Evangelism Part 38: Sharing Truth Unhindered
Matthew 10:38-39 June 9, 2024
Introduction
The average ticket price to the Kentucky Derby last month was a little more than
$1,200.00 according to ticketsmarter.com
The average resale ticket for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour currently stands at $1,619.00,
according to SeatGeek.
Currently, the average listing price for a ticket to the 2024 NBA Finals is $4,150.00,
according to TicketIQ.
According to SeatGeek, the average cost of a ticket to Superbowl 58 earlier this year in
Las Vegas was $12,082.00 – the most expensive Super Bowl ever.
o The cost of the most exclusive events in the world are getting more and more
expensive – in fact, the price of just about everything has gone up with inflation.
o The dollar had an average inflation rate of 4.91% per year between 2020 and
today, producing a cumulative price increase of 21.15%. This means that
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index a dollar today
only buys 82.542% of what it could buy a mere 4 years ago.
This is not a political statement – it merely illustrates that life is not cheap
and it’s only getting more expensive.
And the good things in life are especially costly.
Matthew 10:32-39 “32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will
acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before
men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. 34 “Do not think that I have
come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I
have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of
his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And
whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds
his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”(see also Luke
14:26-27)
o Matthew 16:24-15 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would
save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
o Luke 9:23-25 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his
life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
o Mark 8:34-35 “And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”
After talking about the difficulty inherent with sharing the gospel with our families and
the fear that the enemy will try to create around our family dynamics, the Lord turns to
the innermost heart of what keeps us from sharing the gospel – the innermost
hindrances that hold us back from proclaiming the kingdom of heaven: self-indulgence
and self-preservation
Hindrance of Self-Indulgence (v38)
“Take” (Gk lambanō) – to take a thing to be carried, in the present tense so it means the
taking is a habitual lifestyle action
“Cross”
o First mention of cross in gospel of Matthew. The twelve certainly knew what a
cross was, but most probably did not make the connection that we automatically
do, that Jesus would carry a literal cross to His death.
The cross was an implement of slow, tortuous death. Jesus here is
looking at the process of daily death to selfish desires and of the
willingness to be rejected for His name’s sake.
It was the customary practice in a Roman crucifixion for the prisoner to be
made to carry his own cross. Scholars estimate that as many as 30,000 jews
were crucified during Jesus lifetime – so everyone would have been familiar
with this imagery. Jesus is speaking figuratively here in the context of
rejection of family, and ultimately, your own self-interests. If the priority is
not one’s allegiance to Jesus, then one will not follow him in the face of
possible rejection by your family or your other self-indulgent desires.
o So we see that the cross Jesus refers to is not difficult circumstances we all
encounter but instead is a willingness to sacrifice everything you want in the
pursuit and submission to Christ.
o Theologian Leon Morris, “Jesus was speaking about a death to a whole way of
life; he was talking about the utmost in self-sacrifice, a very death to selfishness
and all forms of self-seeking.”
o R Kent Hughes, “What are our crosses? They are not simply trials or hardships.
Some think of a nutty boss or an unfair teacher or a bossy mother-in-law as a
“cross.” But they are not. Neither can we properly call an illness or a handicap a
cross. A cross results from specifically walking in Christ’s steps, embracing his life.
It comes from bearing disdain because we are following the narrow way of Jesus
Christ, “the way and the truth and the life”.”
o Josh Black, “There are a lot of people who don’t believe a cross is a choice, but
something that happens to them, making them a victim. When you hear people
say, “This is my cross to bear” a lot of times they are talking about their health, or
their spouse, or their children, or some kind of circumstance that is a burden to
them. These things may be legitimate challenges in a Christian’s life, but they are
not crosses. Circumstances may be painful like a cross and they may be a burden
like a cross, but they themselves are not crosses, for a cross is something that is to
be picked up willingly. A cross is something that requires us to deny our way of
doing things and to choose God’s way of doing things. It is saying no to our
stubborn will and surrendering to God’s sovereign will. Tough circumstances
provide plenty of opportunities to pick up our cross, but the circumstance itself is
not a cross, it’s only an opportunity to choose one.”
AW Tozer explains what it means to take up your cross like this, “One time, a young man
came to an old saint who taught the deeper life, the crucified life, and said, ‘Father,
what does it mean to be crucified?’ The old man thought for a moment and said, ‘Well,
to be crucified means three things. First, the man who is crucified is facing only one
direction. The old man scratched his scraggily head and said, Second, son, about the
man on the cross; he is not going back. He has said his final goodbyes. Thirdly, he said,
the man on the cross has no further plans of his own.'”
o Face one direction – always looking to our King for comfort, encouragement,
truth, and hope.
o Not going back to his old life – leaves the folly behind him
o Doesn’t make his own plans – follows the plan that the Lord sets before him
When the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico in 1519 he
was intent on conquest. To assure the devotion of his men, Cortez set fire to his fleet of
eleven ships! With no means of retreat Cortez’s army had only one direction to move,
into the Mexican interior. Cortez understood the price of commitment—and he paid it.
In order to serve the Lord, we must learn, by the power of the Holy Spirit moving within
us, to deny self-indulgent desires more and more and instead walk, faithfully, humbly,
obediently in service to our King as we proclaim His kingdom and not look back to the
life of self-indulgence.
o Galatians 5:16-17 “16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the
desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the
desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to
keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
o F F Bruce “Denying oneself is not a matter of giving up something, whether for
Lent or for the whole of life: it is a decisive saying “No” to oneself, to one’s hopes
and plans and ambitions, to one’s likes and dislikes, to one’s nearest and dearest,
for the sake of Christ.”
CH Spurgeon, “There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here
below.”
Jesus’ statement is essentially asking the following questions:
o Are you willing to follow Jesus if it means losing some of your closest friends?
o Are you willing to follow Jesus if it means alienation from your family?
o Are you willing to follow Jesus if it means the loss of your reputation?
o Are you willing to follow Jesus if it means losing your job?
o Are you willing to follow Jesus if it means losing your life?
Notice the questions are phrased, “Are you willing?” Following Jesus
doesn’t necessarily mean all these things will happen to you, but are you
willing to endure them for the love, truth, hope, and joy that only Jesus can
give? If there comes a point in your life where you are faced with a
choice—Jesus or the comforts of this life—which will you choose?
This is the choice that Jesus says we must wrestle with on a daily basis and
humbly, obediently, and faithfully choose Him as we grow more and more
in the grace of God to walk by the power of the Spirit and not by the power
of our selfish, prideful flesh.
CH Spurgeon in answering the question of what am I to do with the crosses in life, “1. I
am deliberately to take it up. Not to choose a cross, or pine after another form of trial.
Not to make a cross, by petulance and obstinacy. Not to murmur at the cross appointed
me. Not to despise it, by callous stoicism, or willful neglect of duty. Not to faint under it,
fall beneath it, or run from it. 2. I am boldly to face it. It is only a wooden cross after all.
- I am patiently to endure it, for I have only to carry it a little way. 4. I am cheerfully to
resign myself to it, for my Lord appoints it. 5. I am obediently to follow Christ with it.
What an honor and a comfort to be treading in his steps! This is the essential point. It is
not enough to bear a cross, we must bear it after Jesus.”
Hindrance of Self-Preservation (v39)
Matthew 10:39 “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it.”
“life” (Gk. psyche) – refers to the way a person reasons, thinks, feels, and identifies
themselves.
o The more we hold onto the identities and ways of thinking and feeling of this
world, the less we will be like Jesus and the closer we will be to death.
o The more we cling to the identity of being a child of God that comes as a free gift
of God’s grace as we put our faith and trust in Jesus, the more we will walk in the
light, love, peace, truth, hope and true fulfilling life that only Jesus can give.
Jesus is calling His disciples to know who they are – the final exhortation is all about
identity
o There is a reason one of the enemy’s favorite tactics is getting people to identity
as anything other than a follower of Jesus and a child of God.
Family identities
Social identities (jobs, clubs, hobbies, positions of influence, reputation)
Sexual and gender identities
Political identities
o Every one of the above is ultimately part of the old psyche – and if we cling to that
old way of life – that old way being – we will only find death.
o The more we seek to preserve our self – any of these false identities – the more
we preserve death. The more we try to walk in self-actualization, self-realization,
or self-discovery instead of allowing the truth of God to show us our identity in
Him as His children, the more lost we become in the confusion and lies of the life-
stealing identities of this world.
As the Lord shows us those false identities by which we may see ourselves, the faithful,
humble, and obedient child of God allows the Lord to take those lies from us, to remove
the hindrance that it is, and to walk in the true and right thinking, reasoning, feeling,
and identity that He alone can give.
o We do it for the sake of true life with Jesus and for the sake of being able to share
the true gospel (Mark 8:35) with those who recognize the transformation within
us due to the new life that we have received from the Holy Spirit who now lives
within us.
Conclusion
This brings us back to the cost of all those expensive events and the ever-increasing
inflation around us. Jesus is not try to hide anything here – He is clear that following Him
is costly, we must give up our self-indulgent ways and self-preserving mindset.
Someone may think that they can have Jesus and the world. Some believe they can
claim to be followers of Christ, while they live however they please. Some think they can
proclaim the gospel with their lips, and yet completely deny submission to Christ by
their lifestyle. Jesus lets us know in no uncertain terms that such notions are false.
The life, truth, peace, hope, comfort, joy, and love we gain is worth it, and is without
value – it is priceless.
o Once we’ve received it by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, if we are to share
that gospel with those around us we must continue to walk unhindered by our
flesh’s constant temptation toward self-indulgence and all the false identities of
this world.
Let us trust in the Lord and in His truth, relying on the Holy Spirit as we take up the
costly path of serving Jesus and walking as His brother or sister – as a child of Yahweh,
and a servant of the one true king – proclaiming the gospel to all those who would
receive it on our pilgrimage through this life.
Amen. Amen.