Take Up Your Cross

Introduction

An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that you that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.

Ever day still praying onward Lord let my feet on higher ground Lord lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven’s table a higher place than I have Lord let my feet on higher ground my heart has no desire to stay where down to rise and fear’s dismay though some may dwell worthy of higher ground I want to stay.

Glory yet untold.

Beyond the stars and all the glory rains with glory and told and soon will come my glory day when God will call my soul forever to say shall so I am now I have mercy O thy father with me and I am single to the Son of life through that who are world life to rise and love us with me race of them of grace to lie the world trace where I will never be O God, the God of heavens, God above all, God of creation, whose Father of the Son of Jesus, our hope and our grace. And the reason we come together today to honor Him and to worship you. God, as we sing these songs, may they be pleasing to you. And as we partake of the communion to remember Jesus and His life and His death and the hope that gives us.

May our hearts ascend to heaven. God, we understand that we are here by your power, and the world continues on because you want it to be so, because you love us so, because you want us to have every opportunity to be with you and to teach others about you and your glory and your grace and your mercy and the opportunity that is to live with you in heaven for eternity. God be with us. May we honor you as we remember you, and as we continue in this worship, may we do all things to your glory. We pray through your Son Jesus. Amen.

We’re just happy that you’re here this morning with us. If you would, please bow with me. Lord God, you’re an awesome God that has blessed us so richly and greatly each and every day. You’ve given us so much and s so much that we can’t even count the number of blessings that you’ve you’ve bestowed upon us. And Lord, we come this morning thanking you for all that you have done for us, and we know that you will continue to do. And we ask that you be with us and help us do everything and use all your blessings to better glorify you in all that we do. In Jesus’ holy name, amen.

A wise preacher once said, If you’ve missed heaven, you’ve missed all there is. He learned that from reading scriptures that we read this morning from First Peter. This morning I focused our song service around our anticipation and our longing to be in heaven with God our Father and Jesus our Savior. Please join me in singing when I go home.

I leave me then I see him as I went present that we seen white children bring on.

I’ll fly away.

Some black will be so one fly away.

Well, so good to be here with you this morning. I appreciate Clayton for the great song selection. He asked me yesterday how long I was planning to preach in order to find out how many songs he could lead. And I told him to lead as many as he wanted, because that way, if we go long, it’s not my fault. but it is great to be here with you. I’m very thankful to the elders for giving me this opportunity to present this message to you, along with all the other members here and men who have helped me as I strive to be a man of God and the husband and leader in my family that I seek to be. Luke chapter 9 is where we are going to be this morning.

We’re going to be studying out of Luke chapter 9. If you would please turn there.

A sympathetic Christ who will fix people’s problems, or a helpful Christ who will meet people’s needs, an encouraging Christ who will lift people’s spirits, or an exciting Christ who will stir people’s emotions. However, while Jesus is all of these things and can do all of these things, it is all a lie unless he is proclaimed first and foremost and solely as a crucified Christ. What powerful words. I could stop right there and I think we’d be satisfied for this morning. But the message in this quote is that I think often in our teaching of the gospel and in our understanding of Christ, we first emphasize what Christ gives to us. Yet in so doing, we turn our role as Christians into one of receiving rather than one of giving.

In verse 23, read with me, it says, And Jesus said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Because we strive to follow a crucified Christ, whose path led him to the cross, our path as Christians is not one that might involve sacrifice. Our life as Christians is nothing but sacrifice, selfless serving sacrifice.

To follow Christ, we must first deny ourselves and pick up our cross and follow after him. So this morning I want us to consider and think about how is it that we conceptualize Christ? And how does that impact the way in which we choose to follow him? Do we follow a Christ who meets our needs, who stirs our spirits, who fills us with emotion, or makes us comfortable or gives us friends and family? Or do we follow a crucified Christ? And further, I want us to consider what would our walk as Christians be if we were fully following after a crucified Christ. And if we knew what that fully meant, what it fully meant to bear the responsibility of following after Christ to the cross, would we still choose to do it?

1. Jesus Came to Be a Crucified Christ

Well, in the preceding portions of Luke chapter 9, we see first that he feeds the 5,000. And this is a miraculous blessing that he gives that shows his strength, his power on earth, his authority, but also shows his mercy and his providence for those who follow this Christ, a Christ who can perform miracles like this. Yet what is Christ do after this miracle? What we might expect is that he would rally up his followers now that they fervently support him, or that he would seek to gain even more followers, or that he would just shower his followers right then and there with continual blessings till the end of time, giving for them a paradise. But what does he do? Look with me in verse 18. It says that he goes out alone.

Now it happened that when he went praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, Who do the crowds say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others that one of the prophets of old has risen. Then he said to them, Who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, the Christ of God. And this is the great proclamation that we all have read before, that Peter professes who it is that Christ is, that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Yet look what happens right next. It’s one of the most jarring and striking change of tones that we see in all of the gospel. Because the very next thing that Jesus says after it’s been proclaimed that he is the Christ is in verse 21, he strictly charged and commanded them to tell no one, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chiefs, priests, and scribes, and be killed.

And on the third day, raised. Jesus here is defining what it is going to look like for him to be the Christ. He is saying that in order to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, he is going to be rejected. He will suffer, and he will die. That he has come to be a crucified Christ. And this is in very stark contrast to the common conception of what the Christ was going to be among the Jews. What Jesus was defining was that he was not coming to be an earthly king or ruler. Instead, Jesus was coming to establish a spiritual kingdom to meet our spiritual needs. And this kingdom was not going to be a populous movement filled with those who follow him for all of his blessings, but one that would be rejected and bear with it the weight of suffering and death.

But further, Jesus shows us that he, like I said, did not come to shower us with blessings, but that he came to take away our sins. That was the primary purpose for which Christ had come. And ultimately, that to provide us with this salvation, Christ shows that he was going to have to die and be resurrected.

And the gospel is useless without that truth. And further, this is how Christ wanted us to remember him. This culminating statement after he’s been told that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, this is how he defines himself. But further, how is it that he chooses to have us remember him? Well, before his death, in his last meal with his disciples, he institutes the Lord’s Supper. We all know that before doing or after doing that, he says, do this in remembrance of me. This is how he was choosing to be remembered in the Lord’s Supper. But have you ever stopped to consider why that is the aspect of which he wished to be remembered by. Of all the things that Christ was, all the things that he represented, all of who he was, the emblems which he choose to memorialize himself for us to remember him every week was representations of his sacrificed body and his spilt blood.

We remember him as a crucified Christ. One who died for our sins and was raised again, one who displayed fully that the path towards salvation was going to be through death. Knowing Christ as a crucified Savior is critical for us because it impacts how we choose to follow him. And we quickly realize that if we are following after a crucified Christ, that following after him is going to involve a lot of sacrifice. Jesus describes exactly what this will look like. Read again with me in verse 23. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. So take a step back with me for just a second. So we see that Christ, or that Jesus is the Christ, and then he says, Yeah, but I’m gonna die.

2. Whoever Loses His Life for My Sake Will Save It

He says, I’m gonna suffer and be rejected and die. And then he says, if anyone wants to follow me, yeah, no thanks. Why would I want to follow him to that? And he says, if you want to follow me, here’s what you have to do. Deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me to death. That’s a bold challenge. And this is a question, well, ultimately we ought to ask ourselves, why would we choose to follow him? It’s a question that we ought to ask ourselves earnestly, because as we see here, the price of following him is too high to do without considering what it’s going to cost. And further, we ought to consider what are our alternatives to following Christ. Surely in the world we see alternatives for how we could live our lives, who else we could follow, what else we could seek after.

Well, in the world, the alternatives given to us is that we can devote our lives to seeking after accomplishments or success, that we could seek after worldly pleasures, make our own desires our king. Or we could seek after making our lives comfortable, seeking to never be challenged, to live our lives in comfort and security. All of these are the options presented in the world. The world would tell us that life and the meaning of it is found in the pursuit of following after our heart and satisfying our own desires. But this is the exact opposite of what Christ had just commanded us to do of denying ourselves. Following his description of discipleship, Jesus then tells us why his option is better. In verse 24, he says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Well, that just sounds like a riddle. What does that mean? If we sacrifice our life, we’ll save it, but if we seek our life, we’ll lose it. How is that an answer to the questions we’ve asked? Well, what Jesus is pointing out to us is that every decision we make is going to be a sacrifice. No matter who or what we choose to follow after, it’s going to involve sacrifice. Every decision in your life is a choice to do one thing instead of another.

Referred to as opportunity cost. If a person or a business is going to make a decision for how to use their money or their assets, they have to consider first what assets or money they will be giving up and what they’re going to gain in return, what they’ll sacrifice and what they’ll get. But also, what are the other opportunities that they’re not going to be able to pursue because they’ve given up those assets? So to make this simple, imagine I’m looking to buy a car.

Because once I use that money on the car, I’ve given up the ability to use that money on TVs or other cars or other belongings. So that’s the analysis we have to make in every decision in our life. Every decision comes with this trade-off, with this principle at its core. We have to choose what we’re going to sacrifice. So then the question becomes what is worth sacrificing for? And what would the best sacrifice we could make with our lives be? But when we prioritize our selfish desires, and we make sacrifices focusing on ourselves first, what we’re sacrificing is God’s will in the kingdom of God.

But what immediately happens to what I just gained? The satiated hunger? Well, I’m immediately hungry again. And so now I’ve lost both the money I gave up for the food and the reward which I got for the money, the satiated hunger. If we s the same principle is in every decision we make. When we sacrifice for our desires, ultimately our desires will never be fulfilled. We spend our life sacrificing for something we can never attain, sacrificing for something that is always fleeting, for vanity. A life spent only prioritizing ourselves amounts to nothing. Everything is eventually lost, both what we sacrificed and what we gained, none of it lasts. Whoever would seek his own life will lose it. But then Jesus offers us the alternative. Whoever would lose his life for my sake will save it.

What Jesus is posing to us is that the only sacrifice we can make that will be redeemed to us, that will bring an actual substantive, lasting effect, that will bring us gain is a sacrifice made for Christ, and for the kingdom of God, which will not perish.

Abraham spends his whole life sacrificing everything for the pursuit of following after God. And in his sacrifice of Isaac, he shows that he is willing to give up that which is most valuable to him to God. And what happens? Well, God returns that sacrifice in Isaac, offering an ox instead for the sacrifice, but then he also makes it manifold, giving him descendants that outnumber the stars. And while in our lives it might not play out as immediate as it did for Abraham, what Jesus is promising us is that if we spend our life sacrificing for Christ, we will have everlasting reward and gain. We will save our life. So then we see the answer to our question is that we choose to follow Christ not because the cost is so high, but because the cost of not following him is greater.

3. Self-Denial Is the Gospel

It’s not in spite of the fact that the cost is so high that we follow him, it’s actually because the cost of not following him is greater. The world and our selfishness would make us believe that following Christ means giving up everything. But in reality, we see following Christ is about gaining everything. Clayton said, we don’t make it to heaven, we’ve lost out on it all. So paradoxically, we then see the answer to what Christ is saying. That the way to gain our life is through self-denial is not going to be simply a part of the gospel. Self-denial is the gospel. The good news that Jesus brings to us, the gospel message, is that we have the ability to deny ourselves. We don’t have to spend our lives chasing after futile desires and our own selfish needs, making our lives result in nothing.

We can deny ourselves, seek after his will, and find meaning and fulfillment in our lives. And this is ultimately antithetical to the American ideal ideals and values that many of us hold. To many of us, our greatest values are my rights, my freedom. We prioritize things like self-care or self-esteem or self-love. Our focus becomes on ourselves. These are completely foreign to the Christianity that Christ is teaching here. But some people might respond to this well, doesn’t God want me to be happy? Well, I think the answer to that question that Christ would give is what makes you think that the momentary fulfillment of your desire is what’s going to make you happy. Instead, Jesus is saying that the better path towards real joy is found when you stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about others.

And psychologically speaking, this is one of the most well replicated and known truths that there is that thinking about yourself leads to one thing, misery. It’s so well proven in studies that to define the two words, they basically result in the same consequential meaning. Thinking about yourself creates negative emotion, which results in misery. This is proven over and over again, yet we often think that the answer to our problems is to think about ourselves more. We see in Genesis that the first result of sin is to make man more aware of himself. Sin causes us to think about ourselves. So the answer to sin is found in thinking about God and others. And further, we ought to recognize that happiness is a gift from God, that when we experience it, we should hold on to with thanksgiving and joy in our hearts.

But when we make happiness our God, and when we make happiness our aim, that’s the surest way to make sure that you won’t be happy. Happiness is a boat easily capsized, it says.

And by thinking about it more, we lead ourselves into more and more misery. And we ought to, I think, in a fundamental way recognize that the lesson that our culture needs to hear, and that we should know first and foremost that happiness cannot be our aim. How many of our pains and suffering in life, how much of our depression and anxiety, how much of our addiction and our sin is rooted in the fact that we focus too much on ourselves. That we think more of ourself than God and others. Every sin in a fundamental sense is just a manifestation of too much selfishness. So only through denying that selfish core, and by following Christ’s will, not our own, can we find meaning and joy in our lives.

4. Take Up Your Cross Daily

So after this call for self-denial, Jesus doubled down, doubles down. It says to deny yourself and take up your cross daily.

To the original audience, when someone in their village took up a cross surrounded by a band of Roman soldiers, they were on a one-way inevitable path towards their own death. Taking up your cross is not, as we often think about it in our culture, just facing up to our adversary. We have a little inconvenience in our life, and we say, it’s the cross I gotta bear. That is not what Christ is talking about here. Bearing your cross is a voluntary journey towards your own death. It is the ultimate form of self-denial. As we follow after Christ, we put ourselves to death, knowing that only through losing our life can we gain it. For some of us, it’s quite unlikely, but maybe for some of us, bearing up your cross and putting yourself to death might mean that you’ll actually face persecution great enough to stand up and die for your faith.

Being martyred like the apostles were.

Every day, we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross, put ourselves to death, and submit to his will, not our own. So, what is that going to look like in your life? Well, it means committing yourself to service of God and others rather than yourself. It means instead of prioritizing your career or your own pursuits, your own popularity and success, instead of prioritizing your own wants and needs, seeking after your happiness or your desires, instead of doing that, you put your spouse first. You put your family first, you put your church family first. And your life becomes about serving their needs first and never about serving your own needs. It also means denying our passions daily. Rather than gratifying our own lusts and desires and our own sources of pleasure.

5. Follow Me

And rather than seeking after that, we use our body not for our own pleasure, but for the glorification of God. We use our body to bear forth his beauty, his truth and his justice on earth, rather than using it for our own pleasure and own fulfillment. And finally, Jesus says to follow me. When Jesus called his disciples to follow after him, each one of them left everything behind, knowing that to follow him was worth more than anything that they could have on earth. As often put, when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Me and my friend Jesus. It is all of Jesus and none of me. And the desires that rule over our heart and our selfish proclivities, they scream in protest at the thought of self-denial and self-sacrifice. Yet we ought to look at Jesus’ invitation to follow Him and deny ourselves as the greatest blessing ever bestowed on us.

Conclusion

Our fulfillment in life will not come from the hollow vanity of our own success. It comes through denying ourselves and seeking after Him. With Christ, we would have no option but to lose our life, chasing after this void, being slaves to our heart’s demands and the futile search for meaning in life. But because of Christ, because he first willingly died, because he declared himself to be a crucified Savior. And instead, he went to the grave and rose again. We have forgiveness of our sins and can live in eternity with him, seeking after that reward. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 11, where we’ll close this morning. Matthew chapter 11, verse 27, he says, No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal himself.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and lean and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Self-denial is hard. But what Jesus proclaims to us is that if we come to him, he will give us the rest that our souls are longing for. When compared with the alternatives, the path of taking up our cross and following him is the easy path. It’s the path that gives us freedom, rest, and salvation. Those who seek after their own life will lose it. But those who lose their life, who daily deny themselves, take up their cross and follow after him, those will find salvation.

If you’re with us this morning and you seek to pick up your cross and follow him, you can be baptized this morning, being forgiven of your sins, rising up in an act of self-denial, putting the old man to death, and seeking to make your life about service in him. To fill the emptiness in you with Christ. And if you are a Christian, and your life has not been about self-denial, you’ve been following after a Christ other than the crucified Christ.

Whatever it is that you might need, please come forward as we stand and sing.

Before we sing how deep the Father’s love, I want to ask, has everybody received one of the cups that were in the foyer that contains the bread and the title? To help us prepare our hearts and minds to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Please join me in singing how deep the Father’s love is heart my skin twice.

No sustan and restore his hand.

I had some other things prepared to talk about this morning to help focus our minds, but I’m gonna change my mind. Make some comments regarding some things that we’ve already heard this morning from the lesson that Caleb presented in the song that we just read. And if you would go back to Luke chapter nine scripture that Caleb looked at earlier.

Tell this to no one, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and be raised third day. We’ve heard this morning about our crucified Savior, our crucified Christ. And the song that we just sang tells us why that all took place. Because of the love of God, the love of God that He has for each and every one of us. That love would give up His only Son for me, for you. That He would suffer many things on the cross and on His way to this cross. As we read here in Luke chapter 9, he was rejected. But he gave up the most for us.

It required that sacrifice. Only perfect life of Jesus. Only his precious blood could forgive us of our sins. Let us think of the crucified Savior and what he’s done for us as we partake of the Lord’s Supper this morning. Let’s give thanks for the bread. Dear Father, we thank you for your love and for the love that you gave your only Son for us. Father, we’re thankful for His sacrifice and for the bread that we’re about to partake of, the body that it represents. Thank you. And we love you for loving us. And in Jesus’ name we pray.

And for that blood that cleanses us from our sin. May each of us think of that sacrifice as we partake. In his name I pray. Been an awesome day. So good to see everybody today, especially our visitors. Thank you for coming. I mean I have to say I was sad. I think a lot of y’all were sad when Caleb left to go to school. But you know, part of life. But can’t say how excited I was to find out he was coming back, buried and all that. I mean awesome. Good job, man. a reflection of your parents, and it’s it’s so good. So great job today.

All right. Only a couple of announcements. group one meets today. and the ladies’ class that meets at 10 a.m. on Thursday is starting a new book on April 2nd. So is he sharing himself for details. I don’t think I have any others. So any other announcements? Elders that you can. Okay.

I also want to thank Caleb for his challenging and thought-provoking comments this morning and also for throwing me under the bus. He told me 15 to 20 minutes, I don’t know. No, I’m joking. Whenever you were speaking, Caleb, it reminded me of what we read in Romans chapter 6. When Paul was talking about the contrast between choosing to be a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness, and he wrapped up chapter six by writing, for when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you were now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.

The fruit you get leads to sanctification at its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let’s think about this resurrection. Same power.

That would be pleased. Our Lord, God, Heavenly Father. How privileged we are to be able to call you our Father. How privileged we are to be able to be called your children. But more than that, Father, how privileged we are to be your servants. That we can look to you because you have given us life. Because, Lord Jesus, you have sacrificed yourself for us. Came down and showed us the way that we might follow you to our home. Be in the presence of you and the Father and the Holy Spirit for eternity. We are so privileged, Father, that we can do this, that you have shown us the light that we can follow. As we leave this place, let us do everything that we can. And in everything that we do, let us look to you and follow you.

Whether it’s going to lunch, whatever we do this afternoon, whatever it is that we do with the rest of our lives, Father, let us look to you and follow your ways in everything. For you are the giver of life, eternal life. In that promise, Father, we are so blessed and so comforted, so privileged that you show us the way. We ask that you would be with us, that we would always know that you are our guide. Help us, Father, in all things, whatever circumstances come our way, just to pause and look to you for the way.

Amen.