Central Lutheran Church - Elk River

What Good Is It? with Pastor Ryan Braley

• Central Lutheran Church

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What would you trade for “the whole world”—and how would you know if the price was your soul? We dive into Jesus’ most piercing question and discover it’s not about a distant afterlife, but about the texture of our days: what we attend to, what we ignore, and how small trades add up to a life that quietly withers. We tell the truth about our bargaining—more status for less presence, more security for less courage—and we hold it next to moments that cannot be purchased: kids piled on the couch, siblings crying happy tears at a wedding, a room full of people awake to one another.

We unpack two big ways of seeing the soul. Through a Greek lens, the body is a cage and the soul floats free. Through a Jewish lens, your soul is your whole lived life—your inner life braided with embodied choices, your presence in real time. That shift reframes losing your soul as a daily erosion rather than a cosmic lightning strike. From Peter’s pushback to Jesus’ mission, we trace the hard paradox echoed in all four Gospels: grip your life and you lose it; give your life for something greater and you find it. Not martyrdom for its own sake, but self-giving love that deepens meaning.

You’ll leave with concrete ways to discern your true life: follow your aliveness, read your anger as a value compass, walk toward the fear that hides your gold, serve the need that’s in front of you, and ask who you’d be if possessions didn’t decide your days. The “whole world”—wealth, power, approval—never balances against the real you. The things that weigh most can’t be weighed, and that is why they’re worth everything. If this conversation stirs you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to tell us what trade you refuse to make.

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unknown:

Amen.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, sir. Let's pray. God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here with us. And we ask God that you would Yeah, come and make yourself real to us this morning. God, I ask that you would inspire us this morning all the ways we need it. And by your Holy Spirit, would you give us a clear understanding of what it means to uh answer this question that Jesus asked so many years ago? And may we be awake this morning, God, and may we recognize the sacredness of this moment, that this moment has not been had in the entire history of the world, but here we are, and we are gifted and uh able to experience this moment with each other and with you, and so may we not take that for granted and bless our time this morning, may we be a blessing to you, may we follow Jesus together, may we uh yeah, be a place where people can belong, and may we love our neighbors uh across the street and around the globe and and all the moments and times we don't want to love our neighbor. Would you empower us by your spirit to do so and may we do it anyway and uh bless us this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Good morning, everyone. Good to see you. We're in the middle of our series called Uh This Isn't Rhetorical, and it's we're examining uh the questions that Jesus asked. He asked over 300 questions, and it was incredible. It's sort of like what ancient rabbis would do. It's sort of their pedagogy, it's the fancy word. He would ask questions to get you to think about the deep things of life. And so we're exploring many different questions. And and the one this morning is when Jesus asks, What good is it if you lose your soul? Or what if you what is it? What good is it if yeah if you gain the whole world uh but lose your soul? I should know the verse I'm preaching on here. You think I'm by the way, you know, as you can maybe guess, as we're you know, we've gotten a lot bigger than the last little while, and and um so I do my very best in Sonia too to kind of get to around to everybody, but uh at this gathering, it's so full, it's a little bit chaotic to try to say hi to everybody. And I I love people, so I get kind of like, you know, I get like my AHD is kind of going crazy. But um, but after the service, after the sermon, I love to hang around up front. And if you ever want to chat or have questions about the sermon, I love talking about the sermon. Even if you don't agree, I don't care if you agree or not, I'd love to have a conversation about it. Um come and hang out at the front with me. And sometimes there's a bit of a crowd or line, but if you wait, I'll wait. I don't I don't care. I'd love to just chat with you if you want to, or you can always just come by later on during the week and we can hang out. But um, yeah, I love that. I love hanging out after and hearing what it what landed, what didn't land, and that kind of thing. So um rather than me trying to zip around out in the lobby, which is like kind of spazzy, I just sort of like hang out up here. It just seems to work a little better. So um just come and hang up. Okay, are you ready? When I was a kid, I played this game. We loved it. It was called uh Oops, hang on. Oh, oh, oh go backwards. Okay. Uh I've ruined my butt we call it, it's what would you trade for that? Maybe you played this as a kid, or you know, like what would you trade for that? And here's the idea: whenever we as kids would want something like an item or an experience, or I don't know, a girlfriend, we would be like, hey, what would you trade to get that? And you just start offering up different ideas about what you might trade to get that. And the idea is that at some point there was a line where you like wouldn't give something because like it just wasn't worth it. But it got pretty wild up until you got to that line. Because you'd be like, would you trade? Yeah, maybe. So, for example, uh, when I was younger, I wanted this so badly. Any suit or any uh original Nintendo entertainment system owners? Yes. Not as many, yeah, not many, man. You're either too old or too young to have owned one of these, but this is the golden era of video game systems. This is the greatest uh entertainment system of all time. It's the original NES, and I wanted one so badly. But of course, we were kids, I was broke, I couldn't afford one of these. So we would play the game. What would you trade for this? And so it was asked, would you trade a week's allowance for a Nintendo entertainment system? And of course, the answer was yes, of course I would. Especially considering the fact that my allowance was zero dollars a week. So, yes, no problem. I would trade 10 weeks, I would trade a whole lifetime of allowance of zero dollars for one of these bad boys. Then they would ask, okay, well, what about your bike? No, I had a sweet bike. I had a I had a Huffy. Remember Huffy? Yeah, BMX style, red and black, you know, with the the handlebar brakes and the pegs in the back. They weren't really pegs, we were broke. They were just like little nuts, you'd put your feet in the nuts so you'd have a rider on the back that just in the hopefully he wouldn't get you know struck by the spokes or whatever. Would you trade your bike for a Nintendo Entertainment System? I would do the calculations in my head. Oh wow, I love that bike. Yes, I probably would. I would. Okay. Okay. Gotta up the ante now. Okay, would you trade your sister? Oh, yes, of course I would. Of course. Notice the short duration of deliberation on that one. It was yes. No offense to my sister. I love you, Desiree. I love you. But yes, I would trade her for that. Okay, up the ante. Would you give, this is where boys always go, would you give a finger for this Nintendo entertainment system? To which the only appropriate response is which finger? Because if it's the thumb, I gotta, I can't, I can't do a thumb. I gotta play the thing. I'm you know. Pinky? Probably, I would probably do that. Yeah, I'd probably trade.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh maybe you play this game when you're younger. And uh here's the deal, too. We play this as adults. Um, because we have these things as adults that we might trade things for. Like I love, I love a big house, like a mansion. I'm not a I don't own a mansion, in case you didn't know. But I I love them. Like I was on Lake Minnetonka for the Simmons wedding a couple weeks ago, and like I was just like like my eyes were giant as we went around the lake, just looking at all the ginormous houses and the old English aristocrats that live in them. I imagine, I imagine, I don't know. All the bodies buried in the forest behind these houses, you know, in Lake Minnetonka. And I love a Porsche 911 twin turbo. Oh my gosh, I would give a pinky for that no problem any day. But yeah, what would you trade for these things? What would you give for like a nice, you know, house or a Nintendo entertainment system or a Porsche 911 twin turbo black with leather seats? What would you give for this? Now here's the deal: these questions are interesting because they're actually not rhetorical. So rhetorical means like it's like this device where you ask a question, but you really mean as a statement, like you're trying to teach them something. So you don't want a response back. But these get interesting when you really ask for a response back, when it's not rhetorical. Like, so don't just imagine, but like, no, what would you give for one of these things? What might you do for one of these? What would you trade? And what would be the equivalent of like the worth and the value of these things? Jesus asks this question. I love this question. It's one of the most profound ones in all of scriptures. It's my favorite one, he asks. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their soul? Here's the part where he's asking the what would you trade for it? He's playing the game. Would you or what could you uh exchange with anybody for their soul? Now, uh, this is probably a rhetorical question by Jesus. They don't answer him. Um, and our series is actually, it's called This Isn't Rhetorical, because what if you had to answer this? What if he's like, no, no, fellas, what could you exchange that would be equal value of your soul? What would you give? And he made them answer. Uh, then it wouldn't be rhetorical. Uh even though it probably was a rhetorical question, but what if it wasn't? What if you had to answer this question? Uh what if it wasn't rhetorical? Well, you exchange. Here's the context, by the way. Jesus goes up north into Caesarea Philippi, and it's at the end of his ministry. He's been around for three years doing ministry with all these followers, and he's going to the cross, and he knows it. It's his life mission. This is why he came to exchange his life to somehow save the cosmos, the whole world, to fix the whole thing, to put it back on track, and as NT writes, to put it back to rights, like to make it just and whole and fair and healed once again. That's what he's doing. And he he's made no, you know, uh claims otherwise, but that's why he's here. And then he puts it on display here and there when he heals people, when he welcomes back in the stranger, those kind of things. But his followers don't really get it. And so he tells him up in the north, hey, I'm going to the cross, I'm going to die. And Peter, the valiant one who's ever so brave but also kind of dull, he's like, No way, Jesus, you're not doing that. He's like, We're gonna go down to the Sanhedrin, we're gonna overthrow the Sanhedrin, the Jewish leadership, and we'll take over the temple. Then we'll march on Rome with our army, we'll collect an army along the way, and we'll overthrow the empire and the emperor, we'll become the new emperors. He doesn't get it, you know. And Jesus is like, Jesus goes, no, dude. And in fact, he rebukes him pretty heavily. So Peter rebukes Jesus, and then Jesus rebukes him right back. He goes, No, hey, you've got things out of order. He goes, get get in line, get get in proper order, get behind me. Then he calls him Satan. He goes, get behind me, Satan, which I always laugh at. Poor Peter is like, Why did I did I deserve that? What did I do to you? It's also a bit alarming that he calls him Satan. By the way, the satanic, I would argue, is anything that blocks us from the way to the cross. It's not so much playing your rock album backwards and listening for those hidden lyrics, yeah. That's goofy. Come on. It isn't even dressing up for Halloween, I would argue. It's it's way more sinister than that. It's anything that blocks you from self-sacrificial love of the other on the cross, or on a cross, prover proverbial, proverbially. And so he said, Get behind me, Satan. And then Peter sort of slinks back in line, I'm guessing. Because this is Jesus' mission and he knows it. I love it. And then he says this he goes, Hey, Peter, you have in mind the things of the world, not the things of God. You're focusing on the things of the world, not the things of that I'm trying to do here. And then he says, By the way, if anyone wants to follow me, take up your cross and follow me in the very next line. And then he gives them this paradox. He says, Hey, if you want to save your life, if you're here trying to save your life, you're probably going to lose it. But if you lose it for my sake, if you give your life away for my sake, you might just find it. That's a great paradox that Jesus gives him. That teaching also is in all four Gospels, which is very rare. Hardly ever is there any one story or teaching that's in all four gospels. This one is. Which means he probably said it a lot. It was like a central part of his teachings. If you exchange your life for something that, you know, for my sake, and you you give it for my sake to something bigger than you, then you might just find something incredibly valuable and beautiful and worthwhile, Jesus tells him. But if you try to hold on to it and grasp at it and grab for it, and you'll probably lose it and end up in all kinds of places you never thought you'd be or wanted to be. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good one. So uh Jesus then says the verse. He says, Hey, what good is it to gain the whole world and yet lose your soul? What could you give in exchange for your soul? Again, he's not asking for an answer back, but I'd love this morning for us to just maybe we can answer it. What would you give for a soul? The word exchange is the word antilagma in the Greek. Everyone say antilagma. Beautiful. And it just means what it says, but it's actually it's sort of more nuanced. It's exchange, compensation, or equivalent trade. In other words, Jesus is asking them, is this a fair trade? What could you give as a fair trade for someone's soul? What would be the fair balance trade? What could you offer someone in exchange for their soul that would be a fair one? Yeah, where's the line? What would you give for? Or what would you give, what would you want in exchange for your own soul? Which of course raises the question, um, what is the value of a soul? I don't know how to what does that mean? What is a soul worth? Which maybe raises another question behind the question, there's layers to this thing. What is a soul? We all use that language, but what does it mean when we say the soul? What is the soul? What is a soul, in fact? I want to offer you two different ways of thinking about it. And uh I'm gonna go with the latter one. But there's two ways, predominantly in our history, of of thinking about what a soul is. One is a Greek way of thinking about the soul. So the Greek world around Jesus' time, uh, they had sort of they had uh really influenced this area heavily. So a lot of the thinkers in this area in the Near East in the first century were influenced by Greek thinking. That you know, the Greeks were very uh very influential in this area. And so many of that, much of that trickled down. So most of the thinkers were Greek thinkers. Not the Jews, though. The Jews had their own way of thinking. So I'm gonna unpack both of these quickly, but I want you to understand this. Most of us in this room generally are Greek thinkers. You may not know this, it's sort of the water you swim in, but most of us think like Greek thinkers, very linear, very matter-of-fact, A plus B, that kind of thing. Jews think, uh, and many folks in this area would think like more circular. It's it's different. But here, okay, so here's the thing. So the soul, according to the Greeks, the soul or the Greeks like um like Aristotle, actually, not him, sorry, Plato and Socrates. Aristotle didn't agree, but Plato, Socrates, they saw the soul as like its own entity. It was like a spirit or a soul that like the that enlivened the body, but the body was nothing important. It was just like a meat suit that your soul wore to walk around in, right? It was like the carrying case of the soul. The body was not that important, the body was like a cage for the soul. So, but the soul was the enlivening force. The soul was indestructible, it lived forever. The body would be destroyed and never to be seen from again. If you're a Greek, the idea of heaven might be your soul goes out of your body, the body goes into the ground, never to be seen or heard from again, and then you have this disembodied soul floating around in a cloud, maybe playing a harp. I don't know. In a diaper? I don't know what's the deal. Many of you are like, yeah, that's heaven. Isn't that what heaven is? No, not exactly, according to the Jewish or Judeo-Christian idea. But okay, that's like the Greek way of thinking about the soul. The soul is this life force, it's caged in the body. The body's not really anything important, it's just a meat suit that the soul wears. Does that make sense? Okay. The Jews, though, thought, no, no, no, the soul, they had a more by the way, this is called dualism. Like dualism is like when you split things in half that maybe shouldn't be split in half, or not even in half, but dichotomized, you know, these things. So, okay, the Jews though were much more holistic. They weren't dualists, they were holistic people. They thought that the soul and the body were kind of different, but they were inextricably linked. That the body and the soul were like, like that the body was like a sacred temple in which the soul lived, but it was lived out in real, ordinary, everyday life. So your life lived out was what the soul was. Like how you lived your life was your soul. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense? And so uh the body wasn't a cage that held the soul captive that would just die and go away, and then heaven is some disabled. The Jews believed that when God promised to restore things, there'd be like it would be on this earth with this body. It'd be it was very much because the body and the soul were one. That the body was you. So that's kind of what they thought about the soul. So, okay, so the Greek philosophy said that the body is a cage. Jewish philosophy said that, oh no, the body is you. Meanwhile, Minnesota philosophy is like the body is just trying to survive one more winter. Please, God, let it go. Does that make sense? Because here's what I'll say. Many of us read this verse and we're like, oh, he's asking, would I exchange this inner thing? We're like Greek thinkers, would I exchange my life force like post when I die, my eternal uh future? Would I would I would I give up eternal destruction to let my soul be damned in hell forever if I could drive a Porsche of 9-11 until I die? And it doesn't account for like my life here and now, but I think Jesus is not asking, he's asking something much deeper. So, in a Jewish sense, the soul's not just after you die or this ethereal thing floating around, the soul is your whole body, how your life is left out. Now we know this because in our culture we do pick up on this a little bit. We might say things like, Oh, that guy's an old soul, right? You know Ben Caruthers, he's like 40, he's in his 40s. Uh he shops at Hallmark. Ben's an old soul, you know what I'm saying? You might also say, Oh, um teaching, teaching, uh, it's my soul's work. That's what I love to do. By the way, let me, before I go any further, the the word for for soul in the Greek is this word uh psyche. Everybody say psyche. Are there any Gen Xers in the house tonight? Today? Okay, a couple. Did any of you man, not that many? Raise them high, be proud. Gen X. Okay, a couple. Wait, where'd all the Gen Xers go? They're out skateboarding, listening to Nirvana or something. Uh please tell me that one of you read this not as psyche, but as psyche? Anybody? Okay, thank you. Okay, good. At the 8:30, that joke bombed. Nobody got that joke. It was terrible. Okay, psyche? Okay, uh, I'm getting warm in here. Moving on. So psyche means soul or spirit. That's Greek. It's a Greek word, so that's the Greek way of thinking about it. But again, in this more Jewish way of thinking that I want to offer today, uh, psyche, soul, spirit, I'm gonna skip this, means the whole self. It means your inner being, but also your outer being, how your life is lived out, your very life lived out in real time and place, not just after you die. And it's the manner in which your very life is lived out here and now. So Ben is an old soul because he lives like that, right? If you're a teacher, like teaching is my soul's work. I love to teach. You might drive through a neighborhood that has like a good, it's got some soul to it, right? John Mayer's guitar riffs have some soul to them. You know what I'm saying? My brother and I, we have these, like I think what I would call it, his name's Chris, we have these great soul-to-soul conversations. Mostly it's Instagram reels going back and forth, but you know, it's still pretty deep. But we really do have this great, yeah. Because soul really means like how you live your life, how your life is lived out in the ordinary ways of of life. So there you go. So your whole soul is your whole self. Eugene Peterson translates this verse. Here's how he says, I love it. He says, Hey, what good would it do to get everything you want, but lose you? The real you, the true you, your life. What could you ever trade to get your life back? And if it's not a rhetorical question, what could you give? Or what could someone offer you and you to give them your very life, the truest sense of who you are? What's that worth? What would you trade for that? The real and true you. Yeah, what's that worth? By the way, the word whole world. Oh, actually, let me say this too. So maybe losing your soul isn't about some like post-death, eternal damnation, or whatever. Maybe losing your soul is um a gradual withering of your life in every way. Which, if you think about that really means, that's that's really uh much more ominous. Your life just to wither away, and you never live out your fullness of who you are or meant to be or what you found joy in. Maybe that's the more sinister thing to watch your life gradually wither away. Inner life and of course your outer life. So Jesus asks, What's it worth? The whole world, by the way, what does that mean? Well, it means a lot of things. It can mean your earthly possessions or any of them. What would you give for a soul? Could you trade a Porsche 9-11? Would that be an equivalent trade, a fair trade? A pinky, yeah. Uh, it's wealth, it's power, it's honor, it's status. Would you trade all of these things? Would they be equal value of a soul? A life, your true you, political gain, all human striving for success, security, approval, the sum of all human desires. If you could have all your desires met, would you trade your life for that? Many of us do. I mean, we live lives where we trade things back and forth. That's what we do. Would you trade eight to ten hours of your day for that job? With that salary? Is it worth it? Is it an equal trade? Would you trade three hours before bedtime? And that whatever you would do, would you trade that to just look at your phone for three hours? Is that an equal trade? Would you trade your life, your family, your spouse, your kids, the house, the community? Would you trade all of that to respond to that Facebook message from that old high school sweetheart of yours who wants to reconnect? What's a fair trade for one's life? Their true self, their full self, their full whole life? Is the whole world worth it? Jesus is asking, what good is it if you gain all of this but lose yourself? What good is it? What's the value of a soul? I can tell you the value of a Porsche 911, or of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the value of a home. I can weigh those. I can tell you what they what they cost. But the things that weigh the most in life can't be weighed. I'll say it again. The things that weigh the most in life, they can't be weighed. Your life, the tree, you can't weigh that. What's the value of that? I'd give anything to go back to when my kids were little. And um, just for a moment, you know. Like at the summertime when there's little kids at home and Katie's making lunch and we're watching movies and hanging out, I'd give anything to go back. Like, what's that worth? I'd give anything to go back. Maybe to this moment here. Yeah. I'd go, I'd give anything to go back to that moment. The funny thing is, too, before you think, oh, Pastor Ryan's got a perfect life and family. No, just before I took this photo, I was all I was laying on the floor because I was dog tired, I was exhausted, I was crabby, I was maybe yelling, and they all dog piled on me and like saved me from myself. You know what I mean? That's what kids do sometimes because kids don't know any better. And I was like, oh, don't be an idiot, Ryan. Snap out of it and take this picture. Yeah. What would you give for a moment like this? Or how about this one? I my boys, the two knuckleheads in the bottom, are now in college and they were both home last weekend for a brief moment, and we were all hanging out, and then me and Katie went to go do something, and then they all, the four of them, disappeared. I'm like, where'd they go? And I couldn't find them, so I'm like, are they downstairs together? So I ran downstairs and I thought I saw this. They're all watching a movie, and they have the dog down there. I was like, nobody move. I'm gonna sneak out of here quietly so I don't ruin this beautiful moment, you know. Yeah, what would you pay for a moment like that? What'd you give? What would I give for that? Yeah, yesterday I was at a wedding. We were in a wedding in Mora, and uh, Cassie and Joshua got married, and I was doing the ceremony, and it got me, man, because they came walking the aisle, and then the first bridesmaid and the first groom's the sister, and then you know, one of the friends, and then the second one was another sister, and both sisters were walking down the aisle, just bawling with joy. And I was like, good gosh, you guys are killing me. I'm starting, I start crying. I'm trying to like the mom's crying, the dad of the bride is crying. I'm the pastor, I can't cry up here. Yeah, what would you give for a moment like that? What about this moment? You know, I bet if if I fast forwarded to 20 years from now, and I said and I said to your 20 year from now self, hey, what would you give to go back to that day when your body was 20 years younger and you had these folks here? What would you give? You might give a lot for that. Because those things can't be valued. I mean, what's the value of those things? Those things are probably truly, truly invaluable. Yeah. What is the real you worth? Not the you that others want you to be, not the you the world's trying to lure you into being, not the one the commercials are trying to sell you, not the one your parents want you to be. What's the real what's the value of you, the real you living your life? What's that worth? You could also reverse engineer this and ask it this way um look at it look at a life that's been destroyed. And what would you give to go back? I have a friend who had a lot of things, had it all, and gave it all away, and he had this affair, and it wrecked everything. I'm like, dude, whoa. I wanted to ask him, like, what would you give to go back? And like undo that and and live it out differently. What'd you give? What's a life that's been destroyed? Like, what's a life of addiction really what's it like? What does it feel like to not be the true you, not not be free to live out your true self because you're uh addicted to whatever it is? What's it like to live a life full of fear? You you're hamstrung to like make any decision because you're so afraid? Maybe a life of numbing, or maybe a life of living vicariously through your own kids because your life was miserable when you were young. What's that like? To not live is the true free you. I think Jesus is certainly implying there's nothing equivalent to the value of the true you being lived out. Authentic you. There's no value that's equivalent. Nothing. Here are five things to consider. Um what is your true life? What does it mean for you to live out your true life, to be your true self? Not the false self, but the true you. Who God made you to be, designed you to be, skilled you to be, gifted you to be? Not the commercials begging you to be, not your friends, not your family, not the society be because you gotta go upstream to find this. You have to go upstream for sure. Against the stream. What's your true life? And what does it feel like to live that? Or maybe you don't know. What what would what it what uh if you imagine it would look what would it let me ask that again. Uh what yeah, what does it feel like to live that in your imagination, I guess? Um and how does it feel like to wither on the inside? What does it look like to live in accord with who you're meant to be? Two more, if this will work. There we go. Uh can you feel it when you miss what you're designed to be or designed to do? What does it feel like when you hit that and you don't miss that? Yeah. What does that feel like? The great Ernest Becker says this most of our life is in large part a rationalization of our failure to find out who we really are. What our basic strength is, and what thing it is we're meant to give, uh meant to work upon the world. Most of us don't know what we're here doing. And most of us don't even ask. My friend Tom Tyler at the at the earlier gathering, we left this. He goes, That's a hard question, Ryan. I go, I know, but at least ask it. Because most of us don't know. And our life is a rationalization of our failure to find out who we were really meant to be. So, uh, Americans are more likely to regret the things they don't do than the things they have done. So, for example, did you know that 40% of Americans regret not speaking their mind? They live in fear of rejection or they're living in the false, whatever. But they're not they're not living out their full lives. 36 regret not visiting friends and family enough. 35 regret not pursuing their dreams. Parker Palmer, who wrote a great book, I love this. You can read his book. It's called uh Let Your Life Speak. I've got a copy if you want to borrow it, but get one on Amazon, read it. It's like not very long. It's great to figure out who you are, what you're here to do. He says, if we are unfaithful to our true self, we'll extract a price from others. We'll make promises we can't keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer because of it if we are unfaithful to our true selves. Yeah, we'll wreak havoc on others by not living out who we're meant to be. There's no value for that. That's equal trade. So here's how you find out who you truly are. I think to begin, at least asking this question, I'll close with this. How do you find out who you're meant to be, what you're supposed to do? Well, one, you could ask what makes you come alive. What do you do that makes you sort of come alive? And maybe you're done when you're done with it, you're tired, but you're like a good tired. Like, what is it that you feel like alive when you're doing it? That doesn't suck the soul out of you. It feels the opposite of withering, you know? It feels like enlivening. What is that? You could also ask this way uh what angers you? What just gets you? Because here's the thing many times anger is an infringement of a boundary of something you value. So I'll say that again. Many times anger is a sign that there's been an infringement on a boundary that you value. So if domestic violence uh abuse uh angers you, yeah, that's because you value not, you know, uh wholeness and healing and healthy relationships. So that if that angers you, that's a sign that you value not that, right? What things anger you? And maybe do something about that then. Get involved. How about this question? What scares you? Many times we have this sense of like, you know, we're so afraid because our brains trying to protect ourselves, and like the soul knows it wants to go down this road, but you're sort of scared and like, yeah, maybe it's a sign you should do that. Because in the thing that scares you is something valuable. There's gold down there. You gotta go find it. What scares you? How about this? How can you just serve others? Look around. Where do you see need? Go serve somebody. Go do something to help. Go volunteer at Rivers of Hope. Help Ben and Isabel on Sunday mornings. Go read children, like I said last week. There's all kinds of things. But how about this? If possessions meant nothing to you, nothing. What would you do with your life? How would you spend your days? If possessions, houses, cars, money, that meant nothing to you. I know I'm an idealist, but what would it what would you do? Because Jesus says, those who try to save their lives will lose it, but those who lose it for my sake will find it. The answer is to give your life to something greater than you. And Jesus tells them it's the way of the cross. Give your life as a sacrifice for others. That, in that you will find meaning. So do that. Follow Jesus all the way to the cross. It may not make you healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it'll give you substance in your life, make your life meaningful, full of joy and goodness and hope and restoration. It'll give you a good soul. Do you hear me? Central Lutheran Church, may this question sink deep into your soul. May it haunt your dreams. Yeah, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, all the things, but lose themselves, the real them? And what could you ever exchange? What could you give to get back the real you? What's of equal trade there? May you hear this question. May you indeed follow Jesus all the way to the cross. Amen.

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Ryan Braley

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