“He has freed me from sin, death, and the power of the devil, not with silver and gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death.”  (Luther’s Small Catechism)

Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34-35). In doing so, he showed us that being his follower has a sacrificial quality, not unlike Jesus’ own sacrifice for our sake on the cross. Jesus taught that Christian discipleship is not about gain for the self but more about the loss of the self.

It is popular these days among preachers of the “prosperty gospel” to tell listeners that faith is the means to gain personal success. Such preachers are not above promising earthly “silver and gold” as the reward for faithful discipleship. Of course, if one does not become magically wealthy and successful, they explain it as a sign that the loser’s faith must not be strong or sincere enough.

But as Luther says in the catechism, Jesus’ sacrifice for us had nothing to do with silver and gold, but with his holy and precious blood. Jesus gave his life for us that we might new life. This new life of faith means that the old life in us ends. Through Jesus’ death we die to ourselves, and through his resurrection, we are raised to a different kind of life.  As Paul says in his letter to the Romans,

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin … So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:6, 11)

But what does it mean die to sin, and “be brought to nothing”? It means that as disciples of Christ, we don’t look to ourselves and our own desires as the goal of our personal lives. It means that we don’t measure our lives by selfish success, whether it be in earthly wealth or in spiritual superiority over others. Dying to self is living a life of sacrificial humility, where “we do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but think with sober judgment,” remembering that “though many, we are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:3, 5).

Ironically, this is where we find our true value and purpose in Christ. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Humility does not mean we think less of ourselves, but that we think of ourselves less.”

As disciples of Jesus, we do not measure ourselves as better than others, but regard all we have as the tools and resources to serve others. Though we may be simple earthen vessels, jars of clay, we are also the living means of grace by which God’s transcendent power is revealed as he works daily to bring salvation to the world.

Pastor Steven E. King