Good afternoon. We’re going to be in the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 8.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8.

Let me start in verse 27.

Jesus went out along with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, He questioned His disciples, saying to them, Who do people say that I am? They told Him, saying, John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, but others, one of the prophets. And He continued, saying, John the Baptist, and others, one of the prophets. And He continued by questioning them, but who do you say that I am? And Peter answered and said to Him, You are the Christ. And He warned them to tell no one about Him. 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 the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But He said to them, Turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you’re not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s. And He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospels will save it. For what does it promise? It promises to profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul. For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of Him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

Let’s listen to this. As I was growing up, one of my favorite memories, is my cousin from Texas would come and my brother usually would tag along with us. He was a little younger, but we would all get on our bikes and we would have plastic ice cream buckets or five-gallon buckets, any kind of bucket, anything that would hold something. And we would sit on our bikes and we lived out in the country and my grandfather had property of his own and he also managed a canal company and so we just kind of ventured wherever we wanted and there were a lot of sweet, wild blackberry picking spots. And so there we were, you know, pretty young and we would ride our bikes out there and we would go pick blackberries. And if you’ve ever picked wild blackberries, you know that it’s not pleasant if you really want to get in there and get some. Some of them are hard to reach and they grow with thorns. It’s like a briar patch. And then there’s that nice big blackberry sitting, and so usually, you know, it’s June and it’s hot southern Louisiana and we’re wearing shorts and we’re just trucking through these blackberry bushes and you’re just getting scraped up. Your legs are bleeding. Your hands and arms are bleeding, but your fingertips are stained red and your lips are red from all the blackberry juice that you’ve been enjoying. It was painful and it wasn’t pleasant, but it was so worth it. You just had to taste another blackberry. I had to add a few more to my bucket. And then there we were after we had trudged through these briar patches, buckets full of blackberries, riding down the gravel road, one hand on the handlebars, one hand in the blackberry bucket, just eating them, you know, headed back to Grandma’s house. And they had this big gas tank. We would sit up on it and there was a tree line behind it and they had a bunch of honeysuckle vines that would grow on it. And so we would sit up there with our buckets and we would eat honeysuckles, blackberries. And then probably not too long after that, we’d go back into the house at Grandma’s and she’d whip out that tub of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream and we would make blackberry milkshakes and whatever else. Just fruit for days because we would stay out there and pick blackberries until we just couldn’t take it anymore. You freeze some and keep some on the table, just blackberries and blackberries and blackberries.

And you endured the unpleasant nature of picking blackberries because the fruit of it was worth it. It was sweet. So Jesus is here with his disciples and he’s walking with them and he asks them, who do people say that he is? What is the consensus about Jesus? Who is he? What is he doing? And a lot of people had noble thoughts about Jesus. They thought he had risen from the dead. Maybe he was John the Baptist. He was Elijah coming back through the clouds. The Jewish people still expect Elijah. Or maybe he was just another prophet. He was something of nobility, but they didn’t quite have it right. And Jesus then asks Peter, well, who do you say that I am? And Peter’s response is the right response. But it’s crucial. It’s crucial. It’s crucial that you get it right. And what Peter said to Jesus, his answer, is sort of the doorway into a relationship with him. But know this, before you ever come to that acknowledgement, Jesus is going to call us, the true Jesus is going to call us to treasure the thorny ways of following him. And I’m going to give you five aspects of these thorns that we might endure in order to follow Jesus, to walk with him, to enjoy him, to receive his benefits, his relationship. And so the first one is confession. Peter said that you are the Christ. In the account that, that Matthew gives and Luke gives, there are some variation there. They’re just recorded. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. And what Jesus says to Peter after his confession is it’s foundational and you must get it. And all of these points build on one another. And so try to stay with me. I know it’s family worship and our kids might get restless. Try to stay with me because they build on one another. And you can’t have the next one without this one.

Jesus in Matthew’s account says, Blessed are you, Peter, for flesh and blood didn’t give this to you, but God, my Father in heaven, showed this to you, that I’m the Christ. And we know from the testimony of Scripture that no one can truly confess Christ. No one can truly believe Christ unless it has been given to him. Amen. It’s God the Father that reveals this foundational truth to us. And so it is our doorway into relationship with Jesus. And I want to say that the confession, it’s not a feeble admission or a limping in like, well, yeah, Jesus is the son of God. It’s not an admission. It’s not something that you’re reluctantly saying. Sort of like a profession of faith that we would have to define what our beliefs are as a church. It’s a proclamation. You are the Christ. You are the son of the living God. What a wonderful thing that this truth has been revealed to me.

But know that as we confess Christ, it’s just the beginning of the blackberry picking, if you will. We have some distance to go and we’ve got some thorn bushes to cross through. So again, I don’t want to spend too much time on the confession. Pastor Chad preached the passage out of Matthew 16 to 3 years ago. I recommend that you go back and listen to that. And he belabors really who this Jesus is that Peter is confessing. And so I’ll just suffice it to say that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised one, the anointed one. He’s God’s son who came to accomplish, God’s kingdom. He purchased the kingdom. He rules the kingdom. He provides for the kingdom. And so the confession, all of that is wrapped up into the confession of who Jesus is as a person and what His purpose was. And again, in Pastor Chad’s sermon, Jesus came to suffer and die on a cross. That’s why He came. That was His purpose. And so much was accomplished in that suffering and that dying. But that’s what He came to do. And so let us, let’s not be confused and fooled into thinking following Him will be anything different.

Again, my main point is that the true Jesus calls us to treasure the thorny ways of following Him. And I hope to convince you of that. I hope that by the end of this you will love even the, the tough, thorny ways of following Jesus. Because I want to, I want to show you what, what happens. So you confess Jesus and, and just know that no one truly confesses Jesus unless he’s had a heart change. That, that’s, that foundational, you’ve been regenerated by God, your eyes have been opened and you confess Jesus. Many people say it with their lips, but it’ll soon be proven that they don’t mean it. It’s not genuine.

But a true and a genuine confession comes from God and a heart change has taken place.

What, what happened with Peter? Jesus is telling them about what his purpose and role is here. He came to suffer and he’s going to die and he’s going to rise again. And Peter rebukes him.

Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. You’re not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s. The second aspect of following Jesus is that we must undergo a conversion. There, there has to be change. So, so make no mistake, there’s no middle ground here. See what Jesus does. It says, get behind me, Satan. So, so man’s thinking is as good as Satan’s thinking. To, to think like man is to think like Satan. You’re either with God or you’re against him. You either think God’s thoughts or you think opposed to God’s thoughts. There are no, there’s no middle ground. So Jesus doesn’t mince words and he says, get behind me, Satan. You’re not thinking like God.

So we’re given instruction on how to do that. But, do you think Jesus, whenever he was telling his disciples what he came to do, he said, I came to suffer. I came to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests, the religious guys, the guys who know what they’re supposed to. I came to be killed. How did Jesus know that? Jesus and his divine person, his divine nature surely knows all things. But remember, Jesus is, a man. Jesus subjected himself to the flesh. Jesus condescended and was born like you and I. And so limited his thinking in some capacities. We don’t have time to delve into that. But Jesus knew what his purpose was because his mind, his thinking was renewed and conditioned by the scriptures. Jesus was steeped in the scriptures. Jesus was faithful in prayer and to go to God and to ask and to understand what does this mean. And so Jesus comes to understand that I am the Christ and I am the one to suffer and die and to purchase a people for God.

Jesus knew his purpose and his role because he did as the scriptures would say in Romans 12, verse 2, it says, don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is. There’s a variant there that may say approve. The word could mean approve. So I train my mind in the word of God to think like God so that I can approve the things that God approves, not the things that man approves. Jesus, you’re not going to suffer. You’re the Christ. You’re the Messiah. You’re going to suffer. You’re going to deliver us from Rome. You’re going to squash the enemies.

Was that what God said? Isaiah said something different. And Jesus knew that because he had renewed his mind and he was familiar with the scriptures. If you’re not renewing your mind, if you’re not converting the way you’re thinking, from the old way to the new way, Jesus may as well rebuke you as well. Get out of here, Satan. You’re not thinking like God. So I just want to ask you, are you renewing your mind? What is informing your thinking? What is informing the way you view the world, the way that you view your life, your purpose, what are the guidelines for you? What?

If it’s not the word of God, if it’s not diligent prayer over the word of God, it isn’t the things of God. You won’t approve the things of God. You won’t be mindful of the things of God. You won’t love the things of God. You won’t cherish the things of God. You won’t know the way of God. You must be, be renewing your mind in the scriptures daily.

And so be converted into someone who follows Jesus and knows what it means to do so. Thirdly, you must be conformed. Jesus, after rebuking Peter, he says, he turns and says to the crowd now, addressing everyone still, if anyone wants to come and follow me, you’ve got to deny yourself.

So again,

the revelation of God, of who Jesus is as the Messiah to you, meaning your heart has been changed, you’ve been, you’ve been open to the things of God, you’ve made this profession, this confession, and you proclaim, Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is my Lord, and you’re in the Word, you have to build on those things. So you profess, and now you’re learning, you’re renewing your mind, and now, here’s where it really gets thorny. Here’s kind of where the rubber meets the road. And you’ll know, you’ll know whether someone really is or really is not, renewed in the Spirit and renewed in the Word of God. Because this conforming, it comes out in your actions, it comes out in your attitudes, and it comes out the way you behave.

He says to deny yourself. The word deny is, simply means to abandon. And so we as Christians, we live in this, this war, within ourselves. There’s the old man, the flesh, and there’s the new man, and the Spirit. And it’s this constant war. And so you, you in the Spirit, have to look at your flesh and say no. To every, no. Whatever it is, no. You’re not getting it. No. No. Deny. Deny. Deny.

It’s really an issue of the will. So we know our heart, our heart has been changed. Jordan and I are reading, we’ve been reading through this book. And the issue of the will, the will is the, it’s sort of the seat of the, of your desires. And it’s not necessarily what’s making the choice, but it’s certainly influencing it. And so, your will is governed by something. Namely, your thinking, or whatever other influence is greatest. The enemy, the world. I’ll sum it up to say, your thinking. Your mind is going to influence what choices you will make. So if you’ve been freed, if your will has been delivered from the bondage of the flesh, to know, and to love, and to study, and to treasure the things of God, it should demonstrate itself, it should come out in the way you act. So my heart allows me to think on and love the things of God, and then when I’m renewed in that way, it should come out in a way that is conformed to the image of Jesus. Romans 8.29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And this is really, it applies to every aspect of your life. Again, your attitude, your actions, your character. What would you do if someone’s driving alongside of you and they swerve and cut you off? What’s your response?

Are you going to give them a salute with the finger? Or, what’s the response?

Your flesh wants to do something, no doubt. How dare you violate, this is my car, this is my road, I’m driving here. It’s alright. It’s alright. The Spirit says, why not rather be wronged?

You must abandon yourself. And the world can abandon themselves. Any fool can walk in here and give up his choice seat for an elderly lady. That doesn’t mean he’s doing it from a conformed to Christ likeness. He may want praise from man. So it’s not only what you’re doing, but it’s the motive behind it. Are my motives for the sake of Christ and for His gospel? You see, are my interests in line with God’s interests? So, when I deny myself, I’m doing it because my desire and my interest is because God calls me to, it pleases Him, and it serves my neighbor. It serves my brother.

Not too long after this account in Mark, Jesus gives the parable of the rich man. And at the end of the parable, the rich man walks away sad because he had a great many possessions. So he sort of acknowledged the ways of God. He said he kept the law. I’ve done all that. Jesus is like, you lack one thing. Go and sell everything you’ve got. Come and follow me. And the man went away sad. And the fact that he went away demonstrates that his desire was not truly for Christ. His desire for his stuff was greater. And so it won out and it demonstrated itself in his actions. So to deny himself

would have looked differently. He would have said, how can I serve you, Jesus? With my things. You asked me to sell them and give them to the poor and follow you? Okay. And that would have demonstrated that his desire for Christ was greater than his stuff.

Again, this can play out. It does play out in every decision that you make, every thought that you have. It’s going to demonstrate how much, or how little you’ve been conformed to the image of Christ. And don’t despair. None of us are perfect. Right? But I appreciate what Calvin says. As long as we’re making some progress in the way. Some of us are limping and crawling and barely scooting along, but we’re making some progress. And so that should be a great encouragement to you that you are being conformed into the image of Christ and you are learning how to deny yourself and how to deny yourself. How to lay aside your own interests and your own wants, your own desires for pleasure, your own desires for success, your own desires for acknowledgement and fame and whatever it might be. And you’re saying, Lord Jesus, I want you more. And so whatever it is, whatever it is, I’m going to serve you with it. If I need to give it up, I’m going to give it up. Because this doesn’t benefit me. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, follow your rule and your reign and it doesn’t serve my brother. It really comes down to that, right? Jesus said, all the law and the prophets hinge on these two things, love God and love your neighbor. And so I need to ask myself, am what I am doing, is it serving God or is it serving my neighbor? It really boils down to something that simple, but it’s hard because the flesh is hungry and the flesh is thirsty and the flesh wants to be pleased. The flesh wants to be satisfied.

Jesus says, if you want to follow Him, you have to do the hard thing and deny yourself.

Pray and ask the Spirit where you’re lacking in this. Where do you fail to deny your lusts, your passions, your desires?

And if you don’t, you may fail.

Fourthly,

we’ve got to be confirmed.

We’ve confessed. We proclaim Jesus is Lord. We’ve been converted in our thinking. We’re being renewed. We’re steeped in the Word. We’re showing some evidence in the sense that we’re winning the internal battle more than we’re losing. We’re making some progress in the way of following Jesus and saying, not my will, but yours be done. We find others more significant and more important than ourselves.

That’s the internal battle. God oftentimes, for the Christian, He will. He’s going to confirm us. And here’s what I mean by that. Jesus said, take up your cross. In Luke’s account, He says, take up your cross daily.

What is the cross?

From man’s perspective, just to step back, I can say, well, the cross was a brutal, horrible tool of punishment, I believe created by the Persians, given to the Romans, where they would nail, hang criminals on a wooden cross until they suffocated. And if they didn’t, they would break their legs and make them.

Maybe from the Christian perspective, what is the cross? Well, it’s that thing that I have to endure if I’m going to follow Jesus. And you’re right. It’s what’s going to happen to me if I go to Iran and I’m preaching the gospel and I’m winning souls to Christ and the governmental authorities find out they may not hang me on a wooden cross, but they’re going to kill me. That’s taking up my cross. And that’s true.

From man’s perspective, it’s a method of punishment and shame applied by an external authority. And so the Christian might even say, well, there are physical and spiritual authorities here. There are authorities that are going to cause me to suffer the cross because I’m not on their side. I’m following Jesus. I’m preaching the gospel. And I’m undergoing suffering. That is the cross. And Jesus says to take it up. So we shouldn’t shrink back from preaching the gospel. We shouldn’t shrink back from standing up for truth, for righteousness, because we might bear the cross. We must bear the cross, Jesus says. You must bear the cross. You must bear the cross. But I want to expand that. I want to expand that a little bit. Some people restrict the cross, carrying the cross, to strictly evangelistic. I’m being persecuted directly for my proclamation outwardly of Jesus. And that is true. I think it includes a little more than that. But I want to say that the cross, from God’s perspective, is a method of purification and completion applied by His sovereign hand.

Will we receive it in our work for the kingdom and the preaching of the gospel? Yes. But I think there are other sufferings that can be said to be taking, that can be said to be taking up your cross. In James, I just want to try to prove that to you from the scripture. In James chapter 1, 2, he says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So back to my definition is the cross, or the purpose of the cross is that it proves and produces genuine faith. 1 Peter 4, 19 says,

So here’s what I want to say that the cross is. The cross is that instrument by which God shapes us into the image of Christ so that we both obtain and become useful to the interest of the kingdom. Now, the cross is the instrument that God uses to shape and mold us into the image of His Son that we might obtain the kingdom and become useful to the kingdom.

What is it to take up the cross and bear it? I say that it’s willingly submitting to God’s will and method of shaping us into the image of Christ so that, we both obtain and become useful to the interest of His kingdom.

I think there are some sufferings in this life that you might not be able to directly tie a string to the advancement of the kingdom, but in God’s grand scheme and plan, it is. And so don’t discount suffering in general as if it weren’t taking up the cross. I’m not the arbiter of what is and what isn’t in a cross. I don’t want to pretend to be. It’s not mine to determine.

But I want to ask you to consider just a few examples from the Scripture and understand why I’m taking the position that I am, that I want to have somewhat of a broader view of taking up the cross. Not all suffering. Not… Let’s be reasonable, right? But is it being used? Are you being made more like Jesus in the suffering? If you are, I’m going to say that’s your cross. Here’s some proofs. Consider Job. So there’s an external authority applying affliction on him. Right? Satan comes and he needs permission from God. God says, God grants him permission to afflict Job in various ways. And God proves Job’s faithfulness through the affliction.

Is that not Job bearing his cross? He’s submitting to the will of God for his life. He lost everything. Job lost everything. And his wife and his friends curse God and die. No, what God did was prove and produce a faith that says, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job faithfully bore his cross. Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he’s arguing for the validity of his apostleship, but he’s using examples. He’s using examples from his ministry and his life and what he’s experiencing. And I think it proves what I’m saying, that direct affliction because of my service to the kingdom and indirect affliction are both me carrying my cross.

In verse 23 of chapter 11, 2 Corinthians, he says, are they servants of Christ talking about these false apostles? I speak as if insane, I more so in far more labors, far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I’ve spent in the deep. I’ve been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, the city, wilderness, the sea, false brothers. I’ve been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, hungry, thirsty, often without food and cold and exposure. And apart from all that, there’s the daily pressure on me because I care for the church so much. Go on in chapter 12, verse 7, it’s when he talks about the thorn in his flesh. He says he’d received a vision. He knows a man who’d received a vision and, you know, he could boast in this knowledge that he has, but he says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, persecutions, and difficulties, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So do you see how the afflictions and the difficulties and the trials and the tribulations that aren’t directly tied to preaching the gospel? They still refine me. And they still produce in me a character and a humility and a willingness to serve God because it humbles me and it causes me to depend on Him. It causes me to cry out for Him, to supply my needs. Lord, your grace is sufficient. Remove this thorn from me, please. Know that thorn is accomplishing something in you. And I’m leaving it there.

My grace is enough. And Paul, at the end of the day, says, I’m glad. Thank you, Lord, for my afflictions because it causes me to be weak and then Christ can be strong in me.

I’ve shared this story before, but my grandfather, he got colorectal cancer sometime ago. Fifteen, sixteen years ago now. And I believe that that illness had a direct role in me coming to faith in the Lord just because of the way situations played out. It ultimately led me up here to sit at Friendship Baptist Church in Huntsville and hear the gospel preached for the ten thousandth time and God was gracious enough to allow me the time to make it happen. To make it to Friendship Baptist, hear the gospel and be saved. And I’ve often times told my grandpa, thank you, Papa, for enduring that suffering for me because I believe Jesus saved my soul with it. And you know what he said? I’ll do it again.

I’ll do it again. My grandpa, over time, following Jesus, has learned to deny himself. And say, God, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want colorectal cancer. But, if you’re going to save my grandson through it, not my will, but yours be done. And he didn’t know that at the time. But he’s learned to be obedient and patient in suffering. And now, God has even allowed him to see the fruit of his suffering. Sometimes we don’t get to do that, but God is good in that sometimes He will allow us to see the fruit of our suffering. I’ve gotten to tell Him, thank you. Every time I talk to Him on the phone, I tell Him, thank you, Paul. I’ll do it again. I’ll do it again. The hymn, Take the World, But Give Me Jesus, is written by a lady named Fanny Crosby. And as a young girl, she lost her eyesight. And in that hymn, the third verse reads like this, Take the world, but give me Jesus. In His cross, my trust, shall be, till with clearer, brighter vision, face to face, my Lord, I see. She was able to, through God’s grace, through suffering, write a verse that even played on her suffering, till with brighter, what does it say? Till with clearer, brighter vision, my Lord, face to face, I will see. She learned to endure her suffering. And could even write songs about it. How many people do you think have been blessed by that hymn? You see, she bore her cross well. She was willing to take the cross and allow God to accomplish what He would with it for the kingdom. So when Jesus says, take up your cross, deny yourself, lose your life for my sake and for the gospel’s, it certainly means dying for the testimony of Jesus. It also means suffering well when you don’t understand why you’re suffering. Because God does. And suffering is not meaningless for the Christian.

Have you ever looked at someone who is suffering and been moved to a deeper longing for God? Has someone’s affliction, hardship, trial, ever produced encouragement in you to press on? Have you ever had to carry a weight, but you’ve been comforted by a brother or a sister or a neighbor who’s had to carry a similar weight?

How could those things not be carrying the cross?

If the goal is for God to build His kingdom, to accomplish what He would in the saints, how is that not carrying the cross? Suffering for Jesus’ sake and for His kingdom.

We’ve all got a cross to bear.

Some are heavier than others. Some, the wood is really dense and rough. Some people’s crosses are lighter.

But we’ve all got a cross to bear.

Don’t despise it. Don’t despise the cross. Why? How can I endure suffering and not lose heart? And not give up? How can I not gnash my teeth at this horrible affliction that I have to endure? Some of you, some of us, have endured a certain affliction for years of our life. Some of us will endure the same affliction for the remaining years of our life. Some of us will endure compounded and compiled afflictions.

How is that a thorny treasure? How am I to treasure that thorn?

The cross that you bear has been crafted by an all-knowing God. An all-loving and always good and an all-sufficient Father in Heaven.

That won’t make sense to the world. The cross is foolishness to the world.

That reason for your suffering will not make sense to the world, but it should make sense to you. Because it comes down to trusting in God. In God’s character. It comes to trusting in His wisdom. I preached this sermon with fear. I almost went and found another passage. When I got to confirmation, oftentimes we have this thing we’ll say to each other like when we preach a certain passage, God will often make us live it. And then I thought, Jesus told me this a long time ago. I’ve known since the beginning that I’m to bear my cross. And so I shouldn’t shrink back in fear. And I shouldn’t cower.

But I should trust in His goodness. In the sufficiency of His grace, as He told Paul. Romans also tells us that all things work together for our good. All things. All things. So the cross is going to accomplish something through me. Because it’s making me like Jesus. And it’s going to produce something in me. Namely, a faith that will endure. A faith that will endure. Because somehow, it doesn’t matter how much good we’ve received and how much we’ve learned of the Lord and how much we’ve experienced of Him and the fellowship we have. Somehow, we go back to the comforts and the pleasures of this life. Quickly. We’ll go through some really hard ordeal, and then two and a half weeks later, we’re back to enjoying season 15 of whatever show you’ve been binging. It’s mindless, and it feels good. It’s enjoyable. And God is so good that after the umpteenth time of you doing that, He’s going to add a layer to your cross. To awaken you from your stupor, and to lift your eyes from the temporal nature of this earth, and the fleeting pleasures of it, and lift them back up to heaven so you can say, Oh!

I need you. Thank you. Thank you. I was headed back down that road. But through affliction,

He brought me back.

I don’t know what your cross is. And I would say, to carry my cross, maybe this is me speaking out of my opinion, the the the I believe my cross is sort of like the wood of a literal cross. It’s made up of fibers. And it’s made up, a tree grows in rings, and over you, it’s made up of the compounded lot that God has for me. So to bear my cross is to willingly accept, bear, and do it with joy and gladness. Whatever God has for me in my life.

So it may not be one particular thing. It’s just your life. Being willing to suffer for the sake of Jesus and for His kingdom.

We’ve all got a cross to bear. It’s a lifestyle of cross-bearing. We’re a community of cross-bearers. We’re all bearing crosses together. A couple things I want to just encourage us on. Sometimes when someone is suffering, there’s nothing that you can say. And we should keep our mouths shut.

Because the cross maybe in that particular instance is God’s remedy for whatever is going on in their life. However horrible it may seem. However difficult it is.

God is doing something. And it certainly isn’t helpful for you to compare something that you’ve suffered with. Yeah, I carried a cross like that one time. You don’t know what it’s like to carry that person’s cross.

Jesus carried a cross. And I’m thankful that none of us will ever know what it’s like to carry that cross. God has a cross for you. God has a cross for you. God has a cross for me. And when I’m carrying it, most of the time, sometimes there is. You need to lean on the Spirit and the wisdom of God to know what you should and shouldn’t say to people when they’re suffering. A lot of times, it’s like, hey brother, let me carry that. You remember Simon on the way to Golgotha? He comes and he bears the cross for a minute. Sometimes people just need you to carry the load with them. There’s nothing you can say. It has to run. It has to run. It has to do what God is doing. But God is good in allowing us friends to help us. Make it up the hill.

There’s also Jesus on the cross. People were near to Him. John and his mother willing to be identified with Jesus, right? Self-denial happening even in them there. Bearing their own cross. Denying their selves. But with Jesus. As He bears the cross that only He can bear. So let us be a people who make a point to be near to one another as we bear our crosses.

So again, how can I How can I bear my cross? I do it with the foundational knowledge that I am God’s son. You are God’s daughter. And He is doing something. Most of the time correcting you from your foolishness and your love for the world and your passions to please the flesh. And He’s bringing you back so that you will make it to the end. So with great joy, bear the cross. Because it’s been crafted by God for you to see that you make it home. To confirm you in your faith and your following of Jesus.

Lastly, I’m almost done. Commitment. Jesus says twice, if you’re going to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me. And the following is, I don’t just head to the store with Him one time, come back and do my thing. My life is now committed to following Jesus through the thorny ways.

But if we’ve built on that confession with converting our minds and conforming ourselves to the image of Jesus, and being confirmed by the outward afflictions on us, by the hand of God, by the enemy wishing to destroy you, by man’s hatred for you, ultimately God is doing something. If you’ve built that foundation, then you can gladly endure and follow until the end. You can be committed. Because you’ve got some good reason. Those thorny ways are now treasures. Because you know they’re keeping your soul for the day of salvation.

Jesus calls us to treasure the thorny ways of following Him. Because He’s leading us out of the grips of death and into the glories of everlasting life with Him.

You’ve got to go through the thorny ways. But if you do, if you will count this life as insignificant in comparison to the future life and glory,

it’ll be worth it. Charles Spurgeon in a sermon, I don’t know if he coined this or quoted it, he said, No cross, no crown. You’ve got to bear the cross if you want to wear the crown. And God is saying, God is so good to allow us, as we’re out there in the blackberry bushes, picking and getting scratched up, and it’s miserable and it’s hot and the mosquitoes are bad, and I’m ready to turn it in, I can pick a berry and be refreshed. God gives us berries along the way to remind us and to keep us, oh, I’m going to head home with a bucket full of these things.

God’s good and He provides ample grace in the weakness, in the sin, in the suffering to remind us that there’s an indescribable reward waiting for us.

I’ll close with this. A good friend gave me a book, Songs of Suffering, and I think I’ve shared actually this verse before, but I’m going to share it again. It’s fitting and it’s good and it’s challenged me. And it’s been a good reminder that this is not my home.

Whatever may come, this is not my home. Be still, my soul. Be still, my soul, for God is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain leave to your God to order and provide who through all changes faithful will remain. Be still, my soul. Your best, your heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Commit your way, to the way of Jesus, and live. Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus,

the weakness of our flesh, the temporal pleasures of this world, the enemy,

would seek to snatch us, to destroy us, and consume us, and consume us,

but you’ll not have that. And we thank you for that assurance. We thank you for

Lord, even though they may be tough, even though they’re thorny, and they’re difficult, and they’re hard to understand, and hard to bear, Lord. We thank you that you know, and you’re good, and you’re faithful, and you have our best interest in mind. You have a goal for us, and you’ll not let us be lost. You’ll not allow us to be snatched by the enemy.

I thank you, Lord Jesus, that

you’re not commanding something of us that you didn’t. Walk yourself. You suffered ultimate suffering. You bore the ultimate cross, and by that cross we’re saved and brought near.

We thank you, and we praise you, and we worship you. The body that you offered up, the blood that you spilled,

is our very life, Lord. We thank you, Lord, and we thank you for that. And so I just pray that, Lord, whatever it is that your hand is going to bring, has brought,

Lord, you’ll be near to us in it, and that through suffering, Lord, we’ll be brought nearer to you, and fellowship with you will be sweeter, and our desire, and our want, and our need for heaven will only grow stronger, and our faith, will be strengthened, and, Lord, one day we’ll receive what we’ve so patiently waited for. Thank you, Lord Jesus. It’s in your name we pray. Amen.

Preacher: Chase Comeaux