True Grit: The Greatest Commitment
Matthew 16:24-25
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”
Good morning, friends. My goodness. I have missed you. We’re in a new sermon series entitled True Grit. And no, we’re not going to watch a John Wayne movie over the next three weeks, but we are going to talk about having true grit – courage and resolve, strength of character – true grit to be a disciple of Christ. And through this series we’re exploring the three greats: the greatest commitment, the greatest commandment, and the great commission. In fact, one could say:
A great commitment to the greatest commandment and the great commission makes a great disciple.
The greatest commandment, you may recognize. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and Jesus added, love your neighbor as yourself.
The great commission is also something you may recognize. We tout this verse whenever we speak about local or global missions. Found in Matthew 28, Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.
But what is the Great Commitment?
Steven read the verse to us earlier from Matthew 16:24: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Did you hear that?!
Deny ourselves? Take up our cross? Follow Him?
You see, Jesus and His disciples were on quite the traveling adventure. And on this journey, Jesus used parables to teach His followers about the upside-down world of the Gospel and the Kingdom of Heaven. Beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, everything Jesus taught was counter-cultural to the way of the world. Where the world champions the rich, Jesus blesses the poor. Where the world seeks power and prestige, Jesus applauds the humble in heart. Where the world spews hate and divides, Jesus calls us to be peacemakers.
Along with parables, Jesus used miracles to reveal who He was. In Matthew chapter 16 alone, Jesus multiplied seven loaves of bread and a few small fish to feed over four thousand people. He followed that up by healing a blind man in Bethsaida. And then up north of Galilee, in a town called Caesarea Philippi, Jesus gathered His disciples for a teaching moment and asked the question, “WHO DO PEOPLE SAY I AM?”
And Peter, oh Peter, jumped out in front and declared: “Jesus, YOU are the MESSIAH.”
From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He had to go to Jerusalem. There He would suffer many things from the elders and chief priests. And then He dropped the big bomb - He had to be killed and raised on the third day.
Peter took hold of Jesus and protested: “Master, impossible! God forbid! This can’t be! This won’t happen to You.”
But Jesus turned to Peter, agitated yet undeterred, and said: “Get behind me, Satan. You are a stone that could make me stumble. You’re a dangerous trap for me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Then Jesus turned to His disciples and said, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
These are words from Jesus we see over and over and over again in the Gospels. The Holy Spirit is making crystal clear to us that there is no such thing as casual, comfortable discipleship, or cultural Christianity. We can’t just kind of follow Jesus out of a sense of religious routine. There are all kinds of people, in all kinds of crowds who wanted to follow Jesus that way in the first century. And, I think, there are all kinds of people, in all kinds of crowds who want to follow Jesus that way in the 21st century. But, Jesus makes it clear over and over and over again that casual, convenient followership is not true discipleship. And Jesus says, if anyone, anyone wants to follow Him, this is the call.
Which begs the question… Is Jesus asking us to take on death? To His followers at the time… YES, this is exactly what it meant. When Jesus carried His cross to Golgotha to be crucified, no one was thinking of the cross as symbolic of a burden to carry. To a person in the first-century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by the most painful and humiliating means that human beings could develop.
Two thousand years later, Christians have respect and reverence for the cross, and rightly so. When we look at a cross, we see a cherished symbol of atonement and forgiveness, grace and love. But in Jesus’ day, the cross represented nothing but torturous death. And because the Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own crosses to the place of their crucifixion, “taking up your cross” meant carrying their own execution device, while facing ridicule, along the path to death.
The circumstances these early believers lived in were more extreme than ours. But our commitment to Christ is not supposed to be any less extreme than theirs. The cross they were asked to take up is the same cross we are asked to take up today.
So really, what does this great commitment mean for us?
Perhaps let me start with what the great commitment does NOT mean. A sweet, well-meaning friend said to me in August, “Well, it appears that cancer is just your cross to bear.” He, along with many others, interpret “take up your cross” as some burden they must carry in their lives. Perhaps that burden is a strained relationship, a thankless job, a physical illness. With self-pitying pride, they say, “That’s my cross I have to carry.”
But the command to take up the cross is much more than a symbol of the difficulties experienced by humanity. Any person, whether a follower of Jesus or not, will suffer frustration and pain in this life. But taking up one's cross and following Jesus is something completely different.
Let’s take the Great Commitment phrase-by-phrase…
Christ says the starting point to the great commitment is to “deny” ourselves. The Greek word for “deny” is aparneomai. It’s a strong word meaning that a person must renounce, refuse to be thinking about oneself. This is a strong statement. It’s a picture of total self-surrender, bidding good riddance to any control you claim over your life.
Denying yourself means you won’t willfully engage in sin. It means you don’t act on your fleshy desire just because you have an urge or an impulse. Disciples of Jesus are called to practice godly self-control. So, to deny yourself means to deny “personal control of your life.” It means no longer seeing yourself as the head of your life, but turning over all your dreams, all your ambitions, all your desires to Christ. It means dying to self-will and embracing the God-ordained circumstances in your life WITH faithfulness. It’s all in, total commitment.
For those of you who are married, can you imagine if your spouse had asked you to marry him, and you had said, “Yes, I will marry you. But I only want to be married on Sundays, maybe Wednesday evenings, when it’s convenient, and I don’t have other plans.”
Can you imagine?! Hopefully, that’s not what we’re saying. Hopefully, we’re saying, YES! I’m ALL IN! And that’s exactly what Jesus is asking for, too. He’s saying to us, you cannot have Me without total commitment. It’s either full surrender or no surrender.
***
Then Jesus said we must take up our cross. Two thousand years ago, Jesus walked a road called the Via Dolorosa. It’s a long road, filled with stones, and bumps, and cracks, and people. I’ve walked that road. I’ve walked that road with some of you. The crowds envelop you. There’s pushing and shoving. There’s yelling from vendors. I can’t imagine walking that road and carrying a 165-pound cross, knowing you’d eventually reach the place where the soldiers would crucify you.
Yet that is exactly what Christ is asking of us – to walk that road every day. It’s uncomfortable. It’s counter-cultural. It is an act of surrendering our will to Jesus. A forfeiting of anything we’ve thought we’ve wanted, anything we’ve desired, anything we believe apart from what Jesus wants for our lives.
Culture tells us to do what feels good, to only think of ourselves. But Christ calls us to stay true to God’s Word, even when culture is going in the opposite direction. It means continuing to obey God even when obedience is costly.
That’s what true commitment to discipleship is all about. It’s a life that we live, daily following and imitating Jesus. And what did Jesus do when He was faced with temptation? Jesus, in His humanity, had a firm resolve. He had total surrender to the will of God. His temptations never resulted in sin – in word, in thought, or in deed. Instead, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with passionate cries and tears to God. His words in the Garden of Gethsemane were: “Not My will, but Yours, be done.”
That’s what it takes to faithfully take up our cross daily and follow Him! We cry out to God for the strength to hold on – for the strength to say “no” and keep saying “no” in the time of temptation. We humble ourselves and have the same mindset that Jesus had: “Not my will, but Yours, be done.”
This daily practice leads to transformation. You won’t always be the same person you are today. Thank goodness. As we walk onward to holiness and perfection, we’re cleansed from our sinful nature, and the Fruit of the Spirit comes in its place. Rather than being quick to judge and criticize, or grumpy and downcast, we can radiate love and kindness and gentleness. Isn’t that hopeful?
I think this is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Philippians: “It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose.”
It sounds like a paradox, but self-denial and following Jesus IS the way to true joy. The path of Christian discipleship is difficult. I know it. I feel it. I live it, too. But Jesus didn’t die on the cross for us to be comfortable. Christ went before us, both as our example and our Savior. When we remember that Christ carried His own cross, and when we consider the sacrifice He made to guarantee salvation for all people, our hearts can be filled with hope, as we’re strengthened to obey Him.
As we enter into a time of prayer to prepare our hearts for communion,
I’ll invite you to close your eyes and hear once again the invitation of Jesus:
If any of you wants to be My follower,
you must turn away from your selfish ways,
from the things you think you want and need.
You must pick up your cross and follow Me.
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.
But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
What is it you need to turn away from
in order to follow Jesus more closely?
(time of silent reflection)
Are there things you may need to give up
in order to make a great commitment to Christ?
(time of silent reflection)
What do you hear Jesus calling you to do?
(time of silent reflection)
Friends, remember this: He actually did take up His cross. For you. For me. For every single person. He simply asks of us to have true grit - courage and resolve, strength of character - to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him.
Let us pray:
Merciful God,
help us to turn away from things that do not lead to life --
from attitudes and actions that get in the way of our relationship with You
and distract us from hearing Your voice and doing Your will.
Open our eyes and ears to Your presence and Your call.
Give us courage to take up our cross and follow where You lead,
even if the path is uncertain or leads in unexpected directions.
For You alone are God, and we are Your people.
Take our lives, and use us to Your glory. Amen.
Benediction:
Go now and follow Jesus in the way of the cross.
Rejoice in hope,
hold fast to what is good,
persevere in prayer.
Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.
As far as is possible, live peaceably with all.
And may God hear your cries and deliver you;
May Christ Jesus repay you with fullness of life;
And may the Holy Spirit be with you always
........nourishing you in love and hope.
We go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
........In the name of Christ. Amen.
