Show Notes
Matthew 10:38
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Let's join our hearts together once more in prayer.
[00:00:05] Lord Jesus, our King, we marvel at your great wisdom in revealing what it was that you would do many thousands of years before our own arrival here in history.
[00:00:24] We read of these sons who had yet to be born, who would hear of your cross work and of your resurrection and hearing would be turned to you, and who would bow and kneel before you, Lord our God. We read about prophecy of our own conversion here in this psalm. And we stand in awe of you.
[00:00:48] That you, not just in grand scale, in broad strokes, should prophesy of the coming of Messiah and of some generic salvation, but specifically of the details of your death upon the cross, of your resurrection, and then, very precisely, of how it was that you would draw us filthy, wicked Gentiles to yourself.
[00:01:14] Our hearts are full of praise and adoration, of joy and thanksgiving.
[00:01:20] We bow before you.
[00:01:22] We ask, Lord Jesus, that you would grant other things that you prophesied in this psalm that the weak and the poor would eat their fill and be satisfied in your sanctuary.
[00:01:37] Here we are. We ask that you would feed us. Our souls are weak, our souls are thirsty, and our faith of fades.
[00:01:50] We ask, Lord Jesus, that you would deal with us, granting us what we need, show us more of yourself, that we would see your power and your might, and that we would be revived.
[00:02:01] That we would see your love and your compassion and mercy and that we would be drawn to you.
[00:02:08] That where we are ashamed, we would look to you and be lifted up.
[00:02:16] Lord Jesus, we pray that you would deal not only with Austro church gathered here in Tucson, but everywhere where your people gather today, that you would meet with us, deal with us, correcting us, strengthening us, healing us and restoring us that we might be fit for your service. As we go forth into the world to serve you during the week.
[00:02:39] We ask Lord Jesus, that you would bless us in your word by the power of your spirit.
[00:02:45] Amen.
[00:02:49] Turn once more to hear from God and his Word. We're going to read from Matthew 10, our sermon text this evening. Matthew 10:38.
[00:03:15] Hear God's word.
[00:03:17] And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
[00:03:26] Please be seated.
[00:03:42] Every calling in life, every office that we're called to serve in has easy things, things that we look forward to and enjoy.
[00:03:52] And it also has difficult things, things that may cause us grief, sorrow, sadness. An easy one to think of is being a parent.
[00:04:02] There are great joys in being a parent. We delight in holding little babies. We delight in seeing our children, toddlers, become toddlers. As they learn to walk around, it fills our hearts with joy as we see them exploring the world around them and learning about it. But there's things that are harder too, right? As parents, when they get sick, we're anxious for them.
[00:04:28] When they're struggling with sin, rebellion, obstinacy, our hearts ache for them. If we see them straying from the faith, we begin to despair for them. There's a hard part to being a parent. The same is true with everything else. If you're a doctor, there's the joys of seeing patients recover, and then there's the times when you have to care for a patient for many years who doesn't get better.
[00:04:56] Or perhaps you have a patient who. Who dies, passes away under your care. You can think about any calling in life, and you're going to see the hard things as well as the good things and the joyful things here. Jesus in this passage, calls his disciples Christians to one of the hard things, perhaps the hardest thing that he could call us to, to bear a cross.
[00:05:21] Our message this evening, our theme, is that you, if you're a Christian, you have a cross to bear. Jesus says, if you're going to be worthy of me, that is, be my disciple, bear my name as a Christian, then you need to take up your cross and follow me. You have a cross to carry.
[00:05:41] We'll look at that theme of carrying your cross under three headings. First, your cross, your cross. Secondly, your heavy cross, your cross, the heavy cross, and then thirdly, the call of the cross.
[00:05:58] So first, the cross you carry is your cross. What is the cross that Jesus speaks of here?
[00:06:08] Is this a literal piece of wood?
[00:06:12] Is it a metaphor? What is it? What's Jesus talking about here?
[00:06:17] Going to tell you up front, and then we'll draw it out of the text.
[00:06:21] The cross that Jesus is speaking of here is a metaphor, you might say, for any trouble or any suffering, any trouble that you experience for the sake of Christ.
[00:06:34] The cross that Jesus calls you to bear is any trouble that you will experience for the sake of Christ.
[00:06:43] That's your cross.
[00:06:45] Well, what is a cross?
[00:06:49] If you're a Christian, you know what a cross is. This cross is the instrument of execution that the Romans used for the very worst of criminals. It was literally shaped like a cross. Where we get our English word cross, there was a vertical member piece of wood, and then a horizontal piece of wood was attached to that. And then the person being executed, the criminal who'd been convicted and sentenced to death by crucifixion, would be hung on that cross with his hands attached to the cross member and then his feet nailed to the vertical member so that the person himself was being hung in a cross like fashion.
[00:07:31] The man would be nailed to the cross and then he would hang there for hours.
[00:07:37] Hour after hour he would. His blood would drain out from the wounds, but then he would suffocate as he was unable to breathe as he hung there. And eventually he wouldn't be able to breathe anymore. As we read in Christ the account of Christ's crucifixion, he would breathe his last breath, gasped out, and then he would die.
[00:07:59] It's no wonder that the Romans reserved this form of execution for the very worst of criminals.
[00:08:07] It was a gruesome way to die. Hours and hours of painful suffering and then finally, death.
[00:08:18] This is what Jesus is referring to when he says cross, suffering, torture, trouble, death.
[00:08:33] But it's not just any suffering, torture or death. There's lots of suffering in this life. Jesus says, taking up your cross and following me. It's a cross that's born suffering trouble, born in this life as you follow Christ for the sake of following Christ. Christ.
[00:08:58] As Christians, we sometimes say that some trouble or problem is someone's cross to bear. Or maybe even I have some problem or trouble and it's my cross to bear. We often use that to refer to all sorts of problems. Maybe you have some chronic illness, maybe you've suffered recently some financial hardship, and you say, that's my cross to bear. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. Not just any old problem or trouble in this life.
[00:09:27] Sometimes we have trouble and problems in this life that are our own fault, right?
[00:09:32] I commit some sin and trouble comes to me because of it. Jesus isn't talking about any trouble and just any old trouble in this life.
[00:09:41] He's talking about trouble that we face because we're following him.
[00:09:47] That would include persecution, that would include opposition, all sorts of things that Jesus has been describing as we've been walking through Matthew chapter 10. Here, the authorities may persecute Christians. They may arrest them, put them on trial.
[00:10:04] Family members may persecute their loved ones who become Christians. We saw that last week. These are the kinds of things, trouble and suffering that comes to us for Jesus sake as we're following him.
[00:10:18] Jesus uses the cross to describe all of this suffering in the Christian life for the sake of Christ. He uses the cross as a symbol because it symbolizes, I think, in some ways, the worst possible death that a person could have died in his day.
[00:10:35] It was the most painful, the longest, most drawn out, and certainly the most shameful death that a person under the Roman Empire could die. So Jesus takes the example of the worst kind of suffering and says, you need to be willing to bear this and any other suffering up to that point for my sake as you follow me.
[00:11:01] So that's the cross, but the cross bearing here. Jesus connects very directly. So this suffering and trouble and trial that we endure for Christ's sake, he connects that very directly with the broader idea of what we call being a disciple or discipleship.
[00:11:17] He uses those two little words, follow me.
[00:11:21] That's the beginning of discipleship right here in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus, back in Matthew chapter four, was walking by the seashore and he saw Peter, Andrew, James and John, two pairs of brothers who fished by the sea. He sees Peter, Andrew, James and John, and what does he say?
[00:11:37] Follow me.
[00:11:38] And they followed after him and they became his disciples.
[00:11:42] A couple chapters later, he sees Matthew sitting at the tax booth and he says to Matthew, follow me. And Matthew got up and followed him and became Jesus disciple.
[00:11:54] To be Jesus disciple was to follow him, to hear his words, to be taught by him, to learn from him, to obey him, even to imitate him.
[00:12:05] Not just to hear his words, but to follow his pattern.
[00:12:09] Jesus was loving, kind, gracious, merciful, following Christ as he expressed the true humanity, what it was that God calls all of us to live in.
[00:12:24] That's the bigger say, you might say the bigger bucket of discipleship encompassing the whole life. But Jesus here says, there's a smaller portion of that one piece of discipleship which is taking up your cross.
[00:12:40] If you're going to follow me, part of that following me, part of that being my disciple means bearing a cross on your shoulders.
[00:12:49] Remember the story we read? Pilate said, okay, Jesus, I'm sentencing you to execution by crucifixion. The next thing that happens after he's beaten and mocked by the soldiers is they put a cross on Jesus shoulders and say, okay, now you have to carry this cross to the place where we're going to hang you on it.
[00:13:13] Jesus is saying, a part of your being my disciple is that I'm going to give you a cross piece that is going to sit on your shoulders and you're going to carry it through this life. As you approach death, the Master says, I call you to follow me. And as I suffered all kinds of trouble, persecution and trials in this life, and then at the very end of life, was put to death, so too I call you my disciples, to follow me. In trouble, sufferings, persecution and even death.
[00:13:50] He calls, though as he does with all of our discipleship, he calls us to respond willingly.
[00:13:56] Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, all got up, left what they were doing, and willingly followed Jesus.
[00:14:03] Jesus calls us then to embrace, to carry trouble and trials willingly.
[00:14:13] That's what the cross is. The cross is a part of your discipleship, but it is your cross.
[00:14:23] Jesus says, if anyone won't take up his cross and follow me, he's not worthy of me. If you're going to be my disciple, Jesus says, I have a cross for you. You.
[00:14:35] Every Christian receives a cross from Jesus. Troubled trials in this life that come because he follows Jesus.
[00:14:45] There are things that Jesus has prepared for you in your service to him as his disciple.
[00:14:53] Maybe if you've lived on this earth as a Christian for a while, you've encountered some of this.
[00:14:59] I want to speak to you children and young people especially.
[00:15:03] We raise you here in the church and your parents raise you at home, teaching you to love Jesus, to put your trust in Jesus as your Savior. We teach you that Jesus calls you to be his disciple even as a child, right?
[00:15:18] We teach you all the things from God's word that Jesus calls you to obey him.
[00:15:27] Jesus says to you too, children, that if you're going to be my disciple, I have a cross for you.
[00:15:36] There's the happy parts of following Jesus. But here's a heavy, difficult part of following Jesus that Jesus calls everyone, even children, to if you're going to follow Jesus and be his disciple, you have a cross to carry for your lifetime.
[00:15:54] You have a cross.
[00:15:56] Secondly, that cross is heavy. There's a weightiness to this wooden beam that Jesus placed on his shoulders to carry to Golgotha.
[00:16:09] There's a weightiness to the cross he places on us.
[00:16:13] What Jesus is doing here, very helpfully, graciously, kindly. It might seem stern, but. But he's really being loving and gentle when he does this.
[00:16:22] He's setting our expectations.
[00:16:26] If I were to tell you, hey, you want to come on a hike with me this Saturday?
[00:16:33] But I didn't tell you that we were climbing a fourteener, 14,000 Foot Mountain in Colorado, I wouldn't be setting your expectations correctly.
[00:16:44] We would spend all day long slogging it several miles up the mountain, if you weren't ready for that, you would be surprised.
[00:16:52] You might say, I can't do this.
[00:16:55] Jesus calls you to be a disciple and he tells you what that consists in. Including the hard parts, including the cross.
[00:17:03] Children sometimes volunteer to help their parents and they don't know what they're getting into.
[00:17:09] Parents try to set their expectations for them. And sometimes, sometimes we get through. Other times they have to find out along the way. Right? Well, Jesus doesn't want us to find out along the way. He tells us up front, this cross is heavy.
[00:17:25] There's a weight to your cross.
[00:17:28] Cross is not an easy thing to carry.
[00:17:30] Jesus, when he went to carry the cross, he gets out on the road and the Roman soldiers apparently must have been having trouble with it or something. They had to press another man into service to carry the cross for Jesus.
[00:17:43] That's how heavy that wooden beam was.
[00:17:47] Simon of Cyrene had to carry it for Jesus.
[00:17:50] What do you carry?
[00:17:56] Your cross will feel heavy as you begin to feel that opposition that comes from being a Christian.
[00:18:05] If you really take up discipleship and really begin to obey Jesus, to confess his name before men, to do the things that we've been talking about as we walk through Matthew, chapter 10, that cross will feel heavy.
[00:18:20] Most of us don't like conflict.
[00:18:23] What if everywhere we look we have conflict because we're fighting sin, because we're trying to be faithful to Jesus in all kinds of difficult circumstances? That opposition is going to bear down on you. It may weigh your conscience, it may weigh you in, in terms of relationships, in terms of difficulty at work.
[00:18:46] Bearing a cross means facing opposition that's heavy.
[00:18:52] Jesus says to his disciples in this chapter, you will go out and preach the gospel, and when you preach the gospel, many will reject you.
[00:19:02] Jesus tells every Christian, you will join me in fighting against your sin.
[00:19:08] I didn't come to bring peace with your sin. I brought a sword to fight against your sin. And you will join me in that fight against your sin.
[00:19:17] And guess what happens? Your family is going to turn on you. You're going to have trouble. Everywhere you look, the cross is heavy.
[00:19:26] The weight of the cross is also shame.
[00:19:31] As Jesus bore that cross, the Roman soldiers were. As a part of his punishment, they were parading him down the streets. As the Jews lined the streets, parading him from Pilate's court where he was tried and wrongly convicted, all the way they were parading him past the crowds, all the way to Golgotha where they would put him on the cross.
[00:19:56] This was deliberate to shame Christ publicly as a criminal.
[00:20:02] And as he marched along carrying that cross, or Simon next to him carrying the cross, the crowds taunted and mocked Jesus.
[00:20:10] They brought shame on him.
[00:20:13] As he hung on the cross, he bore yet more shame. Not just the pain of the nails, the difficulty of breathing. They stripped him naked and the crowds taunted him.
[00:20:24] The leaders of the Jews mocked him.
[00:20:27] You call yourself the King of the Jews, the Messiah. Save yourself. Come down and then maybe we'll believe you.
[00:20:34] There was shame in bearing carrying the cross.
[00:20:40] Jesus tells us that there's shame in bearing or carrying his cross before the world. It may bring scorn, mocking in your family. If you have a non Christian spouse, He or she may mock you, despise you because of the stances you take, your convictions of following Christ.
[00:21:02] You may find the same thing in your workplace.
[00:21:05] If you can't compromise because of serving Christ, what will happen?
[00:21:10] Others around you may look down on you because of it.
[00:21:15] Paul tells us we preach Christ crucified.
[00:21:19] Stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
[00:21:26] That's the nations. The whole world is going to hear that you're a Christian, that you believe in a Jesus who was crucified on the cross to save you, that that's your Savior and your king.
[00:21:36] And the world says that's foolishness.
[00:21:40] If you follow Jesus, you carry a cross of shame for his sake.
[00:21:47] But to bear a cross doesn't just mean a heavy weight of opposition shame from the world. It also means that like Jesus, you are carrying a cross and where are you headed as Jesus and then Simon next to him carried the cross. Where was he headed? He was headed to his death.
[00:22:08] To bear a cross means that you are marching towards death, death for Jesus sake.
[00:22:14] Your cross may involve physical suffering.
[00:22:17] You may lose your job. Your family may fall on hard times because you served Christ and bore a cross for him.
[00:22:24] The apostle Paul was beaten and imprisoned today, this very day.
[00:22:30] There are pastors in China who sit in chains and whose families they're in prison and their families are outside suffering.
[00:22:40] They're bearing a cross for Christ. They're suffering physically.
[00:22:45] Jesus may call you to join him in his death on the cross. The apostle Peter died by crucifixion in Rome.
[00:22:54] Since the year 2009 in the nation of Nigeria, over 50,000 of our brothers and sisters had died at the hands of Islam because they named Christ.
[00:23:14] To bear a cross means death.
[00:23:19] The cross is heavy. It is not easy to bear.
[00:23:23] You may say to me, pastor, I know the cross is heavy.
[00:23:27] I've felt its weight. I've already dropped.
[00:23:33] I failed to confess Christ before men. I've compromised. I've done things I shouldn't have and I did it to avoid trouble with men.
[00:23:47] Don't tell me that.
[00:23:50] Tell Christ.
[00:23:53] Go to Jesus if you've dropped the cross and failed to carry it. And all of us have.
[00:24:00] Your cross that Jesus calls you to bear is just like every area of being a disciple.
[00:24:08] Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. It's just like everything else Jesus calls you to do. It's a part of following him. And just like everything else, as a disciple, you and I will fail.
[00:24:21] We will sin, we will dishonor Christ. And what must we do?
[00:24:25] We must turn to him.
[00:24:27] He bore a cross so that our sins would be forgiven, so that when we drop the cross, we can turn to him and be forgiven. And he will lift us up again. That's what happened to Peter. There was Jesus going to the cross.
[00:24:42] And what does Peter do? Rather than bearing the cross of opposition? Shame for following Jesus, he denied him.
[00:24:50] But what does Jesus do? He raises Peter up again and he says, go help your brothers.
[00:24:58] The cross is heavy. If you will drop it, turn to Jesus and be forgiven and receive grace.
[00:25:05] Thirdly, you have a call to the cross.
[00:25:13] Jesus calls you to carry this cross, your cross.
[00:25:19] And that call involves several things.
[00:25:22] First of all, the call to carry the cross is a call to be like Jesus.
[00:25:28] It's interesting that this is the first reference to the cross or a cross in the Gospel of Matthew.
[00:25:34] That is to say, the first time Jesus mentions the cross is not about his going to the cross, but about our bearing a cross. And yet we know.
[00:25:44] We know that if we bear a cross, it means that we're becoming like Jesus.
[00:25:50] As you bear the cross, the world may want to make you feel shame.
[00:25:55] It may deride you for following Jesus, for confessing him, serving him, insisting on obeying Jesus and not men.
[00:26:06] As you bear that cross of trouble, you become like Jesus.
[00:26:13] You follow the pattern of Jesus. There's a clear pattern. It's prophesied in the Old Testament, in Psalm 22, and in the prophets.
[00:26:23] And it's a pattern we find all over the New Testament.
[00:26:27] It's the pattern of Jesus, the pattern of suffering to glory, of death, to resurrection.
[00:26:35] To be a disciple means to become like your master.
[00:26:40] And that includes participating in his suffering, becoming like him in his suffering.
[00:26:48] If you're bearing a cross, you're becoming like Jesus. Peter says in 1st Peter 4, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
[00:27:05] If you bear a cross now, you participate in his sufferings. You're conformed to the pattern of your master, Jesus.
[00:27:12] You will participate also in his glory from suffering to Glory. You are becoming like Jesus in bearing the cross.
[00:27:22] And as such, if in bearing a cross of trouble in this life you become like Jesus, then here's what follows from it.
[00:27:33] There is no shame in the cross.
[00:27:38] There is no shame for you, dear Christian, in bearing the cross. The world wants to shame you and make you feel shame. There is no shame in the cross because if you bear a cross of trouble, you become like Jesus.
[00:27:51] There is only honor and glory in becoming like Jesus again. First Peter 4.
[00:27:59] Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.
[00:28:08] There is no shame in bearing a cross because you become like Jesus.
[00:28:14] It is a call to become like Jesus. But the call to your cross is a call also to follow Jesus, to march after him.
[00:28:24] It's not aimless wandering in discipleship.
[00:28:28] It is not a pointless bearing of trouble and burden. For no reason at all.
[00:28:33] You're carrying that cross, but Jesus is in front of you, marching forward, and you're following after him.
[00:28:41] That is to say that all the suffering and trouble you experience in this life, your cross is directly related to your relationship with Jesus.
[00:28:52] You suffer because you are his and he is yours. You suffer because he is your master. You are his disciple. He is your king. You are his servant. He is your savior. You are his sheep. And therefore you suffer.
[00:29:08] Your cross is a call to follow him.
[00:29:12] It's connected directly to him.
[00:29:16] You are connected directly to him. The cross may feel heavy, that opposition may bear down on you, but you are connected to Jesus.
[00:29:29] And so you do not carry that cross alone.
[00:29:33] You cannot carry that cross alone.
[00:29:37] You cannot carry that cross at all by yourself.
[00:29:43] No part of the Christian life is done alone. Every part of the Christian life, all of Christian discipleship, is following Jesus, walking with him, being united to him.
[00:29:58] And what has Jesus done for you? He baptized you with His Holy Spirit. He fills you with the Spirit of God.
[00:30:08] Jesus is with you by his Spirit. As you go through trouble, he calls you to pick up the cross, but he is working in you. He is empowering you to put that cross on your shoulders.
[00:30:21] You do not do it alone. In fact, you don't do it yourself. You do it in his strength and in his power.
[00:30:29] Christ works in you to lift it up, to bear it, to carry it, to put all of this another way. As you face those troubles and trials at home, at work, with the world out there, as they bear down on you, as they cast shame on you, if you were ever to be arrested and to face persecution and Death.
[00:30:52] Jesus is with you.
[00:30:55] He promises you, I will never leave you or forsake you.
[00:31:02] You bear a cross following Jesus. You are with him, and he is with you.
[00:31:08] Jesus says, in this world, you will have trouble.
[00:31:13] But fear not, I have overcome the world. The one who overcome the world is with you and in you.
[00:31:19] So with Paul, you can say, the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.
[00:31:30] The call to the cross is a call to follow Jesus, to be with him. He with you through every trouble and trial.
[00:31:41] The call to the cross is a call to a light burden.
[00:31:49] Your cross is not so heavy as you think.
[00:31:53] I made a case that the cross is heavy, if you didn't notice. Now I'm arguing the opposite.
[00:31:59] Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:32:07] My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:32:10] Take up that cross. But it's not as heavy as you think.
[00:32:15] Why?
[00:32:16] Well, we've already given you the first reason.
[00:32:19] He carries you through suffering.
[00:32:22] He doesn't just carry the cross. He's the one holding you. You're in his hands. He says in John 10, you're in the hand of the Son.
[00:32:32] I'm the good shepherd. I'm holding you, and no one can snatch you away from me.
[00:32:37] And the Father, who is greater than I, his hand is wrapped around mine.
[00:32:42] He carries you.
[00:32:45] Does that cross seem heavy as you think about it, as you approach it?
[00:32:50] It's light because Jesus carries not just the cross, but he carries you.
[00:32:57] The cross is not a heavy burden, but a light one, because the real burden Jesus has already carried.
[00:33:06] That is to say, by comparison, whatever cross of trouble and trial you have to carry in this life, it's light compared to the weight of the debt of your and my sins, our real burden.
[00:33:19] And Jesus has already carried that burden to the cross, the literal cross. And there on the cross, he bore the weight of the Father's wrath.
[00:33:28] What we deserved, he took it, and it's gone.
[00:33:33] And since that burden and that weight is gone, the cross that we carry of trouble in this life is light by comparison.
[00:33:43] But your cross, dear Christian, is light. Not just because Christ carries you and because he's already carried and borne the burden of your sins on the cross.
[00:33:53] Your cross is light.
[00:33:55] Because by comparison to what is truly weighty, your cross of trouble and trial in this life is nothing at all.
[00:34:08] As you bear that cross, as you're in that moment of trouble, of affliction, of trial, of persecution, where are your eyes?
[00:34:20] They tend to be in the trouble and the problem, don't they?
[00:34:25] What would I do if I were in prison? What would I do if I lost my job because I follow Jesus?
[00:34:32] But Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. When you're following someone, where are your eyes?
[00:34:38] They're fixed on Jesus.
[00:34:41] Okay, dear Christian, as you carry that cross of trouble and trial, right now, where is Jesus?
[00:34:48] He's in glory.
[00:34:50] He's in glory.
[00:34:52] So your eyes are to be on him in glory. And what is he doing? He's beckoning you. He's calling you.
[00:34:58] Follow me. Come to me. Come through trial, come through affliction, come through death itself.
[00:35:05] And what do you receive on the other side?
[00:35:08] You receive Jesus. And in Jesus you receive eternal life, glory, the presence of God, forever beholding God face to face. And so what does Paul say?
[00:35:22] This momentary light affliction.
[00:35:26] Light.
[00:35:27] The burden of the cross is light.
[00:35:30] This momentary light affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
[00:35:39] I tried to compare the burden of your sins to the burden of your trouble in the cross of this life. But Paul says, look, we can't even compare the eternal weight of glory that awaits us to the momentary light affliction of the cross that Christ calls us to take up in this life.
[00:36:00] To Christian, if you would be worthy of Christ, that is to say, if you would be his disciple, you would follow after him. If you would have Christ and in Christ have forgiveness of sins and glory, then take up your cross and follow him by his strength and his grace. Let's pray.
[00:36:19] Our God and our Father, we confess in our sinfulness, in our unbelief, in our doubts that we look to this life. We look to the troubles and trials of this world, what Jesus calls a cross.
[00:36:41] And we confess that our eyes are too often fixed on it and not on Jesus our Savior.
[00:36:49] O Holy Spirit, we ask that you would mightily work in our hearts so that we would behold the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus our Savior, that we would see him having died, made atonement for sins, having risen from the dead and secured our future resurrection, and now having secured our place in heaven as he reigns on high, help us to see Him.
[00:37:21] Help us to look beyond the troubles of this life to him, so that we might walk through them in his strength and do so willingly as he calls us, and indeed even learn to do so as Paul did, rejoicing at all times and in everything, knowing that Jesus carries us and will bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom to Him. Be glory forever and ever. Amen.
