If you’ve been part of Asbury, or podcasted my sermons, or heard me preach any consistently at all, you’ve probably heard me a say a phrase before.

I can promise you how to be miserable. I can give you the prescription for a path that will lead you to isolation, to being all by yourself, to pushing others away, to being totally miserable.

The path is pretty easy to walk down. And truthfully, it’s a path each of us walks down a little each day.

What is this path? How do you we become miserable?

Live only for yourself. Think only of your needs, your wants, your desires, your dreams, your goals.

Think only of yourself. Live only for yourself. Focus only on yourself.

Never on others. Never on God. Only on you.

Do that, and I promise that you will be totally miserable.

Look at what Jesus says today in Luke 9:24-25:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

What does it do for us to gain everything, everything we can ever want or dream or desire, if we lose ourself?

What good is all the “stuff” we can seek after, compared to what really matters? Relationships? God. Eternity?

Faith, family, friends. This is what matters. This is what lasts. This is what is important. Not the “stuff” of this world. The “stuff” of eternity.

So, it’s laid out before us this morning. We can gain everything we want, but lose what really matters.

Or we can focus on what really matters, and have more life than we could ever even imagine.

Today, what path will we choose to walk down?

When we live only for ourselves, we wind up miserable. When we focus on what really matters, we find life.

Today, which will we choose?

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