Notes from a sermon by David Nasser at Lakepointe Church, compiled from mostly direct quotes taken from different parts of the sermon.
Cultural Christianity has taken the most radical message ever preached and reduced it. We’ve simmered it down to a self-improvement program in an effort to be user-friendly. It has turned the message of the cross into upgrading life. We’ve turned Christianity into an upgrade; we’ve reduced it to self-improvement. We’ve turned it into a user-friendly message instead of a message of crucifixion. We’ve turned it into cleaning up instead of giving up our best life now, instead of the crucified life.
And when Jesus showed up 2,000 years ago, when Jesus came on the scene, He had one call. It was a call to die. And it offended religious people more than anybody else because it threatened to put them out of business. You want to really hack off people with a call-to-die message? Preach it to the church. The lost world isn’t afraid of it. They know there’s something broken. It offends the religious more than anybody else because it threatens to put them out of business.
But Jesus made it clear over and over again: Don’t add me to your agenda. Make me your life. Deny yourself, pick up the cross daily, and follow me.
The best thing I can do for myself is to get over myself. Get over my pride, my self-sufficiency, my need for control, my stubborn need to do it my way, my own selfish ambitions, my own selfish obsessions, my own need for protection, my own preferences, my tribe, my opinion, and my self-centered world.
And so we soften it, we sanitize it, we repackage it, we domesticate it, we compromise it. And frankly, we do what we can to reduce the Gospel to an accessory. It doesn’t become the mainframe; it just becomes one more add-on to everything else about who we are.
1. Get Over Yourself
The crucified life begins with this reality: It’s done. It’s finished.
Jesus gave His all, so why would He want only some of you? The audacity of a God who would want all of you is only going to make sense when you understand that. Jesus never asked any of us to do anything that He Himself didn’t model and exemplify.
Have you come to the end of yourself? Or is Jesus just an accessory? Have you brought your life to Him and said, “I am done”? The greatest thing one can do for oneself is to get over oneself.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
2. The Daily Death
Will you let Jesus wash your feet?
God has already washed us. That’s called salvation. Hence, we don’t need another shower, but we do need to wash our feet because our feet are going to get dirty living in this world.
The process of sanctification involves daily death.
John 13:10
Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.’