Youth & Outreach Director, Hunter Newton, preached this message on March 2, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
You go there and the words that we want to come out of your mouth are salad and apples and fruits and the chocolate milk. But instead what comes out is Big Mac and hi C and all those sorts of things. Anyways, I’m going through the drive through and I mean, I’ve been through the drive through plenty of times, but still, when those windows fling open, like, then they flutter. You’re like, it scares me every single time, every single time. And I’m going through the drive thru and the lady sees that this happens and she sees that I’m clearly startled. I mean, I’m a grown man. I shouldn’t be startled by flinging open windows, but I am. And she’s like, I’m a phrase. Maybe you’d expect her to say, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable. Like, I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I hope I didn’t cause you undue stress. And that’s a perfectly normal, right, social interaction and we should apologize when we do similar things to people. But as I got to thinking about it and honestly needed an opening illustration, at the core of that, at the core of I think probably the great idol of the American people, whether they know Jesus or not, is comfort. We want to have no pain. We want to be stress free. We don’t want to do anything that causes anybody any sort of uncomfortable, any sort of something not pleasant. We never want to sacrifice or give anything up if it has the chance to make us uncomfortable. John Piper, in his famous sermon titled don’t waste your life says it like this. And he kind of speak, goes back and forth between speaking in third person and second person, just. But just listen here. He said, if people would just like me, we think, then we think we’d be satisfied. Or if I could just have a good job with a good spouse and a couple of good kids, nice car, long weekends, a few good friends, fun. And maybe it’s implied early retirement and a quick and easy death and no, hell, if I could have that. We think we’d be satisfied. We think if I was just totally comfortable, that’s the problem. So many of us probably resonated with a lot of those words. If I could just have this, if I could just be comfortable. But the Christian life is not that. The Christian life is built, of course, on God’s word and God’s promises, but it’s built. And we stand here in Lodi today on the blood, sweat and tears of countless martyrs through church history. The Christian life is often very, very uncomfortable. First Peter 4:12. He just puts it so bluntly in a way that I really appreciate about Peter’s writing style. He says, dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you. And just listen here, he says, as if something unusual were happening to you. Expect this. Expect fiery trial. Expect things that are going to make you uncomfortable. We’re going to do things a little different this morning. Normally I give you the main points and then we kind of unpack that. We’re going to do it in kind of reverse order. We’re going to ask two questions. Working up to our main point this morning. And our main point will be our application. Two questions. We’re asking, why would Jesus ask me to deny myself? You’re probably some of you maybe even bristle at something like that. Why would he ask me to deny myself? And why should I follow this Jesus? And then we’ll work to get to our main point. Our text is Luke, chapter 9, verses 23 through 27. You can go ahead and make your way there in your Bibles. Now, if you don’t have a Bible, there should be a pew Bible, a black thing in the row ahead of you. It’s going to be on the screen. But we love to hear people ruffling through God’s word and fact checking and following along from the text there. We’re going to be in Luke, chapter 9, verses 23 through 27. God’s Word there says. Then he said to them all, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. Whatever loses his life because of me will save it. For what does it benefit someone if he gains the whole world and yet loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and the holy angels. Just a quick note about 27. We’ll read it. We’re not gonna. Maybe you’re gonna have questions about it. I’ll come to that in just a second. It says, truly, I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. Maybe some of you are wondering, what does that mean? There’s two different thoughts. My personal, personal opinion is that he’s talking there to disciples, because if you keep reading it talks about the transfiguration. Some of them will see the kingdom of God ushered in. Not the main point, but I know that’s probably a question for some of you. So we’re looking at the question then. First, why would Jesus ask me to deny myself? We’re camping out in verse 23 for now. That’s an awfully bold claim of Jesus. And I love the way that Jesus thinks. Pastor Robert covered verses one through 22 of chapter nine last week. And Jesus is saying, this is who I am. I am Jesus, I am the Messiah, I am the Redeemer. I have come to take on your sins. And then just immediately before these verses, he says, I’m going to come. I’ve already come and I’m going to. I’m going to die and I’ll be raised again. That is the single boldest claim in all of human history. No one else has ever said that. And then made good on that promise. Jesus said, I’m going to die and I’m going to rise again. Then he actually does the thing. Second, the boldest claim in human history. He follows it up with probably, I don’t know, top two, top four, Second boldest claim. He says, if you want to follow me, pick up your cross. He’s saying, if you want to follow me, come and die. And that maybe to some of us just feels like your neck stiffens a little bit. So then it would have felt similar, right? Humans have always kind of had this quantity. He’s saying, come and die if you want to follow me. It’s going to cost you everything. You need to die to yourself. You need to die to what you want to your plans for your life. And we need to sit in this. A text like this should make us a little uncomfortable because that’s a remarkably bold, terrifying, but also beautiful sentence. We might naturally be bent to think things like, okay, Jesus, where’s the tamer version? I didn’t sign up to be a martyr. I didn’t sign up to have something cost me anything. He’s saying, if you want to follow me, you must be all in. There’s nothing half hearted about this. In the ancient world, they didn’t have things like CrossFit. And if you don’t know what CrossFit is, if you make a friend who does CrossFit, they’ll tell you what it is. But they, you guys know exactly what I’m saying. But they didn’t do things like carry the cross beam or tires or chains. They didn’t do those sorts of things for if somebody’s walking with the horizontal piece of the cross on their back, it was 80 to 100 pounds, they’ve been beaten to the point of near death. Princess Bride would maybe stay mostly dead. They’re beaten to within an inch of their life. They carry this 80 to 100 pound piece of wood across their back. They might as well. On their forehead the sign that said dead man walking. Dead man, dead woman, whoever it is walking. And this is, I mean, it’s a literal death sentence. And maybe the closest thing we kind of have in our society is people that are sentenced to the death punishment, people that are sitting on death row. We maybe look at them and of course it’s a hard situation for them to be in for whatever crime they committed, but they have some hope of a trial being overturned and a new law being made, or they could pass away peacefully before that happens. But when someone was carrying a cross, they were without a doubt going to die one of the worst deaths possibly imaginable. What Jesus is saying here is essentially, and this is really a lot of why the Bible is written to push back what we think God is like with what he’s actually like. The good news of Jesus, this is who God actually is. He’s saying, I am who I say I am. Following me is the best thing you’ll ever do. But on this side of heaven, it will also be the most difficult. And if you’ve been walking with Jesus for any length of time, you know that to be a wonderful, a wonderful sort of dichotomy, like it’s not. There’s no fault, there’s no. They’re not on ends with each other, but it’s this held intention, right? Following Jesus is the best thing ever, also the most difficult at the same time, wonderfully, beautifully, all the time. And he’s not saying these things to scare us, but he wants us to come to him for who he really is. Jesus. Throughout the Gospels. And we’ll look at a few in a moment. Here he has people coming to him for stuff, for things they can do for him. Jesus wants us to come to him for him. He wants us to come to him not for some faint image of what he is in our heads, but for who he actually is. He doesn’t come to us just to enhance our lives, but he wants to transform to totally. You think about the word metamorphosis, just become a totally different being, totally different person. In Mere Christianity, C.S. lewis writes, I think we’ll have it on the screen here. It says, imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he’s doing. He’s getting the Drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. And you knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you’re not surprised. But presently he starts knocking about the house in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out. A new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage. But he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. He’s not content with just touching up the little things that we think that we’re probably already aware of. Like, I know I need to probably stop cussing so much, or I need to do this, that or the other thing. No, he’s come to totally, radically transform our lives. Just two instances in the Gospels that I want to point out. We’ll read through them and kind of talk about them. Matthew 19, 16, 22 and John 6, 35, 42. You can start thumbing your way there. In Matthew 19, 16, 22, it’s this encounter with the young ruler, and probably a decent chunk of us are familiar. It reads there. Just then someone came up and asked him, teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good? He said to him, there is only one who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. Which ones? He asked him. Jesus answered, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and love your neighbor as yourself. And this should make you chuckle. The young man says, I have kept all of these. What do I still lack? If you want to be perfect, Jesus said to him, go sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When the young man heard that, he went away grieving because he had many possessions. And I said, you should make me chuckle. So the guy is saying, I have no sin in my life. I’ll take care of. I’ve followed the law perfectly. That’s a ridiculous sentence. So we just need to make. We just need to make note of that. It’s ridiculous what he said. So of course he’s got pride in his life. But Jesus goes right for the heart. And if you read the Gospels, you know he knows how to deal with every person, exactly how they need to be dealt with. He deals harshly with the Pharisees. He deals gently with the tax collectors and sinners. And for this young man, this rich young ruler of prominence, power and fame, he says, give up your stuff. Give up your stuff. It’s clear that’s got first place in your life. And it says, he walks away sad because he had a lot of stuff. And we read through the Gospels, and Jesus makes it clear and clear over elsewhere. He says, you should love me so much that it looks like you hate everything else in comparison. You should love me. I should have first place in your life. That doesn’t even look like there’s a second place. You should be one of those weird Jesus people. You should be one of those people where you’re so consumed with all of who I am, it looks like you don’t care about anything else. He’s saying. The young man comes to him and says, what can you do for me? But Jesus says, it’s not what can I do for you, it’s you should come to me for me. This guy wants Jesus to do stuff for him, but he doesn’t want Jesus. In John 6:35, 42, shortly after Christ feeds the thousands, we read, I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. But as I told you, you’ve seen Me and yet you do not believe. Everyone the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me I will never cast out. That’s a spot that’s circled in my Bible. I will never cast you out. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me that I should lose none of those he has given me, but should raise them up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. Therefore, the Jews started grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They were saying, isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I’ve come down from heaven? So Jesus has just gotten telling these people the good news. He’s presented the Gospels. He’s presented, I am who I say I am. And probably a good chunk of us are familiar that in the ancient world, bread was the main dish at every meal. So it’s not just a side, not just an entree, not something nice, not Something to contain the meat? No, it’s the bread’s everything. And he’s saying, I’m the bread of life. I’m what you need, I’m who you need. I answer your prayer. I can take care of your sin if you put your hope and trust in me. Remember, he said, I will rise from the dead and you too will rise. And yet these people said they walked away. He said, they walked away grumbling, complaining to their friends. They said, yeah, but where’s the free stuff? I came for a meal. I came so I didn’t have to cook tonight. And we might be tempted to laugh and elbow our neighbor and just say, what idiots. I mean, they are being idiots here. But how often do we do some similar things? I guess is all the time. We probably go to Jesus in the course of our life. Like Jesus, I want eternal life, but I’m really comfortable doing what I’m doing. Jesus, I want to follow you, but I don’t want it to cost me anything. I don’t even want a slight moment of uncomfort. We might be thinking like Jesus, I didn’t sign up for anything difficult. We ask questions like following you is going to cost me relationships. You mean to tell me that it’s going to. I might be less liked at school, might be less liked at work, with my family, to my friends who I play volleyball with on Tuesdays. It’s going to cost me those relationships. And we think, I don’t want that. Yet he’s saying to us, here, come follow me. Come deny yourself. It’s not an empty promise. Because in John 10:10 we read, a thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance. Why would Jesus ask me to deny myself? Because he knows that what we need is not more stuff, not more money, not more time, not longer vacations, not restored family, relationships. And all those things are fine things. But he’s saying, that’s not what you need. More of what you need, he says, is me. Which we really need is Jesus. Why would Jesus ask me to deny myself? Because he knows that we need him. Why then should we follow him? We turn our attention to verses 24 to 27. The text here kind of there’s some overlap in these answers to these questions. And kind of in some ways it serves as an answer here. Why would I deny myself? Well, because Jesus is clearly worth everything. In verses 1 through 22, he’s saying, this is who I am, this is what I’ve done. This is what I’ve come to do. In verses 24, 27, he’s saying, this is. This is it. Come, follow me. We get reminded of he is who he says he is. We get the one true Son of God. We lose the world, but gain him. In John 12:25, it’s put this way, the one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. When I’ve talked to people about following Jesus, a lot of the focus tends to be on, well, I have to give this up. I have to do that. I’m really okay with not thinking that sort of way. But, friends, it’s not even a comparison. The focus should not be one of them. Get up. What do we gain? It’s trade season in football and baseball right now, and so you see the charts on ESPN or whatever platform you want to see it on, and you’ll see what players traded for and what players traded for this. What’s this side and this side? And we get Jesus. We get Jesus, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, the one who pays for our sins, our best friend, the one who came to live among us, and he takes on our sin and our shame and our guilt. That’s not even a trade that, like, I’d almost be embarrassed to read that out loud. We get Jesus. It’s not a focus on what we’re giving up. It’s we’re getting him. One of the scariest things that we should pray, we must pray, we need to pray, is it’s wonderful, but terrifying. It’s, God, use me however you need to. My hands are off the steering wheel. God, send me, bring me, show me whatever you need to so you can be glorified. And that’s scary, but also it’s wonderful getting to be used by God. Friends, the Christian life should be anything but boring. If we’re seeking God in obedience, asking God, how can I be a part of what you’re doing? We should be anything but bored. We should get to. We should delight in. We get Jesus and we get to be a part of what he’s doing. But often we don’t like to do that because, like I said, we’re comfortable. We’re really comfortable. And maybe that’s for unbelievers, maybe it’s for believers as well. But people of all ages will kind of ask a few different things. I’ve encountered plenty of people who say, like, well, I know Jesus says this, or God’s word says this, but what about If I do this, and some common ones are like, I think that we just like to safeguard and have a lot of control of our lives. And so when people say things like, well, I know God says that my closest relationships that really ought to be made up of believers. But then we’re like, well, surely he didn’t mean that. Surely he didn’t. That’s not exactly what he’s getting at. But you know, too like modern psychology, I love when it backs up God’s word because it actually, God’s word says it. And it’s often years, thousands, sometimes ahead of psychology. And modern psychology would say that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. But God’s word also says right in Romans 12, don’t be conformed to the patterns of, of this age. You be transformed rather by the renewing of your mind. And so we get to be molded and shaped by these people. And so if we’re trying to follow Jesus, well, then the people that are closest, that are in our innermost circle, whether it’s romantic relationship, whether it’s friends, business partners, like we should be closely following Jesus together because of the purpose and point of life is to make much of God and bring glory to him. Then we need to be running with people that are going to be going in the same way. Not to say that you can’t have non Christian friends or business partners, but the people who we spend the most time with will mold and influence and shape us. Our inner circle should be made up of believers or maybe a complaint. This is probably the biggest complaint against Christianity in general right now, is that is this idea. People will just say it bluntly if they’re being honest. The Christian sexual ethic is outdated, narrow, prudish, too traditional. It doesn’t make any sense. And we people, there’s, there’s often a little bit of like, well, we surely know better than that now. But friends, that’s not simply not true. Not only because we know that in God’s word, but it’s backed up by secular science time over and time over and time, time over and time over again. Not only do Christians who are in a one man, one woman marriage that’s monogamous, not only are they having better sex lives, they’re having more healthy marriages. They’re happier just in general in life, and they often live longer. It’s this proof of intelligent design. It’s almost like God knew what he was doing. The world might be tempted to say that we’re crazy, that that’s crazy talk. But another real quick one is we might say to ourselves, and this is probably another pretty common complaint against Christians or Christianity is there’s just too many rules. You can’t expect me to follow all of that, like I gotta have freedom. But I would argue that Jesus is arguing like without rules there is no such thing as freedom. It’s just chaos. If we were to go and play checkers in the multi purpose room and there was no set of order to I can jump here, go here. We’re not playing checkers, we’re just playing. We’re just sitting there. We’re simply being it’s chaotic from driving on the way home, hopefully past McDonald’s this time. But we’re driving on the road and there’s and I’m not observing rules and the other drivers are not observing laws, then that’s chaotic and it’s going to lead to death and destruction. No, like true freedom is not living with the absence of rules. True freedom is living within the design and boundaries that God has made for us. Galatians 5:1 says, for freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery. Elsewhere in God’s word it would say that you’re either a slave to Jesus or you’re a slave to sin. You can’t serve two masters, and secular work understands this. Again, Thomas Hobbes, a 16th century British philosopher, and he’s not a Christian by the way, he said, a life without order will always be nasty, brutish and short. Friends, we should follow Jesus because he’s worth everything he is. Where we experience real freedom. The text so wonderfully puts it in verse 25 for what does it benefit someone if he gains the whole world and yet loses or forfeits himself? And the rhetorical answer, of course we don’t gain anything. It’s not beneficial. It’s detrimental to us. He’s worth giving up everything for because he himself is everything. The focus should not be on what we give up to follow Jesus or what we agree with to follow Jesus, but rather who we gain. He’s Lord of Lords, King of Kings, friend to sinners, our good Shepherd, Prince of Peace, the Messiah, the Savior. He is Jesus. Why should I follow him? Why should I follow this Jesus? Romans 14:7,8 answers it beautifully. It says, for none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. The last question then is how. Last question we should ask ourselves, how do I follow this Jesus? This is our main point. This is our big idea this morning. To follow Jesus, we must pick up our cross daily. If you’re walking out here with anything, please let it be that to follow Jesus, we must pick up our cross daily. That’s the main point. That’s our application this morning. We see the wonderful way that Jesus works here, the way he thinks in the short passage, this is who I am. This is how you follow me. Verses 1 through 22, this is who I am. Verses 24 or 23 through 27, this is how you follow me. The Same verse in 23 that leads us to ask the question, why would Jesus ask me to deny myself? Jesus, after he said this, this is who I am, he says, this is how you follow me. Why would he ask me to deny myself? But he says, this is how you do it. And repentance and denial are kind of two words that are embedded within each other. You can’t repent without denying yourself. You can’t deny yourself without repentance. And that’s a word that you will just hear us keep saying. And we’re not going to apologize, we’re going to keep talking about repentance around here. Repentance is just turning away from and turning to, turning away from sin and self worship and turning to and embracing Jesus. Turning away from my design, my plan for my world, and turning to and saying, God, your way is right. I’m denying myself, denying my plans for my romantic life, denying plans for how I handle my finances, denying plans for how I do this, that or the other thing, and turning to and saying, God, I follow you. God, I’m turning away from everything that competes with you in my life and turning to and embracing you. And there’s good times and good rules and good things for these things over here. A lot of times, of course, you know, what you know is obvious sin. Put it away and put it to death and turn to embrace God. But a lot of times we get confused by just elevating good things into the thing. But he says, turn away from those and turn to and follow me. It’s a very clear, very distinct turning away from sin and turning to follow Jesus. For some of us, it’s something that you need to do that you’ve never done. And we’ll talk about that in just a bit. Some of you that that needs to happen today to put your faith in Jesus to repent to and turn and trust in him. Consider it an invitation this morning for others. Maybe we’ve simply just been unwilling to pick up our cross. Yeah, I’m okay doing the church thing kind of, sort of sometimes, or I’m going to do the church thing when it’s just convenient for me. Unless there’s something else competing or God, I know what you say about my taxes, but I’m going to kind of handle those on my own. God, I’m going to handle this, that or the other thing how I want to. And we’ve been unwilling to pick up our cross, self included. Maybe it’s an invitation to ask ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where have we been disobedient? Because the Christian life is carrying our cross constantly. The reformer Martin Luther said, the whole of the Christian life is repentance. The more we grow in Christ likeness, the more we’re going to realize just how badly we need this Jesus. When we look at the whole of our lives, there is not one square inch of it that should not be turned over to Him. We’ve died to ourselves and we’re his now. And for some, that’s going to mean something like a call to full time Christian ministry here or internationally. For some it might be denying ourselves of a dream that we’ve always had to go someplace and do something, but. But giving it to the Lord instead. For some though, it’s going to cost us. Not just some, for all it’s gonna cost us, it’s a call to radical obedience. Friends, if we are walking with Jesus, we should look different. Like our lives should look noticeably different than before and especially the world. No one’s gonna probably come up to you and ask you why you look different, but we get to please God and we get to do that. We should look kind of odd. Not to be unnecessarily odd, but we get to be a part of it. Like simple things like when we’re really honest at work, like doing things like being just absurdly honest when we know a little white lie could get us a promotion. Or refraining from gossip at our kids basketball game when you know that could gain you some popularity amongst other people. Or being nice to the guy that lives down the street. That is just really difficult. It’s going to make us look different. It’s going to make us look strange whenever, however or wherever it is. If we’re following Jesus well, it’s not going to just cost us something, it’s going to cost us everything. But we gain Jesus. He’s far and away worthy to ask These things of us. He’s far and away capable and he deserves the praise. He’s worth following because in him we have life and abundance and forgiveness of sins. And we follow this Jesus by taking up our cross daily. It’s a conscious, purposeful decision. You don’t accidentally become more like Jesus. You don’t accidentally, like, start following Him. Nobody’s ever slumped into faith, faith. It’s a conscious, purposeful decision each and every day, not even just daily. It’s moment by moment. Following Jesus happens on purpose forever, now and always. And if this is your heartbeat, friends, be encouraged because he says in the end of the Gospel of Matthew, he’s with you every step of the way. He’s with you and he’s for you. Romans 8 would say that if God is against or God’s not against us. If God is for us, who can be against us? He is with us every step of the way. If he is for you, then who can be against you? He is with you. He is for you. We get to follow this Jesus. We must follow him by taking up our cross daily. As we get ready for our final song, I just want to encourage you to do at least one of a couple of things. Just pause, even if it’s for a moment. Some of you I know don’t get many moments in the week to pause and stop and just be still with God. Please, please do that. Even if it’s only for a moment. Pause and be still and be with God and say, God, how would you have me respond to your word this morning? That’s a good habit to be into anytime you hear God’s Word proclaimed or read it, or just encounter in some sort of way sitting God. What. What might. What might I need to give up? Where have I maybe been disobedient? Where can I delight in you more? And for some of you, maybe this is a chance to come and you’ve lived a whole life not knowing Jesus. And so it’s a chance to come to him and to know him and to enjoy him. And so, as the band comes up and leads us in the last song, take the time to sit and reflect and be still and feel free to join in the worship singing whenever you’ve had had your time with the Lord. Let’s pray. God, we thank you for you and for this time that you’ve. That you’ve made. All of it belongs to you. It’s good, it’s right, it’s wonderful. And we get to know you and love you. And I think about hearts in this room. And you do, too, even more so who really, who really love you and are strugglers and have a deep willingness to pick up a cross. They just need help. Would you reveal that? Or would you soften hearts that are hard, that maybe think that they’ve got it all together? And also we think about, too, the hearts that don’t know you. We pray that you’d bring them to repentance this morning to come and love and enjoy you. God, you are worthy of our worship. You are more than worthy of asking us to deny ourselves, because you alone are worth following. Because we may lose everything, but we gain even more when we get you. What a wonderful gift that is. We thank you. We can receive these things by grace, through faith. We love you. And it’s in Jesus precious name we pray. Amen.