The other night I needed to fill up with gas.  But, as I drove by the place I most often stop it was getting late and I just wanted to get home.  So, I drove on by thinking that I could easily stop the next morning on the way to work.  Big mistake!  Overnight the price went from $1.38 to $1.43 per gallon!  Have you noticed lately that every time you’ve stopped for gas it’s cost you more for the same gallon?  The same gallon that costs more but doesn’t get you any further down the road?

Don’t you feel for people like our nation’s independent truckers who have, overnight, seen their profits wiped out by this sudden jump in oil prices?  Unlike them, however, most of us will gripe a little but just keep on paying the higher price and make the adjustment in our budgets somewhere else.  Where we’re going, like to work or school or even on vacation, is too important.  We’ll pay almost any price to keep moving on down the road to wherever it is we’re headed.  Or, will we?  Will there ever come a time when it costs too much to stay on the road because getting to where we want or need to be is so valuable to us that we’ll pay any cost to get there?

That is the very question the disciples found themselves facing one day when Jesus began telling them where He was headed and how much it would cost.  Jesus described His high cost journey this way.  The “Son of Man,” He said, “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed . . ..”  Simply put, Jesus said that between Himself and the resurrection tomb, the point of His ultimate destination that would secure our eternal life, was a terrible price that He alone had to pay.  But, He said all of this without any reservation that He was willing to pay every last spiritual penny.  Nothing to hide, the scripture says, Jesus “said all this quite openly.”  More significantly, later, He actually paid it.

Upon which Peter lights into His master and challenges Jesus’ presumption that His Messiahship should be so costly.  We’re not really certain why Peter questioned, actually “rebuked,” Jesus.  But, in this Drill Sergeant questioning General dialogue, Peter apparently believed that someone as important as Jesus was certainly above such lowly costs because of an immaturity that did not yet understand that, not only would the Son of God have to pay such a high price, but that being a disciple of Christ means total conformity to Divine purpose at any cost.  By Jesus’ response of “’Get behind me, Satan,’” Jesus makes it clear that there is little room for ambiguity in this matter of total surrender to the purposes of God for Him and all those who would follow Him as Lord.  A surrender that is so complete it radically reorganizes every other priority and value of our lives. 

Now, those of us who spend most of our lives in the gray areas have trouble with texts like these.  There is very little room for maneuvering here.  Jesus has just told Peter, and it hasn’t changed since He first said it, that either we are totally united with Him in His purposes at any cost or we run the risk of actually becoming something more akin to a tool used by Satan himself as he attempts to thwart the purposes of God in this world.  There are no shortcuts.  Between Jesus and the empty tomb were “suffering and rejection.”  Simply put, nothing that is of ultimate and eternal value comes cheaply. 

Two of the young men in our church, Josh Wascom and Justin Reeves, as well as Casey Harding earlier, have recently become eagle scouts.  Here are three young men whose lives bear witness to the truth Jesus has just stated.  Nothing that is of ultimate value comes cheaply.  Reviewing the list of things these young men had to do in order to reach the eagle status would wear most of us out.  It made me want to sit down and catch my breath.  But, beyond the merit badges, I’m certain, is the maturity that comes with the experience of sacrificing, especially for others, for that which is of great value.  Ask them, there are no shortcuts.

That is a principle that literally pulsates with life at the core of what it means to be Christian.  So, for me today, this is what this text means.  That which I can have only by taking the course that comes most naturally and most comfortably to me is probably not the course for which God has called me in Christ.  Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  No shortcuts.  No painless options.  Nothing less than a willingness to die.  Tall order.  But, no other way.  And, no other way at every point of that, especially that, which we most value.  And, as good and very specific examples, what more do we value these days than sex and money?  I don’t have to tell you what sex means to us.  But, what does it say about what we value that the highest rated television show these days is about how to become a millionaire in just a few minutes by answering a few questions?  Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire?!!

Young people, let me ask you a question?  How many of you dream of having a good sex life?  Go ahead, raise your hands.  Your parents want to know!  OK.  You don’t have to raise your hands.  But, will you answer the question anyway?  You want to have a good sex life?  Let me tell you how you can do that.  Get married.  I mean, legally married.  With vows and rings in front of a judge or preacher with witnesses who heard you say “until death us do part.”  Then, stay married to the same person.  Stay married to the same person long enough to learn what it costs to forgive the person you trust most when they hurt you most deeply.  Stay married long enough until you have learned something of what it means to love your spouse as Christ loved the church.  Which all means, stay married long enough until you have had to sacrifice something of great personal value to stay married.  And, then, you will know what great sex is.  (Maybe.)  There are no shortcuts.

Cliff Temple, you want to have a great church?  Go ahead, raise your hands.  Your Father wants to know!  OK.  Don’t raise your hands.  He already knows.  But, again, do you want to have a great church?  Get on your knees.  Get on your knees and pray until it hurts.  One of the truest measures of how great a church we really want can be measured in how much our knees hurt.  If we are not willing to at least make the sacrifice of prayer then, whatever we want here, it isn’t a great church in terms of the greatness that only self-sacrificial prayer enables. 

You want a great church?  Get out your checkbooks.  And, since I’m plowing real close to the corn anyway, let me go ahead and tell you how much to give.  Up in that right hand corner, where you write the amount, write the number one or two or three.  That’s all.  Then, start writing zeros on the other side of that number until it hurts.  For some, there will only be one zero.  For others, there will have to be several.  For all of us, being the church God wants us to be means surrendering our material lives to His spiritual purposes in this world and doing so until it hurts and then making the adjustment in our budgets elsewhere. 

Jesus didn’t call us to tithe.  He called us to die to self.  If we do the dying part the tithing part will take care of itself somewhere along the way.  There is no way to genuinely say we have followed Christ if that following of Christ has in no way affected the way we make and spend our money.  Parents, you want children who know the proper place of money in their lives?  Teach them, by lesson and example, what it means to be a good steward through their church of their financial resources and thereby teach them the spiritual value of material possessions. 

This church isn’t perfect.  No church is.  But, God did not call us only to support His church if, by our estimation, it was perfect.  What I do believe is that this church is the place where the Kingdom of God becomes real for me.  It’s not the only place.  But, it is the primary place and, I believe, the place to which God has called me for this moment in my life.  Nancy and I have been in the process of reorganizing our financial lives in order to be able to give what we need and want to give to this church.  Will you join us?  Nothing that is of value comes cheaply.  And, there are no shortcuts.

It may be tempting to think I’m only preaching about money.  You know, preachers and money!  Like the old man whose dog died.  It had been his companion for years and he loved it dearly.  So, he went to his priest and asked the priest if he would perform some kind of ceremony for his dog.  Something like a funeral.  And, the priest said, “Well, son, we don’t believe in performing funerals for dogs.  But, I hear there is a new church down the road and they have many strange doctrines.  Maybe they will perform a funeral for your dog.”  And, the old man said, “That’s too bad, my dog meant so much to me that I was going to donate $50,000 to the church as an expression of my gratitude for the funeral.”  And, the priest said, “Why didn’t you tell me it was a Catholic dog?”

Well, with each passing day, I’m learning that there is nothing in this life that is really mine.  I’m only borrowing it for a while.  From my dog and two cats to my life and my two sons and everything in between, I own nothing.  God has entrusted all of these to me for the briefest of moments.  And, one of the greatest marks of how far God has gotten with me is to be seen in how much I trust Him back.  And, there are no shortcuts.  And, trust is expensive!

So, this is the genius of God at work.  It is only in letting go that life happens.  That which we can control cannot give us life.  It can distract us or entertain us or amuse us for a while.  But, it cannot give us life.  Jesus said it, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Many of you know that my father got married yesterday in my hometown.   Nancy and the boys flew with me to west Texas and I did the wedding.  It was an expensive wedding not only because dads don’t pay honorariums but also because I had to listen to people who hadn’t seen me in almost thirty years say, over and over, “Boy, you sure have put on weight!”  One of them is even legally blind and he still joined in the evaluation of my profile!  Anyway, I was reminded this weekend that, as you get older, your worries about your kids are joined by your worries about your aging parents.  Here my dad is almost seventy-four doing it all over again.  Part of me wanted to take him aside and say, “Dad, why not just settle for a really thrilling dating life?  You know, marriage is risky and you never get so old that it’s not risky.  Why take any chances at your age?”  There was a bigger part of me than I care to admit that felt that way.  Until I saw the gleam in my dad’s eyes.  He hasn’t looked this good ever!  Then, I remembered, that which I can control is of little value.  Only that which I love enough to let go of to the greater joys and purposes of God has any hope of life.  Which is exactly what Jesus was saying here.  “He who would save his life . . ..”

There is meaning for us here, too.  It’s very tempting for older churches, like ours, to hold on.  To save.  To hold back.  Why take any chances?  Well, now we have our answer.  Whatever joy, and life, God has in store for us is waiting on the other side of letting go of whatever we think we can control and whatever we think keeps us safe.  He is calling us to nothing less. 

So, this is the question.  In the way we live and love and have sex and spend money are we holding on or letting go?  No matter how we have answered that question in public worship or even in private confession, the truth is that God has greater evidence.  At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a statement that ought to sober anyone serious about following Him as Lord.  Listen again to His familiar words, “’Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.’”  (Matthew 7:21)  There you have it.  Our real answer to God’s call on our lives is not so much to be measured in the words we have spoken as in the steps we have taken. 

Have you noticed how suspenseful it gets when Regis asks each contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, “Is that your final answer?”  Once the contestant says, “That’s my final answer,” everything else is settled forever.  Right or wrong, what that person says with their mouth seals the deal.  A hundred dollars or a million all ride on the words of their mouth.

Jesus said it’s a little different in the Kingdom.  Saying it with our mouths matters.  Saying it with our lives verifies whether we were just blowing hot air or burning hot with genuine trust and commitment.  What you have said to Jesus is significant.  What you have said in the way you spend your time, spend your money and treat people is . . . your final answer.