Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.
We are a. Local church based here in
Chennai, India. We are so glad you are with us
and hope that this will encourage, inspire and instill
fresh faith in you. Our theme for the year 2024 is
set apart, and today we look at how God sets us apart to carry
our cross. Jesus was open and honest with
his disciples of the kind of life they would be called to
live should they choose to follow Him.
It's not one that's easy, but one of great fulfilment and
eternal rewards. As you listen in, would you ask
God to show you how better to carry your cross and follow
Jesus, his Son, into the spaces he leads you?
Hi Church, it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.
As you know, we've begun the season of Lent.
As a church, we've been praying together.
We've been really seeking God. One of the things that we
decided to do over the next 40 days as individuals is to really
take stock of ourselves. It's very easy to take stock of
what's happening in the world, in our city, in our families.
But sometimes we need to do a personal inventory check, you
know, check how we are doing, how our heart is, how our mind
is, and that's what we're going to be doing over 40 days.
But as a church, in terms of our Lent series, we've been really
praying and asking God, Lord, what is it that you are calling
us into? And this is the word that God
gave us that you know, we are set apart to carry the cross and
that's what we're going to be looking at today.
Now the interesting thing I was just I my daughter didn't know
that I was preparing this sermon and then she comes up to me and
she says, Mum, I have a joke for you, so I want to share.
That joke with you, Because I feel like it goes right
alongside our sermon today. Please don't get offended.
She asked me if I knew how Jesus maintained his abs.
And if you didn't know, it's because of CrossFit.
That's not all. There's another story that I
read about how this man, every morning before he went to work,
decided to start carrying his wife right up to the door.
He would leave her there, put her down and then head out to
work. And so his wife and kids were
puzzled. They said, what are you doing?
And he said, well, in the last few weeks the pastor has been
talking to us about, you know, each of us needing to carry
across daily. So I decided to do that.
If you're getting offended, I'm really sorry, but this is just
some humor before we start a rather hard and inconvenient
series. It's not going to be for the
faint of heart, because, you know, when we're talking about
the cross, we know what it implies.
And I believe that each of us have been called to carry a
cross, because that is the mandate that Jesus gave his
disciples, and he gave it to everyone who chooses him.
So even as we get into God's Word today, I want you to come
in with this place of. Laying aside whatever you have
thought this. Series going to look.
Like whatever you are thinking about the cross if.
You could just come in with this heart, ready to learn maybe, and
absorb something. You might just get something new
from this. So we're going to be.
Looking at the book of Luke today, Luke Chapter 9 verses 18
to 23. The same narrative is repeated
both in Matthew and in Mark as well, but we're looking at Luke
specifically as the central passage because it has so many
elements that we want to look at.
So what we're going to do is want to read it and then we're
just going to go into the text a little deeper.
So Luke Chapter 9, verses 18 to 23.
This is what it says. Once when Jesus was praying in
private and his disciples were with him, he asked them who did
the crowd say I am? They replied, some sage on the
Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the
prophets of long ago has come back to life.
But what about you? He asked.
Who do you say I am? Peter answered, God's Messiah.
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone, and he
said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by
the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and
he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple
must deny themselves, take up their cross daily.
And follow me. This is a.
Direct instruction that Jesus is giving his disciples.
And it's not just for them, it was for us as well, Whoever
wants to be my disciple. A bit of history here.
Jesus is talking about carrying a cross even before he had
encountered his cross, even before the disciples saw him
suffer on a cross. So it was literally out of the
blue that he brings this up now. But this was not such a random
thing because the Romans commonly used the cross as a
method of punishment. Any criminal was made to carry
his cross, walk down a thoroughfare and then go up and
then actually watch the cross being erected, and he would be
hanging on. And this was common.
So the people of Judea had seen this time and again.
And so it was a visual, you know, indication of the kind of
death that Jesus was going to suffer.
God was. Jesus was giving them, you know,
like a literally like a highlight.
Really think this was going to happen to me, But my question is
why would Jesus give such a poor campaign speech to guys who had
just become his disciples? If you want guys to join your
campaign, what do you do? You motivate them.
You say they're perks. They're these things that are
going to come. It's going to be amazing.
But Jesus is so upfront. He says, hey, this is the life
you were signing up for. Interestingly, he first says
this is the death I'm going to suffer, but he invites them into
the life, the kind of life that they're going to have to live
for him. He's telling them that you would
have to count the cost. He's not giving them false
promises. He's saying that you know, this
is what lies ahead. Are you ready?
Are you willing? So it was, in our eyes, a poor
campaign speech. Probably a good way to, you
know, weed out the initial candidates.
But. The 12 disciples were gathered
around him, knew what they were getting in for.
And each of us today, wherever we are on this journey, Maybe
you've already been a mature believer, but you have found
that the journey has been hard. It's not been easy.
And you know why? You know that you've been called
to this. Maybe you're a new believer and
you're saying, I didn't sign up for this?
I didn't sign up for this many waits.
I didn't sign up for these many closed doors.
I didn't sign up for this hardship, this relationship
struggle. But I just want to encourage you
that this is the life you signed up for, and it's got so much
that is to be desired. It's not just about the
hardship. There's so much of good that
comes in this life. But I want to ask you this.
What do you think the cross implies?
When we look at that cross, the Jesus Board, all we think of is
shame, suffering, persecution, and why the Christian life will
entail all of that. It's also so much more.
It doesn't just end with that. It's not such a negative
connotation alone. It's something even more
profound and beautiful when you look at Jesus life.
If you look at the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 53 has this
passage which is called the Suffering Servant.
Isaiah prophetically writes about Jesus and what he was
going to suffer on behalf of his people in order to.
Redeem Israel and he writes about the whole chapter and a
half, just about what Jesus could suffer, right?
When you see that, you realize that Jesus assignment for his
time on earth was his death, and the cross was very central to
Jesus's assignment. So today, for you and me, the
cross implies our life's assignment.
As much as we'd like to say that the cross implies all of the
negative parts of our life are the, I believe the cross implies
the entirety of our life's assignment.
And it's not an ordinary assignment.
You know why? Because it's a Kingdom
assignment. It's not the assignment that we
put for ourselves. It's not the things that we grab
and put on our plate. It is a weighty Kingdom
assignment. So what is the cross today that
you are being called to carry? It's a weighty Kingdom
assignment and I want to just bring this to your notice that
it is weighty simply because. Of three things.
Three things that I want you to just remember if you're ever
thinking, Well, I thought the cross was something different.
Well, I want you to turn that around and think of the cross as
your life's assignment, A Kingdom assignment that is very
weighty, which is why you feel the weight of it very often in
this lifetime. And the reason that it's so
weighty is because, first of all, God's glory rests on you.
The Psalms write so beautifully how you set your glory above the
heavens. And what is mind that you man,
that you're mindful of him. You have made him a little lower
than the angels and crowned them with.
Glory and honor. He says that in Psalm 8, which
means that the glory of God, which is actually in its
original meaning, means weighty. It's not something that's just
about light or a visual effect, it is an actual weight.
And so when you're living with this, the implication of the
cross being your Kingdom assignment and if it's a weighty
Kingdom assignment and that you will feel the weight of God's
glory on, the second reason why it's weighty is because it will
not just impact you, but it will impact generations to come, not
just the generations that come from you.
It will impact people around you.
It will impact generations out of them.
And that's why sometimes when you feel oppressed with things
that are happening and coming at you, things that are going on,
the ill health you experience, it's not about you, it's about
all the impact you were created to have.
Direct reason that it's weighty is because it involves bringing
light Into Darkness. It is not ordinary.
That is why this Kingdom assignment is very weighty.
And that is why it is a cross. When you look at Luke chapter 8
that we just looked at what Luke is writing about, there is a
threefold message which he leaves, which Jesus leaves with
his followers. He says first of all you have to
deny yourself. She says you have to take up
your cross daily. You have to follow him.
What does this look like? Honestly, you know, if we are
doing this on a daily basis, the process is very seamless.
I learn to deny myself. I I lay down the things I don't
need. I pick up the things that God
wants me to, you know, take up and do, and then I just follow
after him. I get led by him.
But the problem is, so often we we get, you know, halted right
at .1, which is denying ourselves.
So over the next few weeks as we do the.
Series called DCF Deny, Carry, Follow.
We're going to look close at what it really looks like in
today's times to actually deny ourselves what it looks like to
carry the cross, what it looks like to follow him.
But today, what we're specifically going to be looking
at is how each of us can live, set apart to carry a cross.
As we saw right from the beginning of January, we looked
at how the Father chose us and set us apart even from before
our birth for certain things. We saw how Jesus, through our
salvation, when we believed Him in Him, set us apart.
We saw how the Holy Spirit brands us and He uses us on a
daily basis. He's shaping us, He's nourishing
us. He's nurturing us, giving life
and shaping us into the image of the Son.
But in order for all this to happen.
In order for us to actually grasp the entirety of being set
up. This is a very important
component that we realize we have been set apart to carry a
cross. And this cross is that Kingdom
assignment. It is an assignment that is for
every one of us. None of us get to say I don't
want an assignment because it's really not about us.
God saved us for so much more. And I want to just, you know,
before we get into a deeper thing on this, I want you to
understand that the nature of your Kingdom assignment is very
interesting. It's almost like an oxymoron
because the Kingdom assignment will be very ordinary yet
extraordinary. What do I mean by that?
It's ordinary in the sense it will take the most mundane parts
of your life and make it powerful because now it's
Kingdom life, because now the king has breathed life into it.
So you could be a parent, you could be a spouse, you could be
a single mother or a father. You could be a single person
navigating, you know, career and your your home or whatever.
You could be someone who is, you know, aging.
But the beauty is that in the mundane, ordinary parts of your
life there is assignment given even in that nothing is below
God being you, God using it. It's ordinary.
It's powerful. So why I say this is because a
lot of times people say I'm, I'm waiting for my Kingdom
assignment and they give up on the responsibilities that have
been entrusted to them. You know, the responsibilities
of marriage, the responsibility of having a child, the
responsibility of of running your home.
No, that's not what you've been called for.
Sometimes the Kingdom assignment is literally meshed in with our
ordinary. It means that we need to do the
ordinary well, and in that ordinary you'll find it so
powerful. For me, I thought so often when
I was preparing this, I just put down, you know, what I believe
my Kingdom assignment was. And after I wrote it down, the
next night I had a dream. And I had a dream about my three
children facing some sort of harm.
And when I woke up at 4:00, I just sat up to pray.
For a bit. And I was so disturbed by the
dream. And you know when, as a mother,
as soon as you see something happening to your children, you
freak out. And I was just sitting quietly
in the room. I checked on all of them I came
back to. Room.
And I was just praying quietly and I felt like God was saying,
right now your Kingdom assignment is to pray for these
three, pray continually for them.
You see what I'm saying? Sometimes we magnify the Kingdom
assignment to say, oh, I need to reach these many souls.
I need to take my writing out there.
I need to do this. I need to do that.
And he says in the ordinary because I'm going to call you
first to cover them in prayer, because generations will be
impacted. And that brings me to why it's
extraordinary. The impact you have on that
student in your class, the impact you have on that person
that you supervise, the impact that you have on a Co worker,
the impact that you have in that business enterprise with someone
who is servicing your company extends beyond them.
And that's the beauty of it. You will find that when you
carry that Kingdom assignment with with so much of humility,
God does. Incredible.
Things with it I remember reading this book as a as a
young child, chicken soup for the teenage soul.
And there was this one story that never left my mind.
It's about this young man who is walking with his friend to work
and it's in a busy Manhattan St. and as he's walking, he starts
smiling at people, random people.
He smiles at a teenager getting onto a school bus.
He he smiles at a single mum struggling with two babies.
She smiles at different people along the way and his friends,
looking at him like something's wrong with him.
He says, you're creeping me out. What's going on?
What are you doing? You smile at a construction
worker. You smile at people from
different walks of life. You smiled.
You even shook somebody's hand. What's going on?
I've never seen this side of you.
And he said, well, this is my plan.
If I can impact that one person today, imagine for that single
mum with wrestling. With two little babies, the fact
that I saw her smile at her will make her day a little better.
She will be in a better frame of mind to parent those two little
kids. When I smiled at that teenager,
the one who feels unseen, I hope that I gave her some confidence
to get through her day. Well, when I smiled at that
construction worker, I maybe made his hard job a little less
hard. When I smiled at that banker who
was walking in, maybe the rest of the day in his boardroom
would workout a little better than it does Usually.
You see what happens when we take our ordinary Kingdom
assignments and we allow God to use it.
The the IT becomes extraordinary just because God moves in such
different ways and impacts so many more people than we could
ever imagine. And it's very humbling.
So while it is ordinary, it's powerful, while it's
extraordinary, it's humbling because it's really not about
what we are doing, it's just us being available as being open to
what God is going to do and he does great things.
So I want to want us to go back to this.
When Jesus said carry a cross, the cross was the assignment for
Jesus. It was a divine assignment given
to him by his Father. He came down to earth, became so
humble, accepted it and walked in obedience towards it.
Today for each of us when we have to carry a cross, it is a
weighty Kingdom assignment. It is not going to be easy, but
the beauty is that since God's glory rests on us, a lot of
times the weight which we feel is also the weight of that glory
because he's doing things in US and through us that are beyond
our wildest dreams. So my question to you is this,
Are you ready to take up that Kingdom assignment?
Now you may ask me, well all of this sounds great, but how do I
discern what my assignment is? How do I know is God going to
give me like you know, a dream saying this is your assignment
or is he going to speak through someone?
Well the 1st way in which you can find out your Kingdom
assignment, first thing is you ask the King for your Kingdom
assignment. Too many of us are looking to a
parent for our Kingdom assignment.
Too many of us are looking at a spouse and saying what should I
do with my life. You're looking at a friend who
goes to church or maybe someone who you think is very spirit
filled and saying you tell me what my assignment is.
But today the king is saying what do you want Come to me.
You see what when he was talking to Peter, he says what do people
say? I am.
And Peter was very clear. He knew what the crowds were
saying, but he said no, but what are you saying?
Who are you saying I am and? Jesus, today is asking you that.
Why don't you come to me? I made you.
I called you. I'm your king.
Ask me for your Kingdom assignment.
Maybe you're looking to Instagram for that one word
about what you need to be doing. Have you asked the king?
He should be the one that you ask.
There are parts of this journey as a Christian, as a follower of
Jesus, which would be so heavy. And you will find that there are
times when you don't have an endorser inside, you don't have
someone to validate you, you don't have people who are
standing on the sidelines cheering you on because some
parts of that road will be so lonely.
But the beautiful thing is, the king never leaves you on the
journey. The one who has called you is
with you every step of the way. The one who has given you the
assignment has promised to never leave you, not forsake you.
I love that when God speaks to Joshua and says this is the
land, Moses is gone. You're in charge.
Come on now, get up. Don't be afraid.
Don't be dismayed. I'm going to be with you.
You keep the book of the law front and center.
You'll be fine. God's calling each of us into a
place of personal relationship with him so that he can
personally download on us what our Kingdom assignments are.
It's very important that you soak and meditate in God's Word
in order to find out what your Kingdom assignment is and the
interesting. Thing you know, the interesting
thing is lot of times we may not only find it in God's word, it
comes superimposed on a lot of other things.
What do I mean by that? If you look at the newspaper, on
any given day, the kind of needs around us are in the billions.
There is caste violence, there's communal disharmony.
There is discord. There is a lack of education.
There's there's illiteracy. There is a lack of health,
health care, there's inequality. There is so much that is
happening around us, world over. There are wars, threat of wars,
calamities that have hit people, the homeless, the
disenfranchised. So much is happening and the
question is, am I only reading the word, taking back what I
need for the day and just moving on?
Or am I taking the word, superimposing it on what I read,
what I know of the world, and asking God, Lord, where do I fit
in in this grand story? You put me on planet Earth in
the year 2024 with these skills, with this heart, with this
working mind, what is it you want me to do?
I want to encourage you that when you seek the King for your
Kingdom assignment that you superimpose the issues of the
world or a pressing need you feel in your heart with the word
of God. I remember many years back I've
shared this before when I was so broken about the situation of
women being abused sexually. I remember being in another
continent but my heart breaking for the women of India, for the
children of India and God said you do something.
And I said, are you kidding me? I'm a biotechnologist.
I have no background in social work.
I have no idea what I could do. But I had this stressing need,
this felt need of of my heart breaking for those who have been
traumatized by abuse. But I didn't know what more to
do. So I got into God's word And
that year he spoke to me from Isaiah 58 where it says that we
will be bridge builders, repairers of foundations.
And how will we do it? We remove the yoke.
We stopped the pointing finger. We released the oppressed.
We released the captive. And when he spoke to me from
that, it didn't make sense. But now I had the word.
I had the felt need. I kept it and incubated it. 10
years later, it took ten years. God has enabled us to identify
how we reach the abused, how we help in their rehabilitation.
He has literally given us a road map, but it happens when we take
our felt need we put the word of God be superimposed?
Because without a biblical lens, I can just do social work and
get by. It is with the Holy Spirit's
help when he reveals the scriptures to you and says this
is the way you do it, this is where you occupy.
This is your Kingdom assignment. It changes the landscape of your
life. I want to encourage you today.
Have you been reading the word just to get by?
Have you been meditating on it just for yourself as much as we
abide in God? As much as we have to rest in
him and be with him that has to overflow in US doing things for
him. So I need to repeat this.
Will you ask the king to give you your Kingdom assignment?
The second thing, the second thing that is very important.
As much as you ask the king for your Kingdom assignment, you
also need to discern in your life the non Kingdom
assignments. So often we put these agendas on
ourselves. You know this is where I want my
career to be in the next 10 years and while it's good to
plan, it's important to have a vision, it's important to have
direction. I wonder if there are a bunch of
things in our life which are non Kingdom assignments, stuff that
doesn't even require us to be sweating and striving the way we
are. Maybe you've been single and you
feel that God is calling you in a certain direction, but you are
stubborn about finding that person and then I will pursue
maybe God saying. Why not take this my way?
What is the non Kingdom agenda that you have been pursuing?
Some of us tend to want the assignment that was given to
someone else. Oh well, that person started a
small business. Maybe I should start.
That seems lucrative. Maybe I should do that.
That seems an easy way to, you know, make money.
I should probably do that. Do not covet another person's
assignment because you will not have the grace that they have
for their assignment. Each burden has a grace
associated to it. You will not have that place,
you cannot bear it. What is the assignment given to
you? Is it Kingdom?
Is it non Kingdom? It's so important to understand
that what works for someone else may not work for us because that
is not in God's will for us. This past week I've been
meditating on the Book of Two Kings and as I was reading about
these different kings I just realized how different the king
of kings and Lord of Lords is from the earthly kings that we
read about. There were two kings in specific
that really stood out to me and I want to leave that with you as
you understand what it's like to live on non Kingdom assignment
and Kingdom assignment. You know Hezekiah.
Was one of the great kings of Judah.
He was a good. King.
He followed after his forefather.
You know, David, he did what was right.
He cleared the land of idolatry. He moved people to actually rely
on God. And when he was faced with a
formidable enemy in Sennacherib of Assyria, he didn't, you know,
an attempt to fight. He just took it to God.
He took those threatening letters.
He wept before God. Isaiah brought him a word and
said, God's going to deal with them.
I'm glad you came to me. I'll deal with it.
It's amazing what happens in his Hezekiah's life because of his
trust. But what happens towards the end
of his life is he has gets sick. He develops a boil of some sort
about to die. God says put your house in
order, I'm taking you home. She turns to the wall and asks
God for an extension of his life and Isaiah comes back in almost
immediately after giving him the word that he's going to die
saying hey, God changed his mind, He heard your prayer, you
get a 15 year extension. Now Here's when Hezekiah moved
from being so Kingdom minded to being self minded.
She doesn't believe what Isaiah says, so he says I need proof.
You're telling me 15 years extension?
I want proof? He asked.
What is the proof you want? He says well there's a sundial
where the sun actually shines and the shadow moves.
He says I wanted to move 10° up so that I know that God has
actually given me this word and God condescends to do it.
He gets the sign, he gets his extension as he recovers.
As he recovers, Hezekiah gets visitors from Babylon.
Hezekiah seems to have lost some of his vision.
He seems to have lost some of his direction.
He shows the Babylonian envoys the entire city.
He shows them his treasuries. He shows them the palaces.
He shows them his wealth. After they leave, Isaiah comes
in and says, what did you do? And he says, well, I just showed
them, you know, they came to wish me well.
And I just showed them everything that was, you know,
that I possess. Isaiah says this thing, he says,
you know what? They came to spite.
They came to actually survey the land.
Because in a couple of years, these guys are going to take
over the land. Your sons will be eunuchs in
their palace. They're going to clear the
treasury or they're going to clear the temple out.
They're going to leave it barren.
You just unconsciously showed them what they would come and
take over. And Hezekiah says this one line
which is such a when I was reading it I was so disappointed
in him because he says who? OK, it's not going to happen in
my time. I'm secure.
It's going to happen after my time.
And that's the end of Hezekiah's story.
Not much is mentioned about him after that.
Hezekiah lived on Kingdom assignment up until that time
when his trust moved off. Up until that time when he lost
the bigger call. As a king, he couldn't have
afforded to be so self-centered, he needed to look at the bigger
picture. Now, in contrast, within a few
chapters, the next king comes about and his name is Josiah.
Josiah is this incredible king. He's mentioned as one of the
greatest kings. After him there was none like
him. It says now what happened with
Josiah. Josiah had was an honour.
Honour, you know, Desire had a desire to rebuild the temple.
So there was money that had been collected for it.
So he tells his people, let's get started, let's start
repairing the temple. So the people start collecting
money. They start working on the
temple. As they clear out the temple of
all the old stuff, they find the Book of the Law hidden and dusty
inside. Ironically, this was the book
that should have led their reigns.
It's the thing that should have guided them, but it was now
collecting dust. In an inner room.
So his people find it, they bring it to him and they open it
and say this is the book of the law.
We found it. We don't know what to do with
it. So Josiah takes time to read it
and as he's. Reading the book of the law, he
realizes just how far his people and him have gone from it, and
So what he does now. To begin with, Josiah was a good
king. He had not promoted idolatry.
He he ran the country well, he looked after his subjects.
But after that it says, he tore his robes, fell to the ground
and said, God is going to punish us.
We've done terrible things. What do we do?
And so the prophetess Haldar comes in and says, you know
what? There's punishment, which has
been decreed because one of your ancestors, Manasi, did such
terrible things. So you are going to go into
excel. These things are going to
happen. But Josiah, nothing's going to
happen to you because you were so repentant.
You were so penitent. It will not happen in your
lifetime. Doesn't it sound vaguely similar
to Hezekiah? Interestingly, Josiah's response
is different. He hears that and then he
collects the entire nation, people of low standing, high
standing, everyone in between. He brings them into a common
area. He gets the book of the Lord,
read out loud. He stands beside a pillar.
He gets the people to commit to wholehearted worship of God.
He gets the entire community to repent.
He goes on a rampage against all the heathen idolatry in the in
the city, in the country. He removes altars.
He burns down altars, breaks down asherah polls.
He is on a on a on a real, you know, course of gridding the
land of everything that had triggered God in the 1st place.
He was not content that he was safe because he had a bigger
picture. The Kingdom assignment was
bigger. It was not about him.
It was about the people of the land that he could afford to
influence for God. You see the difference.
Sometimes we behave like Hezekiah.
We're so caught up in just shaping ourselves, in shaping
our immediate family. We forget that there's a bigger
assignment. You were saved not just for
yourself. You were saved for the Kingdom.
You were saved for bigger things.
What have you been doing with what has been entrusted to you
and me? What have we been doing?
Have we been so caught up in ourselves that we forgot that
there's a bigger call out there? Would we be like Josiah?
That even if we know we are in a good place with God, it won't
end there. But we will say, Lord, I'm ready
to run this race outward. Focus to do more for your
Kingdom. Let your Kingdom come.
Has that been our desire if? You want to come in line with
the King's assignment. You need to seek the king.
You need to discover and discern the things that are not of his
assignment. Find out this is not Kingdom.
It's. I'm pursuing this for my own
gain. I want to promote myself.
Therefore I'm pursuing this. I want to preserve myself, so
I'm pursuing it. But maybe this is not Kingdom.
Bring it to God. Lord is this Kingdom.
Is this not Kingdom. She has amazing ways of showing
us what's not. In his will for us as we
continue reading chapter Luke, Luke Chapter 9, I'm going to
read from 24 to 27 just to give you a holistic view before we
end Luke chapter 924 to 27. It says for whoever wants to
save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for
me will save it. What good is it for someone to
gain the whole world and get lose of of it their very self?
Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be
ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of
the Father and the holy angels. Truly I tell you, some who are
standing here will not taste death before they see the
Kingdom of heaven. Here's the interesting thing
that you can be. You and I can know Jesus.
We can love Jesus, but there have been times when we've been
ashamed of what it looks like to follow him.
We've been ashamed of His word of the Gospel.
We have shield away from actually proclaiming our faith
or saying I stand up for Jesus. And he says if.
You are ashamed from of me. I will be ashamed of you when I
return again. Peter is the best example of
this, right When Jesus actually started mentioning that he was
going to suffer and he talked about you know this is what is
going to happen to me, Peter took him aside and rebuked him
and said said Lord never this will not happen to you and Jesus
calls calls him out and says I rebuke you Satan for you have on
your mind. The things of man, not the
things of God. So often our assignments are
things of man. But he's saying, I want you to
start thinking on things of God, because there is no use if I
choose to not deny, not carry, not follow, What I'm choosing is
to indulge. I'm choosing that I will indulge
in whatever I desire. I'm choosing to take into my
life everything that I feel is an assignment and do it whether
God ordains it or not. And the sad thing is, he says
you could accumulate everything but lose your soul.
If you ask someone like that, you say, I know Jesus, but I
don't think I'm ready to deny carry and follow.
It's not too late. Peter repented, Peter came back,
and he lived on assignment till the day he died.
He was one of the most powerful apostles.
You and I have that potential, but it requires that we are
ready to say I'm here. Lord, I will deny myself daily.
I will carry that cross every day.
I will follow you continuously, lifelong.
Now, if you're like me and you're probably saying, well,
you've told us such a huge bunch of negatives, this Christian
life sounds hard. I want to leave you with two
encouragements. There are perks in carrying the
cross. Over the next few weeks, we're
going to look at how amazing it is to actually walk this kind of
life. Jesus may have shown them how he
was going to die, but he was also showing us the kind of life
we are going to live. And this life is truly one that
is amazing. Matthew 16 talks about the same
passage, but he explains the rewards a little better.
Matthew 1627 to 28. It says for the Son of Man is
going to come in his Father's glory with his angels and then
he will reward each person according to what they have
done. Truly, I tell you, some who are
standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of
Man coming in his Kingdom to rewards.
When he returns, he will reward each of us for what we have
done. It's very clear he is going to
reward us based on what we have done.
The Kingdom assignment is real. What you and I do with it is
what he's going to reward us based on second thing he says.
Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not be his
death before they see the Son of Man coming into the Kingdom.
The beautiful thing is that applies today.
It is literally present, continuous.
We are continually I I love that I often say this as pastors.
We have the greatest view when we see the Son of Man coming
into his Kingdom. We see it happen when people's
lives are transformed. We see it when people we've been
journeying with suddenly have that turn around and their eyes
are open to the beauty of Jesus and life in him.
You and I get to see that it's not just eternity, it begins
now. Like I said, heaven is
constantly invading earth. You know, at that baptism,
heaven invades earth. When that person experiences
reconciliation, heaven touches earth.
When that healing happens, heaven touches earth.
We recently were in a prayer meeting at church when one of
our young people shared how she'd been having this
persistent ankle pain for almost a couple of months.
She had been on a brace and she was struggling, she said.
One afternoon she was at home. She was worshipping God when she
felt the presence of God in her room.
And he said, why don't you ask me to heal you?
You've been struggling. You haven't asked me so in.
Faith, she put her own hand on her ankle and said, Lord Jesus,
just heal me. She was healed in a second, and
not just that, she wanted to test it.
She was able to jump rope 1000 times.
Can you believe it? Heaven touching earth.
The Son of Man has come in his Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is here and the violent take it by force.
Not the reticent, not the complacent.
He's asking for those who be passionate, who will take that
Kingdom assignment up every day. Why do I need to take it up
every day? Because there will be days when
you want to just lay down and say God, I'm done.
But it requires that every morning we wake up, we say no to
the things that have been holding us back.
Pick up that assignment and follow.
Would you be ready to do that? That's the call.
As we go through Lent, as we take stock of ourselves, we're
going to be looking deeper at where we need to deny ourselves,
where we need to die to ourselves, and where we need to
live for Christ. As I close, I want us to look at
the image of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Here he was 3 disciples outside, half asleep, fully asleep.
I don't know. He's alone in the in the garden
of Gethsemane. He knew his assignment, the
moment of his assignment had come and reached its peak.
This is why he had come and even him, him being God.
And yet man was struggling with the weight of the assignment.
And it says he was crying out to his father and said, Lord, take
this cup away from me. Yet not my will, but yours.
Be done. For those of us who know the
weight of the cross. For those of us who know the
weight of our assignment, may that be our prayer.
You can come as you are to the Lord.
You can see that this is very heavy.
I didn't sign up for this, but yet, Lord, let your will be
done, not mine. It's the most powerful prayer
that we could pray. Maybe you're someone who said I
love Jesus, but I'm not ready to DCF.
Can I just ask that you would pray this prayer?
Lord not my will. But yours be done.
Because when we do that, we surrender everything.
We're no longer holding on to our need to self preserve and
promote and protect. We're saying I'm ready for
whatever you're calling me. And so as we get into this week,
as we get into the couple of weeks that are coming up, can I
ask that you would say, Lord, I'm here, and I know you've set
me apart to carry my cross, but I don't know what this cross
looks like. Tell him if you're afraid of it.
The beauty about it is when we live in a place of carrying that
assignment, she gives us the grace we need.
She gives us victories along the way.
Even when we are hard pressed, we are never really destroyed or
demolished. It's amazing what his spirit in
US does. So I want to just pray for you
As we pray, I'm specifically going to ask God that he would
open up your eyes to see your Kingdom assignment.
Read the papers. Ask God, Put on my heart what is
breaking yours? Is there a part of life in this
area that I live that is breaking your heart that you
want me to step into, to bring light into that darkness?
Use me here I am. Can I do that for you?
Can I just help you as you start seeking Godfather?
We just invite you here. I just pray that Lord, each one
of us will have clarity about our assignment.
We thank you that, Lord, you are the one who assigns us these
assignments. And I pray that we will be able
to bear the weight of this assignment, that you would give
us grace for it. You would give us courage for
it. We thank You, Lord, that the
rewards are eternal. We thank you that the rewards
begin now. We thank you, Lord, that we will
see your Kingdom come. We will see it advance.
We will see your Kingdom pervade the spaces we are in.
Help us to be faithful. Help us to be courageous.
Help us to lean on you. Jesus.
We cannot do it apart from you, Holy Spirit.
Empower us. Strengthen US.
Open our eyes. I pray for anyone who's
struggling to identify their Kingdom assignment That Lord,
you would show them this week. You would open hearts.
You would open eyes. Things that have been pressing
them down. We now have clarity.
I pray for those who have been unwilling to deny, to carry and
to follow. Father.
I pray that you will open up their spiritual hearts to open
up spiritual eyes to see Lord the life they are missing out
on. Help them.
We commit ourselves into your hands in Jesus name and pray.
Amen. Amen.
God bless you. We really hope that this series
where we learn to deny, carry and follow will bless you.
It won't scare you, but they challenge you.
God bless you. Have an amazing week.
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