Leaving Everything
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30, NASB)
How many of us want to live forever? I know I do. I know that others do as well. Michael Jackson has made arrangements to have his body cryogenically frozen so that someday, should we ever find a cure for old age, he can be revived and restored for life. He is not the only rich person to have done so. Survival is built into our genes. Almost all of us would like to live forever.
If we all believe Jesus to be God's Son, or even just a true prophet, then we have a most amazing promise from him here. There is “no one,” he says, who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for his sake and the Gospel's, who will not receive eternal life. Let's analyze this a bit. This is an “or” statement. “No one,” he says, who has left any of these things for his sake and the Gospel's, will not receive eternal life. It's not an “and” statement. Leave any of these things, and you will receive eternal life.
Now, there's a lot along the way. There is the promise that you will receive a hundred times all these things in this life—along with persecutions, mind you. But in the end, there is “no one” who has left any of these things who will not receive eternal life.
If eternal life matters to us, this should be a big deal. Here's a promise—a guaranteed way—to receive eternal life. “No one” who leaves any of those things for him and the Gospel will not receive it. That's a big deal; a sure-fire way to receive eternal life. It's a promise worth looking at. It's not a promise worth flippantly skipping past. It's worth looking at. What's involved in this promise? What do we have to do? How do we make sure this promise applies to us?
American Christians are prone to assumptions. “I believe, and therefore I'm saved,” we like to say. “John 6:47 says that everyone who believes has eternal life, and I believe in Jesus, so I have eternal life.” Not only are American Christians prone to say that, but in the evangelism classes that I was a part of, three of them, I was taught to teach people to say that. We instructed them in John 6:47 and other verses like it. We called it “assurance.” The problem is, we never taught them to question whether they really believed. We taught them to assume that because they said they believed, because they thought they believed, and because we believed that they believed, therefore they really believed. But is there more to the story than that?
1 John 2:4 says, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” We may think we believe. We may say we believe. However, if we do not keep His commandments, we don't really believe. If we claim to know him, we are just liars. At least, that's what the Bible says.
Salvation really is “not of works.” Obedience to the commands of God is not a product of our learning the commands of God and simply setting out to obey them. If there had been a law that could have given life, Paul tells us, then righteousness would have come by the law (Gal. 3:21). However, there is not. As Paul describes it, “The commandment, which was supposed to be life, I found to be death” (Rom. 7:10). Why? “The Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. ... What I want, I don't do, but what I hate, that's what I do” (Rom. 7:14-15). What is the answer to this? Paul asked the same question. “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24).
Much of American Christianity effectively answers this question with “no one.” They say that it is normal for Christians to live in Romans 7. They say that Paul lived in Romans 7. This is not true. Paul did not say than no one would deliver him from this body of death. He said that Jesus would deliver him from the body of death, and he said that by experience. “For I am conscious of nothing against myself,” he wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:4). “I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day,” he told the Jewish council of elders (Acts 23:1, NASB). He found deliverance from Romans 7, and he offered an answer to all of us as well. What was that answer?
What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, god did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3-4, NASB)
Paul did not leave us floundering. He assured us that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus would set us free from Romans 7, which he referred to as “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). That is not accomplished by works because our flesh is too weak to produce righteousness by simply knowing the commandments. However, it does result in works, and if your belief did not result in works, then it was no belief at all. As James puts it, “What profit is it, brothers, if a man says he has faith but has no works? Can such faith save him?” (Jam. 2:14). I assure you, the answer James expected to that rhetorical question was no.
We have to judge our faith and determine not whether we believe we had faith but whether we had a faith that God responded to. If you say you have faith but have no works, can such faith save you? Not at all! The only faith that matters is the faith God responds to. It is not you who judges your faith but God. Do not end up hoping, based on John 6:47 or some other Scripture, that you have eternal life. If you do not obey God's commands, yet you claim to know God, God will call you a liar, and that will not be profitable on the last day. You will not achieve your goal of living forever no matter how many Scriptures you have assured yourself with.
It is the same with Mark 10:29-30. We cannot assume that we have given up house or brothers or children for Christ's sake and for the Gospel's. We must know that we have done so. We do not want to be found assuming that we have eternal life on the last day when we do not. Jesus spoke of such people. They are not rare. Jesus says that there are “many” such. “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? And in your name cast out many demons? And in your name done many wonderful works?’” (Matt. 7:22). But Jesus will send all of them away, telling them that he never knew them. We do not want that to be us.
What is the Gospel for which we must give up family and possessions? Jesus told his apostles that they were to teach the disciples to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:20). Obviously, the apostle John, at least, took that literally. If you don't obey Christ's commandments, he said, and you claim to know him, the truth is not in you. You're a liar. But what did he command? He said you cannot be his disciple unless you “hate” your family and even your own life! He said you can't be his disciple unless you forsook all your possessions (Luke 14:26-33). What could he possibly mean by such harsh statements?
Those statements do not seem so harsh in the right context. The churches the apostles set up were not buildings on the street corner that people attended once, twice, or three times a week. The churches of the apostles were not about meetings. They were about a shared life. The disciples of the apostles called nothing their own. They shared with all who were in need. They entered the household of God. Prior to becoming converted, they were in their own earthly family. After conversion, they joined the family of God. Prior to conversion, they were responsible for housing and helping their own children. After conversion, they were responsible to house and help God's children.
Jesus did not want us to literally hate our family in the way that we normally think. God wanted us to be able to leave our family to join his family. “Forget your own people, and your father's house,” the Psalmist says, “So the King shall greatly desire your beauty. He is your Lord; worship him” (Ps. 45:10-11). (I'll bet you didn't know that was in the Bible, did you?) The “hate” that Jesus spoke of was not a hate that would cause you not to love your family. If you are Christ's disciple you will love everyone, even your enemies. It was a hate that would allow you to leave your family, no matter how much of a hold your earthly family has on you. Because if you are going to enter God's family, you will need to leave yours. You will not be able to be a part of both. They will compete for your affections. Your family may enter God's family, so that they are your family again, but you cannot go back to your old family. “Let them return to you,” God told Jeremiah, “but don't return to them” (Jer. 15:19).
Your possessions are under the same rule. In Christ's kingdom, you call nothing your own. What you are given is for the sake of others in the kingdom. “I don't mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but there should be an equality. Now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, so that their abundance also may be a supply for for your lack, so that there may be equality” (2 Cor. 8:13-14). This was not a temporary teaching. It is often said that this was only the case in Jerusalem, where poverty caused a need for that sort of sharing. However, we see that Paul also commanded the same sharing to the Corithians. Even The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (or The Didache), a Christian writing of the late first or early second century, says, “You shall share all things with your brother and shall not say that they are your own” (ch. 4). That writing takes this command very seriously. In another place it says, “Happy is he that gives according to the commandment, for he is guiltless. ... but he that receives, not having need, shall pay the penalty” (ch. 1).
In the context of apostolic Christianity, where conversion is not only from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son, but is also from your earthly family to “the household of God,” it is apparent why Christ speaks of giving up house, mother, father, brothers, sisters, and farms while receiving a hundred times as much of each of those in this life. You are entering the family of God, where the possessions of all your brothers and sisters, as well as your own possessions, are not theirs or yours but ours.
This is a frightening thought in America. If I give up my house, I will receive eternal life. Jesus said it. However, he also said that I will receive a hundred houses in this life. Has that happened? Where in America can you find Christians who call nothing their own but believe that all our possessions are to be shared to meet the needs of our needy brothers and sisters, both here and around the world? I know you can find that at Rose Creek Village. I know where you can find it in Providence, RI. I hear rumors that you can find such a place in Texas and Louisianna, and I am determined to find out if those rumors are true. But for most American Christians, they know of no such place, no such Gospel, and no way to live out what Jesus speaks of in Mark 10:29-30. That is frightening.
I can remember being just as frightened when I first analyzed Galatians 5:19-21. There we are told that those who practice the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. Some of those works of the flesh are obvious. There are adulteries, murders, and drunkenness. Okay, it is clear that we have to give up those things. However, it also mentions, in the King James Version, “strife, seditions, heresies.” A quick check on the Greek words tells us that this means partisanship or factions, divisions, and sects. That last word was the most frightening to me. It's found six times in the Book of Acts, and it always refers to one of the sects of Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or the Way (the Christians). In other words, that word “sect” means “denomination.” How does one avoid practicing “denominations” in the USA and still remain in fellowship with other Christians? That was very frightening to me because it is simply normal for Christians to divide from one another over doctrine or practice in the US. We can call ourselves or our church “non-denominational,” but the fact is that we are meeting separate from other Christians over some issue of doctrine or practice. We are fracturing the Church of God. Those who do so cannot remain guiltless. In fact, Paul says those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
We have to take these things seriously. The devil is winning a great victory over the kingdom of God in America. Americans don't hate their family as Jesus commands, and they don't give up their possessions. They don't give up their house for Jesus and his Gospel and thus obtain a hundred houses in return. And don't be fooled. If we aren't getting the hundred houses that we can see, we aren't getting the eternal life that we can't see, either. We can make excuses. We can claim Scriptures to put our mind at ease. The fact is, however, that our love for one another is the proof to the world that we are his disciples (Jn. 13:34,35), and our unity is the proof to the world that Jesus is who he said he was (Jn. 17:20-23). When we do things to change the Gospel and present a fractured, divided picture of Christ, then we are testifying to the world that we are not his disciples and that he is not who he said he was.
Who is willing to hate his family and enter God's? Who is willing to forsake all his own possessions, calling none of them his own, so that they might be shared to meet the needs of the needy in Christ's body? Who is willing to give up his house, his mother, his father, his siblings and children, and his farm? It is these that we are to bound together with, not with those who merely desire to attend a weekly meeting, correct a few acts of worldliness and assuage their consciences with some good works. Jesus had a Gospel that he wants us to enter into. Are we willing to enter it?
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