The Walk of Dying

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who stood against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.  Bonhoeffer was hung as a martyr for his Christian faith in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945 at the age of 39 for participating in a resistance against Hitler in support of the Jews.  He is most well-known for writing a book called “The Cost of Discipleship” in which he penned the famous statement, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”  This statement summarized Bonhoeffer’s belief that being a follower of Christ is not cheap but costly and allows us to, “live in the world without being of it” and to be “truly free to live our lives in this world”!  What did Dietrich Bonhoeffer believe that gave him the courage to stand up to Hitler in the face of death?

READ:  Luke 9:21-25

Jesus Christ taught and lived out what Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to believe and live out himself, that living life in the same way as Jesus did requires LOSING our LIVES!  Jesus said that He, “must suffer . . . and be killed”.  Jesus selflessly chose physical death for the benefit of sinful humanity.  In Philippians 3:10 Paul expresses his desire to know Christ by “becoming like Him in His death” (cf 2 Cor. 4:10).  Sounds a little morbid!  Who wants to be like someone who is known for how they died?  Paul did, and we should too!  It’s a profound paradox for those who want to live in the same way Jesus lived that by losing our lives we truly find life!  How do we lose our lives for the sake of Jesus Christ?

We lose our lives by FORBIDDING ourselves the LIFE we want (Lk. 9:23) – Forbidding ourselves things we want is hard to do.  Our golden retriever Daisy had zero ability to forbid herself something that she wanted.  She would spend 5 straight days digging a hole underneath a fence just so she could get to a ball.  Are there things in life that we react the same way towards?  We spend our lifetimes pursuing what we want when we should “deny (ourselves)” and live for God.  Our lives are not our own to do with what we want, we are the possession of God and therefore we need to use our lives for His purpose and glory (Rom. 14:7-8; 1 Cor. 6:19b-20a)!

We lose our lives by daily WRITING another page of our OBITUARY (Lk. 9:23) – An autobiography is an account of a person's life written or composed by themselves.  If you were to write an autobiography would choose the genre of an obituary?  Probably not.  The apostle Paul wrote his own obituary in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”  Like Paul, by “taking up (our) cross”, we are to put ourselves to death in order that we may walk a new life in Christ (Rom. 6:3-7, 11)!  Daily we are to die to the desire to write the story of our lives, but instead let God author every chapter of our life.

We lose our lives by FOLLOWING Jesus Christ (Lk. 9:23) - Do you remember getting to be the line leader in elementary school?  How proud to be the ONE that marched everyone down the hall to recess or to the lunch room.  Is that not the position that we are encouraged to achieve in life?  Jesus does not call us to be at the front of the line, rather to place ourselves last and least among others and take up the humble position of following.  Jesus’ call to be a disciple is an invitation to leave the things of the world behind and follow Him (Mt. 4:18-22)!

CONCLUSION
2 Timothy 2:11 says, “If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him”.  In order to live for God, we must be willing to die for Him.  Jim Elliott was one of five missionaries killed at the age of 29 in 1956 while participating in Operation Auca, an attempt to share the gospel with the Huaorani people of Ecuador in South America.  Jim expressed his willingness to lose his life eleven years before he died when he wrote in a personal journal, “he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.  Jim understood something that we need to understand as we live in this world.  There is nothing in this world that is worth holding onto, even our very lives, compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing and following Jesus Christ!  Have you lost your life for the sake of Christ, or are you still trying to save it?