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I. IT IS COMMONLY REQUIRED OF US TO SACRIFICE A LOWER GOOD, IN ORDER TO GAIN A HIGHER. Not always, but almost always. The good things of this world are of several sorts, very unlike one another. Consider the sensualist, the man of pleasure, what is called the man of the world. Now it is idle to say, that the pleasures of sense are not real pleasures. Pleasure is not altogether out of the question amongst higher things, as is proved by such examples as those of Pericles, Caesar, and Bonaparte; but pleasure supreme is simply fatal to a great career. It may give you an Alcibiades, but never a Leonidas. So, too, of money. Here again it is idle to say that money is of no account. All that is higher, and all that is lower, must be cheerfully given up. Money must be the one thing he goes for. This, indeed, is the price of money, as of everything else; and he must pay it. But, at all events, he must give up the lower good. He must not be a man of the world. He must be abstemious in eating; temperate in drinking; temperate in all things. He must rein in his appetite. Good personal habits — habits of self-restraint, must be well established. And so of fame. But neither the scholar, the artist, nor the orator, must be idle, or avaricious. The lore of pleasure and the love of money are both of them fatal to these higher aims. Learning grows puny and trivial, when waited on by sensual delights; while the love of gain eats into it like rust. So, too, of art. Growing either voluptuous, or sordid, it falls like an angel from heaven. And so of eloquence. It flies from lips that are steeped in pleasure; it will not quiver in fingers that clutch at gold. The ambition of scholarship, of art, of eloquence, is a lofty ambition, and it will not tolerate much baseness. The scholars of antiquity were, for the most part, severe and temperate men. The scholars of the Middle Ages were the cloistered and ascetic monks. The votaries of art, too, with rare exceptions, have wasted away in martyrdom to their calling. Thus it is that the Temple of Fame keeps a stern sentinel standing ever at her gateway of Corinthian brass. And every comer is challenged with such questions as these: Canst thou live on bread and water? Art thou willing to be poor? If not, avaunt! And so of all sorts of earthly good. Each sort has its price; and may be taken at that price. But two or more sorts may not ordinarily be taken by one and the same purchaser. The lower must be sacrificed to the higher. The coarser must give place to the finer. Such is the well-established method of our ordinary life. Every step of our earthly progress is a sacrifice. We gain by losing; grow by dwindling; live by dying. Our text, it is plain, is but an extension of this well-established method to the entire range and circle of our interests. What is seen to be true of earthly advantages considered in reference to one another, is here declared to be true of all these advantages together, when considered in relation to the life eternal. This world and the next world are set in opposition to each other. Body and soul are put at variance. And all that a man may win of worldly good, it is taught, he must be ready to sacrifice, if need be, in order to save his soul. You may call the demand a hard one; but all the analogies of our ordinary life endorse and favour it. In many dark corners of the earth are sitting men to-day, who have abandoned almost everything for Christ. And their feeling is that they have barely done their duty: that a necessity is laid upon them; that they must suffer for Christ; and by and by die for Him. And the stern warrant for it all is in our text: "He that findeth his life, shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it." God be praised, if we, in our sphere, are spared the fullest execution of this warrant. The spirit of it, however, we may never wish to escape. Our hearts are to hold themselves always reedy for the fiercest discipline. Personal ease and comfort, houses and lands, friends, reputation, and even life itself, are to be reckoned cheap. We are to hold them in low esteem. So relaxed must be our grasp, that the slightest breath of persecution may suffice to sweep them swiftly and clean away.

II. The second law referred to, and the counterpart of the one we have now considered, is this: BY FIRST SECURING THE HIGHER GOOD, WE ARE PREPARED PROPERLY TO ENJOY THE LOWER, AND ARE MORE LIKELY TO SECURE IT. The principle is, that no worldly good of any sort can be well secured, or properly enjoyed, if pursued by itself and for its own sake. This may be seen in our most ordinary life. The man, whose aim is pleasure, may indeed, secure it for a while; but only for awhile. It soon palls upon his senses, disgusts and wearies him. It is easy of proof, that more is really enjoyed, more of mere pleasure is there, among business men, in the brief intervals of business, than among those with whom pleasure may be said to be a profession. Pleasure, in a word, is far sweeter as a recreation than a business. And so of gold. The man who strains all his energies of soul and body to the acquisition of it, never properly enjoys it. He enjoys the activity which the chase imposes upon him; but not the gold itself. He best enjoys gold, because he best knows the uses of it, who is occupied by higher thoughts and aims. It is God's decree, that gold shining useless in a miser's coffers, shall never gladden the one who gathered it. And so also of fame. If pursued for its own sake, the chase is often a bootless one. Selfish ambition almost always betrays itself, and then it provokes men to defeat and humble it. General Zachary Taylor, the twelfth President of the United States, spent forty years of his life in comparatively obscure, but very faithful service, at our Western outposts; receiving no applause from the country at large, and asking for none; intent only upon doing promptly and efficiently the duties laid upon him. By and by events, over which he had exercised no control, called him into notice upon a broader theatre. And then it was discovered how faithful and how true a man he was. The Republic, grateful for such a series of self-denying and important services, snatched him from the camp, and bore him, with loud acclaim, to her proudest place of honour. And this was done at the cost of bitterest disappointment to more than one, whose high claims to this distinction were not denied, but who had been known to be aspiring to the exalted seat. And so through our whole earthly life — in all its spheres, and in all its struggles. To lose is to find; to die is to live. It is so in our religion. We begin by abjuring all; we end by enjoying all. Am I charged with preaching that "gain is godliness"? Not so, my friend. But godliness is gain. It begins by denouncing and denying all; it ends by restoring all. First it desolates; then it rebuilds. Its mien, in approaching us, is stern and terrible. It blights our pleasures; strips us of our possessions; smites our friends; and lays our vaunted honours in the dust. And then, when all is done, when the desolating work is finished, when our very lives are spent and worried out of us, the scene changes as by a miracle, and all is given us anew. God, we find, is not merely in all; but He includes all, is all. And we learn, assuredly, from our own blessed experience, that "no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." Nay, it is of the very essence of our religion to forget and deny ourselves. Two remarks seem to grow naturally out of our subject.

1. We may learn the great mistake committed by men of the world in their chase after worldly good. They make it an end.

2. We may learn why it is the happiness of Christians is so imperfect.

(R. D. Hitchcock, D. D.)

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KJV: Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

WEB: Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it.