Matthew 69
(Chapter 16)
Our cross to bear!
Matthew 16:24–28 (ESV)
24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Slogans are everything
The right slogan can not only bring your company to a customer’s mind but also create a desire for the product. The symbol, or logo, of the company should be memorable and appealing. Let me give you a few examples of slogans and you try and guess the company.
· Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
· It’s everywhere you want to be.
· The Ultimate Driving Machine.
· Just do it.
· It keeps going, and going, and going . . .
· You’re in good hands with . . .
These symbols represent fulfillment, pleasure, satisfaction, victory, style, and status. These companies have worked hard to develop a slogan and a symbol that will be appealing and attract as many people as possible.
With that in mind, what would you identify as the slogan and symbol for followers of Christ? Jesus lays it out in Matthew 16:24 when He extends an invitation to follow Him.
The Christian slogan: Come and Die!
24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
The slogan for followers of Christ could accurately be captured this way:
Come and Die.
· Well, at least it gets your attention.
· Not really the kind of slogan that draws people in.
· It’s not a slogan people flock to; it’s a slogan people flee from.
· Nobody wants to talk about death. We don’t even like the word death.
· When someone dies we say, “They’ve passed on/ they’ve gone ahead/ they’re no longer with us/ they’ve kicked the bucket/ they’ve bought the farm/ they’re pushing up daisies/ they’re swimmin’ with the fish.”
· Death is so final; it’s so complete.
· Exactly. As Bonhoeffer put it, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
The symbol for followers of Christ isn’t any better.
· It is a cross. An instrument of torture and death is the image that represents followers of Jesus.
· It seems like there were other options that Jesus could have gone with.
o Why not a dove? It represents peace.
o What about a shepherd’s staff? It’s a symbol of protection.
o Or a rainbow; it represents hope and promise.
· Why choose two bloody beams nailed together? If you want to attract customers, an image of perhaps the most brutal means of execution ever devised isn’t a great place to start.
We’ve tried to make the most of it. We turned it into ornaments and pieces of jewelry. But to those who were hearing these words of Jesus the invitation to take up a cross would have been both offensive and repulsive.
Have we made it too comfortable?
Has the Cross become comfortable, has what it represents become watered down? Do we avoid it because we are worried about numbers, or offending someone?
The Church:
· We hide it
· We only bring it out on Easter
· We tone it down, we soften it; Jesus didn’t
· We worry about bills and overhead and less about creating followers
· I’ve been told my description of it is too graphic
· Matthew 16:24 is the most widely misused verse
Believers:
· We hang them in our home
· We wear them like a symbol of courage when it was a symbol of torture
· Most don’t understand the cost and the price that was paid on the cross or what taking it up means
· We have become comfortable, almost numb, to its true meaning
We used to show the Passion of the Christ, and every time I would hear the same thing, too graphic, too gross, I can’t watch it again! But Jesus says, “Take up your cross daily and follow me”.
So, will we take up our cross, die to self and follow Jesus daily? The cross is not comfortable; the cross is the only way to salvation and finding the true power of God through Jesus! The cross represents 3 things: Humility, Suffering and Death, and in order to follow Jesus, you must take up YOUR cross and follow Him!
The Cross was a symbol of humiliation and Submission
Humiliation
Acts 8:32–33 (NLT)
32 The passage of Scripture He had been reading was this: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 33 He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”
· The Romans used the cross as a way to publicly humiliate the person
· The Romans tried to silence Jesus’s ministry by humiliating Him on the Cross
· The bible says “he was crucified naked
· Read Philippians 2: 5-8
o Jesus made Himself humble
o Jesus was humiliated, He was spit on, He was mocked to set the example for you and me to follow
o When Jesus says take up your Cross, its first means to humble yourself as a Bond Servant to Him
Submission
The words Jesus uses would have been offensive and repulsive
· The cross was used to bring a people into submission
· The cross was the most expensive means for execution
· The Cross was a symbol to the Jewish people that they were submissive to the Romans
· The cross was not cool, it was not fashionable
· The cross represented a very ugly nasty painful death
Jesus took up His cross so you would know what true humility looked like; Jesus took up His cross so you could see what humbly serving others looked like. Jesus took up His cross to save the world and Jesus calls you to take up your cross and follow in His example and humbly serve others and proclaim the gospel through your actions! By humbling ourselves we will be exalted, we will be lifted up! I want to hear Good and Faithful Servant.”
VS 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
The Cross Is a Symbol of Suffering
The Cross was all about suffering
· Before you were crucified you were scourged
· Beaten close to death
· Then you were burdened to carry the Patibulum
· Your body exposed from the beating
You can’t carry a cross without suffering.
· There is no comfortable way to carry a cross; I don’t care how you position it. I often talk to people who are convinced that some suffering or pain in their lives is an indication that they must not be following Jesus. After all, if they are following Jesus, the Son of God, doesn’t it follow that things in life are going to unfold smoothly? There is this junk theology floating around out there that points to difficulties as evidence that you must not be following Jesus. The biblical reality is that when people say yes to following Jesus, they are agreeing to carry a cross, and that will be painful at times.
There are a number of Scriptures that do more than hint at the fact that if you are following Jesus it will cost you something.
Taking up your cross and following Jesus can and will bring Pain and suffering
If you’re not suffering, you’re not following
There is this junk theology floating around out there that points to difficulties as evidence that you must not be following Jesus.
· That if you're suffering, not being constantly blessed, you’re not Following Jesus, That’s Crap!
· Some days when you follow the closest you suffer the most
The bible dispels this Myth
Luke 6:22 (NLT) What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.
2 Timothy 3:12 (NLT) Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Philippians 1:29 (NLT) For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.
Am I really carrying a Cross if there is no suffering, no sacrifice?
· When has the last time carrying the cross cost you anything?
· When has the last time following Jesus cost you a relationship, a promotion, a Vacation?
· When was the last time you were mocked for your faith? Have you ever stood up for your faith?
Ultimately the cross was a symbol of DEATH
When Jesus finally arrived at Golgotha (the place of the skull) the soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross and hung Him up and after a few hours stuck a spear in His side to finish it. Jesus paid the ultimate price for you and for me and He asks us to do the same and take up our cross and follow Him even in Death.
Jesus doesn’t force you to die, death is a choice!
Matthew 16:24 (NIV)
24Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
· This is a voluntary choice
· You can die today, or die later and travel south it’s up to you
· When Jesus calls us to follow Him, He says, “Take up your cross . . .” The word “take” indicates that dying is a choice we make.
· That’s not typically how we think of death
· That’s why this slogan of Come and Die, and this symbol of a cross aren’t just counter-cultural, they’re counter-intuitive.
· Nothing about it makes sense or feels right. It goes against our Survival Instinct.
Cross to bear
· The phrase “cross to bear” has become part of our vernacular.
· “Cross to bear” is a phrase that is used when a hard situation or responsibility has been put on us against our will.
· For a follower of Christ, a cross is not forced upon us, it is taken up. Jesus sets this example. In John 10:18 Jesus says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”
Jesus didn’t come to this earth so that you would be better behaved or to tweak your personality or to fine-tune your manners or smooth out your rough spots. Jesus didn’t even come to this earth to change you. The truth of the gospel is that Jesus came so that you could die.
Dying means Dying Daily
Luke 9:23 (NLT) Then He said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.
· That’s the hardest part of carrying your cross . . . it’s so daily.
· Each morning by the grace of Jesus, I am invited to take up a cross and die.
· That’s the only way I will follow Him that day.
· Every morning we crawl back on the altar and die to ourselves. but look at what He says in the very next verse:
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
· Only by dying to ourselves are we able to truly find life
It has to be daily, it’s not a one-time thing and then we put it back on the shelf, we have to die daily. Every morning you and I have to get on our knees and ask God to help us die again today!
What’s it look like to die every day?
· Well, dying to yourself today may mean spending your lunch hour serving food to the homeless at the shelter down the street from your office.
· It may mean that next time you’re talking with your neighbor, instead of playing it safe and keeping comfortable you bring Jesus into the conversation.
· Dying to yourself may mean changing your vacation plans, and instead of taking your kids to Disney this year, you take them to the Dominican Republic and volunteer in the feeding centers where hundreds of kids come each day for their only meal.
· Dying to yourself may mean walking by that empty room in your house and asking God if there is an orphan child in another country that should be sleeping in that bed.
· Dying to yourself may mean that you selflessly love a spouse who has cheated you out of the marriage you so desperately wanted.
· When is the last time you asked yourself what carrying your cross looks like?
· Close
For those living in the first century the cross was the ultimate symbol of weakness. For many, then and now, the message of the Gospel – that God came to earth in the form of man and was crucified – is complete foolishness. But God did amazing things with that cross!
· Who else but God could take a cross that represented defeat – and turn it into a symbol of victory?
· Who else but God could take a cross that represented guilt – and turn it into the symbol for grace?
· Who else but God could take a cross that represented condemnation – and turn it into a symbol of freedom?
· Who else but God could take a cross that represented pain and suffering – and turn it into a symbol of healing and hope?
· Who else but God could take a cross that represented death –
· and turn it into a symbol of life?
What God Did For the Cross, He Can Do for You.
Taking up a cross and dying to self sounds like torture. We think that such a decision would make us miserable. Is that what it means to follow Jesus? We wake up every morning and commit to misery. But when we die to ourselves and completely surrender to Him, there is a surprising side effect to dying; we discover true life. In a twist of irony, we find that giving up our lives gives us the life we so desperately wanted all along.
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