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This summer, thousands of people will converge at Athens, Greece for the Olympics. One of my favorite parts of the summer games is watching the biographical sketches of the athletes. As we listen to the story of each competitor, we realize that being in the Olympics is a huge commitment. The lifestyle of an athlete is impacted dramatically by his or her consuming drive to climb to the top podium. What the athletes eat, how much rest they get each night, where they live, how many hours they practice each day, what they spend their money on—everything in their lives is focused on the pursuit of gold. Olympic athletes choose to miss out on a number of activities other people are enjoying because they do not want anything distracting them from their pursuit.

The commitment of a disciple of Christ is very similar to that required of the Olympic athlete. Those who wish to faithfully follow Jesus are required to make big sacrifices. In fact, disciples of Christ are required to leave everything to follow Him, not allowing anything to get in the way of their faithful pursuit. Being a disciple of Christ requires the commitment of all we are and all we have—it is the commitment of our time, our financial resources, our dreams, our very lives. We can’t be committed followers of Christ and at the same time cling to our things, our lives, our reputations, or our dreams.

Last week, we learned about three kinds of disciples: the curious who follow Jesus to see what He is about, the convinced who trust Him and receive eternal life, and the committed who faithfully follow Christ and acknowledge His right to rule every aspect of their lives. As was mentioned briefly last week, a sad reality is that many Christians do not make the step from being convinced to being committed. Many shrink from committed discipleship because the price is too high. They don’t want their lives expended pursuing what Christ wants them to do. They don’t want to dedicate their resources to where Christ wants them to be used. They don’t want to experience the shame and rejection that is received by Christ’s faithful followers. They don’t want to give up their dreams.

As we will see this morning, those who shrink from committed discipleship and fail to spend their lives in pursuit of Jesus will experience much greater losses than the temporary losses His faithful followers experience.

You will remember from last week’s sermon that curious followers of Jesus always come to a crossroads, being forced to decide whether to trust or reject Christ. This week, we will see that convinced followers of Christ also come to crossroads in their lives, being forced to decide whether to follow Christ as a committed disciple or to shrink from such a pursuit. Most often, these crossroad moments happen when the price of being Christ’s faithful follower is required of us—when we are asked to give a large portion of our time, when we are asked to give up our resources financially, when what Christ wants gets in the way of our dreams, or when the world tries to shame us for being Christ’s followers. At these crossroads moments, will we faithfully follow Christ or will we throw in the towel?

The gospel of Luke was written to a group of people who were at a crossroads. These believers were paying a high price for their faith and were contemplating whether or not it was worth it to be committed disciples of Christ. Because of persecution, they were being tempted to abandon Christ instead of faithfully following Him.

The distinguishing purpose of Luke’s gospel account that makes it unique from the other gospels is to show us why the new program of the church was needed. God chose to start all over with a new group of people, under new leadership, placing His program for Israel on hold. The reason? The religious leaders of Israel rejected Jesus and felt threatened by Him. Because they were so determined to protect their own privileges and interests, they refused to hear the truth. These leaders led the masses of people to join them in their rejection of Christ as Messiah.

God began His new program—the church—with a few "outcasts" of society. Because of the tight control and widespread influence of the Jewish religious leaders, these outcasts who faithfully followed Christ and became a part of the church found themselves at odds with the majority of people. The masses persecuted them and brought them the temptation to abandon Christ instead of faithfully following Him. Luke encourages the believers who made up the early church by reminding them why God brought them to the place where they are at. God’s people would grow into a mighty church that no one would be able to destroy. They did not want to give up now. Their pursuit of Christ was worthwhile, even if it meant paying a high price.

Luke 9:18-27 encourages us that our pursuit of Christ is worthwhile and we should not give up when the cost is high.

Transition: The majority of the people were led astray by the Jewish religious leaders. When they were asked who Jesus is, many came to wrong conclusions.

Some mistakenly thought Jesus was the forerunner for the Messiah (John the Baptist) or a powerful, miracle working prophet (Elijah) or a prophet of old who preached about coming judgment. Given the confusion about the identity of Jesus, it is easy to understand how the masses so easily joined the religious leaders and cried out, "Crucify Him."

What would have caused them to stick their necks out and maintain faithful allegiance to Christ if they were not genuinely convinced about who He really is? What would have caused them to be sympathetic to Christ’s faithful followers when doing so would have put them in risk of persecution? When we faithfully follow Christ, the crowd, which is confused about who Jesus is, will not help us. If anything, for their own protection, people in the crowd will "join the crowd" in persecuting us.

The disciples did not join the crowd. They were convinced and openly confessed that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Sticking to this confession about who Jesus is and faithfully following Him was going to cost the disciples dearly as Jesus was about to explain.

Though the disciples were right in their confession of who Christ is, Jesus warned them not to tell anyone. It was not that Jesus intended the disciples to be quiet indefinitely about who He is. Rather, it was not the right time for this to be openly and publicly proclaimed.

After the disciples’ correct confession of Jesus as the Christ of God, He announced the suffering, rejection, and death He had to go through and the resurrection that would follow. This prediction was not what the disciples expected to hear.

The disciples, by virtue of their association with Him, had been put into a position of prominence. We read of the privileges and power Jesus gave the 12 in the earlier part of Luke 9. They had been given power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases (9:1). They had been sent out to preach the message of the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, performing the miraculous to authenticate their message as being from God (9:2). They had been given the privilege of receiving support from those to whom they ministered (9:3-4). They were given the right to pronounce a message of judgment from God upon those who rejected their message (9:5). They had enjoyed widespread and fruitful ministry (9:6). After all this, they are told that the one whom they were following was going to be killed.

Can’t you picture in your mind’s eye the disciples putting their hands around their necks as they thought about what might happen to them when Jesus was killed? For the first time, the disciples realized that the commitment to follow Christ meant being willing and ready to die for Him.

Transition: The disciples were at a crossroads. They had a decision to make. Would they decide to make the commitment to follow Jesus to the death or would they decide that they would abandon Him when the threat of death came? At this crossroads moment, Jesus tells the disciples the commitment they would have to make to follow Him and then explains why that costly commitment was well worth it.

Say "No!" to self (9:23a)

Committed followers of Christ deny themselves. Notice that the text does not say that Christ’s disciples are required to deny themselves of something. It simply says His followers are to deny self. When the 12 disciples caught themselves saying in the face of death’s threat, "I’ve got to keep living. I shouldn’t have to die. Maybe I’ll compromise a little or run away from Jesus so that I don’t have to die" Jesus commanded them to tell themselves, "No."

Being committed followers of Jesus requires that we set self aside totally and completely. Why does self have to be denied and told "no!?" Self leads us to hold onto our lives, our stuff, our reputation, our plans and dreams. When these things are threatened because of our openly identifying with Christ, we find ourselves making excuses like, "A man’s got to live, doesn’t he?" or "I need all this stuff, don’t I?" or "I don’t have to keep dealing with all the rejection and difficulty involved in following Christ, do I?" or "What about the plans and dreams I had for my life?" Christ’s committed disciples will say, "No, I don’t have to live; no I don’t need all this stuff; no it’s not O.K. for me to compromise my stand to avoid rejection; no it’s not O.K. for me to make plans and have dreams and then say to Jesus that He had better not change or cancel any of them." When self tries to get in the way of what Christ wants, we need to say "NO!"

Application: Many believers today are quick to speak of our love for Jesus and to declare our commitment to follow Him, but when you ask about our lives, you quickly discover that we are determined to do what we want to do, to follow our personal dreams, to pursue our desires, to accumulate and hold onto our things. We deny self very little, if at all. Many people have clearly trusted Christ for salvation and are forever children of God, but are not committed disciples.

Application: Remember, when Jesus told His disciples to deny self, for them it meant being willing to die for Him. When they found themselves asserting, "I’ve got to live don’t I?" Jesus told the disciples to say to themselves "No, if following Jesus means I must die, then I must die." The struggle of committed discipleship for us today is not presently the looming threat of death.

Our struggles center around giving up our stuff, giving up our free time or time to relax, experiencing a little rejection or difficulty here and there. When we are asked to make these sacrifices as followers of Christ, we find ourselves complaining, "This is costing me too much. I’m going to pull back and not give so much time and money. I am going to be a little more low key about my commitment to follow Christ." Why on earth are we playing around with clinging to our stuff? Why are we playing around with clinging to our lives, thinking that they are ours to live as we wish? Why do we think that having to give our time, that having to give our stuff, that having to experience a little rejection here and there is a huge sacrifice? What we have been required to sacrifice, up to this point in our lives, is nothing compared to what was required of the 12—they were asked to be willing to die a martyr’s death for Jesus and many of them in fact did.

Say "Yes!" to rejection, suffering, and death (9:23b)

Being a committed follower of Christ requires that we take up our cross daily. When Christ spoke of this requirement to the 12 disciples, they thought of having to face the threat of death each and every day for Him. They thought of a despised, rejected person on a death march, carrying the instrument of execution on his back to the place from which he would hang from it. They thought of a cruel device of the Romans designed as an instrument of torture, punishment, and death. They thought of an emblem of shame.

Christ was despised and rejected in this world. In asking His disciples to take up their cross daily and follow Him, Jesus was asking them to openly identify with Him, the despised and rejected One, who would be killed. They were to faithfully follow Him even if it meant that they too would be despised, rejected, and killed.

Application: Would you be willing to die for Jesus if that is what following Him required? Many say, "Yes, I would be willing to die for Jesus." However, if we are really willing to die for Him, then what will it look like to LIVE for Him. If we are really willing to physically die for Jesus, then living for Him will involve death also—a death to self. Living for Jesus will involve making the commitment of Romans 12:1 to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

Application: Carrying our cross today means that we willingly pay whatever price is required of us as we pursue Christ and openly identify ourselves as His followers. If our cross involves suffering indignities and shame, rejection, persecution, physical pain, or even martyrdom, then we need to take it up and follow Him. Taking up our cross means willingly starting a death march, following Jesus wherever He leads, refusing to shrink back when it gets hard.

Transition: Following Christ costs us everything! It sure is a high price that Jesus asks His followers to pay. Is it worth it? In Luke 9:23-27, Jesus gives words of encouragement to demonstrate to His disciples that the high price they would pay as committed followers of Him was well worth it. In His words of encouragement, Jesus points out three different things in life that have a tendency to pull us away from our pursuit of Him which are—physical life, our stuff, and the pressure of other people. Let’s be careful to examine our lives to make sure that these things are not pulling us away from faithfully following our Lord.

Clinging to life  =  loss (9:24a)

Jesus’ prediction of His suffering and death caused the disciples to think of the dangers to their own lives as His followers. Realizing what the disciples were thinking, Jesus pointed out that those who failed to follow Him in order to rescue their physical lives from the religious leaders’ threats would end up losing their lives anyway.

The generation of Jews that rejected and crucified Christ was under judgment. In saying that those who want to save their physical life will lose it, Jesus was anticipating the devastating destruction that came on the nation of Israel in A.D. 70. In that year, the Roman general Titus systematically forced his way into Jerusalem and destroyed the city.

Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish religious leaders who rejected Christ. Those who abandoned Jesus because of the threat of death went to Jerusalem to try to blend into the religious crowd and avoid persecution. Those who lived in Jerusalem were killed when God’s judgment came in A.D. 70. Those who decided not to follow Christ in order to stay alive were no better off than those who gave their lives to follow Christ. In fact, they were worse off because they gave themselves to holding onto that which they could not and in fact did not keep. Their lives could have been given for the sake of Christ and the Gospel, but instead they were wasted trying to hold on.

Loss of life  =  gain (9:24b)

Those who surrendered their lives to follow Christ saved their lives. We can understand the saving of one’s life by faithfully following Christ in two different ways.

• Literally: Those willing to die for Christ were delivered from the massacre in Jerusalem in A.D. 70

Persecution, along with Christ’s warnings of coming judgment, drove His committed followers out of Jerusalem. The historian Eusebius testifies that those who faithfully followed Christ were not in Jerusalem when judgment came in A.D. 70 and they did not die.

• Figuratively: Those who die for Christ are delivered from the futility of clinging to what does not last.

Those who trust Christ for salvation do not lose anything when they die. To live is Christ and to die is gain for the believer. The Christian is far better off when he or she is absent from the body and present with the Lord. Realizing this, committed followers of Christ are not afraid of death and will not shrink back from it if it is required of them in their faithful pursuit of Jesus.

When committed followers give their lives as martyrs, it is evidence that these people gave their lives to the most worthwhile pursuit to which a person could give himself or herself—following Christ no matter the cost. Those who spend their lives in this way are delivered from the horrible experience of spending all one’s efforts to cling to physical life only to come to the realization that they can’t hold on forever and that all their energies were focused on things that really didn’t matter. I don’t know about you, but I want to be saved or delivered from that kind of life. I don’t want to come to the end of my life and say, "Boy, that was meaningless. Nothing I lived for really matters now."

If we are committed to doing everything possible to hold onto physical life, if we are desirous of saving our ease, comfort, and physical safety at any cost, we will end up shrinking back from following Christ and will give our lives to pursuits that are not worthwhile. If we commit ourselves to following Christ even to the death—whether it be to the death of self, daily or to the death literally—we will be delivered from giving our lives to meaningless pursuits.

A second reason individuals would have been tempted not to follow Christ was the fear of letting go of their physical possessions. By His question, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet lose or forfeit his very self?" Jesus draws our attention to the fact that it is not profitable to give one’s life to the pursuit of material possessions even if such a pursuit results in gaining the whole world. As Warren Wiersbe comments, "If a person owned the whole world, he would still be too poor to buy back a lost life."

Why is it not worth it to live for stuff? If all of your life is invested in accumulating material things and in an instant they are taken away, is that a good deal? Of course it’s not. Since we will eventually lose all of our material possessions through death, decay, theft, a fire, a storm, etc., it is foolish to give our lives to the pursuit of that which does not last. A life lived for stuff is a life that is lost, because it is spent on nothing of lasting value.

The original readers of this passage who clung to their stuff lost it all. Christ’s words, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self" were in anticipation of the devastating judgment that would come on the nation through Titus in A.D. 70. At that time, the people living in Jerusalem to avoid persecution lost their lives and all the material things they had accumulated. Their houses filled with the stuff that they lived for went up in smoke.

How does this apply today? If we are intent on "white knuckling" our stuff and unwilling to let go of our gismos and gadgets, our boats and our cars, our toys, and our houses, we will end up shrinking back from following Christ. We will give our lives to that which moth and rust destroy and which thieves break in and steal. We will spend our lives on things we cannot hold onto or keep indefinitely.

A life lived to obtain more material things is a lost life no matter how much a person accumulates. On the other hand, the faithful, committed, pursuit of Christ is worthwhile. When we faithfully follow Christ, we store our treasures where moth, rust, and thieves cannot touch them. The Savior we live for and faithfully follow will give us eternal rewards. When we receive these, we will consider any losses we incurred for Christ on earth well worth it.

There was a choice to be made. Either the disciples would show themselves to be ashamed of Christ so as to avoid the rejection of other people, or they would follow Christ and suffer the same kind of rejection He endured. If one is ashamed of Christ now, He will be ashamed of that person when He comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels. Matthew’s account points out that when Christ comes in His Father’s glory with his angels, He will reward each person according to what he has done. The significance of Christ’s being ashamed of us is that when He gives rewards at His second coming and the establishment of His earthly kingdom, those who were ashamed of Him will miss out.

A glimpse of future glory gives perspective in present suffering (9:26b-27)

Christ wraps up His instruction with a glorious promise that some standing there with Him would not experience physical death before they actually saw the kingdom of God. They would get a glimpse of the glory of Christ’s kingdom at the time of the Transfiguration. This experience gave the disciples a glimpse of the Son of Man enthroned in power and glory as King of kings and Lord of lords. The glimpse gave them perspective.

The transfiguration which provided the disciples a glimpse of Christ’s glory was very reassuring. Remember, the announcement of His death caused them great confusion. They were under the mistaken notion that Christ came the first time to reign as King. Their thinking that the kingdom of God had come to earth was shattered by the announcement of Christ’s death. Jesus, when he was transfigured and the disciples were given a glimpse of His glory, allowed the disciples to see that the promised kingdom of God would come and that He would reign in glory.

There would be glory for Christ and the disciples would appear with Him in His glory, but not before suffering. The certainty of future glory for Christ would have given even further encouragement for the disciples to follow Him. It would cost them to follow Christ, but it would be worth it.

The words of Jesus we have reflected on this morning raise the question, "Is what we are giving our lives to worth it?" Do you want a surefire test to see what pursuit you are really giving yourself to? Look at your checkbook and look at your Daytimer ä. How we spend our time and money will show us whether or not we really are committed disciples of Jesus.

We are at a crossroads. Some of us may still be at the crossroads between the curious and the convinced. If you are at that crossroads this morning, don’t wait, trust Christ so that you too may have eternal life.

As we have observed, this passage from Luke’s gospel is not about the crossroads a curious disciple faces when he is forced to decide whether or not to trust Christ for eternal salvation. This passage is about the crossroads that convinced disciples face when forced to decide whether or not they are going to pay the price of committed discipleship by denying themselves, taking up their cross and following Christ. The issue here is not whether or not we are eternally saved. Salvation is received by trusting Christ. The issue here is whether or not we will give our lives to that which is really worthwhile.

Jesus teaches us that there is only one pursuit in life to which every person who gives everything will conclude that it was worth it all. The only pursuit worth giving everything for is faithfully following Jesus Christ as His committed disciple.