Discipleship Is Denying Self. EXPOSITION ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE study #77 (Luke 9:23-24)

As we move on in our text in Luke we come to one of my focus passages for my life. In fact it is in this passage that we find the theme verses for the ministry of Disciple’s Direction which is Luke 9:23-24 that says And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. ²⁴ For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. 

I know these verses are some of those memorization passages that most people know but I want to ask is, are you living it? The answer to that question really exposes the reality of whether you are a Christian or not. This statement that Jesus says here is not a suggestion to how you can live but is a statement of how in fact you will live if you are truly following Him.

This section of Scripture again does not really sit in some type of chronology nor a specific place. It seems from Mark’s account that this is in or around Caesarea Philippi but we are not certain of that for sure. The principle behind what Jesus says is what we will focus on for this study and the others studies concerning this topic. It will take us a few studies to get through all that Jesus speaks about here concerning what discipleship is.

Before getting into our first point for this study I want to read our complete passage concerning discipleship, even though for this study we will pull from just the first 2 verses for each point. Luke 9:23-27 says And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. ²⁴ For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. ²⁵ For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Let’s look now at our first point.

1.The desire for discipleship.
Look with me at Luke 9:23a And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me.

The entirety of what we will see in this text is not a suggestion for a Christian but rather a true statement showing to us what it looks like to be a Christian. Jesus is speaking here but we are not certain to who He is speaking to primarily from looking at our Luke text. But in Mark we see this from Mark 8:34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

Before this it seems like He was alone with His disciples but now He had a message that all needed to hear. This is where we look now at the first of 3 things He says concerning what being a Christian looks like. Do not mistake that I am saying that these are perquisites to salvation because they are not. Jesus is not saying if you want to be a Christian then you must do these things then that gives to you the status of being a true follower. All of what Jesus says is pointed towards His listeners to realize that being a true follower is not passive and it is not for superficial reasons. He says first as we look at Luke 9:23a “If anyone wishes to come after Me.

I want to point out first the desire to go with Jesus. I do not believe that this is speaking of a desire to be saved necessarily. I believe this desire is speaking of whether or not you are willing to actually live the life that goes along with being a Christian. The people following Jesus were there for different reasons. Some of them were following because of being healed by Jesus, others were following because of the miracles, the free food given to them and there were others that were following for the right reasons. We have talked about this before but I think it needs to be noticed again here that many that were called disciples followed Jesus simply because of superficial reasons. We see this very thing in John 6:24-25 that says So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. ²⁵ And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You come here?”

This seems like a great thing for these people to be so dedicated to following Jesus that they traveled to find Him but their motives were not right. Jesus says to them in John 6:26-27 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. ²⁷ Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, set His seal.”

It was in this passage of Scripture that Jesus begins to tell the people that following Him is not about having some type of earthly kingdom that brings prosperity and a great life. He explains In John 6 that in order to follow Him you must be willing to go all in. He begins by telling them that He is the bread of life then says that He came down from heaven. He says that if anyone sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day (John 6:40b).

These words began to confuse the Jews here. They questioned Jesus’ words here and all throughout this passage of Scripture. What brought about many people to leave from following Jesus was what He said in John 6:52-58. I encourage you to read that portion yourself but just to give to us a little bit let’s look at John 6:55-58 that says For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. ⁵⁷ As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down out of heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.

The reaction even from some of His disciples(not the twelve) was not good. John 6:59 says Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?”

No matter how much Jesus tried to show them that this was the path of following Him, they did not want to have anything to do with this type of Messiah. John 6:66 says As a result of this many of His disciples went away and were not walking with Him anymore.

The fact is they lacked the very first thing that Jesus shows to us about what a true disciple will be striving to do throughout his or her life and we will look at this in our next point.

We see many that desire to follow, many desire to be in Heaven but discipleship and true Christianity is directed to what our second point says.

2.The denial of self in discipleship.
Look again at Luke 9:23a but this time we will go a little further, we read And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself.

See the people in John 6 that quit following Jesus did not want to follow someone that had such tough words of commitment and dedication. They wanted the all caring, compassionate, ever loving Messiah. The one that would give to them what they wanted and needed no matter what. They didn’t see a Messiah that would require some type of harsh action. They could not remove their own desires to actually continue to go with Jesus.

Many people today claim to be Christian but they look like the world, they speak like the world, they do worldly things, they follow the culture, the fashion, the music, the everything and anything that seems to fit into the world in the name of “love.” We must realize that true discipleship is the opposite of those things in spite of what your beliefs are concerning this topic.

Jesus says if you want to follow Him then you must deny yourself. This word in the Greek is arneomai (ar-neh’-om-ahee) which means contradict, refuse to affirm or to confess, or to disown. This is not something that will be easy but it is necessary. If you live your life with some Christian values but hold on to some worldly, fleshly or self-centered ideas of how you can and will live your life then you have every reason to doubt if you are truly following Jesus. We must get what we know on how to live from God’s Holy Word which is contained in the 66 books of the Bible. Colossians 3:5 says Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.

Titus 2:11-14 says For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, ¹² instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, ¹³ looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good works.

Look with me at the harsh words Jesus speaks later in Luke in Luke 14:26 where He says “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

This will lead us from the desire to a denial of self and now to our last point.

3.The doing in discipleship.
Look with me at Luke 9:24 that says For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.

The fact is that the one that is serious about following Jesus will be doing it. They will not make excuses of being to busy or putting it off until they have a better opportunity. True discipleship is seen in the action. The action comes in the form of losing your life for the the sake of our Lord. Our own desires, our own wants, needs, our families needs will not come before living in obedience to God’s commands. This giving up of self is difficult at times but shows that you are one that is truly following Jesus. Jesus says in John 12:25-26 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. ²⁶ If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

This doesn’t mean we earn eternal life but shows us that the one that continues to follow are the recipients of salvation. Those other disciples that left Jesus were only disciples up to that point. They were learners only. They desired to follow but lacked the true characteristics of a true Christian.

I want to ask you in a time of reflection, are you truly following Jesus by first denying self?

Do you live for Jesus? Not do you believe or do you go to church but do you live your life seeking to disown your own agenda?

I’m afraid there are many people that I know that claim the name of Jesus but never live for Him other than when it is convenient or when they want something from God. I hope that you will reflect on this and repent from your ways. I too see many things that I have got to turn from and I hope that you as well will join with me in doing so.