[THE FOLLOWING IS A SERMON NIKO PREPARED AND DELIVERED FOR OUR HOME CHURCH]

“Deny Yourself”

Good afternoon! I would like to pray before I start my teaching.

Who knows which command of Christ I am going to be teaching on? It is called “Deny Yourself”, and it is found in Luke 9:23, turn with me there if you please.

Deny in the Greek is ap-ar-neh’-om ahee, if I said that correctly. It means to deny utterly, which means to disown or abstain. So we should deny utterly our old man when it tells us to do something wrong.

Abstain means to keep back from, to refrain, or to forbear. One of the definitions for forbear is to avoid doing. So we should avoid listening to our flesh and follow Jesus.

Denying yourself can often be hard. Like giving up things you want to do, giving up things you own, giving up your time and so on. An example of not denying yourself is the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler did not deny himself, he did not follow Jesus. If you stand up for what is right even it is hard then you are denying yourself. You may have to deny yourself when you are witnessing.

Our highest example should be Jesus. Can I have a volunteer for Philippians 2:3-8, please? “Thank you!” We should not raise any example higher than Jesus Christ, “The Author and Finisher of our faith”.

Can I have another volunteer for Philippians 3:4-11, please? “Thank You!” Paul is a good example of denying himself. Paul utterly denies all these things that are considered so good to men, Paul considers them awful compared to knowing Jesus.

Another example of denying yourself is Mr. Michael. Mr. Michael said that when his baby brother was crying during the night although he was really tired he would jump out of bed and see if he could help. That is called denying yourself.

I once read a book. In one part of the book a boy named Ben was going to play with other children. When a judge had a letter or something he wanted delivered somewhere, none of the children wanted to do the job, so Ben opted to do the job, to the opposition of at least one of the children. [SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENED FROM IT] Ben did not know that this would happen, but it did. It turned out good. Ben did the right thing, giving up his play, and helping another and it turned out good. We should do good, denying ourselves and not hope for good to happen in return. It is okay if good happens, but we should not do it for that reason.

Another example of denying yourself is my brother Luke. Ian had a toad and we were going to get some bugs to feed the toad. All four of us have our own parts to unloading the dishwasher. For example Ian has the silverware, Luke has the containers and things and so on. Ian had not done his silverware yet, even though Luke had already done his job he opted to do Ian’s job. That meant that Luke did Ian’s job, and not only that, he did Ian’s job plus his own! He did not do it because he wanted to see how fast he could go, he did it out of kindness; so Ian could go with me, and not only that, Luke wanted us to go ahead without him. Now this was not because Luke had decided not to go, for soon after he came running out to join us. Wow! That was encouraging. I had better try to be like that.

Another example of denying yourself is Grandma H. Grandma H. spends a lot of time washing the dishes on Sunday. There are a lot of ways you can use your time. Grandma H. uses a lot of her time on Sunday’s serving others, that is a good way of using your time.

So some examples of denying yourself are, definitely Jesus, not the rich young ruler, the apostle Paul, Mr. Michael, the boy Ben from the book, my brother Luke, Grandma H., and many others. Let us try to deny ourselves from now on in different ways such as helping, serving, being kind, and many more. Let us pray now for God to help us do this; do this cheerfully, and to just be a blessing to others. Let’s pray.