Sunday, May 6, 2018

Crazy things Jesus Said Take up your cross ad follow me. 5/6/18

Crazy things Jesus Said
Take up your cross and follow me.
5/6/18

How many of you have a cross with you today: either jewelry, or in your pocket or on a tie, or even a tattoo?
And how many have one or more crosses at home? Just about everyone. Crosses are everywhere. And everyone knows what it means. When we see a cross we know that it is a Christian symbol. It is a Christian building, person, book or whatever…
 There are dozens of different styles of crosses: budded crosses, and Armenian crosses, and Celtic crosses, and thieves’ crosses. The different types of crosses are really an interesting thing to study. But they all go back to one.  One cross that wasn’t so pretty. It wasn’t very fancy; in fact, it was very utilitarian. That one cross was not one that inspired a warm feeling, or hope, or love, but mostly it inspired fear… and that’s the way the Romans wanted it. The cross was a deterrent to bad behavior as much as punishment for breaking the law.
No one wanted to die on a cross. So Jesus invitation to “take up your cross and follow me” was not a very attractive invitation. It was not an invitation to a Mediterranean cruise, or fame, or wealth, or honor, or anything else that would attract followers. This is one of those sayings of Jesus that everyone agrees is absolutely original because no one trying to gather a following would make such an outlandish request. “Come on in. We have a cross waiting for you.” Is not a very good recruiting tool. In fact, it is one of those things that Jesus said that was kind of crazy.
 Remember we are looking at what I am calling the crazy things Jesus said. You know like unbelievable, incredible, or unworkable. I believe it is these crazy ideas that make us who we are as disciples and as the church.

This particular saying of Jesus was so important to, the early church, that it is recorded in the bible 4 times. There are not very many sayings of Jesus that are recorded 4 times. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have Jesus saying the same thing with Luke adding the word DAILY: “take up your cross DAILY.”
And then 5 chapters later Luke says the reverse: "Whoever does NOT carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” In one statement we are completely “in” because we carry the cross. In the other, we are completely “out” because we don’t. That makes taking up the “Cross” the core issue for discipleship. You can’t be partly right and partly wrong about your cross. You either carry it or you don’t.
 I want to correct 2 misconceptions right up front. First, the popular saying. “I guess it is a cross I have to bear” is not at all what Jesus was saying. When we say “It is a cross I have to bear” we are usually talking about something difficult that is forced upon us. Jesus is clear that the cross is not forced upon us. It is a choice we make to voluntarily and willingly deny ourselves and be a disciple, or not.

 Second, the cross of Christ and the cross of the follower are not the same cross. By Jesus’ cross we are saved. He went to the cross to destroy sin and give life. That is done once and for all, and it is a good thing because we don’t have the ability to do that anyway. We are not saviors. Our cross is very different.
Whereas Jesus’ cross was once and for all, we take up our cross every day. Our cross is not a cross of salvation, it does not pay for any sins. Our cross is our life of service to Jesus and our brothers and sisters. It is the living out of the greatest commandments: loving God and loving neighbor… it is the difference between believing in Jesus, and being a disciple.

 Let’s look at Mark chapter 8 New Testament page 8. We begin reading in verse 31: “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
Peter began to scold Jesus. Maybe he said something like, “You don’t have to do that.” Or “Don’t let that happen.” Or “I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.” Whatever he said, Peter was essentially tempting Jesus to think of himself first. He was trying to convince Jesus to deny who he was and refuse God’s plan. He wanted Jesus to take the easy way out. Peter wanted Jesus to think about himself and his friends first.
 And it was tempting. If it was not tempting, Jesus would not have replied in verse 33,
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” It WAS tempting for Jesus to think about himself first, (he was after all human) but Jesus recognized temptation for what it was. It was selfish and it was against God’s ways. He said (to the temptation I believe) get out of my sight, I don’t want you here.
Then he began to teach. “You know, guys you’ll face the same temptation. You’ll be tempted to think only of yourself or to think of yourself first. But don’t do it. And in verse 34 he drops the bomb, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Jesus teaches that to be his follower is to deny selfishness. As disciples, our lives are not about what WE want. Not what WE need. Not what would make US comfortable. Not what would make US happy. To be a disciple is to give up self-centeredness and live lives that are centered on loving God and loving neighbor. The question for the disciple is not, “What do I want to do today”, but “how can I love God and neighbor a little better today.” How can I love as Jesus loved, accept others as Jesus accepted them, share my faith as Jesus shared it, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and provide comfort to the sick and hurting.

Jesus goes on in verse 35…
 “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” When we hear this we think to “lose our lives” means to die. That is not really the sense here. To save something is to hold tightly to it. If we hold tightly and selfishly on to our lives, we don’t have a hand free to receive God’s abundant life and we will miss it. But if we hold life loosely, giving our time away to God here, our love to neighbor there, giving our resources generously to this project here, and our gifts to help those people over there, we will experience abundant life in God.
 To play it safe is to miss the opportunity to truly live as disciples of Jesus and children of God. To spend our lives freely loving God and neighbor is to discover true abundance of life and grace.

What happens if you catch a frog and keep it safe by sealing it in a Tupperware bowl? By trying to save it we kill the very thing we were trying to preserve.
If on the other hand, you take it down to the pond and let it go, what happens? You may be blessed with an abundance frogs.
This is the same idea. It sounds crazy, I know, but it is a law of life. If you never go anywhere you’ll never get anywhere. If you don’t do anything you won’t be anything. If you don’t love, you’ll never know what love is. If you don’t give you can’t enjoy receiving. And if you don’t pick up the cross of serving Jesus you’ll never become a disciple.
It is one thing to believe… but believing in Jesus gets us nowhere… being a disciple means taking up the cross of loving and serving in this life is to experience life eternal today.

 So let’s play a game. It is called “Who is the disciple?”
 Who is the disciple, the one who says I believe, or the one who shares their belief with a neighbor? (Click for answer)
 Who is the disciple, the one who knows God loves them or the one who shares that love with others? (Click for answer)
 Who is the disciple the one who never misses sitting in their pew on Sunday, or the one who might occasionally miss a Sunday but says, “I have to work Sunday morning, but I’ll cook on Wednesday night” “I’ll visit in the nursing home this week” “I’ll bring in a box of goodies for Operation Christmas child next week.” (Click for answer)
 Who is the disciple, the person who has memorized the Bible and keeps it to themselves, or the one who uses that knowledge to teach children about Jesus? (Click for answer)
 Who is the disciple, the one who says I’m too busy, or the one who says “I’m really busy but I want to be part of that.” “let me help with that.” “Where do I sign up for that?” “How do I get involved in that?” Or “I have an idea of how we can share God’s love with someone.”
 Who is the disciple? The one who says let someone else do that, or the one who says, “Here I am Lord, send me?”
And it is a continuum. There are times in life when it is all we can do just to get by, and those are seasons when we receive from those who are giving. If you are in one of those times God’s bless you. Let us serve you. But most of life is not made up of those times.
 No one is too young. No one is too old. No one is too inexperienced, and no one has done their share. And those who think they are too busy probably forgot the part about denying themselves, and they are trying to squeeze the cross into a life that is already full of themselves. It is a matter of deciding who comes first in our lives. But many walk by and leave the cross to be picked up by someone else.
In the last 11 years, we have done a lot. I think of things like “be the church day” the thousands of hours given to teaching children at LIGHT over the years, Habitat for Humanity, Salvation Army dinners, the nativity scene at miracle on main, the “Marymobile.” Those are times when folks really stepped up to the plate and denied themselves and took up the cross to serve and love for Jesus. What are some of your favorite memories of serving?
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It might sound crazy to say “If you want to be my disciple you have to take up your cross and follow me.” But it is really pretty simple. Discipleship is not a spectator sport. You are either all in or you’re not. Pew potatoes need not apply.


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