Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?- Matthew 16:24-26
What would you be willing to sacrifice for God? What would you be willing to give up in your life in order to serve God better? What would you be willing to change in your life to live more the way God wants you to live? What would you be willing to sacrifice? A lot? A little? Whatever you have left over?
Is sacrifice a word you use to describe your relationship with God? It's not a concept that many modern Christians use to describe the Christian life. Many modern Christians think that if they are good Christians then they will be rewarded with stuff. They don't necessarily think that being a Christian means making sacrifices, except, perhaps, during Lent, and a lot of the non-denominational churches have given up Lent.
The early Christians understood the idea of sacrifice much better than we do. They understood that at the center of the Christian life is the question, “What can I do for God?” Why were they clearer? They were clearer because for them to be a Christian meant making huge sacrifices. For the first three hundred years Christians followed Christ as outcasts from the Roman Empire . For most of that time being a Christian was outlawed, or at least it was forced to be subservient to the religion of Caesar worship. In fact, that little Christian fish symbol that you see on people's cars was a symbol created by the early Christians to express their faith in secret. If you were talking with someone, and you suspected her or him of being a Christian, you would draw an upside down smile. If the person were a Christian, she or he would complete the fish symbol with a right-side-up smile. In those days being a public Christian could mean losing your job, being ostracized by the community, and even sometimes killed during the periodic pogroms against Christians.
Today we think very differently about Christian faith because we live in a culture founded on Christian principles. This is not the same as saying that we are a Christian nation. We aren't. We are a multi-cultural, multi-religious nation built on Christian principles. We have freedom of worship, belief, and religion. We don't generally have to sacrifice much to be Christians. As a result, we tend to think more along the lines of what can God do for me, rather than along the line of what I can do for God.
You can see this “what can God do for me” approach reflected in modern church and worship. There is such a push today to make church more and more accessible, more and more relevant, more and more hip, more and more focused on where our population is. Don't get me wrong on this. You can see from the way we do things at Calvin Church that I'm a big advocate of adjusting our worship to be multi-generational so that it touches people of all ages. With that said, I'm also aware that many churches today do whatever they can to make church easy, and to diminish the idea of self-denial for God. They become so cultural in the way they do things that they turn their churches into religious clubs, offering X-box, Wii, softplay areas, raffles, and the like. One new church in the area advertises itself as a church that is “easy to attend, invite, understand.” The emphasis is on “easy.”
I have nothing against these churches personally because I recognize that they are doing everything they can to reach people for Christ. I just recognize that making things “easy” was never part of Jesus' message, and by making things easy they can easily sacrifice Jesus' emphasis on sacrifice. By trying to make worship easy, scripture easy, church easy, they create the conditions where people think that Christian faith doesn't require sacrifice, devotion, commitment, and denying themselves. The reality is that Jesus says that Christian faith is hard precisely because it calls us to sacrifice for God.
What does Jesus say about all this? He says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Why does he say this? It's an odd thing to say, especially since he hadn't even gone to the cross yet. How can he use the cross as an example, when it hadn't even become known as a symbol? Actually, the cross in Jesus' day was already a powerful symbol. Crucifixions weren't rare events. They were common events. The Romans used crucifixions constantly to keep down rebellions and insurrections. If there was any hint of rebellion by anyone, any hint that someone could be fomenting anti-Roman opinion and starting a movement, the Romans would find him or her guilty and crucify him or her. This is how they kept all the people in line, people who hated the Romans. Crucifixions happened in most towns and provinces. Sometimes, if a rebellion was large enough, the Romans would line the Apian Way , the road that connected the empire, with crosses stretching for five miles. And the tradition was that the person being crucified would have to pick up a large cross and drag it for miles so that by the time he was ready to be crucified, he was already exhausted. So when Jesus used the saying, “take up your cross,” he was using a well-known phrase meaning to sacrifice yourself for a greater good (often the crucified were seen as heroes).
Jesus' disciples all knew the importance of sacrifice. Paul was willing to be beaten and imprisoned for Christ. The apostles all went out into hostile territory to share the message of Christ, and virtually all of them were killed for it. This is one of the reasons, years ago, that I decided that the resurrection must have happened. Otherwise who would die for a lie? These were people who had a passion for the message of Christ, who were willing to take up their crosses daily to spread the word. Who goes into strange lands, traveling hot and dusty roads, with little money, into lands that are unsafe and where they could easily die a painful death, all for a lie? They all believed in denying themselves and taking up their crosses.
What does it mean to deny ourselves and pick up our crosses? It doesn't have to be all gloom and doom . Often we can sacrifice in the simplest ways that bring joy both to others and to ourselves. Real sacrifice eventually brings joy and much more. Let me give you an example.
A number of years ago a young boy named Marty moved with his family to a small house in the forest area outside Redmond , Washington . It was a great place to grow up for a young boy. It was a place filled with rocks, creeks, snakes, salamanders, trees, and so many other natural wonders for a young boy. Within weeks Marty struck up a friendship with Kenny, a young boy who lived a quarter mile through the woods. They did everything together and were inseparable.
Marty's mother noticed one day that Marty had become especially meticulous about cleaning his room, doing his chores, and anything else his mother wanted him to do. And each week, when she gave Marty his allowance for doing all of his chores, she noticed that he would immediately dump out his piggy bank and count the change, adding in his new allowance. It was all very mysterious to her, and when she would ask why he was being so good and so focused on his allowance, he would say, “Oh, no reason.”
Then one day, close to Christmas, Marty came running into the house, shouting “Mom! Mom! Look what I got Kenny for Christmas!” He held out his hand for her to see, and in it was a shiny, new compass. “This is what Kenny wants most in the world! I've been saving up for it forever. I'm going to give it to him as my Christmas gift.” Marty's mom was a bit cautious. She said to Marty, “You know, Kenny's family doesn't have much money. I'm not sure Kenny's mom will be happy with Kenny getting this present because she'll feel that they have to get a present for you, and I don't think they can afford it.” Marty was downcast, moping around for the rest of the afternoon.
In the early evening, Marty came into the room with a smile and said, “Mom, I have an idea. What if I sneak down to his house on Christmas Eve and leave the present for him in secret? He'll never know it was from me.” His mother agreed that this was a great idea, so early in the evening on Christmas Eve Marty left the house in his pajamas, a coat, and a flashlight. He ran through the wood to Kenny's house. Sneaking up on the porch, he carefully pulled the screen door back and placed the present next to the front door. He then pushed the doorbell hard and ran like he was on the lam.
Running through the woods, smiling to himself, he suddenly felt a burning whip across his face that knocked him down on his head. He had forgotten about the electric fence he had to climb under. Walking into the house, he looked at his mother with a quivering lip and a huge, red welt going from the corner of his mouth to his temple. She jumped up to care for his burn, and asked what happened. “I forgot about the electric fence,” he said. “But you know what? I know they didn't see me. Kenny won't suspect a thing.”
On Christmas Day afternoon, Kenny came over and showed Marty his new compass. “I don't know who gave it to me,” he said. “All we know is that last night we heard the doorbell and there was a present for me. Who knew that I wanted this compass? It's perfect!” The rest of the afternoon they played with Marty's toys, and Kenny's compass (adapted from “An Exchange of Gifts, in Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, 1997).
Listening to this story, you can see that Marty made a sacrifice for Kenny, and beneath all that, for God. He understood that the care for Kenny meant giving up his own money. But he didn't care. All he wanted to do was to care. His sacrifice was a joy. The point of all this is that God calls us to sacrifice, not for a reward, but for Christ. Our calling is to sacrifice—to make it about God, not me; to make it about serving, not being served; to make it about giving, not getting.
So much of what we do in the church is based on sacrifice. Why do we call people to serve on committees? It's not to bore people, it's because making this commitment of time and effort consistently, from month to month, serves God. When our members go on mission trips, they are sacrificing time and money for God. When we ask you to give to the church, it's not because we are a business wanting money. We call you to give because sacrificing money for others serves God. Our entire ministry is based on sacrifice of time, effort, and money in order to serve God and others. Look at our staff. They are a group that sacrifices every day. Pretty much all of them could make more money elsewhere, or would enjoy more time not serving here, but they do what they do because they know their sacrifices make a difference. And they don't expect rewards. They just want to serve.
When we sacrifice, expecting a reward from God, we sacrifice for the wrong reasons. But do you want to know something interesting? Sometimes when we make a sacrifice, we get rewarded anyway. For instance, Marty was rewarded in an unexpected way. You can look at his being hit by the electric fence as a bad thing. How could God treat him this way, after all the sacrifices Marty had made? But that burn was a blessing.
Marty's mom noticed something different about Marty on Christmas. Before, whenever Marty listened to others, he would always cock his head like a puppy because he was deaf in one ear. On Christmas Day she noticed that he was no longer cocking his head. A few weeks later, after hearing tests were done at school, the school nurse called his mother to say that there was something wrong with Marty's records. His records said that he was deaf in his right ear, but the tests showed that his hearing was perfect. Whether it was the electric fence or the bump on his head from the fall, something restored Marty's hearing. That was his reward.
Do you know what the funny thing about all this denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Christ is? Sometimes expecting no reward we actually get rewarded. But that's not the point. The point of the Christian life is to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and serve God. This is what we are called to every day. And the irony is that in denying ourselves we often discover ourselves.
Are you willing today to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Christ? If so, how?
Amen.
