Hello friends. I hope you’re well. I wanted to continue my series on the biggest thing I’ve learned on the race: relationship. Last week I began with a key truth that I have missed for most of my life, but is necessary to understand before we delve deep into relationship with the Lord. That truth is that the cost of following Jesus is high. In fact, there is nothing more costly in this life: He wants everything, every part of you. But before we commit to following Jesus with our lives, giving him everything, we must first count this cost, and decide whether it is worth it or not. We must first know what we are getting into before we actually take the plunge.
How do we know this? Well, in Luke 14, Jesus tells us a parable. Talking about this cost of discipleship, he says, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’” Jesus says that trying to be a Christian without knowing and accepting everything that comes with it is as foolish as trying to build a tower without the resources. Not only will you fail at building the tower, but you will waste what resources and time you do have only to be made a laughingstock of those observing. It’s a sobering warning.
So then, if you do want to take the risk and start building a tower, you better know that you’re going to have a good tower. You need to know whether the tower will be worth all your valuable time, energy, resources, relationships, etc. And now that we know what it actually takes to build it, we can look at what the blueprints say about what the tower will look like. We can see if it will really be as great as they say. And as I build my tower, I feel as if I have experienced each of these things to some extent. And keep in mind, I obviously can’t talk about every good thing the Lord gives us when we choose to follow him. These have simply been for me the most convincing and powerful parts of faith. So let’s get into it.
If you’ve spent any time in Christian circles, you have probably heard some mention of the promise of heaven, of eternal life. And when we talk about Jesus and his good news, that is where we must start. That is the promise which led C.S. Lewis to say, “If Christianity is false, it’s of no significance, but if it is true, it’s the most important truth in the whole universe.” In other words, if Christianity is a lie and there is no such thing as heaven or hell, we all will simply die and that will be the end. But if it is true, each one of us is an eternal being, destined for either an eternity of perfect relationship with the Creator God in heaven or total separation from him in hell, all based on what we choose to do with this fleeting life we live on earth. So no matter what, it’s worth checking into. Someone might ask, “Why hell though? Why can’t everyone just go to heaven?” But Romans 6:23 lays out our problem, saying “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.” That is to say, any decision we have made apart from God’s will or desire, otherwise known as sin, condemns us to death. And this makes sense. If God is truly good, he can’t be part of something or in the presence of something that is evil. That would mean that he would no longer be good. And more than that, God loves us and wants to give us the option for us to choose him. If he forced us into relationship with him, that wouldn’t be love. He loves us and wants us to want him. And that love pushed him to sacrifice everything, to give up his own son in order that we might no longer be condemned to that death, but have life with him instead. That’s John 3:16, that’s the gospel. We were created perfectly in his image and to be with him, we messed it up and chose our own way, he died and took on the penalty of our sin, and now we will live forever with God in heaven. Through our belief and pursuit of Jesus, we are reconciled back to the one who made us, righteous and holy in his sight. We are no longer abandoned to die alone, but we are guaranteed an inheritance in heaven. We are promised to live in a place with no suffering or pain, interacting face to face with God himself forever. That sounds pretty great to me. It’s good news!
And it’s such good news that Paul says this of heaven in Philippians 1: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Paul is saying that life on earth, even with God (which we will get into later), does not even compare to heaven. He thinks it better even to die now, that he could be with Jesus even sooner. Paul goes on to say in Romans 8, “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” That is to say, no matter how bad things get in this life, it will be more than worth it because of what is coming next. Jesus himself talks about the same thing with the metaphor of a childbirth in John 16. He says “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” So Jesus compares our sufferings to giving birth, which based on what I’ve heard of the pain of giving birth, is an apt description. But women aren’t fearful enough to never get pregnant, Jesus says that it is far better in the end, and indescribable joy will come. In the same way, our time on this earth and in suffering is like the groaning of a woman giving birth, but the glory that is coming is beyond a doubt worth it.
The closest thing I can compare it to from my life is when I ran a half marathon in Cambodia. Towards mile 10, I started developing a pretty severe stress fracture in my foot. My 9 minute pace slowed as I had to take breaks to walk, and it got worse and worse until I was barely limping along at a snail’s pace for the last mile. The pain was more excruciating with every step, but I wasn’t giving up, because I knew there was a medal waiting for me at the finish line. And you know what, I pushed through and finished that dang race. And you know what, when I got my medal I forgot about all the pain that I had been in before.
Off that point, if we think about this logically, we find that this truth is more powerful than we can imagine. Let’s just say that your life on this earth is as bad as it can possible be. Let’s say you are a prisoner who is brutally tortured every day, you are constantly starved, and you never see the light of day. For you, it’s as bad as it can be. But even if you live 90 years in that same state, but trust in the Lord, it’s more than worth it. Maybe you wouldn’t think it worth it after ten years in peace in heaven, but what about one hundred? What about a thousand? What about a million years? What about a trillion? Does your head hurt yet? Eternity is a crazy thing, and it means that all our suffering has meaning, and it gives us endurance to press on, keeping our eyes fixed on what’s to come. For Paul again says in his letter to the Colossians, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
So because of what Jesus has done for us, we have the promise that anything this life throws at us cannot even compare to the joy he will give us when this life is over. It gives good ground for his words in Luke 10 to stand on, “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” It indeed is something to rejoice about, worth even more rejoicing about than anything we can accomplish on this earth. If you still don’t believe me, let John’s glimpse of heaven in Revelation 21 wash over you right now:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
So then, I believe that this promise of salvation, this promise of eternal life with God in and of itself makes Christianity worth it. Yet God, in all his grace, does not stop there. He doesn’t make our lives here miserable, but through relationship with him gives us a fullness of joy and peace that can’t be described nor matched by anything else. But I’ll hit that part of it next week. For now, take heart! Whatever suffering you have in your life, with Jesus, it has meaning. You have an inheritance waiting for you, and you will be with God forever. Remember to keep your eyes set on things above, and know that your sorrows will turn into joy. Let that promise push you into uncomfortable places and hard things. Let it drive you to love those who are hard to love, let it drive you to give generously, and let it push you into a submission toward God’s will. If you do all these things, Jesus says, you will have treasure in heaven. It all means something. And know that Jesus is there with you through everything, and he knows how you feel. And most of all he loves you. And so do I.
Thanks ya’ll. Peace and Grace.
