Getting Lost In Jesus

June 28, 2008 FB
In Matthew 10 Jesus sends out the twelve disciples to preach the kingdom of heaven. He gives them power to heal the sick and cast out demons, and then charges them to persevere through the coming persecutions. He then tells them to fear God not man, to be a witness for Him, and that He came to bring division not peace. It is at this point that Jesus says “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Matt. 10:39).”

Contemporary Christianity would affirm that this is teaching that when trials come your way in life you have only to “lose yourself in Jesus” or “get lost in Jesus” and everything will be all better. Or another way of presenting the passage would be “to gain true happiness and fulfillment in life you have only to only deny yourself and rest in the arms of Jesus.” Yet another interpretation would be to “be a sincere follower of Christ even if it means martyrdom.” All of these ideas have nothing to do with the passage and are fallacious interpretations. The true doctrine of “losing yourself in Jesus” has a much richer meaning to it and will bring greater blessing when correctly understood. It is a shame that contemporary Christianity chooses to be ignorant to the true meaning in order to serve an emotional craving.

We have seen that the context of this passage is when Jesus sends out his disciples to preach repentance for the kingdom of heaven. The passage is basically Jesus’ charge to encourage his followers to persevere through every state of their ministry. So in one sense he does agree with contemporary Christianity by saying “when you do die for me, you will find me.” But that doesn’t really make much sense in this passage. It also agrees in another sense because it does mean that you will find fulfillment in Christ, but for this passage that is incomplete.
There is a more complete message to this passage. First is that Jesus, in the immediate context, says that He must be loved above mother, father, son, and daughter. Then He says to lose your life. But notice that it is not given as a command. Jesus just says it as a plain fact. So now we must ascertain what it means to be lost in Christ.
To be lost in Christ is usually thought of as some sort of secluded romantic place where you can just bask in the pleasantness and loveliness of Jesus as you worship and praise Him with all your heart. But Jesus does not give any inclination toward this meaning. Rather, He gives it as a proverb to show the paradoxical truth: If you find your life then you will lose it, but if you lose it then you will find it.

The main truth that gets overlooked is the last phrase of the sentence, “you will find it.” Jesus does not say that you will find Him and experience His beauty. He says that you will find you. There are a few facets to this idea, but the main thought is that you will find your true self in Him. Or another way of saying it would be “you will find out who you really are.” Let’s see some of the facets from the context.
The first facet is love. Jesus says not to love anyone more than Him (10:37). Now what type of love is He talking about? Is it romantic love or serving love? It is neither. He is referring more to the depth of care and importance you put on Him. This is relational love. How does Christ relate to our lives? Do we bring Him down to our level as only a comforter in time of need? Or do we relate ourselves to the undeserving sparrow that the almighty Creator cares and provides for (10:29-31)? Jesus wants us to see Him as the Lord God who provides everything we need, and have a type of love that shows fear and gratitude (10:28).
The second facet has to do with taking up our cross (10:38). The cross was the most shameful execution of the day. It was degrading and hideous to behold. Jesus is not telling us to debase ourselves, or to humiliate ourselves, or even to deny ourselves, although He does say that in other passages. What Jesus is saying in this passage is that His follower must be willing to endure shame and humiliation, or even martyrdom if/when it comes.
The third and final facet is the very act of losing our lives only to find them. This means seeking the things of God not of earth (Col. 3:2). Losing our lives in this passage means to see our earthly life as Paul sees it in Romans chapter 7: wicked and incapable of pleasing and living for God apart from His gracious help. It is repentance: To turn away from our own worldly pleasures and turn to God and His rich mercies. It also means to forget. When you lose something it is usually because it has been forgotten. This is the same idea: to lose your life means to forget all about your wants and focus on doing what the Lord wants (Phil. 3:13).

So, to construct this doctrine from the passage we can see Jesus is saying that to lose our lives is to love no one above Him, to be willing to endure persecution, and to seek the things of God. The main thing to note here is that this whole passage is under the charge of Jesus to His followers for service. This denotes that service is really the key to whole passage. We must be serving God to be able to fulfill all the facets of losing our lives.
Finally we must see what is the overall meaning of the doctrine of losing our lives. It is the phrase “will find it” at the end of verse 39. Firstly this means that we are not our true selves while we are in these earthly bodies. When we get our new resurrection bodies we will be rid of our sin natures and will be our true selves. But down here while we are still living in these corruptible bodies we cannot truly be ourselves. To find true completeness is to lose all concern and worry for ourselves and place all importance on Christ. It is only when this is done that we allow Christ to make us more like our true selves in our future incorruptible resurrection state.
Lastly there is the purpose clause “for My sake.” Jesus does not want us to lose our lives for the purpose of finding them. He wants us to lose them for Him and His glory. It's not getting lost in Jesus at all; it's getting lost for Jesus.The whole goal is to have others come to know Him better. It is not for ourselves that we serve; it is for others and for Christ. “…the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph. 4:10).”

Nehemiah Ryan © 2008