children.
But compared to my love
for my wife, Christina,
I hate my children.
Now, I love them both, right?
You got to hear me.
Because sometimes people hear this
and they go,
oh, Jesus wants us
to hate people.
No.
What he's saying is,
compared to your love
for dim sum,
you should hate
Diet Coke
or something like that.
Does that make sense?
So it's a very,
very powerful word.
What Jesus is really saying
is this.
When we come into his family,
our love for him
our love for Jesus
should make everything else
that we used to love
in the world
look like hate.
Look like nothing.
So that's what happened
in that passage
we read about Mary.
Mary,
Sister Martha,
and Mary is there
and she comes into this meeting
in verse 8,
1 through 8,
and she comes into this meeting
and Mary does
some very strange things.
Mary comes into the meeting,
she lets her hair down.
You never do that.
Mary comes into the meeting
and she's weeping and crying
and showing emotion.
You would never do that.
She's losing her dignity.
She's losing face.
Everything's bad.
No good.
Mary comes into the meeting
and she gives this perfume bottle.
This perfume bottle
was 300 denarii.
Now there were not banks
in Jesus' day.
People lived one denarii
for one day.
So this thing that Mary had
maybe was the most expensive thing
in her house.
It was something
that she was guarding.
She was protecting it.
She was hoping that one day
if life got really difficult
she would have this money
to save herself.
And so she comes in
and she breaks this bottle
and pours it all onto Jesus
as a sacrifice and an offering.
And everybody around her
is like,
what are you doing?
You need to take care of yourself.
One day you're going to have
a rainy day
and you're not going to have a job
and who's going to take care of you?
But what Mary was saying
was this.
Compared to my love for Jesus,
everything else
looks like hate.
And I can give Jesus
the most important things
in my life
because Jesus
is going to take care of me.
And so Mary was willing
to get rid of her sacrifice,
her reputation,
her wealth,
her security,
her ego.
She just laid it all out there
and gave it to Jesus
because she was in love with Jesus.
So every time I read this passage
for 43 years,
I have to ask myself,
do I love Jesus like that?
Am I willing to just give him
my ego,
my reputation,
my American Express card
that I always rely on,
my kids,
my pastorate?
Do I love Jesus more
than all those things?
And the passage says
that as we look at
what Jesus has done for us,
we realize
how much he loves us.
And that if we build our life
on anything else
but Jesus,
we're going to get lost.
We're going to fall apart.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
You got a Dan?
Yes or no?
Yes, makes sense?
No, it makes sense.
Dan?
Dan, I'm glad to see
you finally married Soda.
I'm glad.
Yes.
I grew up in the north,
Montana.
So if you're from Canada
and here we call
Canada Northern Montana.
Because you want to be
just like Montana.
Right, Millen?
I remember hearing this story
of this lumberjack.
And he was told
to go out
and cut down
all these trees.
It was about three acres
of trees,
a lot of trees.
His boss said,
you need to go in there
and you need to chop down
all these trees
because we're going
to cut them all down
and we're going to use them
for lumber
and then we're going
to plant new trees.
And so the guy
went out there
and he's looking
at all the trees
and he starts to chop
on one tree
and as he's chopping
on this tree
he looks up
and about four trees
down there's an eagle
and the eagle
is building his nest
in this tree.
And the lumberjack
is thinking,
oh, crap.
Can I say crap here?
Okay.
I get in trouble
when I say crap
in America.
They're like,
oh man.
So the lumberjack
says crap.
I'm going to have
to cut that tree down.
And the eagle's
building a nest in it.
So he goes over
to the tree,
he takes his axe
and takes the flat end
and he just kind of
beats it against the tree.
Boom, boom, boom.
The eagle freaks out
and the eagle gets up
because the eagle's
building the nest
and the eagle sees
the lumberjack
and the eagle flies away
to another tree
about 20 yards away.
So the lumberjack's
watching that
and he's like,
I've got to cut
that tree down too.
So he goes over
to that tree
and he takes the axe
and he hits it
against the tree
and it shakes
the bird up
and the bird stops
making its nest
and it flies over
to another tree.
The eagle does this
four times.
Finally,
the lumberjack
goes over
and he hits the fourth tree
and the eagle flies away
and there's a mountain
and the eagle starts
to build his nest
in the mountain.
And the story tells us
that no matter what tree
you build your house in,
in the end,
all the trees
are going to come down.
You're going to build
your life on your health.
You're going to build
the tree of success.
You're going to build
a tree of popularity.
You're going to build
a tree of reputation
or money.
In the end,
all those trees
are going to fall down.
And the only tree
or the only thing
that's going to stand
is the rock.
that rock
is Jesus Christ.
So if you build
your life
on anything else,
if you love anything else
more than you love Jesus,
you're going to be lost.
Jesus wants us to know that
so that we can love him.
So there's a principle,
there's a practice,
hate your life,
and there's a promise,
and the promise is this.
if you trust God,
if you let that piece
of rice fall to the ground,
if you start to look
more like God
instead of the things
of Hong Kong,
if you hate the things
that you used to think
were awesome
because now Jesus
is even more beautiful,
the promise is that
God will never leave you,
that he's always there.
and that he will honor you
just like he honored his son.
And he's going to do
something awesome
in your life
if you let him.
Does that make sense?
I was counseling a friend.
One of the great privileges
I have as a pastor
is I get to talk to people
whose lives are in trouble
often.
And this friend
three weeks ago
was talking to me
and he said,
I've made some choices,
I've actually made
some choices for God
and I feel like
my life is out of control.
My wife is leaving me,
my kids are crazy,
I feel like God
has abandoned me.
Have you ever felt like
God has abandoned you?
The passage says
it's God's children.
God has abandoned me.
I feel like God
is Jesus.
That the only person
that God has ever abandoned
is Jesus.
Because Jesus hung on a cross
and he cried out,
my God,
why have you forsaken me?
And the message
of the gospel
and the message
of the passage
is God
forsook his son
so that one day
he would not have to
forsake you.
There's a principle,
you've got to die
to live.
It looks counterintuitive.
When you're doing it,
he's going to ask you
to do these things
and you're going to go,
man,
if I really tithe that much,
if I really give up
one of my houses
for God's kingdom,
who's going to take care of me?
It's going to be death.
If I really trust the Lord
with my children
instead of trying to guard them
and manage them
and do these things,
what's going to happen to them?
If I really speak up
in my office space
the next time
somebody says something
that just isn't right,
what's going to happen to me?
The passage says
that God's going to take us
to a place
that's going to look like
death,
but if we trust him,
he is going to do
something awesome.
There's a practice,
hate your life,
and there's a promise
that God is always with you
and he'll never leave you
and he's going to honor you
as you trust him
and walk with him.
We're about to enter
into a time of communion
and I was praying
about how to end this sermon
because I have no idea
because I've been praying
about this sermon
for 43 years,
but my prayer for you,
Watermark,
as an awesome church,
I don't know what God
is calling you to die to.
I don't know what God
is calling you to hate
more than you love Jesus.
You know that.
God's Spirit will teach you that.
about 150 years
after Jesus died,
150 years,
there was a large plague,
you know,
plague like a disease.
The disease hit
every city
in the Roman Empire.
You can read about it.
All the historians
talk about it.
There is a plague
and this bubonic plague
or some kind of plague.
It's hitting every city
in the Roman Empire
about 150 years
after Jesus died.
Thousands and thousands
and thousands
of people are dying.
I mean,
people are just leaving
their family
in the city
to die
because they are
so afraid of dying
they're escaping
and they're running away.
And so the cities
are just filled
with sick
and dying
people
except for the Christians.
And the Christians
said,
hey,
Christ died for us.
We don't have anything
else to fear.
What would it look like
if we stayed
and we loved
these people?
people?
What would it look like
if we stayed
and we took care
of these people?
And so the Christians
did it.
And you know what?
The Christians
died
by the thousands
because they were
giving their life
to help their enemies
and helping the relatives
of their enemies
and they were taking
care of people
and they didn't
have immunity.
They actually died
serving what God
wanted them to do.
But a little while
after the plague
left
and all the people
came back
into the cities,
the church,
which just used
to be really small,
exploded
because all these
people said,
I don't know
too much about Jesus,
but I know love
and I know
when people
sacrifice themselves
for their enemy
and I know
that's what Jesus
did on the cross.
And so because
the Christians
in the early church
were willing
to give their life,
the world
was changed.
I don't know
what the next
plague in Hong Kong
is.
I know that
there's a lot
of serious things
happening in Hong Kong.
I know that
there are a lot
of difficult decisions
you have to make
as a church
and as individuals.
But I do know
that as you
walk with the Lord
and hold your life
and your church
with open hand
and ask God
what does it look
like for me
to die
at my work?
What does it
look like for me
to die
in my marriage?
What does it
look like for me
to die
in my friends?
What does it
look like for me
to die
in my sports club?
What does it
look like for me
to serve
people
who I don't
like?
The passage
says that
as you do
that
God will
honor that
and he will take that little bit of sacrifice
and do something awesome for his kingdom.