What Does God Ask of Us?

Sync Sundays favorite Sundays of the year

Illustration:

Moving weight room equipment to the wrong location

Coach telling me afterwards, “Good work, I can tell you guys worked really hard, but go back and try again.”

Bible Passage: Lk 9:23–26

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Lk 9:23–26.

This is a foundational text to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. That is really just a follower of Jesus. A Christian is the most common name for it today.

Not a calling to some higher form of faith, but the basic calling to following Jesus.

Open to all, Jesus is addressing anyone who would follow him.

We know this because Jesus starts this passage by saying, “if anyone would come after me...”

Jesus turns to a large crowd and when you think he might say something to attract more followers, he does the opposite, he says something deeply convicting yet true (kind of like Luke 14—hating father and mother)

1. God Asks Us for Our Faithfulness

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Lk 9:23

2 Components of Faithfulness:

Self Denial:

Paradoxical in the modern church. Jesus freely gives me everything. Jesus is some sort of utilitarian Genie who when we rub the lamp he jumps out and gives us the answers to our problems and desires.

Making Jesus the Lord of your life.

Everyone will have some aspect of their lives that is difficult to completely surrender to God—your future, your wealth and possessions, your time, your sexual desire, your childhood trauma, your lack of forgiveness towards that person who wronged you so badly...

Freest person in the room is the most surrendered person in the room.

Story at Liberty—welcome center—17 where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Co 3:17.

The Cross

Instrument of suffering and death.

If you suffer on account of your faith, I want you to bear it. I will be in the midst of the suffering with you.

14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Ga 6:14.

2. God Asks Us for Our Life

24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? Lk 9:24-25

Now we get to the crux of the issue—the anwswer to the question that we began with.

God asks everything of us, including our very life itself.

the word for life here is “psuché” in the greek, which is where we get the English word for soul. Many of your translations may even say soul.

Making Jesus Lord of your life, taking yourself out of the driver seat.

will save—“Is minded to save,” bent on saving. The pith of this maxim depends—as often in such weighty sayings (for example, “Let the dead bury the dead,” Mt 8:22)—on the double sense attached to the word “life,” a lower and a higher, the natural and the spiritual, temporal and eternal. An entire sacrifice of the lower, or a willingness to make it, is indispensable to the preservation of the higher life; and he who cannot bring himself to surrender the one for the sake of the other shall eventually lose both. Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 106.

21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Php 1:21.

God does not ask for perfection—God asks for a willingness of surrender.

We ought to evaluate our hearts even more so than our actions because our hearts will dictate who we become and how we live our lives.

Story of talking to friend—sermon on the mount—Jesus magnifies the law and yet says that your faith is far deeper than following a list of rules.

Jesus asks us to evaluate the heart behind why we live our lives for God.

For Jesus, religion was never about fitting the caricature of whatever a Christian is supposed to look like. It was always about whether or not a person had a heart that truly loved God with everything they are—and it's only when we adopt that heart posture that we can truly follow Him.

Do you have a heart completely surrendered to the Lord this morning? And if not, what is standing in your way?

3. God Asks Us to Share Him With Others

Lastly, Jesus raises the bar in his last request from his followers. He takes us to a bigger goal of our small sphere of self and the blessings that we have received in following him and asks us to share that with others.

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Mt 28:18–20.

The Valley of Vision

If this is confusing to you, and you say that none of this makes any sense—”how can life be found in death?”

Let me remind you that God takes the wisdom of the world and flips it on its head. His way is always so much better than the world’s way!

“Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly

Though hast brought me to the valley of vision,

where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;

hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up

that to be low is to be high

that the broken heart is the healed heart

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul

that to have nothing is to possess everything

that the bear the cross is to wear the crown

that to give is to receive

that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells,

and the deeper the wells the brighter the stars shine;

Let me find your light in my darkness

your life in my death

your joy in my sorrow

your grace in my sin

your riches in my poverty

your glory in my valley.”