What Jesus Commands: Surrender

Life of the Church

Good morning, everyone. Happy Sunday to you, and thank you for joining us for worship.

I have a few announcements to make before we begin this morning. The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:30, all men are invited to attend.

I’ll remind you that we’ll be taking pictures for the new church directory on October 2 from 9-1. There’ll be more details as that date gets nearer, so watch for those.

Our monthly church council meeting will be this coming Tuesday at 7. If you’re on the council, please try to attend.

I’ll remind you as well that we’ll be having a called business meeting after next Sunday’s service to approve the nominating report for the coming year. If you’re a member, please try to attend that. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

We’re going to be offering a new Sunday school class young adults — and adults who are young at heart — starting next week. It will be Charles Stanley’s 30 Life Principles and taught by Joanne, so join her at 9:30 in the classroom right beside the kitchen. If you’re interested, see her after the service for your homework.

We’re still collecting items for Stump’s WRE program. You’ll see a list of what’s needed in your bulletin, and you can leave those in either Randal’s Sunday school classroom, or see Della.

And please keep John Cooper in your prayers. John’s having some pretty serious health issues and his home resting. Please reach out to him as you are able, and be lifting him up to the Lord.

Jesyka, do you have anything this morning?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray.

Father we’re so thankful and humbled to have the privilege and freedom to worship you here today. We come with our burdens, with our cares and our griefs that weigh us down so much, and we cast them at your feet. We pray you be with us now. We pray your spirit upon us as we sing and hear your word. We pray that as we begin we know how much we fall short of your will each day, and that we leave knowing that your love and forgiveness for us is not bound by anything we do, but by your grace alone. For we ask this in your son’s precious name, Amen.

Sermon

My kids have been away at college for about three weeks now. Both of my kids, even though one of them is here today because he got tired of the city and wanted to be in the country again for a couple days.

It’s very quiet around the house now. There’s not a lot to do anymore because there are no messes to clean up and a lot less dishes and clothes to wash. The dog’s depressed because she doesn’t know where half her family’s gone. I’m suddenly feeling a little old.

But this has all reminded me of something I learned a long time ago. As a parent, your job is teaching your kids about life and faith and how to be functioning adults. But it’s mostly you that’s doing the learning, and what you’re learning is how to let go.

That’s all parenting is when you get down to it. It’s one long process of learning to let your kids go. Surrendering them so they can live fuller and more complete lives.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Christian life is like a parent’s life. God is our Father. We’re trying to raise up these tiny people who think they know what they’re doing but really don’t, these tiny people who can’t even take care of themselves, and that’s exactly what God’s doing too with us. And just like a parent’s life is all about learning how to let go, a Christian’s life is the same.

We talked a little about that a couple weeks ago, didn’t we? Letting go of our burdens. Those weights around us. God doesn’t want those burdens on us. He says don’t hang on to them. Cast them. Fling them onto the Lord who wants to take that weight from you.

But it’s tough. Giving up your burdens is so hard. So I’m going to tell you something you might not want to hear: that’s not the only thing God says we have to give him.

In fact, your burdens, big as they are, are actually the smallest thing that God says you have to give him. There’s something else that’s a lot bigger and a lot more important that you’re called to surrender to him. And you’re not doing it. None of us are. You, me, and just about every Christian sitting inside every church in America this morning.

I was asked this week what the biggest problem facing our church is. The biggest problem facing our church is the biggest problem facing every church: We don’t stand in enough opposition to the way our culture is declining.

As Christians we need to be different. We’re called to be different. And yet too many of us act no differently than the unsaved. We talk like the lost. Act like the lost. Think like the lost. And, apart from Sunday morning, live like the lost.

Because it shouldn’t be that way, should it? We’re saved, after all. We have the promise of heaven. Isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that why we’re here in church? I’m going to answer that for you. That answer is no.

If the whole point of life is salvation, why are you still here? Because you’re saved, aren’t you? If the whole point of life is salvation, God would take us all to heaven the moment we were saved. Right?

So there has to be something else that God wants. Jesus says being saved isn’t enough. That’s just the first step. Because once you’re saved, then you have to become a disciple. You have to be called to a different life, a deeper life.

And that’s the problem with the modern church. Its pews are filled with too many Christians and too few disciples. So then the question becomes, What makes a disciple of Christ?

We’re going to be looking at that question for a few weeks, and we’re going to begin by talking about the most important thing that Christ commands, and that is your complete and total surrender to him. For that we’re going to turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 24-27. Read along with me there:

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.”

And this is the word of the Lord.

This passage in Matthew is echoed in the Gospel of Mark, and Mark adds a bit of something to the beginning of verse 24. Mark says that Jesus calls the crowd along with the disciples to tell them this. Meaning that what Jesus is about to say is too important to tell just those twelve disciples closest to him. Everyone needs to hear it.

Jesus looks out over this throng of people. Some of them have been following him for a while now. Others who have only recently accepted his call. But for most of them, and even for some of the disciples, they think his ministry is for a kingdom of this world. They’re with him because they think they’ll get worldly riches and worldly honor and worldly pleasure.

But Jesus puts that sort of thinking to a quick end in verse 24. His ministry is the complete opposite. He says, “you want worldly riches, I tell you to turn away from the world. You want worldly comfort, I tell you to prepare for suffering. Because if you want to follow me — really follow me — then you need to know that there are requirements.”

In other words, Jesus is saying this to the crowd and the disciples who stood with him 2,000 years ago, and he’s saying this to us today: The true salvation I give you is free, but it’ll also cost you everything. Because if you’re truly going to follow me, there are three things you absolutely have to do. You have to deny yourself. You have to take up your cross. And you have to follow me.”

I want to take those three one at a time, but first I want to say something about the translation of what Jesus says in verse 24.

My translation, the ESV, has Jesus saying, “If anyone would come after me.” The NIV says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple.” The New American Standard Bible says, “If anyone wishes to come after me.”

All of those translations fall short of what the original Greek is, and it’s so important to get this right because everything else that Jesus says follows from that. Because the original Greek says, “If any man will come after me.”

Not “would”. Not “wants”. Not “wishes”. Will.

Jesus never said anything he didn’t mean to. Every word he spoke was for a specific reason, and that word “will” is a perfect example. “If anyone will follow me.” Because that word doesn’t imply a want or a wish or a maybe. It implies a choice we make.

We’ve talked before about how each of us is divided on the inside. There’s the part of us that wants to follow God’s direction, and there’s the part of us that wants to follow our own direction. But there’s another part in us too, the part that makes the choice of which direction we follow. And that part is called the will.

Your will is the captain of your soul. Your will is what tells your mind what to look at and what to look away from. Your will is what says yes to one thing (whether it’s good or bad), and no to another (whether it’s good or bad).

Jesus is telling everyone there that following him is something that no one can force you to do, not even God. You have to will it. You have to choose it. But if you will it, then it has to be on his terms. And the first term is that you have to deny yourself.

Now, what’s that mean? This is going to be one of those things that you’re not going to like hearing. And I don’t particularly like saying it, because it applies to me as much as it does to anybody. So I’m going to say it as quickly as I can.

Everything you love. Everything you want. Everything you dream about. Everything you work for. Everything you think makes you happy. Your burdens. Your hopes. Your fears. Your heart. Your mind. Your emotions. Your children. Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Your spouse. Your parents. Your health. Everything you are. Everything about you.

You have to turn away from all of that, you have to let it go, you have to deny it, you have to surrender it all to Jesus and take Jesus himself as your life.

And you thought just casting your burdens on him was hard. Because there’s something inside of us, something powerful, that flinches at the very idea of giving up everything, everything, of ourselves.

I said a little bit ago that we are called to be different than the culture we’re surrounded by. That culture and our own sin are the reasons why we want to stay the nice comfortable Christians we are instead of becoming the disciples Christ wants us to be.

Because what has culture taught you is the most important thing you need to succeed? Self-confidence. What’s the main thing you need to be able to be proud of yourself? Self-esteem. What do you need to feel strong? Self-reliance.

Self-care, self-help, self-love, self-determination, self-assurance, that’s all you hear nowadays because the culture says it’s your self that’s the most important thing. Everything else comes second. YOU matter most of all. It’s what YOU want, what YOU feel, what YOUR opinions are.

And that’s exactly the sin that keeps us from denying ourselves, because the root of it all is that we trust that self we have more than we trust God. Every failure in your Christian life is nothing but that. You trust your own weakness over God’s almighty strength. You trust your sinful self over a sinless Christ.

There’s one of those self-words the culture talks about that really is valuable, though. It’s self-knowledge.

Handing everything you are over to Christ is going to be impossible unless you truly know who you are, unless you know without a doubt that you’ll never be smart enough to overcome your ignorance. You’ll never be good enough to earn a place in heaven. You’ll never be wise enough to find your own peace and happiness.

As a Christian, your first task is to know how great God is and how small you are. You will always fail on your own. The more control you try to have over your own life, the more of a mess you’re going to make of it.

That’s why Christ says, “Let me do it. Let me take care of it all. Lay your self aside, and let me fill you with my spirit.”

And let’s be clear right here: Jesus will never tell you to do anything that he didn’t do himself. Paul says in Philippians 2 that Jesus “emptied himself, and took on the form of a servant.”

That’s exactly what he calls us to do. Jesus says if you want to be my disciple, if you want the life of victory you’re supposed to live in me instead of the life of failure you’ve been living under your own power, the first step is to deny your own will, however pleasing, and do the will of God, however painful.

And after you do that, after you turn your will away from the pleasures and profits of this world and toward God’s will for your life, you have to take up your cross.

Now, what does that mean? Taking up your cross doesn’t mean carrying a burden. Remember, you’re not supposed to be doing that. Instead, this is a picture Jesus is using to describe what he’s just said. Taking up your cross is the same thing as dying to the self.

Jesus drew a crowd wherever he went. But a lot of people in those crowds thought he’d come to free the nation from Roman rule. As soon as Christ began teaching that he was going to die, a lot of his followers turned away. They weren’t willing to put to death their own ideas and plans and desires and exchange them for his.

It’s easy to follow Jesus when everything’s great and you’re getting blessed every day. But Jesus promises that you’re going to have trials in your life. He says that for all the eternal blessings that following him brings, there’s going to be a cost too.

He says, “Are you willing to follow me if it means losing some of your closest friends, or your family, or your reputation, or your job, or even your life? Are you willing to follow me if you have to choose between me and the comforts of life? Because that’s the cross you’re to take up.”

And in Luke’s version of this text, Luke adds the word “daily.” You have to daily take up your cross. You have to daily turn your will to giving up your hopes, your dreams, your possessions, your life, for Christ.

And you have to do it with joy, knowing that what you’re losing of yourself is rubbish compared to the work he’s doing in you and the person he’s transforming you into. That’s what it means to be a disciple.

Until you deny yourself, you’ll never be able to take up your cross. And until you take up your cross, you’ll never be ready to meet Christ’s last term of being a disciple, which is to follow him. They’re steps, and they have to be taken in order.

As a human being, you’re built for two things, and they go hand in hand: you’re built to worship, and to follow what or who you worship. Worshipping and following Christ means setting aside your will for his will, your plans for his plans, your self for his self. It means calling upon the Holy Spirit to empty you of yourself so that you can be filled with Christ. It means being obedient.

1 Peter 1:14-16 says, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

To follow Christ is to live a life of holiness. You can say, “I can’t live a holy life,” but that’s only because you’re leaning on your own broken self and your own weakness. There’s too much of you and not enough him. The more you try, the more you fail. But if you deny yourself, if you take up your cross daily, if you follow him, then that holy life Christ calls you to live becomes more real each day.

You think a holy life is impossible? Then why would Christ call you to live one? Every time you sin, every time you fail, ask yourself why you didn’t do what what you knew Christ wanted you to do. Was it because you couldn’t, or because you wouldn’t? Every single time, it’s because you wouldn’t. It’s because you choose to please yourself rather than God.

As a Christian, you only have two choices in life. You’re going to live for Christ, or you’re going to live for yourself and so the world. And listen, you can be saved and still live for the world. People do it everyday, all the time. That’s why the Christian church has lost its influence in this country, and why Jesus gives that great warning in verse 25:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Again, the translation here is a little off from the Greek. Because whatever your translation has for the start of that verse — whoever wants to save, wishes to save, desires to save — the Greek word is the same one used back up in verse 24.

It’s will. It’s your intention. It’s your choice. And where you find the actual word “will” in that verse — “will lose it” and “will find it” — it means something that’s guaranteed to happen.

Jesus is saying what we all know from our experience but refuse to admit because our pride: when you try to hang on to your way of doing things, to your way of living your life, to the way you think things should go, when you think you can run your life just fine with God shoved in the backseat instead of driving, you’re entire life is going to fall apart. In fact, Jesus says it’s guaranteed to fall apart.

But if you understand that you’ll never be strong enough to overcome your weakness, you’ll never be wise enough to quit acting like a fool, and you’ll never be good enough to forget the shame over all the things you’ve done, then you finally realize that letting go of your life — losing your life, it says in verse 25 — and handing it all to God to use as He sees best isn’t just the only thing you can do, it’s the best thing.

That’s how you start denying that self. And then you can take up your cross, and instead of looking back on all those times you screwed up your life, you can look forward to where he’s moving, and follow him.

You can bear that cross with gladness and joy because you’ve given everything to him. You’re trusting him with it all. You’ve emptied yourself with the Holy Spirit’s help and you’ve let God take over.

You’re not trying to save your life by doing everything you can to avoid pain and trouble and grief, because you’ve finally come to the point where you know the more you try to avoid those things, the more you’re going to find them. But it’s okay, because you have Christ.

He’s standing right before you, and you can’t look at those trouble without looking at him first. You have peace because you know that whatever he allows into your life, blessings or griefs, he allows because he wants to strengthen your faith and make you more like him.

You bear those hurts and you can still smile, because you know that right on the other side of your last breath is a world where there aren’t even words for pain and suffering and grief.

And that, friends, is the world you need to be looking at instead of this one. That world is the one that counts forever. That world is the one Jesus is preparing you for, and he prepares you for it by calling you to live the life of a disciple.

That self you have, that stubbornness that keeps you thinking you know better and more than God, only thinks of this world. And Jesus asks this question in verse 26: what good is it if you gain this fleeting world, all of its treasures that won’t last and all the false happiness it promises, if it costs you that next world with treasures that never fade and more joy than you can imagine?

The word translated as “life” in verse 25 is the same word translated as “soul” in verse 26, and it means life in its highest state. It’s the fullness of life, both in this world and the next.

That’s the life he says you can have if you just offer him your self. But the problem with the self is that it’s always focused on this world. Every moment it tries to convince us that to wallow in the mud when God offers us the stars, because we might be in the mud, but we’re the ones in charge.

The poet John Milton wrote a very famous book called Paradise Lost, and in that book he sums up Satan’s thinking in one sentence. He has Satan say, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

That’s us too, isn’t it? Because we know that God is wiser and more powerful than we can ever be. We claim all the promises of the Bible. We’re thankful that He sent Christ to die for our sins. We’ll give him anything except the thing he wants — control of our lives.

It’s pride that does that, the same pride that cost Lucifer his place in heaven and costs us a life of joy and meaning and fulfillment. A pride that says we don’t need God running our lives. We can do that. A pride that lays heaven aside and embraces earth, because at least then we’ll still be in control.

Jesus says deny that self of yours that wants to narrow your vision to this world alone. Ask the Holy Spirit to empty you of yourself. Let me take control, and I’ll show you the truth.

Because the truth is that inside that broken body of yours is a soul that has infinite value, so much value that I died for it. You are a creation meant for an eternal existence, but unless you stop pleasing yourself, unless you take up the cross and live according to my example, unless you become more than a believer, you become a disciple, you’re going to lose your soul.

You’re going to be cast away and shut out from heaven because you just want a Savior and not a Lord. And that’s going to happen because of verse 27:

For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

Why does Jesus use such strong words in verse 26 to say that every day we have to make the choice between living for him or living for ourselves and the world? Because in verse 27 he says he will come in judgment.

If you waste your soul on the things of this world, if you spend your whole life saying to Jesus, “I’ll give you my money every week, and my time every Sunday morning, but I won’t let you have my hopes, my fears, or my self,” Jesus is going to have no choice but say in the end, “Fine, have it your way.”

And there will be no excuse you can make, no bargain you can offer. From the beginning, Jesus says that he will be the judge of us all, believers and nonbelievers both. It’s there in every sermon he preaches and it’s implied in almost every parable.

He will come with his angels and in the glory of his Father, and verse 27 says that “he will repay each person according to what he has done.”

Isn’t that interesting? Jesus says right here that he’s going to judge everyone not according to their faith, but according to what they’ve done.

That kind of goes against a lot of what the New Testament teaches, doesn’t it? Paul, Peter, John, they all say that it’s faith in Christ that makes heaven possible. It’s faith in Christ’s death and resurrection for our sins. It’s not our own actions. It’s not anything that we do. So why would Christ judge us according to what we do?

Here’s the answer: because faith and action go hand in hand. Because what we truly believe isn’t told by the tongue, but by our actions. The ultimate act of faith on our part is actually two acts: it’s believing that Christ’s death wiped all of our sins from God’s memory, and it’s surrendering every part of ourselves to his holy control.

He must become greater. You must become less. That’s what it means to be a disciple. Every time you please yourself, you deny Christ. It’s one of the two. You either please him and deny yourself, or you please yourself and deny him.

You are called to live the life of Christ. To do that, you have to surrender everything to him. Everything. You have to know how broken you are, and that there’s absolutely nothing you can do on your own to fix it. You have to humble yourself with every sin, every shortcoming, every failure, everything you do that dishonors God, and say, “Lord, this is what I am.”

And then you give all that to Jesus. You take your hands off your life and let him take control.

Then you do it again an hour from now. And this evening. And tonight. And tomorrow, and every day after. Then you come to what the apostle Paul says: “Not I, but Christ who lives in me.” Those two truths go together. First comes “Not I.” Then comes, “but Christ who lives in me.”

That self you have, all those thoughts and feelings and opinions that make you you, that self wants peace more than anything else. But it doesn’t want the things that bring that peace. That’s where your will comes in.

It’s not enough to come to church every Sunday. Not enough to read your Bible or pray. It’s not even enough to have the promise of heaven. You have to sacrifice your self. You have to surrender everything to Jesus.

The priests of old would cut the throats of animals and lay the bodies on the altar before the Lord as a sacrifice for their sins. Those bodies would simply lay there because those animals were dead.

But Paul says you have to make yourself a living sacrifice. Do you know what the problem is with a living sacrifice? It won’t just lie there on the altar, will it? A living sacrifice will just keep crawling off.

That’s why every day we have to put ourselves on that altar and surrender ourselves to Christ. Every day we have to say, “Jesus, everything I do falls short of you. I’m tired of making a mess of my life. Tired of failing, tired of my anger, tired of my fear and doubt. I’ve already accepted you as my savior, but now I want you to be my Lord.”

You have to let go of your life. You have to give it all to him, and the moment you start taking things back, the moment you sacrifice starts crawling off that altar, you have to give it all to him again. It’s the ultimate act of faith. What’s faith when you get right down to it? It’s trust.

Faith is trust. And so even though denying your self and following him is the ultimate act of faith, it’s also the easiest thing in the world, because who can you trust more than the God who loves you? The God who is able to do all things through you? The God who wants and works toward the very best things for you?

That’s who you’re giving yourself up to. That’s who you’re denying your self for. And if you’re ready to do that, and finally take up that cross and truly follow him, then I invite you down up here this morning as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray: Father, we come to you this morning humble, knowing that in our pride we will the control of our lives to ourselves rather than you. Help us to surrender all. Empty us of ourselves, Father, that your Spirit may fill us with Christ. Help us as Christians to act and live as Christians. May people look at us and see Christ. May they listen to us and hear Christ. Because we’re tired of ruling in the mud, Father. Make your will our will. Lift us up and give us your divine knowledge of who we truly are, and what we are truly made for. Then give us the strength each day to lay ourselves on your altar say, Not our will, but yours. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.