Welcome back to all of our listeners! I’m BJ Sipe, and you’re listening to the Set Your Mind Above podcast – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today, I am excited to share my life and my faith with you, and I sure hope that you’ll do the same with me along the way.
For those that know me even a little bit, you more than likely are aware of the fact that I am an avid fan of all things sports. I even did a very short lived podcast on Facebook for a while called “Let’s Talk Sports” with my good buddy Bill Downey Jr. before our schedules got a little bit too busy to keep up with it. This time of the year is one of my favorites because it is the beginning of football season, and I am 100% invested - I am even in four different fantasy football leagues this year. My teams that I follow are more recently the Los Angeles Chargers with the NFL, and of course my beloved Oregon Ducks from the University of Oregon with college football. This year of football has been one I have been particularly looking forward to because of who the Ducks are scheduled to play at the start of the season. This year, the Ducks are marching into Columbus to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes next Saturday on September 11th, 2021. As much as I enjoy teasing my friends who are Ohio State fans, this is likely the hardest opponent Oregon will have faced in the last 6 years. The last meeting between Ohio State and the Ducks was in the National Championship back in 2015, where the Buckeyes were victorious over the Ducks with a score of 42-20. While the Ducks have had incredible recruiting over the past few years under their new head coach Mario Cristobal, we are going to have to play the best game of our lives to go into Columbus and get the W. The last time I was able to watch the Ducks play in person was when we were living in Oregon, so the idea that the Ducks were traveling to Ohio just North of us got me excited to go to the game! Originally, I tried to get a big group of all my friends that were Ohio State fans as well as Duck fans in the area to go together, but that quickly fell apart as it was just a little too hard to organize. So, earlier this week I decided to look into it and see what kind of tickets I might be able to score – and depending on their cost I was gonna see if I could get Mike Estes to go with me. In the past whenever I’ve gone to a game, tickets have been anywhere from $25-$50 a game, so that was about what I was anticipating. So when I saw the going rates for tickets to watch the Ohio State vs Oregon game at the stadium, my jaw dropped. The cheapest tickets for the nose bleed sections way up where you could hardly even see the game were going for $300 a seat. You’re kidding me! I recovered from my initial shock and realized that I would be watching this game from the comfort of my home and not in person like I had hoped. You see there was a time in my life where I probably would have paid the $300 and gone to the game, but that was before I got married and had kids. Over the past several years, I have had a drastic change in priorities and values. What you’re willing to spend on something or sacrifice often times demonstrates how important something is to you. So while there was a time I would have dropped that kind of cash on a game, not anymore. $40, sure. But not $300. Now let’s switch gears…if there is something that my wife or kids really wanted or needed, I would drop $300 in a heartbeat. In fact, cost is not a factor when it comes to my family – I will do whatever it takes always to make sure that my family has what they need. That’s because my wife and my kids are the most important things to me in this whole world. Like any good husband should, I am willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to serve and love my family and put them first. Football is just a game, but my family is everything.
Let’s take a moment to answer the following question: how much do you value your relationship with Jesus? You see, what we are willing to pay or sacrifice does not just demonstrate what interests are important to us, but what relationships we value the most just like my family. And no, this is not a podcast to encourage you to start putting more money in the offering plate (though that very well might be a side application of this). Maybe to drive the real point home we should ask the question in this way: when it comes to Jesus, is cost not a factor? Let’s consider the text of Mark 8:34-38 together, “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” This is what I could classify in the category of, “hard teachings of Jesus” that we must come to understand if we truly want to be his disciples. Do you want to follow Jesus? Do you value your relationship with him? If you are answering yes to these questions, Jesus made it abundantly clear here what the cost of discipleship is, and that cost is everything. Cost is not a factor as nothing is off limits from the influence and reach of Jesus in our lives. True discipleship is a life lived in complete self-sacrifice for Jesus, just as Jesus sacrifices himself for every single one of us. If we really valued Jesus like we should, we would put to death daily everything that is earthly and fleshly within us. That is why Jesus would say in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus very simply is not the Lord of our life unless he is the Lord of all of our life. We must be willing to lay down our will and sacrifice all for his own – nothing is off limits. We submit to him our time, our budget, our marriage, our children, our work, our entertainment, all belong to him. Sadly for many, quite the opposite is true. They are willing to sacrifice nothing for Jesus, and yet cost is no factor in bringing them the desires of the flesh and the things they want in this life. Such self-centered living results in hardships financially, in marriages, in families, and in the workplace. And yet, even if such hardships did not exist and you attained everything that you wanted selfishly in this life for yourself, is it worth the cost? Jesus’ question is profound: what do you profit if you gain the whole world even, but do it in exchange for you soul? Most assuredly, there are no temporary, passing pleasures to be found in this life that would be worth the cost of our very soul. If you live this life for yourself, only willing to sacrifice to attain your own vain pleasures, in the end you will wish desperately that you could go back and do it all different again – but you won’t be afforded that opportunity. However, if you live this life for Jesus, willing to sacrifice all things to accomplish his will, in the end you will truly find life in his name. Being a disciple of Jesus is not easy…but it is so worth it. So what are you waiting for? Deny yourself, take up your cross, and start following Jesus.
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Tune in, Tuesday-Fridays, as a new podcast episode will be uploaded each day. Also, be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for future announcements and video sessions. As you have the opportunity, share these thoughts with your friends and family, and share with me what important lessons you are learning from every day, ordinary events. Until next time know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.