Teaching | The Cross: Self-Denial in an Age of Self-Fulfillment | Practicing the Way Vision Series E09
Practicing the Way with John Mark Comer
Practicing the Way
4.9 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2021
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Luke 9:23, Jesus tells His disciples "if anyone wishes to come follow Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." In this episode, John Mark unpacks this Scripture, telling us that the cost of discipleship is to die to ourselves every day. Self-denial is not only challenging; it also runs against the prevailing cultural winds of self-fulfillment. But by overcoming our personal obstacles to discipleship and dying to ourselves, we can step into the abundant life that Jesus promises for His followers.
Key Scripture Passages: Luke 9v18-24; Galatians 5v16-24; Luke 9v57-62; Luke 14v25-33; Luke 18v18-23; Matthew 13v44
Resources for this practice:
https://practicingthewayarchives.org/practices/practicing-the-way
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the John Mark Comer Teaching's Podcast by Practicing the Way. |
| 0:05.0 | This teaching was first given at Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon |
| 0:10.0 | as a part of the Practicing the Way Vision Series. |
| 0:13.0 | We are coming up on the end of our fall long vision series on practicing the way of Jesus. |
| 0:25.0 | Going forward in the new year, the plan is to reorient our entire church |
| 0:30.0 | around this idea of apprenticeship to Jesus of Nazareth. |
| 0:33.7 | We said that to apprentice under Jesus |
| 0:36.0 | is to order your life around three goals. |
| 0:38.4 | And this language is fast becoming familiar. |
| 0:40.8 | Say it out loud with me. |
| 0:42.0 | One is to be with Jesus. |
| 0:44.4 | Two, become like Jesus, and three, do what he did. |
| 0:49.3 | That's our summary of what exactly it means |
| 0:51.7 | to be an apprentice of Jesus. |
| 0:54.0 | As you can see, following Jesus is a whole life endeavor. |
| 0:57.0 | It's not a hobby or a side project or a fad. |
| 1:00.0 | You wake up in the morning and whether you're a pastor or a student or a banker or an architect or a barista |
| 1:06.3 | That is the reason you get out of bed |
| 1:09.3 | But the question of course is how exactly does this work in the Western secular |
| 1:13.9 | urban digital world that we call home where most of us are over busy and so many people |
| 1:19.3 | are stressed out and our culture as a whole is a mile wide and an inch deep. |
| 1:24.0 | And that's the nerve that I kind of want to touch on over the last week or two in our series. |
... |
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