Christianity Lite 2000

So all through the week we've been talking about the harvest, and it's been really enriching for me to get some responses to this. Plenty of clack this morning, talk about it again, and just all kinds of light came out. But I'd like to now back up a little bit and have a think about what it is that either enables us to be effective in that harvest or trying to wind us up, something inside us.

And it's almost as if you could draw a picture of our spirit, and deep in the center of it is this room, and in the middle of the room, a throne. And on that throne, only Jesus belongs, no one else. Who's on that throne? Is he there all the time? Or am I there? Or is it some kind of idol? Jesus asked the disciples, who do men say that I am? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.

But who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, you're the Messiah, the son of the living God. And when Peter said that, he was sure he was on the winning team. He was right in there with a king.

Pretty soon, Jesus is going to show the world what he can really do. He's going to put Jerusalem on the map. He's going to make it look like a big town.

Glory days for Israel are coming now with Jesus on the throne and me, Peter, right up there with him. So what's all this stuff about suffering and rejection and being healed and rising the third day? Come on, master, lighten up. We're on our own.

Let's not lose our momentum. Jesus looks at the disciples. Then he looks at Peter and he says, get behind me, Satan.

You're not on the side of God, but of men. And then Jesus tells them something which is quite different from what they were expecting. He points out a future for them which is not that road of success that they figured they were on.

And I'm reading from Mark chapter eight, starting at verse 34. And he called to him the multitude with his disciples and said to them, if any man or woman would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it.

And whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Talk about pouring cold water on their parade.

Jesus could hardly have given Peter and his friends a more severe shock treatment. For 2000 years, they've been trying to soften this message. Come on, put a little sugar on it.

I mean, who's going to want to follow someone who says, deny yourself, take up your cross, stick your neck out, expect rejection. And so today we have Christianity lite, like Budweiser lite. And it sells really well.

You know, let's not talk about self-denial. Let's talk about grace. You know, I'm okay.

You're okay. Sometimes we're not okay, but that's okay. Things are okay.

Just don't rock the boat, okay? No wonder people get bored when they go to church. They are not hearing all too often, but those disciples heard. And even when they hear it read straight out of the scriptures, every attempt is made to water it down, dilute it a little bit, so nobody gets upset.

We want people to feel good when they leave, but Jesus didn't care how Peter was going to feel. Didn't bother him. If Peter's going to get a little upset, he's interested in helping Peter to become a man of God.

And if it takes some truth, if it takes some shaking up, if it's going to disrupt his life a little bit, that's fine. Because when Jesus is finished with this man, Peter, he's going to be a man of God, and he'll never be one if it's all peaches and cream all the time, patting him on the head, making him feel good. And when Jesus is finished with you, or me, we're going to be men of God, women of God, if we stick with it.

And if it takes strong truth, if it takes something to shake us up, that's okay. That's needed. You know, he is not building a kingdom of wimps.

He's raising up prophets, priests, kings, and whatever it costs for that to happen, let it happen. Of course, it all starts at that moment of revelation when we really get to find out and know that Jesus is more than a prophet. He's the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and he's giving us the privilege of being his disciples.

Don't worry about your sins. He can wash those sins away in his blood. No problem.

Don't worry about your ignorance. He can impart knowledge into your spirit by his Spirit right out of heaven. Don't worry about your weakness.

His strength is made perfect in your weakness. He can take care of all that. That's no problem for him.

He's going to transform you and me into new men and new women. But, and here's the part we keep kind of shying away from, to be transformed into that man of God, that woman of God that we're called to be, we are called to follow in his steps. Any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

If any woman would come after me, let her deny herself, take up her cross, and follow me. Follow me. He's not asking us to do something he hasn't already done.

And he's done a lot more than we could ever do. We can't carry the weight of human sin on our back as he did for us, but we can follow him. And notice that at the very outset of his ministry, first thing he does, he's driven by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And there he gives up his right to himself. That's where he took up his cross and nailed it totally to the Father's will. And when he came out of the wilderness, he did not come out with a plan to conquer the world.

He came out with an invisible cross resting on his shoulder, a cross on which he ultimately himself would die. That cross was his power. Every time Jesus laid his hands on the sick, cast out a demon, it was the power of his approaching cross working through him, flowing through him.

Surely he has borne our sicknesses and carried our pain. He denied himself. He has given up his right to himself.

And every day he does this, he picks up his cross so that he is able to bring redemptive light, healing, grace to all these lives that he touches. Now he says, if you want to be my disciple, you don't have to if you don't want to. If you want to play church, go play church.

But if you want to be my disciple, you're going to have to do the same. You're going to do as I did. You're going to deny yourself, take up your cross so that the power of my redemptive life can flow through you.

Of course, when we hear this term, self-denial, we think of giving up cherry pie, ice cream, you know, TV, movies, pleasures. And then they used to have, maybe they still do, these self-denial folders for Lent. You put a quarter in every day, all through Lent, 40 quarters.

You've denied yourself 40 quarters. Isn't that great? You know, come on. And they still do this kind of stuff.

But it's an illustration of how shallow all of us still are. When he talks about self-denial, he's not talking about cherry pie, ice cream, and self-denial folders. He's talking about giving up your right to yourself.

Saying, my life is no longer mine. It's yours. I don't own it.

You do. You call the shots. My ambition and my ego, I turn over to you.

I need to prove myself. I lay at your feet. You're my Lord.

From now on, my life is aimed not at success, even church success, spiritual success, Christian success. No longer. I just want to be your servant.

Anywhere you want to put me, whatever you want to do with me. But don't say that to God. Don't say that to the Lord Jesus, unless you mean it.

Because he'll take you at your word. And very quickly, it's the same thing when you say, dear Lord, give me patience. He says, okay, you want some? And then he throws people into our patience.

And when you say, dear Lord, I give you my life. Here I am. And then we get all bent out of shape.

You know, when he starts sending things into our lives, I call us on it, you know, and kind of, you know, hurt our vanity. I gave you my vanity, Lord. And now I'm all upset because somebody walked past me at Farmer Jackson, didn't say hello.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. What does it profit a man or woman to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What can a man or woman give in return for their life? He's talking about a change of direction, a switch that goes on inside.

So then I'm no longer going the same way I was going before. Now I'm going toward him. Now I'm, it's not my program.

It's his program. And it's, as we know, this is something that has to be renewed every day. It's not a once and done thing every day.

Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, you know, because every morning when I wake up, it's old me, you know, and I got to, again, you know, turn this thing over. Here it is again. As we do this, he begins to get through and things begin to change.

And the amazing thing is that when, when people hear this call to radical commitment, self-denial, they don't all run away. Some of them kind of wake up. Unless they're hearing the truth, maybe some people will run away.

That's okay. Well, lots of people ran away from Jesus. You know, John chapter six, he's got multitudes coming to it.

They want to make him a king. By the end of John chapter six, everybody's gone except the 12. And he didn't say, Oh, what am I, what can I do to hold these people? You know, what can we do to make it meaningful to them? Come on.

You know, are we serious or are we not? Peter didn't like it when Jesus laid this on him. When, when he started by telling, you know, you're going to, I'm going to Jerusalem. I'm going to die.

They're going to reject me. They're going to beat me around. Peter didn't like that.

And he surely didn't like it. When then Jesus added to this, the news that Peter himself was going to have to go through it, that he's going to have to deny himself. He's going to take up his cross.

He's going to do this too. He didn't like it. It didn't make him feel good, but where else could he go? If Jesus is the Messiah.

And if this is the program, what choice does he have? And the amazing thing, of course, Peter went along with it. And pretty soon Peter began to experience such joy and such power and such grace that he never switched. I mean, by the time he was actually laying down his physical life for the Lord, we can be sure he did it with joy.

You know, turn me upside down in this cross. I don't want to die like my master. He could do that.

And countless people since have traveled this road. It's not like nobody went that way. Lots of people are going that road right now.

And that's the road that we're called to take. It's our turn. If any man or woman would come after me, let him, let her deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.

Now we've heard this all through our lives as believers, but we're hearing again now this message and it's certainly, and you can't deny it, I can't deny it, this is God's word to us now. And it's the word that separates Christianity light from discipleship. Take your choice.

Jesus forces this requirement on nobody. If you don't want to do it, it's okay. You're free to walk away.

But if you're looking for the kingdom of God, if you're looking for the life of God, this is the road. There is no other. Give up your right to yourself.

Turn yourself over to him. Let him teach you by his spirit to take up your cross every day so that your body, your mind, your spirit, your possessions, your time, your strength, all become one glorious living sacrifice, which is your spiritual worship. Then we experience heaven in the midst of rejection, persecution, suffering, trial, whatever, and we'll serve God with fresh vigor in the time that we have left.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses her life for my sake in the gospels will save it. What does it profit a man or woman to gain the whole world, to gain the whole Christian world and forfeit his life? What can a person give in return for their life? Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that you would enable us, afresh, to hear the voice of Jesus coming to us through the Holy Spirit, calling us to get on center. Give us eyes to see those things that are distracting our lives, diluting our hearts. Bring us to the place, Lord God, where, like children, we're single-minded, single-eyed, cleansed by the blood so that we're pure and strong by your spirit for the strength that this world knows nothing about.

And grant that the days that are left of each of us here and to the ones for whom we pray may be filled with your glory. For the glory of your name, for the healing, the salvation, and the blessing of that harvest out there into which you send us. We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.