On a March 2015 flight bound for Denver from Washington’s Dulles Airport, an unruly and psychotic passenger disregarded crew instructions and charged the cockpit in mid-flight. Another passenger, an ordinary guy sitting in seat 3E, responded like a lightning bolt and, with no thought for himself, jumped out of his seat and tackled the threat so quickly that most passengers mistakenly assumed he was a sky marshal.

I daydreamed as I read the newspaper account of the incident, convincing myself that I would have been that guy (the hero, not the deranged man!). I wanted to believe that I would unhesitatingly and gloriously sacrifice myself for the lives of my fellow passengers.

I fly more than 125,000 miles a year, and I’ve never yet had occasion to risk my life for my fellow passengers, but I’ve been asked to switch seats with someone. I’ve had seatmates store their carry-on under my seat so they had plenty of legroom. I’ve had flight attendants move me to the back of the plane so its weight balanced (yes, really!). Hundreds of times I’ve been asked to endure little slights and indignities, to live with trivial troubles and inconveniences, and each time—even when I benignly smile and acquiesce—I feel embarrassingly entitled and resent that I should be required to give up something for someone else.

The fantasy of the immense sacrifice holds much greater appeal than the reality of the routine surrender of my rights. When Jesus said that I had to deny myself to follow Him, I thought He meant relinquishing some future CEO position that I certainly would have attained had I not gone into ministry. Perhaps it means a willingness to tackle Satan and bind him hand and foot in some public spectacle of spiritual commitment.

The late Fred Craddock remembered his call to ministry in a similar way:

“I pictured myself standing in front of a military firing squad and being told, ‘Deny Jesus and live.’ I bravely told the story of Jesus, and the command was given, ‘Ready, aim, fire!’ Flags were at half mast, widows were crying, and a monument was erected where I gave my life for Christ.

“Nobody told me that I couldn’t give my life for Christ by writing one big check. Instead, it has been decades of writing little checks. Eighty-five cents here, a dollar thirty-nine there. Giving my life for Christ has meant being faithful in the small things over and over throughout my life.”

Preaching—above all other facets of ministry—has demanded a denial of self I never anticipated. I have regularly incurred the cost of countless hours of Bible study, sermon planning, and the excavation of a hundred mediocre illustrations to unearth the one perfect jewel, all while assiduously strategizing how to speak resonatingly without sounding hollow or contrived. Jesus never asked me to die taking the gospel to heathen lands, but every Monday morning He has commanded me to lay my precious week on the altar and eliminate the extraneous things that impede my obedience to my initial call.

Nothing, however, demands self-denial like a sermon’s delivery. It necessitates a disregard both for the nagging self-doubts that turn my attention from the text, as well as the seductive confidence of weekly routine and years of experience that lure me to pride. Every sermon is an act of treason against the sovereignty of self and a capitulation to the cross of Christ and its claims on my life. My personality, my self-consciousness, my mood, and my comfort become as irrelevant when I step into the pulpit as they were to the passenger sitting in 3E when he had to act.

When a preacher denies self and takes up the cross of Christ in the pulpit, CNN doesn’t cover it, the videos don’t go viral and get a million hits, and hardly anyone calls it heroic. But it’s enough to bring the enemy down and to save the ones who need it.

Hershael York is Professor of Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky.