Luke 9:23-25
“Self-Denial”
By: Kenneth Emerson Sauer
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkvieew-umc.org
Self-Denial is not something that we talk a whole lot about these days, but I am convinced that it is the key—not only to our eternal salvation—but also to our ability to continue to follow Christ and move on through our lives becoming more and more like Him every day.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Because of our Fallen Nature, we human beings naturally cringe at the very thought of these Words.
We are much more comfortable with words like “self-fulfillment” and “self-actualization” than we are with the thought of “Self-denial.”
But many of us have the wrong idea about self-denial.
We think that it means self-hatred, but this is not what Jesus means.
Self-denial is simply a way of coming to understand that we do not have to have our own way…
…that our happiness does not depend on getting what we want.
In fact, our happiness depends on the exact opposite!
Everything within our human nature rises up against Christ’s call for self-denial.
And everything we see on t-v, the music we listen to, the movies we go see, the commercials and the advertisement of products, the false prophets that invade our lives through the horoscopes and talk shows…
…all of these things are Anti-Christ…
…All of these things take our attention away from what is truly important in life—and fill our heads and hearts with lies…
…lies that will ultimately destroy us unless we make a radical reorientation of our lives with self no longer in the center!
And this, my friends is what truly liberates us…
…as George Matheson’s hymn helps to make clear:
“Make me a captive Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms,
And strong shall be my hand.”
Jesus has taught us by His example that the world’s view of greatness is just a twisted perversion…
…a total reversal of the Truth!
Leadership is found in becoming the Servant of all.
Power is found only in self-denial…
…and the greatest example of this radical self-denial is the Cross!
As we are told in Philippians chapter 2: “He [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
And Jesus didn’t only die on a Cross, He lived a Cross-life by being a servant of all.
Jesus flatly rejected the cultural givens of position and power.
Jesus shattered the customs of His day when He took women seriously and was willing to meet with children.
He denied self when He took a towel and washed His disciples’ feet.
He could easily have called down a legion of angels to save Him from those who killed Him, but instead He chose the self-denial of death on the Cross of Calvary in order to save many.
Jesus told His disciples straight out: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
And after Jesus finished washing His disciples’ feet He said to them: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
The Cross for Jesus was His deliberate choice of giving His life as a ransom for many…
…His deliberate choice to minister to humankind’s need about the Truth of God…
…and our need for love…
…which only comes through a personal relationship with God.
Could it be that taking up a cross for us means our deliberate choice to take up something that could be skipped, to take up a burden that we are under no reason to take up…
…except for the reason of God’s love for us in Christ?
Could it mean taking on the burdens of the lives of others, of putting ourselves—without reservation—at the service of Christ in order to prepare the way for the kingdom of God?
Could it mean putting ourselves into the struggle against evil—whatever the cost?
And this cost relates to all aspects of our lives—not just abstaining from certain things in order to make ourselves feel good or feel pious—so we can applaud our own self-control and judge those who do not do as we do!
The denial of self is something much deeper than this.
It’s making ourselves not an end, but a means, in the kingdom of God.
It’s allowing the Holy Spirit to control our clamoring egos, with our preoccupations with “I,” “me,” and “mine.”
Self-denial is not something we do as some moral Olympics…
…it’s something we do for the sake of Christ…
…and when I say for the sake of Christ…
…that includes our brothers and sisters in Christ…
…the unsaved whom Christ grieves for…
…and even ourselves.
Because we cannot be disciples of Jesus Christ if we do not “take up” our “cross daily”.
Jesus made our ability to love God and ourselves the prerequisite for our reaching out to love others.
This means that self-love and self-denial are no way in conflict with one another.
As a matter of fact, Jesus makes it very clear that self-denial is the only way we can love ourselves…
… “For whoever want to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
If we are to follow Jesus Christ…
…we must daily…
…follow the will of God, as we can know it through Jesus Christ…
…and this will of God must replace our own wills.
As Jesus says in John chapter 4: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
This is what we, as Christian disciples must learn to say as well.
In self-denial, we are at last free to value other people.
Their dreams and their plans become important to us.
Self-denial enables us to enter into a new, wondrous, glorious freedom—the freedom to give up our own rights for the rights of others…
…and in doing this we will find, for the first time, that we can love other people unconditionally…
…that is, when we give up the right to demand that they have to return our love!
Self-denial means that we no longer feel that we have to be treated in a certain way.
We rejoice in the successes of others, and feel genuine sorrow when they fail.
And it doesn’t matter if our own plans don’t get the go-ahead, if the plans of others…for the sake of Christ succeed!!!
In Self-denial we find that it is truly much better to serve our neighbors than to have our own way.
Yes, liberation comes from giving up our own rights.
It means that we are set free from the seething anger and bitterness we feel when someone doesn’t act the way we think they should act toward us.
It means that, at last, we are able to break the vicious whispers of the Devil: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back; you give me a bloody nose, I’ll give you a bloody nose.”
It means that we are free to obey Jesus’ command to “Love” our “enemies and pray for those who persecute” us.
It means that, for the first time, we will be able to understand how it is possible not to retaliate…not to repay evil for evil… “If anyone strikes you on the right check, turn to him the other also.”
This is what I want out of life.
How about you?
I am not happy when I am following my own inclinations, or my own will.
Oftentimes, upon this Christian journey, I’ll find that I am not feeling as if I am walking in step with the Holy Spirit of God.
Oftentimes, I find that I am not being all that God wants me to be…all that I can be…
…and this causes me to grieve because I am grieving the Holy Spirit Who lives inside of me.
So I ponder on the Scriptures.
I ask God, “Why am I feeling so low?”
“What have I done to bring myself to this place of despair?”
And the answer that comes back always has to do with my will—verses God’s will…
…my disobedience…
…my lack of Self-denial.
I have once again given an “opportunity to the devil” and “grieved the Holy Spirit of God.”
Maybe I have neglected to think of others, and instead have been cranky and mean…
…therefore hurting others…
…and hurting those for whom Christ sacrificed His very life to save.
Because any crime against humanity…no matter how big or small is a terrible, terrible crime against God!!!
Maybe I have turned again to some self-pleasing sin…
…even if it isn’t an outward sin, but just merely a sin of the heart.
Maybe I have given in to pride, anger, lust, greed, or stubbornness.
Whatever it is that I have done, I know one thing for sure—my love has grown cold, and the peace of God no longer rules in my heart because of it.
Therefore it is imperative that I “persevere in prayer,” listen to God’s Word, read God’s Word, meditate on God’s Word, and allow God to show me…in His great mercy and love…where I have failed…and where I need to trust Him to have His own way!
This is the only way I can be a disciple of Christ…
…this is the only way I can grow in my faith…
…this is the only way I can go on to perfection…
…this is the only Way that I can live!!!…
…truly live!!!!
How about you?
Do we want to be free or not?
Do we want to find life by losing it for Jesus Christ or not?
If we do, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Jesus Christ!
Yes, freedom is directly related to self-denial.
It is the freedom to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way.
Because the obsession we have to demand that things go the way we want them to go is one of the greatest things that hold us in bondage.
We can spend weeks, months, even years in a perpetual stew because some little thing did not go like we wanted.
We can fuss and fume.
We can get mad about it.
We can act as if our very lives hang on some trivial issue.
Self-denial frees us to drop the matter.
How many church fights and splits happen because we don’t have the freedom to give in to each other?
Most often, we can’t stand to give in for the stupid and simple reason that it will mean we will not get our own way.
Only in self-denial are we free to bring these demons to a place where they no longer control us.
Only self-denial can free us so that we can distinguish between God’s will and our own stubborn self-will.
Self-denial causes us to be catapulted into a deep dependence on the Holy Spirit of God.
Because the Holy Spirit of God is the only accurate discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts.
Denial of self means that we must take up our cross daily…
…this is the only way we can possibly follow Christ.
As John Wesley put it so well:
“See that you apply self-denial to your own soul.
Meditate upon it when you are in private.
Ponder it in your heart.
Be careful both to understand it completely and to remember it to the end of your life.
Cry unto the mighty God for strength, that as soon as you understand self-denial you will begin to practice it.
Do not delay.
This very hour, begin to deny yourself.
Practice self-denial everywhere, on every one of the thousand occasions that will occur in all circumstances of life.
Practice it daily, without stopping—from the hour you first set your hand to the plow—and diligently endure in self-denial until your spirit returns to God.”
Let us pray: Not our wills O God, but Your Will be done now and forever. Amen.
