taking up your cross
TRANSCRIPT
Taking Up Your Cross
By Scott Meehan
Dailybibleverse23.blogspot.com
Daily Bible Verse
Questions
1. Requirements for following Jesus?
2. Sacrifices of following Jesus?
3. How to follow Jesus?
4. How to make the decision?
Requirements, Mark 8:34
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Requirements, Mark 8:34
• In Rome, a form of execution for dangerous criminals was death on a cross. In order to signify submission of the prisoners to Rome’s power, they would need to carry their own cross to the place where they were to be executed. Jesus used this imagery in this verse to illustrate His point of the ultimate submission required by His followers. Now Jesus is not saying that He is against pleasure or that we should seek pain wherever we can find it. What He is telling us is that the heroic effort needed to follow Him comes from doing so ever second of every day even when we find ourselves in difficult times or if the future looks very bleak.
Requirements, Mark 8:34
• Bearing your cross begins once you become aware and acknowledge that you cannot save yourself, and surrender completely to God’s mercy, as is told in Matthew 19:21-22, “Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” If you are unwilling to deny yourself, can you really make the legitimate claim that you are a follower of Jesus? Self-denial and sacrificial service is what Jesus taught His disciples about what it meant to be great in the kingdom of God.
Requirements Conclusion
1. Surrender completely to God’s mercy, total dedication.
2. Deny yourself.
3. Sacrificial service.
Sacrifices, Luke 9:61-62
• Luke 9:61-62, “And another also said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”
Sacrifices, Luke 9:61-62
• Jesus does not want a half-hearted commitment from us, but wants total dedication. We cannot follow Him selectively, picking and choosing which laws we follow and don’t follow. We must be willing to abandon our sins and everything that has given us security when following Jesus. As we accept mercy and salvation from the Lord, we must also be willing to accept judgment and difficulty, or to bear our “cross.” With this type of focus on Jesus, we should make sure that nothing distracts us from the kind of living that He preaches good and true.
Sacrifices, Luke 9:61-62
• This story of the man’s encounter with Jesus is similar to the one told in 1 Kings of Elijah commissioning Elisha:
“So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ And he said to him, ‘Go back again, for what have I done to you?’ So Elisha turned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen’s equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and became his servant” (1 Kings 19:19-21).
Sacrifices, Luke 9:61-62
• You will notice that Elisha also asked permission to return to his family and say goodbye before he started to follow Elijah. However, in doing so he expressed no enthusiasm in beginning his new work. As a result of this Elisha decided instead to slaughter all of his oxen and then follow Elijah, never to look back. This is what Jesus is asking of us, not to wait to follow Him, but to make the decision instantly and never look back. To abide by all his laws and ideas in how we should live our lives for Him, not to pick and choose. Only through doing so can we truly receive His mercy, His forgiveness, and His salvation.
Sacrifices Conclusion
1. Abandoning sinful behavior.
2. Abandoning things that provide security.
3. Instantly following Jesus, never to look back.
4. Following all His laws and teachings, even if you may not agree with it.
Follow, John 12:25
• John 12:25, “He who loves His life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Follow, John 12:25
• Our commitments to living for Christ must be so strong that by comparison we hate our own lives. This doesn’t mean that we should long for death, live in depression by choice, or become destructive with the life God has given us. What it means is that we should be willing to die if in doing so we will glorify Christ. This principle of death was not only applicable to Jesus’ life, but also to the lives of all His followers. At any time, we as followers in Christ must be prepared to lose our lives in service and witness for Him, just as His disciples did.
Follow, John 12:25
• Ironically, this verse uses two different words for “life.” Psuche, refers to our present existence in this world and the exercise of the mind, desires, and will. Zoe, refers to someone someone’s spiritual life everlasting. Therefore, someone who loves their psuche will lose it, and someone who hates their psuche will keep it for zoe. Our psuche life is only temporary, while our zoe life will last forever. If you are pursuing a life only caring about yourself and your own needs, you are living a psuche life, and will miss what God wants you to have in the spiritual realm. To live a zoe life you are constantly serving and praising God, living for Christ.
Follow, John 12:25
• This principle is so important to Jesus that He cites it probably more than any other of His teachings (see Matthew 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33). Used in a slightly different context, Paul also cites this principle quite frequently:
– Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”
– 2 Corinthians 6:9-10, “As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
– Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
– 2 Timothy 2:11-12, “This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.”
– See also Philippians 2:5-11.
Follow, John 12:25
• We must discard our own self-satisfactions and our own self-centeredness, and when we do this we will be able to serve God lovingly and freely. By transferring control of our lives to Christ, He brings us genuine joy and eternal life with Him.
Follow Conclusion From John
1. Willing to die if in doing so you glorify God.
2. Constantly serving and praising God, living for Christ.
3. Discard own self-satisfactions and own self-centeredness.
4. Transferring control of our lives to Jesus.
Follow, 1 Peter 2:21-22
• There are many reasons today why we may suffer. Suffering can stem directly from our own sins; it could come as a direct result of our own thoughtlessness; and it could come to us simply because we live in a fallen world. However, in these verses Peter is writing about the suffering that happens to us when we perform good actions. Jesus was sinless, and yet He suffered so that we may be free. Peter learned about suffering directly from Jesus. He knew it was part of God’s plan, as is written in Matthew 16:21-23, “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’”
Follow, 1 Peter 2:21-22
• He also learned that Christ’s death was intended to save us from our sins, as is written in Matthew 26:28, “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Lastly, Peter learned that all those who choose to follow Jesus must be prepared to suffer, as is written in Mark 8:34-35, “When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, ‘Whoever 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 and the gospel’s will save it.’”
Follow, 1 Peter 2:21-22
• Follow His steps. We should be modeling our whole lives on how Jesus lived His: “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 John 2:6). Even if it means we must suffer or even die, if that is His will we must follow. We should also love just as He loved: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Finally, we should also think just as He thought: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
Follow, 1 Peter 2:21-22
• Committed no sin. There are many testimonies in the New Testament to Christ never committing sin:
– 1 John 3:5, “And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
– Matthew 27:3-4, “Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ And they said, ‘What is that to us? You see to it!’”
– John 18:38, “Pilate said to Him, ‘What is truth?’ And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, ‘I find no fault in Him at all.’”
– Luke 23:47, “So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, ‘Certainly this was a righteous Man!’”
Follow, 1 Peter 2:21-22
• Leaving us an example. We should always be following this example that Christ set for us, living for others, even if it means we may suffer for it. As is also talked about in James 1:2-4, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” In facing suffering as Christ did, we should react with patience, with calmness, and with the confidence that God is always in control of our future, and judges righteously.
– Isaiah 53:7-9, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was lead as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked – but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.”
Follow Conclusion From 1 Peter
1. Model your life after the life of Jesus, even if you must suffer or die.
2. Love as Jesus loved.
3. Think just as He thought.
4. Live for others.
5. Have confidence that God is always in control.
Decision, Deuteronomy 30:19-20
• Deuteronomy 30:19-20, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendents may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
Decision, Deuteronomy 30:19-20
• Moses is speaking here to the Israelites on the plains of Moab, challenging them to obey God and choose life, and in doing so continuing to receive His blessings. This summarizes what he has already told the Israelites on several occasions (Deuteronomy 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:6, 16), to love the Lord their God with all their hearts and with all their souls. This type of obedience to God that Moses is speaking of is usually passed down from generation to generation: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). More often than not it is because of the parents lovingly, persistently, and prayerfully instilling patterns of belief and obedience in their children that the things of the Lord become a part of the maturing child’s life.
Decision, Deuteronomy 30:19-20
• The influence of godly parents to their children can be very profound, as is written in 1 Corinthians 7:14, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.” God lets us decide whether or not to follow Him or reject Him, instead of forcing His will on us. God does want us, however, to realize that this is a life or death matter, and wants us to choose life and to choose Him. In our lives we have to reinforce our commitments daily, to following God in every situation. Jesus also emphasized the importance of choosing life or death. Those who believe in Him have the promise of eternal life, while those who refuse to believe face eternal death (see John 3:1-36). Every person in existence must face this decision, life or death, follow Jesus or reject Jesus, which do you choose?
Decision Conclusion
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul.
2. Share God’s word with everyone you know, especially your children.
3. Realize this is a life or death decision.
4. Follow Jesus, or reject Jesus. Which do you choose?
Overall Summary, Requirements and Sacrifices
1. Surrender completely to God’s mercy, total dedication.
2. Deny yourself.
3. Sacrificial service.
4. Abandon your sinful behavior.
5. Abandon things that provide security.
6. Instantly follow Jesus, never to look back.
7. Follow all His laws and teachings, even if you may not agree with it.
Overall Summary, How to Follow
1. Willing to die if in doing so you glorify God.2. Constantly serving and praising God, living for Christ.3. Discard own self-satisfactions and own self-
centeredness.4. Transferring control of our lives to Jesus. 5. Model your life after the life of Jesus, even if you must
suffer or die.6. Love as Jesus loved.7. Think just as He thought.8. Live for others.9. Have confidence that God is always in control.
Overall Summary, Make The Decision
1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul.
2. Share God’s word with everyone you know, especially your children.
3. Realize this is a life or death decision.
4. Follow Jesus, or reject Jesus. Which do you choose?