Luke 9:23-27
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Introduction:
“Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God’s will – even if it means you will suffer – is something very different. No normal, healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God’s will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.” – Oswald Chambers
Theme: Three Conditions of Discipleship
Text: Luke 9:23-27
One quick note about verse 27 before we begin – I want to address it now so that you don’t have to wonder about it the whole time and so that momentum doesn’t stall at the end. This verse has caused confusion because the second coming and Jesus setting up His kingdom on earth has not happened yet, but all of the people standing there when Jesus said these words died a very long time ago. Did Jesus make a mistake here?
There are a lot of different explanations for these words. The most common is that Peter, John, and James got to see the kingdom of God when Jesus was transfigured in the following verses. They see Jesus’ glory and kingly majesty – they see the kingdom of God. You can also look to the book Revelation, where the apostle John sees the kingdom of God. He got to see it and write about it in Revelation 21. And there are other ways to understand it. In a sense we see the kingdom of God as we see and are a part of the church. Personally, I think Jesus was talking about the transfiguration in the verses that follow.
Jesus gives some very serious expectations for the one who wants to be His disciple. We’ll explain the terms in detail in a bit, but the short of it is: Jesus expects His disciples to make their lives not about themselves but about Jesus. By all accounts, coming from anyone but Jesus, that is an extreme demand.
Imagine someone, other than Jesus, that you respect and look up to. That could be a teacher. Could be a family member. Could be a spouse. Could be some historical figure. Now, imagine that person tells you “from now on you must choose to do my will, not your own will.” How would you react to that?
For me I think of a teacher I had, Dr. Ed Chesley. Dr. Chesley is probably one of the healthiest Christians that I have ever met, and I don’t mean physically though he was that too. Dr. Chesley loves God and he loves people. He really does. And his life and disposition is of joy. He’s always smiling, good natured, funny.
He’s also a wise teacher. I remember something he once said to the class about sin. *should be trying to back away from it, not get as close as we can* Don’t ask what you can get away with. Ask how you can get closer to being like Jesus.
It’s kind of ironic that my most vivid memory of him was the time he confronted me about ignoring him. At my undergraduate school, faculty had a few students assigned to them and they were to personally meet with them once a month for prayer and discipleship and accountability. Well, when Dr. Chesley emailed me about that to set up a time, I was busy and I let the email pass.
When I got to his class, he told me that was sin. It’s wrong and rude to ignore others. He did that when no one else was around. I was embarrassed about it, but glad that he did. I respected him more for it.
When I think of him, I think of all the things that I want to be. I hope to be so much like him one day.
But you know, as much as I think of Dr. Chesley, if Dr. Chesley were to say to me “you must stop living your life according to your own will, and instead live according to mine.” I would say “no way. Who are you, to ask me to make my life about you instead of about me? You’re a better person than I will ever be, but you and I are still both human.”
It’s fitting then, that these words come in the midst of the verses explaining who Jesus is. From anyone else, the claims in these verses would be absurd. But of Jesus, God says “This is my Son; My Chosen One; listen to him!” This is Jesus giving these words. This is the Christ of God. This is the Savior. This is the divine Son of God. This is God’s Chosen One.
He’s not just some exceptional moral teacher. He’s not Moses reincarnated. He’s not some social revolutionary for us to model our politics after. He’s not just a good example.
When Jesus tells us to do this, it is not just a person that we respect and look up to. We are being told this by God’s very own Son. All things were made through Him, including you and I, and nothing has been made apart from Him. In Him is life, and He is the light of men.
We must listen to Him.
And He says if you want to save your life you must lose it. If you want to live you have to die. And if you want to be my disciple, you need to do what I tell you to do.
Jesus gives us three conditions of discipleship, and then explains and defends these expectations.
To be a disciple of Jesus, Jesus says that you must:
- Deny Yourself
- Take up Your Cross
- Follow Jesus
Deny Yourself:
This does not say deny yourself of certain things, it says deny yourself. It is a mandate to reject a life based on self-interest and self-fulfillment. That does not, contrary to what it first might seem, translate to “have no more fun in life.”
It is not a mandate against fun and happiness. Far from it. It is the path to life in the fullest and most joyful sense. It is trading selfishness – which we were not made for – for being lovers of God and lovers of people – which God did make us for.
It simply means that your life must no longer be about you and your plans and your fulfillment and your enrichment and you, you, you.
I think that Dr. Chesley put this into practice, and it did not make him into a sad and boring person. He was instead a happy and funny person, who enjoyed God immensely and had excellent relationships with other people.
Link: So, first, we must deny ourselves. Second:
Take up Your Cross:
These days the cross is a beautiful decoration. And we sing of it in affectionate terms, because on this side of the cross, we see how it represents the deepest love and grace and sacrifice and forgiveness.
But when these words were spoken and on through to when they were written down, the cross was the stuff of nightmares. Being crucified would be the worst nightmare of many people living during these times. It represented suffering and death. People who for various reasons fell under the ire of the Romans would be nailed to a piece of wood and left outside of a town to die publicly. People who saw and heard it would be forever traumatized by it and fear.
And people who naively watched The Passion of the Christ know a bit about what I’m talking about. It was a horrible and traumatizing thing.
What these words would mean as they were spoken and written, not as they are thought of today, is that you must be committed to Jesus whatever the cost. It’s a denial of self, even to the point of suffering and death. And that’s the most radical fulfillment of it.
But notice we are called to take up our cross daily. You don’t suffer murder every day! Chances are you will never have to suffer being murdered. So this must mean a daily kind of mindset. The cross is the extreme example so that we know our commitment must be unwavering.
But on a day to day basis, this will be much less extreme. The cost will usually be much smaller than a literal cross. You might have to suffer some insults, indignities, turn the other cheek. You might have to be tired, or hungry, or sad. You might need to spend time with someone hurting when you’d rather do something entertaining.
Whenever you choose to endure something you’d rather not do for the sake of following Christ, that is what it means to take up your cross daily. Large or small, extreme or minor, obedience whatever the cost.
Link: So, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily. And third we must
Follow Jesus:
This one is pretty easy to understand. It’s not always easy to put into practice. But it’s easy to understand. It simply means we must strive to obey and be like our master. We try to have the kind of impeccable character that Jesus has. We do what He tells us to do. Go where He goes. Love as He loves. Sacrifice as He sacrifices.
Verse 23 is the key verse. This is one of those verses I’d encourage you to memorize. Actually, all of these verses are worth memorizing. Memorizing Bible verses is a great discipline, not done enough. You definitely want to memorize Luke 9:23 though, as it expresses so well what Jesus wants His disciples to do.
The other verses help to explain and defend verse 23.
Verse 24 is such a memorable statement. Jesus gives these two antithetical and surprising statements that go against the grain of our everyday understanding. Jesus says that if you try to save your life, you will end up losing it. But if you allow your life to be lost, you will end up saving it.
That’s interesting because it’s backwards form what you’d naturally expect. Saving your life is the way to keep it and losing your life is the way to forfeit it.
But what Jesus is talking about is really elaborating on verse 23. If you want to really live, really live the full and abundant Christian life: that life is lived by denying yourself, or dying to yourself.
Trying to save your life is equivalent to living life your way. Pursuing your own plans, pursuing your own desires, living in a self-centered way: if you do that, you will instead lose your life. That kind of life is death. But the life lived in abandonment to self and commitment to following Christ, living Jesus’ life rather than your own, in other words: losing your life for Jesus’ sake. That kind of path results in true life.
In fact, the kind of life that Jesus calls us to is the life we were created for. We were made to be centered upon God, fulfilling the life and expectations He gave to us, enjoying Him, worshipping Him. We were not made to live our lives in reference to ourselves, pursuing our own glory, trying to find enjoyment and fulfillment apart from God. That was the sin that caused Satan to fall, and that was the sin that caused mankind to fall.
Verse 25 reinforces the point of 23 and 24: in the end, what is your profit if you gain all that you ever dreamed of, succeeded in all of your pursuits, gain the whole world even. If at the end you lose yourself.
Look no further than the method, goals, and end of Satan to discover the truth of that. Satan decided that he wanted to be worshipped as God and ascend into the highest heaven. He’ll never succeed at that, but he has succeeded in causing quite a lot of mess and he does have a lot of followers. Next to God, he is the second most worshipped being in the universe. And he is called the prince of the power of the air. But what good is that going to do him when what awaits him is eternal destruction? Surely, it is not worth it.
And as a human, you are certainly never going to gain the whole world. You might gain some social standing, some wealth, some happiness, but its small potatoes compared to what is at stake and you can’t take any of it with you when you die.
So, this call to discipleship that Jesus gives, while it might sound hard, is truthfully the only sensible way to live. Life apart from God and His will is not life at all and has no eternal benefit. Life lived in relationship with God and according to His will has immense benefit in the here and now, as it invigorates your joy and thankfulness, and it has – even better – eternal benefit and eternal treasures that can never rust away or be destroyed.
I want to take a moment here to clarify a confusion that could come about as you hear and read this verses: one way to take these verses, and that people have taken them, is that you need to work to be saved. That’s a misunderstanding of the verses here. These verses do not teach that forgiveness is earned through works, or that you pay for your redemption yourself, or anything like that. The consistent teaching of the Bible is that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. The work that we have done and the payment we have earned by it is death. But, the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. We earned judgment. Jesus earned for us eternal salvation and reward.
In fact, just before these verses, Jesus told His disciples that He must suffer many things, be killed, and then on the third day be raised. What would be the point of that if we had to earn our salvation through following Jesus? If we earn our own salvation, then Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection were wasteful.
There is no point to Jesus shedding His blood if we earn our own salvation. And us taking communion to commemorate the broken body and shed blood of Jesus would also be silly.
No, these verses are not about earning our salvation.
But the reason it talks about gaining your life vs. losing it and Jesus being ashamed of those who deny Him at His coming is because these verses have everything to do with your relationship to Jesus.
Some people have no relationship with Jesus. Some think that they do, but they really do not. Some just know that they do not and don’t want to. These people seek to save their life by living life their own way. They seek life through themselves. Some are seeking their best life in eternity, but they are doing it wrong by trusting in themselves. Some are just seeking their best life on earth. Jesus is not their Savior, they are, and you cannot save yourself. Such people will lose their life in the end.
Other people know that Jesus is their Savior and they don’t try to save their lives. They don’t need to live for themselves and for reward, they don’t need to live selfishly, because they know that Jesus has already saved them and earned all of their reward. These people will live and they will live life to the fullest.
And other people are saved but not quite committed. These are the ones in verse 26 – the ashamed ones. We know these people are saved because Jesus is embarrassed about them when He returns. Jesus would not be embarrassed about someone that has no relationship with Him whatsoever. Jesus is ashamed because, though He has saved these people, though He gave all for them even His own blood – yet they are not willing to even acknowledge Him before others.
Boy, just think about how you would feel! Imagine someone you know and love is dying of kidney disease. You donate your own kidney to save this person. They accept it. They are initially grateful. But then you find out that they’re telling people that they don’t know you! They’re embarrassed about you. Afraid to take any kind of stand for you. You saved them! How would you feel? You would feel ashamed. That is what we as believers do to Jesus when we choose not to live for Him, only it is even worse because He didn’t just donate a kidney – He suffered and experienced death and judgment to save us.
It doesn’t cause us to lose our salvation. But when we meet Jesus we aren’t met with “well done my good and faithful servant.” We are instead met with shame. That’s not what I want to experience when I meet Jesus face to face. Do you?
Application:
What is your relationship to Jesus?
What is your level of commitment to Jesus?
The only way to have eternal life is through faith in Jesus. The only way to have abundant life is through following Jesus as His disciple.