There is a ridiculous story about a group of animals in the jungle who decided to have a football game. The problem was that no one could tackle the rhinoceros. Once he got a head of steam, he was unstoppable. When he received the opening kickoff, he rambled for a touchdown. The score was seven to nothing immediately. Somehow, they managed to keep the ball away from him the remainder of the first quarter. At the beginning of the second quarter, the other team tied the score 7 to 7. The lion tried to warn the zebra on the kickoff not to kick it to the rhinoceros. But the zebra ignored the warning. The rhino caught the ball and there he was racing for the touchdown. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was brought down with a vicious tackle. When the animals unpiled, it was discovered that a centipede had made the tackle.

"That was fantastic!" congratulated the lion. "But where were you on the opening kickoff?"

The centipede replied, "I was still putting on my shoes." (1)

Our text for the day is a call to put on our shoes and get into action.

In the comic strip, BEETLE BAILEY, the general looks at his office staff, who are leaning on their elbows at their desks, and immediately changes a wall sign from THINK to ACT.

Jesus says to us, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

I wonder if it's even possible to speak to this generation about self-denial. After all, we are the ME generation. "I've got to find myself," we say. "I've got to do my own thing. I will buy only the finest, because after all, `I'm worth it.'"

Such an attitude was epitomized many years ago by Margaret Trudeau, the wife of the then Prime Minister of Canada. At age 28, Ms. Trudeau, after marrying the Prime Minister of Canada and giving birth to three beautiful children, announced simply that she was abdicating. She left her husband and her children behind in order to be herself. We are the ME generation. We want what we want and we want it now.

I was reading about drive-through funerals down in Pensacola, Florida. Mourners don't even have to leave their cars at Willie J. Jr's. funeral parlor, to pay respects to the recently deceased. All they have to do is drive by a serenely lit 8 by 10 foot window to view their departed loved one. A pullout tray even lets them sign the guest register while sitting in their cars. (2)

We want what we want and we want it now. We will not put up with any inconvenience. We will not be second in line. We will settle for nothing but the best.

Charles L. Allen tells about being a young pastor of a little church back in the mountains. There was an old man in the community with whom he spent a lot of time and from whom he learned a lot. This man was somewhat of a philosopher. He would tell his young pastor of life as it used to be, how very little the people had yet how happy they were. But one day, he said, the mailman left a mail order catalogue at someone's house. The people began to look at it, first out of curiosity and then longingly.

Soon every home in the community had one of the catalogues. The old man would sadly shake his head as he told his pastor how they turned away from the things that used to mean so much. As they turned the pages of the catalogue, they forgot the beauty of the mountains around them. They thought, instead, of the many things they did not possess. (3) Can you identify with that? We are the ME generation; we want what we want and we want it now.

How strange these words of Jesus seem in this context. "If you would follow me you must deny yourself." Deny yourself. How out of place such words may seem.

OF COURSE THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH MANY OF US HAVE LEARNED TO DENY OURSELVES. WE HAVE SEEN THAT OFTENTIMES SELF DENIAL IS IN OUR BEST INTEREST. The self-help books all tell us that. Self-denial is the path to success. If you delay gratification, if you work hard, if you put your money into savings, if you wait to have your needs met until a time when you can afford it, if you cut down on your cholesterol and get plenty of exercise, then you can be successful. We all recognize the wisdom of that advice. To gain control over our desires to subjugate them to some greater and higher goal--this is the path that leads to fulfillment. Every yuppie can buy that.

I read about a cartoon that appeared in a magazine some time back showing a little boy attempting to lead a huge Saint Bernard dog on a leash. The dog was dragging the boy along behind and obviously in a different direction from which the boy wanted to go. The young fellow was bracing his feet and turning to the dog and angrily shouting, "Let's get this straight! You are my dog. I'm not your boy." (4)

We recognize that somehow we must, if we are going to be successful, control our desires and subjugate them to our goals. How else can we be all that we can be?

We are told that our Jewish friends abstain from many pleasures on the holy day of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, not to punish themselves for their sins and win God's favor, but in order to symbolize dramatically that they are able to exercise control over their life.

This is what separates us from animals. Animals cannot abstain. Animals cannot deny themselves. You can train an animal to show a certain amount of discipline but the animal cannot make that decision himself. It is a uniquely human ability to discipline and control desires and wants.

There was a certain bishop, in the horse and buggy days, who had two horses named Pride and Prejudice. He said on one occasion that people thought it was awful that a bishop should be drawn hither and thither by Pride and Prejudice, but he reassured them that it was a wonderful thing that a Bishop would have Pride and Prejudice under control.

That's a wonderful thing for any of us. It is the test of our manhood and womanhood that we are able to deny ourselves. The world says that to be a real man or a real woman we must give in to pleasure, but that's absurd. Any creature can give in to natural impulses.

William James, the great psychologist, was adamant on this point. In fact he felt that this was the key to eliminating war. He wrote an essay in the early part of this century, entitled THE MORAL EQUIVALENT OF WAR. In it he suggested that the reason men go to war is the need to test their courage and their manhood. He suggested that people could achieve the same goal less destructively by voluntarily practicing self-denial, by getting into contests to see who could do without creature comforts, who could endure more hardship than their fellow man. Unfortunately his high ideas didn't get very far because, insane as we are, war is more attractive than self-denial.

Even in this self-centered society, we recognize that self-denial is the path to success.

Roswell Dwight Hitchcock once said, "The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself. Prove that you can control yourself and you are an educated man. Without this all other education is good for nothing." Every athlete knows that's true.

The great Babe Dedrichson Zeharias was asked by a reporter how she could hit a golf ball like she did and she answered, "Simple, first you hit a thousand golf balls. You hit them until your hands bleed and you can't hit any more. The next day you start over again and the next day and the next and maybe a year later you might be able to go eighteen holes and after that you play every day until the time finally arrives that you know what you are doing when you hit the ball."

Some of you remember a great running back for the Pittsburg Steelers, Rocky Blier. A lot of people don't know that Rocky Briar served in Vietnam several months before he joined the Steelers. While there, one of his feet was crippled by an exploding grenade. One of Rocky Briar's shoes was half the size of the other because of this wound. He was told he would never play professional football again, but Blier refused to accept that gloomy prediction. Every day he put himself through excruciating pain in order to get his body back into shape. Finally he became a great football hero with one of the finest professional teams of all times.

Such discipline is necessary in every great endeavor. Good pianists practice eight hours a day. Figure skaters are on their skates six hours a day.

Even a self-centered generation knows that self-denial is the path to success. But listen. There is a catch. Self denial will not bring us fulfillment if we live only for our selves. I am not doing this for my husband, we say. I'm not doing this for my children. I am doing it for me. Fine. That may help you stay on your diet. That may help you keep at your studies. But it will not bring you ultimate fulfillment. Ultimate fulfillment comes only when we say, "I'm doing this for God." THERE IS ONLY ONE PATH THAT LEADS TO REAL SUCCESS. THAT IS WHEN WE DENY OURSELVES IN ORDER TO TAKE UP THE CROSS OF JESUS.

Dr. John A. Redhead once put it like this, "Imagine a man carrying two buckets, one of them filled with oil and one filled with water. Now they are completely filled so that you cannot pour the oil from its bucket into the water bucket because there is no room and besides oil and water don't mix...Now imagine that one of these buckets is you and your will and your purpose and your plan for your life and the other is God's will and plan and purpose for your life. Before you can know God's will and plan and purpose for your life you're going to have to empty your bucket to receive what he has to give. Now whom do you trust the most to know where real purpose and joy, satisfaction and peace lie with you or with the heart of God?"

The key to truly successful living is to deny ourselves in order that God may fill us to overflowing with His presence and power. As St. Paul says, "I live but not I, but Christ Jesus liveth in me." There is the path to real success. If we who are followers of Jesus would but learn that one simple truth, we could turn this world upside down.

It is said of Alexander the Great, that most powerful of all generals of his time, that he approached a great walled city with only a handful of soldiers and demanded that the city surrender.

The people inside the city walls laughed. "Why should we surrender? You've only got a handful of soldiers out there."

In way of an answer Alexander had his men line up in single file and ordered them to march. Nearby was a steep treacherous cliff. Alexander guided them directly to the edge of that great cliff, and then one by one they marched to their death as the people of the city watched in horror.

At a certain point Alexander halted the march and ordered the rest of the men back to his side. They responded without any sign of fear, relief, or panic.

When the residents of the great walled city saw the loyalty that Alexander commanded, they realized that defeat was inevitable and they surrendered. (5)

In one sense that is a horrible story. God is not going to ask us to do anything that is deliberately self destructive. Nevertheless, imagine what would happen if enough of us out of this ME generation would learn what it means to deny ourselves and take up the cross of Jesus and follow him.

Deny yourself. Take up the cross of the Master. No other lifestyle is ultimately satisfying. No other lifestyle can permanently change the world in which we live.

1. Brian L. Harbour, RISING ABOVE THE CROWD (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1988).

2. FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, Nov. 1987.

3. Charles L. Allen, GOD'S SEVEN WONDERS FOR YOU (Old Tappan, N.J.:Fleming H. Revell, 1987).

4. Source Unknown

5. Tom Finley, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (Ventura, Ca.: Regal Books, 1986).