September 15, 2024
Valley of Self-Centeredness
Matthew 16:24-27
So far in our sermon series entitled “From Valleys to Victory”, we have looked at two different valleys that we can find ourselves in during our lives. Firstly, we looked at the Valley of Hurt and how Jesus has called us to find victory out of that valley through forgiving those who have hurt us (this is the type of forgiveness that was modeled through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross). Last week we looked at the Valley of Regret in which we saw how to Biblically let go of the baggage of regret that we all pick up and carry in order to find victory that comes through focusing on the race that God has set before each of us (sanctification). Both valleys are places of pain and hurt that we want and need to get ourselves out of as quickly as possible and praise God that He has made a way out of both. The valley I want to look at today is going to be quite different because where the first two valleys caused us pain and that pain was one of the motivating factors to get us out of those places, today's valley is rather pleasant and is a seemingly wonderful place to be. It’s such a comfortable place we might ask ourselves, “Why are we talking about getting out of this valley?” Even though it’s a place that seems nice, it’s still a place that followers of Jesus can never be found. That’s why He calls us out of that valley. So what is this seemingly paradoxical valley? It’s the Valley of Self-Centeredness.
The reason self-centeredness is so comfortable is because it’s so natural to all of us. We have a tendency to like things that cater to ourselves and our comfort. It’s been this way since we were born. Think about when a baby cries. When it cries it’s a cry of self-centeredness. It doesn’t cry because it’s concerned for its Mom or Dad or anyone else for that matter. It’s only crying because it’s concerned for its own needs and doesn’t care who it interrupts or upsets in order to get what it wants. Self-Centeredness is so natural for us that Jesus used it to be a gauge when it comes to loving others. He does this in the second part of the Great Commandment when Jesus says to love our neighbor as ourselves. He knows we know how to look after our own interests. This command was so important He wanted to make sure that it would be clear to everyone who heard it. Just because it's natural doesn’t mean that it’s good. So this morning I want to look at a conversation Jesus had with His disciples that was recorded in Matthew 16. He speaks of what it takes to follow Him, what it takes to get out of the Valley of Self-Centeredness, and why it matters when being Self-Centered is so comfortable to us all.
What It Takes to Follow Jesus - Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.
To understand why Jesus addresses the disciples in this way we need to understand what has led up to this point. It wasn’t long before this account that Jesus had asked His disciples “Who do people say I am?” and then continues to ask the follow-up question of “Who do YOU say I am?” That’s when Peter says that Jesus is the Messiah, The Son of the Living God. This was not only a declaration that He was the long-awaited Messiah, but it was a declaration that He was God Himself. Jesus tells them not to tell anyone that He is the Messiah. That’s very peculiar because why wouldn’t Jesus want others to know the truth about who He really is? The answer to that question lies in a response from Peter. Jesus decided to go deeper with His disciples by telling them plainly what was going to have to happen to Him including His betrayal, death, and resurrection. Peter said that will never happen and he tried to correct or reprimand Jesus. Jesus rebukes Him and it’s in this response to Peter we start to see the problem with self-centeredness. Peter’s issue is the same as one that we see in the crowd that was present on Palm Sunday. The issue is an attitude that these people, including Peter, had that they think they know what the Messiah is supposed to be, or maybe what they want Him to be. Peter thought He knew what was best for Jesus to do and even though He was well meaning, it was from a place of selfishness that this statement sprang. Jesus had to rebuke him by calling him the devil. Jesus then let him know that he was merely seeing things from an earthly perspective and not from God’s perspective. Peter as well as those who waved palm branches on Jesus' last entrance into Jerusalem thought Jesus was coming to free them from the political oppression of the Romans, but God had other plans for Jesus. He came to free everyone from their bondage to sin. Selfishness is a bias that permeates everything that we do. We all have it. Because this selfish bias is not of God, it will taint our perception of what God is doing and what He wants to do in our lives. That is why God can’t have us remain in this Valley of Self-Centeredness because it’s not a place that is of Himself. It’s at this point that Jesus sees the selfish (although well meaning) ambitions of Peter. He wants to confront all of His disciples at that point so they can understand that it has to be God’s way when we follow Him. We have to remove anything that is self-focused. Jesus tells them if they want to be His followers there are three things that they MUST do. There are no other options for His followers. Those three things that must happen are Denying Yourself, Taking up your Cross, and Following Him.
Denying Yourself
When it comes to being a true follower of Jesus in both word and deed, the first step is always the hardest. The first step to following Jesus is denying oneself. We need to understand that self-denial is not self-rejection. There are things that we must do in order to take care of ourselves. We need to be concerned with our physical health, as well as our mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, and so on. Denying oneself does not mean to leave those things alone and behind because we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14). We need to be good stewards of the most precious gift God has trusted us with - this life that we live. Craig Bloomberg put it this way, “Self-denial does not imply self-abuse or lack of self-esteem. As Jesus’ followers, believers should have a better self-image than any other people, but it should be based on God’s grace and not their merit. Self-denial does, however, mean putting God and his kingdom priorities first.” That is what Jesus is talking about here. It’s above and beyond being a good steward of ourselves. This call to deny ourselves is a call to leave all our selfish thoughts and behaviors behind when we come to follow Jesus. This will not be easy, and Jesus knew that. That is why the word we interpret as “deny” here is a very strong word. It is only used in the New Testament in the Gospels to describe the denial of Jesus by Peter. It means to utterly and ultimately deny yourself. One of the reasons that Jesus used this strong form of “deny” was because He wanted those who would follow Him to know the difficulty they would face in this first step alone. We can’t be selfishly self-centered in this life and follow Jesus as well. We have to choose one or the other. That is why He uses the word “wants” when He says, “If anyone wants to follow me…”. We have to want to be His follower. What does that actually look like in our lives? Most of the time when we see calls to be selfless in Scripture it involves how we treat others. This should be no surprise because to follow Jesus is to copy Jesus and He always puts others first. Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Here are a few practical passages that once we put into practice will help us take that first step of denying ourselves as we follow Jesus and help us out of the Valley of Self-Centeredness. Philippians 2:3-4 gives us a few things we need to do. Never try to cause division because you don’t like or prefer something a certain way. It tells us that we always need to be humble and make sure we consider others' wants and interests above our own. Now this alone is enough to make us realize how self-centered we can be when we try to put just these two verses into practice in our lives, but the Bible doesn’t just stop with these two verses. Romans 14:13 starts pulling us out of that Valley of Self-Centeredness by telling us that we shouldn’t hold our preferences and non-Biblical convictions so high that it can cause our brother to stumble. Again, we must deny and humble ourselves. Galatians 5:13 tells us that we are free, but don’t use that freedom to indulge our selfish desires but rather serve others with that freedom. Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another's burdens - meaning we don’t just worry about our problems. These are just a few of the many passages in Scripture that command us to deny ourselves and put others first in our lives. These seem to be easy, but they are much easier said than done. However, when we are obedient to the call to deny ourselves, we find that we have taken our first step out of the Valley of Self-Centeredness.
Taking up your cross
The next step out of this valley is one that we can understand well because we have the entirety of scripture. The disciples would not have known the depth of what it meant to take up one's cross. Of course, the cross was prevalent in their society, but they would never have thought what it was about until they saw Jesus hanging upon the cross. What they would have known about the call to pick up a cross would be that one who carries a cross is someone who won't be coming back. They would have known that it was one thing if someone made you carry a cross, but it was something altogether different if you made a choice to pick one up and carry it yourself. This is what Jesus did when He freely laid down His life for us, so when Jesus called us to take up our cross willingly, it was a call for His followers to identify with Him because He did the same. It was a call not to identify within their own selfish ideas, but instead their identity has to be in Christ. This call means that we are to stand, suffer, be rejected, and it might even ultimately lead us to death, but this is what it takes to follow Jesus.
Following Him
When one takes up their cross, they can’t turn back because it’s not their will that is being done at that point but rather someone else’s. This is what Jesus was referring to as He told Peter in John 21:18-19, that Peter will be taken by others to a place he didn't want to go. What Jesus was telling Peter is that he would die by crucifixion. When we follow, we have abandoned our own ways and sought after Jesus’. We have taken up our crosses, no matter what it will cost us, and we are willingly led by the one who bought us with His blood. Wherever He leads we will follow. That's a scary thought to really follow Jesus, but never forget that Jesus is good and will never lead us wrong.
What Selfishness Does - Matthew 16:25-26
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?
Jesus then tells us the danger of selfishness. We tend to hang on to our selfish ways. Jesus promises if we do try to hang on to our selfishness we will lose our lives. We must understand He doesn't mean this as a physical death but rather that we lose the promise of life Jesus promises here on earth - the abundant life. The life in the here and now is not the only thing that is gained when we lay down our selfishness and follow Jesus. There is a hint at it being saved, but saved from what? I’ll leave that answer for the last point, but there is a question that we all must answer - “What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?” That’s a tough question because it lends to thinking - Why did Jesus speak of losing the soul? This is what wanting your own way will ultimately lead to – to losing your soul. What is the answer to this question? What do you benefit from gaining everything but ultimately losing your soul for eternity? Well, I think back to an old riddle that shares the same answer as this question. What is greater than God - eviler than the devil? The poor have it, the rich want it, and if you eat it you will die? The answer is nothing.
Why selflessness is important - Matthew 16:27
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.
If this life was all there was and everything would be over when we died, then being as selfish as possible and stuck in the valley of Self-Centeredness would be the best option. We could all adopt the attitude that the rich fool had in Jesus’ parable when he said “eat, drink, and be merry!” Just like Jesus spoke of in the parable, there is more to life than just all the pleasure we can consume this side of eternity. There is more - there is judgment. That is what Jesus speaks of here. There is coming a day Jesus is coming back to judge everyone, the living and the dead, for what they have done. We are all in trouble because the selfishness that we all suffer from causes us to sin and since we all have sinned, and the wages of sin is death, we need someone to save us. That’s exactly what Jesus did, but again we can’t come to Jesus on our own terms. We must come to Him on His terms and that is by making Him the Lord of our lives and following Him on His terms.
We have to understand that we can’t stay stuck in our self-centeredness in our Christian lives. We don’t know when Jesus will return but we have work to do. We have a world that needs to hear the good news. We can’t just worry about ourselves and what we want in life. We need to be looking out for others, loving them like Jesus, but confronting sin and sharing the hope we have in Jesus. We have to remember these temporary pleasures will have nothing on what lies ahead for those who follow Jesus wherever He may lead.
