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TITLE: We Left All
TEXT: Mark 10:28-31
PROPOSITION: Following Christ has both costs and rewards.
QUESTION: What?
KEY WORD:
SCRIPTURE READING:
INTRODUCTION:
  1. Previous verses - trust in riches, can't enter heaven
  2. Some things are impossible with men, not with God.
  3. Peter - thinking of earning heaven - we left all
  4. What do we get in return?

The Implication
  1. If I sacrifice enough - I can earn heaven.
  2. Pray, attend, sing, give, teach, deacon, elder, preacher
  3. We must avoid any teaching that would lead people to think heaven can be earned or merited
  4. Heaven is a GIFT - period.

The Response
  1. Jesus does not deny Peter's statement.
  2. Peter (and others) had left all behind to follow Jesus. (Luke 5:11)
  3. Jesus recognizes that others have also made sacrifices.
  4. House, brother or sister, mothers, children, lands
  5. AND suffer persecution as a result

The Others
  1. Job - lost all, including family
  2. Abraham - left family and went out
  3. Daniel - risked life in lion's den
  4. Paul - 2 Corinthians 11:23-28
  5. Read - Hebrews 11:35-40

The Reward
  1. Receive a hundred fold - houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, lands
  2. AND suffer persecution
  3. NOW - in this time, while we are living
  4. AND in the next world - eternal life
  5. God's order is opposite to the world's
    1. First will be last
    2. Last will be first

What about you?
  1. What did it cost you (give up)?
  2. See NOTE: (below)
  3. Have you lost any blood? (Hebrews 12:4)
  4. What did you give up for the sake of the gospel?
  5. What did you gain?

Note from Dennis Barnes:

I find it thought-provoking that Jesus states that we are not "worthy" if we love anyone on earth more than we love Him. The part that peaks my interest is that few (if any at all) Christians would ever deem themselves "worthy" of Jesus. It is a humbling thought.

Ed Harrell (a preacher), told me once that, during a gospel meeting, he baptized a young lady in her early twenties. She was very, very excited and bubbling with emotion. A few months later, Ed called her and asked how things were going. She sadly related that she had called her younger sister and parents to share with them her joy of the gospel. Her parents had been most angry at her, and told her to renounce her membership in the Church of Christ and return to their church or else never talk to them again.

Ed asked what she decided. She said she had cried and thought about it for several days, until she read this scripture (text for this lesson, mrl). At that point, she sadly but resolutely decided that her parents just were not worthy of Jesus Christ. They had made their decision (their church), and she had made hers (Jesus).
It is a humbling thought, and I greatly admire those who have faced such a heartbreaking choice and still chose Jesus.

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