In the movie, “A Knight’s Tale”, the main character, a commoner named William Thatcher, travels to Paris to a cathedral to attempt to prove his love for a noblewoman named Jocelyn. But Jocelyn turns the tables on him by asking William to do something to prove his love for her that goes against everything in his nature as we see in this clip.
[Show clip from “A Knight’s Tale]
In case you missed her words, let me remind you of what Jocelyn said to William in the cathedral:
“Losing is a much keener test of your love. Losing would contradict your self-love and losing would show your obedience to your lover and not to yourself!”
I think those words of Jocelyn pretty well sum up the message that Jesus spoke to His followers in the passage that we’ll look at this morning:
But what exactly is it that Jesus wants us to lose? To answer that question, we’ll need to examine the fourth of the hard sayings of Jesus that we’re covering in our current sermon series. We find that saying in Luke chapter 9:
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
(Luke 9:23 ESV)
It’s interesting to see how various people view this idea of carrying one’s cross. Perhaps, like me, you’ve heard people, even some very well-meaning Christians describe their cross to bear as:
• Some illness or physical limitation
• An unbelieving spouse
• Rebellious children
• A difficult boss at work
• A domineering mother-in-law
I’ve also seen some who claim that taking up one’s cross is some mystical level of a “deeper spiritual life” that only the religious elite can achieve. Like we talked about last week, they think that there is a distinction between salvation and discipleship. They wrongly, in my opinion, conclude that discipleship is an option for the super committed, but not mandatory for all Christians.
But the cross Jesus speaks of here is not something that is placed on us. It is something we take up by choice. I’m pretty sure that Jesus isn’t telling His disciples to go intentionally get an incurable disease or marry an unbeliever or find a job with the worst possible boss they could find. And, as I think we’ve seen consistently over the past several weeks, Jesus is certainly not in any way telling His followers that if they want to be His disciples, they have to achieve some kind of “super spirituality” through their own efforts.
So here is how I would summarize what Jesus is saying here:
Being a disciple of Jesus is a matter of
giving up that which is of little value
in order to gain that which is of great value
Once again, in order to get an accurate meaning of this hard saying of Jesus, we need to look at it in its larger context. Turn to Luke 9 and follow along as I read beginning in verse 23.
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
(Luke 9:23-26 ESV)
The overall idea here is quite consistent with what we’ve seen over the past few weeks. Once again, Jesus is pointing out that there is a cost associated with becoming His disciple and that before one decides to take that path in life he or she needs to carefully consider that cost on the front end.
So since we’ve focused a lot on that message over the past several weeks, I’m not going to spend a lot of time this morning examining this passage word by word and explaining the meaning of every individual word. Instead, I’m going to ask us to take a look at the bigger picture here.
Jesus uses a really interesting approach here. He points out the paradox that is involved in living as His disciple. This certainly isn’t the only time that Jesus does that. In fact, the Scriptures, both Old and Testament, point out that living God’s way often involves a number of paradoxes. This familiar Proverb summarizes the nature of these paradoxes:
There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.
(Proverbs 14:12 ESV)
There are two ways of living: man’s way, which seems right to him, but leads to death, and God’s way, which often seems to make little sense to us, but which leads to life.
And that is the point Jesus is making here. He is saying to His followers, “I know that you think your best life is going to come from seeking after your own desires and those things which makes your life comfortable and that which gives you a sense of accomplishment and promotes your self-esteem and your self-worth. Now if you pursue that kind of life you may accumulate all kinds of things that you think are important and valuable, but your real self is actually going to die. That way may seem right to you but it is actually the way to death.”
But there is another way, a better way that does lead to life. But in order to live that way you’re going to have to live in a manner that is counterintuitive to the way you naturally think. It involves choosing to give up the things you want in order to live according to the things I want for you. It means giving up the things that might make you comfortable or make you feel good about yourself because by doing so you are actually going to receive something much more valuable in return.
Eugene Peterson really captures the essence of Jesus’ words here in The Message paraphrase of this passage:
Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?
(Luke 9:23-25 The Message)
This paraphrase really captures the main theme of this passage:
Being a disciple of Jesus is a matter of
giving up that which is of little value
in order to gain that which is of great value
I know for the past few weeks, we’ve had a pretty steady dose of the first part of this theme. We’ve talked a lot about the idea of giving up that which is of little value. We’ve discussed the need to make Jesus our number one priority, even ahead of our family, our possessions and our own life. We’ve talked about the importance of being 100% committed to Jesus. We’ve seen that becoming a disciple of Jesus is not about what’s in it for us.
But as we’ve seen already this morning, the paradox is that when we commit to Jesus above all else, we actually do gain something that is of far more valuable that what we choose to leave behind. When I choose not to focus on what’s in it for me, I end up receiving so much more than I would have ever received had I gone after the things I wanted for myself.
In Matthew 13, Jesus told two short parables that reinforce the idea that what we receive in return, when we choose to give up our own wants in order to become a disciple of Jesus, is of far more value than anything we possess or desire:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
(Matthew 13:44-46 ESV)
The kingdom of heaven, which we enter when we become a disciple of Jesus, is of such great value, that it is worth giving up everything that we possess in order to obtain it. It is the treasure of infinite value.
You’ll notice that this morning, your sermon outline doesn’t have the typical outline with blanks for you to fill in. That’s because I’d like to use the remaining time this morning to share with you how God permitted me to see this passage in action this week. And that experience really doesn’t lend itself to a three point outline with some clever acronym or alliteration.
As many of you know, over the past two weeks two really good friends of mine have passed away. But the two experiences surrounding those deaths could not have been more different.
Two weeks ago yesterday, I got a call from the wife of a good friend. I had met Bill several years ago at the gym and we began working out together. Shortly before Bill and I started getting to know each other, he had been diagnosed with leukemia and had spent quite a long time in the hospital, part of it in the ICU, when he was first diagnosed. But even though he was still going through chemo, Bill had recovered to the point where he could work out again and he was actually getting much stronger each week.
But then the leukemia returned. Bill spent another 6 weeks or so in the hospital and then went home for a week or so before undergoing a bone marrow transplant. The bone marrow transplant was successful and repeated tests showed no more leukemia cells in his bone marrow. But unfortunately the leukemia did return in the form of some skin lesions which required Bill to go through more chemotherapy.
When I met Bill for lunch just a few days before I got that phone call from his wife, he was pretty tired and hurting a bit, but that wasn’t uncommon for him right after he’d finished a round of chemo. So when his wife called that Saturday morning to say that Bill was in the hospital and that he had asked her to call me I wasn’t completely surprised. But I was shocked when I arrived at the hospital to find they had just moved Bill to the ICU and placed him on life support. As the doctor explained shortly thereafter, the leukemia had come back with a vengeance and Bill’s body was now shutting down.
As I observed the family make the difficult decision to remove Bill from life support, I was overcome by the sense of hopelessness that was present there. I’m still not sure of Bill’s spiritual condition. I do know that we spoke often of spiritual issues and of Jesus and he was here on Easter and heard the gospel clearly. But I do know that with the possible exception of his sister, no one else in that family really wanted anything to do with Jesus. And I felt really helpless in that situation because there was really nothing I could do to help the family have any kind of hope since they just weren’t open at all to discussing spiritual things.
This past week, fortunately, I had a completely different experience. On Sunday night Don Williams called to let me know that Shirley was nearing the end of her time on earth. By the time I got their house on Monday morning, the hospice nurse had just left and had indicated that she thought Shirley would probably die within the hour.
But unlike my experience a week earlier, there was no hopelessness in that house. Sure there was sadness and grieving, but there was also joy and hope because that house was filled with Jesus’ disciples.
Shirley held on for almost two more days after that. And I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with her and her family for the next several days.
The first thing that caught my attention was the peace that was so obvious with Shirley. That’s really not surprising at all since I’ve seen Don and Shirley exhibit that same kind of peace from the very moment that Shirley was diagnosed with cancer. Without a doubt, that peace that passes all understanding is one of those gifts from God that we receive when we choose to give up those things that are far less valuable in order to become Jesus’ disciple. And that same peace was also present in the other believers who were present there in that house during that time.
The next thing I noticed was the genuine fellowship that occurred during this time. There were a number of people present over those three days that I didn’t know well at all. Some I had met briefly before and some I met for the first time during that time. But because of our common love for Shirley and for Jesus, it was if we were lifelong friends. We sat around praying, and reading Scripture and sharing our lives with each other.
Another thing that was evident is the way everyone was genuinely interested in serving the needs of others and not just focusing on their own needs. Almost everyone spent some time with Shirley. Even though she couldn’t respond visibly, people talked to her, read Scripture to her, sang to her, touched her and did what they could to keep her comfortable. People just kept bringing in food. I’m pretty sure that I personally gained about 5 pounds in three days.
Don and Shirley’s son-in-law, Pat, slept on the couch at night and stayed with Shirley so Don could get some sleep. And he made sure that she got her pain medications so she would be comfortable. He was reading Psalm 8 to Shirley early on Wednesday morning when she passed away.
There were so many other ways that I got to see how being a disciple of Jesus transforms the lives of those who chose that way of life.
Over the past two weeks, God has been gracious to let me see personally the great difference that being a disciple of Jesus makes in our lives. He has allowed me to experience firsthand the radical difference between living as His disciple – the way that leads to life, peace and hope - and living according to the way that seems right to a man – the way that leads to death, anxiety and hopelessness. He has encouraged me by reminding me that…
Being a disciple of Jesus is a matter of
giving up that which is of little value
in order to gain that which is of great value
We began this morning with the words of Jocelyn to William:
“Losing is a much keener test of your love. Losing would contradict your self-love and losing would show your obedience to your lover and not to yourself!”
As we’ve seen this morning that is essentially what Jesus said to His followers when he said:
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
Giving up ourselves and our self-love is indeed the way we demonstrate our love for Jesus. And as we’ve seen this morning, what we receive in return when we do that is of infinite, lasting value. So why wouldn’t we be willing to give up all that we possess in order to obtain that priceless treasure?
