Is Jesus Valuable? 3 Ways Christians De-value Jesus Christ.

S3:E2- We ask questions like is God good? We ask is the Bible true? We ask did the cross really happen? But when have we ever asked is Jesus valuable?

We know a lot of facts about Jesus. We can quote a lot of scriptures about Jesus. But until what we know translates into actual value, many of us will never really move from just being saved to being an actual disciple of Christ. 

Transcript

Season 3: Episode 2

00:00:01 

Hey y’all hey, this is your girl Quay from the MindTime Podcast, welcome to season three episode 2! We're going to be talking about, “Is Jesus valuable: The three ways Christians devalue Jesus Christ.” But before we get into that, we start every episode with what I call the MindTime Mic Drop Question. And today's MindTime Mic Drop Moment Question is: 

 What is Jesus worth to you without question or protest? 

 00:00:36 

What is Jesus worth to you without question or protest? What would you be willing to part with for the sake of having Jesus that you would not question hesitate or protest? That is, your MindTime Mic Drop Moment Question.  

You can engage my thoughts on the MindTime Podcast Facebook page, but here on the episodes I just leave that in the air and then talk about something random, so for the next couple of seconds can we just talk about SnowMageddon? Like I'm literally in full hoodie, hat, big headphones... it's currently like 8 degrees outside and I'm from Texas, so this is a new thing for us. But we have literally been snowed in all day today and probably won't get released till about Thursday. 

00:01:31 

So, by the time this episode comes out, surely we will have thawed out, but my goodness it is SnowMageddon up in this mug so, if you see videos of this episode, you'll see me in my knit hat hoodie. Some of y'all get excited about being bad and bougie. I get excited about knit hats and hoodies. So yeah, you’ll always see me wearing them in my videos 'cause I'm just that chick. But it's cold. And I turn my heat off or the air off when I record these episodes because I sit right up under the vent and so I have no heat on currently, which is not all that bad because some people have not had heat literally all day or since yesterday in the state of Texas. So I have been very fortunate and blessed, but y’all it’s cold. So anyway, I hope you have thought about that question: What is Jesus worth to you?

 00:02:25 

And now into our episode where we are asking the question is Jesus valuable: Three ways that I believe Christians actually devalue Jesus Christ.  

See, we ask questions like is God good? 

We ask is the Bible true? 

We ask did the cross really happen? 

But when have we ever asked is Jesus valuable? 

And the reason why I think this question is valid and necessary is because when Jesus outlines the cost of discipleship, it's a cost. And a very high one. And you will never move from just simply being saved to actually being a true disciple of Jesus Christ if Jesus does not have any value for you. Because the thing about it is we know a lot of facts about Jesus. We can quote a lot of scriptures about Jesus, but until what we know translates into actual value, many of us really will not move any further than we just got saved.  

And so I want to talk about the value of Jesus Christ and this is really me laying a foundation for the next couple of episodes where I will talk about moving from Salvation to discipleship, but we must lay the foundation around Jesus’ value before we get to any of that. 

00:03:51 

So here are the three ways that I feel like we actually go about devaluing Jesus. 

1. We make Jesus an object. 
2. We reduce him down to a mere physical being. 
3. I believe that we deny his power in our lives. 

00:04:23 

So I'm going to breakdown each of these but before we get to that, there are some scriptures that I want to read because one of the most infamous people in the Bible, I think, missed Jesus’ value and I want to use him and bits and pieces of this story as the backdrop for what we're going to be talking about today, and that is our dear Judas. Judas Iscariot. I want to read a couple of verses out of Matthew 26 and Matthew 27 as the backdrop of this episode, so I'll be skipping around a little bit, but I'll try to make sure to put the verse in there so you know where I'm going.  

So, Matthew 26. I'm reading this out of the NRSV.

Matthew 26:1-5

1When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, 2 “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

3 Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. 5 But they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

Matthew 26:14-16

14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16 And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

Matthew 26: 20-25

20 When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve;[c] 21 and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” 23 He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” 25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” He replied, “You have said so.”

Matthew 26:47-50

47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; with him was a large crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, “The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 At once he came up to Jesus and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him. 50 Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you are here to do.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and arrested him.

Matthew 27:1-5

When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. 2 They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor. 3 When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 He said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” 5 Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.

00:08:53 

So that is just a kind of the overall story of Judas’ role in the betrayal of Jesus that ultimately led to his crucifixion on the cross. And so, the ways that I want to talk about, that I feel like we actually devalue Jesus, with Judas hanging in the backdrop, is the 1st way that I believe that we devalue Jesus is we turn Jesus into an object. 

1. We turn Jesus into an object (We objectify Jesus). 

00:09:33 

Now when you objectify someone, by definition, that means that we treat them as an object devoid of thought or feeling. So we don't consider the feelings and the thoughts or the spirit of the person in which we're objectifying, it's literally just about their physicality.  So what I feel like I'm seeing is Christians who objectify Jesus. We make Jesus the object of our religion. We make Jesus the object of our faith. We make Jesus an object in our lives, but we really don't relate to Jesus, and the reason why I say that is because when was the last time you asked Jesus how he felt? 

I mean really think about it. When was the last time that you ever asked Jesus, “how do you feel about my choices? How do you feel about my life? How do you feel about the relationships? I mean, how do you feel about the people that are surrounding me? How do you feel about my actions and my new habits in this pandemic? When was the last time that you could say you ever actually asked Jesus how he felt about a situation? 

00:10:55 

Now for many of us say well, we pray all the time and we ask God or we asked Jesus what to do, but when was the last time you ever asked Jesus how he felt? Because here's the thing, you can make Jesus an object of information. If I just need information from you, I don't care what you think. I don't care how you feel about it, I just need directions or I just need instructions on how to fix my computer. I just need to know what to do. I don't care if you're having a bad day on your job, you’re tech support and I need information. So even in our prayer life if we're not careful, we can actually objectify Jesus. 

And so that's what we have to be careful about. Making Jesus an object. So what we have here in Matthew 26 is we got brother Judas here who literally sold Jesus as an object. Literally. “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” Now here is my issue with Judas- and I got two issues that I'm going to cover in this episode,- but here's my first issue with Judas: Judas didn’t even set a base price for Jesus! That really gets under my skin. You didn't even come with it with a base number. You could have been like I'm not gonna do it for less than 35 pieces of silver? 50! I mean you didn't come here with no kind of bargaining power. He didn't come in and say, look, man, anything less than this I’m not gonna be able to help you. It was almost as if Jesus had no value to Judas. 

00:12:42 

The 30 pieces of silver that the priest and the elders gave to him is what Jesus was worth to them. And could it be possible that they saw more value in Jesus than Judas did? That's my issue.  Sold him as an object. No bargaining, no going back and forth. No, let me set the bar high and they low ball it and we meet in the middle. Just what will you give me? Just like an object, and here's the thing: often times when we objectify Jesus it’s for our own benefit. 

He was worried about what can I get out of the deal? And it's the same way that we'll treat Jesus if we not careful.  Our faith is around what are you gonna give me though? Our faith is around well, why you didn’t bless me this time? Our faith is around what we can get and how we can come up.  And we give no thought to the fact that we're supposed to be in relationship with this person that has thoughts and feelings that actually lived and died.  And here's the other piece about it. A lot of people are making money off Jesus. Like the Jesus culture right now is skyrocketing. I'm telling you, I get advertisements all the time from companies who are selling Jesus merch (merchandise) left and right. And I'm not a hater 'cause I had a store. It was up for all of 36 hours and I felt like the Lord told me to take it down and study 'cause the truth of the matter is everybody wearing the Jesus tees will not put on a white robe. Let's just be clear about that right now. 

00:14:24 

Jesus culture right now is cool. It's popular. It's in season to be like a part of the Jesus movement. It's cool with your youth groups and the explosions and the concerts. And I mean the live bands and all of that. Like worship is a whole vibe these days. But the truth of the matter is we have to be careful about trying to profit off Jesus. When we objectify him and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with having your stores selling your merchandise and all of those different kinds of things, but we have to be completely sure about our relationships with Jesus that we're not being like Judas and out here, bargaining Jesus and selling Jesus for $9.99 $10.99 $19.99 and we hold no value for him at all. And so that's just one of the things that I feel like we really need to be careful about in regards to that. 

00:15:31 

🚨🚨Now let me say this before we continue, there are going to be some sexual references in this part of the episode, and so if you happen to be listening to this and you're with children, or you're not an adult, fast forward to the 3rd point. 🚨🚨 But I think this is really prevalent in our culture these days. 

The 2nd way that I believe that we actually devalue Jesus as Christians is: 

2. We reduce Jesus down to a mere physical being 

And you're probably wondering how is that even possible because if you're like me, at some point you've been like I wish Jesus was here physically. Like I know I'm not turning him into no mere human being because he’s not even here and I wish he was. 

If we only value Jesus for his body and his blood. We're devaluing him. And I know that's probably gonna mess with some people's theology, but in this hookup culture that we live in right now, that is the exact way in which we devalue other people. It's the same concept, right? Give me your body to save me from loneliness, from emptiness, from horniness, from all of these different things that I'm trying to either cover up or fill a void. Allow me to get temporarily excited about it, let me get a high, let me get a fix, let me get saved and I'ma be good. We treat Jesus like a one-night stand.

Thank you for your body. Thank you for that blood. We good though. 

When. we reduce Jesus down to body, and blood, we are devaluing him because here is my question in regards to that… 

00:17:25 

It is the culmination of our Christian faith. It is the way in which we obtain Salvation. It is very much necessary.  It is the reason why Jesus came. But here is the thing. Why wait 30 years? If that was all Jesus came here to do? 

If all he did was come to die, what was the 30 year period for? I mean really. Why the wait? Why the delay? What was the reason that Jesus needed to grow from 12 to 30 in statue and in favor with God and with men? What was the point of the delay if it was only about the crucifixion?

 What Jesus did and what Jesus offered us was a free gift that was designed to open the door and how many of us took the free gift of Salvation and closed the door? “Appreciate you saving me, but I don't really care anything about what you had to say about my life, man.” You objectify Jesus 'cause you don't care anything about his thoughts or his feelings. Don't care about his opinions in your life. You don't care about the will of God in your life, but you saved though right? You accepted the gift, but you closed the door. Got saved one day and I'm good.  It’s just the excitement without the commitment. The same way our culture has evolved is the same way some of us treat Jesus. That's it for us. We can get excited about the body and the blood, and Jesus is so much more than that. 

And so when it comes down to what was the 30 years for, it was 30 years of self-control. It was 30 years of understanding and learning the human experience. It was 30 years of an infinite God trying to function in a finite body. It was 30 years of trying to cultivate a relationship where he could hear God and talk to God, and he could tap into his purpose and his potential. It was him being tempted with all the things that we're tempted with, so that way he could say you don't have a high priest who doesn't understand. He had to be tempted in every way possible, and there are some temptations that don't come until you’re 25 that you didn't experience when you were 12. It took time. But it took time because it was more than just this one event. 

Jesus is more valuable than just his body and his blood. He is more valuable than just being the object of your religion. He is worthy and valuable enough to be the lover of your life and your soul. He's valuable like that, and yet we miss it. We miss it. What Jesus did on the cross was the culmination and the climax of 30 years. Thirty-three and a half if you include his ministry. It was the climax of something that he built over time. That is the same picture of what Jesus designed for relationships. It's the culmination (I'm talking about sex) of something that has been built over time. We devalue Jesus when we just reduce him down to being a physical being. 

00:21:18 

Now, there is a school of thought that is out there that talks about Jesus being murdered by empire. That is a thought.  So there's this belief that the cross was about Jesus, a man of color, dark-skinned, a minority, being unjustly murdered by an unjust system of oppression, OK? I do not have a problem with this viewpoint. If you actually go back to S1:E3, I think it is, that's only like 8 minutes where I give the gospel message. I use that same perspective (in light of the murder of Geroge Floyd). I do not have an issue with the viewpoint except when it becomes the central part of someone's gospel message. That is where I have the issue because to conclude that the cross was about a murder, you strip Jesus of his divinity in that moment. When you focus on what humanity did to Jesus, you make him the victim. To make Jesus a victim is to only look at him in his humanity. To only look at him as body in blood. So I do not disagree with the thought, I don't disagree with the theology or the ideology. I just don't think it's the central point. 

By definition to murder, it means an unlawful premeditated killing of 1 human being by another. Was the cross unlawful? Yes. And unjust? Yes. Because he was an innocent man. Premeditated? Sure, I mean that's what we're talking about with Judas selling him out. Was he killed by another human being? Yes, or you could say the system got him, which we see a lot with racism in America, however, Jesus’ willingness to go along with his father's plan was also premeditated. So you have empire Premeditating (remember they were moving in stealth mode) premeditating how they can capture and kill Jesus, but you also have Jesus premeditating on surrendering himself to the process in obedience to the Father.  

That's what Gethsemane was about.  Lord if this be possible, l;et this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. If you're going to say that Jesus was murdered and that's what was happening on the cross, essentially what you're saying is that a human plan trumped god’s plan, and I don't believe that to be true. Both were premeditated. But when it comes to a human being's plan, or when it comes to an oppressive systems plan, and it comes to God's plan, whose plan wins out? I'm a believer. God's plan wins every time. 

On top of the fact that Jesus said John 10:18, no man takes my life. I lay it down and I pick it back up when I get ready. In John 19:11, Jesus tells Pilate, listen, you have no power over me except for the power in which my Father has given you, which basically says the only reason why you even up here to begin with talking to me is 'cause this is what my Father says needs to happen. So from a human perspective, when we reduce him down to a physical being, it looks as though Jesus is a victim.  But throughout the whole process, Jesus is constantly reminding people there is a divine work that's happening here. Don't get it twisted, right? This ain't no murder. I lay down my life. You couldn't take it if I didn't give it to you. Is that murder? 

00:25:38 

And when we buy into that thinking, we water down the value of Jesus’ willingness to take our place on the cross because here's the other piece of that. Some people would argue if it wasn't for the unjust system of the Roman government, nobody needed to die that day. So then you devalue Jesus’ willingness to say somebody needs to deal with sin. So they're just pawns in the bigger plan, even though it looks like they're winning. But they cannot do more to me than I am willing to submit to, and more than my Father says is necessary to complete his ultimate will. That's how we devalue Jesus when we start saying, yeah, you know he was killed by injustice. From a human perspective, maybe. But there's a divine element to our savior that we can never discredit. 

He was always equally God in human form. You couldn't separate the two. And Jesus was always keeping that in the forefront of our mind through this whole process. This looks like from a human perspective, this ain't going well but there is a divine piece of it. And here's the thing, none of it would've wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't for the divine element. Jesus had to get up and he couldn't get up himself. God had to raise him up. It was both. It was the giving of the body and the blood. But it was also divinely orchestrated and executed as well, and so that's the reason why I don't mind the thought when you're talking about fighting unjust systems and systems of oppression and oppressed people in this country and in the world at large, and when you go back into the throes of history, but we cannot strip Jesus of his divinity for it. And that's where I disagree. 

Jesus voluntarily died for sin. And I do not believe he was a victim at all in any part of that process. And so that is the reason why that school of thought is it kind of rides that line for me between whether or not that should continue to be perpetuated. Or should it only be used in certain situations and scenarios because it was never about what the people did to him, but it was about what Jesus allowed and what God allowed. Because the Bible also says that it was the joy that was set before him that motivated Jesus to go on with the plan. He saw something that nobody else could see that brought him joy to be able to say yes, I'm willing to die in this horrific death because what's going to come from it is much better. If I sacrificed myself, then if I would be selfish and call down 10,000 Angels to come get me off this cross 'cause I really don't deserve to be here. So we have to be careful that we don't devalue Jesus in watering down the sacrifices that he made for us. In regards to dealing with sin and the atonement for sin. It was necessary, but let us not reduce Jesus down to just body and blood for any reason. 

00:29:22 

And so now going back to Judas. What it says in Matthew 27 is that it wasn't until Judas saw that Jesus was condemned. It wasn't until they bound him he physically saw Jesus bound and led away by the Roman soldiers that he realized that he had sinned. But even when he realized that he had sinned, the problem was Judas still missed the mark. And this is my second issue with Judas. He sold Jesus as an object but he only felt bad about the fact that he had betrayed would innocent blood.  He had moved up from an object. At least Jesus had blood now. At least he recognized his humanity, but Judas still missed his divinity. 

And there has been arguments about whether or not Judas really repented or really didn't repent and I would say Judas really didn't repent because what did he do when he realized he had sinned? Did he turn to Jesus? No, what did he do? Go back to the priests and the elders and he tried to fix it himself and it didn't work. Why? Because he only saw Jesus as a human being? You sold him as an object and you felt bad for him as a human being. But that leads me to my Third Point, which is the 3rd way in which we actually devalue Jesus and that's that 

00:31:07 

3. We deny his power in our lives 

We deny Jesus’ power in our lives. Judas took the money, went back to the priest and the elders and thought he could make it right and he ended up committing suicide. Why? Because he missed his opportunity for Salvation because he could only see Jesus’ body and blood. 

 Judas had been walking with Jesus for 3 1/2 years, like with the rest of the disciples. How many times would Jesus walk by and you had blind people yelling “Son of God, son of God have mercy on me?” Jesus was healing people from afar. People were coming up to him, touching the hem of his garment. Jesus was blessing folks and healing people that were miles and miles away. Judas bore witness to all of these things and if he had really really had a changed heart he could have called out and been like Son of Man, forgive me. And he didn't. He didn't because he missed it. 

So many of us are denying the power of God in our lives to actually change our lives. We are literally denying the power of God in our lives.  As 2 Timothy puts it. 

2 Timothy 3:1- 5 says:  

1 You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. 2 For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power.

That's what the Bible says. Holding onto an outward form of godliness. Outwardly, it looked like Judas had actually repented. Well, he felt bad. He took the money back and he was trying to make it right. Outward form of godliness. But he denied the power. He did not go the distance to allow Jesus to change his heart. And he could have. 

00:33:44 

How many of us are devaluing Jesus because we would rather settle for a form of godliness than to actually be godly. When you can wear the shirt that says I love Jesus but I still cuss a little bit, it's because you are cool with your form of godliness.  You are cool with your level of sinfulness. You are cool with where you are. You are holding on to the idea of being a Christian rather than allowing God to make you a disciple of Christ. 

We devalue Jesus when we hold to a form of godliness, and we wear the titles and we wear the tees and we like being important and we like being prominent figures in the Christian community but we don't genuinely want to be changed.  There are people who are being changed and transformed and there are people who would rather just look like they are or sound like they are or hang with the people who really are, but they themselves have no desire. The Bible says to avoid those people. And that's why I believe that Jesus said, “Woe to him who betrays the Son of Man.”  

00:35:18 

See Jesus called himself the Son of Man because he talked about his humanity and his deity. Jesus gave the woe or the warning to the one who betrays the Son of Man because he's going to be the one to betray God. And yet when Judas. had this revelation that he had done something dumb, he could only see it from the perspective of oh, I betrayed innocent blood. He missed it. 

Are you missing it? If your Christian walk is stale or if it's dry if you're over it, if it's too much #thisiswack, chances are you're missing it somewhere. You have devalued Jesus.  You call yourself a Christian. You’re saved. You’re going to heaven. But you have literally missed him because you cannot, and you do not actually value Jesus. Your facts and your scriptures are not enough if they do not translate into real value in your life. If Jesus does not have real value to you, there's going to be a whole lot of stuff you’re not willing to sacrifice, which goes back to our mic drop question. What are you willing to give up without question or protest? Everybody can sit up here and say, oh, Jesus is worth everything. I give my all until God starts subtracting stuff and you just like wait a minute, hold on I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand. And then all of a sudden you ain't singing I give myself away now 'cause you won't even give your car away. You won't even give a couple of dollars away to somebody that needs it. You won't help anybody.  We missing it and we are devaluing Jesus and we're presenting a false gospel out here in the world because they are watching us fall. 

00:37:31 

The world is watching us fall every day and saying this the reason why they’re hypocrites. We all see it and we all come short, but you have to ask yourself, am I really allowing Jesus to transform my life? And if the answer is no, it probably can be traced back to one of these ways in which you are actually devaluing Jesus. Or maybe you have another way. If you got some always, hey, let us know. Hit us up at mindtimepodcast.com. DM us on any other social media. Let us know if you feel like there are other ways in which people are devaluing Jesus. But like I said, in order for us to move forward, to not just be OK with being saved, but to actually consider paying the price for true discipleship. 

And we'll talk about the Heavenly rewards and the warnings of thinking you good with being saved, but not really motivated, and what that really means to be a disciple of Christ, we're going to talk about all those in the coming episodes.  But the first thing we have to give straight is is Jesus valuable to you? Because as long as he's not, anytime somebody talks about discipleship or doing better, or sacrificing some more it’s going to be #toomuch and you’re going to be out. but you still wearing name, though you still calling yourself a Christian. You still banking on this Salvation 'cause you don't really want to go to hell but you don't want to be changed. Is Jesus valuable? 

Thank you for tuning in on this episode. Think about it. I know it's kind of been a tough, heavy episode, but this is real stuff for the real people who really want to be changed and that's what we do on MindTime. We ask, we challenge and we believe for the purpose of growing in Christ. So until the next episode, I'm your girl Quay and know that we love you peace.