Death to self in Christian preaching emphasizes surrendering personal desires and ambitions to fully embrace Christ's lordship, leading to spiritual growth and true joy (Luke 9:23). Illustrations often use images of dying, burial, or crucifixion to symbolize the believer's old self being put to death, making way for new life in Christ (Galatians 2:20).
True joy comes from decreasing self and increasing Christ in our lives.
A saint cares not how ill it goes with him, so it go well with Jesus Christ: he saith, as Mephibosheth to David, "Yea, let him take all, inasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his house." So it may go well with God's name, Moses cares not though his be blotted out of the book of life. And said John, "He must increase; but I must decrease: this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled." Venning.
When dying out to self, we are to announce this to Christ, instead of waiting and waiting for Him to tell us that we are dead: There is a memorable passage in the history of St. Francis that may throw light on this subject. The grand rule of the order which he founded was implicit submission to the superior. One day a monk proved refractory. He must be subdued. By order of St. Francis, a grave was dug deep enough to hold a man; the monk was put into it; the brothers began to shovel in the earth, while their superior, standing by, looked on, stern as death. When the mold had reached the wretch’s knees St. Francis bent down, and fixing his eyes on him, said, “Are you dead, yet? Is your self-will dead? Do you yield?”
There was no answer; down in that grave there seemed to stand a man with a will as iron as his own. The signal was given, and the burial went on. When at length he was buried up to the middle, to the neck, to the lips, St. Francis bent down once more to repeat the question, “Are you dead yet?” The monk lifted his eyes to his superior, to see in the cold grey eyes that were fixed on him no spark of human feeling. Dead to pity and all the weaknesses of humanity, St. Francis stood ready to give the signal that should finish the burial. It was not needed; the iron bent; he was vanquished; the funeral stopped; his will yielding to a stronger, the poor brother said, “I am dead.”
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Dictionary of Illustrations
Over the course of two and a half years in ministry, I witnessed the deaths of 15 people. Fifteen parishioner-friends passed from my sight while I served and lived among them. Watching church members struggle with various illnesses and succumb to death challenged me in ways I could have never expected. Up until this point, I had only lost one set of grandparents. Yet, during this brief time it often seemed a day didn’t go by when I was not receiving news of another hospitalization, another life-threatening illness, or yet another death.
Despite the many emotional, physical, and spiritual challenges I faced during this time of ministry, I was also given incredible gifts. Journeying with someone you love through the dying process reminds you of your own mortality and finitude. This journey provides an opportunity to deepen your emotional reservoirs, to grow your physical fortitude in the face of wearying grief, and to develop your spiritual understanding of both death and life.
Jesus said a good deal about this dying journey. Often, he calls his followers to self-sacrifice, to single-hearted allegiance, and yes, even to death. In Luke’s Gospel, he tells the great multitudes following him that “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. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27). What we often forget in our casual reading of the gospels is that the Cross was the instrument of death and disgrace. It was an instrument reserved for the vilest offenders, and as such was an instrument of punishment for the lowest of the low. Yet, WHOEVER DOES NOT CARRY HIS OWN CROSS AND COME AFTER ME CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE. There is no “if” in Jesus’s statement, only whether or not we’ll follow him to death as his disciples.
The fact that Jesus makes this kind of statement about the qualifications of a disciple to the “multitudes going along with him” should not be lost on us either. None of us likes this aspect of discipleship, and I suspect the crowds dissipated after they heard Jesus speak these very difficult statements. Perhaps they were the very ones who later clamored for his death by crucifixion. It was easy to follow Jesus when he focused on the positives. And yet, as sure as babies are born into this world and new life begins every spring, death is inevitable. Not just physical death, but the “little deaths” we experience every day. How about the death that comes when you realize you won’t go to the moon or marry the King of England? What about those days we realize we are not working for ourselves, but for our children and for generations to follow us? What about the death that comes when we recognize that most of what makes up adulthood is repetitive and mundane? Will we find the gifts God offers to us even in these moments of death? Will we find abundant life even as we march towards our inevitable physical deaths? Will we learn to move gracefully and graciously towards Calvary with our cross?
In speaking of his own death and the gifts it would yield, Jesus said that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal” (John 12:24-25). In the face of a world that shouts to us to grab all we can now, to find self-fulfillment, and to be happy, Jesus extends to us the ironic invitation to embrace death in order to truly find our lives -- eternally. This is both a promising and challenging invitation. Can we really find life out of death? And is it abundant even in the everyday, ordinary living most of us experience? The challenge Jesus sets before those who would follow is the challenge to “die” to what we think makes for life, in order to experience the life of discipleship, following after Jesus towards death, through death, in order that by faith in the power of resurrection, we might receive life indeed.
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Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #26730]
George Muller’s biographer, A. T. Pierson, marvels that this “one poor man” in Bristol, England, “dependent on the help of God only in answer to prayer” had in his lifetime cared for over 10,000 orphans, building five spacious homes to house them. He had established day-schools and Sunday schools all over the world in which perhaps 150,000 children had been taught; he had put into circulation 2 million Bibles and Scripture portions; he had published more than 3 million books and tracts; and in addition he had liberally supported missionaries in many countries. So in his sixty years of remarkable ministry he had been entrusted by God with the stewardship of gifts which Dr. Pierson, writing in 1899, estimated must have amounted to 7.5 million dollars. Imagine how much that would be today!
What was the secret of Muller’s phenomenally fruitful service for God and the human family Christ died to redeem? Asked that very question by a grateful admirer, he replied, bending lower and lower until almost touching the floor, “There was a day when I died, utterly died, died to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will -- died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends -- and since then I have studied only to show myself approved to God.”
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Vernon Grounds, “Radical Commitment” (Multnomah Press, 1984), pp. 43-44,
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of #21014]
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