Mark 8:34-38

(March 16, 2003 Sermon Transcript)

        Dear friends in Christ, I don’t know about you, but I do know about me, and I have to tell you that I really hate self-denial. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the things that I think rubs us the wrong way as human beings than just about anything else.

        And as I have gotten older I have realized that self-denial involves convincing oneself, for instance, to get oneself out of the lazyboy for some regular exercise from time to time or things will continue to go to pot. Or, it you prefer, as we mature we grow in our understanding that, in fact, those favorite foods that we’ve always so much enjoyed, now have a price that comes with them, often after the fact. And now we have to deny ourselves the pleasure of tasting them. Or, if you like, try walking into City Market between 4:30 and 5:00 and having to walk past the freshly baked French Bread section without purchasing any. And you begin to get the idea of self-denial.

        But this text, this gospel lesson today, talks about a self-denial that goes well beyond our favorite food, well beyond a favorite day of golfing or skiing, and in fact, addresses the entire denial of self, in totality. And that brings us pause.

        To deny self in such a way that self is completely denied.

        The consequences of self-denial, as Jesus points out, are both temporal and eternal. Ponder for a moment, if you will, in a meditative sort of way, what this really means. Whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it, but whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

        What really matters in life?

        Some would say that what really matters is to live a good life. And I want you to notice that Jesus addresses that particular issue with rather stark clarity. He says, What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

        In essence, Jesus comes to us and says, "You want to live the good life? Fine and dandy. Let me tell you what the penultimate good life really is. It is to gain the entire world, anything that anyone could ever want." Because, you see, what our old human nature really wants, above all else, is to deny ourselves nothing whatsoever.

        Solomon in Ecclesiastes, tried that, been there, done that. And he writes, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)

        Been there, done that, didn’t find any profit to it. To gain the whole world, to have all the worlds’ wealth, all the world’s power, all the world’s pleasures. To gain the whole world, to enjoy earthly glory from men, to obtain the greatest of beauty, the most exquisite of pleasures. To gain the whole world, to know the taste of the world’s finest delicacies, and to drink the finest of its wine, and to know without a shadow of a doubt that anything you’ve ever wanted, you can have.

        To be highly esteemed in the eyes of men, to achieve what no man has ever achieved, to exercise power that no man has ever exercised!

        And Jesus says, even if it were possible (and of course it isn’t) it would result in the loss of everything that matters. As I read through the text, I discovered there’s a word in the Greek that doesn’t translate very well into the English. The word is yuchn. It’s the word from which we derive words like psychiatrist, and psychology, and even psychic, if you will. If we translate it to the simple English word, life, as in the NIV translation, it is really quite inadequate. For it refers not only to the fact that our bodies, our exteriors, are alive. It also refers to our interior, the real us, the ego if you will, that exists inside of us all. Where everything is there, and which includes and embraces the soul.

        And so, when Jesus says, to gain the whole world but to forfeit your soul, or to forfeit your life, is to forfeit not only what this world offers but also what the next world offers through Christ as well. It is a loss that is utterly and absolutely total. Life to the utmost, if that is what is sought, is lost.

        Now, the problem of course, is that we don’t want to lose this life. We like this life. We like the pleasures of this life. And frankly, some, if not all of them, are given to us, in their proper context, for the enjoyment of this life. But they cannot, Jesus says, come first. They are not that which is the most important. They are secondary in their nature, and to be used according to His will, not in opposition to His will.

        It is the natural will of man, of course, that seeks to choose pleasures and joys, and to deny oneself nothing at all. For the free will of man was lost in the fall, you see, and that is how we got into this situation The free will of man is not free. It is bound. And if fact, it is exercised in such a way that the only exercise of this free will is not to choose to be godly, not to choose to believe, for that is quite beyond us.

        St. Paul makes that clear in I Corinthians (2:14) when he writes, The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

        In other the words, the spirit of God must unfold them to us and change our hearts and minds so that we can even know that we are sinful, and put the things of this life in their proper perspective and understand the will of God. No, the free will of man says, "I will satisfy myself!"

        And that of course, leads, as Jesus clearly says, to the losing of one’s life.

        The results of such choices are eternal. Jesus says, If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

        What really matters?

        Jesus says what really matters is the denial of oneself and the bearing of one’s cross. Boy, that’s something you didn’t really want to hear.

        What does it mean to deny oneself? Please notice what Jesus doesn’t say. Jesus does not say, "Whoever wills to lose his life for my sake will gain it." We cannot will to lose our life. Our natural man finds that quite impossible. Rather, we only will to gain the world.

        And so, we are unable to do the will of God by ourselves. We are unable to believe by ourselves. We are unable to have faith by ourselves. All of this is a measure of God’s grace given to us.

        He comes to us by the means of grace. Through word and sacrament. And He comes to our unbelieving hearts, and He says to us by it’s power, "I will change you, and I will turn you from unbelief to belief, and I will enable you to see My will, and I will give you strength and enable you to do My will as My people. You may have no credit, for it is all a measure of my grace within you."

        Self-denial, then, is what God enables us to do.

        Consider ourselves before the cross of Jesus Christ. If ever there were a place, in all of human history, or in our hearts, in which we may not stand in the light of self-interest, it is on the ground in front of the cross. If ever there were a great example of what self-denial was all about, I would say to you, "Look to the cross!" For He who has the world, He who is the Creator of the world, who is in fact, the one who keeps the world spinning on its axis denies Himself utterly, so that we might become acceptable to God, and have the whole world.

        The suffering of Jesus Christ is what matters. Not what we want. The wounds of Christ are what matters, not what we’ve done. The payment that Christ renders on behalf of our sins and on behalf of us before the Father, His life’s blood is what matters, not anything that we ourselves have done.

        A word about cross-bearing. Sometimes I think this particular term is misunderstood. We begin to think of it as any suffering that comes our way. Well, I will submit to you that there are plenty of unbelievers who suffer terribly, but they do not bear the cross.

        Here’s the picture. Get it in your mind, if you can. Here are all the believers, the followers of Jesus Christ called by His grace to faith. And we follow behind Him as He bears His cross. Each of us bearing our own on account of our faith. For cross-bearing is always connected with our faith.

        Do you want to have an easy time in life? Then, for goodness sake, reject your Christian faith and go elsewhere! Rather, Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me." Bear the cause of Christ, and follow behind Him in one immense procession as if we ourselves are headed for Golgotha.

        Dear friends, listen to the words of St. Paul as he writes in Galations (5:24,20).   Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

        Crucified the flesh, crucified my self-desire, crucified my self-interests. And I might add, that crucifixion is a long, slow, painful process. What we are talking about is not our conversion, for that is done by God’s grace, and by His word and sacrament. But what we are talking about is living the life of cross-bearing, the life of faith. That which God enables us to do, so that self is denied.

        What really matters is that Christ is not ashamed of us. That Christ is not ashamed of us! To be ashamed of Christ is to prefer the world, and what it offers, to Him! And please notice the connection He makes. If anyone is ashamed of me (and please notice the next words) and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him...

        How often do we try to turn away from God’s word? To turn away from it is to, maybe not blatantly deny it, but to cast doubt on it. To contradict it. To say, "Well that’s probably not what God meant to say", and so justify our own walking in our own way, again so that self is not denied.

        You cannot separate Christ from His word, from the things that He says. In the Greek it is really quite explicit. In fact, it says, "If anyone is ashamed of me and of my speakings..." -- everything that He said. He will be ashamed of him when He comes in all His glory.

        That day is coming. It’s quite beyond our imagining. We look forward to it. Lent is a season of anticipation, yes, penitence, and yes, the appreciation of the great cost paid for our salvation, but it always leans toward Easter, and the celebration of the victory of Christ over sin and the grave. Lent always leans toward, not only that, but also the second coming of Christ. When He comes in the Father’s glory and with all the angels, I can’t imagine what that will be like! But I can tell you that the Father’s glory is the sum total of all of God’s attributes that will be plainly and evidently seen. It will literally take our breath away.

        When He comes, what will He say of us? For I assure you, at that time, we can say nothing of ourselves. Other than to raise our heads and say, "There! There is my redeemer! There is the one who has saved me from sin, and death in the grave! Not through anything I have done, but by everything He has accomplished."

        That will be a statement of self-denial. And a statement that He will enable us to say. And to empower us to speak.

        When Christ comes in all His glory, He will acknowledge us, not as ones of whom He is ashamed, but as His own children. Instead of being ashamed of us, He will call us His own, because He has called us to faith. He will call us our own because He has forgiven our sins. He will call us His own because He welcomes us to the New Jerusalem, the new creation, after this old one has passed away, with all its flaws and conflicts.

        He is not going to be ashamed of us, because our sins have been completely washed away, through the fount of Holy Baptism and the blood of Jesus Christ. He is not ashamed of us, simply because we bear the name of the one who denied Himself for us. In Jesus’ name, Amen!