Tag: crossbearing

A Self< Church

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(Matthew 16:21-26)

The boss just laid out the plan for the next project at work. The goal was clearly communicated and comprehended so that everyone knew what they were trying to accomplish. All departments understood their specific roles in the project. Each individual team member was provided with the direction needed to help their department succeed and contribute toward achieving success in the specific effort. So it came as a bit of a shock when, after the boss had finished his presentation, one particular employee stood up and simply said, “Yeah, we’re not going to be doing this. This isn’t going to happen. Not on my watch.”

How long do you suppose that employee would remain with the company? Not long at all!

Jesus could have done much more than just fire Peter for his defiant remark. In his Gospel account of the incident, Matthew records for us what had caused Peter to feel compelled to take Jesus to task: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (v.21).

Peter had only a short time ago confessed that he knew Jesus was the One, the Messiah that God had promised repeatedly throughout history. However, Jesus’ explanation of how he would be carrying out his work didn’t align with the political aspirations Peter had for the Messiah. As Peter saw it, Jesus’ suffering and death were not part of his plan, so he had to take drastic measures. “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’” (v.22). 

We’re quite used to Peter putting his foot in his mouth. It’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t want to stand by and approve of a plan that involved the suffering and death of his Jesus. He had a heart, after all. He cared about Jesus.

But his objection was actually much more selfish – sinister even. In fact, as Jesus’ response indicated, it was downright satanic. “Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns’” (v.23).     

Whoa! Isn’t that going a bit farther than necessary? Is Jesus doing one of those hyperbole things where he uses an over-the-top extreme to make his point? You hear people joke about temptation from others (“C’mon, just have one more piece of dessert – it’s sooooooo good!”) with a, “Get behind me, Satan,” but Jesus was not at all joking. He was deadly serious. 

Because so is Satan. Peter’s rebuttal to Jesus’ teaching was not just a matter of misguided concern a guy had for his friend. It wasn’t because he had a better plan in mind (as if there could have been one!). Rather, it was an attempt on the part of Satan to thwart God’s plan of salvation. 

Jesus had made it clear that these things (his suffering, death, and resurrection) “must” (v.21) happen. They had to. This was the plan God had in mind to carry out the substitutionary work salvation required. The perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ, had to be offered up as the only sacrifice that could serve as payment for sin. Jesus had to suffer and die. “It must be this way,” he told his disciples. 

So also today, anything that opposes the good news of the gospel – anything at all – comes from the evil one. There is no harmless indifference to the gospel. There are no alternative plans or paths that might work out. There are no religions or false gods that could provide forgiveness and eternal life. There was and there is no other way to a right relationship with God than through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Anything else – anything at all – comes from the evil one.

The scariest part of all of this? Look what drove Peter’s objection: “human concerns.” It wasn’t some deep theological truth that Peter had uncovered that prompted him to rebuke Jesus; it was his own ideas about who Jesus was supposed to be and how he was supposed to proceed.

Peter wasn’t concerned about God’s plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about Jesus’ plans. Peter wasn’t concerned about the other disciples’ plans. No, Peter was concerned about Peter’s plans, and Peter’s plans only. 

Does that same selfish concern that each and every one of us is capable of help you grasp why Jesus explained discipleship the way he did? “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (v.24). “You want to be my disciple? You want to follow me? OK, first things, first, we have to get you out of the way. We have to get self out of the picture, or he’ll only serve to provide a platform for the devil to go to work. And the only way to do that is for you to deny the most difficult person on the planet to deny: yourself.” 

I was recently reminded of why this is the most challenging thing of all for us to do by a quote from a little book, What’s Big Starts Small. In it, the author warns about why pride can be so destructive to the growth of our faith. He writes, “But pride offers an objection that makes you the exception” (p.42). That is just another way of saying that self is an expert at pretending it has permission for whatever it wants. “What is wrong for you is clear as day, but here’s why it isn’t wrong when I do it.” 

“Yes, I got a little angry and lost control, but it was justifiable in light of what the other person did.” “Of course the stay-at-home mom shouldn’t be drinking excessively during the day and putting her kids at risk, but my job is 100 times more stressful and a few drinks every night help me relax.” “There is no reason for a guy to ever push a girl around, but our relationship is different and her level of disrespect is unacceptable.” “Blatantly walking a full cart out of the store without paying is one thing, but what I’m skimming from the register is just enough to get me by until things get better and of course I’ll pay it all back.”

Pride – self – makes me the exception. It does the same for you. That’s why Jesus says we must deny it and let it die. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (v.25). 

But what about the risk of not looking out for ourselves? If we don’t, who else will? How can we be sure that this practice of denying self is going to work out in the end? If we don’t advocate for ourselves, who else will?

I think you know the answer, but let me try to state it a little bit differently than you’re probably used to hearing it. Here is the bottom line: You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

You cannot care about yourself more than Jesus does.

Do you understand? No matter how much you want to buy into the world’s emphasis on the importance of self-care and self-image and self-love and self-esteem and self-discovery and self… etc. – all of that put together into perfect practice will never amount to caring about yourself more than Jesus does. 

If that were not true, it would have been you on the cross and not him.

If that were not true, it would have been you condemned for your sin instead of him.

If that were not true, he would have allowed you to be abandoned and forsaken by the Father and not him.

But since he bore all of that on himself for you, let there never be any doubt that no one ever has and no one ever will care more about you than Jesus. 

So let go of the lie and live free. Shut out the internal pleas to serve self first and everyone else second. Jesus has you covered and now he wants to use you to help make sure everyone else knows they’re covered by him, too.

When we deny self, when we set down self, instead of dragging that care and concern with us wherever we go, then we’ve got free hands. With those hands, we find it much easier to pick up the crosses that are all around us. 

The cross of patient sacrifice in your strained marriage to a demanding spouse is much lighter when you set down self. The cross that comes in the shape of the extra workload you carry at work for the demeaning co-worker who doesn’t miss the opportunity to poke fun at your faith here and there. The cross of confusion over why God continues to permit the chronic pain that you’ve dealt with for years. The cross of abuse and its long-term effects. The cross of addiction that lingers despite the overall progress. The cross of family members struggling with identity and sexuality.

These crosses are not light, to be sure, but we are able to bear them much more effectively when we aren’t also carrying around the weight of self. 

And, we are able to bear them much more effectively when we realize we never bear them alone. We can be confident of this because we know Jesus’ own answer to his rhetorical question at the close of these verses. Jesus asked, “Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” (v.26). Our answer, everyone’s answer, is of course, “Nothing.”

Jesus, though, has a different answer: “Everything.” He literally gave up everything for our souls. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Only One perfectly denied self. Only One perfectly lost his life. Only Jesus, and Jesus alone is our hope. 

Are you worried about what will happen if you cast off the perceived need to look out for yourself above all else? Worry not, for as much as your old self lies to you about looking out for number one, here is the truth we must remember: You cannot possibly care about yourself more than Jesus does. If that, dear friends, is true – and it absolutely is – then you are freed from yourself. Jesus has you covered. Go and be the church he wants, the self< church. 

God Calls Me to Bear My Cross

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(Luke 9:21-26)

If you want to tune out for a bit, this might be the sermon to do so, because Jesus isn’t speaking these words to everyone. How do we know that? Because he’s only addressing “whoever wants to be [his] disciple” (v.23). That’s not everyone. That’s rather obvious when it comes to unbelievers. But it isn’t just unbelievers; it’s a whole lot of people inside the church that aren’t really interested in being disciples either. They may be quick to identify as Christians, but the blunt truth is, there’s no shortage of Christians who have little interest in being disciples.

Does being a Christian automatically make one a disciple? Consider two individuals enrolling at SDSU in the fall. One of them attends all the classes, completes the homework, studies hard, and eventually graduates. The other is there to party, making zero academic effort. Which one is the student? In that they are both technically enrolled and pay tuition, each would be considered a student. But an honest evaluation would conclude that only one of them is in reality a student. So also, Scripture lays out criteria that apply to disciples of Jesus: they hold to his teaching (Jn. 8:31), they love one another (Jn. 13:35), they bear fruit (Jn. 15:8), and they make other disciples (Mt. 28:19), to name a few. To that list, Jesus adds yet another challenge: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (v.23). There you have it. Jesus’ disciples are called to bear our cross. Doing so involves a three-step checklist: deny self, bear crosses, and Follow Jesus. 

Do you know why this is such a struggle for us? We want to jump right to the cross-bearing part, which is tough enough as it is… but made even tougher if we don’t address the bigger obstacle in the way before we even get to the cross-bearing part: ourselves. Imagine if every time you opened your eyes, no matter what you were trying to look at or which direction you were looking, all you saw directly in front of you was a mirror, reflecting yourself back to you. While there isn’t literally a mirror right in front of you 24/7, that really is the problem each one of us has – it’s completely natural for us to see ourselves before we see anyone or anything else.

Trace that reality all the way back to Eden. Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie that God was trying to hide their true reflection, that he didn’t want them to see how god-like they really were, convincing them that they’d see what they actually looked like if they just ate the fruit. The reality was, they had a perfect view – the wonderful image of a gracious, caring, loving God who designed an amazing world for them! But they traded it in to be able to replace that image with a picture of themselves.

They got it, but it wasn’t what they had hoped. The mirror with their reflection was completely cracked. It has been ever since, and sin’s curse has carried with it the desire to see only self and nothing else. So what does it mean to deny self? It means shattering the mirror so we can see beyond the reflection of self, so we can put up a fight against our selfish, self-absorbed worldview.

Then we’re ready to pick up a cross, right? We might think so, but we’re not done just yet denying self. There are two other obstacles that we often need to address. We need to slow down and put down. We think the more efficiently/faster we get things done, the sooner we’ll have time for God… but that only speeds up the treadmill; it doesn’t actually ever free us from it. We end up running ourselves ragged because we never slow down. 

And we need to put down. When we finally arrive at the cross we are to take up, we won’t be able to pick it up if we insist on having our hands full with the other things we are carrying! What do you insist on hanging on to that won’t free your hands to pick up your cross? To what are you so attached that it’s worth disqualifying you as a disciple, and possibly even resulting in a forfeit of eternal life? Jesus gave a very blunt warning and then followed it up with a very pointed question. “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (v.24-25). Hang on to your loves in this life, whatever they may be, and you run the risk of losing out on eternal life. Put those things down.

Then, assuming we have slowed down and put down enough stuff to finally free up our hands so we can take up our cross, we’re ready to bear it, right? Just one problem: crosses aren’t pleasant! We want to avoid them! We don’t naturally gravitate toward them or ask the Lord for them, and when we see them in our lives, often our first reaction in prayer to the Lord is to ask him to remove them, to get rid of them. They get in the way of our best life now, of the life we’ve been trying to design for ourselves. Crosses, by definition, are not convenient! 

So why do we ever bother bearing any cross at all??? Because bearing crosses bears blessings. It wouldn’t seem like it, but each time you lift up that cross, to carry it, what you find on the other side are the blessings that God had hidden beneath it. Paul mentions many of those blessings in his letters, reminding us that suffering produces perseverance, character, and hope (Romans 5), patient endurance, and comfort (2 Corinthians). We also know that in cases of suffering that the world cannot solve or explain, we are compelled to lean more and more on the Lord, to anchor our trust in him, which ultimately brings us into a closer relationship with him. And each of these blessings from cross-bearing ready us for the next cross to bear, which may be even slightly larger than the previous cross. That’s less daunting… when we realize that blessings are hidden beneath that cross – the larger the cross, the more blessings are hidden beneath it. 

Take that imagery literally. Picture a small cross, one the size of an earring or a necklace. We naturally want to avoid it because remember, bearing a cross will involve hardship and trial; it will in include some measure of suffering. But eventually, when you pick up that small cross, you see the blessings that were hidden underneath it, blessings that would have remained hidden had you never picked up the cross to carry it. Then you come across a little bit bigger cross, one the size of your hand. You immediately remember the difficulty that resulted the last time you picked up the smaller cross. But then you also remember the blessings hidden beneath it. So you pick up this cross, too, and sure enough, beneath the larger cross are hidden even more blessings. And so it goes throughout life – God allows one cross after another to come into your life, sometimes bigger than the previous. Our natural inclination is to avoid the cross, to leave it where it is. But each time we have picked up that cross, an abundance of rich blessings were hidden beneath it, blessings we could not have experienced without the trial or hardship that preceded them. So it is – we bear our cross, and God blesses our cross-bearing. 

We’ve denied, we’re picking up the cross. Now we follow Jesus. “There’s more?!? Weren’t the first two enough?!? What about when Jesus goes a direction I’d rather not, when he veers this way and I’d rather go that way?” Recently I met someone for coffee. It was a place I hadn’t been to yet, so I did what we all do and punched in the address to my navigational app and off we went. It worked just like it was supposed to… until I arrived at the address and there was no coffee place. It wasn’t hidden or tucked away somewhere that I couldn’t see; it was just gone, not at the destination I had punched in. A little looking around online revealed that it had recently moved – very close by, thankfully – but at a different address altogether.

Isn’t that often how our lives work? We punch in where we want to go or where we think we need to go and then we arrive and there’s nothing there, or at least not what we expected. Our own navigation system just isn’t trustworthy, is it? But you know what will never steer us wrong? Following Jesus.

Now following Jesus doesn’t mean that he will provide little signs along the way throughout our lives on every little decision we make. Following him doesn’t mean waiting for him to reveal which menu choice he wants you to make when you go out for breakfast. Neither does it mean he’ll reveal to you whether you should date this person or accept that job. But following him does mean that we look to God’s Word for guidance in our decision making. It does mean that we follow his guidance toward paths that help us avoid sin rather than paths that bring us closer to it. Following Jesus does mean that our relationship with the Bible ought to better resemble our relationship with our phone than it does our relationship with the unused treadmill or exercise bike sitting in the garage. 

And I know it seems like a tall order to follow in the footsteps of perfect Jesus! It IS a tall order! It is impossible. But think of it the way a small child follows in dad’s footsteps after piles of freshly fallen snow. He’d never be able to get through on his own without getting stuck in the snow. But what an easier time is made of it when he simply traces dad’s footsteps ahead of him, each step having packed down the snow in a clear path that makes it much easier to follow. That child will go his own direction at his own risk, but he can’t fail when he follows in his father’s footsteps.

Why is that the case when it comes to following in Jesus’ footsteps? Because we know that the value of following him is not in making it possible for us to perfectly keep in step with him; no, the value is in seeing where those footsteps led: to the cross. Ah, and we have come back to it again, haven’t we? The cross. But this time not to bear it ourselves, but rather in faith to gaze on the One who bore it willingly for us. For if we do not follow his steps to his cross daily in our lives, we will struggle mightily to ever see the point in bearing our own crosses. But to see his cross is to see the price Jesus paid to forgive self-absorbed, imperfect disciples, who prefer to go their own way and avoid any cross placed before them. To follow Jesus to his cross is to see that my forgiveness means freedom for cross-bearing!

Before calling his disciples to pick up their cross and follow him, Jesus reminded them that he had to be rejected, had to suffer, had to be put to death, and had to rise from the dead. All this had to happen so that we could call ourselves his disciples, bought and paid for with his own blood. All this had to happen so that we can now bear our crosses and follow him.

Is any of this easy? Will any one of us ever attain the status of perfect cross-bearers this side of heaven? Never. So God addressed that problem by sending the perfect cross-bearer. Literally. Jesus bore the cross for those who couldn’t as well as those who wouldn’t – he bore it for everyone. He bore his cross so that we can bear ours. We do so because cross-bearing brings blessings. THAT is our calling.