Jesus Is for Losers
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“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and
whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ!
Mark Allen Powell tells this story in his book,
Loving Jesus:
I
once saw a teenager at a shopping mall wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jesus Is
for Losers.” At first I thought this was a cynical put-down of Christianity on
the part of some adolescent who’d decided he was too cool to be associated with
religion. Then I noticed the shirt had a Bible reference in parentheses beneath
its bold statement. It was actually a Christian T-shirt, witnessing to the
gospel. Of course! Jesus is for losers, not against them. Jesus came
into this world to dine with outcasts and misfits and to proclaim good news to
the disadvantaged, the neglected, the marginalized, and the abused. Tax
collectors, harlots, Samaritans, lepers ... losers, all. Jesus is for them. [i]
To say Jesus is for
losers is to say two types of things. First, it reveals something about the
kind of people Jesus calls to follow Him. Such people are, in more than one
way, losers. They should own it. But that’s not all this means. It also says
something about Jesus.
Let’s start with what it
says about Jesus’ followers. When Jesus first called His disciples to follow Him,
they started out well. Jesus walked by, called to them unexpectedly, and they
dropped everything that they were doing (Matthew 4:18-20). Peter and Andrew left
their nets and followed Him. James and John left their boat and father and
followed Him. (Matthew 4:21-22). When Jesus passed by Matthew’s tax booth, and said,
“Follow Me.” Matthew “rose at once and followed Him” (Matthew 9:9-10).
But after this good
start, things went downhill quickly. Repeatedly, they misunderstood Jesus’
identity and mission. They were eager to call down fire on Samaritans. They
argued about who was the greatest. Cowered in fear while He slept during a
storm on the sea. They tried to prevent Jesus’ passion, until it was upon them
and then they ran away from it. In the end, they found themselves hiding behind
locked doors with great fear and weak faith.[ii]
Today, we might name
our churches after these disciples and call them saints, but apart from Jesus,
they were just losers. They were weak and unworthy human beings who were a
disappointment to themselves, to others, and to God. We don’t remember them
because of what they did, but because of what Jesus did for them and
through them.
To say Jesus is for
losers is to notice that Jesus calls people to follow Him who are weak,
unimpressive, and ultimately undependable. As Paul pointed out to the
Corinthians, “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not
many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish
in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that
are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:26–28). Jesus is
for losers!
Losers like you and me.
Those who know we bring nothing to our Lord but our sin. Those who look for
mercy. Those who consider our unworthiness and confess before God and one
another that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, and that we cannot free
ourselves from our sinful condition. Those who take refuge in the infinite
mercy of God, our heavenly Father, seeking His grace for the sake of Christ and
saying God be merciful to me, a sinner.[iii]
Jesus’ followers are
losers in another sense as well, which is more directly at play in our text
from Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his
life for My sake will find it.”
This is related to
Jesus’ first words in our Gospel: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace
to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Jesus
Himself will cause division between people, a division so severe that He uses
the brutal image of “a sword” (Matthew 10:34). Some will hear Christ’s call to
faith and discipleship, and by God’s gracious action through the Gospel they
hear, they will repent and believe. Others will hear the same call, but due to
their own ingrained sin and stubbornness, they will reject the Christ who summons
them to salvation. Even the family, the closest and most fundamental unit in
human existence, will be affected (Matthew 9:35-37).
In these divided families,
the believer will eventually face this challenge from unbelieving loved ones: “Choose
me and my ways rather than your Jesus and His ways.” This is merely an
application of the broader principle that Jesus has just taught concerning
confessing Him before men (Matthew 10:32-33). To be sure, Christians will be
more loving, more patient, more accepting of non-Christian family members than
otherwise would be, since the love they receive from Christ enables them to display
Christlike love, whether or not it is requited. At times, God will use such a
loving witness as part of His way of bringing unbelievers to faith; they may be
won “without a word” (see 1 Peter 3:1-2). Other times, however, the
non-believing spouse or parents or children will demand allegiance and
conformity in many ways to which the Christian simply must not agree. Then, the
disciple must love Jesus more than father or mother or son or daughter.
At various times and
places in the Roman Empire, to be a Christian and refuse to bow down to Caesar
and the pagan gods was considered a capital crime; many Christians literally
bore a “cross” or perished by fire or wild beasts or gladiators. Disciples of
Jesus in less-hostile regions may not face bodily harm, but may still lose cherished
relationship with loved ones because of their confession of faith. Those losses
may feel insurmountable and will be a “cross” to bear.
Because the issue is
the identity of Jesus and faith in Him, however, the disciple knows there is no
middle ground.
Strangely, if a Christian were to long for the old way of life and cave into
family pressures to reject Christ and His work, He would thereby lose the only
real life there is: eternal life with God through Jesus (Matthew 10:39).
Paradoxically, when a Christian accepts the sword, carries the cross, and suffers
the loss of His former relationships and status—perhaps even giving up his
bodily life (Matthew 10:28)—because he clings in faith to Jesus, that believer
will discover that he has found real life forever.
Jesus is for losers.
The Bible verse quoted on that T-shirt was 1 Timothy 1:15: “Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” By God’s grace, we can
be in a relationship with Jesus, but we’re not just going to be buddies.
The relationship He offers us is one of patients to physician, sinners to
Savior (Mark 2:7).
To lose your life is
not simply to be a loser to begin with. It is to continue to lose; to lose your
pride, boasting, or anything else you might presume to offer God as significant
or worthy of commendation.[iv]
Again, Paul says: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all
things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found
in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on
faith” (Philippians 3:8–9). We lose our lives as we recognize we have nothing
to offer God, no claim, no entitlement.[v]
In the process, the
Christian lives abundantly now and will live in eternal glory with his Savior
hereafter. But those who concentrate on the things of this life jeopardize
their eternal salvation. He who gains the whole world but loses his soul has
made a poor bargain indeed!
To say Jesus is for losers
is also to say something about God. The one who chose the disciples was
also the one who chose Israel, that small nation with an even smaller role to
play on the world stage.[vi]
This fits a God who humbled Himself by becoming a human from the hometown
good-for nothing Nazareth.
Jesus chooses the
people He wants to follow Him. Supposedly, He might have found more capable
candidates; He might at least have interviewed the applicants, asked for some
references, or done minimal background checks. But, no. His selection of the
inept almost seems to have been deliberate. His choice of peasants over
scribes, laborers over merchants, tax collectors over priests, seems almost
calculated to ensure exclusion of the wise, the noble, the powerful. “I came
not to call the righteous, but sinners,” Jesus says (Mark 2:17).
Jesus enlightens His
disciples with special knowledge and teaching (Mark 4:33-34). Jesus teaches His
disciples the mysteries of the kingdom, explaining His parables to them and
instructing them in “the way of the cross.” It doesn’t seem to make any
difference. They don’t understand him. A scholar once said, “The amazing thing …
is that, although Jesus keeps teaching His disciples, they never learn.” I
would turn that around. The utterly amazing thing … is that, though
Jesus’ disciples never learn, He keeps teaching them. Simply put: He
never gives up on them, no matter how aggravating their dim minds and hard
hearts seem to be.
Jesus empowers His
disciples to be holy people of God. Jesus gives His disciples the “spiritual
authority” they need to triumph over evil. Notice that they don’t really make
much use of this authority. Occasionally, they able to help others, but they
don’t use the power Jesus has given them to overcome the evil in their own
lives. They don’t become better people themselves. Still, He doesn’t take back
what He has given. Rather, He constantly reminds them of the power they have,
claiming that they would be able to move mountains if only they would put their
faith in God (Mark 11:22-24).
Jesus keeps His
disciples despite their complete faithlessness to Him. This is surely the most crucial
point of all. Jesus never rejects any of His followers, no matter how
inadequate they turn out to be. Even when they desert Him, deny Him, and leave
Him to die, even then the message goes out from the tomb on Easter
morning is, in effect, “Go, tell Peter and the others that I will be waiting
for them in Galilee.” This is incredible! We might have expected Him to fire
the whole lot and find twelve new disciples who would prove somewhat
worthy of Him.
This may be the ultimate
illustration of God’s grace in action. Jesus calls inadequate people who,
despite His assistance, never approve. Indeed, they get worse, until finally,
they reject Him altogether. Still, He does not reject them.
This self-effacing God
delights in showering His favor upon those of low estate. He lifts up the
humble, reaches out to the downtrodden, welcomes the outcast, and befriends the
foreigner. In other words, He is for the loser, which is to say He is for you,
me, all of us.[vii]
We are sinners, outcasts, foreigners, and losers all. But God has chosen us to
be His losers. We are His disciples and we have been given life in Him. This is
the promise I am called to proclaim to you this day.
The other side is also
true. To say Jesus is for losers is to recognize that He humbles the proud and
bring to nothing those who think they are something. This puts us in our place,
which is needed more often than we would like to admit. But this not only
reminds us of our place before God, it also makes room for faith, which is
saving faith. This kind of faith recognizes we are totally dependent on God and
His call to follow. We have nothing to offer. We simply follow Him to and
through death into resurrection. As we lose ourselves in Him, we find the only
possibility for real and lasting life.
Go in the peace of the
Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture
quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001
by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
[i] Mark Allan Powell, Loving
Jesus (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2004),
[ii] Gospel: Matthew 10:34-42 (Pentecost
5: Series A),
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-matthew-1034-42-pentecost-5-series-a-2023.
[iii] Lutheran Service
Book, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006. p. 203
[iv] Gospel: Matthew 10:34-42 (Pentecost
5: Series A),
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-matthew-1034-42-pentecost-5-series-a-2023.
[v] Gospel: Matthew 10:34-42 (Pentecost
5: Series A),
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-matthew-1034-42-pentecost-5-series-a-2023.
[vi] Gospel: Matthew 10:34-42 (Pentecost
5: Series A),
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-matthew-1034-42-pentecost-5-series-a-2023.
[vii] Gospel: Matthew 10:34-42 (Pentecost
5: Series A),
https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-matthew-1034-42-pentecost-5-series-a-2023.
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