Discipleship On Jesus Terms Luke 9:23-27 Introduction

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1 Introduction Jesus has revealed His plan to His disciples. The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed. And be raised on the third day (v.22). The future holds suffering, rejection, death and resurrection. Jesus must bear a cross for the sin of mankind. But there is another cross for His disciples. A cross we must bear for Him. If any person wishes to follow Jesus Christ, we must bear this cross. Cross bearing is not an option, discipleship demands it. The disciples of Jesus experience unique demands in every generation. In the first century the problem was Gnosticism. In the second century the challenge was paganism. How much of the beliefs, rituals, and religious practices of the Roman Empire must the disciple adopt? In the third century the Christians had to face the challenge concerning the identity of Jesus! Is He really God? Do we believe the writings of the apostles? Do we embrace Christ s commands? The challenges in the 19 th and 20 th centuries were rationalism and evolution. In colleges and seminaries teachers and professors were suggesting the accuracy and authority of the Scriptures be read in light of modern scientific understanding. In the 21 st century the challenge is the death of objective truth and other post-modern claims including the pseudo-scientific gospel of self-help and therapy driven churches. Much of the Twenty-first century church is a gospel of power driven evangelism, power church growth, power manifestions, signs and wonders. For some, the pseudo- gospel consists of manipulating God to get the things you want, writing your own ticket with God; gone for the most part, is the preaching of the cross. Gone for the most part is the preaching that you must deny yourself, deny your rights, set aside your passions for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gone for the most part is the heart and soul of Jesus teachings concerning His terms, His conditions, His demands, His articles, His clauses, His particulars, for His disciples. Some time ago, Bob Dylan wrote a song that epitomized the direction the church is headed; Do you ever wonder, just what God desires? Do you think He s just an errand boy to satisfy your wondering desires? When you gonna wake up? Strengthen the things that remain. In this passage of Scripture Jesus explodes the myth that the terms and conditions of discipleship rest with you. The terms and conditions for discipleship rest with Jesus. Following Jesus often includes suffering, rejection, death, and always a resurrection! The challenge for the 21 st century is the gospel of me first. The gospel that elevates the commands of man above the demands of Christ degrade the sacrifice of Jesus; selfesteem, self-love, self-indulgence, self-preservation run in direct opposition to the words of Jesus. The spirit of humility, of brokenness, of self-sacrifice, found in the Lord Jesus Christ, deny emphatically the hopeless theology of self-exaltation. The Conditions Of Discipleship (v.23) Luke 9:23 (NKJV); Then He said to them all, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. Self Denial (23a) 1

2 Then He said to them all (Luke 9:23); Self-denial is all inclusive, the idea is everyone, follower, disciple, apostle, no exceptions, all who wish to follow Jesus. A disciple is a disciplined learner. If you want to learn a trade or a language, or an instrument it requires hard work. Discipleship is for everyone. Is it possible to be a Christian and not be a disciple? According to Jesus, the Christian risks everything on the reality that Jesus is the one! The parallel is staggering! Jesus spells out what He expects from His disciples! Jesus expects from you and me the same thing the Father expects from the Son! In what sense? Self-denial, sacrificial living, complete obedience. Luke 9:23 (NLT); Then he said to the crowd, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. I need to bring a problem to your attention. Not all disciples of Jesus remain followers. Some people refuse to set aside their selfish ambition. They refuse to deny themselves. What is self-denial? It does not necessarily mean depriving oneself of something or someone though Jesus may ask you to deprive yourself of something or someone. Some religious traditions practice a sort of giving up of something in order to make God happy! You may give up meat on Fridays, or football on Mondays, or chocolate on Sundays. Here Jesus says, If anyone desires to come after Me means if anyone wishes to be my follower. Jesus says, let that person deny him or her self. The word deny here means to turn away from oneself. This involves a complete surrender to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. You must turn away from yourself and turn to Christ. I want you to know something about self-denial. It is difficult. You will find it impossible to deny yourself unless you are willing to embrace a powerful substitute that is embracing Jesus Christ with your whole heart, and soul and mind. You might think, Look, I just want to be a Christian. I don t want to be a full on Jesus Freak. Self-denial is not an option. This is what we do as we identify with Jesus in His suffering and death. We must obey Jesus commands. Obedience is a key element for any faithful disciple. When we are obedient to Jesus, that obedience may take us places we would never choose for ourselves. On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed after taking off from Detroit airport, killing 155 people. One survived: a four year old from Tempe, Arizona named Cecelia. News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia they did not believe she had been on the plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia s name. Cecelia survived because, even as the plane was falling, Cecelia s mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go. Nothing could separate that child from her parent s love neither tragedy nor disaster, neither the fall nor the flames that followed, neither height nor depth, neither life nor death. Such is the love of our Savior for us. He left heaven, lowered himself to us, and covered us with the sacrifice of his own body to save us. 2

3 When Jesus asks us to deny ourselves he is asking us to give up our best hopes and desires that lead to self-enrichment; and develop new hopes that reflect Jesus agenda for ourselves and for this world. Jesus is asking the disciples to disown all rights and claims to themselves. This is a decisive disowning of rights and claims. It is in effect a transfer of Lordship. You are no longer the Lord of your life. Jesus is Lord. You are no longer the decision maker. To the best of your ability, Jesus becomes the decision maker in your life. People generally value their rights and their freedoms. People value their right to make decisions and choices. The word deny is the same word used to describe Peter s denial of the Lord. Peter was disavowing any knowledge of Jesus. He even swore an oath in order to emphasize his denial. When we deny ourselves we disavow the right to self-determination and come under new management. You deny Christ when you fail to deny yourself. Cross Bearing (23b) take up his cross daily Everyone thinks his own cross is heaviest. -- Italian proverb To take up your cross adds to the idea of self-renunciation. What does it mean to take up your cross? You go public and you go to death with self-renunciation. There is in the Christian community a temptation to make this whole cross-thing a personal thing. I am sure you have heard people say, or perhaps you have said, my religion is personal. But cross bearing is a very public thing. The person who took up their cross began a public march that could only lead to death. When Jesus invites you to come, as the famous German martyr Dietrich Bonhoffer wrote; he bids you to come and die. But behind this bidding and underneath this bidding is something more...it is to believe that Jesus is more real than death itself. The cross is the instrument of death, we die to self, we die daily. Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 15: I die daily. Only the most dull person will miss the fact that Jesus must suffer ridicule and rejection, pain, humiliation, torture and death. A criminal s cross. You might think, I thought Jesus suffered and died so I wouldn t have too! In a certain way that is true. Jesus died on the cross for the payment of your sin. You could never pay for your own sin. Jesus death on the cross satisfies in every way the penalty for your sin. You owe a debt to God fully paid by Jesus Christ. But Jesus never promised His disciples a cross-less life. He promised a cross. Calvin Miller writes; Many Christians are only "Christaholics" and not disciples at all. Disciples are crossbearers; they seek Christ. Christaholics seek happiness. Disciples dare to discipline themselves, and the demands they place on themselves leave them enjoying the happiness of their growth. Christaholics are escapists looking for a shortcut to nirvana. Like drug addicts, they are trying to "bomb out" of their depressing world. 3

4 There is no automatic joy. Christ is not a happiness capsule; he is the way to the Father. But the way to the Father is not a carnival ride in which we sit and do nothing while we are whisked through various spiritual sensations (The Taste of Joy. Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 17.). Follow Jesus (23c) and follow me Jesus already told them where he was going and what was going to happen (v.22). Are you sure you want to follow Jesus? There is a cross that awaits you! But don t lose heart. With the cross comes a resurrection from the dead and newness of life! The Lord does bid us come and die but we will not remain dead. Jesus says, live a life following me. The two prior commands, deny yourself and pick up your cross daily are only possible if you in fact follow Jesus. Certainly to follow Jesus you must believe in Him. But it is also the decision to follow that allows God to empower the believer to do the first two things. We simply cannot deny ourselves on our own. We can pick up our cross, but no man was ever crucified on his own. Someone had to place him on the cruel instrument, place the nails in the flesh and tie the body to the cross. No one ever committed suicide on a cross. Jesus can empower a person to turn their back to themselves and be willing to die. How can you follow Jesus and not take his teachings seriously? The story is told of a plantation slave in the old south who was always happy and singing. No matter what happened to him, his joy was always abounding. One day his master asked him, what have you got that makes you so happy? The slave replied, I love the Lord Jesus Christ. He has forgiven my sin and put a song in my heart! Well, how do I get what you have? His master asked. You go on and put on your Sunday best suit and come down here and work in the mud with me! Come and work in the mud and you can have it! I would never do that the owner said. He rode off in a huff. Some weeks later the master came back and asked the same question again. The slave gave the same answer. A few weeks later he came a third time and asked the same question. Now be straight with me! What do I have to do to have what you have? Just what I told you the other times came the answer. In desperation the slave owner said, I ll do it. Now you don t have to do it the slave said. You only had to be willing to do it. You may not have to go to a physical cross. You may never experience severe suffering, you may never have everything taken away from you. But you must be willing. We must be careful. Jesus is the Lord. He is the one who determines what it means and doesn t mean to be His disciple. The Cautions of Discipleship (vv.24-27) Contempt For This World (v.24a) 4

5 Luke 9:24 (NKJV); For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. Jesus is the one who determines what it means and doesn t mean to be a disciple. When the Lord calls a person to be a Christian, Jesus calls them personally, practically according to His own individual call. But remember, Jesus said, whoever desires to come after me that person must be willing to forsake self, pick up the instrument of death, and follow Jesus. That involves surrender to Jesus. That means if Jesus asks you to go somewhere or do something that involves sacrifice, suffering or death so be it. Louis Evely writes; We all know that a Christian must bear the cross. In theory we are all prepared to accept one. The cross we bear (our health, our face, our circumsatances, our family, our stupid job, our failure or our stupid success) always seem to us to be intolerable, mean, humiliating, harmful...desperately we call for another, a cross made to our own size, a cross which is bearable, spiritual, elevating, beneficial to ourselves and to others. A.W. Tozer wisely said, We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do flee it or die upon it. John R. Stott is quoted in Oswald Sanders book, Spiritual Leadership; The motto of our generation is, Safety first. Many young men are looking for a safe job in which they can feather their nest, secure their future, insure their lives, reduce all risks, and retire on a fat pension. There is nothing wrong in providing for your future, but this spirit pervades our lives until life becomes soft and padded and all adventure is gone. We are so thickly wrapped in cotton wool that we can neither feel the pain of the world nor hear the Word of God...Jesus did not remain in the social immunity of heaven, or hide away in the safety of the skies. He entered the zone of danger, risking contamination...how can we make safety our ambition? Commitment To Christ (v.24b) Luke 9:24 (NLT);24 If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. Who is the person who keeps his life? This is the person who seeks to work to please himself. Here the word life means the idea of your soul, or your self. Life, soul, self, represents the inner life, the real you. What is the point Jesus is trying to make? Whoever lives only for themselves, whoever has the me first mentality, the person who is self-driven, self-consumed, self-absorbed; whoever seeks the approval of the world ahead of the approval of God, will in effect loose eternal life. Whoever is willing to give up his or her claim, turn it over to Jesus, forsake self, suffer and die if necessary for Jesus will find eternal life and eternal reward. You can go for it now and loose it 5

6 forever, or you can forsake it now and gain it forever. Jesus identifies the false disciple as the one who is unwilling to let go of his grip or her grip on this world! Counsel To Christians (vv.25-27) Luke 9:25-27 (NLT); And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process?26 If a person is ashamed of me and my message, I, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of that person when I return in my glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels.27 And I assure you that some of you standing here right now will not die before you see the Kingdom of God. Jesus issues a series of warnings. A handful people in the history of humanity have had it all. Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, the Emperors of Rome. Donald Trump, Bill Gates. Jesus presents two roads: Deny yourself. Live for yourself. Take up your cross. Ignore the cross. Follow Christ Follow the world. Lose our life for his sake. Save your life for your own. Keep your soul. Lose your soul. Share His reward and glory. Lose his reward and glory. The ultimate meaning of these last verses are if we live for Christ now we will share his future glory. Suffering always leads to glory. This is why Jesus ends his sermon with a reference to his glorious kingdom. Within one week of this sermon, Peter, James and John will witness an event that we call the transfiguration but that s next week. Are you willing to go the distance? Give 100%? For many the cost of discipleship is too high! The cross is an invitation. An invitation to die. Jesus never asked anyone to wear a cross but rather to bear a cross. With each cross comes death, and with each death comes the promise of eternal life. Eternal life marked by joy! Discipleship is a matter of profit and loss, a question of whether we will waste our lives or invest or lives. To loose yourself is not an act of desperation but an act of devotion. Clarence Jordan, author of the "Cotton Patch" New Testament translation and founder of the interracial Koinonia farm in Americus, Georgia, was getting a red-carpet tour of another minister's church. With pride the minister pointed to the rich, imported pews and luxurious decorations. As they stepped outside, darkness was falling, and a spotlight shone on a huge cross atop the steeple. "That cross alone cost us ten thousand dollars," the minister said with a satisfied smile. "You got cheated," said Jordan. "Times were when Christians could get them for free." -- Michael Jinkins, Itasca, Texas. Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 3. 6