Dear Christian friends:

One of the saddest things that I see happening in our churches is that we spend too much time talking about the benefits of being a Christian and not enough talking about the liabilities.

Look at all those church bulletin boards you pass by from day to day or the church ads in the newspapers. You soon come to the conclusion that Christianity is one big sell job and that it offers a deal none can afford to refuse. Too bad.

We need to tell the other side of the story as well. We need to talk also about the liabilities of being a Christian.

The God we meet in the pages of the Bible is one who expects much of those he has chosen and redeemed.

The Christ we meet in the pages of the Bible is one who calls people to a discipleship that might be more costly than they had imagined. Too often we present only the benefit side of the deal. Then when some are confronted with the cost side they back away.

We make it easy to join the church, and then mention the budget and pledging and the need for teachers in the Sunday School. We talk about how wonderful it is to be forgiven and then fail to tell them about the rejection they might experience from the unbelieving world at work and at home.

However, those who are ready to pay the price, to hang in there, will find great reward. The God who expects much is also the God who gives much.

Our text for today is one that deals with the liabilities of being a Christian. In it our Lord exhorts:


Denying self and taking up a cross is not one's normal goal in life. This we learn from Peter here in out text. Jesus had told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. (verse 21)

Peter didn't want to hear that. "Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee." (verse 22) However, Jesus knew that Satan was using Peter to tempt Him from doing God's plan to save the world. It was a real temptation for Jesus. After all, who wants to die at age thirty-three?

So Jesus looks sternly at Peter and says, "Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." (verse 23)

Let's not blame Peter too much. Our nature is the same as Peter's. Peter didn't want Jesus to suffer and die on a cross, and he himself didn't want to suffer and die. He wanted Jesus to establish an earthly kingdom where he and the other disciples could have power, riches, and fame as they helped Jesus rule in His kingdom. Peter was not yet interest in Jesus' spiritual, heavenly kingdom. He wanted power, comfort, riches and fame on earth.

We often have the same goals and hopes as Peter. We think chiefly about this life on earth, success and happiness here and now. We are not that much interested in Jesus' real kingdom. If we were, we wouldn't be turning down offices and duties and committees in our church; we wouldn't be running deficits in the general fund and building fund month after month; we wouldn't accept offices and then be irresponsible in them.

It seems to me that our church is just another social club and that we are not really denying ourselves or taking up the cross. To all such lackadaisical, sleeping church members Jesus warns:" Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (verses 25-26)

Real life is ours when we deny ourselves and take up the cross. We must think like Jesus thought. Our text tells us that Jesus "began to show His disciples how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things etc..." (verse 21)

Jesus felt obligated, liable, and compelled to sacrifice Himself for the redemption of the world. Jesus denied Himself so that He could serve His dear heavenly Father and also at the same time serve us by freeing us from sin, Satan and hell.

However, Jesus did not look upon His sacrifice as something morbid or depressing. On the night before He made the supreme sacrifice and in referring to it, Jesus said to His disciples, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." (John 13:31) Jesus really had joy in denying Himself and in serving God and us.

In Hebrews 12:1-2 we read: "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God."

By looking to Jesus we can deny ourselves and take up the cross and have joy, real life, in doing so. In Jesus Christ God has a love claim on you and me, not only a claim for heaven but also a claim for now, while we live here on earth. When speaking of this love claim Paul said, "I am a debtor" (Romans 1:14) "Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel."

In baptism our old self died with Christ, and we arose with Him to a new life. Paul reminds us: "We are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)

"He died for all so that all who live having received eternal life from him might live no longer for themselves, to please themselves, but to spend their lives pleasing Christ who died and rose again for them." (2 Corinthians 5:15)

We now live with and for Jesus Christ. St. Paul shows us how we ought to think of our new life in Christ when he writes concerning his own attitude in this: "I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

With Christ living in us: We let that person go ahead of us in the line at the grocery store. We let the other person have the last word in an argument. We make the first move towards reconciliation where there has been a separation due to one or the other's offending. The money we saved for a trip we take and give to someone in need. We give up two hours of watching TV to visit a shut-in who has no one else. We give up an evening at home to visit someone who visited our church last Sunday to welcome him.

As we learn to deny ourselves and take up the cross, following the example of Jesus, we will make more and more sacrifices. However, they will not seem as sacrifices. They will seem as love offerings and thank offerings to God our Father and to His Son Jesus Christ.

In our text Jesus says, "Whoever will lose His life for My sake shall find it." (verse 25b) Note the clause, "for My sake." Jesus does not invite us to martyrdom here. This is a call to discipleship and a readiness to pay the price of discipleship.

Those who with God's help turn away from themselves, who invest themselves in others, find that their lives are enriched and enlarged. The boundaries of their lives are never-ending and never closed off. They have found life.

An eastern story tells about a man who found an eagle's egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the chickens did thinking he was a chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.

Years passed by and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong, golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe, "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the eagle the king of birds," said his neighbor "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth, were chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that is what he thought he was.

Shall we remain "chickens", or shall we become what God has called us to be and enables us in Christ to be?

In the weeks and months ahead we shall give an answer to that question by our actions, be they positive or negative. I pray that we shall give a positive answer.

Amen.