So we are deep into our summer series, "Questions Jesus Asked (And We Must Answer)." And today's question hits us right between the eyes. It's from Mark 8, and Jesus asks: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"

Now before we dive in, I want to start with a story.

Christopher McCandless. Some of you know the story - it was made into a book and later a movie called Into the Wild. This kid was brilliant. College grad. Good family. Had the whole world open to him. But he was suffocating. He felt like society was a trap, like success was a cage. So he did what a lot of people dream about doing - gave it all up, his money, his savings, his car, and headed into the Alaskan wilderness with nothing but a backpack, a rifle, and a copy of Tolstoy.

He wanted to live free. No bills. No bosses. No expectations. Just him and the raw, untamed wild.

What happened? Four months later, he starved to death in an abandoned bus. Just 24 years old. His last journal entry read: "I've had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all."

Now, I share that story because there's something in all of us that gets what he was trying for. We feel that itch too - the sense that life is more than a rat race, more than mortgages and the meetings and the never-ending to-do list. But here's the thing: McCandless went looking for life and found death. He went looking for freedom and found a trap. He gained...what? Freedom from money? Freedom from responsibility? Yes, but in the end, he lost everything.

That's exactly what Jesus is getting at here in our passage.