Philip Ryken begins his commentary on Luke 18:28-34 by saying “There are times in life when even the strongest Christians wonder whether it’s really worth it to follow Jesus. Once you make a total life commitment to Christ, there are certain commands you are committed to obey, certain pleasures you choose to forgo, and certain sacrifices you are compelled to make. Sometimes it is so hard to follow Jesus that it is tempting to wonder whether it is really worth all the trouble. Maybe life is better with Jesus, but it doesn’t always seem that way”.
Ryken goes on to ask these compelling questions: “Is it worth it to follow Jesus when doing the right thing makes you unpopular at school, or when people who do not have the same moral scruples are getting ahead of you in business? Is it worth it to follow Jesus when serving God takes you away from your family, or when you have to say no to a romantic relationship that is hindering your growth in godliness? Is it worth it to follow Jesus when sinners seem to have all the fun, or when what God wants for you is not the same thing that you want for you? This is the question posed by every hard obedience: Is Jesus worth it, or not?” This question is an investment question.
Luke 18:28 – 34…
28 And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” 29 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” 31 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33 And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” 34 But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Peter Asks A Question About Investment (28)
When Peter says, “See, we have left our homes and followed you” there is an implication of the question of the worth of following Jesus or the return on the investment of following Jesus. If you examine the context you might remember that Jesus has just finished speaking with a wealthy man on what it looks like for a wealthy person to become part of the kingdom of God. What Jesus teaches in these preceding verses is that it’s impossible to earn your way into the kingdom of God by your obedience or your sacrifice but to be a part of the kingdom of God or to follow Christ means to be willing to leave everything behind to follow him. And the natural question for his listeners (and for us) to ask is this: “Is it really worth it to follow you Jesus?”
When Peter asked this question I imagine that he remembered when Jesus called his disciples to follow him in Luke 5:11 and they “left everything” to follow him and to become fishers of men and now in the face of what Jesus says to the wealthy man and the crowds who wondered at the impossibility of salvation Peter is wondering if his investment in following Jesus is a sound investment and if the return on his investment will make it all worthwhile. Peter’s essentially asking: “Is it worth it to follow you Jesus?” and Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question is a beautiful promise.
Jesus Gives Us A Beautiful Promise (29-30)
It’s worth it to give up everything to follow Jesus because the return on our investment of following him is a beautiful promise of infinite & immeasurable value. J.C. Ryle said that if we would be willing to give up our lives and leave anything and everything behind to follow Christ then we will “find in Christ a full equivalent for anything that we are obliged to give up for Christ’s sake. We will find such peace, and hope, and joy, and comfort, and rest, in communion with the Father & the Son, that our losses shall be more than counterbalanced by our gains. In short, the Lord Jesus Christ shall be more to us than property, or relatives or friends.”
The cost of following Jesus is counterbalanced by the beautiful promise that when we leave everything behind to follow him we will receive a return on our investment and the return that we receive is Christ himself both now and in eternity. This is why Jesus responds to Peter’s question with this beautiful promise when he says “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” The beautiful promise that Jesus gives us here is that when we invest ourselves in the kingdom of God to the extent that we willingly resist our longings for material possessions and reject even the closest relationships that threaten our relationship with Jesus then we can rest assured that the return on our investment will be worth “many times more in this time, and in the age to come” because what we receive by leaving everything behind to follow Christ is the beautiful promise of the very presence of Christ himself. This beautiful promise is very costly gift.
Jesus Is A Very Costly Gift (31-33)
Christ himself is the motivation for us to leave it all behind and follow him… because we were the motivation for him to leave it all behind for us. Jesus says “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” Can you see the costly gift that God was willing to generously invest on our behalf so that we would have the opportunity to leave everything behind and follow Christ? Can you see the costly gift of God in Christ Jesus?
As I studied Philip Ryken’s commentary on this passage he reminded me that in Luke chapter 9 Jesus said that he would suffer many things at the hands of the Jewish leaders, and then be killed, and that he would be delivered into the hands of sinful men and then later in Luke chapter 13 Jesus said that as a prophet he would perish in Jerusalem. So now in chapter 18 when Jesus says that they are headed to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished… he is literally interpreting the Old Testament prophets while using himself as the hermeneutic or the tool of interpretation. In other words… Jesus was a Christ centered theologian who knew the immense costliness of giving himself as a ransom for mankind.
Jesus knew his time was coming. He knew that God’s Word about his sacrifice couldn’t be sidestepped or ignored or traded in or hidden from. He knew that he would be brutalized not only by strangers but also by his own people. He knew he would be mocked. He knew he would be treated shamefully in front of everyone. He knew he had enemies who were going to spit on him. He knew that his enemies would shackle him in front of the entire watching world and beat him to within an inch of his life. He knew that he would be murdered publicly while hanging naked on a cross for all to observe the horror & the loneliness of his death. But he also knew that he would rise on the third day publicly beating the shame, victoriously defying the horror, and triumphing over his enemies once and for all. Jesus knew the costliness of his gift on our behalf because he counted the worth of every heart and every soul that belonged to every face that he knew intimately since before the foundations of the world.
Do you understand these things? Has the truth of the costliness of the gift of God in Christ Jesus been hidden from you? Can you grasp the seriousness of the truth of the gospel? The gospel is good news and it is the smell of life to those who are being saved by it but it is the stench of death to those who are perishing and rejecting Christ. The gospel is a serious thing to grasp.
The Gospel Is A Serious Thing To Grasp (34)
Every year our family embarks on a family vacation and one of the high points of our vacations for me is the time we get to spend together catching up on life, uncovering what God is up to in our hearts and just connecting at the heart level. Inevitably, in every conversation, God provides an opportunity to press a button of serious importance in regards to the worth of following Jesus. The conversations range from the seriousness of following Jesus in dating relationships, to obedience, to God honoring attitudes, to walking wisely during the college years, to hearing the voice of God in the Scriptures and inevitably there comes a moment in every one of these conversations when I get the express privilege of asking whether the seriousness of what we are discussing is sinking in or taking root or being understood. It’s as though I get the opportunity to do everything in my power to help our family grasp the seriousness of the gospel and the worth of forsaking anything and everything to follow Jesus who forsook everything to willingly walk to the cross for us.
This is essentially what Jesus does in the final verses of this passage when he explains the horrors of his sacrifice and the immense value that he finds in us as he describes how he is going to spend himself on our behalf. But the question remains… Do you understand the seriousness of this gospel? Is the weight of this gospel hidden from you? Have you grasped how serious the gospel is?
The disciples didn’t grasp the seriousness of what Jesus was saying. Luke explains that, “they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.” They did not understand that leaving it all behind to follow Jesus was worth it. Did they follow Jesus? Yes. Did they leave some things behind to follow Jesus? Yes. But they didn’t understand the implication of the seriousness of the gospel enough to see Christ as being worthy of their investment. But… That doesn’t change what Jesus was willing to do. Other people’s failures and other people’s misunderstandings and other people’s sins didn’t affect Jesus’ willingness to give his life for all who would call on his name for salvation. Jesus saw us as being worth the investment of his very life. You were worth it to him. So the question remains… Is Jesus worth it to you?