Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

This past year has been tough for many of you.  Some of you have faced the death of someone close to you.  Others have had to change jobs, face shutdowns.  Some of you have gone through personal crises.  You have been pressured by someone to do something you knew wasn’t right.  You’ve had people threaten you or mock you because you are walking with the Lord. You may feel very lonely as a Christian in this world.

How are you doing?  Are you standing strong with Jesus?  Are you walking with him and following him?

Jesus said, , “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

So what was the cross?

The cross was an instrument of cruelty.

Matthew 27:32 (NIV84)32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.

Here Jesus is carrying a cross.  What is this all about?  Why did Simon have to help him?

The issue of carrying the cross was a picture of the extreme cruelty that those in power exacted towards those who opposed their rule.  Today we house prisoners warm jails, give them clean rooms to live in, provide privileges for those who behave.  They have toilets, running water, and food given to them.  Even those on death row are given a last meal, an injection to make the final injection more humane. 

This was not so in Jesus’ day. Captives were humiliated in every way.  They were often stripped naked, made to walk chained together.  They were beaten hard, as Jesus had been, with whips that tore out the skin.  They were crucified, a slow, painful and very difficult way to die.  It would often take days for crucified victims to finally succumb to death. Part of the humiliation was for the criminal to carry the horizontal part of the cross to the place of torture and death. 

The cross was an instrument of cruelty and humiliation.

Yet Jesus asks us to take up this cross and follow him.  This cross includes all the things that come across our path that can hinder us from walking with God.

Three major areas we will have to face if we follow Christ.  Jesus outlines them for us in a parable from Matthew 13:1–9 (NIV84)

 13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”

 This is the parable.  In the interpretation we can see the three major areas we will have to face if we follow Jesus.

The issue of our engagement with the message.

The issues of trouble and persecution.

The issue of life’s problems.

Matthew 13:18–23 (NIV84) 18 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:

19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

The first major area we will have to face if we want to follow Jesus is the issue of our engagement with the message. 

What is sown in the heart of the person who hears the message but does not understand it?  Information.  Information is stored.  Unconnected, unrelated information.  If a person doesn’t understand, then all they have is information.  What happens to information that we don’t understand?  We forget it. 

However, when it comes to spiritual information,  Jesus tells us that Satan has some ability to remove information that we don’t understand. 

The message is given, but the person doesn’t understand it.  What we don’t understand, we don’t remember.  Satan takes away what is not understood. 

Why don’t we understand?  In part it may be that we don’t understand because we do not engage in the message given.  I have known of people who, if a certain speaker is speaking, immediately turns that person off. They disengage the speaker and so do not understand the message.

We may come to hear the message with great indifference.  We hear the words, but they are not remembered because we never intended to act on what we heard or engage in any further inquiry.

In other words, we never deny self and we never pick up the cross.

The people who come to listen with inquiring minds, wanting to know the will of God, will never leave disappointed.  One speaker may be better than another, but the message will be received because the person is engaged with trying to understand what is said.  God’s word does not return to him void.

20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

The second major area we will face if we want to follow Jesus is the issue of persecution.  The word trouble is affliction or pressure that we receive from people.

We come into the church, Sunday school or small group and hear a teaching.  In the group we are excited about the new idea, the new insight, the greater perspective.  But when we leave our spouse challenges the teaching in the car on the way home, we wilt and are persuaded by the other person to leave this area alone.  Or it might be that you go into work and try to apply the teaching.  But another worker says, “Keep that up and we will have nothing to do with you…” and so you stop.  Or it may be that you are physically slapped around because you brought God or the Bible into a conversation.  So you vow never to mention Jesus to that person again.

Why do we act this way?  Why can we be so receptive to something and just hours or days later reject what we received so warmly?

The answer is that the message of Jesus has no root.  We have not fully bought into it.  We catch it emotionally, but we don’t understand it well enough for it to change our lives.  We respond with emotion and when the emotion dies down, when real life hits, when persecution hits, we fall away.

In other words, we deny self, but we don’t pick up our cross.

We can expect pressure from others, we can expect persecution to come when we follow Christ.  But our refusal to stand up for Jesus when we face this derails our ability to come after Jesus.

 22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

The third major area we will face if we want to follow Jesus is the issue of life’s problems.

This differs from oppression and persecution because these things are not related to attacks generated by our faith in Jesus.  This refers instead to issues that become more important to us than following Jesus.

You deny self and make a choice to live for God.  You pick up your cross and suffer affliction and persecution.  But then you are faced with concerns over the health of your children, the status of your 401k, the question of whether or not you will have a job next week and the need to further your education to get a better paying job. Your friends want you to go snowmobiling with them so you need to find money to get a snowmobile.  You and your wife are having problems and you wish she would get it, but she doesn’t (of course she wishes you would get it as well and you don’t).  You are under a burden of debt so you work three jobs with no time or place for God build in.  We become so absorbed by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, that the word of God is choked out.

I have had people who have told me this.  It’s real good what the Bible teaches, but in the real world, it’s different.  I will say to you that the Bible is for the real world.  The real world is best lived by the life God has for you.  But if you do not deny self, then the life of God will seem foolishness.  If you are not willing to suffer and say no to the world, then the life of God will seem impractical. 

In other words, if we will come after Jesus, we will need to take up our cross.  It means facing pressure, persecution, and life’s problems for the sake of Jesus.

23 But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

This person hears, understand, and acts.  In spite of persecution, in spite of life’s trials, this person continues to act, to plant, water and harvest the crop because of their understanding of all God has for them.  He denies self, takes up the cross and follows Jesus.

I would like you to listen to yourself speak and watch how you act.  Do negative things drive you away following Jesus and loving his people?  Or are negative things part of what you expect as you live in this sinful world, as you wait for the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?

What we don’t connect is the cross with the denial of self.  If our feelings are hurt, to deny self is to take that cross and follow Jesus, in spite of our own feelings. 

If we don’t get our way, to deny self is to take that cross of rejection and follow Jesus, in spite of our setback.

If people don’t give us the support we think we should have, to deny self is to accept that cross and to continue to do what Jesus would have us do.

If our we lose our job and our future is uncertain, to deny self is to accept that hardship and trust Jesus to lead us in the next step in our lives.

You work hard in teaching Sunday school.  You have low attendance and the young people are overactive. You are stressed.  To deny self is to serve to please the Lord and to pray the Lord of the harvest that he would bring you help. 

This Sunday is the day Jesus was hailed as Messiah and King by the people of Jerusalem.  By the end of the week he is carrying his cross to Calvary to suffer and die on our behalf.  He did this out of a love for you and me.  He did this to bring us life.  He did this to give us hope for the future.

Is it too much to ask us to carry whatever cross we need to bear on his behalf?  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.  Lean on your own understandings.  In all you ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your paths.