Date: 17 Novem­ber 2024 | Pre­a­cher:
Series: | Bible text: Matthew 19:16–30
Hint: This ser­mon has been machi­ne trans­la­ted. Plea­se note that we can­not accept any respon­si­bi­li­ty for the accu­ra­cy of the content.

Fol­lo­wing Jesus cos­ts me ever­y­thing. The first fol­lo­wers of Jesus, the disci­ples, were sobe­red by the fact that not even tho­se who had an advan­ta­ge accor­ding to their under­stan­ding would enter the king­dom of God through their own means. How were they simp­le men sup­po­sed to mana­ge this? What then is the bene­fit of disci­ple­ship? The disci­ples asked Jesus the same ques­ti­on, becau­se they had left ever­y­thing behind for him. Fol­lo­wing Jesus pro­mi­ses a dou­ble gain. On the one hand, I gain a lot in the com­mu­ni­ty of belie­vers, and on the other, Jesus pro­mi­ses eter­nal life as the main pri­ze to all tho­se who have left ever­y­thing behind.


Last Sun­day we tal­ked about the cost of fol­lo­wing Jesus. Today we want to look at the bene­fits of fol­lo­wing him. Becau­se fol­lo­wing Jesus has a lot to offer me and is defi­ni­te­ly worthwhile.

Who then can be saved at all?

I would like to start with a bibli­cal sto­ry that is per­haps unu­su­al when tal­king about the bene­fits of disci­ple­ship. It is the sto­ry of a rich young man who seeks out Jesus (Matthew 19:16–24). He wan­ted to know from him what good things he must do to be saved. The ans­wer is simp­le: keep all the laws. Accor­ding to him, the self-con­fi­dent young man had obey­ed all of them. But what is he still miss­ing? «Jesus said to him: «If you want to be per­fect, go and sell ever­y­thing you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have tre­asu­re in hea­ven. Then come and fol­low me. But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he was very rich» (Matthew 19:21–22 NLB). When Jesus is back with his fol­lo­wers, he adds that it is impos­si­ble for the rich to enter the king­dom of God. This state­ment deep­ly sho­cked his disci­ples. «The disci­ples were very sho­cked. «Who then can be saved at all?» they asked» (Matthew 19:25 NLB). The Israe­li­tes were cha­rac­te­ri­sed by the fact that spi­ri­tu­al bles­sing always had an earth­ly dimen­si­on. The ori­gi­nal fami­ly from which the Israe­li­tes des­cen­ded was very wealt­hy. They owned lar­ge herds of catt­le, many maid­ser­vants and ser­vants and were very respec­ted peo­p­le. In the eyes of the fol­lo­wers of Jesus, the rich, powerful and respec­ted had some­thing over the «nor­mal peo­p­le». They thought that God was more plea­sed with the­se peo­p­le becau­se they were alre­a­dy doing well here on earth. The earth­ly well-being of the peo­p­le of Isra­el also indi­ca­tes an advan­ta­ge when it comes to eter­nal well-being. This view is pro­ba­b­ly not exact­ly unpo­pu­lar among fol­lo­wers of Jesus today. Howe­ver, Jesus» state­ment des­troys this view. He also points out that pos­ses­si­ons are not only God’s good gift, but also a gre­at dan­ger for peo­p­le. But if not even tho­se who are bles­sed on earth can be saved, then who can? Now comes the crux of the mat­ter, which is very important to under­stand, espe­ci­al­ly when we talk about the gain or reward of disci­ple­ship. «Jesus loo­ked at them insis­t­ent­ly and said: «Human­ly spea­king, it is impos­si­ble. But with God ever­y­thing is pos­si­ble» » (Matthew 19:26 NLB). With God, other stan­dards count. Sal­va­ti­on is inde­pen­dent of what a per­son has to offer. It is deci­ded by his com­mit­ment to Jesus. It is a decis­i­on to lea­ve his old life behind and lead a new one with Jesus Christ as Lord in and over his life. If someone gives up self-deter­mi­na­ti­on and belie­ves in God, then he agrees with Job «Now I know that you can do any­thing, no endea­vour is impos­si­ble for you» (Job 42:2 NLB). It is a sign of depen­dence on God.

We have given up everything!

The clo­sest fol­lo­wers of Jesus, the twel­ve disci­ples, are a prime exam­p­le of what it means to fol­low Jesus com­ple­te­ly. Peter the­r­e­fo­re asks a self-ser­ving ques­ti­on at this point. «Then Peter said to him: «We have given up ever­y­thing to fol­low you. What will we do forür get?» » (Matthew 19:27 NLB). The disci­ples were all per­so­nal­ly invi­ted by Jesus to fol­low him. They were ordi­na­ry peo­p­le, not the usu­al eli­te cal­led by a scho­lar. A few of them were fisher­men (Matthew 4:18–22). They were busy with their work when Jesus comes by and calls them to fol­low him. They drop ever­y­thing and go with him. Two even lea­ve their father behind in the boat and fol­low Jesus. We know from ano­ther that he was mar­ried. Later, Jesus invi­tes Matthew, a tax coll­ec­tor (Matthew 9:9–13). This pro­fes­sio­nal group was quite des­pi­sed by the Israe­li­tes and was con­side­red gree­dy. They also made com­mon cau­se with the Roman occu­p­iers. Matthew was sit­ting at his cus­toms post when Jesus invi­ted him to fol­low him. He lea­ves ever­y­thing and fol­lows him.

Church histo­ry is full of peo­p­le who left their fami­li­ar sur­roun­dings to fol­low Jesus Christ. John Hud­son Tay­lor was one of them. He was born in Lon­don in 1832 and was rather frail. At the age of seven­teen, he deci­ded to live with Jesus. The desi­re grew in him to go to Chi­na and invi­te peo­p­le the­re to fol­low Jesus. Befo­re his depar­tu­re, he lived among the poor in Lon­don for a few years and cul­ti­va­ted a simp­le, fru­gal and spar­tan life­style. In Chi­na, he then work­ed in Chi­ne­se clot­hing and wore a plait, as was cus­to­ma­ry the­re. He wan­ted to break down as many bar­riers as pos­si­ble in order to invi­te as many peo­p­le as pos­si­ble to fol­low him. Two of his child­ren and his first wife died within a year. He gave ever­y­thing for this one thing, just like the first fol­lo­wers of Jesus.

The clo­sest twel­ve fol­lo­wers of Jesus have given up ever­y­thing. Cer­tain trans­la­ti­ons also use aban­do­ned. This is in con­trast to the rich young man. He should sell ever­y­thing. They, on the other hand, left ever­y­thing, which does not neces­s­a­ri­ly mean that it was no lon­ger the­re. But they all show­ed that it no lon­ger stood bet­ween them and God. Matthew fol­lo­wed Jesus at cus­toms, but invi­ted peo­p­le to his home on the evening of his decis­i­on. They were other tax coll­ec­tors and many dod­gy peo­p­le known to the town. The point of lea­ving is that not­hing should stand in the way of fol­lo­wing Jesus.

Sto­ries like that are pret­ty bla­tant. Admit­ted­ly, they are per­haps also extre­me examp­les. I would the­r­e­fo­re like to share with you a few examp­les from my envi­ron­ment whe­re peo­p­le aban­do­ned things and ther­eby expres­sed their trust in God.

  • Someone deci­des to fol­low Jesus, even though this means losing their fami­ly and they no lon­ger want to have any­thing to do with this person.
  • A cou­ple deci­des to limit their expen­dit­u­re and invest all inco­me in excess of this in the king­dom of God.
  • A fami­ly chan­ges their place of resi­dence, lea­ving their dream home and their eldest child in New Zea­land and moving to Switz­er­land becau­se they are being cal­led as pastors.
  • A man deci­des to work only 90% so that he can invest more of the rest of his time in God’s kingdom.
  • Peo­p­le open their homes and wil­lingly take in refu­gees for lon­ger peri­ods of time, giving up some of their privacy.
  • A cou­ple deci­de to get mar­ried, even though they fear finan­cial los­ses as a result.
  • A fami­ly opens their home and takes in and cares for children.
  • A woman invests a lot of time in vol­un­t­a­ry work ins­tead of working more.
  • Ano­ther woman has a 50% job at the church with no pay becau­se her spouse’s inco­me is good enough for both of them.
  • A man reti­res and deci­des to go to South Ame­ri­ca for three months to reno­va­te a mis­si­on sta­ti­on – sepa­ra­ted from his wife.

The­re are many more sto­ries to tell. All the­se peo­p­le left some­thing, renoun­ced some­thing and ther­eby expres­sed their depen­dence on God.

Hundredfold reward

Now final­ly to the wages. But this can­not be cate­go­ri­sed wit­hout what has been said so far. In respon­se to Peter’s ques­ti­on, Jesus tells them that the twel­ve disci­ples will one day sit on thro­nes and judge the twel­ve tri­bes of Isra­el. He explains «And ever­yo­ne who has given up his house, his brot­hers and sis­ters, his par­ents, his child­ren or his pos­ses­si­ons for my name’s sake will recei­ve a hundred times as much again and gain eter­nal life» (Matthew 19:29 NLB). Jesus pro­mi­ses two rewards or gains here. On the one hand, eter­nal life, on the other hand, a hundred­fold gain in hou­ses, siblings, par­ents, child­ren or pos­ses­si­ons. On the one hand, even after life here on earth, but also here!

First­ly, eter­nal life. Life is ren­de­red here with the Greek «zoe». «zoe» means the supre­me bles­sing of a crea­tu­re through the gift of divi­ne eter­nal life. This life can be cha­rac­te­ri­sed as fol­lows: It is not affec­ted by the limi­ta­ti­on of time. No cell divi­si­on. No age­ing. No hair loss. Eter­nal life in the pre­sence of God is the reward for fol­lo­wing Jesus Christ. But is this not sim­ply a con­so­la­ti­on for the after­li­fe? Yes and no. We will come to the no in the next point. Yes: fol­lo­wing Jesus always has a dimen­si­on that goes bey­ond life here.

The second gain is a hundred­fold. God knows us only too well, he knows that it is dif­fi­cult for us to give up ever­y­thing. So if we give up some­thing, we will gain it. Tho­se who lose their par­ents becau­se of their faith have a loving Father in God. Tho­se who lose their siblings becau­se of fol­lo­wing Jesus have a share of siblings and child­ren in the Chris­ti­an com­mu­ni­ty. The pic­tu­re that Jesus paints is that of «all for all». Ever­yo­ne is a brot­her and sis­ter to ever­yo­ne. Ever­yo­ne helps the other out with what he/she needs. My wish is that you can expe­ri­ence this here in the see­tal chile.

Howe­ver, such a reward is only pos­si­ble if ever­yo­ne is in the same boat. This means that ever­yo­ne is pre­pared to lea­ve ever­y­thing for Jesus. In other words, not to hang their hearts on it, but to share it gene­rous­ly and wil­lingly with others. Jesus Christ con­cludes the pas­sa­ge with a state­ment that again empha­si­s­es the rever­sal of the usu­al. «But many firsts will be last and last firsts» (Matthew 19:27 ELB). Many who seem important today will then be the least important. Tho­se who are insi­gni­fi­cant on earth will then be the grea­test. The decisi­ve fac­tor is not how I am pla­ced on earth, but the grace of God. It has to do with whe­ther I lea­ve ever­y­thing or not. The more I have, the more dif­fi­cult this can be.

Possible questions for the small group

Read the Bible text: Matthew 19:16–30

  1. «Then who can be saved at all?» The first fol­lo­wers of Jesus had to have their idea of Jesus cor­rec­ted. They assu­med that earth­ly well-being goes hand in hand with eter­nal well-being. What does this look like for you?
  2. The disci­ples gave up ever­y­thing for Jesus. Which per­son who gave up some­thing for Jesus fasci­na­tes you and why? This could be a per­son from the Bible, church histo­ry or your environment.
  3. Eter­nal life» is a gift from God for all tho­se who fol­low Jesus Christ. How do you judge this?
  4. Tho­se who give up/leave ever­y­thing will gain hou­ses, siblings, par­ents, child­ren or pos­ses­si­ons on this earth and for eter­ni­ty. Have you alre­a­dy expe­ri­en­ced lea­ving some­thing behind and gai­ning some­thing in return?
  5. The reward of disci­ple­ship is a gift of God’s grace and is inde­pen­dent of the sta­tus I have here on earth. What does this thought do to you?