Jesus would turn over in his grave, if he were in his grave -- which, of course, he is not. However, I want to suggest to you this morning that the ultimate formula for worldly success is found in a portion of his words in Mark 8:34, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." In a secular sense that text alone would guarantee any person's success in the wonderful world of business or art or education or sports or whatever career you may choose.
After all, what does it mean to deny yourself and take up a cross? We know what it does not mean. It does not mean in times of adversity saying in a whiny voice, "Well, I guess this is just my cross to bear." No, denying ourselves and taking up a cross has to do with discipline and hard work. It has to do with unselfishness and committing ourselves to the finest of which we are capable. It has to do with forgetting ourselves and concentrating on the needs of others. It has to do with a commitment to excellence in all things. In short, in these few words Jesus has summed up all the most helpful advice of all the selfhelp books written over the past several decades.
PEOPLE WHO SUCCEED IN LIFE DENY THEMSELVES AND TAKE UP A CROSS. It is true. You don't get to be the best by staying in your comfort zone. You do it by working till you sweat blood. You sit at your typewriter or your designing board or your blueprints or your lesson plan or whatever, long after everybody else has gone home. That's what it means in a secular sense to deny yourself and take up a cross. And it works!
The University of Chicago did a five-year study of leading artists, athletes, and scholars. Conducted by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, the research was based on anonymous interviews with the top twenty performers in various fields. These people included concert pianists, Olympic swimmers, tennis players, sculptors, mathematicians, and neurologists. Bloom and his team of researchers from the University of Chicago probed for clues as to how these achievers developed. For a more complete picture, they interviewed their families and teachers.
The report stated conclusively that drive and determination, not great natural talent, led to the extraordinary success of these individuals. Bloom noted, "We expected to find tales of great natural gifts. We didn't find that at all. Their mothers often said it was another child who had the greater talents."
What they found were extraordinary accounts of hard work and dedication:
The pianist who practiced several hours a day for seventeen years; the swimmer who rolled out of bed every morning at halfpast five to do laps for two hours before school, etc. (1) That's how you get to the topyou give your all!
In another study when the nation's top achievers were asked to rate the factors they consider most important in contributing to their own success, hard work emerges as the highestrated factor. Not talent or luckbut hard work.
Even in an area in which we would suppose talent would be a critical factor -- such as playing the violin-- hard work still wins out. A recent study of elite student violinists showed that the number of hours spent practicing was the only thing that separated potential music superstars from others who were good but not top caliber.
Psychologists followed the careers of violinists studying at the Music Academy of West Berlin. By the time they were 18, the academy's best students had already spent about 2,000 more hours in practice, on average, than had their fellow students. (2) That is denying yourself and taking up a cross.
Here is the secret of the amazing success of recent immigrants to our land from such countries as Japan, Korea and Vietnam who barely speak our language but are achieving the American dream.
In 1986, a group of researchers published a study of Japanese mothers and mothers in Minneapolis. The mothers were asked to rank the most important things that a child needs to succeed academically. The answers tell a lot about the difference in our two cultures.
The mothers in Minneapolis chose "ability" as most important. The mothers in Japan said "effort." Effort! Deny yourself and take up a cross.
The secret is not only in working hard, but working hard at the right things. Our Jewish friends have often understood the importance of this principle.
A sociology professor with an Italian heritage, when telling how he grew up, remarked, "When I would start off to school in the morning, my mother would push the screen door open and call out, "Do you have your lunch pail?" Like all good Italian mothers, his mother made sure he never went hungry.
He said a Jewish boy lived a few doors down. And when he started off to school his mother would push the door open, too, but she would call out, "Isaac, do you have your books?" Effort. Hard work. Practice. Commitment.
Business Guru Tom Peters recalls a wonderful story of a musicianit may have been Pablo Casals, who died at almost one hundred years of age. The morning he died he was downstairs practicing his notes at 6:00 a.m. "That's just lovely," says Peters. It is lovely if being the best at what you do is important to you.
In other words, it is self-defeating to sit around and say, "Oh, if I had his talent, then I could make it." Or, "if I got the same breaks as she did, then I could be successful." Sure, talent is important. And some people do get lucky. But studies show that those factors are of minor importance. The reason most people succeed is that they are willing to pay the price for their success. They are willing to put in the effort and the hours to make it to the top. They are willing to deny themselves and take up a cross.
So, there it is, the ultimate success formula. By the way, let me say to our young people, that denying oneself and taking up a cross at your stage in life can mean staying in school and learning as much as possible. It's always sad to see a capable young person fall short of his or her dreams because he or she wasn't willing to stick it out to the end. I know sometimes school gets discouraging. Some of you can sympathize with the fellow who said, "I didn't hate school, I just hated the principle of the thing." However, in today's world a good education is vital. Don't limit yourself just because you are discouraged.
Deny yourself and take up a cross. The ultimate success formula. Try it. I guarantee you it will work or double your money back. But before you go out into the world to try it, let me add one thing.
Some of you are going to find that material success is not really all that satisfying. There are a lot of lonely people driving Cadillacs and Mercedes, living in homes with marble floors and crystal chandeliers. These folks are finding out too late that upward mobility is not necessarily the formula for a peaceful heart or a loving home. So we need to reexamine for a moment Christ's words. We overlooked some of them. He said, "IF ANYONE WOULD COME AFTER ME, let him deny himself and take up his cross AND FOLLOW ME." He's not talking about Rolex watches at all, is he? He's talking about forgetting ourselves for the sake of others. Isn't that what he did? Isn't that what the cross really is all about? He's not talking about becoming real gogetters but real gogivers. He's not talking about stocks and bonds, but soup kitchens and bread lines. He's not talking about winning the rat race, but serving the human race in his name. That's the kind of selfdenial and cross bearing about which he is concerned.
Grandma Moses achieved worldly success late in life. By the time she died, her name was a household word. And yet when Grandma Moses was asked at ninety-three what she was proudest of, she replied, "I've helped some people."
The gentle actress, Audrey Hepburn, has been a star for many years. Ask her, though, about her most important work and she will tell you it is traveling throughout the world as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. "If my fame as an artist helps me get people to listen," she says, "I want to tell them that if a family gets a shovel, which UNICEF provides in its programs, they should use it to dig a well or cultivate the landand not to dig the graves of their children." You see, Audrey Hepburn knows about starving children. She once was one of them. As a youngster in Europe during World War II, she and her family endured years of hunger and, toward the end, near starvation. "Immediately after the war," she recalls, "an organization was formed that gave us food, medicine, and clothing. That organization later became the United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF]."
Today Hepburn is repaying a debt. (4)
Dr. Arthur Tuuri retired a few years back in Flint, Mich. He once helped a mother who, having given birth, died. He cared for the baby until it was adopted. From that he started The Flint Area Health Foundation, a help for needy children. For years he was head of the Mott Children's Health Center, which helps with medical and dental care. Dr. Tuuri said, "Many people asked me why I devote my life to the poor and disadvantaged when I could be in private practice and a wealthy man. I tell them knowing from whence I came and the fact that the greatest healer of all time, Jesus Christ, said when you do it unto the least of these you have done it to me (it is enough)." (5)
What I am saying to you is this. Jesus DID give us the ultimate success formula. And the upward mobility he offers is truly out of this world. But the formula he gives us goes beyond the superficial values of today's materialistic culture. It goes beyond looking out for No. 1. It is found in forgetting ourselves and losing ourselves in service to others. And do you know what? It works. It really works.
According to research conducted by George Gallup, 12% of Americans are "highly spiritually committed." They are those who truly understand what Jesus meant when he said, "deny yourself, take up a cross and follow me." Gallup says the members of this group are "a breed apart from the rest of the populace in at least four ways:
- They are happier.
- Their families are stronger.
- They are tolerant of people of different races and religions.
- They are communityminded."
They are involved in service to others. That is cross bearing that really makes a difference.
So we have a choice. We can heed part of Jesus' words deny yourself and take up a cross and have all the success this world has to offer. And there's nothing really wrong with that. Jesus wants us to be the very best of whatever we choose to be, as long as it does not cost us our souls. There is a better way, however. Use him as your guide. Deny yourself by giving yourself for others in his name. That's where real happiness lies. That's what ultimate success is all about.
1. Dr. Denis E. Waitley, WINNING THE INNOVATION GAME, (New York: Berkley Books, 1986).
2. University of Colorado.
3. Dr. Paul Faulkner, MAKING THINGS RIGHT, (Ft. Worth: Sweet Publishing, 1986).
4. WORLD PRESS REVIEW: February 1989.
5. David W. Richardson, Source: "Pulpit Helps".