The Partial and the Perfect Self.
There is a self-denial which is merely an elaborate and subtle form of self-seeking. The self-sacrifice required of Christians is a reasonableservice; when we directly aim at doing good to others we indirectly achieve greater good for ourselves than any selfish conduct could accomplish; or, as our text puts it, he who loseth his life for Christ's sake shall find it.
I. We have seen that a man is distinguished from an animal by the fact that he is able to regard his nature as a whole, and to gather up its passing experiences into the unity of a consistent life. But he is also, and still more strikingly, distinguished by the fact that he can live in the lives of others. He may so identify himself with others as to make their lives his own, and unless he does this he is not really human. It is only as our individual, narrow, exclusive, isolated self is developed into a larger, inclusive, sympathetic self that we come to our highest life.
II. The capacity of love and self-sacrifice is the capacity to make the happiness of others my own, and to identify my life with an ever-widening sphere of life beyond myself. As a rule, this capacity is called forth in early life; and when once it has been brought into exercise it should grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength.
III. The self-denial, then, which Christ requires of us is not self-destruction, but self-completion; it is not self-mutilation, but self-development; it is not self-neglect, but self-fulfilment. It will bring us gradually to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It does not ignore any of the various elements in our nature, but it enables them all to work together harmoniously for the perfecting of the whole man. He who has learned the lesson of self-sacrifice is so changed from what he was before he learned it that he may emphatically be called a new creature, and yet he is not less a man than formerly; rather, we should say, it is he and such as he alone who really deserve that exalted title.
A. W. Momerie, The Origin of Evil,p. 147.
To do God's work needs manliness and courage. It needs manliness and courage to be His loyal servant, and to defy the opinion of the great world about us manliness, the courage which may accomplish so much in the great sad world we have to live and work in; and this must be first struggled after in our bright, sunny, if thoughtless, early days.
I. What motive is there to make and choose a life of self-sacrifice, self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, spending our lives for others instead of saving them for ourselves, instead of living sordidly, selfishly, amassing money, building up comfort, rank, good things for ourselves, living as though the chief good were to be able to help on the fair work of Christ? What motive is set before us to induce us to choose this life? In reply, I quote the words of the text the three strange, solemn words, spoken, we know, so often by the Master to His own, "For My sake;" the three strange words which moved the holy twelve, the hundred and twenty first disciples, the band of noble, gallant pioneers of the early Christian centuries; the three words which nerved so many men, so many weak women, children, and grey-haired, to endure all things, to bear willingly the loss of everything men count dear and precious home, friends, even life.
II. This is the motive. Is it not a sufficient one? What appeal can be imagined more solemn, more touching, more persuasive, than these three little words? Be good men, said our Christ; be loyal, truthful, generous, loving men, helpers of the weak, comforters of the comfortless, the friends of the orphan and the widow, the mourner and the forlorn, for My sake; for My sake, who left the home of grandeur and of peace, and entered on a dark and dreadful contest to rescue you from sin and misery and endless shame and sorrow. Help Me, says the Redeemer, to carry on My mighty, eternal work of reconciliation and reparation; help on My triumph over sin and misery and sorrow.
III. See what such teaching involves. It changes everything for us: men no longer painfully obey a grave moral law from a sense of right and duty; they no longer keep themselves pure for fear of certain dread consequences; no longer, as it has been well said, look on acts of generosity and self-denial as on a "tale of bricks," to be delivered often with wearied limbs and dull, submissive hearts. The brave, manly life of self-surrender; the generous toil for others; the knightly thought for others; the loving to give rather than to receive these things done for His sake, the life that is lived for His sake is no longer difficult and hard, but the yoke becomes easy and the burden light when the gleam of the love of Christ falls upon them.
D. M. Spence, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,Nov. 11th, 1880.
References: Matthew 10:39. Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 119; H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit,4th series, p. 135.Matthew 10:41. J. Brierley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 73; S. Cox, Expositor,2nd series, p. 81; J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve,p. 96.