Luke 9:23–26Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Luke. Luke chapter 9 verse 23 Luke chapter 9 verse 23–26 Six.
Put your finger in there. It's going to be a weird day. And turn to Matthew chapter 12. What was my actual assignment?
Verse 46–50. We'll read that first. Okay.
Morning I feel like a garden threw up on me. It's really weird, guys. Just really breaking out of the comfort zone here. It's just like I went back on some sermons to see how much I wear black.
And guys, it's troubling. Like black t-shirt every day for like 50 days. I promise I have a bunch of them and I wash them. Just what you whatever you It's kind of crazy. So, Matthew 12 verse 46 says, "While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and brother stood outside asking to speak to him."
Introduction
They were where? Outside. We do know from other verses you know prior to this and then in other gospels that the family didn't know what to make of him.
They were outside. They were outside in their belief. They had people who were Jesus disciples believed.
And then there were those in his family who were outside who didn't believe. Some of you today come in here and you have a family here that's not your blood family and they don't believe in Christ and they're outside.
And I know that many of you pray for them and you're concerned for them and we should be. But I want to say this. Jesus came to die for people outside the camp.
That's so he died for. Did you know that you can be inside the room and still be outside the camp? That's good.
And churches across America, there are people who are inside the room on Sunday. They're going to they're outside the camp. They look like they're in, but they're not in.
He came to die for people that are outside. But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" He's lost his mind. He don't even know who his mothers and brothers are anymore.
And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, "Here are my mothers. Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my mother and my brothers and my sister."
I think it's funny because they're outside the house calling him away from what God wills for his life. Those who say they will die for you, those who say they love you will call you away from God's will for your life.
We do this right inside the church. Now, let's jump because I think I have something for us here. I can break rules, I guess, cuz I mean, what are you going to do other than tackle me off the stage? I can't. I feel like this has been in my heart and I cannot get past it. I don't want to undermine the text. I'm trying to execute the text, but this word, this Scripture, I cannot get past. I cannot get past where Jesus is going. I cannot get past the urgency of the moment as he sits in the house and proclaims a word. I cannot get past what I'm about to read to you. I cannot get past it.
This is what sets before him what I'm about to read to you. And it's urgent. And sometimes we don't have time to mess about and mess around and not be in the word and not be faithful.
Sometimes we don't have time. Many of us particularly, I remember being young thinking, I had all the time in the world, and the older I get, the more I realize this go-kart's going down the other side, and it's picking up speed, if you know what I mean.
My life is the go-kart that I'm going down and I'm over the hill. You see what I'm saying? That's me. It's getting troubling. Matthew 9 23 through 26 has been ringing in my ears.
So, I'm going to do what I please here. I hope I'm faithful to what God wants here. And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily." Ouch.
And follow me. For whoever would save his life, that person's going to lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and he loses or forfeits himself? His true self. For whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the father and of all the angels.
But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. That's been ringing in my heart.
Has been ringing in my heart for quite some time in Matthew. For as he nears the cross, there is an urgency that rises in Christ.
And that urgency that rises in Christ should be rising in each of us. For we do not know the hour or the day or the moment where this life will end. And it is urgent.
We don't have time to mess about. It is urgent. Lord, we love you very much. What I pray this morning that you would temper my words.
I pray that you would strengthen my will and make it subservient to yours.
Lord, I pray that you would convict every heart in this room in a way that would call them to holiness. Lord, there are two calls in the world.
There's the call of the world calling us away from your will and then there's the call of God, which will we answer.
We see later then the Jesus says just not too long after this moment where he sits in the room and he begins to speak about who his mother and fathers are. God. We see him call us to pick up our cross.
This affects how we live. It affects how we sit in a house. It affects how we break bread. It affects how we drive in a car. It should affect every area of our life.
Lord, I'm worried. I'm worried because the church I see is not affected by you.
We come, we check in, we check out, and we live like the world. God, help us. Wreck our lives, disrupt our plans, undermine our will, and take us by force this morning.
Your precious and holy name we pray. Amen. I named this sermon a sentence, not a symbol.
The cross is not some symbol. It's not something you merely wear around your neck or hang from your rearview mirror.
The cross is a death sentence.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 11:26
And this morning, the text reflects not where Christ is going, but where he calls you to go.
Here in America, we spend our whole life trying to build something, and the Bible calls us to kill it. Kill it dead.
He wants you dead. And he don't want it just once. He wants it daily.
Wow. I hear the cheering now. There is a sentence in this text that I just read. If we actually believe it, if the people under the sound of my voice actually believe what I just read about the cross and the call to be his disciples, it would empty half the churches in America.
If they really believed that and at the same time the people that remained it would set those people on fire and they would become the type of people that would transform the globe for Christ.
Jesus said, "On that day, many will say to me, Lord, and then he will answer, I never knew you. Depart from me." Not a few, many people on that day. Many church people, many busy people who used his name, worshiped to his name, read about his name, declared his name, spoke his name, prayed in his name, worshiped in his name. Many people there is a Jesus movement today, but I'm afraid we might be worshiping at the feet of one we have constructed to our liking.
The greatest tragedy is not the lost who know they're lost. It's the lost who are sure they are saved.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:54
And I believe one of the reasons is this. We have kept the word cross and thrown away what it means.
When Jesus said cross to the crowd, he did not hand them a symbol. He handed them a death sentence. This is a different way of living the Christian life.
This is not my life plus Christ. That's not what this is. It's death to self. Not adding Christ to help self. Death to self.
Not adding Christ to make self better. Death to self. It was a death sentence. Every person listening had seen a man walk that road. And when men WALKED THE road to galtha, they did not come back.
They were dead. This meant something to the modern era with this was being spoken into. This was a road you walk and YOU NEVER COME back. Who you were is gone.
It's gone forever. This is where Jesus was going. This is who his family what his family was calling him away from. Do you not know what you're stirring up? Do you not know what they're going to do to you? Do you not know what kind of riots you're causing in the street? DO YOU NOT KNOW how they're talking about because we're concerned for you and your self-preservation. Come out from there. This is what he came to do. To die. He came to die. And they call him away in an act of love.
How many of you know that people can move towards you in an act of love and undermine what should be your ultimate love and tried to call him away from his purpose.
Let me tell you, it doesn't take much to convince yourself that maybe there's another way. Just maybe there's another way. Just maybe if I just stayed alive LONGER, I COULD PREACH more and teach more and save more and deliver more and heal more and cast out devils more. They need me. They need me here. They need me. They need me at this church. They need me in this family. They need me in the smoke. They need me. The Bible says he's trying to kill you. It's a death sentence. Calls you into a daily death sentence. This is not a token you wear around your neck to make yourself look better. This is it's over for you.
If you can carry the cross in church and carry the cross back out unchanged, it's not a cross. It's become a prop for your life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 17:33
Jesus never once lowered the price to raise the crowd.
In John 6, the crowd walked away. He didn't chase them. He turned to the 12 and asked, "Do you want to go as well?" That's the question this morning.
I'm not asking if you like Jesus. Everyone likes Jesus. Everyone is okay with Jesus. I'm asking if you've died.
Are you dead? This morning, I want to show you four things a cross does just to brace for impact so you can evaluate your life. A cross demands your death.
Number two, a cross disgraces you before the world. Number three, a cross determines your direction. You do not. A cross delivers. Number four, what the world never could. Amen.
Can I get an amen on that one? It's coming. The good amen's coming at the end. It's going to be three whoopsy daisies and a real big amen. So, brace for impact. Number one, a cross demands your death.
Point 1A cross demands your death
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. It's a death sentence. Let's be clear about what Jesus put in our hands. Rome never built a cross to correct man, to fix MAN, TO HELP MAN BE BETTER.
Rome built a cross to end him. You feel the tension there? Because many people come and they want to pick up a cross on Sunday to make the version of who they are better than who they used to be. That's not what the cross accomplishes.
Nobody was ever nailed to a cross for counseling. Nobody ever came down off of one as a better version of himself.
A cross does not coach the self, improve the self, MANAGE THE SELF. A CROSS kills self.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:17
And look at the word Jesus uses deny. It's the same kind of word that describes what Peter did by the fire that night. It's what Jesus said Peter would do at dinner. You will deny me three times. Same word.
Same word, not just in English, it's the same word. A servant girl came to him and said, "Hey, don't you serve him? You sound like him."
And Peter said,"Woman, I don't know him." He denied Christ. That's what it means to deny self. You look at the old you, the one who used to run your life, AND you say, "I don't know that man anymore.
I don't love that man anymore. I don't want to have NOTHING TO DO WITH that man anymore. That man's dead to me. He's dead to me.
This world in which we live. And I understand what I'm speaking into today. And I'm trying to be I'm try I want to be gentle, but Scripture just doesn't allow for it.
This world in which we live worship self. We is Scripture and twist it to bolster self. We celebrate pastors and preachers that motivate, encourage, and lift up.
Here's what our culture preaches every day. It was built on a whole religion around self. Let me tell you what it preaches. Self esteem, self care, self love, selfhelp.
They're books, guys. You know where I'm getting these from? The Christian book section. Selfimage, selfworth, selfidence, selfexpression. Saw all these at Barnes & Noble recently.
Selfdiscovery, selfpromotion. Self reliance, selfpreservation. You with me today?
Walk into any bookstore, there's a whole aisle for self-help, if not four. There's not even one shelf for self-denial. Matter of fact, I didn't even find a book.
We have thousands of books on how to save yourself. And Jesus wrote one sentence on how to end yourself. That doesn't sell.
I don't hit the top seller list. Every one of those words start with self and every one of those words end at an altar.
One generation didn't stop worshiping. We just moved the idol into the mirror.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:40
Listen to the creed of this age. The world says find yourself. Jesus says lose yourself.
The world says you're at the center of the universe. The gospel says you're the problem with the universe. The world asks, "What do you want?" THE CROSS ASKS, "WHAT are you willing to bury?"
Here's the tragedy. Many of us didn't reject that creed when we came to church. We brought it with us today. We wanted Jesus who will help the self, heal the self, bless the self. But you frankly are asking Jesus to bless the very man he came to kill.
You are asking him to put makeup on a corpse. Shocking. The gospel is content with your deletion.
The world places the highest value on self. The gospel is perfectly content with the self being removed. Je the Baptist understood this when the crowds began to follow Jesus. Here's what he said in John 3:30. He must increase. I must decrease. That word decrease, disappear.
He understood that the greatest disappearing act would be self. So that God would be celebrated. He didn't say I must be balanced.
We need to share this stage. He said I must decrease. If it meant Jesus being seen, it was he was okay with him being invisible.
Oh, that's problematic for our culture when we just need to be seen. See me.
Notice me.
The Bible never talks about your old self being improved. Romans 6:6 says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him." Galatians 2:20, "I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live. I don't live at all, but Christ lives within me."
Your deletion is necessary for Christ being visible to the world. I it is amazing because those that we would label the greatest evangelists in the world.
We see much of them and little of Christ. So I'm I'm I'm concerned. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3. Notice it no longer it is no longer I who live. The Christian life is not you living for Jesus. It's Jesus living where you used to live.
Two kings can't share a throne. I too much. Right now in your seat I'm going to skip a bunch. Right now in your seat, name the place where self is breathing.
Self usually stays alive by feeding these three things. Write them down. Your rights, your reputation, your resentment. Your rights. I deserve better than this. Your reputation. What will they think of me? Your resentment.
You don't know what they did to me. That keeps you off the cross and makes self rain. Right now in your seats, name the place out of those three where self is still breathing.
That is not where you need more encouragement. That is where you need to perform a funeral. All right, enough of that. Man, everybody shake it off. We need some calisthenics up in here.
That bothered me, man. Because I'm immersed in this culture, too. Number two, a cross disgraces you before the world.
Point 2A cross disgraces you before the world
For whoever is ashamed of me in my words of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes to glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. If you thought death was the worst part, just wait.
Understand this. Rome had faster ways to kill a man. A sword was quick. A blade was clean. Rome chose the cross because it was slow, it was public, and it was naked.
There's a Lot of things in this life that are calling you. Calling you away from the word. Calling you away from Christ. Calling you away from your purpose. Calling you away from your profession. Calling you AWAY.
What call will you answer today? Jesus called you to pick up your cross. Well, that call was extended by the people I love, so it must be right.
That call was wrapped in biblical language. That call came from one that God chose himself. I must answer the CALL. I mean, if Mary calls the one anointed of all women, if she calls me away for my purpose, it must be God's purpose. We have all sorts of excuses that we make for oursel. But Jesus called you to pick up your cross. What call will you answer?
Roman citizens were used usually spared from it. Some Romans thought the word itself was too vulgar to say in polite company, cross. They would even say cross at dinnertime.
And you wear it around your neck. The cross was for slaves and rebels and the lowest of the low. Scripture says, "Cursed," Galatians 3:13, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on that tree."
Rome didn't just want you dead, man. Rome wanted you disgraced. The cross turned a man's death sentence into a message.
This person is nothing. This person is worthless. So when Jesus says take up your cross, he was not only asking for your life, he was asking for your name.
It's a cost. It's a cost. This is a cost greater than death. Here's what I found to be true about the human heart.
Most people fear embarrassment more than death itself. We sing about dying for Jesus. We say we give our lives for him. But watch what happens Monday around the break table when somebody jokes about Christ.
Watch that. And that is exactly what verse 26 is aimed at. Jesus didn't say, "Whoever won't die for me." He said, "Whoever is ashamed of me,"
SOME OF YOU WANT PEACE in your family, so you never talk about Christ. You're ashamed of him around dinner tables with people you say you love.
You're ashamed of him. You say you will die for him. You sing songs that you lay down your life for him, but you can't even be embarrassed for five minutes at Thanksgiving.
OKAY. SO, what does it look like to be disgraced with Jesus? Look at what the cross did to him and know he's calling you to the same.
He says, "take up your cross." What HAPPENED TO him on that road is what he's calling you into. Get it straight. Don't get it convoluted. Jesus was disgraced three ways. He was rejected. He was ridiculed. And he was reveal he was revealed.
I know they're all ours and I know all my points are D's and that's just what I do. And don't make fun of me, please. That's a rhyme. I made a poem. Here's what the cross will do.
Well, I don't want to be ashamed. I live in a world where everybody's told me I will never have to be ashamed. God's not placing shame on you, is he?
No. He's just simply calling you to the greatest bit of shame you will ever experience. You will be rejected. Look at the road to Golgotha. Five days earlier, the city threw palm branches at his feet. Now the same voices are screaming for his blood. Some of you, it takes three years for people to hate you.
Here. It took five days. Oh man. They said, "I do not know this man." Peter the rock is cursing and swearing. I do not know this man.
Jesus did not walk to the cross surrounded. He walked alone. That's what he's calling you to. To walk alone.
Brooke would tell me in our earlier years of ministry, we have a wonderful family here, so don't get this wrong. Ministry is so lonely. Being a Christian is lonely.
Being a pastor's wife is so lonely. Picking up your cross and being a disciple is lonely.
If your greatest thing you wrestle with today is FOMO, you might have a problem.
What you need is not to get over FOMO. What you need is a funeral. And he said something harder. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own line, he cannot be my disciples. In other words, he's saying there's a will, there's a destination, there's a purpose I'm going to, and even family will call you away, and you have to hate that call more than his call. Let me ask you, who are you more afraid to lose? Them or him?
Who? Because one day you'll have to choose. If you need the crowd's permission to follow Jesus, you will never follow him. Number two, point B and point two.
You will be ridiculed. Watch the shoulder. Watch the soldiers. They threw a purple robe over his body, bloody shoulders. They twisted thorns into the into his head. They put a reed in his hands, spit in his face, and they fell on their knees, and they laughed at his pain. Hail, King of the Jews.
They were mocking the one who made the knees they knelt on. On the cross, the religious leaders joined in and they said, Mark 15:31, "He saved others. He can't even save himself."
And they were right for the wrong reasons. He could not save himself and save you at the same time. So he chose you.
Could it be for all the parents in the house who are worried about their children, praying for their children, hoping their children will be saved, and trying everything to make sure their children are saved? Maybe the pathway to their salvation is a funeral for you.
And the more you try to boost self, the further away becomes their salvation.
That's good enough for that point. I need to get on to something a little more. Number three be see you will be revealed.
They stripped him folks. I couldn't even I couldn't even get naked in the locker room. I didn't take a bath my whole years in high school or shower after a game because what God produced under here should stay under here.
If you know what I mean. They stripped him. Verse 26 again. A shame to me and my words. It is his words.
No. They stripped him. The soldiers divided his clothes. John 19:23 and 24. The soldiers divided his clothes and gambled for his coat while he hung naked on the cross.
What makes you think twice about hanging that cross around your neck? I'm not saying don't have a necklace. That's not what I'm saying. Makes you think twice about that necklace, though, doesn't it? Because you were called to pick up yours.
And you spent your whole life in the church trying to position yourself to still live, just be tweaked.
The cross is a place where nothing stays hidden. Guess what? It didn't just do this for Jesus. It will do it for you. Everyone in this room is wearing something to cover up.
And we all said, "Amen." Amen. Can I get an amen up in here? Let me move it beyond actual clothes to this. Everyone in here has a curated image.
The title on the door, the I'm fine on Sunday during conversations at coffee, the religious resume of how long you've served and what you've given.
But the Bible says in Hebrews 4:13, "No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
You can hide from this church. You can hide from your spouse. You will not hide from him. And Isaiah says, "All our righteous deeds are like polluted garments that must be stripped."
You can't follow a naked savior while dressed in your own righteousness.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:07
So here's the choice. You will either let the cross strip you today or the judgment of Christ will strip you later.
You choose. Number three, I'm moving quickly. A cross determines your direction. Luke 9:23 says, "Pick up your cross daily and follow me." He's going somewhere, guys.
Point 3A cross determines your direction
He's going somewhere. Follow me. Don't follow the call of your MAMA. Don't follow the call of your daddy. DON'T FOLLOW THE CALL of your family. Don't follow the call of your pastor.
DON'T FOLLOW THE CALL of those people. Follow the call of Christ to come and pick up the cross.
He knew where he was going. Was going to die. And some of you need a funeral of self today as well. Otherwise, any call that's not God's call, you'll run to that beckoning.
Oh man. Do you know what was outside the camp? I'm going to say this. A man carrying a cross, first of all, has already given up his plans. Well, this wasn't on my calendar.
Sorry about you. Hebrews 13:12-13 says this. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. What does that mean? What does that mean? Pick up your cross. THAT'S WHERE YOU DIE. Outside the camp. That's what it means.
Do you know what outside the camp in the Old Testament meant? That's where they burnt the sin offerings. That's where they sent the lepers. Outside the camp was the place for the unclean, the unwanted, the condemned.
That's where Jesus went. And that is where he says, "Come to me all you who are weary of keeping self alive. COME TO ME ALL you who are weary and heavy laden and I'll lay you to rest."
Come on now. Come on now. Come on. You're like, "come to me all you who weary and heavy laden and I'll help self feel better.
This is a funeral. Following him means you leave the camp behind. You leave behind the approval of the crowd. You leave behind what people think. You leave behind the comfort of a religious system. You leave behind the place where everybody claps for you and cheers for you and celebrates you and LOVES YOU and adores you.
You cannot follow him out of the camp and keep one foot inside the camp. And don't miss what Jesus says at the end of the same chapter in Luke 9:62. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
Some of you were walking forward with your body, but looking back with your HEART. Remember Lot's wife? She left the city, but the city never left her. You can't carry a cross forward while you keep looking back.
Nobody carries a cross to nowhere. It always takes you outside the camp away from the things that inflate itself. You don't set the destination, by the way. He sets the destination.
He told you the path you'd walk. He told you what you would carry. And he told you what was at the end of that path. A lot of us want Jesus to be a GPS system. We type in the destination, the career, the house, the marriage, the dream, and we want him to get us there faster.
That's not what he is. If the people in the church today across the world understood that Jesus is not a destination you type in to get yourself to some lucky charm or rabbit's foot you rub to get access to what you dream. If they really knew that it would evacuate the churches.
He's not a GPS system and stop looking at it at somebody else's road. What Peter looked what Peter looked at John and asked, "Lord, what about him? What about him? What about him?"
Jesus says, "What is it to you what happens to him? Follow me." You were not called to their cross. You were called to yours.
Many of you are following Jesus the way a tourist follows a tour guide. You stay close while the sights are pretty and the moment it gets steep, you head back to the bus.
I can say that with certainty that people do that in the church. Jesus is not looking for fans to cheer him. He is looking for followers who die.
Fans want a seat. Followers want a savior. Fans show up when he's winning. Followers show up when he's bleeding. Fans post the verse. Followers live that verse every day of their life. And Jesus asked, "Why do you call me Lord, and not do what I tell you?"
Lord is not a title you give him. It's a position you surrender to.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:42
Number four and the last one. And I got to go, man. I'm probably out of time. I can't see nothing. A cross delivers what the world never could.
Point 4A cross delivers what the world never could
Here's the encouraging note for the day. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
And now Jesus does the math. And his math will never make sense to a world that only knows how to hold on. The world says hold on tight.
Build it up. Grow it. Better it, protect it at all cost. And Jesus says, "Open your hands. Save your life. You lose it.
Lose it for him, you'll finally have one." Think about where we're actually holding on to. What we're actually holding on to. A job title someone else will have in 10 years.
A body that gets older every morning. A reputation people will forget before your funeral lunch is over.
That's what you're spending your life building. It's a favor.
We're building our whole social media account. That will mean nothing when you get to the judgment seat. The world promises you everything and then takes you.
Jesus takes everything and then gives you himself. You can gain the whole world and still walk into eternity emptyhanded.
Every man leaves this world with empty hands. The only question is whether you open them for Jesus or death had to pry them open.
Track with me today. I'm closing. Probably my fifth closing, but I'm closing. I'm passing a kidney stone. So, this is why it's been so long probably. I don't even know how long it's been. I'm in a time warp up here. Time warp pay. You know what I mean? So maybe temper anything that's coming out. No, don't temper it. It's okay. God knows what he's doing. He's providentially in charge.
Track with me today. I'm going to get an email about this. Just track with me today. I'm going to give you something to consider today.
For all you concealed carry people. Okay, everybody take a breath. IN THIS nation, we will carry arms.
Let me give you something to consider today. How many of you ever heard of the missionary Jim Elliot, the end of the spear? Remember they went to Ecuador? It was him and three other guys. I wish I knew their name. I don't. Jimmy, Bobby, Billy, just I don't know their name.
They carry two rifles with them. I mean, I might carry a few more if I was going to where they eat people for dinner. You know what I mean?
They had many conversations before they went and they decided, I'm not sure why they even brought their guns. Not sure why they brought them. They decided they wouldn't use them.
Kind of like why bring them? They wouldn't use them. And when they got into a difficult situation, they laid their guns down and they were speared through the chest and killed.
The reason they didn't use their guns is because they knew Christ. And because how can you kill that which has already had a funeral?
Listen to me now. Listen to me. They were concerned about sending people to hell who didn't know him to defend a dead man.
They understood something about the gospel that I think many of us don't understand. We're dead. We're dead. We're dead.
And because we're dead, we live. You can pierce me with a spear. You can eat me for dinner and I will live.
Jim Elliot wrote in his journal, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep and gain what he cannot lose. And then a few years later, he gave his life trying to reach people who killed him.
The cross is not a gun you wield to kill your haters. The cross is a device to kill you.
Now hear this clearly because some people get confused here. You do not carry the cross to earn your salvation. Jesus carried the cross that saves. Your cross doesn't pay for anything. He paid for everything. But a person who has truly been saved by a crucified Christ will never be content to live a life that's uncrucified itself.
I long to be car covered in the dust of my rabbi. And if he walks this path to a cross, so will I. Listen today as I close. Grace is free, but following is fatal.
Both can be true. Paul said, "Examine yourself to see whether you're faithful." The evidence of grace IS NOT A PRAYER you prayed years ago. It's a road you're walking today.
DON'T REST your eternity on a moment you can't connect to a life. And the cross is never the end of the story. Amen. Friday was real, but Friday was not final. The cross is the only death that ever led to life.
Every cross Jesus calls you to carry has a resurrection on the other side of it. What you lose for him is worth it.
The cross delivers you from you, but it ultimately delivers you to him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 59:26
And no one in glory will ever say, "I just gave too much."
No one will stand at the pearly gate and see Christ face to face and say, "I wish I would have held back a little more. I wish I would have pri prioritized self a little more.
Here's what I'm going to do. I don't have a watch. Not my problem. I'm going to do this. You got three minutes. Three minutes, right? Especially after that message. I mean, you wouldn't want to, you know, not die to yourself and your time in this particular moment in time, right? You wouldn't want to do that. You wait till next Sunday to do that. But this, let me ask you something. Ebony, would you come sing a song? We'll see how this goes. I don't She's not prepared for this. I like song three. I like song three. You remember that song? I hope it's the right song. We'll see what happens here. I like this song, but I threw her a curveball. She has no clue what I'm preaching, but this was an interesting song.
Interesting song. Listen today. Today your job is calling. Today your family's calling.
Today your wants and your will is calling. Today culture is calling. Today you are being preached at all the day long by what the world wants you to understand and know today at the same time Christ is calling.
We see in Matthew, God has called Christ to a hill. And we see just a few chapters later that he calls the disciples to the same hill. We see him sitting in a house and proclaiming the word, fulfilling his mission with the hill in his mind.
And today he places you in the in between and betw twix two callings. What call will you answer? Oh, maybe all of you are saved today.
Maybe. But there is a difference between coming out from your rose, coming down to an altar, and picking up your cross. There's a difference.
There's a difference between taking Christ to bolster self, restore self, keep self alive, and having a funeral and dying.
There's a difference.
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