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Well, if you’re here through an invitation, or you’ve just brought yourself along to think about what you believe, thank you for coming. Now all I’m assuming tonight is that you’re willing to give what Christians believe a look. And Christianity is all about Jesus Christ, which is why we’re going to look a bit more at that reading from Luke’s Gospel – where Jesus tells us:
• who he is,
• why he came into the world,
• And what it’s got to do with us.

And I don’t know whether you ever pray, but I’m going to pray now, because I believe we need God’s help to be open to him. So let’s pray:

Father God,Help us to be open to the truth about Jesus, and to the answers he gives to our questions about you.In Jesus’ name, Amen

Well I don’t know what questions about God you come with. But I guess the biggest is: ‘Do you even believe God is there at all?’ I once asked my brother Niall that. He’s not a Christian. But he said, ‘Yes, I definitely believe God is there.’ And I wonder whether you’d come with him that far. I then said ‘So, if it might possibly be true that God has made himself knowable through Jesus, so we can relate to him, wouldn’t that be worth checking out?’ And I wonder what you’d say to that. What Niall said was ‘To be honest, I don’t want to check it out.’ And I said ‘Why not?’ And he said ‘I guess I don’t want him interfering in my life. I just feel a real antipathy towards him.’ And ‘antipathy’ isn’t the kind of word Niall usually uses – except maybe for a triple word score in Scrabble. But it means (quote):

A deep-seated feeling against someone or something.

In this, case, against God. And I wonder if you can relate to that? Because the truth is: deep down, we all know God is there. We all have that sense that he made us, he put us here, and is therefore our rightful ruler. But we don’t want him running our lives – as Niall said, we ‘don’t want him interfering.’ And that’s the wrong way for creatures to treat their Creator. And the whole point of Jesus’ coming into the world that first Christmas time was to put that right again. Because Jesus was God’s Son, become human, to bring us back into relationship with God. And in that reading we just had (Luke 9.18-27), Jesus explains how that can happen to you and me. So would you open the Bible to Luke’s Gospel and chapter 9, and I’m going to read Luke 9.23:

And [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Now we’ll come to what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross. But the first thing to see is this wonderful invitation to everyone and anyone.

An invitation to relationship

[Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come…” [to me]

So this invitation is to everyone and anyone here tonight – whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, however deep your antipathy to God has been. Through Jesus his Son, the God you’ve wanted no relationship with is saying, ‘I want relationship with you. Will you come?’ And I know there’ll be people here saying to themselves; ‘That can’t be for me. Not after what I’ve done. Not with what’s on my conscience.’ But the truth is: there’s nothing on your conscience that God can’t forgive you. And that’s because Jesus paid for all the forgiveness you need when he died on the cross. So just look back one verse to Luke 9.22:

[Jesus said] “The Son of Man [that was a title Jesus used for himself] must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

And the reason Jesus had to die was to pay for the forgiveness we need if we’re to come back into relationship with God. [The following is an illustration using a book]. So just imagine the light up there stands for God, and that my right hand here stands for you or me. And the Bible says that consciously or subconsciously we’ve all turned away from God and said, ‘I don’t want you running my life.’ And that’s an offence to God and brings us under his judgement. So now imagine this book I’m holding is the record of everything wrong in our lives – everything God should hold against us in the end. So I’ll lay that on my right hand. And that’s why we feel guilt, and why, in our honest moments, we feel he can’t possibly have us back. But Jesus says: thanks to his death on the cross, he can. Because now imagine this other hand, my left hand, stands for Jesus – God’s perfect Son become human. The only person who’s never done wrong like we have. The only person who never deserved judgement like we do. And yet the Bible says that out of God’s love for us, on the cross, Jesus took on himself the judgement we deserve, so that on the one hand we might be forgiven everything, and on the other hand justice might still be done. And I can picture that by taking the book from this hand which stands for us, and laying it on this hand which stands for Jesus. And that’s why when Jesus says to everyone “If anyone would come… [to me]” he means it – whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, however deep your antipathy has been, he’s saying, ‘I want relationship with you. Will you come?’ But Jesus then spells out:

What kind of relationship would it be?

So let me read Luke 9.23 again:

And [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

So Jesus sums up in two words what relationship with him would involve: Follow me. And the trouble is that Twitter and Instagram have redefined that word until it means nothing at all. So for example, you can follow Big Ben. And when he strikes one, he’ll send your Twitter feed the word ‘BONG’ in capital letters. And at two, he’ll send you the words ‘BONG, BONG’. And from there you can guess the rest of the daily feed. And Big Ben has half a million followers, and following him asks nothing of them at all. Or you can follow Joe Wicks on Instagram, and he might ask a bit more of you – like a 15 minute work-out. But it’s still not much of your life. And you can always not do what he says – after all, he’s only a guru giving advice. But when Jesus says follow me, he’s saying something completely different, because he’s asking for all of your life. He’s saying; ‘Follow me, absolutely. Do what I tell you to do, be what I tell you to be, trust me and obey me absolutely’. And that’s because he’s not just a guru giving advice. He’s God the Son, our rightful ruler. And he’s calling us to hand back the running of our lives to him. And he says that would involve two things:

i). We’d need to deny ourselves. Look at Luke 9.23 again:

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself” [Or for the women here, ‘let her deny herself.’]

So what does that mean? We’re used to people talking about denying themselves something, like chocolate or crisps or whatever they give up for Lent – saying ‘No’ to the Dairy Milk or Pringles. But Jesus isn’t saying, ‘Deny yourself something.’ He’s saying, ‘Deny your self.’ He’s saying, ‘So far, what your self has wanted and felt like and desired has run your life. But if you’re going to hand over the running of it to me, you have to deny self – to say ‘No’ to self calling the shots. Which isn’t to say that everything we want and feel and desire is wrong. But it is a mixed bag – because, as people who’ve turned away from God, not all our wants and feelings and desires are good. And if you follow Jesus the deciding question will always be; ‘Is what I want what he wants? Are my desires in line with his?’ That’s denying yourself. But;

ii). We’d need to take up our cross. Look at Luke 9.23 again:

And [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily” [Or for the women here, ‘take up her cross daily’]

So what does that mean? Well in Jesus’ day, someone taking up his cross was in the process of being rejected by the Roman Empire. Because crucifixion was how it got rid of people it didn’t want – especially, people who set themselves up against it. And to get Jesus crucified, that’s what the Jewish leaders of his day accused him of. So at one level, Jesus went to the cross because he loved us. But at another level it was because he was rejected. So taking up your cross is a metaphor for being rejected. Luke 9.23 again:

And [Jesus] said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him [or her] deny [themselves] and take up his [or her] cross daily”

So Jesus is saying: ‘If you hand over the running of your life to me, you will find yourself rejected at least sometimes, to some extent, by those around you. And you need to accept that.’ So for example, I once interviewed a student called Patrick, like we did with Mason earlier. And Pat said he’d been into everything (sexual relationships, alcohol, drugs, you name it), but reached the point where he knew he’d lost control of himself. So he brought himself along here, and came to realise that only handing over the running of his life to Jesus would bring him back under control. And I remember him saying, ‘You think doing everything you want will satisfy you. But it doesn’t.’ And he said ‘My life before Jesus was like vegetarian food. You eat as much of it as you want, but it never fills you up.’ He then looked at me and said, ‘I’ve just offended all the vegetarians here, haven’t I?’ What he didn’t say in that interview is how his old mates rejected him for packing in alcohol and drugs. Not because he said anything in judgement on what they were still doing, but because the change in his life reminded them too clearly of the God they didn’t want in theirs. That’s taking up your cross. So that’s what following Jesus would involve.

But is it too costly?

And if you’re thinking ‘That’s too costly’, that’s exactly what Jesus expects you to be thinking. Which is why the last thing he says here is that we need to realise there are two costs. There’s a cost to not following him, as well – which is far bigger. So look on to Luke 9.24. Jesus knows we’ll have ‘FOMO’ (‘Fear of Missing Out’). He knows we’ll be thinking, ‘But I want to save my right to do what I want, and I want to save my acceptance from other people. I don’t want to do a Patrick and lose my friends.’ And so he says, to us, Luke 9.24-25:

For whoever would save his life [like that] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake [in other words, hands over the running of it to him] will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

In other words, you can gain all the world’s acceptance and approval and applause – and still ultimately be the loser. Why? Luke 9.26 is the key:

For [says Jesus] whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man [that is, Jesus] be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

So the central claims of Christianity are:
• That Jesus died for our forgiveness,
• That he rose from the dead,
• That he’s alive and well in heaven right now,
• And that one day he’s going to come again, wrap up history, and divide people into those who accepted relationship with him and those who didn’t.

And Jesus is saying that leaves us with two ways to live. Either we accept him, like Patrick did – which will cost us now, but make us eternal winners when he welcomes us into his kingdom in heaven. Or we’re ashamed of him and reject him – which will save us the cost of following him now, but will mean, in the end, that he’ll have to turn us away forever. Because you can’t be part of a kingdom if you won’t accept the king.

I was leading one of our Christianity Explored groups a while back. And there was a guy in it who right at the start said, ‘I’m an atheist. I doubt you’ll convince me. But I’ve decided I owe it to Christianity to give it one look.’ And he was a very sharp thinker. And we looked at this bit of the Gospel – about these two ways to live and the two costs that go with them. And I asked the group what they thought, and this guy said ‘Well, accepting Jesus is a no brainer, isn’t it?’ And after a pause he added, ‘If it’s true’. And I think that’s right. To accept Jesus for a cost that’s temporary, rather than to reject him for a cost that’s eternal is surely a no brainer. But only if it’s true.

Now you’ll have realised by now where I stand on that, but I wonder where you stand with Jesus tonight? Imagine that I was to draw a line that represented where everyone in this room stands with Jesus. At one end there would be the people who’d say ‘I have accepted Jesus. I’ve handed over the running of my life to him. And I’ve found his forgiveness and his ability to change me real.’ Just like Patrick did. And if that’s you, that’s a great thing to be able to say. Then at the other end would be the people who’d say ‘I’m not even sure whether any of this is true – let alone whether I’d want to hand over the running of my life to Jesus.’ And if that’s you I want to say: Thanks, again, for coming and taking the time to give this a look. And I want to say: please keep looking. You’re always welcome to join us any Sunday, if that’s a good way fro you to look. You might like to try one of the Christianity Explored groups I mentioned – where you can look with other people who are just looking, too. And right now you might like to take away a free copy of one of the Gospels about Jesus, like the one we’ve dipped into tonight. And there’s also a takeaway booklet called Why trust the gospels? – which is about whether we can really believe what they say. And you’ll find those at the back. But coming back to my line, you might be somewhere in the middle. And you might be saying, ‘I know it’s true. I know enough about what accepting Jesus would involve. And I know I need to respond to this invitation to come to him.’ Well I’m going to end with a prayer that would be a way for you to do that. So let me just read it to you first so you can think whether it would be appropriate for you. I’ll pray:

Lord Jesus,I come to you as my rightful ruler and God. Thank you for dying for me. Please forgive me that I have not been living for you. And please take over the running of my life from now on.Amen.

Now you may be further back than that, and not ready to pray that. Or you may already have begun this relationship with Jesus and don’t need to begin it all over again. But if that prayer would be appropriate for you, you could respond to Jesus tonight by echoing it in your mind as I lead us in prayer now. So let’s pray:

Lord Jesus,I come to you as my rightful ruler and God. Thank you for dying for me. Please forgive me that I have not been living for you. And please take over the running of my life from now on.Amen.

Well if you’ve just prayed that prayer and meant it, you can trust that he has heard and answered it. And if that’s you, can I encourage you to do three things;

i). Tell another Christian you know that you’ve just taken that step. Because that’ll help you underline what you’ve just done. And they can make some suggestions about how to go on from here.
ii). Take away a copy of this booklet Why Jesus? – which is all about starting to follow Jesus.
iii). Keep coming Sunday by Sunday to get the encouragement you need to keep following him week by week.