Our sermon title this morning is How the Cross Leads to Glory.
Sometimes in life we make a statement or a sentence.
There seems to be a contradiction in what we say.
How does the word cross understanding from a biblical
perspective? How does the word cross and
glory? When we understand the biblical
concept of glory, how does that work together?
How does that even work? We here in our culture, things
like no pain, no gain. We understand what that means.
If you want to make the grade, you have to study or you want to
achieve a certain status in the workplace, you have to prove
yourself and so on. But we want to do as little pain
with as much gain as possible, as little sacrifice, as much
reward as possible. Want the lots of glory, little
little pay, kind of how we think as human beings.
Or if possible, avoid the hardship all together and just
just take the glory part That's easy.
That's the desire. That's not how life works, at
least not if it works normally in the context of our world
today. When Speaking of the Christian
faith, the path to glory is through the cross sacrificial
journey. And there's a it's a journey
that many people start and don't finish.
And it's a path that when it finally gets to the point where
glory is reached, all that stuff and fluff in this world, it just
kind of falls away, has less meaning and less influence and
let just doesn't mean much anymore and just kind of just
drifts away. And at the end, we just want
that central core value of being with Jesus in relationship with
him. For the believer, the path to
glory is the way of the cross. There are no exceptions and no
exemptions For some time. That cross journey may be short
because they repent at the last phase of life, but they have to
at one point in time say, look, I'm done.
I quit, I surrender, I die. The path of the cross was not
popular when Jesus first walked this earth, when when he
introduced it. It's not popular now in our time
of easy religion, quick and fun and easy worship.
In the Gospels, Jesus called us to a life of surrender to his
mission. So we're continuing our sermon
series in the Gospel of Mark, and we left off last Sunday
where Jesus asked his disciples, who do people say that I am?
And some they said, oh, some say you're Elijah the prophet, one
of the prophets, John the Baptist and so on.
Who do you say I am? And Peter said, you're the
Christ. That's where we left off last
Sunday. And I mentioned that here now
because that was a high note. Jesus had been teaching his
disciples in the crowds and Jesus was now getting ready to
go deep in his teaching. And you go to the, he was going
to go to the foundation of what he was here for and anybody who
wants to join him. And the commentary is right that
there's a shift that happens between last Sundays where we
stopped and today where we pick up.
There's a, there's this watershed point that's kind of a
peak point there. And up to this point, there was
nothing about suffering really in the Kingdom of God.
Sure, it was there, but Jesus wasn't talking about it or
hadn't talked about it yet. Not according to not the way
Mark writes his gospel. Peter had recognized, confessed
Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, and he was, he is.
But today things shift. So I want you to take your
Bibles, whatever you're reading, and let's read Mark chapter 8,
beginning verse 31 all the way to the other chapter, Chapter 9,
verse one. And it reads.
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many
things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and
scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise
again. And he spoke this word openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when he had turned around and looked at his disciples, he
rebuked Peter, saying, Get behind me, Satan, for you're not
mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.
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 Gospels will
save it. For what will it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?
Or what will a man give an exchange for his soul?
For whoever is ashamed of me in my words, in this adulterous and
sinful generation of him, the Son of Man will also be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.
And he said to them, assuredly, I say to you that there are some
standing here who will not taste death till they see the Kingdom
of God present with power. If we pause here and reflect
what had happened and had been happening up to this point, up
to chapter 8, verse 31, what happened happening up to that
point, it was great. It was good.
I mean, Jesus, he'd been healing the sick, He'd been forgiving
people of their sins. He had, he had shown himself
powerful. And these disciples who'd been
called to follow him left, had left their day jobs and Jesus
said he was going to make them fishers of men.
It was all good. They developed a trust for him,
Jesus. The next logical step was let's
crown him king. And if you read John's Gospel in
chapter 5, that's what it says there that the John chapter 5
defeating of the 5000. It says there Jesus perceived
they were going to come by force and make him king.
Jesus dismissed the crowd, went up to the mountain to pray and
the disciples from the sea. And of course, there's that
story about the boat and all that.
And he came walking in the water.
There were some great and awe inspiring, you know, fearful
moments. But in general with Jesus, it's
just all good, just good. And they're in awe of him.
He's a man worth following everywhere.
Everything that started good was going good, and he was on a
steady climb upward. And then in verse 31, we see a
shift. He's beginning to teach his
disciples something that they had not heard of before.
He's using language that the normal person of the day found
very disturbing and unsettling and just jarring and grating on
their minds. This is not what's supposed to
be. I think if I had been a disciple
of his, a fisherman that followed him, I too would have
said what's going on? And some serious questions begin
to emerge out of this whole thing.
It doesn't sound good, but it was this kind of teaching that
would reveal who the true, real, genuine followers of Jesus were.
So let's pick this passage apart.
He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many
things and be rejected by the elders of the chief priests,
priests and scribes and be killed.
And after three days, rise again.
He spoke this word openly. We can just imagine the
disciples full of anticipation every day with Jesus.
What's going to do today? What's going to happen today?
And, and even the forces of nature bowed to him.
And Jesus can shut the Pharisees up and he can multiply bread,
and I think they're on a roll. And now Jesus starts talking
about stuff that nobody wants to hear.
They can't believe their ears suffer.
The Son of Man, meaning Jesus himself must suffer like hammer
blows. These words come and rejection.
What's that? I'll be killed never.
It doesn't sit well with the disciples.
You can just imagine the bunch. They're just talking what's
talking about. Peter, as he often did, speaks
up, objects to what Jesus saying.
He has more insight than anybody else.
He thinks what Jesus trying to communicate is #1 the path of
glory includes suffering. The message of Jesus at this
point is turning downward, so to speak.
He's he's saying the Son of Man meaning himself.
The phrase the Son of Man refers to Jesus here, and the
commentators suggest that this refers to authority.
He's an authoritative figure now, authoritative figure and
suffer. How do you reconcile that?
He suffered many things. He said something's off here.
And this whole thing about the cross, this is not going well.
See, the Jews had the idea that the Christ, the Messiah was
going to come and set everything straight to establish an earthly
Kingdom like it had been under King David many centuries
before. Israel had been one united
nation, politically strong, economically sound and
spiritually well and all those good things.
This does not sound like that, doesn't sound appealing at all.
Who wants to join something like that?
Suffering doesn't sound like ruling and authority and
Kingdom. Suffering sounds like defeat and
discouragement and and death. The suffering Jesus mentioned
here is not the suffering of loss of maybe getting cancer or,
or losing 1's jobs. Not the suffering he's talking
about. It's suffering in the sense that
because somebody doesn't like what he was doing, they're going
to turn against him. Suffering inflicted by people
who didn't like him, who wanted him gone.
Rejection that's being pushed aside and not valued, not
wanted. The disciples had would again
later come face to face with their own lack of understanding
there. They didn't understand this.
What's he talking about? And the source of it, well,
that's going to come from the wrong place too.
It's not going to be the criminals who are doing it.
The top guys in their system, the chief priests and the
Pharisees and the scribes, the lawyers, the teachers, the
professors, they would reject him.
He's telling them all this, and if that's not enough, then
they're going to kill him. He's going to be dead.
This doesn't make sense. Death is not what we're after.
We want to live, not just we want to have a good, not just
going to want to be in power and authority and rule.
And this raised from the dead, while that's so far above their
mental capacity, they don't even think about that.
And then later on, when Jesus did die and did rise, they
didn't know what he was talking about.
They had to see it first. They had no idea for the
disciples when Jesus spoke about this, what's going to happen?
We can just feel the tense feeling, the tenseness and the
Peter perhaps maybe his blood is rising.
This is not blood pressure. This is not good.
He's coming very disturbed, no peace.
And he's he's rattled and he's got to do something.
And so he did. He did something he didn't think
through very well. Quite a shallow ignorance, we
could say that was Peter's lot kind of in that day and age had
a quick tongue, blind courage, not thinking through very well
what he was going to say and this was a tough spot.
He had no I'll intent by the way.
He just want to make this thing's not going to derail.
This whole salvation plan is not going to derail.
He want to make sure that Jesus is going to get it right.
Have to help him out. You know, how many times in life
do we do that in our blind ignorance and short sightedness
and blind spot of life. We just want to help God out a
little bit and we do things that we know we should maybe think
through 1st and we just do things that are just just, we
just wish we hadn't done them later on.
And Peter does that and says in verse 32, then Peter took him
aside again to rebuke him. Lord, just hold it a little bit.
Lord, this is not good. Lord, we're not going to do
that. This is not going to happen to
you. And obviously Peter and Jesus
have vastly different perceptions of reality.
Jesus goal is to walk this path. He came to this earth for this
reason. His mission was to serve, to
teach, to suffer and die as a give his life as a ransom for
the sins of the people. And Jesus wants them to know
that and the crowd to know that. The suffering teaching part,
that was something the apostles had no problem with what Peter
and the problem with was this suffering component doesn't fit
Lord, it doesn't work. No, no, you're not going to
suffer. You're not going to die.
And remember, this Kingdom thing is not going to work that way.
So rebuke Jesus. Imagine that sometimes when we
open our mouth, it doesn't take long.
We so wish we hadn't. That all happens.
I think here one person made this comment.
He said the less people know, the more stubbornly they know
it. I think that's true, often true.
The Apostle Peter fit that at that time, he just, this is not
going to happen and it would take till Pentecost.
He'd be filled with the Holy Spirit and he would understand.
It would have been far better for Peter to just say nothing
than to say anything at all. But it's there for our reason
and that we learned something from it.
And the Bible has more passages like that, especially in verse
in the Old Testament. Proverbs 1728 says even a fool
is counted wise when he holds his peace.
When he shuts his lips, he's considered perceptive.
I've been fascinated with that word verse since I read it when
I was a boy. I don't want to go as far as
Peter's a fool, but Jesus did call him Satan.
He did call him Satan. And how a person responds always
reveals an insight into the heart of the person.
Peter would have been so wise to say, Lord Jesus, I don't
understand. Am I missing something explained
please, I'm, I'm, I'm not getting it.
That would have been wise. Proverbs 1813 also says he
answers a matter before he hears it.
It is folly and chained him. So yes, Peter would have been so
wise to just surrender for I don't get this Lord, what are
you talking about? Some scholars say that Mark got
his gospel from the apostle Peter.
I don't say one way or another. I don't know, but let's say he
didn't. I believe it's possible.
If it was Peter, then Peter was a changed man when he shared
with Mark what happened because he shares with Mark everything.
If that's the case, his failings and his foolish comments and
Peter did make some serious errors and judgement when it
came to him and Jesus. And you see only just a few
verses before Peter had said to Jesus, you're the Christ, the
Son of God, and now he's trying to set Jesus straight.
You ever feel like Jesus not getting it?
It happens. People sometimes feel God is not
getting it. That is not the case.
It's never God is not getting it.
It's our lack of understanding, our lack of insight that's the
problem. And sometimes God is not about
to explain to us. He wants us to trust him.
In this case, Peter knew that. He knew.
He's going to make sure Jesus knows too.
So he rebukes Jesus, but no sooner had Peter started
rebuking Jesus, he just turns around from having heard Peter
talk to him, rebuking him and Jesus spoke to the whole group.
He doesn't just talk to Peter, I have something to say to you.
He talks to the whole crowd, exposing everything if in case
they hadn't heard says, but when he had turned around and looked
at his disciples, he rebuked Peter looking at the crowd
rebukes Peter saying get behind me Satan, for you're not mindful
of the things of God, but the things of men.
How's that for promotion? I don't think we have words to
describe what must have sounded what this like in Peter's ears.
He must have wished I could just sink into a hole.
I shouldn't have said that. Here's Jesus and with Peter and
the crowd in public and Peter had just a few minutes ago on
this journey and said, oh, you're the Son of God.
And now it has this talk about suffering.
And Peter, you can't this, this has got to change.
And Jesus rebukes him. His you're not mindful of the
things of God, but of men. There's an infinite chasm, an
infinite gulf between what Peter said earlier.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and between what he's
saying, rebuking Jesus. Satan was had much more
influence on Peter and much more territory we could say in his
mind than Peter even knew. The things of God, the things of
men, these are infinitely apart. Jesus has his has his mind set
on a different thing than Peter does.
And these two different perceptions, these two different
things can never and will never meet.
What Peter said a few moments earlier, what Jesus saying now
this was, could not and cannot be reconciled.
See in Peter's world, suffering glory does not have to.
I mean, suffering, glory does not go together.
Glory does not have to go through suffering, hasn't come
through suffering. But Jesus says, yeah, suffering
and glory does go together. Peter's perception of glory was
wrong. Peter's perception was power,
Conquer and rule Jesus to suffer, serve and teach and die
and rise. We're not that different people
live good lives and thinking that will eliminate suffering
from their lives. But it doesn't.
It attracts it. Think of the story of Job.
If Job had not lived the good life he lived, Satan may not
have accused God of protecting, or this argument between Job and
God might not have happened. Think of that story where God is
doing something good. Evil will come around trying to
do influence or destroy it. Are we more mindful of what
Jesus calls the things of men, the temporal things of this
life, than the things of God? How do we know?
And it can even be in our religious worship.
It's in it's in our secular rule all the time, the things we do.
There's the kind of the world and the mind of God.
But it it didn't filter it into the church.
Even he had a blind spot. Peter had a blind spot and
Peter's mind, Jesus was not making sense.
He doesn't want Jesus to suffer and be rejected and die, and
never mind about that rising thing, because that's not going
to happen if he doesn't die. So we don't need that.
It's entirely possible to be absolutely correct in one thing
and absolutely wrong in another. Just as Peter was right in who
Jesus was, Peter was wrong in what he believed the path for
Jesus was. We must be so careful to remain
teachable, open and receptive and humble to the truth.
We are always in learning mode. We don't get to tell Jesus what
to do. And at this point in this, in
this story, we could just drop the whole thing and say, OK,
yeah, good, done that. Now Peter knows and the crowd
knows, and so we can move on, right?
Jesus had just corrected Peter, knocked him down a few notches
where he should be. Now life goes on, correct?
Nope, Jesus did not stop with rebuking Peter.
Jesus went on to teach not just the disciples.
Now he talks to the whole crowd. Verse 34, when he had called the
people to himself with his disciples also, he's got the
crowd. Now He says to them, whoever
desires to come after me, let him deny himself, 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 gospels will save it. Now it's not just him, now it's
everybody. It says verse 36.
For what would a profit a man if he gains the whole world and
lose his own soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul? For whatever is ashamed of me
and my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of Him,
the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the
glory of His Father with the holy angels.
Jesus makes it an either or situation.
It's not one and the other. It's either or with him or
without him, with him or against him.
Not just did Peter not succeed in turning Jesus away from the
suffering part and kind of paving the way for glorious rise
to power, now Jesus lumps everybody in it.
Everybody's going to have to do this.
You see the power, the path to glory is through surrender.
The world would teach the path to glorious rule and power over
others. Jesus looks at the crowd and
calls them to himself. Not just the disciples.
He says, Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself,
take up his cross and follow me. In other words, if there's not
full surrender, you won't follow.
What Jesus saying was in direct response to what had just
happened between Him and Peter. Let's reflect back a bit again.
What was it again that was so wrong with what Peter said?
Peter had the idea things were good and they were good and
things would just get better. Jesus had shown his power.
He could turn loaves into a pile of bread, feed thousands.
He could calm the storms at sea, shut up the Pharisees and heal
the sick. As for Peter, for all he knew
it's going to go from good to great to glory.
One joyride to glory. How many people in this world
want that path in life? The rosy dreams of a great
future without any cost involved.
They want a They want a road in life that does not lead past the
cross. In one way, Peter was right
about final glory and power. But Peter got the path to it
wrong. He thought Jesus going to rule.
He was. But the path to that was a path
of hardship, sacrifice, and suffering.
Peter's flesh wanted earthly power and glory.
He wanted an earthly Kingdom, but not the way Jesus wanted it.
And it's not that Jesus doesn't want his disciples and you and
me to share in his glory. He does want that for us, but
it's not an earthly glory. You find that in Romans chapter
8 verse 18 Paul writes for I consider that the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us. There's a glory coming that's
unlike this, any earthly glory ever will be.
And in John we read when Jesus prayed the high priestly prayer,
he's praying for his disciples. Read part of that there in John
chapter 17 verse 20 to 22, he says praying to God, I do not
pray for these alone, meaning His disciples, but for those who
will believe in Me through their word, which isn't us today.
He says in verse 21 that they all may be one as you Father are
in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the
world may believe that you sent me and the glory which you gave
me I've given them that they may be one as we are one.
God's not against us having glory, but the glory that God
wants to give us is not an earthly glory, and it will not
happen outside a relationship with Him that comes through the
cross. We don't get there on our terms.
We go there on His terms. So if we want to follow Jesus,
come after Jesus. If we desire that, if we want to
share in His glory, you're invited.
Welcome. God does want us to come, but
guess what? The sinful nature is not going
to be part of it. It has to go, it has to die, and
in fact, sin can never inherit glory ever.
Jesus taught it and he lived it out.
Jesus had never committed sin, but even he denied himself.
As an example for us Philippians chapter 2, verse 5 to 11.
I won't read that here, but Paul writes to the Philippian church
how Jesus having didn't he set his power, his earthly, his
heavenly power, glory. Imagine set it all aside, came
to us as a man, humbled himself, became a servant, says obedient
to death on a cross. And therefore God exalted him
high above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow and every tongue confess.
He took that journey for you and I.
He walked it, suffering and death and resurrection.
You see, the glory part sounds great, but isn't there an easier
way? No, there's not.
How do we live this out in our time?
Some people think that to be a Christian, you have to resign
yourself to a life of misery. That perception is completely
false because that's not how it works.
See, the greatest freedom that a person can have is when a
person's perception changes from wanting to live to wanting to
live for a higher cause than self.
That's where the freedom comes in.
Doesn't mean you can't do fun stuff, but the goal is always
higher. The motive is always the glory
of God and one's fellow neighbor.
And Jesus says that in verse 35. Whoever desires to save his life
will lose it, But whoever loses his life for my sake and the
Gospels will save it. Not suggesting, not
recommending, not might. It will in the Gospels.
We cannot do both save our earthly life and our soul
simultaneously. We can choose to lose our
earthly life, sacrifice our earthly life, and we can choose
to follow Jesus. We can't do both.
I'm going to hang on and follow Jesus at the same time.
It's not how it works. So surrender leads to freedom.
If our highest earthly goal in life is self preservation,
wanting to save ourselves, avoid suffering, then we're on the
wrong path. It's not wrong to want to live,
but for what purpose? When we have to choose, we have
to choose. We must choose the path of life
and that's Jesus. And Jesus says again in verse
35, again, for whoever desires to save his life, we'll lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it and the
Gospels will save it. This verse highlights a truth
that for many people is what we can call a deal breaker.
Many people when they get to this point, they, they quit,
they turn back. We have a story.
We're going to talk about that further down in the Gospel of
Mark when we get to Mark chapter 10, verse 17 to 31, won't go
into today, but just tell the story.
I'll read a few verses there. A rich young ruler comes to
Jesus and asks Jesus, what do I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus and this young man have a conversation.
He's rich, he's young, he's a ruler.
That doesn't get better than that.
Rich youth ruler. Ruler means power.
So he said he's got wealth. He's and he's got power.
He's a ruler and he's got everything a man can want in
verse Mark 10/21 read a few verses.
Then Jesus looking at him loved him and said to him, one thing
you lack go your way, sell what you have, give to the poor and
when you you have treasure in heaven, come and take up your
cross and follow me. OK, he goes right?
Nope. But he was sad at his word went
away sorrow for for he had great possessions for this young man
surrendering to Jesus, taking up his cross his path to freedom
was too much. The rich young ruler is a case
in point where a man wanted to save himself to doing himself.
In his book called Discipleship, Deidrick Bonhoeffer writes when
a Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
He bids him come and die because the end of our life there's
nothing more precious than our soul.
And Jesus says further in verse 36 in the Gospel of Mark, for
what would a profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses
his own soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul? Sometimes when people talk about
a deal of some kind or a sale of some kind, they call it a
sticker price. People sell themselves all the
time, sometimes cheap. Whatever it is that I want more
than I want Jesus, that's my sticker price.
And when you think of it, how many in society sell out cheap?
They're people who want to go to heaven.
They want to go to heaven, just not that way.
They want to go to heaven, not lose their soul, but they want
the pleasures of this world too. So they try to play it safe.
Just enough of Jesus to not be lost, but little enough so that
worlds of his room too. That's false.
That doesn't work. Playing it safe, claiming faith
in Jesus, then with our lives, denying Him is not real.
He says verse 38. For whatever is ashamed of me
and my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of Him,
the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes in the
glory of His Father and the holy angels.
There is a pivotal decision moment in everyone's life.
There comes a point in time when we have to decide and we do
decide. Just avoiding it is a decision
already. Once we are confronted with the
reality of Jesus, we all choose one way or another.
The path to freedom is the path of the cross and it's the only
path that leads to freedom and it's a path that has no
shortcuts and no detours. There's no easy way or quick
way, and there are no detours on the road to glory.
Again, a quote attributed to Diedrich Bonhoeffer reads
There's no way to peace along the way of safety.
Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commitment.
Battles are won when the way leads to the cross and what it
comes down to. There comes a point in life when
we finally realize what looks like our greatest loss in the
end turns out to be our salvation.
For as Jesus, as both God's Son and as a man, the road to the
cross was not easy. We may sometimes be tempted to
think, well, oh, Jesus was Jesus, God's Son.
He knew everything and what he was getting into.
And but that didn't make it easier for him as a man.
He was a young man. He agonized and prayed that he
would be spared this awful death, but surrendered himself
to the Father and the rest is history.
His disciples witnessed it. And today that stands for us.
We have this assurance if we surrender our lives to him, we
will live for him with him in glory for eternity.
And when we come to him on his conditions, then even though
it's suffering, even though it's painful, there's peace and
there's blessing. And Jesus gave them some words
of comfort in Chapter 9, verse 1.
He said, I surely say to you, there's some standing here who
will not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God present
with power. There's much has been written
about this verse and many commentators write about it,
have written about it and many different ideas about it.
And what does it mean? There's some standing here who
will not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God present
with power. Was Jesus saying he's going to
come back and and inaugurate an earthly Kingdom?
Some want to allude to that. Jesus was going to return and
Mark must have thought that. And then some interpretations
are just downright strange. But there's one that I believe I
would agree with the most. Jesus was explained to his
disciples, this power and this Kingdom is going to happen
really soon. It's going to come.
You're not going to even die. Some of you are not going to die
before this happens. I believe it was the Pentecost
happened, then the lights went on, then the darkness lifted.
Then it was clear, this powerful thing, the Spirit was there in
power, convicting the people, the people of Jerusalem.
The gospel was grabbing a hold of them.
They were convicted of their sin.
They repented and the church grew in one day.
By 3000, and the forces of government religion were no
match for it. The church in the next few
centuries impacted the whole Roman Empire.
What was consistent in that day and age?
The church spread the message of the cross, promising eternal
life for freedom to all who embrace the message.
The actual outworkings of the spreading of the gospel.
It's interesting how it happened.
The Gospel was preached in the Roman Empire from city to city.
But you know what the secret was of its success?
It was lived out in a context of suffering self denial.
I listened to when speaker make a comment this last week and he
said it was the way the Christians treated other people.
Sure the gospel message was there.
That's what it started. It's the gospel and then they
lived it out how they lived out their gifts of hospitality and
to their neighbors and how they lived in in the presence of each
other and to one another and their neighbors.
That's what really impacted the culture.
The path of glory to glory is through suffering.
It's through sacrifice, it's through surrender.
And that is how this message has a message still is today and how
the Kingdom spreads. There are a lot of churches,
they're gatherings, but are there really churches,
collections of people having fun in a good time?
And there's no concern for the lost.
There's no, there's no mission, there's no feeling of
responsibility and obligation for the suffering in the world
and joining in that suffering. Peter had the wrong idea, so
Jesus rebuked him. How many of us would Jesus
rebuke in our way of life? Jesus explains there's only one
way to save one's life. Nuts to lose it.
How's that for encouragement? Well, it's the life we can't
afford to keep that we need to give to Him.
So we get the one that we can have forever.
There's a well known old hymn that want to close with it and
it's called I Am am IA, Soldier of the Cross.
It reads like this. Am IA soldier of the cross, a
follower of the Lamb. Shall I fear to own his cause,
or blush to speak his name? Must I be carried to the skies
and flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize
and sail through bloody seas? Are there no foes for me to
face? Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace to help me unto God?
Sure I must fight if I would reign.
Increase my courage, Lord, I'll bare the toil.
Endure the pain. Supported by thy word, Thy
Saints and all this glorious war shall conquer.
Though they die, they see the triumph from afar.
By faith discerning I When that illustrious day shall rise, and
all thy armies shine. And robes of victory through the
skies. The glory shall be thine.
The path to healing, the path to freedom, the path to peace, and
finally the path to glory. All of it comes by the way of
the cross. We must ask ourselves today, are
we willing to do that? Walk this path and what are some
things in our lives that hinder us, that slow us down and hamper
our journey? Maybe there's some things we
have to say no to which we haven't been saying no to.
Maybe there's some things we need to start saying yes to
which we haven't been saying yes to.
Whatever it is, whatever it is that gets between US and Jesus,
that is what we must die to. And as we die to the things of
this world, we'll find a freedom that we never knew we could
have. We'll experience a freedom that
this world knows nothing about, and it only exists in glory.
And we'll experience already here, and we'll enjoy it
forever. May God give us grace as we make
this continuous journey, denying ourselves, taking up His cross,
and walking with Him on our path to eternal glory.
Let's pray Lord, we have so much to be thankful for.
We could not earn our way to heaven.
We could not create our way to heaven.
You did it all for us. You came for us to carry a cross
for us. You're an example to us.
For now Lord, we continue the journey.
So help us to be live repentant lives, to say yes to you,
receive you and walk with You. Deny ourselves.
Help us to put our faith and trust in You and live in a
relationship with You. You want us to be in fellowship
with you. May our hearts be surrendered.
May we continually deny ourselves.
Help us, Lord to surrender ourselves fully.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.