(Text Only)
Title: Self-Crucifixion, Part Two
Story of the woman and the silversmith from Zechariah 13:9 “I will refine them like silver…”
As we stated during last week’s introductory sermon to this series, there are two questions that we must begin to grasp from verse 24, before we can begin to understand the gravity of Jesus’s words in verses 25-28.
Today, I’d like to deal with these two questions.
Two Questions:
First, question: What does it mean to deny ourselves?
Second Question: What does it mean to take up our cross?
The reason it is so important to be able to answer these two questions is because we see a logical order in what Jesus is teaching us. He says, “If the goal is following me (becoming a true disciple) two things must first happen. First you have to learn to deny yourself, and secondly, you have to take up your own cross.”
I. What does it mean to deny ourselves?
A Look at the Language:
deny: apareneomai in Greek. (Ah-par-aye-oh-my)
Definition: to affirm that one has no acquaintance or connection with someone, to forget one’s self, to lose sight of one’s self and one’s own interests.
In Viktor Kuligan’s book “10 Things I Wish Jesus Never Said” Kuligan does some very interesting work breaking down this passage and comes up with at least 4 categories that we should consider to begin to grasp the fullness of what Jesus is teaching here.
Kuligan’s List:
- Crucify the sexual self (What do we allow our eyes/minds/hands to dwell upon?)
- Crucify the material self (What in my culture/society/personal life is contrary to the Gospel?)
- Crucify the worldly self (What am I actually working toward?)
- Crucify the egotistical self (Is my life about God’s glory, or my own?)
- Others?
Now, you may be asking yourselves, “Why is Kuligan saying to crucify these things, instead of to just deny these things?” That’s a fair question, and we will answer that in just a minute, it has to do with the violence of another word in the passage that we will get to in just a minute.
Conclusion:
To deny ourselves is to:
- crucify what seems natural to us (working toward our fleshly desires)
- to trust that by being obedient to Scripture
- to step out in faith by doing what seems unnatural
- to trust God’s provision upon our lives will bring us a greater joy than we could ever achieve for ourselves.
Why is this so hard to do?
- What does it mean to take up our cross?
Last week we spent a considerable amount of time recognizing that we each have a universal cross and simultaneously personal cross.
Universally, we all bear sin, personally, that sin can be a very unique and individual struggle.
Now a moment ago, I gave away that the reason Kuligan goes to the extreme of using the term “crucify” is because of the violence connotation of another word in this passage, anyone know what that other word or phrase is?
A Look at the language
Take Up: iro in Greek (eye-row)
Definition: to take by force, to take from among the living-either by natural death-or by violence, to cause to cease existing
This is one of those classic examples of the difficulty of translation.
This word doesn’t mean “take” like you would say, “I’m taking the dirty plates to the dishwasher.”
It means “take” like you would say, “He took his own life.”
POINT: Jesus is not telling us to MOVE the things we struggle with, he’s telling us to KILL the things we struggle with.
John Piper delivered an extremely powerful sermon on this topic from
Romans 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
His sermon title: “Be Killing Sin, or Sin Will Be Killing You.”
As we draw to a close this morning, there is something in this text that I really don’t want us to miss…it’s subtle, but extremely important to note. Earlier we stated that this process seems to be 3 fold:
A 3-Fold Process?
- Deny yourself
- Take up your cross
- Follow me
But there are actually 4 points to this process, and we are missing the first one. It comes even before we deny ourselves, anyone see it?
Desire to come after Me
Based on that discovery, I want everyone here to ask themselves the following questions as we close this morning.
Concluding Personal Questions:
- Do you believe that you desire to truly follow Jesus?
- Can you honestly say that put God’s will first in your life, and deny the fleshly self?
- Do you prove that by actively, continually, take steps to kill the sin in your life?
If your answer is that you are not sure, that you don’t know how, please, please, please talk to me.
Salvation is free, and costs us everything.