Dying to Self
/References used during today's message.
Main scripture references:
Acts 16:1-5; 15:1,24-29
Romans 2:28-29
Galatians 2:20
Philippians 2:1-8
The poem Pastor Mark read is as follows:
When you are forgotten, neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don’t sting or hurt with the oversight, but your heart is happy being counted worthy to suffer for Christ;
That is dying to self.
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinion ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence;
That is dying to self.
When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any annoyance; when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus did;
That is dying to self.
When you are content with any food, and offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God;
That is dying to self.
When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown;
That is dying to self.
When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and you are in desperate circumstances;
That is dying to self.
When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit, inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart;
That is dying to self.
–Anonymous
The quotes Pastor Mark used are as follows:
"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him." -Martin Luthor
"Jesus Christ demands self-denial, that is, self-negation, as a necessary condition of discipleship. Self-denial is a summons to submit to the authority of God as Father and of Jesus as Lord... Accepting death to everything that carnal self wants to possess is what Christ's summons to self-denial is all about." -J.I. Packer.
"Some missionaries bound for Africa were laughed at by the boat captain who said, 'You'll only die over there!' Replied a missionary: 'Captain, we died before we started.'" -Vance Havner
"Among the plastic saints of our times, Jesus has to do all the dying, and all we want to hear is another sermon about his dying." -A.W. Tozer.