| “DYING TO LIVE” (Fifth in a Series, “Steps to Spiritual Renewal) Isaiah 53:1-12; Mark 8:31-38 Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA © Rev. Linda Jaymes, 5/30/10 |
We’ve been looking at some of the steps we can take to open ourselves up to spiritual renewal in our lives. We talked
about recognizing our hunger for God, confessing our sins, repenting or turning from those sins and following after Jesus—
little by little, step by step, as we incorporate godly habits and spiritual disciplines into our lives. Last week we celebrated
Pentecost, and I mentioned how important it is to be filled with the Spirit and not to hesitate to ask the Lord for free refills of
the Spirit. These are all things we can do to put ourselves in a place where the Holy Spirit can work his renewal in us. Most
Christians will agree that these steps are logical, perhaps even obvious, common sense things that we can practice as a way of
inviting the Spirit to renew us and work in our lives. Today, to wrap up this series on spiritual renewal we’ll be looking at a
concept that may not make a whole lot of sense—at least not at first glance, and not by worldly standards.
The step I’m referring to is the paradoxical principle that appears in three out of the four gospels and which we just read
from the Gospel of Mark. It is the seemingly contradictory statement that if you want to save your life you will lose it, but if
you are willing to lose your life for Christ and for the gospel you will save it. On the surface, it seems almost absurd. But
matters of the Spirit go much deeper than the surface of things. So we have to dig deeper if we’re going to understand what it
means to lose our lives in order to save them, and find out whether Jesus really meant that it is necessary to die in order to live.
Actually, for many Christians who were living at the time the gospels were written down, this paradox of dying to live was
all too true and had immediate implications on a physical level. A person suffering torture and death for believing in Christ could
easily save his life by renouncing Christ—but he would then lose eternity. Or he could remain faithful to Christ and lose his
physical life for Christ and the gospel—but gain eternity. For Christians who face persecution and death, choosing to die in
order to live was and still is a difficult choice to make, but in such times this scripture is an encouraging reminder of our hope
in Christ. So far, at least, we have not had to face such a choice. We can thank God for that and pray that if circumstances
should ever change, we will have the strength and courage to hold onto Christ and be willing to die in order to live.
But Christ’s call to lose our lives for Him and the gospel in order to save them doesn’t only refer to being willing to face
persecution and death in order to gain eternal life. On a spiritual level, these words contain the great yet paradoxical truth that
time and again those who deny themselves and take up their crosses to follow Jesus; those who pour themselves out in service
to Christ and others and for the sake of the gospel, are the most renewed, refreshed, and alive people we know.
There is no common sense to this remarkable principle, except perhaps from the perspective that those who empty
themselves of “self” have more room to receive the Holy Spirit and the renewal and fullness of life that He brings. Of course it
is one thing to recognize this amazing principle and quite another to practice it. Emptying ourselves is very hard for most of
us. We want what we want, when we want it. Yes, we might also want to have that special life in the Spirit that God wants to
give us, but only as long as we don’t have to deny ourselves of anything or change our attitudes or habits or give up control of
our lives to God or submit to one another in Christian love. We’re like the little boy who wrote a letter to God suggesting, “If
you give me a genie lamp like Alladin, I will give you anything you want—except my money or my chess set.”
But that’s not what Jesus means when He tells us to take up our crosses and follow Him. He’s not bargaining with us for
a little piece of our lives but asking us to surrender all. He’s not suggesting something as trivial as giving something up next
year for Lent or even for a lifetime. Denying oneself may mean saying “No” to our desires, our hopes and dreams, our plans
and ambitions, our likes and dislikes, even our nearest and dearest. Jesus asks us to prove by our actions whether we’re really
dying to live or not. The miracle is that the more we surrender to Him, the more of Him we have. The more we deny self, the
more He makes us the best “self” we can be. The more we die for Him and the gospel, the more the Spirit fills us with life and
joy and peace—and that‘s not only “pie in the sky, when we die, by and by,” but here and now.
In every age, Christians have discovered the remarkable truth of this paradox. When we give up the right to ourselves,
when we empty ourselves out, Christ fills us with his Spirit and new life. When we lose our life for Christ, we find it. For
example, I remember my childhood dream of becoming a singer and the eventual disappointment when I realized it would never
happen. I had to give up on that dream. I also think of how I struggled against God’s call to the ministry for so many years,
partly because I wasn’t sure if scripture affirms women in ministry but especially because I didn’t believe that I had what it
takes to do it. Frankly, the commitment and sacrifice that accompany life in the ministry was a burden I didn’t think I could
handle. Actually, I still struggle with that and probably always will. After all, by their very nature, crosses are heavy, unwieldy
and difficult to carry.
Yet even as I struggle and try to surrender more of my self and life to Christ, I find that He gives me his life and strength
to carry that cross and do whatever I need to do. And guess what: I get to sing all the time now, with the choir, as a soloist,
and occasionally at other churches. Of course, all of this wasn’t quite what I had in mind as a teenager when I dreamed of
being a singer. (I was thinking of Broadway, not God’s way!) But I think God’s way has turned out even better. And besides,
as pastor I even get to pick the hymns! Along the way I’ve discovered that as I lose my life for Christ, I find it. It may take a
little dying, like the death of dream, but it’s well worth it. If we’re really dying to live, God really does renew and refresh and
refill our lives with his Spirit.
Whether we call it denying self, dying to self or simply pouring ourselves out in loving service for Christ and others, the
Holy Spirit always brings us new life in return. Missionary David Livingstone wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning
his "selfless" life:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice
which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owed to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice
which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of
glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say
rather it is a privilege.” 1
Sadly, however, many Christians don’t seem to appreciate Livingstone’s view. Whether out of fear or unbelief, all too
many Christians never surrender themselves completely to Christ, and so have no room to fully experience the privilege of God’
s pleasure and the spiritual renewal that comes from dying to live. Craig Barnes, Presbyterian Pastor and Seminary professor
reminds us that very fact. He suggests that,
“When evangelicals in our country use this phrase ‘give your life to Jesus,’ we are not as clear as we should be about
what that means. We allow people to think it means that, if they give Jesus their needs, he will give them what they want.
But from the beginning it has meant that until you have died to this life, until you have given it away to Jesus, you will
always be afraid of losing it. And people who are afraid are obsessed with themselves. They have no room in their lives for
anyone else.”
Jesus wants us to make room in our lives for Him and his Spirit, and for loving and serving others the way He did. That’s
what denying self and carrying the cross is all about. Perhaps few have written about this with such power and from such
personal experience as German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Arrested for conspiring to assassinate Hitler and put to death just
days before the end of World War II, Bonhoeffer suggested that to deny self means to be aware only of Christ, and that it is
only when we become completely oblivious of self that we are even ready to bear the cross for his sake. According to
Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls us, He bids us come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to
leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the
world.” (The Cost of Discipleship) Bonhoeffer goes on to say that it is really the same death every time, the death of the “old
man” or the flesh or the ‘self’ in each of us. But what Bonhoeffer also discovered was that by losing ourselves in service to
Christ and by carrying our cross each day, we find our lives again by sharing in the fellowship of the cross with Jesus. No one
understood this better than those like Bonhoeffer, those who became martyrs for Christ and the Gospel.
Long before Bonhoeffer, another good example is Stephen, the very first martyr who was stoned to death for his faith. In
Acts 7 we read that as he was being persecuted for his faith he looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus
standing at God’s right hand. And as Stephen lay dying, he asked Jesus not to hold that sin against those who stoned him.
Even in the time of trial and agony, these martyrs were filled with joy and Christ’s supernatural presence by the Holy Spirit. In
the hour of cruelest torture they were filled with abundant life. In pouring themselves out for the Savior, even unto death, they
demonstrated what dying to live really means.
Obviously, no one demonstrated that better than Jesus himself. When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our
crosses and lose our lives in order to save them, He’s not just giving us lip service; He has actually shown us how to do all
that. In fulfilling Isaiah’s prophetic words, words describing the suffering servant who took on our infirmities and carried our
sorrows, who was despised and rejected by men and crushed for our iniquities on that very real and painful Cross, we see
vividly what it looks like to deny self and serve God. Jesus went willingly to a painful, agonizing and humiliating death out of
obedience to the Father’s will. But as amazing as that is, what is even more astounding is that Jesus made that sacrifice not to
save his life, but ours. He didn’t die so that He could live, but so that we could live. Talk about dying to self! This perfect
One who had no need of salvation gave his life for those who could not save themselves. And consistent with God’s
remarkable, paradoxical order of things, Christ’s death turned to life and his humiliation to exaltation.
Someone once said that a religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. For us Christians, we know that our “religion,” our
belief that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became one of us and died for our sins instead of us, is a costly religion indeed.
And as I said last week, although salvation in Christ is free, it certainly isn’t cheap. That salvation cost God his only Son, and if
we accept it, it will cost us plenty, as we empty ourselves in order to work out the salvation that Christ has already worked in.
But if we are dying to live, then we will find that there are great rewards for those who take up their crosses and follow Christ.
Rewards like a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit. Rewards like ongoing spiritual renewal as we empty
ourselves out for Christ and the Gospel and receive those free Holy Spirit refills over and over again. Rewards like finding our
life, the abundant life God intends for us, when we have the faith and courage to lose it for Christ’s sake.
The surest way to make spiritual and intellectual mummies out of ourselves is to give all of our attention to preserving our
self—our own lives. Hoarding life is like hoarding money; you get nothing out of it. It is only by spending ourselves, our
energy, our very lives with a certain reckless abandon that we can have life at all. As countless unsung heroes have discovered,
in Christ we can find real life, large and rich, by losing ourselves and our lives for his sake. When we are dying to live, then we
can be brought out of preoccupation with ourselves to find abundant life and adventure in service among the needy, the outcast
and the sorrowing, just as Jesus did.
If we really want spiritual renewal, Christ has already provided for it by the wonderful gift of his Holy Spirit. All renewal
comes through the Spirit. Even those first steps of recognizing our spiritual hunger and confessing and repenting of our sins
are the result of the Holy Spirit already at work in us. But we can also work with Him; we can cooperate with Him; we can
make room for him to live and grow in our hearts and lives. And if we are really dying to live, we can take up our crosses
daily and follow Jesus fearlessly all the way to Calvary and beyond. We can do that because we know full well that death on
the Cross was not the end for Christ, and carrying our own cross is not the end for us. It is only the beginning, the beginning
of new life and renewal in Christ, for those who are dying to live.
Let us pray.
1. Samuel Young, Giving and Living. Baker Book House, p.71)
about recognizing our hunger for God, confessing our sins, repenting or turning from those sins and following after Jesus—
little by little, step by step, as we incorporate godly habits and spiritual disciplines into our lives. Last week we celebrated
Pentecost, and I mentioned how important it is to be filled with the Spirit and not to hesitate to ask the Lord for free refills of
the Spirit. These are all things we can do to put ourselves in a place where the Holy Spirit can work his renewal in us. Most
Christians will agree that these steps are logical, perhaps even obvious, common sense things that we can practice as a way of
inviting the Spirit to renew us and work in our lives. Today, to wrap up this series on spiritual renewal we’ll be looking at a
concept that may not make a whole lot of sense—at least not at first glance, and not by worldly standards.
The step I’m referring to is the paradoxical principle that appears in three out of the four gospels and which we just read
from the Gospel of Mark. It is the seemingly contradictory statement that if you want to save your life you will lose it, but if
you are willing to lose your life for Christ and for the gospel you will save it. On the surface, it seems almost absurd. But
matters of the Spirit go much deeper than the surface of things. So we have to dig deeper if we’re going to understand what it
means to lose our lives in order to save them, and find out whether Jesus really meant that it is necessary to die in order to live.
Actually, for many Christians who were living at the time the gospels were written down, this paradox of dying to live was
all too true and had immediate implications on a physical level. A person suffering torture and death for believing in Christ could
easily save his life by renouncing Christ—but he would then lose eternity. Or he could remain faithful to Christ and lose his
physical life for Christ and the gospel—but gain eternity. For Christians who face persecution and death, choosing to die in
order to live was and still is a difficult choice to make, but in such times this scripture is an encouraging reminder of our hope
in Christ. So far, at least, we have not had to face such a choice. We can thank God for that and pray that if circumstances
should ever change, we will have the strength and courage to hold onto Christ and be willing to die in order to live.
But Christ’s call to lose our lives for Him and the gospel in order to save them doesn’t only refer to being willing to face
persecution and death in order to gain eternal life. On a spiritual level, these words contain the great yet paradoxical truth that
time and again those who deny themselves and take up their crosses to follow Jesus; those who pour themselves out in service
to Christ and others and for the sake of the gospel, are the most renewed, refreshed, and alive people we know.
There is no common sense to this remarkable principle, except perhaps from the perspective that those who empty
themselves of “self” have more room to receive the Holy Spirit and the renewal and fullness of life that He brings. Of course it
is one thing to recognize this amazing principle and quite another to practice it. Emptying ourselves is very hard for most of
us. We want what we want, when we want it. Yes, we might also want to have that special life in the Spirit that God wants to
give us, but only as long as we don’t have to deny ourselves of anything or change our attitudes or habits or give up control of
our lives to God or submit to one another in Christian love. We’re like the little boy who wrote a letter to God suggesting, “If
you give me a genie lamp like Alladin, I will give you anything you want—except my money or my chess set.”
But that’s not what Jesus means when He tells us to take up our crosses and follow Him. He’s not bargaining with us for
a little piece of our lives but asking us to surrender all. He’s not suggesting something as trivial as giving something up next
year for Lent or even for a lifetime. Denying oneself may mean saying “No” to our desires, our hopes and dreams, our plans
and ambitions, our likes and dislikes, even our nearest and dearest. Jesus asks us to prove by our actions whether we’re really
dying to live or not. The miracle is that the more we surrender to Him, the more of Him we have. The more we deny self, the
more He makes us the best “self” we can be. The more we die for Him and the gospel, the more the Spirit fills us with life and
joy and peace—and that‘s not only “pie in the sky, when we die, by and by,” but here and now.
In every age, Christians have discovered the remarkable truth of this paradox. When we give up the right to ourselves,
when we empty ourselves out, Christ fills us with his Spirit and new life. When we lose our life for Christ, we find it. For
example, I remember my childhood dream of becoming a singer and the eventual disappointment when I realized it would never
happen. I had to give up on that dream. I also think of how I struggled against God’s call to the ministry for so many years,
partly because I wasn’t sure if scripture affirms women in ministry but especially because I didn’t believe that I had what it
takes to do it. Frankly, the commitment and sacrifice that accompany life in the ministry was a burden I didn’t think I could
handle. Actually, I still struggle with that and probably always will. After all, by their very nature, crosses are heavy, unwieldy
and difficult to carry.
Yet even as I struggle and try to surrender more of my self and life to Christ, I find that He gives me his life and strength
to carry that cross and do whatever I need to do. And guess what: I get to sing all the time now, with the choir, as a soloist,
and occasionally at other churches. Of course, all of this wasn’t quite what I had in mind as a teenager when I dreamed of
being a singer. (I was thinking of Broadway, not God’s way!) But I think God’s way has turned out even better. And besides,
as pastor I even get to pick the hymns! Along the way I’ve discovered that as I lose my life for Christ, I find it. It may take a
little dying, like the death of dream, but it’s well worth it. If we’re really dying to live, God really does renew and refresh and
refill our lives with his Spirit.
Whether we call it denying self, dying to self or simply pouring ourselves out in loving service for Christ and others, the
Holy Spirit always brings us new life in return. Missionary David Livingstone wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning
his "selfless" life:
“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice
which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owed to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice
which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of
glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say
rather it is a privilege.” 1
Sadly, however, many Christians don’t seem to appreciate Livingstone’s view. Whether out of fear or unbelief, all too
many Christians never surrender themselves completely to Christ, and so have no room to fully experience the privilege of God’
s pleasure and the spiritual renewal that comes from dying to live. Craig Barnes, Presbyterian Pastor and Seminary professor
reminds us that very fact. He suggests that,
“When evangelicals in our country use this phrase ‘give your life to Jesus,’ we are not as clear as we should be about
what that means. We allow people to think it means that, if they give Jesus their needs, he will give them what they want.
But from the beginning it has meant that until you have died to this life, until you have given it away to Jesus, you will
always be afraid of losing it. And people who are afraid are obsessed with themselves. They have no room in their lives for
anyone else.”
Jesus wants us to make room in our lives for Him and his Spirit, and for loving and serving others the way He did. That’s
what denying self and carrying the cross is all about. Perhaps few have written about this with such power and from such
personal experience as German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Arrested for conspiring to assassinate Hitler and put to death just
days before the end of World War II, Bonhoeffer suggested that to deny self means to be aware only of Christ, and that it is
only when we become completely oblivious of self that we are even ready to bear the cross for his sake. According to
Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls us, He bids us come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to
leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the
world.” (The Cost of Discipleship) Bonhoeffer goes on to say that it is really the same death every time, the death of the “old
man” or the flesh or the ‘self’ in each of us. But what Bonhoeffer also discovered was that by losing ourselves in service to
Christ and by carrying our cross each day, we find our lives again by sharing in the fellowship of the cross with Jesus. No one
understood this better than those like Bonhoeffer, those who became martyrs for Christ and the Gospel.
Long before Bonhoeffer, another good example is Stephen, the very first martyr who was stoned to death for his faith. In
Acts 7 we read that as he was being persecuted for his faith he looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus
standing at God’s right hand. And as Stephen lay dying, he asked Jesus not to hold that sin against those who stoned him.
Even in the time of trial and agony, these martyrs were filled with joy and Christ’s supernatural presence by the Holy Spirit. In
the hour of cruelest torture they were filled with abundant life. In pouring themselves out for the Savior, even unto death, they
demonstrated what dying to live really means.
Obviously, no one demonstrated that better than Jesus himself. When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our
crosses and lose our lives in order to save them, He’s not just giving us lip service; He has actually shown us how to do all
that. In fulfilling Isaiah’s prophetic words, words describing the suffering servant who took on our infirmities and carried our
sorrows, who was despised and rejected by men and crushed for our iniquities on that very real and painful Cross, we see
vividly what it looks like to deny self and serve God. Jesus went willingly to a painful, agonizing and humiliating death out of
obedience to the Father’s will. But as amazing as that is, what is even more astounding is that Jesus made that sacrifice not to
save his life, but ours. He didn’t die so that He could live, but so that we could live. Talk about dying to self! This perfect
One who had no need of salvation gave his life for those who could not save themselves. And consistent with God’s
remarkable, paradoxical order of things, Christ’s death turned to life and his humiliation to exaltation.
Someone once said that a religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. For us Christians, we know that our “religion,” our
belief that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became one of us and died for our sins instead of us, is a costly religion indeed.
And as I said last week, although salvation in Christ is free, it certainly isn’t cheap. That salvation cost God his only Son, and if
we accept it, it will cost us plenty, as we empty ourselves in order to work out the salvation that Christ has already worked in.
But if we are dying to live, then we will find that there are great rewards for those who take up their crosses and follow Christ.
Rewards like a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit. Rewards like ongoing spiritual renewal as we empty
ourselves out for Christ and the Gospel and receive those free Holy Spirit refills over and over again. Rewards like finding our
life, the abundant life God intends for us, when we have the faith and courage to lose it for Christ’s sake.
The surest way to make spiritual and intellectual mummies out of ourselves is to give all of our attention to preserving our
self—our own lives. Hoarding life is like hoarding money; you get nothing out of it. It is only by spending ourselves, our
energy, our very lives with a certain reckless abandon that we can have life at all. As countless unsung heroes have discovered,
in Christ we can find real life, large and rich, by losing ourselves and our lives for his sake. When we are dying to live, then we
can be brought out of preoccupation with ourselves to find abundant life and adventure in service among the needy, the outcast
and the sorrowing, just as Jesus did.
If we really want spiritual renewal, Christ has already provided for it by the wonderful gift of his Holy Spirit. All renewal
comes through the Spirit. Even those first steps of recognizing our spiritual hunger and confessing and repenting of our sins
are the result of the Holy Spirit already at work in us. But we can also work with Him; we can cooperate with Him; we can
make room for him to live and grow in our hearts and lives. And if we are really dying to live, we can take up our crosses
daily and follow Jesus fearlessly all the way to Calvary and beyond. We can do that because we know full well that death on
the Cross was not the end for Christ, and carrying our own cross is not the end for us. It is only the beginning, the beginning
of new life and renewal in Christ, for those who are dying to live.
Let us pray.
1. Samuel Young, Giving and Living. Baker Book House, p.71)
