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Following Christ Part 4 By John McCallum

Now in the second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, in chapter 4, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and we read from the beginning to the end of this chapter. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine into them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ
Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
Cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are
always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made
manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having
the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken,
we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall
raise up us also by Jesus and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes,
that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory
of God. For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward
man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which
are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal. And we turn once again this morning to the
Gospel of Matthew chapter 16 and coming once again to these two verses 24 and 25. Now I
know that you have been sitting long and patiently and if I'm any judge of these things attentively
to the preaching of the world over this weekend and some of you perhaps, or perhaps all of
you, some of you more than others perhaps are perhaps a wee bit weary and that's only
natural but it should be so. It's been a concentrated diet that you have had and the human brain
can only take so much and so we're going to be I hope somewhat shorter this morning
in view of the urgency of time to clean up and so on. And so we're going to make this
if we can somewhat easier on the mind and on the memory. Now we come again then to consider
these verses I say and we've looked at verses 24 and 25. Let's just read them again. Then
Jesus said unto his disciples if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me for whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find it. And we've looked at these verses in general
terms and then we tried to focus our attention on following after Jesus the obligation to
do so, the barriers that we find when we do so and the encouragements. And then the last
time we were considering these verses from the perspective of self-denial and we were
reminding ourselves on that occasion that what the Lord is saying when he speaks about
self-denial is not so much that we should deny ourselves things but that we should deny
ourselves self. It is the denial of me to me that the Lord has in mind. Now that does
not mean of course that there is no place for denying ourselves things. Indeed there
is every place in the Christian life for denying ourselves things. And we find for example
in the Gospels there was a certain rich young ruler who came to Christ on one occasion and
who asked the way of eternal life and the Lord told him and he told him in terms first
of all of keeping the commandments and the Lord was telling him the truth. If you keep
the commandments of God perfectly you will go to heaven. You better be clear on that.
If you love God with all your heart and with all your soul and if you've never done anything
else in life but do that and if you've always loved your neighbour as you love yourself then
you will go to heaven. But your sin and my sin is that we don't love God with all our heart and we
don't love our neighbour as ourselves and therefore by the works of the law shall no flesh be
justified. And our Lord Jesus Christ told this young man about the law of God in order to
convict this young man that he indeed had not kept all these commandments and the young
man was still not convicted and then the Lord told him the truth. The ultimate test for
this young man was that he was to give up all his riches, sell all that you have and
give it all away to the poor and come and follow me and you shall have everlasting life.
And again the Lord was telling him the truth and he was putting him to the test you see
concerning the possession and the use of his riches. If you give up all your riches and
give to the poor then you will be indicating in some measure that you love your neighbour
as yourself. The fact that the young man refused to do that should have convicted him that
in fact he had not kept any of the commandments of God. But the point is for him the barrier
was the possession of things and in order to find life everlasting he would have to
give up those things that to him were a barrier and the young man went away were told very
sorrowful for he had many riches and they possessed his heart and he was not prepared
to give up these things. So the point is that in following Christ there is a place for giving
up things, giving up things that might be lawful in themselves but be a burden, be a
weight. We are to give up not only sins which so easily beset us but we are also to give
up every weight and the athlete gives up lawful things as well as dangerous and damaging things
in order to run the race that is set before him. And so it is with us as Christians and
sometimes self denial involves the giving up of things as well as the giving up of our
self sufficiency and our self righteousness and so on. What we want to consider together
this morning is this emphasis that the Lord makes about taking up the cross and following
after him. Now before we come to look at this in any detail there are some general observations
I want to make about taking up the cross and the first general remark I want to make is
that this is one of the great foundation doctrines of the Christian faith and what I mean by
that is that this is something that we must do at the very beginning of our Christian
commitment. This is not something, taking up the cross is not some kind of appendage
that comes later on when we have reached a certain degree of Christian maturity and
I'm saying that because there are some who misconstrue the Christian life and they bring
it into the idea of segments and that believing in Christ is one thing and then repenting
of sin is another and receiving him as Lord is a further stage on the journey and then
perhaps self denial comes after that and then taking up the cross. Now all that is
very common in our day and it's a very, very big mistake because the Lord here is not speaking
about things that take place subsequent to being Christians when he speaks of denying
ourselves and taking up the cross. He is speaking of things that belong to being Christians
and these experiences, self denial and taking up the cross, these things become part of
our Christian life the moment that we become Christians. These are for infants in the faith.
These are for the newest converts as well as for the most strong and aged amongst the
saints. So I would just emphasize that the foundations are being emphasized by the Lord
Jesus Christ here, fundamental things. This is not the building of the Christian life.
These are the foundations of the Christian life that the Lord is speaking about and I'm
emphasizing that because Christ tells us, you see, in the closing verses in the Sermon
and Mount you remember of two men who wanted to build a house each and one built a house
upon sand and the other built a house upon the rock and you would never have known the
difference, you see, between these two houses simply looking at them. I suppose the one
built upon the sand looked as good and it was as good to live in and perhaps as comfortable
as the one that was built upon the rock. It may have been more attractive for all we know
but the point was trials came and winds and floods came and the house that was built upon
the sand fell down and the house that was built upon the rock stood. And the point of
that parable is that we can be building a religious life for ourselves built upon sand
but we've never had the foundations right and we have never dug down to the rock and
storms are going to come and it's interesting that in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
the very same tests were applied to both the houses. He uses the same words, the winds
blew, the storms came and the floods came to the house built upon the sand and to the
house built upon the rock. Exactly the same tests came and it wasn't until the testing
time that you realize that one was on a wrong foundation and that the other was unable to
stand because it was built on solid rock. So what I'm saying is that when we speak of
taking up the cross we are speaking of laying a good foundation and sooner or later our
Christian profession is going to be tested and if we have not taken up the cross we are
going to fail and we are going to fall. It is only those who have denied themselves and
who have taken up the cross who are going to stand for Christ when the storms come and
the winds blow and the rains come. And every profession of faith that is not built upon
this fundamental requirement that we have in these verses before us is going to fall
sooner or later. You will not stand. There will be temptations that will come to you.
There will be persecution that indeed will come to everyone who names the name of Christ
and we will not be able to stand unless we have done what he tells us to do from the
very beginning of our Christian way. And I want to give a word of encouragement perhaps
to some here this morning who have maybe made something of a shipwreck of their faith.
We all go astray. We were hearing this morning about Pilgrim's progress and I too am a fan
of Pilgrim as he tried to wend his way to the celestial city and one of the interesting
things about Pilgrim's pilgrimage is how frequently he went off a path that led to that celestial
city. He wandered into all kinds of places and on each occasion he had to leave that
place to which he had wandered and he has to come back on the track again. And there
are those of us who periodically we make a mess of things and we must never be discouraged
when we have failures and faults in our Christian living. We need to go back onto the track
again and there is no harm whatsoever if perhaps there is someone here and you have
made a profession and it has come to nothing. Well, what I would say to you is go back to
the beginning again, enter in at the straight gate and renew your commitment to Christ and
begin to walk anew on the straight and the narrow way. Begin to do what Christ tells
you to do and you will arrive at the heaven and at heaven at last. That is the promise
of God. And so this is the importance you see of having a right foundation. We can always
go back to a good foundation. We don't have to as it were start digging up all over again.
Once we have got the foundations right, everything else is going to fall into place and here
is one of the foundations therefore of the Christian life and it is taking up the cross
and following Christ. That is the secret of success in a living for Christ and serving
the King. Another observation I would make is that this is a privilege because as we
shall see the cross involves suffering and pain. It is the symbol of death. It is the
symbol in a sense of a self-immolation. We are to do it to ourselves. Just as the Lord
Jesus Christ reminds us no man takes his life from him. He lays his down. He takes the cross
and he lays down his life on the cross. And so it is with us and that is a privilege according
to the teaching of the scripture. The apostle Paul reminds the Philippians that unto them
it was given on the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his
sake. And you remember in the fifth chapter of the book of Acts how the apostles when they
were imprisoned and then they were beaten and then they were let go and commanded never
again to speak in the name of Christ. How they rejoiced. You remember that they were
counted worthy to suffer for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we must not see the
cross as something that is only in intimidation or hardship, pain and sorrow. We must see
it as an inherent and a blessed privilege that God has given to his people. He has given
to us in this godless world in which we live the privilege amongst all men to be bearing
something of the shame and of the reproach of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And
the final thing just by way of introduction that I want to emphasize is there is the need
for endurance in this because it's not easy to bear the cross. But it wasn't easy for
Christ to bear the cross. We are told of how even before he went into the garden of Gethsemane
how his soul was exceeding a sorrowful even unto death. And we are told of how he struggled
in the garden of Gethsemane and learned through much conflict of soul that ultimate submission
not my will but thy will be done. The cross was not a pleasant prospect for him and I
think that we perhaps make a great mistake when we sing of the, if we do sing of the
rain hill far away, a sentimentalizing of the cross. There is no sentimentality attached
to the cross of Christ and we mustn't sentimentalize the Christian life as something that it indeed
is not. There are blessednesses of course but there is always the cross. We live our
lives in the shadow of Calvary and we need endurance therefore. And our Lord Jesus Christ
we are told in Hebrews chapter 2 that as we are to run the race that is set before us
we are to do so looking unto Jesus. Not only looking away to Jesus now where he is in glory
but looking away to what Jesus did when he was called upon to run with endurance the
race that was set before him because we are told that he endured the cross. He despised
the shame because of the joy that was set before him and so when he is asking us to
take up the cross and to follow after him he is asking us to have an endurance, a stickability
and to remember that there is more to the Christian life than the cross because there
was more for him than simply the cross. There was the glory that was to come and the joy
of his own exaltation and the joy of bringing many sons into glory. So the cross of Christ
is one of those foundational things. This isn't something for some Christians. This
isn't something only for ministers or elders or missionaries or those who are that particular
kind of Christian. If we are not a cross bearing kind of Christian then we are not a Christian
at all. We'll never enter into heaven if we evade the issues of the cross that our
Lord is presenting to us here. So he tells us then whosoever will come after me let him
deny himself and take up his cross. Let him do this at the very beginning and then he
will begin to follow after me. Once we've taken the cross and denied ourselves then
we begin to live the great adventure of the Christian life. Now there are three questions
that I want us to address this morning concerning this issue of taking up the cross. And the
first question is what is meant by the cross? Now that of course is an obvious question
and we might imagine that we have the answer. And I don't think the answer is always as
easily found as some of us might imagine. Because you would be surprised at how many
people, non-Christians too incidentally, but how many Christians make a fundamental mistake
concerning taking up the cross. Many Christians imagine that the ordinary sufferings of life,
the afflictions that come to all of us in a fallen world, that these things become for
us as Christians the cross. If we're Christians then every affliction that comes our way indeed
is the cross. You often get unconverted people who will speak like that. They might have
an unhappy home, they might have a sickness, they might have poverty, they might have something
that is hard to bear and they say well this is the cross, this is my cross in life. And
so they somehow or other sanctify their affliction in their own mind and they sentimentalise
it and they say this is the cross. But that is not what our Lord Jesus Christ means when
he speaks of taking up the cross and following after him. There are many of our afflictions
that we experience that are quite divorced from following Christ. They have nothing to
do with our belief in Christ and with our allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in
this regard, as we're making this comment on this point, there's something that I especially
want to emphasise and it is this. We must never imagine that our sins, which are often
so hard for us to bear as Christians, that these sins are our cross. And I'm saying that
because I, like you I suppose, have spoken to many people about the terrible problem
of sin that affects every single one of us and sometimes Christian people will say well
I've got this terrible sin, this terrible temptation, this thorn in the flesh and this
is the cross that I must bear. It's something that is sinful, it is something that is evil
and I would long to be rid of it and this is the cross that I must bear as a Christian
through life. Now we must never imagine that the cross is something that is sinful and
that it is something that we must somehow or other put up with, with a kind of resignation
or stoicism. And I'm emphasising that because when the Apostle Paul speaks about the cross,
about the thorn in the flesh that he had, the thorn in the flesh was something that
he recognised was from the hand of God, he recognised that it was something that was
good, he recognised that it was something that he could glory in, it was something in
which he could rejoice, it was something in which he could indeed take pleasure. It wasn't
some sin, there are those who say what was Paul's thorn in the flesh and you'd be amazed
after some of the wicked things that men have said about the Apostle Paul and his thorn
in the flesh because in their carnal mind they have associated their own sins with this
blessed gift that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to the Apostle Paul to keep him humble. You
and I can never rejoice in our sins, we can only mourn in our sins, the Lord Jesus Christ
never gives us sins, he seeks to deliver us from sins, taking up the cross is not to
be equated with some thorn in the flesh that is associated with sin in our members, we
can always glory in the thorns in the flesh that God gives us, we can always glory in
the cross that we are called upon to be on. The Apostle Paul rejoices in the cross, the
cross of Christ, but he's speaking of the idea of crucifixion, he's dead to the world
and the world is dead to him because the cross that Christ bore and the cross that he is
asked to bear for Christ is in a sense a good thing, it is a noble thing, it is something
that brings to salvation and not to destruction. So what is this cross that our Lord Jesus
Christ says we must bear if we are to follow after him? Well it is not the sins of our
flesh, it's not the troubles of life and neither is it the cross that he bore for us and I
want to emphasize that because we might imagine that just because we are believing in Christ
and seeking sincerely to follow Christ that his cross will do and as long as we follow
after him he can do all the cross bearing, he can do all the hardships and he can bear
all the sufferings that must be borne for our redemption but that's not true, that's
not biblical, he's not speaking about his own cross, he is speaking about our cross
and just as he had his cross that was peculiar for him and was highly symbolic and effective
for him so every Christian believer has a cross that is highly effective and useful
for him and it must be borne. Bearing the cross is bearing the pain, it is bearing the shame,
it is bearing the suffering, it is bearing the reproach of Christ, it is bearing all
that ignominy and that evil speaking against us, the persecution of which the scriptures
speak, it is bearing all those hard things as we would regard them for the sake of Christ
because we belong to him, because we love him, because we let our light shine for him
and what we are doing in his name and what we are in his name we find that the world
doesn't like what we say and the world doesn't like what we are because men prefer darkness
to light and we find that as we seek to live the Christian life, men don't admire us, men
don't like us, they don't want to emulate this Christian life. There's a great mistake
you see that is often made that if you and I will live a godly life before the world,
the world will want to live the godly life too, that's not true. There have been multitudes
of men and women down through the ages who have lived the godly life and they have been
strong men and women for God, they haven't hidden their light and the world is not impressed,
the world might admire them for their moral integrity and might recognise that they are
good men and they don't beat up their wives and their good fathers and they are loyal
and faithful and faithful but the world doesn't want to live like that, the world prefers
its darkness, the world wants to commit adultery, it loves to get drunk, it likes to blaspheme,
the world loves to satisfy the desires of the flesh and of the mind to think earthly
things. You see there was a life that was lived in this world that was impeccable holiness,
he lived amongst us full of grace and full of truth and men said take him away and crucify
him, they said he's mad, they said he's got a demon, they said he's a blasphemer, they
said he's telling you lies, they said he is an ambassador and a miracle worker through
Beelzebub, take him away, crucify him, we're not interested in what he has to say because
we're not interested in him and we're not interested in his way of life. They found
his fault with hard sayings, they found his teaching unacceptable, they found everything
about him to be an offence and if they have called the master of the house Beelzebub,
the servant is never greater than the Lord and they're going to say the same to you or
about you and the Apostle Paul tells us that he says that if any man will live godly in
Christ Jesus, in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 12, if any man will live godly in Christ Jesus,
he is going to be persecuted and the more that you are like Christ the more persecuted
you're going to be, the more people are going to laugh at you and they're going to speak
about you against your back, they are going to cast out your name as evil. Blessed are
you when men shall revile you, when they shall cast out your name as evil, when they shall
separate you from their company, when they shall look askance at you, when they shall
do evil things and say evil things against you. Blessed are you because you are in the
good company of those who have always experienced the hardships that God's people have been
called upon to experience. If you wish to have a good name with everybody and if you
wish all men to speak well of you then just don't live for Christ, don't let your light
shine, just don't be a Christian and you'll be accepted into every salon and every place
in the world. They will have you but they won't have you if you have Christ because
Christ is an offense to the world. Now it's that kind of thing that the Lord Jesus Christ
has in mind when he says that we must take up the cross and we must follow him. The cross
is a symbol of shame. Roman writers in the ancient world they have described crucifixions
and they describe it with horror, even those pagan writers feel a sense of horror, a crucifixion
was a cruel, cruel death, a cruel thing. It was the symbol of shame and so disgraceful
was the death by crucifixion that no Roman citizen would be crucified. This was for the
scum of the earth and if perchance a Roman citizen was crucified he automatically lost
his Roman citizenship. It was beneath the dignity of Roman citizens to experience the
death of the cross and that is highly significant for us as Christians because in his letter
to the Philippians the apostle Paul in chapter 2 reminds us of how Jesus Christ was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. Now why would Paul emphasize the death of the
cross to these particular Christians? Because they were Philippians and were told in the
Acts of the Apostles when Paul went to preach at Philippi in Acts chapter 16 that this Philippi
was a Roman colony. These Christians were Romans and no Christian at Philippi if he
was sentenced to death would suffer the indignity of crucifixion and what the apostle is saying
is our Lord Jesus Christ, he was degraded and he was humiliated and he was called upon
by God to endure for you something that in human terms you will never be called upon
to endure. Even Roman authorities will not subject you as Christians to such a degradation
and humiliation as crucifixion, death by the cross. And so when the Lord is saying here
take up our cross, he is asking us to have that disposition and to have that willingness
to endure whatever may be called upon to endure for his dear name's sake because the cross
is a symbol of shame to be sure and all the disgrace and the pain of it and we won't go
into that but it is not ultimately for Christians any more than it was for Christ. It is not
ultimately the symbol of final and irrevocable death. It is a means to an end. We must never
dissociate the cross from the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and I want to end
this either. This is Easter weekend and this is the weekend in which the Christian community
in the world reminds the world as best it can of the resurrection and the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ is never to be divorced from the resurrection and indeed there is
hardly a place in the New Testament where the crucifixion of Christ is not mentioned
in distinction or in conjunction I should say with the resurrection. He died for our
sins, he rose again for our justification. The Son of Man must suffer many things. He
must be crucified, he must be put to death and on the third day he must rise. That's
the connection always at Christ's sake because the cross is not the end of things. The cross
is a means to an end. Now the cross of course is something that each one of us must receive
for ourselves. Your cross will be different to mine because I have burdens to bear that
I am called upon to bear that you are not called upon to bear and you have a cross that
belongs to you from Christ that I am not called upon to bear. Some of us have given heavier
crosses to bear than others but it matters not. According to the task, according to the
light that we are commanded to let shine in the world so we shall be found bearing the
cross of our Lord Jesus, as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember how, something
very interesting, remember when Paul, Saul of Tarsus was converted in Acts chapter 9.
We're told of that great Damascus road experience and you remember how in verse 16 of that chapter
the Lord immediately reminds this new convert Saul, Paul, through Ananias. He immediately
reminds the converted Saul that he is going to have to suffer many things. I will show
unto him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. Now we're hearing from Julian
of some of those things, the mark of a true apostle, the afflictions that he had to bear.
Now that was for him and that was the gift of God, it was the gift of grace and you and
I may not be called upon to bear that kind of cross because we're not called upon to
bear that kind of task, to do that kind of task. But we are called upon to be faithful
husbands and to be loving wives and obedient children and obedient employees and fair dealing
employers and so on and in all of these we must do all things as unto the Lord and then
we'll look askance at us and then we'll speak and to a greater or lesser degree as we name
the name of Christ, immediately we are associated with someone who is a stigma to the world
and there's a certain embarrassment and a shame that is inevitably associated with the
blessed name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One of the Roman emperors when he
was crucifying early Christians and he wasn't admiring them and you and I read about the
martyrs and we admire these men and women and sometimes boys and girls too who died
for the faith of Christ and what they endured we couldn't even imagine and we admire them
and we make a great mistake if we think that those observing them were admiring them, they
weren't, they thought they were the most ridiculous creatures that the world had ever
seen, they were laughing, kill them, feed them to the lions, cover them with tar and
set them alight, pour burning lead down their throats and so on. They didn't admire them
and one of the Roman emperors said on one occasion to a Christian, he said words of
contempt, he couldn't understand why this man was willing to be put to such a shame
and such a death, you worship a crucified Jew and you are just ridiculous and that's
the heart of the Gospel you see, that is true, the man Christ Jesus, we worship a crucified
man and the very heart of our Christian faith has to do with cross and crucifixion and death
and shame, that's the essence of it, what the world regards as so, so ridiculous and
so almost barbaric to us as the heart and the glory of our great salvation, without
the cross, his cross, we are not saved, without bearing our cross after him we cannot be his
disciples. So that's the first thing I want to emphasise in general terms, what is the
cross, it is that willing taking up of the shame and the scoffing and whatever is involved
in being identified with one who was crucified for our sins on the cross of Calvary that
he bore for us. The second question I want to ask is this, what is it precisely that
we are to do and notice it carefully, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. Now the Lord Jesus Christ uses a very interesting
word when he says take up the cross, he means lift up the cross, he means take hold of something
that if it is going to be part of our experience and if it is going to be a companion through
life will not automatically jump into our lap or into our hands, we must reach out and
we must take it and we must lift it up and we must take a firm hold of it and we must
hang on to it, that's the picture, grasp the cross and take it and lift it up and lay it
upon you and then begin to follow after me taking this thing that you have taken voluntarily
and taken willingly. Now I want to emphasise certain things about this, we are to take
it personally, let any man or whosoever, it's not something that can be done in the mass,
we can never lose ourselves in the mass of Christian community and Christian fellowship
and just go with the crowd, we can be in the midst of our vast company of sincere and pressing
Christians, professing Christians and we may be enjoying the preaching and we may be enjoying
the fellowship and we may recognise that these Christians are good people to be with because
they will do you no harm and what they say and what they do is wholesome and we can in
that sense be secure in their company and go with the crowd but this taking up the cross
is not something that they can do for us, it's not something that a husband can do for
his wife or a wife will do for her husband, it's not something that we as parents can
do for our children, not just perhaps we would long to do it, we cannot, if we are going
to be Christians, we must be Christians for ourselves and whether my children or my wife
or my companions are Christians is not the point and I must ensure that even whether
they do or do not take up the cross, that I will take up the cross for me and that I
will not live that cowardly life where I will shirk this great privilege and this great
responsibility, we must take this cross willingly and I would emphasise that willingness and
the gladness with which we take the cross because it is something that we must do with
a whole heart, we will never follow Christ if all the time we are finding the persecution
that will come and the ostracism that will come, if we are finding it a burden that is
too great to bear, we will never serve the King if all the time we are begrudging every
verse that is spoken against us and every hardship that we are called upon to experience
in his service, if we are unwilling and dragging our feet, we're never going to have the
enjoyment, dare I say, of taking up the cross and following Christ which is intimately
involved with a willing acceptance of his terms of salvation and I would emphasise this
too, not only must we take up the cross willingly and take up the cross passionately but we
are to take it up gladly in this sense, let us remember that the cross is a temporary
thing, it's a little thing surely to bear for Christ when we consider that the end result
is going to be, he was enabled to endure the cross because he looked beyond the cross,
thy will be done and he knew that death was going to be a grim reality and the pain of
Calvary and that horror of the darkness when he cried my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me, he knew that the hour was an hour that would almost overwhelm him but he knew that
there was another hour, the Father was with him, he knew that he would rise again on the
third day, never to die again, never again to experience humiliation or pain or shame
and he knew that the cross was a temporary thing and it was a brief thing, it would soon
be over and that's why I was reading in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 because in that chapter,
as in the later chapters in that great epistle, the Apostle Paul is speaking about his sufferings
for Christ, death worketh in us but life in you but he wasn't a pessimistic individual,
he wasn't one who was looking only on the dark side, we're persecuted but we're not
over much distressed, we're cast down but we're not destroyed, we are those who are
ridiculed by men and all that Paul experienced but he always saw another side and he always
saw the redemptive side, he always saw that whilst there was death working, there was
life working and he recognised that in his experience of suffering for Christ, the death
of Christ was working in him, working life in him, working life that was life abundant
and life everlasting and we must remember as Christian believers, yes, there is going
to be hardship and sorrow and tears but there is also going to be the end of that, our light
affliction and Paul uses the word feathery light, it's as light as a feather, this all
the suffering he says, it's as light as a feather and he says it is working for us a
far more and an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, it's an interesting thing I want
to emphasise to you, it's an interesting thing that both in the Hebrew language and
in the Greek language, the word for glory has to do with heaviness, it has to do with
weight, something that is almost unbearably solid and weighty, the suffering it says,
light as a feather and it's a temporary thing, it will soon be over and the glory that is
going to be revealed, it is so, so great and it is heavy, almost too heavy to be born,
the sheer magnitude of the glory and it is an eternal weight of glory but in order to
have that perspective, we must have the perspective of the apostle and of Christ, we look not
to the things that are sin but we are looking to the things that are unseen, the things
that are sin, the persecution by men, the mockery, the things that they say and do against
us, these are the seen things but they are only temporal things, the unseen things, heaven
and glory, the community of the saints, the angels that never sinned and all the blessedness
of what the Bible speaks about, the glorious heavenly state, these are unseen things as
yet and these are the things that we look at, by faith we concentrate our minds and
our vision on unseen things, that's what Christ did, the joy that was set before him,
he endured the cross, despising the shame, not making light of it, not saying it was
nothing but regarding it as something not to be weighed in the balances of the joy that
was set before him, he endured the cross and he calls upon us to take up the cross, take
it up, pick it up and put it on and carry it personally and carry it willingly and carry
it gladly, now notice the emphasis, take it up and there is no word in the whole of the
scripture ever about laying it down, you pick it up and all the days that we live our life
in this world we never lay it down again, once we pick up the cross, the die has been
cast and the moment of truth has come and there's no turning back, we follow on sharing
something of his reproach being upheld by his grace, he said to his father you remember
in his life of humiliation in this world, I know that thou hearest me always, I know
that God is ever with me, Isaiah the prophet you remember speaks of the coming of Christ
behold my servant in whom my soul delights, the one whom I uphold, upheld by God and
when the Lord Jesus Christ calls upon you and me to take up the cross and never lay
it down again, he doesn't ask us to do something in our own strength, I am with you always
even unto the end of the world, you see it's like the sharing of a yoke this cross, come
unto me all ye that lay there, take my yoke upon you, learn of me, the yoke is that heavy
wooden beam that binds oxen or asses together and they pull together, that's the symbolism,
it's another way of speaking of the cross and it's a cross that Christ shares with us
and he enables us and he lifts us up and he carries us along because he knows what it
is that he is asking us to do and he doesn't ask us to do it without first giving us the
grace and the promise of his presence, the soul to do, it's a wonderful thing and there
are many other things that we could say but I'm going to bring this to a close just with
one third and brief question and the question is again something that we touched on in a
previous session, it is what is the encouragement in all of this, what is the motive in all
of this and the motive in all of this I think is I suppose we could mention many things
but I want to emphasise this too, I don't have time for any more and I want to emphasise
this, first of all the supreme motive is the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ took up his
cross for us, in John chapter 18 when the multitudes came to arrest him and poor Peter
pulled out a sword and cut off the servant Marcus' ear you remember and the Lord told
him to put away his sword, put it away Peter, I've got a cup to drink, the cup that the
Father has given to me, shall I not drink it and you remember the context of that, let
these men go, I'm the one you're looking for, I'm the one, let these men go, you've got
no claim upon them, you've got a claim upon me, I'll drink the cup, I'll drink the cup
for them, I'll become arrested for them, I'll stand in their place, I'll take their guilt,
I'll take their shame, the cross that he bore is the cross that he bore for us, not
for himself, he didn't deserve to die, Christ would never have died except for our sins,
there was no seed of death at work in him, he would never have died because in him there
was no sin, the death that he died, the cross that he bore is for us, he took our shame
and scoffing hope and in our place condemned, he stood and that's the supreme example and
the supreme incentive and if that doesn't make the impress upon us that will make us
willing to bear our little cross for him, then there is nothing, I could preach here
until the end of the world and every preacher in the world could urge you, it would never
change your heart, you've got to see it for yourself just as the Corinthians, as Julian
was reminding us, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how though he was rich
yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might, it's the same argument,
the same thing, the cross of Christ that he bore is the supreme incentive and encouragement
for us to take up our cross for him and our cross will never be the burdensome thing to
us that his cross was for us for this reason, God forsook his son, God laid him upon him
the iniquity of us all, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ was a heavy, heavy burden and
he had to bear it with a sense of isolation, you will never have that burden laid upon
you, the burden of your sins as a Christian is not upon you, it's upon Christ, he has
taken our sins, we bear them no more, God has never said to any one of his people that
he is going to forsake them, there is only one righteous man in the whole history of
this world whom God has forsaken and that was his dear son on the cross of Calvary and
God's promise to you and to me as we bear our little cross is I'm with you, I will never
leave you and I will never forsake you and your sins, I will take them away and I will
remember them no more, Christ bore a burden that was inconceivably horrific and the depths
of it who can ever understand, eternity praising him, we will never know what the cost of our
salvation has been, I will never know what Christ bore for me and neither will you and
so it's a light thing, that's the incentive and further more of this and of this I'm going
to close, every Christian that you have ever met, every real Christian that you have ever
met and ever will meet and every true Christian with whom you can enter into the deepest things
of fellowship, every single one of them has taken up their cross and so you're in good
company, you're not alone, every Christian believer with whom you would want to live
your life in this world and live for eternity, they have all done this and if you would seek
to join them and enter into their community then join them indeed, do what they do and
you'll be in the good company, you'll be in the best of company, all of his disciples
have taken up the cross and if you don't take up the cross you'll be amongst those who are
ashamed of Christ, amongst those who prefer other things to the Lord Jesus Christ, take
it up and carry it and follow after me, don't drag it along as one of the old the Puritan
divines put it, that makes heavy business of the Christian life, dragging across along,
I don't think I could drag across, it makes life very difficult, the easy way to carry
something is to carry it, not drag it and that's what the Lord is saying, don't be reluctant,
face the issues and remember the glory and remember I am with you even until the end
of the age and when life for you is done you will hear him say well done good and faithful
servant, well done, come thou enter into the joy of the Lord, may God encourage us all
to be Christians all the days of our life according to the scripture, thank you for
your attention and your attendance.