24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Denying ourselves goes against the grain of the world that we live in. There aren’t many people who would make a success of their lives by denying themselves. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of ONE earthly venture that would be helped by denying oneself. Certainly, there is that natural propensity to deny particular things in our life – food if you want to lose weight, sleep if you want to get more work done, comfort so that with rigorous training we might excel at some sport. But denying these things is quite different from denying our very selves. When we deny particular things in our life it’s normally to attain something that we desire even more. An athlete denies comfort for a rigorous training in order to fulfill their even greater desire to excel at their sport. So even these denials that are quite common to people have the goal of promoting our desires and not denying them.
So if denying these kinds of things is not what Christ is talking about here, in what ways is He calling us to deny ourselves?
We are to deny 1) our lives, 2) our profit, 3) and our comfort.
We deny our lives when we give them over to Christ. We no longer seek to rule ourselves according to our fleshy passions, but rather Christ rules in our hearts to seek and to do what pleases Him. When we give our lives to Christ we keep none of it back for ourselves. Christ won’t accept a sacrifice in part, but only in whole.
…[For a sacrifice] to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it. Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs you shall not offer to the LORD… (Lev 22:21-22 ESV)
This passage shows us that the OT sacrifice had to be perfect and whole. How much more the NT sacrifice that we are required to give. God appeals to us in His Word to…
…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:1-2 ESV)
You see, the transformation and renewal of our mind is directly related to presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. We can’t be transformed by God if we don’t trust Him with all that we are and have. We can’t be renewed by God if we refuse to let go of our old patterns of thinking…patterns that are conformed to the world’s system rather than God’s Word.
Besides denying our lives, we also deny our profit when we consider that the true prize to be won is eternal and not temporal. When we understand the riches offered to us in Christ, all of the world’s treasures become garbage to us.
Consider what Paul had acquired prior to His conversion…
circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Php 3:5-6 ESV)
If we were in such a condition the temptation for pride would be extraordinary. We’re so easily lifted up by the smallest things, but Paul had accomplishments within the Jewish religion that would put us to shame as far as works go. Yet look at how he considered these attainments in the light of Christ…
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Php 3:7-11 ESV)
Notice that Paul didn’t count “some things” that he gained as loss, but “whatever” he gained was considered as a loss. That word “loss” here [is translated from the Greek “ζημίαν”, which] is a stronger word than we would use loss when we “lose our keys.” Rather, it’s a damaging loss similar to if we were to say, “I lost my house in a fire.” And the “rubbish” of verse 8 [translates the Greek word “σκύβαλα”, which] is speaking of refuse in such a terrible state that it was only good for giving to the dogs.
You see, Paul didn’t begrudgingly set these things aside because Christ forced him into it. Rather, when Christ came to live in Paul, Paul no longer considered these things worth anything, but in fact considered them a danger to his devotion to Christ. Christ became the focal point of Paul’s life to such a degree that all other things seemed to just disappear in Christ’s glorious presence.
Where do we focus for our profits? What do we consider our treasure? I pray that it’s not the world’s temporal tidbits, but rather the eternal glories of Heaven that await us in Christ…
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Mat 6:19-21 ESV)
So we deny our lives and we deny our profit, but we also deny our comfort when we are more concerned with the glory of God than with the comfort of self. When Christ dwells in us we must realize that His worth far exceeds our own. As a matter of fact, the only good in us comes from Christ…
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh…. (Rom 7:18 ESV)
And as we understand the supremacy of Christ in us we begin to care less and less about self-seeking interests, including our creature comforts. Without Christ men are made content by their good circumstances and discontent by their bad circumstances. But with Christ we are always content, because He’s the source of our joy…not circumstances. And as circumstances attribute less to our joy and contentment, finding comfortable circumstances becomes less important than serving Christ with our lives.
A Christian has more joy in difficult circumstances where He’s serving Christ than in comfortable circumstances where He’s not serving his Lord. While in prison Paul told the Colossians …
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, (Col 1:24 ESV)
Although he was in prison he rejoiced, because he knew that He was serving the Body of Christ, the Church. It’s in this kind of service that a devoted Christian gets satisfaction, not in worldly comforts. Those that seek to please Christ in all that they do will not be bound to the world of comfort, but will rather be bound to Christ, His Church, and His Kingdom. He will be about God’s business rather than his own. He will be building God’s kingdom rather than his own.
We’re encouraged by how the early Christians walked as pilgrims in this world when we read…
To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things. (1Co 4:11-13 ESV)
No comments:
Post a Comment