Carry Your Cross

Do you know the requirements for being a follower of Jesus? Listen to this message and find out.

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Matthew chapter 16 verse 24 and I'm reading just the one verse today from the New International Version and this is what it says. Then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Once again, Matthew chapter sixteen verse twenty four. Then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. So our word this afternoon, our subject for this noonday sermon is carry your cross. Carry your cross. Have you ever wanted to be a part of a group or an organization? Of course, probably all of us. So the first thing we did probably you did in order to be a part of the group or the organization was to investigate the requirements. The requirements to join, to be a part of that, to see what was required of you to be a part of that group. Well, here we see Jesus talking to his disciples and to all of us that want to be disciples and followers of him. And he is giving the requirements to be one of his followers. This is what you have to do, he's saying. This is what you have to be willing to commit to in order to be my disciple. Three things. So there are no misgivings about what's required of you. Three things he says. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. It sounds pretty simple, pretty cut and dry, right? But it's not easy. Because you will encounter all sorts of things on this journey that will make you want to pull your hair out. And following someone is never easy. If you've ever been in a car following someone, it's never easy because they know what they will do and where they will turn and when they will turn and when they will break, but you don't know it, and so it's a problem. So let's listen to another version of Matthew 16 and 24 from the New Living Translation. This is what it says. It says, Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross and follow me. Think about that. The first one is give up your own way. Deny yourself. That means give up your way of doing things. You know how people like to say, Well, that's just me, that's just how I am. No, none of that will fly with Jesus. It's not going to be your way. It's going to be his way or the highway. You must give up your way of doing things, your desires, your ambitions. You must renounce the centrality and priority of yourself for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. So when Jesus tells us to forgive somebody and you know they've wronged you, but but you are commanded by Jesus as a follower of him to forgive, then that's what you have to do. You have to forgive. He tells us to love everybody. That's what we have to do. No matter how unlovable somebody seems to you, if you're going to be a follower of Jesus, you have to love other people. You have to learn to get along with them. You have to honor your mother and your father. You have to not steal, not bear false witness, all of those things that it's written that Jesus says we have to do. You must prioritize Jesus over all else. Give up your dreams for God's dreams. Is that too much to ask? I was with a group of people just last night that were talking about how when they became a disciple of Jesus Christ, he changed their desires, their plans for life. One of them was a preacher who wanted to be a bishop one day. But he was called to build a school. And he had to decide if he wanted to continue with building the school or if he wanted to stop with that and run for bishop. And he had always thought that he would be a bishop in the church. People had always told him that. And that's what he did. Another person was saying that that she was in corporate America on the fast track to move up when God called her to ministry. And so she had to, she resigned her job and went to seminary. Another man had other desires. Sometimes God changes what we want to do, what we think we should be doing, and gives us other desires. It's not always that he calls us into the ministry, sometimes he calls us to other professions, things that we didn't know we had, skills we didn't even know we had. But he calls us to what's going to be best for the kingdom of God. Think about Jesus. God, the Father asked Jesus to give up his freedom, his status, his comfort, his life for you and me. Jesus gave up all for you. Were you worth it? Were you worth him dying on the cross? I don't know about you, but I want Jesus to look at me and know that I was worth it. I was worth dying for. So the first requirement for you to be a follower of Jesus is to stop being all about yourself. Deny yourself. And then the f the second thing for being a follower of Jesus was to take up your cross. Take up your cross. Back in Roman times in Jesus' day, death by crucifixion on a Roman cross of wooden paint planks was the worst thing ever. More horrible and degrading the most horrible and degrading death that a person could die. And it was a public death where everybody could watch you. It was a symbol of shame being nailed to a cross until Jesus made it a symbol of his love for us. Now people don't think twice about wearing a cross around their necks or having a cross on their walls in their homes or even tattooing a cross on their bodies, but do we think about picking up our cross and carrying it? What does that mean? It means that we must have a willingness to take on hardships and challenges and even persecution and death for the cause of Christ. It means that we should not be afraid to bear the cross of our burdens, of giving up our dreams or even our way of living, surrendering I, me and my to others for the sake of the gospel, conforming to God's way, doing God's work, God's way. So when we have difficulties in our lives, stop trying to question why, but get to the business of carrying that cross, realizing that we're not doing this alone. But Christ is right there with us. And sometimes when the burden is too hard to carry, he carries us and our cross. So we need to stop complaining and whining and being anxious and know that this is all a part of the journey of life of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. No sunshine without rain, having the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. That's all a part of life. Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone and there's a cross for me. The consecrated cross I'll bear till death shall set me free, and then go home my crown to wear, for there's a crown for me. On this Wednesday of Holy Week, as we remember and meditate on the life and death of Jesus and upon our faith and our beliefs, let's consider what we really are as disciples. Are we disciples? Or are we just onlookers, rubber neckers, spectators to the world of Jesus? Is that what this is all about this holy week? Or are we really followers of Jesus Christ and when we say we are followers and disciples, then if Jesus turned around and saw us and looked at us, would he recognize us as his follower or his disciple? Could he tell that we have left a life of sin behind? That we have indeed picked up our cross and are marching after him. That we have died to self and are indeed trying our best to be Christlike? Would he see that? Think about it. Think about how you look when Jesus looks upon you. You see, as we daily surrender our ways to his ways, our mindset to the mind of Christ, releasing our possessions and everything we own and those things that we care so much about. But rather sending up timber every day, trying to be more Christ-like, trying to gain a life that will not rust, where moth and rust don't collect and thieves can't break in and steal. But we're giving our lives over to Him. When we do these things, it actually leads us to more life. More life. So deny yourself, take up your cross. And the final part of that is to follow Jesus. Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? Think about this. And again, think about that final verse of that hymn, must Jesus bear the cross alone? It says, O precious cross, O glorious crown, O Resurrection Day, ye angels from the stars come down and bear my soul away. Isn't that what we all really want? The song says, I just want to make it to heaven. I just want to make it in. Because this earth will pass away and we will leave it and we will leave here. Don't we want something better for our souls? Don't we really want a glorious heaven? I do. So let's deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. God bless you. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for your word today. That reminds us that it's more than just looking at Jesus and seeing what he did for us. But it's actually our faith in action. Picking up our cross, following him, giving up our way for his way. We thank you for the reminder, Lord. And we ask you to help us each day to be more Christ-like, to be more loving, more caring for others, more willing to do things the way you would have them to be done. Thinking about you, prioritizing you over ourselves. Because we know when we do that, Lord, you always have our best interest at heart. And you will cover us and give us everything we need and more. We thank you for what you're doing in our lives. We thank you for each person that's represented here today, each family. We thank you, Lord. We love you. We praise you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen, everybody. Thank you for joining us today during this holy week. We ask that you will continue to enjoy the festivities. Tomorrow is Monday, Thursday. I know in some places there will be foot washing ceremonies, and we know that on Thursday was the day when Christ instituted the Last Supper. And then we have Good Friday. Good Friday good because Christ died for each one of us that we might have a right to the tree of life. And even though on that Saturday following Good Friday it looked dark and things looked like it was not going to continue in a good vein, and we all were anxious, the people of that day. And as we think about it now, we think about how dark it was, but all on that Sunday morning, Jesus got up, and because he got up, because he lives, we can face tomorrow. And so I hope that you will enjoy the rest of this week, and your resurrection Sunday will be glorious. Thank you for joining us on today, and we will see you again if the Lord says the same next Wednesday at 12. Now unto him who's able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and forevermore. Let us all say Amen. Go and be great for God.