The Sacrifice That Leads to Great Gain

Let us turn to the Word of God, brothers and sisters, and continue with the sermon we began last Sunday about the cost of following Jesus, the cost of discipleship. And I want to continue emphasizing this dimension of sacrifice that leads to great gain, and how essential it is for us to understand exactly what Christ’s call consists of and what it is that we embrace when we surrender our lives to the Lord, when we enter the way of the Gospel.

By way of summary, and also to reinforce what we have learned, we were talking about how, many times, in the society in which we live, in this twenty-first century and in this culture—especially here in the North, in the United States and in Europe—the Gospel seems to be undergoing an evolution, and not necessarily for the better. Very often the true nature of the Christian life is not being emphasized: it is a life that includes sacrifices, that includes the cross—not only for our champion, our prototype, Christ Jesus, but also for us. Hence what the Lord said, right? “If anyone wants to be My disciple, let him take up his cross every day and follow Me.”

We were talking about how the Lord, unlike perhaps many of us, was not entirely pleased with all the people who were following Him. At the height of His popularity, when great crowds followed Him, there is a passage showing us that the Lord turned toward that great multitude and implicitly made it clear to them that they needed to ask themselves why they were following Him, and that it should not be because of what He could do for them. It was not because of the loaves and fish He had multiplied; it was not to restore Israel to its former political prominence; it was not because the Lord could heal their diseases or free them from the demons that oppressed them, or heal them of their poverty. All of that was true, and He had done it, would continue to do it, and continues to do it.

But those are incidental things; they are additional things. They are added benefits of the Christian life, but they are not the center of the Christian life, nor are they what we should seek Jesus for.

During the devotional, Brother Gonzalo was saying: What happens when we are diagnosed with an illness? What happens when we lose our house? What happens when we lose our job? What happens when our marriage does not go exactly as we would like it to? What happens when we have a boss who does not treat us well? When we wreck the car, when we do not have money to pay the rent. When we go to the supermarket and, as we are about to pay, discover that we do not have enough money to pay for the groceries.

What happens in those moments? Can we then still worship the Lord, worship Him, glorify Him, and feel that we are still at the center of His will? Can we still experience joy in Christianity? Because we have come to realize that those things are not truly what guarantee God’s love for us, that there are other things that are more important. Can we say, as the writer of Habakkuk says, “Though the fig tree does not blossom, though there are no vines in the fields, though there are no cows in the folds,” though all the bills are not paid, “yet we will rejoice in the Lord”?

I remember my mother when I was very little, back in the Dominican Republic. She would say, “Look, when there is nothing in the kitchen to cook, in one sense I feel happy, because then I can devote myself to worshiping the Lord more and praising Him more.” And, incidentally, when the Lord came into our family, everything changed completely. Blessing came; provision came. But first my mother had to understand that this was not the reason for serving the Lord, that there are other things that are more important.

And what is interesting is that when this surrender of our entire being takes place within us—when we know that we will serve the Lord come rain, thunder, or wind, whether there is much or little, whether the pantry is full or empty, whether we have excellent health or not—then the Lord says, “You know what? Now I am going to bless you; now I am going to provide for you; now I am going to give to you.”

Because, ironically, many times in the Christian life, it is not until we let go of things that things begin to come to us. Many times the Lord has to wean us—to use that word, right?—from dependence on material things, so that we may understand why we serve Him and learn to see Him as the center. And that only comes when we have truly gone through a process of crucifixion. I do not know if you can help me, Javier, up there? I am hearing something up there that is not quite right, some dead spot there. I do not know if you hear it back there, but I certainly hear it.

So, brothers and sisters, how can that happen? How does that process take place in our lives, enabling us to reach the point where we become independent of material things? That can only come when we have gone through a process, and God will often take us through it. It is a process in which God places us in times of drought and barrenness, when we will lack many things, so that we may then learn that we do not die without those things.

When the Lord detaches us from those things, we can then understand that our life does not depend on them. As the Lord Jesus Christ says, man does not depend on food, bread, and clothing; life does not consist of those things, but of every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And God wants to take us through that process. Javier, it is still not right. Please help me with that because it distracts me; forgive me. I am a little obsessive-compulsive. Yes, it is on; I do not know whether this might be the problem. No, I do not think so; it is fine.

Do you remember the passage in Deuteronomy where the Lord tells the Hebrews to remember the road along which they traveled in the wilderness? They spent forty years in the wilderness, and God sustained them practically with manna alone. And He told them, “I took you through that to discipline you, so that you would understand that man shall not live by bread alone, so that you would detach yourselves from the love of material things. And now I am going to bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey, and now I am going to give you everything you need.” But first God has to take us through that process.

And that is what He wants us to learn when we enter the ways of the Gospel. That is why God has to crucify us; God has to break us in order to bring us to that point in our lives. And that is why so much of the Gospel speaks about this—leaving everything behind to find Jesus Christ.

We talked about all these passages, right? Again and again, when these great crowds followed the Lord, He told them, “Hey, if you do not hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even your own life, you cannot be My disciples.” When He called Peter and his companions, the Bible says that they left their boats on shore—the very essence of their livelihood. It says, “Leaving everything, they followed Him.” When the Lord healed blind Bartimaeus, it says, “Bartimaeus left his cloak and followed the Lord.” So that is the radical call.

When He called Levi, it says that Levi was working at the tax-collection table, at the revenue office. And when He called Levi and said to him, “Come and follow Me,” Levi left everything. It says, “Leaving everything, he got up and followed Him.” Levi then gave Him a great banquet in his house, and at that banquet he invited all his friends—which is what we need to be doing in our lives. He invited all his friends, all the sinful people of the city, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. Levi left his profession, invited all his friends, and then became an evangelist and a follower of Jesus Christ.

In Mark chapter 8 it says, “Jesus called the people and His disciples and said to them, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me; for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it.’”

There is another passage that we read in which the Lord calls a person along the way, and this man says, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” But he did not understand something: the Lord did not really have a single place to go; His life was itinerant. And the Lord warned him, saying, “Foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Are we willing to follow the Lord wherever He may lead us? Are we willing to accompany Jesus on His journey across the earth? Are we willing to follow Christ when He leads us into a dangerous neighborhood, for example, to proclaim His Word?

I have told you before that when God called us here to this part of the city, we had an old building that had been given to us in the city of Cambridge, in the Cambridgeport area—a very nice, middle- to upper-middle-class area of the city. And the Lord gave us that building completely free of charge, and we were there quite comfortably; the area was very nice, very respectable. But the Lord placed a call upon me to come here to this part of the city and leave that place, which was so comfortable for us. We did not have to pay a cent; the building had been given to us.

And He called us to an extremely dangerous part of the city, because that was where He was going; that was where He wanted to be, here in this area. The Holy Spirit wanted to establish a place here. And the question we had to ask ourselves at that moment was, “Lord, what do we do? Do we stay here?” As Peter said, “Let us build three shelters. We are comfortable here; the Lord’s Presence is here, the vision is here, the joy of the Lord is here. Why do we not remain here on the mountaintop, Lord?” And the Lord said, “No, no, we have to go down. There are people down there who need Me.”

And then the Lord brought us to this place. And so, many times, we have to ask ourselves, “Lord, where do You want me to go? Where do You want me to follow You?” Because the Holy Spirit moves wherever He wills, and He needs people with a missionary heart who are willing to lose everything so that He can use them. And each one of us has to be like a—I am going to say it—a terrorist, but a good terrorist, not a bad one.

I remember once being invited to preach at a high school graduation for some young people at a Christian church, and I think I came on too strong. I think that side of me came out, and I spoke to them about being terrorists and about Jesus as the greatest terrorist of all time. And it seems that some people did not like that; others received it very well. But I explained myself, because comparing the Church or Jesus Christ to a terrorist sets many people’s teeth on edge when they hear it.

But in one sense, yes, because those terrorists, those suicide bombers, are willing to lose their lives for their cause and to sacrifice themselves for destruction and to be used by the devil. Well, we are suicide bombers too, but we are for Christ; and we lose our life, but we gain it. We die, but we rise again in Christ Jesus.

Those terrorists are taught to despise their lives, to despise them completely. And I understand that part of the training for one of those terrorists who is going to kill himself with a bomb that is going to explode is that they put him into a coffin and close the coffin, and they lower him into a real grave. And they keep him there for a while so that he may go through the mental, cerebral process of seeing himself as dead, to help prepare him for the death that is to come.

And do you know what, brothers and sisters? We have to do something like that—not so macabre or so gloomy—but, in a sense, the Lord Jesus wants us also to go through a process of dying to everything we love and consider valuable. Only then can we enter into what Christ wants us to enter, experience the joy of the Lord, and be used by God.

God cannot fill anyone who is empty first. God cannot use anyone who is unwilling to go wherever the Lord leads, even if it is to the least pleasant places in the world. But do you know what? The wonderful thing is that the Bible says that when you are willing to pay the price of discipleship, when you are willing to die as Christ died to all His privileges, prerogatives, and rights, that is when you truly find your life. That is when you experience the joy of the Lord, when you experience the dignity to which God wants to bring you; and that is the process.

Jesus said—look at John chapter 12, verse 23—using one of my favorite images: the grain of wheat. It says, “Jesus answered them, saying, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’” What was Jesus Christ referring to when He said that the hour had come for Him to be glorified, hmm? Was He referring to people coming to get Him in a royal carriage and taking Him with great pomp and fanfare to the city’s palace? No, He was referring to being taken to the cross, but He saw it as His glorification, the moment for Him to be glorified. On the cross He was going to be glorified.

Paradoxically, at the moment of greatest loss, the Lord was truly going to find all His glory and there on the cross was going to accomplish the greatest feat anyone has ever accomplished, which was, it says, to defeat the principalities and powers, cancel the decrees that stood against us—the devil was always accusing us, and we had no one to defend us—to make a public spectacle of and publicly shame the demonic powers, and to obtain salvation for all of us; all humanity that surrendered to Christ would be able to be saved through His cross, and all of that was made possible by the sacrifice He took upon His own Person.

That is why He said, “The time has come for Me to be glorified,” and then He added, implicitly referring to that paradoxical and contradictory dynamic of glorification through humiliation, He said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” That is a verse that all of us should learn by heart.

Who is the grain of wheat? The grain of wheat—no, you are the grain of wheat, and I am the grain of wheat. I am the grain of wheat, and you are the grain of wheat. What happens to a grain of wheat? Take a grain of wheat—let us use something more familiar to us, a bean, let’s say, habichuelas for Caribbean people.

If that grain is not put into the ground and planted, if that seed—what happens to a seed when it goes into the ground? The farmer puts it down deep. That is why farmers open furrows in the soil, because if the seed remains only on the surface, the process that needs to take place does not happen. No, the seed has to be put deep into the ground; there we find the first symbol of death. Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground, it remains alone.

Now, what happens when a seed is put deep into the ground? A process of death begins for that seed. That seed begins to interact with the moisture in the soil and with the acids in the soil, and the husk, that hard part of the seed, begins to rot; it begins to be softened by the elements in the soil and to break apart, because if that does not break, what happens? What is inside—the richness inside that grain, right? The husk is there to protect the life inside.

It is like the skull that protects the precious brain inside you; that is what the husk is. And we could say that our life is like that too. Brother, do you know that we become so enamored with the husk that we forget that it is not what matters, that what matters is what is inside, the spirit?

The husk is your body, the husk is your youth, the husk is your beauty, the husk is your money, the husk is your house, the husk is your job, the husk is your profession; all those things are simply additional things, accessories to the life inside you. And many times we become enamored with the husk.

The young woman becomes enamored with her beauty; the young man becomes enamored with his false manliness; the professional becomes enamored with his salary of $250,000 a year, with his BMW that he trades in every year, and with the good steaks he eats three or four times a week and even charges to the company because he has an expense account. And then he declares that he is too busy to go to church, to serve the Lord, and at the corporation they tell him: Look, we are paying you a lot of money—they do not put it that way, but what they are telling him is: You have to sell your soul to the company; you have to work eighty or a hundred hours if necessary; you have to neglect your family; you have no time to go to church and serve the Lord; you cannot spend time praying, seeking the Word, or going on a retreat, because you have to repay us for the money we pay you by giving your life to the company. And if the company tells you to do something unethical and lie in the advertisements we run or about the products we offer, it does not matter.

Look, brothers and sisters, let me become autobiographical here for a moment. I bought a car this week, glory to God, a little car; it looks really nice there. I was already embarrassed by my old one, with all the noise it made when the brothers and sisters received me there sometimes in the morning. But you know what? When you go—and, by the way, if anyone here sells cars, I am not referring to you; I know that you are a serious Christian and do none of that—but listen to me, brothers and sisters: sometimes, when you put yourself in the hands of a car salesman who knows what he is doing, you had better commend your soul to the Lord, you know? Because there are thirty or forty ways in which they can always trap you into something.

“Oh yes, we’re going to give you the tinted windows,” but they take out the radio with six speakers and give you a different car, and they do not tell you that it came with the other car. In other words, there is an infinite number of ways in which they can get you. Much of the corporate world in this nation is like that: it is designed to trap the consumer, to sell people things they do not want and do not need, products that are not worthwhile, and to deceive people in many ways. And who are the ones who have to do those things?

The employees are, and unfortunately many of them are Christians. Again, it is not that we are being super, super spiritual either, but what I want to tell you is that the world is like that; the world makes demands of you, and I believe that we have to walk lightly in the world. We cannot become so committed to the world that the world dictates what we are and what we do. Certain commitments have to be made, there are certain things, but we have to keep our eyes wide open because the world will ask for your soul, and the world will offer you a series of shiny, attractive, addictive things so that you will sell it your soul, and the traps the devil has are endless.

And we, the children of God, cannot become enamored with those things; they are part of the husk. What I am within myself is my spirit; that is eternal. What is worthwhile is my relationship with God; what is worthwhile is what I can do in this world through the Gospel. What is worthwhile is what I can invest for eternal glory.

The eternal Bible says that we should build wealth in heaven, not on Earth. How many of us have gone through the process of transformation required to truly know where our priorities lie?

That does not mean, young person or adult who is working for a corporation, or who is preparing yourself in a business administration program, or who has healthy ambitions to achieve things—it does not mean that you should take a vow of poverty and go around begging in the street, no. But it does mean that you have to establish your priorities properly: that the first thing is to serve the Lord and give the Lord the best of yourself.

The Bible says that the eyes of the Lord range throughout the whole Earth to find those whose hearts are perfect toward Him, so that He may show Himself strong on their behalf. And many times, to reach that point of conviction and establish the right priorities, we have to say to the Lord: “Lord, take me through a process by which I can gradually detach myself from my attachment to the material things of this world. Crucify me; sever the connections between the world and me so that I can then walk properly, so that I can understand what is husk and what is grain, what is shell and what is essence.”

And again, that is what the Lord is saying here. Returning to the metaphor the Lord uses: Unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground—let us remain there in that image. When the grain falls, as I was telling you, a process of putrefaction begins, a process in which the outer husk decays. So I am going to take that one step further, because the Lord is making it clear to me again.

Do many of you know? Because I am speaking to you from personal experience: many times the Lord has to weaken you, and you have to go through suffering and trials like the grain of wheat. When the soil is acting, when the soil is acting—the moisture is acting, the chemicals in the soil, the salts, the acids in the soil are destroying the outer part—that is analogous to when we are going through different situations in our lives.

And we think, “Wow, that house. If I lose this house, I am going to die. If I lose this boyfriend, I am going to fall to pieces; I will not be able to live.” And the Lord says, “You know what? I am going to take it away from you to see what happens.” The grain of wheat—the husk is being broken; it is breaking apart.

And it is not that the Lord is cruel; it is that the Lord loves us so much that He is willing to put us through the discipline of a child of God. And do you know that the glory of the Kingdom of God is reached through many struggles and sufferings? It is not that God is cruel. It is that one day, when we are in heaven, we will understand how unimportant the things we considered indispensable in this world really were.

The apostle Paul says that when we are in heaven, we will know as we are known; we will see reality exactly as it is. You know what? Many people worry: “Well, when I die, what will become of my children?” Look, when you die, your children will no longer be a cause of worry to you. You will possibly see them from heaven and understand that what they are going through is part of a glorious plan God has, that they will have to go through their own struggles and their own tribulations just as you went through yours, and just as you survived, they too will survive; and the prayers you left invested here and the things you invested in the Kingdom of God will bless them and pursue them, as the Word says: “To the third and fourth generation.”

I just thought of a good title for a merengue; I am going to suggest it to Juan Luis Guerra someday: “There Are No Depressed People in Heaven.” Because when people in heaven look at this world, they understand that everything that happens in this world—everything, everything—a child who dies prematurely in his mother’s womb, a young person who is struck by a car in the street and dies, a volcano that belches and 100,000 people die—look, brother: in the light of eternity, everything makes sense. Everything ultimately reflects the love, grace, power, control, and glory of God—everything, everything, even what we cannot understand.

All existence is a mysterious tapestry of good and apparently bad things, but in the light of eternity everything is absolutely coherent; in the light of God’s control over everything that happens in this world, everything has meaning, everything reflects the goodness and control of God.

The devil cannot win a single battle. Look: the devil thought that when he was putting Christ up on the cross, he was going to win, and he did not know that what he was doing would result in the greatest defeat he would ever suffer. The devil is condemned always to do the Will of God. The devil is an instrument God uses to accomplish what He wants in this world, you know? Ultimately, Satan is God’s dog, so to speak—honestly.

I cover myself with the blood of Christ when I say that, because in reality he is simply an instrument He uses to carry things out. It is not as though one day He got up and said, “Oh! I created something—Satan.” No, He knew what was going to happen in this world, but He uses this power for certain things.

But when we are in heaven, every one of us—even if you leave... I say this in case there is someone who is worried: “When I am gone, what will become of my children?” Look, the very instant you pass through the gates of heaven, there is no more worry for you. There are no fears, there is nothing; you will understand everything clearly, you will know the reason for things, you will know that yes, even if your children go through tribulations, even if there is war in the world and all of this, do not be depressed; celebrate. If you are in Christ, there is no condemnation for you, there is no death for you, there is no sorrow for you; for you there is only joy, celebration.

God takes away what you consider so important in this world, but it is for your good and for your blessing. What God wants is to teach you that you truly need practically nothing from this world, that the only One you need is Him. If you have Him, you have everything else along with Him.

And I have learned that many of the things we go through—the bitter experiences, the crises, the struggles of life—if we are in Christ and have asked the Lord to take control of our lives, all of that is simply designed for the training of a child of God. God takes you through these processes to break you, to weaken you, and that is what I was originally getting at: many of us will have to be weakened.

There are many men who will have to lose that extra strength they have, that manliness, that extra testosterone that is causing problems in their lives. There are many women who may have to lose that fleshly beauty they possess and become true servants of God. There are young people who are full of insecurities and other things, and God will have to take them through trials so that they can reach a point of humility and truly surrender their lives, so that the Lord can then make them great professionals, great servants of God, wise and understanding men, people who are truly powerful in the Lord.

But we have to go through the crushing mill; we have to go through the process of crucifixion. The grain of wheat has to fall to the ground; the grain of wheat has to undergo a process of deterioration. There is no life unless deterioration comes first. What woman has given birth without her belly becoming misshapen? And what woman, after giving birth, has returned completely to the same slenderness and agility she had before? Someone always pays a price for life; there is always pain, always discomfort; there is always a degree of ugliness in every production of life.

And the same thing happens with us. If we want to grow in the ways of the Lord, if we want to become people who are truly powerful, joyful, and full of gladness in the Lord, first God has to take a blade and begin cutting things out of us, because this flesh is impure, and the flesh does not please God and cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Until we reach the point of saying, “Well, Lord, You know what You are doing. Here I give You a signed letter: take away whatever You want and leave in my life only what pleases You,” until we go through that process. Because if you truly want to be a man or woman of God, get ready, because God does not create warriors without putting them through the battlefield and training in their lives.

And that is why, when you come into the Kingdom of God, when you enter the Gospel, you have to know that you are not coming merely to dance and party all the time, and that everything will go well for you from that day onward, with no problems at all. No, you will go through exertion and spiritual exercises because God is going to create a powerful man or woman, and that is how you become everything God wants you to be and learn to appreciate the things of the Gospel.

So, returning to the image, the grain of wheat falls to the ground, and the process of brokenness and weakening begins. There are things God is going to take away from you—things you dearly love, things you truly adore and believe you cannot live without. They are precious things to you, part of your personality; you love them, they give you pleasure, they delight you, and the Lord says, “That is an obstacle, so I am going to put you through a series of exercises.”

The entire Christian life, if it is being lived authentically and truly, is a gradual, progressive process of brokenness—the entire life. If you come to the Gospel, get used to that. Do not come to a falsely easy Gospel, because what they will be doing is selling you a sham. Any church that tells you that the Gospel is only gain and good things, apparent blessing, money, and progress—no. There is also crucifixion; there are trials; there are spiritual exercises; there is the grain of wheat falling to the ground and dying.

Then God takes you through that process, and the Bible says that if the grain of wheat does not undergo that process of falling to the ground and dying, it cannot bear fruit. When the outer shell—everything you love, everything you consider important and beautiful—begins to break, something starts to rise through the cracks that open in the shell: the life that is inside it.

That is why you often see that the grain of wheat is placed in the ground, and days pass while you think nothing is happening because nothing can be seen. But one day you see a tiny green shoot, almost transparent and delicate: it is the life that was enclosed inside the shell. And that is what happens with us.

And everything depends on how you respond to the trials, struggles, sufferings, and losses of life. You have two options when you go through a trial or difficulty: either you become bitter, or you become stronger and more beautiful. How does a person become bitter? A person becomes bitter by rebelling against God when God takes away something you love. You become bitter and grow weak when you refuse to see what God is doing through it, when you refuse to let yourself be molded and to kiss the hand of the One who has slapped you, when you lift your head in rebellion and say to God, “You sold me a lie; I do not want You.” When you scream, become depressed, rebel, kick against God, grow bitter, and question Him, then God’s dealings become a goad in your life.

The Bible says, “It is hard to kick against the goads.” How does a person become stronger? When you meekly accept God’s discipline and, amid your pain and natural struggle, you know, “Well, I am going through this now, but at some point I will have to go back to my Father, bow before Him, kiss His hand, and say, ‘Your will be done, not mine. You struck me, and I am still breathless, but I love You, and somehow I am going to serve You.’”

Do you know what? There are times like that, when a person receives a tremendous blow in life, and it is natural to feel hurt and sometimes even upset with God. But deep within you, you have to reach the point where you say, “Yes, but sooner or later I will have to go back to my Father and give Him a kiss. When my tantrum passes, I will have to return to Him and bless Him.”

That is all right; it may take time. It is natural for the flesh to hurt. If the grain of wheat could scream and were conscious as we are, it would scream when its shell was breaking. But sooner or later, we have to understand, “No, this is part of God’s process. This life is nothing; it is a mirage. Money fades away, beauty fades away, and the vigor of youth fades away. Sooner or later, we end up in old age and in the grave; that is the destiny of every human being.”

Things in this world deteriorate; from the moment they leave the store, the deterioration begins, and all of us pass away. So I believe Christians have to reach the point where they understand that everything in this world is a contingency; it is simply an accessory. Do not fall in love with anything; do not become attached to anything, because if God asks you for it, you are obligated to give it to Him, because it is for your good, it is for your blessing, and that is part of your growth; that is part of the foundation you need for your future glorification.

That is part of the cross you have to endure, just as your Master endured it as well. You are not better than your Master. The Lord said, “If they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” The Lord said, “If I have to endure this, how much more will you have to endure?”

Brother, if you come to the Gospel, understand that this is the call of Jesus Christ. Then the Lord says: if the grain of wheat does not fall to the ground and die, and go through the process of losing the things it likes, of losing its lovely shell, of losing that quality of being whole and pretty, so that one can take a tissue and polish that bean or grain of wheat and say, “Yes, how pretty and shiny!”—if the grain of wheat is not willing to look ugly, to deteriorate, and to look unsightly, then what is inside it, which is life, cannot emerge.

And do you know what, brothers and sisters? The most wonderful thing is when a man or woman, while swallowing his or her tears, begins to feel something different springing up from within. There is a different kind of love; there is a different understanding of God. That person begins to read the Bible and then begins to understand things.

That person reads the Psalms of David and sees David suffering and being persecuted, or repenting of a sin, of a fall, and says, “Wow, I have been there; I understand what he is saying.” That person sees Christ say, “Take My yoke upon you,” and understands what He means; “Take up your cross daily and follow Me”; “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”—that person understands so many things.

That person thinks of Christ and, because he or she has gone through a personal crucifixion, understands Jesus, that Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief; understands what crucifixion is, what Friday is, what it is to spend three days beneath the ground like the grain of wheat; and begins to see the Bible in a very different way. That person begins to understand the values of humility, meekness, love, and patience. That person who was tremendously impatient and intolerant of others now seems willing to endure offenses and be gentler with people.

That person who thought he was such a big deal in the world now knows, “I am nothing; I need God’s mercy just like everyone else.” No one can attain Christian maturity, what the Bible calls the fruit of the Holy Spirit, except through suffering, trials, and difficulties. And if a person is not willing and prepared to do so, then that person does not deserve to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and will not truly be a child of God.

The Word says, “How can a father love his son if he does not first discipline him?” The Bible says that God disciplines those He loves. If He does not discipline us, it is because we are illegitimate children, the Word says. If you are not experiencing brokenness, difficulties, trials, and exertion in your life, then look, you should be concerned, because perhaps that means God may not be working in your life.

But if God is working in your life, He will be training and strengthening you like an athlete who submits to exercise, who subjects himself to resistance so that his muscles will grow larger and his lungs will be able to take in more air. You have to go through trials; the grain of wheat has to fall to the ground; it has to die. You have to understand that the Gospel is not only about apparent triumphs, and you have to know why you serve Christ: whether you serve Him for the loaves and fishes, or because Christ is the greatest treasure a man or woman can possess and you are willing to give everything in order to have that treasure.

If the grain does not fall to the ground and die, it remains alone. If all you do is come to church, brother or sister, and go through a superficial process; if you do not allow God to deal with you; if you are not surrendering things you love; if you are not undergoing some kind of discipline and trial; if you are not improving every day; if you are not weeping tears before the Lord; if you are not praying; if you are not seeking the Word; if you are not giving up bad habits; if God is not transforming your mind; if there are no changes in your life; if you are not going through different training processes; if you are not surrendering to the Lord something you love—

if the Christian life does not involve effort, if you come to church only when you feel like it and when everything is going well, if you give to the Lord only when you have a surplus, then you are not truly a disciple; what needs to happen in your life is not happening. The grain is not falling to the ground and is remaining alone. That is why so many people come to church and do not experience the joy of the Lord.

So many people come to church, and the Word remains closed to them; they open it, and it is as heavy as lead. They listen to sermons, and it is as though someone were speaking Chinese to them. They go around in circles through the same situations year after year. Their life is the same, their marriage is the same, their character is the same; they do not change. Their life of service to the Lord is the same; their state of depression and dissatisfaction is the same. They pray, and God does not hear; they intercede and see no answer. No one has come to the knowledge of Christ through their intervention; they have borne no fruit.

Why? Because there has been no death, because they have not fallen to the ground, because they have not allowed the Lord to do His work in their lives. If the grain of wheat does not fall to the ground and die, it remains alone. Paradoxically, when the grain of wheat dies, when we have gone through the process of being crushed and crucified—through discipline, trials, and exertion—we begin to bear fruit. The joy of the Lord comes; peace comes; answered prayers come; knowledge of the Word comes; love for the Lord comes. Even prosperity comes, miraculous provision comes, and that life multiplies.

People seek you out; they begin coming to you for advice. Mysteriously, the same Word that you said before made no impression on people is now heard by them, and they are touched. God begins to provide you with opportunities to serve Him because the grain of wheat has fallen to the ground and is dying; the shell has gradually broken, and the life enclosed within the shell has gradually emerged. And the Bible says, “But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If it dies, it bears much fruit.

That is why I tell you, brothers and sisters, that the cost of the Gospel—as I was telling the brothers and sisters this morning—is not really a cost; it is an investment, because the gain actually comes after you go through the process of crucifixion. Beauty and joy come after ugliness and sorrow.

Resurrection Sunday comes after the Friday of crucifixion. The song of the angels standing upon the stone that covered the tomb, and the disciples’ joy at knowing that the Master has risen and that everything He said was true, come after the grueling night in Herod’s palace, being slapped, being questioned, spending a sleepless night, and then carrying that terrible, heavy cross, feeling the pain of the nails in His hands and feet, entering the cave of the tomb for three days, and going into hell, as the Word says. What happened there? We do not know.

But that entire process of death is what gives way to the Sunday of glorious resurrection, when Mary and Martha go and the angel says to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” When you go through your own process of surrender in your life, people will say, “Hey, why are you looking for so-and-so in this place or that place? No, he is alive; he is doing the Lord’s work; he is growing; he is being blessed.”

May the Lord, brothers and sisters, may the Lord enable us to understand this process. I am preaching these sermons because I feel that the Lord is calling us to become aware that the Christian life is a life of trials, tribulations, and struggles, but it is also the most glorious life you can imagine. But first you have to lose everything in order to gain everything; first you have to be willing to know what is important and what is not important. First you have to know what is husk and what is essence. First you have to know that whatever God may want to ask of you, God will never take anything away from you because He is cruel, but rather He will take it away because it is for your good and your blessing.

"Take My yoke upon you, because My yoke is easy and My burden is light." The idea is that the Lord’s yoke is lighter than the yoke the devil can place upon you, but you have to bear the Lord’s yoke because it is training: it strengthens you, blesses you, and makes you lighter.

Let us ask the Lord to take possession of our hearts and our minds. I want to invite you—and to invite myself—this morning, this afternoon, to say to the Lord: Lord, I understand what the outer layer is; I understand what the husk is and what the essence is, and I give You the husk and I give You the essence. Break my outer layer, break my flesh, so that the life within me, the Holy Spirit whom You have placed within me, may come forth through weakness, through my flesh, which has become transparent and fragile; and as my flesh decays, may my spirit grow stronger, so that You may then do Your Work through my life.

And I renounce every attachment, every clinging to anything in this world; with fear and trembling, I give You what I love most. I place in Your hands my youthful hopes, my dreams for the future, the things I love most, the traits of my character, my personality and my temperament, all my appetites, the things that give me pleasure; I place everything in Your Hands, Lord. Right now, surrender to the Lord everything within you so that you may then experience the true joy of the Christian life, so that the celebration may truly begin.