Deny Yourself: The Secret to Staying True in a False World

Introduction

Our culture has long ago lost the inimitable charm of living for others. "Please yourself" has become the mantra of the day, as if shouted from a megaphone around the globe. But if very few people are truly living for others, is it even possible to imagine that anyone is truly living for Jesus? We can't live for Jesus if we don't live for others. John makes this clear when he writes, "If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (I John 4:20). And we think of the first man who hated his brother and we nod, "Yes, Cain was a liar indeed because, not long after he presented his offering to God, he murdered his brother Abel." We can hear Cain's flippant reply to God's question, "Where is your brother Abel?" ringing across the centuries: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9). And this question speaks the mindset of every person who loves himself more than he loves others or God.

We all know that selfishness and pride are not only sins--they are "the sins" from which all other sins derive. It isn't going to do any good at all to tuck our selfishness inside our dressed up selves and pretend that we are nice people. Every Christian will sooner or later betray himself, his friends, or his Lord unless he submits to doing the one thing he hates most: to lay on the altar of sacrifice his right to live his life for his own sake. He must even lay on the altar of sacrifice his right to die for his own sake. Short of this obedience, even the effort to live for others will fall flat as self-serving pretense "to be seen of men" (Matthew 6:1). Only when we learn the secret of living for Christ can we rise above our miserable selfishness and find the secret to staying true in a false world.

The Sinful Self Must Die for Jesus' Sake

There is nothing on earth that will entice us to live for others, let alone to live for Jesus, as long as the sinful "self" remains alive and well. This sinful self must die. Look at what Jesus says in Matthew 16:24, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). Those who say this command is optional--that we can be saved without being disciples--seem not to have read what Jesus says next: "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). Once that self dies, nothing can stop us from marching right through hell to serve our Lord. And even this march will lead to life eternal, for the gates of hell shall not prevail against us (Matthew 16:17-19). If the self dies for Jesus, no matter what we face, we cannot lose. But if we are unwilling to give that self to Jesus, we cannot hope to win. God's Word is clear. Jesus defines only two categories of people: those who save their lives and those who lose it for His sake. In the next verse, Jesus identifies people who are willing to lose their souls for their own sake but not their lives, apparently, for His. But our Lord makes clear that, even if they gain the whole world in doing so, it profits them nothing (Matthew 16:26).

It may not seem like it, but this death to self gives us something wonderful to sing about. But where are the songs old timers used to sing like, "All for Jesus" or "Living for Jesus" or "I Surrender All"? Where is our commitment today? Doesn't it seem to you as if it is missing almost entirely from the "worship" landscape? Aren't we more likely today to sing worship songs that "praise" Jesus for all He does for us than we are to sing songs of pure devotion about what we will do for Him? If we have all but abandoned our forefathers' white-hot commitment to Christ, shouldn't we ask "Why?" Open a hymnbook of old days and see what I mean. Seeker sensitive worship for almost two generations has made us takers and not givers spiritually these days. Our Lord doesn't want our worship if He doesn't have our will.

I fear that we are following each other rather than following Jesus today. And the first spiritual casualty of this idolatry is our devotion to Christ Himself--a devotion that grows every day as we deny ourselves in Him. But when we will not obey Christ on this one thing He requires of us, our love for Him will shrink. In its place will be love for big name Christian celebrities who make living the Christian life look easy and appealing, even financially rewarding. But who is willing to stand alone or to disappear into the woodwork for Jesus? Not many. We have so long enabled each other's narcissism that we applaud the selfish pride that presumes to use the Name of Jesus to accomplish great things. We covet that sense of power. If only we claimed the power to live as Christ commands instead of claiming power to wow other people, we would replace our tawdry excuses for failure in Christ with a deep and personal devotion to Christ. And we would then find the devotion to others that will keep us true before God in this present evil world.

Charles Spurgeon said, "The grace that will not change my life will not save my soul." But nothing will change our lives unless and until we give them 100% to Jesus. Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). If we do not love Jesus, we will not keep His commandments. We will not deny ourselves; we will not take up our cross, and we will not follow Him. Consequently, we will not lose our lives for His sake, and we will not find our lives. We will remain proud, selfish, miserable, and alone--outcast, in fact, just like godly Abel's murderous brother Cain.

The Crucified Self Will Live for Jesus' Sake

The Apostle Paul is Scripture's best human example of dying to self. When the Lord is speaking to Ananias about Saul, the most unlikely convert to the Christian faith, He foreshadows just how much Saul, who becomes Paul, will suffer for Jesus' sake. "Then Ananias answered, 'Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints at Jerusalem: and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on Your name.' But the Lord said unto him, 'Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake'" (Acts 9:13-16). And suffer he did. See II Corinthians 11:16-33. And why did Paul suffer? That he "might by all means save some" (I Corinthians 9:22). Paul's suffering became his legacy, and it is impossible to think of him without remembering what he endured for Christ as a missionary of the Gospel.

Our legacy should be no different than Paul's. We think we will suffer if we deny ourselves, but no suffering for Jesus' sake can even begin to compare to suffering for our own sake. The "skinny" of this life is that we will suffer no matter what. But those who suffer for Jesus will not suffer in vain. Even world religions other than Christianity have tapped into the soul's amazing power to endure suffering for a noble cause. But when there is no cause but Christ, our suffering, as Paul says, is but light and momentary. It isn't even worth remembering in light of eternity. When Paul testifies in I Corinthians 15:31 that "I die daily," he speaks of suffering not as an occasional sacrifice but as a daily pattern, as a way of life. Some theologians and Bible scholars teach, if they teach this precious doctrine at all, that there is a once-for-all renunciation of the sinful self. Although there can be no process without first a crisis, Scripture teaches that the dying is never quite done.

We are living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), and we have a cross to carry daily (Luke 9:23). Certainly, our loyalty to Jesus must be renewed day by day, even when we can point to a day when we settled it once and for all to give our all to Jesus. It is the daily dying that keeps us true in a false world. Just one day of laying our cross down, of giving in to ourselves instead of to Christ and others, just one day of indulging our own desires as if we belong to ourselves, can do immeasurable damage. We can't afford spiritually to eat life's "heart attack burgers" without suffering damage to our souls. Spiritual facts don't give way to sentimental emotions. But our culture has lived on sentiment and on pretty feelings for so long that even teaching that we must deny ourselves for Jesus or even suggesting what that might entail sounds, well, legalistic. But we always have to go back to what Jesus said: "For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels" (Luke 9:26).

As if answering not only the Lord's command to die daily but also His sober pronouncement upon those who are ashamed of Christ and His Words, Paul leaves the greatest legacy possible when he says in Romans 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." And to what can we attribute Paul's boldness? Not only could Paul say, "I die daily," he could also testify, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). As a sort of spiritual living will, Paul signs his contract in the blood of the Gospel. And by dying daily, he walked right into his fate like Charlie Kirk did and "blinked" into the face of Jesus.

Conclusions

Jesus said in John 12:24-25, "Truly, truly, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." I think of all the fruit that Charlie Kirk's death has already produced. If over 100 million people worldwide, not counting the 200,000 who attended his memorial, heard the Gospel multiple times, certainly Charlie Kirk's death has been instrumental in fulfilling Christ's prophecy that the Gospel must be preached in all the world before He returns. While it is true that we don't hear much about death to self today, we also don't hear of many Charlie Kirks today. But wouldn't you want the Lord Jesus to use you to bring others to Him, even if it meant suffering and death? There isn't an easier way. Yet, if "for My sake," the self must die, surely "for My sake" it shall live.

And here we end where we began--with the charm of living for others. The secret to staying true in a false world is to die daily for Jesus. When we find our greatest joy in living for Him, we will automatically live for others without even realizing it. There will be those crises of decision when our cross feels unusually heavy, but we must never lay it down until the day our cross becomes our crown--the crown we lay at Jesus' feet. When I was a young girl, I copied this little poem into my flowered blue diary, not knowing then how it would define my life. I love it to this day.

The Cross

Is there no other way, Oh God,

Except through sorrow, pain and loss?

To stamp Christ's likeness on my soul,

No other way except the cross?

And then a voice stills all my soul,

That stilled the waves of Galilee,

“Cans’t thou not bear the furnace

If midst the flames I walk with thee?

I bore the cross, I know its weight,

I drank the cup I hold for thee.

Cans’t thou not follow where I lead?

I'll give thee strength, lean hard on Me.”