#CrossChallenge

Introduction

It’s that time of year for refreshing and refocusing—a needed rhythm in life. If you are the kind to set goals or make resolutions, I want to encourage you in it; self-discipline and personal growth, particularly in spiritual things are worthwhile.

Along with goal-setting, there is also much talk this time of year about things that happened in the past 12 mos. For example: Viral Challenges of 2018. You might recall the very meaningful ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from years ago. 2018 challenges weren’t quite as meaningful: #neymarchallenge, #MatildaChallenge, and #GoldenRetrieverEggChallenge.

There is another challenge that has gone viral among Christians for two millennia. It’s far more serious and impactful than today’s viral challenges, and so I don’t intend to cheapen it with that comparison. That said, here we have a calling / challenge to replicate the very costly action and attitude of Christ. When that goes viral, the world changes in so many ways for the better. Am I living the challenge?

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

Read Luke 9:18-27. Jesus reveals to his disciples that at the center of living his purpose would be rejection, suffering, and death. This didn’t mesh with their thinking (see Matt 16:22 and Mark 8:32).

Then Jesus takes it a step further, and here’s where the challenge is for us:

Luke 9:23 ESV

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

We do an injustice to this teaching when we make it about whatever hardship we’re enduring (i.e. health issues, financial struggles, difficult family members… “that’s my cross to bear”). “Taking up [one’s] cross” is not about merely enduring whatever difficulty or affliction you have. It is about replicating the attitude and actions of the One who set his own longings aside for will of God and the good of others.

To follow Christ is to die to self-centeredness and self-indulgence. It is the way of self-denial and costly sacrifice for others. Daily:

choosing what is right, yet difficult

satisfying another at the cost of one’s own gratification

giving that hurts, rather than from the excess

putting God’s goals before my goals

Following Jesus is costly. But he is highlighting something else for us here: Choosing self-gratification and self-indulgence has an even greater cost.

Luke 9:24–25 ESV

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

The way of the cross (self-denial / -sacrifice) is ultimately salvation and life. The way of self-gratification and -indulgence is in the end a total loss.

It’s been called the “Cost of Nondiscipleship.” What does it cost to not follow Jesus? Ultimately, to reject discipleship is to reject salvation and life. It is to be lost.

But I think there are other costs, too. Cross-bearing is supposed to be a daily thing—not a one-time thing. What is the cost of not living the cross challenge today?

It’s a Wonderful Life

I read a thought-provoking article this past week about the 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

George Bailey - a man with big dreams of exploring the world and accomplishing things of great consequence.

We see his dreams frustrated repeatedly. His frustration and discouragement builds to the point where he thinks it would have been better for him to never have been born.

Silly bit of theology: an angel named Clarence (trying to win his wings) comes to save George from his self-destructing path. Shows him what Bedford Falls would have looked like if he had never been born. (Darkness, depravity, death, loneliness, bitterness)

In the end, George sees his life more clearly, more wonderfully.

But here’s the part I missed: The story is not merely telling us that it matters that a man was born, but that the the man repeatedly choose the right-but-hard path.

deaf in one ear because he jumped in icy water to save his brother

loses his dreams and professional fulfillment because his community needs him to a job that he did not enjoy or want (he just happened to be the one man positioned to keep Mr. Potter from taking over)

gives us his honeymoon savings and faces financial hardship to personally back his clients in a time of need

he even moves into a money-pit house he hates—a move of self-sacrifice for his wife

The better and harder message of the story is that putting the good and right above your own dreams and longings (self-denial) makes a world of difference for those around you (though sometime you may not see or feel anything but your own frustration).

“As costly as George’s virtue was to him personally, the absence of his virtue would have cost his community far more.” K.B. Hoyle

Conclusion

What is the cost of not living the cross challenge today? What does it cost my children? Wife? Co-workers? Neighbors? Church family? Parents?

Self-gratification is only temporarily satisfying. Self-denial and the daily choice to live as Christ in the world is eternally fruitful and rewarding.

Let’s take the cross challenge:

Luke 9:23 ESV

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