409: But, I Don't Like Denying Myself! | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

I had two uncles who were psychiatrists. They were tall men, big men, and they liked to eat. I wonder where I came from. I'm just like them. I love to eat, you guys. I do, I do, I do.

And I remember going to weddings or other little parties with my uncles. There'd always be in Richmond, you know, the holy city, Richmond. There'd be a big bowl of shrimp. And I remember my two uncles — guys look like NFL linemen — they were big men. They would park in front of the shrimp bowl, and they would not let anybody else near the shrimp. I mean, they would shovel back, maybe 25, 30 shrimp minimum.

So I asked my uncle, the younger one, Henry, I said, Uncle Henry, why are you eating all the shrimp? He said, well, it's like this. He goes, I'm a doctor and doctors are expected to give very nice presents for weddings. So I figured if I gave, you know, back then, $50 for a present, I need to get that much money in shrimp back. And so literally, he would eat whatever he paid for the gift, he would get that much back in shrimp.

So, now you know why I like to eat so much. They denied themselves no pleasure. I like pleasure. How about you? I don't like denying myself. Even the word deny — I mean, just think of other words. Diet. Deprive. Root canal. You get it? Just the word deny yourself, it just seems so negative.

Jesus Models Self-Denial

The amazing thing is, Jesus doesn't just tell us to deny ourselves, he actually models it. He models it. So if you have your Bible, we are in Matthew 16. And I want to see what Jesus models before he tells us what to do.

Look down at verse 21. It says, from that time Jesus began to show, he didn't just talk, he showed. He showed his disciples he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And so Jesus is showing with his life. He's not just saying religious things, religious platitudes. He's saying, watch me. I'm doing this to honor my Father. Not my will, Lord, but yours be done. And so he's setting a pattern for us because he knows if he lays down his life, he's gonna find it.

But in verse 24, now Jesus is going to teach his followers, his disciples. And he says this:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

What two words stand out to you right away in that verse? Well, deny would be a good answer, but it's not the one I'm looking for. So, the first two words:

If anyone.

I'm very Calvinistic, pretty reformed. I say I'm 4.5 Calvinist. I — because there's so many scriptures that put tension. I understand the sovereignty of God. I understand nobody would ever choose God unless God chose them. I get it. But there are these pesky little verses that remind us from Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation. Remember it says,

if anyone will knock, I will open the door and I will come in and I will sup with them.

And so we see this tension. But the good news is, it says, if anyone would come after Jesus, he's gonna receive you. And I mean anyone. I know what it is to walk into a church and you haven't been to church for five years. And even when you went to church, you just figured, I'm a fake, I'm a fraud, I don't belong here with all those good Christian people. And you're thinking, I shouldn't even be here.

But I want to tell you, even though I know that's true in the room right now, the Lord absolutely wanted you here today. He wanted you here, and that's why you are here. And so the good news is the gospel is for everyone.

For God so loved the world.

Thank you.

Denying Self

So Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Well, I'm great Jesus with coming after you. It's the denying part I don't like. But think about when Jesus went to the Sea of Galilee and he saw a bunch of fishermen, and what did he say? He says, come and follow me. And what's the first thing they had to do in order that they could be free to follow Jesus? They dropped their nets. So there was this denial — was basically giving up of their livelihood.

So Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. Deny himself. So what does that mean exactly? Deny yourself. Does that mean act like a monk? Eat rice, lentils, and wear burlap? Never go to a party, never have any fun? What is Jesus calling us to do?

For instance, you know, I can read you all the commentaries. I can tell you what the words mean. In fact, I looked it up in Greek because I don't like the English word deny. So I was hoping if I went to the Greek, I'd find something like an out. Right? But what I found when I looked the word up is it means exactly what it says, deny yourself. And so from my view, at least an initial reading, it just sounded oppressive. Denying myself. I don't like denying myself. I wanna do whatever I wanna do. I wanna, if I wanna eat it, I'm gonna eat it. If I wanna gather it, I wanna gather it. If I wanna accumulate it, I'm gonna accumulate it. I wanna do what I wanna do.

The problem is, what's the problem with that? Sure, it's fun for a while. But what's the problem? It doesn't work. Not for long. Do you remember the richest man in the scriptures? Solomon. What did he say in Ecclesiastes chapter 2? He says this humbly.

I became great. How humble. I became great and I surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. All my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil. This was my reward for all my toil.

Verse 11.

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil that I expended in doing it. And behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind. All was vanity. It was useless. It was sand through your fingers. All was vanity and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

And so, what I wanna say is, if the phrase or the word deny seems oppressive to you, what I could tell you is: what's more oppressive is doing whatever you wanna do. I lived there, man, from like I don't know what year it started. But it certainly ended when I met Christ. I realized like, this life has no meaning if all you're trying to do is accumulate and be your own god, and deprive yourself of nothing. It didn't work for me. It didn't work for King Solomon. It's not gonna work for you either.

And so when the Lord calls you to deny yourself, it's not, again, to punish you or to be mean, it's to bring you to freedom. Much like with the rich young ruler. He said, not to everyone, but to him, he says,

go sell everything you have. Then you'll be free to come and follow me.

See, that's the point. If you're not willing to deny yourself. And let's get out of Bible language for a second and just talk good old boy language. What Jesus is saying is, are you willing to let me be your God? Or are you just gonna kind of work me into your life a little bit and remain your own God? He goes, I don't do that. I don't do that.

The only way you're gonna be free, really free, is to follow me. And the only way you can follow me is deny yourself. Put your life on the altar. Don't think so much about yourself.

What is it Tim Keller ripping off C. S. Lewis said? You know, if you quote Tim Keller, it's always a great sermon. Quoting C. S. Lewis, he said,

it's not that God wants you to think less of yourself. He wants you to think about yourself less.

Right? It's not that he wants you to come up to the rail and beat yourself and go, oh, I'm a worm. I'm no man. Whatever, whatever. He just doesn't want you consumed thinking about yourself twenty-four seven. He wants to invite you out of that into something that's freedom.

You may go, well Quig, what are some examples? Who are some examples of people that have done that? Is that possible? Well, who's the first one that comes to mind? Jesus. Jesus.

How about people that you might know, or might even be in your lifetime? I'll give you a hint. Mother? Mother Teresa. Teresa. She laid it all out. She gave her life. She put her life on the altar. She denied, you know, pleasure seeking and all that stuff, so that God's name and his kingdom could be great.

Do you think she had the blessing of the Lord? Do you think she experienced the joy of the Lord? Yes.

How about Mama Gloria? Mama Gloria, she's not a nun, she's not a saint. Well, is a saint in the sense that she's a Christian. But Mama Gloria works from 4 a.m. to about midnight. She has 100 kids. She's the principal of a school. She runs mother's union in Nigeria. I mean, I could go on and on and on.

It's impossible. But at some point, Mama Gloria said, you know what? I'm putting my life on the altar. I'm not living for Gloria anymore. I'm living for Christ. And I tell you what, she's one of the happiest, most joyful people you will ever meet. Because she's learned the secret. Like denying yourself is not some strict rule, it's a place of freedom. Get your mind off yourself.

Take Up Your Cross

So Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, let him take up his cross. Well, that's weird. I remember a couple of years ago — actually, it's a couple of decades ago — there's some dude who's walking across the United States with a cross. Okay.

That's weird. That's weird. It's like a 15-foot cross. It had a little wheel on the back, and he was hiking or walking across the country and everybody could see he was carrying his cross. Friends, that's not what Jesus meant.

To the Jews, when they heard this, he said, you must take up your cross. Where did their mind go? The Jews in Jesus' day, they were used to seeing criminals carry the cross beam on their shoulders. Usually after they had been scourged and they were marching their way to the place of the skull, the place of death.

And so when they heard that, basically they're saying, Jesus is saying, not only deny yourself, but I want you to count yourself dead. Like if you ever wanna be able to follow me, you really need to say, the life that I had, it's gone. It's gone. All things are new. The life I have now is in Jesus. I am not living for myself anymore. Oh, know my flesh will try to get me to slide over there, but the Holy Spirit will pull me back. I am not living for myself anymore.

The Paradox of Losing and Gaining

Verse 25. Jesus says this thing that's — it's counterintuitive, it seems upside down.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

That's so confusing, I think we need to read it again because it doesn't make sense in my brain.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

You know, I don't know if I can fully explain that other than to say, what's the context we just read? As we pick the story up, we're in the eighth inning, y'all. We're in the eighth inning, almost the ninth inning. He's heading towards Jerusalem. And he's not going there for just a religious festival. He's going there for one purpose and one purpose only: to die. To give himself, to be the one Isaiah talked about in Isaiah 52 and 53. To be the Lamb of God. He's denying himself. He's emptying himself.

And he says, father, not my will, but yours be done. Your will be done.

And so that's the call that we who are in Christ would follow him. Because that is the place of freedom and that's the place where the Father gets honor.

Whoever would save his life will lose it.

How much of your day do you spend thinking about yourself? Looking in the mirror? Thinking about your retirement? Your job, your this, your that. How much of your time?

I'm pretty shocked when I pick this thing up and at the end of the day, it tells you how many hours you've spent on it. Lord, have mercy.

Practical Ways to Deny Yourself

What do we do before these things? Deny yourself. Maybe it would be very practical ways, like every morning. I'm trying to do this. Maybe this would help you in a practical way. Like, when you wake up in the morning, what time do y'all get up?

Go ahead. Thirty-seven? Any earlier? Five? Ugh. What are you, honey? Okay. So what else? Anybody earlier?

Right. I don't know about you guys, but when I wake up in the morning, it's not a pretty sight. Right? It's not pretty. I get out of bed, everything kind of hurts. I'm like, brrr. I usually wake up grumpy. Does that describe anybody? You kind of hurt, you wake up grumpy. That sweet little angel? Nope.

But what I've been trying to do is, from the very moment I wake up, to say, okay, God, before my brain can override all this, could I just make a declaration? You are the Lord God Almighty. You, not me. You're the Lord. You are King, and you have a kingdom. And Lord, I don't know why you would think fit to include a ragamuffin like me, or some of us, in your plan to be your ambassadors — to be your friends, to be your disciples.

But I want to invest this day in a way that makes your name great, not my name great. And obviously, if you know me, you know I fail. But at least, at least, that's where we start the day.

It's like, your God, I'm not. Yours is the kingdom. Not mine, yours, Lord. So we start out driving a stick in the ground just saying, Lord, I want to die to self. I want to put my plans and all the things I'm thinking about, dreaming about, on an altar. I want to be your servant.

So we could say, not to us, not to us, but to your name be the glory.

It continues in verse 26.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Could you imagine being one of the richest people in the country? Who's the richest guy in our country? Elon Musk. Keep going. Who else? Gates. Bezos.

We saw Jeff Bezos down in the Caribbean. I waved to him. He's a nice fellow. You know what? I actually feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him. I don't know if he knows the Lord. I don't want to judge him just because he has a lot of money. You can be a Christian and have lots of money.

But I just wonder like, dude, you've poured your whole life into doing this thing, and this thing produces dollars. And so now you have a lot of dollars. But what about your soul?

What about your soul? See, I think we don't actually believe what the scriptures say. Like, some will go be with the Lord forever and some will not. The Bible says:

Wide is the way that leads to destruction.

I've seen it. I've lived it. Narrows the way that leads to eternal life.

One of the ways I'm trying to learn to deny myself is stepping over the fear of sharing the hope that lies within me. You know, all of us have probably thirty, forty, 60% of our friends don't know Jesus. They're not on the team. They're not children of God. Wrath awaits them. But we're waiting for the perfect decade, the perfect moment.

Twenty years later, we still haven't shared Christ with them. And yet, most of us who are believers have had one friend willing to step over their fear, and not think about themselves but think about the King and the kingdom. And they give a reason for the hope that was within them.

If you've been in the church more than three years, sorry I've told this three times, but it's a great story, I'm gonna tell it again. You know, this stuff is personal. It's personal for me because I had an encounter with the Lord when I was 21 years old. And it really changed my life because I didn't know why I was on the planet. I saw so much brokenness, so much ugliness. And rather than being like Job's wife suggested — just curse God and die — I thought, no, there must be something or someone that would make all this make sense.

Then my friend just happened to show up and tell me he was a Christian. He explained the gospel briefly. He'd been a Christian three seconds. And it wasn't that he was brilliant, it's not that he did the best argument, he just presented the gospel very simply. He said, I want that for you.

It was just a short time later that I tried to share my testimony with my dad, and I did a terrible job. Have you ever tried to share your faith with somebody? And you know you don't know what you're doing. So what you do is just like use a Gatlin gun full of scriptures. And eventually, that person may accept Christ just to get you out of their house.

I remember sharing with my dad. It's easy to share from a pulpit. It's hard to share with somebody who's your flesh and blood. And I remember sharing my testimony, even writing it out, trying not to be too religious. Didn't wanna be too religious. Just wanna share the truth. And my dad, he — he, he, he didn't have the ears to hear it. And I didn't know why. I think later the Lord showed me why.

He thought so lowly of himself. In spite of the Hollywood set he put on, he thought so lowly of himself that he couldn't imagine a God would love somebody as rotten as he was. And so, as his life was coming to an end, he got cancer and he started out about a hundred seventy pounds. And then he got down to about a hundred thirty-five or a hundred thirty. And it was awful to look at. I didn't want; I didn't want to see it. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to get out of there.

But he's my dad, and I didn't want him to die without knowing Jesus. Because I believe what the Lord says:

He loves the world.

But not everyone's a child of God. And my dad, I knew he wasn't. And I'm like, okay, Lord. So, can I just work out a fleece with you? I know I'm not supposed to bargain with you because you're God and I'm not, but I'm afraid, Lord. I I, I mean, this is very personal. And so, in order for me to do this, would you at least give me a sign? Because I don't want to be keep drilling on my dad with the gospel. If he's unwilling to hear it.

I said, Lord, could you just have him ask about heaven or Jesus and then I'll know? Green light, share away.

So there we are. He leans over in his chair. About three minutes in, he can't talk much. I mean, literally, we didn't know what time; he was two weeks from death. And I, again, y'all, I'm afraid, but I'm not thinking about me now. I'm thinking about the kingdom and I'm thinking about my dad. Get my mind off myself.

And my dad goes, hush, tell me about heaven. I was like, are you kidding me? Now, okay. Now, I'm thinking, Lord, what am I going to say to him? I didn't know what to say. I was, all that seminary, I didn't know what to say. I said, well, the Lord gives you what you need. I said, Dad, do you remember that story? I was trying to be kind. Dad, do you remember the story of the parable of the workers in the vineyard? And how some started in the early morning, some came in like, you know, mid-morning, some came at noon, some late afternoon, and some came at the last hour, and they all got the same pay.

I said, Dad, here's the truth. You're in your last hour. You missed early morning, you missed the midday, you've missed noon, you've missed the other part of the afternoon, you're in the last hour. And the great news is the Lord loves you and he will give you the same reward as if you'd been following him your entire life.

And you know, cancer had beat some of the — something out of my dad. It — it, it, it ground him to the point where his self-loathing and his sense of, I'm a terrible person, Jesus could never love me. I think it just beat him down so far. He was strangely open.

And when I shared that with him, he couldn't talk. But he just went, ah. Much like a baby reaching for his father.

Friends, the call to deny yourself is not to think less of yourself, but to think less about yourself. And to put Jesus on the throne as king, and to live for him and his kingdom. That's where the joy is.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.