In Luke 20:17-18 Jesus tells one of his most mysterious parables. He begins by quoting Psalm 118:22: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.” And then he says, “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” What a strange thing to say What could he possibly have meant? To understand Scripture accurately we always have to go to the context, the setting in which it was said. Jesus has just had a nasty confrontation with the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, and they were hostile towards him. They were deliberately looking for ways that they could trip him up and find fault with him, in order to eventually do away with him. It is in this setting that Jesus quotes Psalm 118 which was talking about the coming Messiah. It was to be expected that the Messiah would be rejected — even though he was the capstone of the building of God. Isaiah the prophet added that he would also be despised (Isaiah 53:3). Then Jesus used the image of the capstone — the large stone that would be placed on the top of the corner, the last stone to be placed in the walls to hold it together — to refer to himself. He was the capstone of God’s spiritual house. He was the Messiah, the One who held it together. He warned that to be careless with the capstone could lead to disaster, as those who worked with stone knew. They had seen more than one of their fellows crushed as they were careless in handling the great stone. In effect, Jesus was saying that those who are offended at Christ and reject him face ruin and disaster, for he is the way and the truth and the life. To reject him is to reject life. To receive him is to be a part of the life and kingdom he came to bring.
When I find God’s purpose for me, I find it in all its fullness. My life takes on a greater dimension than I ever imagined. The book of Ephesians ties it together when it says: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
What we are talking about today is how to find life — how to give Christ his rightful place in our lives and to die to ourselves in order that we might come alive to God. Our will must be crucified before we are able to discover the will of God. The first observation I would like to offer is that when it comes to dying to ourselves: Jesus is our example. By rights, Jesus could have remained in heaven and retained his rights as King of glory. He could have retained his divine prerogatives and power. Or, if he did come to earth, he could have come in the power and glory that belonged to him, and demanded to be treated as a king. He could have captured the attention and worship of the whole world by force. But he did not do that. He came as a child to an unknown peasant family. He lived in obscurity for his first 30 years. He never wrote a book or tried to set up a political movement. He touched lepers, gave dignity to the poor and washed his disciple’s feet. He gave up his throne in glory to walk the dust of earth. He was despised and rejected by men. He was cruelly treated, beaten and crucified. He died that we might live. In his own words, he said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
So when Jesus asks us to give up our lives, he has every right to do so. He gave up his life for us, and now he calls us to give up our lives for him. And in comparison to what he gave up, we are giving up very little. The Bible says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross ” (Philippians 2:5-8).
Ernest Shackleton was an Irish explorer who led an Antarctic expedition attempting to reach the South Pole in 1908. They were more successful than anyone before them, but they had to turn back just 97 miles short of their goal. In his diary, Shackleton wrote about the time their food supplies were depleted, except for one last ration of hardtack, a dried sort of biscuit, which was given to each man. Some of the men made tea from the snow they heated on their stove, and ate their last biscuit. But a few of the men stowed the hardtack in their food sacks, saving it for when they might need it as their strength was about to give out. A fire was started, and the men, exhausted from the endless walking in below freezing temperatures, climbed into their sleeping bags. There was very little sleep as they tossed and turned throughout the night with physical exhaustion and hunger. Shackleton wrote that he was almost asleep when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of his most trusted men sitting up in his bag and looking about to see if anyone was watching. His heart sank as he watched this man reach toward the food sack of the man next to him. But what he saw shocked him more than what he expected to see. The man opened the food sack of his friend, and taking his own hardtack put it in his friend’s sack.
That is a picture of what Christ has done for us. He was willing to die that we might live. He gave up everything in order to come and serve us. His sacrifice was complete. But Christ not only left us an example, he expects us to follow his example. The Bible says, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
The second observation I would like to offer is that when it comes to dying to ourselves: Willfulness is our problem. What is the greatest barrier to dying to ourselves? It is self-will. We want our way. We do not want to hand over the controls to someone else. We want to retain our rights and live out our freedoms. We want to be the center of our own universe. We want what we want, and God help whoever or whatever gets in our way. It keeps us from forgiving others. And when we cannot forgive, we cannot continue in our journey with God. We want to be number one, and therefore God cannot be number one in our lives. Self-will is the greatest barrier to spiritual growth we have. Nothing else blocks our relationship more. Self-will says, “Why should I try so hard when no one else seems to be doing it, and no one seems to care?” The answer to that question is: “Because this is not about what other people do, it is about you and your relationship with God. It is not a contest.”
The choice is to live our lives for Jesus Christ or to live for ourselves. I have seen the lives of those who live for Jesus Christ and I notice something about them, even though they may have imperfections: Their lives work. I have also watched the lives of those who are self-absorbed: Their lives are a disaster. Just by the weight of evidence, I would chose to live for Jesus Christ — not just a little bit, but fully and with abandon. It is our willfulness that makes us think we know how to live our lives better than God does. It is willfulness that leads us to be selfish, self-absorbed and self-centered. It causes us to turn away from the true God and put ourselves on the throne. We become our own god, and our desires become more important than anything else. Getting our own way is more important than any other person or thing in life. We don’t care who we hurt in the process. We tell ourselves that it is our life and no one can tell us what to do. Of course, in the process of trying to fulfill our lives in our own way, we always end up destroying our lives.
Joanne Zansky, a 57-year-old woman from West Easton, Pennsylvania, went to psychic named Peaches Miller, who advised her to buy several “magic wands” to solve her problems. Zansky was told the first wand would rid her of negative thoughts. She went back a second time to purchase one to help her nephew. She went back a third time to help her dead mother “get out of limbo and go to heaven.” The total cost of the “magic” wands was $5,400. Only then did she start to think that she may have been swindled. She wasn’t sure, so she called her sister and asked her about it. Her sister told her to call the police. The police have told the media that they are investigating, but the only law that may have been broken was the law of common sense. Actually, the wands did have some magical power — they made her money disappear.
We may laugh at Joanne, but I am amazed at how many people I see who are like her. They are willing to try any way but God’s way. It does not matter how foolish their actions, how disastrous or how destructive. They tenaciously hold to their dysfunctional lifestyle rather than come to God and follow him. They would rather die than die to themselves. Not even God is going to tell them what they can and cannot do. Sadly, we continue in our foolishness when God is wanting to give us a life that is wonderful and full of freedom. John Chrysostom (345-407) wrote: “Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts.”
The third observation I would like to offer is that when it comes to dying to ourselves: Crucifixion is the answer. Our pride must be crucified. Our stubbornness. Our willfulness. Our demands that life should be a certain way, and that we should always have what we want. If we are going to experience the fullness of life that God wants us to have we must be able to say with sincerity and fullness of heart: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
How does this crucifixion happen? It happens when I want all of God, and I want God to have all of me. It happens when his will becomes more important than my will. I want to discover the life he has in store for me. I begin to seek him with my whole heart. I become willing to die to my plans and ambitions, and pursue his will for me. I want to be done with sin and come alive to God. I am through with trying to live partly for God and partly for me; I want to live entirely for God. I no longer want to meet my needs my way, I want God to meet my needs his way. I ask him to take all of me and commit myself totally to him. I want him to purify my life on a daily, even a moment by moment basis. The apostle Paul prayed for this, for he said that he died daily (1 Corinthians 15:31).
Arthur Pink, a theologian from another generation, talks against those who preach about Jesus as a savior from hell rather than a savior from sin. He explained that there are many who are dangerously deceived by this, because there are many who desire to escape the flames of hell, but have no desire to be delivered from their sins. I believe he is right. So many today think they can love God and still live in their sin. It cannot be done. You have to make a choice. It must be God or your sin. You can’t have both. You can’t love both. You have to die to your sin in order to come alive to God. Jesus stated an important kingdom principle with these words: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).
Taking up your cross and following Christ means that you begin to do the will of God, not out of compulsion, but from the heart. It is the result of a new relationship with God. Mother Teresa said: “In order to be saints, you have to seriously want to be one. Saint Thomas Aquinas assures us that holiness is, ‘nothing else but a resolution made, the heroic act of a soul that surrenders itself to God.’ And he adds, ‘Spontaneously we love God, we run towards him, we get close to him, we posses him.’ Our willingness is important because it changes us into the image of God and likens us to him ” Crucifixion is surrendering to the cross of Christ — it puts our old self to death, so that we might take on the life of God and experience our character taking on his likeness. It begins with a relationship of love. You become a living vessel of God’s Spirit. This is a commitment that is not to be taken lightly.
In his classic novel, The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas tells the story of Jesus from the viewpoint of several eyewitnesses. One of the characters is named Marcellus, a Roman who had traveled to Israel. He had become captivated by Jesus. Being far from home, Marcellus writes letters to Diana, his fiancé who is living in Rome. He tells her about Jesus’ teachings, the way he miraculously fed the multitudes and healed many of their diseases. Finally, he told her about Christ’s crucifixion, and the stories of his resurrection. At the end of the letter, he told her that he had decided to become a disciple of Jesus. When she wrote back to him, she said: “What I feared was that it might affect you. It is a beautiful story. Let it remain so. We don’t have to do anything about it, do we?” Actually, Diana, we do. We all have to do something about it.
Rodney J. Buchanan
March 30, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
A Crucified Will
Questions for March 30, 2003
1. Read Luke 20:17-18. What is the meaning of Jesus’ words?
2. Read Philippians 2:5-8. What did Jesus Christ give up in order to give us life?
3. Read Matthew 20:28. Why did Jesus choose to do this rather than come in power and glory?
4. What is it that makes it so difficult to die to ourselves? Why do we resist surrendering completely to God?
5. Why is crucifying our will necessary or important?
6. How do we go about crucifying our will? How is it done?
7. What are the costs of not crucifying our will?
8. What are the benefits of dying to ourselves?
9. How does this go against the philosophy of our current culture?
10. What will you personally die to that is keeping you from going all the way with God?
