What does the Bible say about self-sacrifice / being self-sacrificial?
Answered from the commentary of Leslie M. Grant, William Kelly, Hamilton Smith and 12 others
Self-sacrifice means denying self and following Christ: giving up the claim to live for our own advantage, and accepting the reproach that comes with following a rejected Lord. This is the daily path of discipleship, not merely the giving up of particular pleasures or the bearing of ordinary troubles. To save one’s life for one’s own ends is to lose it; to lose it for Christ’s sake is to find it.
The pattern is Christ, who humbled Himself and served others in love, even to death on the cross. His death for sin is His alone; the self-sacrifice asked of His followers is to serve in love, even at cost to themselves. So believers are to give themselves to the Lord, and put their time, abilities, possessions, and bodies at His disposal. They are to care for others in practical ways, giving to those in need and serving especially their fellow believers, while doing good to all. The call is to love in deed and truth, not merely in words, and to be willing, if necessary, to lay down one’s life for the brethren. Such service is to be done cheerfully and without display, as to the Lord. The passages differ in emphasis: many speak of daily self-denial and service at personal cost, while a few stress that laying down one’s life for the brethren means actual death if necessary.
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
Our Lord turns to the disciples and puts before them that not merely is He going to the cross, but they must be prepared to follow Him there. If I am to be in the true path of Jesus, I must deny myself and take up the cross and follow — not the disciples — not this church or that church, but — Jesus Himself. I must turn from what is pleasing to my heart naturally. I must meet with shame and rejection in this present evil world. If not, depend upon it, I am not following Jesus; and remember, it is a dangerous thing to believe in Jesus without following Him. Following Jesus maybe like losing one's life. At the present time much confession of Christ is, comparatively, an easy matter. There is little opposition, or persecution. People imagine that the world is changed; they talk of progress and enlightenment. The truth is, Christians are changed. Let us ask ourselves whether we desire to be found taking up our cross and following Jesus. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it" (vers. 24, 25).
Verse 24 then is specially significant for Peter and every follower of the Lord. To be a true disciple one must deny himself (including his mere natural thoughts), take up his cross, and follow the Lord Jesus. The denial here is not merely denying oneself certain things, but denying himself. Self is set aside by the application of the cross, which cuts out by the roots all that is merely of the natural man. Only this is true devotedness: Christ must take the place of Self.
Peter's error gave the Lord the opportunity of pointing out the character of the path which all His own must tread. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it." Thus if the cross must needs be His portion, His followers must accept the cross also. For Him, of course, the cross meant atonement for sin, as well as rejection and shame; we share the rejection and shame only. But nature shrinks from, and even resents, this. Its motto (suggested by Satan) is "Spare thyself"; God's motto is "Deny thyself." It has been truly said that Peter "at the last denied the Lord because he had not denied himself."
In verse 34 both His disciples and all the people need what He tells them. If one wants to come after Him, he is called upon to deny himself (not only to deny certain pleasures or advantages, but himself), take up his cross and follow Him. This involves wholehearted, willing self-denial for Christ's sake. There are those who consider this matter of taking up the cross as having to bear trials and afflictions that we cannot avoid. This is not the case. Rather it is a question of our voluntarily accepting the reproach of Christ by a clear confession of Him before a world that rejects Him. Let us do this gladly, cheerfully, out of honest affection for the Lord Jesus. He who would save his life is the one who wants to use it for his own personal advantage. After all, he will only lose it in the end, and what does he have? On the other hand, he who would lose his life is one who is willing to give up the present personal advantages of it for Christ's sake and for the sake of the gospel. In the end this would be actually saving his life, for it would produce lasting, profitable results. Selfishness always defeats its own ends, while unselfish devotion to Christ gains far more than we have any desire to gain.
If any one therefore thinks of following the leading of the Lord Jesus, let him be fully prepared. he is called upon first to deny himself (v.23), which means not merely giving up certain advantages, but giving up himself, to deny himself any title of making decisions merely on his own. It means denying himself any rights as belonging to earth. He is to take up his cross daily and follow Christ. Matthew 16:24 does not include the word "daily," for there the initial decision is emphasized, but Luke emphasizes a daily practice.
The Path of Suffering (v. 23-27). The Lord opens His instruction with the words, "If any man will come after Me." Touching words that presume He has gone before and marked out a path for His own, and, drawn by love, that they would seek to tread where He has trod. At the entrance of this path we find these searching words, "Let him deny himself." Men speak of self-denial, and have self-denial weeks, by which they mean denying themselves certain things for a limited period of time to help some benevolent cause. This, however, is the very opposite of denying self, for it rather adds to self-complacency and the exaltation of self. The denial of self is not simply denying ourselves certain things, but the denial of the man that lusts after these. The denial of self is the ignoring of self altogether in order to serve others in love. Such was the path that the Lord ever trod while passing through this world of need. Moreover, as rejected by this world, Christ is in the outside place of reproach, and those who follow Him will find that they too will have to face reproach. Thus the Lord exhorts the one that comes after Him to "take up his cross daily." For the Lord the cross meant not only suffering and shame from the hands of men, but also the far deeper sufferings from the hand of God. He was alone in His sufferings at the hand of a holy God, when made sin; but in His sufferings from men we can in our little measure share, and He has left us the perfect example of such sufferings for we are told to consider Him that "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God" (Heb. 12:2). We are exhorted "To go forth … to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." Moreover, this reproach is to be taken up "daily." This is a searching word, for it is comparatively easy to make some great sacrifice on some special occasion, but the "daily" acceptance of the path of reproach and suffering for Christ's sake in everyday life calls for great grace. But how is it possible to deny self and accept reproach? Only as we have an object that is greater than self before us. Thus the Lord adds the words, "Follow Me." Furthermore, to follow after Christ must mean the letting go of the present life. Whoever, believer or unbeliever, lives only for the present life, is living a life that he must inevitably lose, for at best it is but a passing life. To have Christ before us, is to live a life that will never pass away: — a life that can be enjoyed now, but will only be known in all its fulness in life's eternal home. Lastly, it is impossible to follow Christ and at the same time walk with the world and seek its advantages. Paul, with Christ as his life, could say, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Even for the unbeliever what advantage is there in gaining the whole world for a few fleeting years and then to be lost for eternity? For the believer to associate with the world and seek its advantages and honours must mean the loss of all present joy in the Lord, the end of all testimony for the Lord, and the forfeiture of His approval in the day "When He shall come in His own glory and in His Father's, and of the holy angels." Thus to follow truly a rejected Christ will mean, as to this present world, the refusal of self, the reproach of men, the loss of the present life with the world and its advantages.
The force of "deny himself" is hardly expressed by "self-denial," which is the denying oneself of something. What the Lord speaks of is not that but the denial, or the saying of "no," to oneself. Also, "take up his cross" does not mean bearing trials and troubles merely. The man who in those days took up his cross was being led to execution. He was a man who had to accept death at the hands of the world. To say "no" to oneself is to accept death internally, on one's own spirit: to take up one's cross is to accept death externally at the hands of the world. That is what discipleship must mean, since we follow the Christ who died, rejected of the world.
"Let him deny himself" — say no to self in deep, constant reality.
If you love and serve the Lord Jesus, you are hereby encouraged to make sacrifices on behalf of others, particularly on behalf of those that "belong to Christ." The gift of a cup of water is only a typical example, of course, of the manifold gifts of love which are in our power to bestow. There was a young friend who made it a practice to call for a blind brother and conduct him to and from the meeting. He was laying up treasure in heaven. Another denied himself the pleasure of a walk in the country that he might read aloud for an hour to a bedridden sister. Instead of walking over the neighbouring hills in the sunshine, he brought some rays of heavenly sunshine to the poor shut-in one because she belonged to Christ. He was laying up a good foundation against the time to come.
We read, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7), "Do good to all men" (Gal. 6:10), "To do good and communicate forget not" (Hebrews 13:16), and many other exhortations; and it is by finding our joy in acting according to these exhortations that the character of God shines out through us, and the folk with whom we come into contact learn that our God is a giving God. But a good many people whom we know have no need of temporal help. We can still show forth Christ in our dealings towards them in self-forgetting service and love. In this way we shall be following the Lord, who came not to be ministered to, but to minister.