Reality 5

Reality 5: A Worthy Sacrifice Luke 9:18-24 Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI October 24, 2004 Series: Seven Realities of Experiencing God You may remember that over the past month we have been going through a series called the Seven Realities of Experiencing God. This morning we look at the fifth reality of experiencing God. To guide us in our exploration we will look to the Scriptures, particularly Luke 9:23-24. This passage is a very familiar for most of us – in fact it is the reference point for what has become a cultural byword, “cross-bearing.” We tend to use the phrase to refer to any burden or trouble that comes our way. Such as when our car breaks down and we have to be without it for a few days, a friend might say – as a way to console us – “We all have our crosses to bear.” But is that really what Jesus means when he calls on us in Luke to pick up our cross and follow him?

Does Jesus mean it to convey that the general

experience of all mankind is to bump into trouble or pain from time to time? Not to be glib, but that seems a little less than insightful – hardly worthy of the violent and gruesome image Jesus invokes here. Considering that Jesus is called the Wisdom of God, revealed himself to be a masterful teacher, and had a real knack for uttering hard truths, I have to believe that there is more to this passage than just a general observation about life. Jesus’ use of cross-bearing here only makes sense if he is calling for something specific.

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So what is Jesus after – what is he trying to teach? To answer that question, we want to first explore what he doesn’t mean. Then we will look at what Jesus is calling for and what happens when answer the call. Then we will talk about the consequences of cross-bearing: conflict and change. Before we get too far, however, I want to take a few moments to remind us about where we have gone before – the first four realities of experiencing God. The first reality, we discovered, is that our God is a blue-collar God – always at work. He is continually at work in even our mundane lives to bring about his ultimate purpose. He works in us continually because he is the persistent lover. Which leads us to the second reality: God created us for a love relationship with him. The mark of his love, we found, is God revealing to us and including us in his work. The third reality of experiencing God is understanding that the primary means God uses for carrying out his purposes on earth is through his people – those he loves. In the language of a popular Christian song, we are the hands and feet of God in the world. He reaches out through us and speaks through us. If we are to experience God, then, we must be about his business. And so that those he loves are included in his work, God speaks to us, even today, which is the fourth reality. He speaks to us through the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, through the voice of the church, in prayer and through his Word. He even uses our circumstances to get our attention.

The problem is that we

sometimes miss the message because we are so overwhelmed by our fears. Our

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ears get stopped up with the roar of the world because we forget sometimes that we serve the Sovereign over all creation. Which leads us to our fifth reality of experiencing God. So far, we have been referring to cross-bearing – an adequate description of the fifth reality. But crossbearing can bring different ideas to different people. So that we can better define the fifth reality for experiencing God, let’s take a look at our text for this morning – Luke 9:23-24. Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Let’s have a moment of honesty here. When we read this today it doesn’t shock us, does it? In some ways we read this passage the same way we hear a provocative statement from that uncle who has always swung a little extreme. We pass off what Jesus says in this passage as Jesus just being Jesus. He often says things like that. We have become so familiar with this word from the lips of Christ that it has become a part of our language. It slips off our tongues so easily. We have tamed it, domesticated it, and made it a useful expression. “We all have our crosses to bear.” Sounds so wise and empathetic. A synonym for “I feel your pain.” We have made it handy for whatever ails us. Sickness becomes cross-bearing. Trouble brought on by our own stupidity or negligence becomes cross-bearing. Equipment malfunction, physical impairment, personal failure all become forms of cross-

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bearing. Our addictions brought on by our own sinful behavior becomes crossbearing. But is that really what Jesus is talking about here? I am not so sure. Jesus, I believe, meant this to be a hard saying, one that weeded out the true believers from the fair-weather friends – the ones that hung around because it was popular or filled some need or desire, but who would bolt once something better came along or the way got tough. I believe Jesus meant this call to expose the heart of every disciple as true or false. Now, why do I say this? One of the things that we have to realize is the framework for this saying. What happens just prior to this? Just before Jesus says “Bear your cross,” we have Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ – the Anointed One, the Messiah. And Jesus does not correct him – he accepts the title. Then, for the very first time in his ministry with the disciples he lets them in on what is in store for him – that he must die. Now imagine you are the disciples. From your earliest days you have heard the stories of the Messiah, the Son of David, who would come and restore the glory of Israel. He would throw off the chains of the oppressor and begin a reign of perfect justice. And here in your midst is a man, approved by God through signs and miracles as the one you heard so much about as a child. Can’t you feel the expectation building in their hearts? After the feeding of the five-thousand, they must have been ready to storm the gates of Rome itself. Then, inexplicably he begins talking about being murdered by the chief priests, elders and teachers of the

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law. As your head starts spinning with this glimpse into the future, you vaguely hear him say something about rising up on the third day. What does that mean? Do see the framework starting to form?

Jesus is talking about a radical

departure from life as the disciples – and as we – know it. On the other side of the call to pick up our cross – just after so as to complete the frame – we have the transfiguration. Jesus again revealed as the Son of God, the Messiah. His glory is briefly unveiled before the eyes of his inner-circle. They glimpse him as he is, glorious and powerful, Lord over even Elijah and Moses – the greatest of the prophets. Then the voice from heaven speaks, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” The divine stamp of approval and decree that whatever Jesus says is to be believed and obeyed. So what we have here in the Gospel of Luke is a pivotal moment in the life of Christ and the disciples. Things change from this moment on. Very shortly, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem and his engagement with the cross. This is a weighty scene in the divine drama. So weighty, that a general comment about life just doesn’t fit. So when Jesus calls for us to pick up our cross, he’s not saying “Buck up! Don’t let your troubles throw you off track. Just keep following me.” Yet, that is how we often understand and use it today. Now, I don’t want to diminish anyone’s sense of affliction. In all seriousness, we certainly have trouble in this world – some more than others. Sin has ravaged creation and inflicts great harm on us and those who surround us. But often these are not burdens we would choose for ourselves. In fact, if we had a choice, we

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would avoid them altogether. No one likes to suffer and only a fool chooses to do so. Ah, but the wisdom of God is foolishness to man. And that is precisely what Jesus is calling for – foolishness. What does Jesus say? “If anyone would come after me….” Notice Jesus is setting up a condition. If you want to be part of my posse, if you want to hang with me, if you want to have anything to do with me you “…must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” In other words, you must be the same sort of fool for me that I am for you. A word of great interest in this passage is “deny.” Today we hear “deny” and we think refuse or refute. But another, more infrequent use, is to disavow, to recant or renounce. This is the sense Jesus is using it in. He is not saying to his disciples, “You must refuse yourself worldly stuff.” He is saying, “You must renounce your own existence. You must completely separate yourself from everything else you know. If you are going to come after me, you must empty yourself – you must give yourself away.” Jesus is calling for the same sacrifice of Abraham. Leave your family, your land, your people – everything that identifies you – and go to a land I will show you. And when you have a son as I have promised, you must give him up too. What Jesus is calling for is self-denial. That is what cross-bearing is – a willing choice to suffer – to give yourself away – for the sake of Christ, for his cause. It means to completely blot yourself out in favor of Jesus. The life that we live is no longer lived for us, but for Jesus.

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What happens when we do this? First of all, the words of Paul begins to make more sense to us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” We begin to live life on purpose. We get a grip on what we were created for, what God desires from us, and we delight in bringing pleasure to God through our obedience. The second thing that happens is we begin to form a new identity in keeping with being a new creature. The foundation of our identity is no longer our job, or our place in our family, or our giftedness or lack thereof. All the things that formed our identity before become secondary. What matters is that we belong to Christ, we are his and our controlling desire is to follow him. We want others to see Jesus in us. We become an expression of God’s grace in a world that desperately needs to know that grace exists. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a radical choice – a foolish choice in the eyes of the world. To utterly deny ourselves – to abandon ourselves and follow Christ up the hill of Golgotha, dragging our crosses behind us just doesn’t seem to make sense. Jesus is calling us to die – and to do so daily. So what are the consequences of denying ourselves – of dying – daily? The first is that if you choose to follow Christ as he calls us to, there will be conflict. The old nature does not go quietly into that dark night. We will be tempted to cheat, to lie, to lust, to murder, to envy, to dishonor, and to blaspheme. That is why we must die daily. We must make our profession of faith every day of our lives. Once is not enough. Every day we must affirm anew that we belong body and soul to our

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faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. The old desires die slowly, so we must choose to follow Christ daily. It is not automatic. The third thing that happens, and this is the substance of the fifth reality of experiencing God, is real change. The reality is that Jesus calls us to follow him – following implies motion.

We must make adjustments in our life – major

adjustments – if we are going to follow. Like the helmsman that continues to correct the course of ship as the ebb and flow of the tides push it off its track, we must adjust our lives to line up with the path Christ lays out before us. We cannot remain static. An old layman’s proverb in the church says that you cannot follow God and stay where you are. In other words, you cannot stand still in faith and follow Christ. Jesus, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Bids you to come and die.” We must come first – leave our nets, so to speak – then follow him in denying ourselves. Some typical areas of change – of adjustment – are in our priorities, our preferences, and in our personal life. When we pick up our cross and follow Jesus, one the first thing that has to be adjusted is our priorities. We cannot do business as usual. One of the funny things about priorities is that you have to have a number one, a number two and so on. There can be no parity in priorities. If we are going to follow Christ, he must be the unrivaled priority. Before family, before work, before money, before friends, before hobbies – Jesus must be Lord. We must be prepared to offer even the most precious thing we have on the altar.

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The second thing that has to be adjusted is our preferences. The way we think, the things we are willing to commit to, even the company we keep may have to be adjusted. For some of us, that may mean having more friends outside the church – making an effort to befriend someone who does not Jesus. As intimidating as that may be, we must realize that Jesus has already blazed this path before us. Our job is to follow. The third thing that has to be adjusted is our personal life. The big ticket item here is time. We are all selfish with our time – me especially. I have seen the ravages the ministry can wreak in a family. I guard time with my family as sacred. But even that is subject to adjustment, if God so commands. I feel safe in saying that all of us have areas where we hold God at arms length. We don’t want him all up in our business. But we cannot stay where we are and follow God. We must surrender everything – we must die to ourselves – if we are going to follow God. Here is the core of what Jesus is saying to us when he commands us to take up our cross and follow him. We must make major adjustments if we are going to join God in his work. That is the fifth reality of experiencing God. Let me close with a couple of questions. When was the last time you went before the Lord in prayer and said in all sincerity, “Everything I am, all that have is yours. Use me God”? When was the last time you really grew in faith? What are you doing to grow? Are you standing still in faith or are you dragging your cross after Jesus daily? A preacher has noted it is availability, not ability that God desires. A heart yielded to him. Are you yielded?

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If you want to experience God, you have to pick up your cross and follow Jesus. Even if it seems like foolishness, follow. You will begin to see God in ways you never imagined and an ever-increasing faith you never thought possible.

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