Take Up Your Cross

So in Matthew 16, quick introduction. The writer obviously is Matthew. He's writing to the Jews. But this passage is also written in the other gospels, and they have different audiences. You have Mark writing to the Romans, so to Gentiles.

So I don't know. I don't know about you, but sometimes I may have been guilty of this in my past. Well, it was written to the Jews, so it doesn't apply to me. No, it does apply to us in a different gospel. But in this morning's message, we'll be reading from Matthew 16, verses 24 through 27.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his words to his works. To be clear, so we see here Jesus is speaking. And notice who is he speaking to? His disciples.

Which means if you're not a disciple of Christ, that's bad news for you.

You do not have the privilege of carrying the cross, and you are in danger of eternal judgment in hell.

But the reality, that reality can be changed. If you believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And if you want to do. If you want to believe in Jesus Christ, and you haven't done that yet, you can ask myself or other men in the church, and we can walk you through the gospel and we can pray with you and help disciple you in the coming future.

And if you do want to believe in Jesus Christ, or if you already have believed in Jesus Christ, then follow me as we go through the words of Christ and what he expects of his disciples. I'm going to move forward, I believe, with everyone here. I believe everybody is a disciple of Christ. Praise God.

So what does Jesus expect of us?

Well, first we see that he's speaking to his disciples, which the 12 disciples here in this time, in this moment. So before we can do application for ourselves, let's go through the passage together.

In John 14:6, Jesus said to Thomas, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So if there's any other religion that offers you a way to heaven, and it's not through Christ alone you need to Question the religion, because Jesus says he is the way in John 3:16 and 17. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through the world, but that the world through him, through Christ, might be saved. In John Further on in the chapter in John 3:36, it says, he who believes in the Son of he who believes in the Son has everlasting life. And he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

So again, before we can move forward to see what Jesus expects of his disciples, let's make sure that we have that in order. We are saved by Christ alone. In Philippians 2, 5, 11, Paul says, Let this mind be in you, which you was, which was also in Christ. Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and those under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So now that we have disciples, clear and what it is how to become a disciple of Christ.

Jesus said, if anyone desires to come after me, that first word, desire, In other places in Scripture you will see that the meaning is to will have in mind, intend to be resolved or determined, to purpose, to wish, to love, to like, to do a thing fond of doing, delighting in and having pleasure in.

So to desire, Desiring to go after Christ is the first step. The second step is to deny oneself.

Jesus knew the future of his disciples. That majority of them, if not all of them, would be martyred for him for his name's sake. And the disciples may not have realized that in that moment. Because if you look before today's passage, Peter had just told Jesus that he wasn't going to suffer. That in Peter's mentality and his thought process and his desires, was that Jesus was going to be okay.

He wasn't going to die a harsh death on earth. And what does Jesus tell Peter?

So even the Apostle Peter, none of us here would have thought that was a negative request.

The scripture even says that Peter rebuked the Lord.

Peter was very confident in his, what he thought ministry was going to be like. But Jesus corrected him strongly. And now when Jesus is speaking to all of his disciples, he mentions the cross. And in those times, the disciples would have known what that meant. The cross was a cruel, graphic, ugly, painful death.

So for Jesus to be speaking this way, and if they weren't well versed in the Old Testament, they might have been a little bit shaken.

In Matthew 10:38, that was the first time Jesus mentioned the cross to his followers. To his disciples, he had said, jesus says, he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it. And he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

In Mark. Well, an example of what this could mean in verse 24, when Jesus is telling his disciples to deny themselves and to take up their cross and follow him.

Reading into verse 25. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. An example we will look at is Matthew and Judas.

You'll see in Mark, chapter two, when. When God. When Jesus told Matthew to follow him, Matthew was in the tax office as a tax collector. And that was a despicable occupation to the Jews.

So Jesus wasn't looking for perfect people or people who had no need for a Savior. He invited Matthew to follow him on this journey. And I just invited him. He told him to follow me. And Matthew obeyed.

Matthew turned away from his occupation. He turned away from his career, his status. And you see in Mark chapter two that Matthew actually had the Lord over for a meal. And Matthew also invited all his friends that were tax collectors. And the Pharisees judged the Lord and the disciples.

How could you eat with sinners and tax collectors?

On the other hand, Judas saw opportunity to follow the Lord, that he would be a part of a movement and prestige, that he too would gain status. But when he started to realize that, wait a minute, Jesus is requiring a little bit too much, his disciples eventually getting to the point of turning Jesus in.

We all know how that story goes. But contrasting you have Matthew, who willingly loses his life for Christ. And where is Matthew now? In Judas, wanting to find his life, wanting to preserve his life here on earth, he lost his life. And where is he now?

Far be it from us that we would be like Judas.

How is your heart and mind responding to the challenge now? I Remember reading passages like these growing up when Jesus would tell his disciples that you have to follow me, whatever the cost is, even if it's death. As a young, younger man, or even child, I thought, man, I still have so much life to live. I still want to get married. At the time, I didn't know necessarily what I wanted to do for my career, but just the opportunity.

Looking forward and thinking of a career. I mean, that's what everybody gets excited for, right? You're in high school and everyone's talking about college. Everyone's talking about what they're going to do for a living.

And Jesus was affecting my plans or stepping on my toes.

Obviously you see my immaturity.

But is that happening for you? Do you feel pressure? Is the cost to follow Christ too high or is it weighty?

If I can persuade you, following Christ through whatever cost will never equate to what he did for the Father, you and me.

In Philippians 1:29, Paul says, For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.

What's the alternative?

Follow the world where the blind are leading the blind, where Satan has his sway? There's a lot of confident people in the world, influencers, leaders that have followers.

People are willing to, to put all their hope in man or woman and say, yeah, this is my life endeavor, I'll follow this person. But are those people following Christ?

Are they saving their lives only to lose it?

Have they denied themselves? Are they disciples of Christ?

If people aren't disciples of Christ, should we be following them? Should we be taking their words and equating them with Christ or elevating them more than Christ?

We need to beware. We must follow Jesus Christ.

There's a turning point in the passage in verse 26. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Notice Jesus introduces versus value here. Trading. This is my, my cup of tea.

There's a lot of people who are scared of the stock market because if they put money in and they don't make a good trade, you lose your money, lose your principal.

So why is Jesus talking about value?

What's the point of profit? Well, what is most of the world talking about? Whether you're in business or you have, if you're an employee, everyone is concerned for the dollar, right? Because that's the way we exchange goods and services.

Jesus challenges everybody and everyone and anybody here. He doesn't just go for little things. He goes for the whole gusto, he goes for the whole extreme. You can gain the whole world and you will end up empty.

Been going through Ecclesiastes on Wednesdays, and we've been talking about vanity and how vanity is the attempt to be happy apart from God. This sort of ties in here because it doesn't just have to be money. It doesn't have to just be money in order to be happy apart from God. There are people give up. I mean, they try to find happiness in so many other things.

And whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, the bill for your soul is coming. We cannot avoid it. If we were feasting at a restaurant and enjoying all the pleasures, all the delicacies, at some point we know it's common knowledge that there's going to be a bill coming and you're not. You're not able to exchange your good works to pay for the bill.

They want money, but God, God doesn't want your money.

When we have our day with death, the Lord requires perfection, and our only hope is in Christ.

In Luke, chapter 12, verse 20 21, God says, Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided or accumulated? Verse 21 says, so is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Psalms 49 says, those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can be. None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their souls is costly and it shall cease forever. You see, when Jesus goes and says, the whole world, you can gain the whole world. But what's the point if you lose your soul?

Maybe some would say, well, I don't want the whole world. I only want a part of it, so maybe I won't lose my soul.

Some people settle for far less than the whole world and still lose their soul. Here are some examples.

Who do you serve? What's your life's purpose? Is it just work?

Laziness, Career, Business, Success, Complacency, family? I mean, Jesus says in the Scriptures too, that if you put family above himself, that's a failure.

I mean, a lot of us at some point, I'm sure, served ourselves only as well. Some people settle for status. Some people settle just for video games, for sex, for politics, for sports, for nature, cars, materialism. Scrolling Passion collections, feelings, health, fitness, food, anything apart from God. Anything in the world.

Jesus Is Jesus just said the blanket statement that you can gain the whole world and you'll lose your soul. But it doesn't have to be the whole world. Could be anything in the world. Anything in the world that you put above Christ, you will lose your soul. It's Christ or nothing.

So again, riches will not save anyone's soul, nor will poverty. We will not take any possessions of worth or value from this world that can spare our soul from eternal judgment.

That second question, when Jesus says, or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The way he's asking that isn't. He's not wondering what people would give. He's meaning when that person, when the clock's already over, game's over, and you're in front of the Lord, you, all you bring is your dirty rags.

So we have nothing. If you don't have Christ, you take God nothing except your depravity, your sin inequity. Only Jesus Christ can save us in verse 27. For the Son of man will come in the glory of His Father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.

So what's the point? What is Jesus? What is Jesus? What's the point of all this?

The time is ticking now. If we are alive today, the Lord is giving us an opportunity not to live for ourselves, but to live for Him. We were made in his image, for him we were saved by the blood of the Lamb, for Him he was resurrected. So we have new life for Him.

So when the Son of Man comes in the glory of His Father with His angels, this is a future coming.

Why is Jesus, he's talking about the now of us or his disciples in that time when he was with the disciples, to telling them, if you're going to follow me, it's going to be costly.

Now, not every Christian is going to be martyred. But Jesus is saying that if you are, if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. He's not trying to preach gloom and doom. Because if you only see it as you're losing your life here on earth, then we're missing the whole, the whole point. This is not all we have here on earth.

And if our vision or our glasses are only showcasing what we have here, temporally, we're missing the whole horizon of eternity.

I'm not sure if we speak enough about the future of eternity.

Because when you are saved, we get to carry our cross for Christ and we also get to do good works not to save us from our sins, because only Christ can save us from our sins, but he allows us to do good works in renewing our minds, conforming to Christ, so that way we can give him. Well, for one, first, he's talking about he's bringing rewards.

But those rewards, we get to cast at his feet.

In sports, my brother and I were talking in the back, when you're playing, it could be any sport, but in this case, football, for example, there's a typical baseline of what you're trying to accomplish in a game if you are considered good. If you're a quarterback, you want to get 300 yards, you want to have three or four touchdowns, or if not, more. You don't want to throw any interceptions, you don't want no fumbles. You want to have a high completion percentage. And if you don't hit that at the end of the game, you're disappointed.

Even if you won, you can win the game. And your team's excited. And you should be excited because your team won, but you're bothered because you only had 100 yards and maybe one touchdown pass and two interceptions. And you feel like, man, I could have done so much more. When you watch film on Monday, you realize that guy was wide open and I missed him.

I did. Oh, I should have. I should have gotten rid of the ball faster before I fumbled it.

And the reason why you watch the film is so that way, on the next game, you make improvements. It doesn't make you a champion in that moment, but it does help you, for that season at least, perform better. Now, why are we talking about performance? Because the World cup is going on right now, and people, they're talking about, they have the golden boot. I don't know if you're following the World cup or this may be annoying to you, but the golden boot is basically the person who has the most goals.

So out of. I don't even know how many games there are, but in the tournament, I think the top guys right now are scoring eight goals for the whole tournament. And those are the best. Those are the best of the world. Anyone who's not scoring eight goals, you're not considered the best.

But the time, until Christ returns, the time is going.

Jesus already did the work for our salvation, driving that point home. But we get to play, we get to live, we get to minister, we get to serve.

Are you carrying your cross?

What is your cross?

In Psalm 62, verse 12 says, also to you, O Lord belongs mercy for you render to each one according to his work. Proverbs 24:12 says, if you say, surely we did not know this. Does not he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does he not know it? And will he not render to each man according to his deeds?

Romans 2, verse 6 says, who will render to each one according to his deeds?

My final questions for you today. Have you denied yourself?

Are you taking up your cross?

Your cross may not be martyrdom.

Maybe it's loving your brother.

Maybe it's building up courage to speak to that person who's been on your mind for a while to share the good news of salvation and the bad news of sin. But the good news of salvation, Maybe it's ministry full time.

Maybe it's contributing a lot more in your local church.

Maybe it's calling your pastor and encouraging him. Maybe it's overall more faithfulness to the Lord. Being in the Word daily, being in prayer daily.

This could be unique for each of us.

But first, before you have denied yourself, you must desire to follow Christ. And if you do have that desire to follow Christ, praise God.

Because not many, not many are. That's not a true reality for them. They're satisfied with this world. Or they believe they are satisfied with this world.

Please take up your cross. I know I'm not the Lord, but Jesus is saying it to his disciples. I'm just a messenger. Take up your cross. Imagine if we had a church full of people taking up their cross.

Are you following Christ with that cross?

And ultimately Jesus is coming. He's coming with his Father. He's coming with his angels. And it's going to be glorious and it's going to be forever. What are you taking to Christ?

We have today, we have every day he gives us. But we don't know when that time is coming, when it's all said and done. In Revelations 22:12, it says, and behold, I am coming quickly. And my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word. It is powerful. It cuts the heart. And Lord, we believe. We believe you, Lord, and we desire to follow you.

Please be with us and help us to be faithful, for you are worthy. Oh God, in Jesus name, amen.