Take Up Your Cross | Jon Jorgenson Sermon

so hopefully those of you who have been here all week and hopefully you know by now what we're talking about this weekend right and if you haven't been here yet and you're joining us that's fine you will not feel at all like you've been left behind because we're gonna play a little catch-up right now right for those of you have been here you know that all weekend we've been answering the question what does it really mean to follow Jesus right what does true discipleship look like and last night we started that journey by talking about the type of people that Jesus calls to follow him and how Jesus calls us Jesus calls everyday broken messed up ordinary people and in fact Jesus actually calls ordinary people to an extraordinary life and then this morning based off of that understanding of who Jesus calls we dove into how do we actually answer that call how do we follow Jesus and we looked at two very clear explicit instructions that Jesus gives on how to do this and this morning we focused on the first one which is to deny yourself and this morning we talked about what does that actually look like in our day-to-day lives what does it mean to deny your self that's what we talked about this morning and tonight we are going to focus on the second instruction that Jesus gives in Luke chapter 9 verse 23 I wonder if you can figure out what the instruction is Luke chapter 9 verse 23 again says this this is Jesus speaking if anyone would come after me if anyone would be my disciple let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me tonight I want to talk to you about a command that Jesus gives that has always confused me I mean the idea of denying yourself we learned this morning that it was counterintuitive right it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense but this next command that Jesus gives this second in for how to be his disciple has always troubled me because it sounds really bleak it sounds really sad it sounds downright dangerous this idea of taking up your cross why why would Jesus tell us to take up our cross I thought Jesus took up the cross so that we wouldn't have to bear that punishment you see this command from Jesus to take up your cross always confused me even as I started writing this message but as I drove in I began to discover a few things that I want to share with you tonight tonight I want to talk to you all what I believe it really means to take up your cross every one say loud and clear take up your cross that's right let's pray Heavenly Father thank you so much for this week and thank you so much for this evening thank you for the worship father thank you for your word and thank you for your presence that is here in this room tonight Holy Spirit I pray that as I begin to speak that it would not be me speaking but you would speak through me and Lord I pray that as we dive into your word that you would open up the minds and hearts of each and every person in this room because you have something you want to say to us each of us individually and I pray for each and every heart in the room to be opened up and receptive to your word tonight God and I pray that those who have ears to hear that you would let them hear it's in Jesus name Amen now some of you might not be able to say this but you can you tell me what do I have on the back of my phone here what is this it's a cross you've seen this before yes most of us have I actually got this cross I found it last night in one of the children's ministry rooms and I stole it so don't tell anybody and I snuck into the back of my phone so yeah this it's a nice it's a little squishy I kind of like it I think the green looks nice against the blue I sort of I sort of like the way the cross sort of looks on my phone and and it's pretty common for us to see this symbol right in church in Chris culture at large right there's a lot of people who wear across as as jewelry like a cross around your neck or maybe cross earrings things like that I bet each and every one of you probably has a shirt that somewhere has a cross on it maybe from the last DNow weekend I don't know we see crosses on Christian apparel there are crosses in churches everywhere right you see him in the lobby you see him on the altar you see him walking up and down the pews you also see them at the top of a church building crosses are everywhere in society today but you see in Jesus's day in the first century this would not have been the case in fact in the first century people would have thought we were absolutely crazy for wearing a cross as a necklace or putting a cross on our phone because in jesus's day the cross meant something very very different you see for Jesus when he was sentenced to death by crucifixion and when he was forced to carry that cross and when he was hung up on it and when he eventually died there for Jesus the cross essentially meant for things and if you're taking notes tonight in any sort of way I would encourage you to write these four things down for Jesus first and foremost the cross meant opposition the cross meant opposition you see the cross in the first century it was used as an execution tool much like you've heard of maybe the electric chair right the cross that was the first century electric chair it was an execution tool and it was used specifically to execute the worst type of criminals murderers rapists right people who did unimaginably terrible things in today's society it might be someone like a terrorist right the cross was used to execute the worst criminals imaginable and Jesus when he is crucified he is being treated like one of the worst criminals imaginable the cross for Jesus meant incredible opposition the second thing that the cross meant for Jesus was shame often what would happen in the process of crucifixion we read about Jesus and how he had to carry the cross upwards of seven miles and during that you would actually walk through the streets and people would throw things at you and they would spit at you and they would hurl insults at you and then they would strip you of your clothes and hang you on the cross and the person who was being crucified would hang there often naked for hours as people continued to throw things at them and poke them with spears and spit on them crucifixion was an incredibly shameful shameful undertaking and Jesus experienced all of that shame the third thing the cross meant for Jesus was suffering you see the cross it was specifically designed for the victim to experience prolonged excruciating pain because not only would they take giant nails and put them through your hands and through your feet but as they put you up on the cross because of gravity what would happen is your body would actually start to sag down to the point where you couldn't breathe and you would begin to suffocate and so in order to survive what you would actually have to do is you would actually have to hold yourself up by the nails that are pressing into your hands and feet until you couldn't bear it anymore and you would let yourself sag you see people when they died on the cross most of the time they died of suffocation slow long painful suffering and Jesus experienced every bit of it God didn't lift him out of it at the last minute Jesus experienced unimaginable suffering and the fourth thing that the cross meant for Jesus was death see the cross it was not a tool that was meant to torture someone for a while and then let them go the goal the sole purpose of the cross was to kill someone and once you were crucified once you were hung up on those two slabs of wood you were not coming back from that and so for Jesus during the process of his crucifixion he experienced all four of these things Jesus experienced opposition he experienced shame he experienced unimaginable suffering and he experienced death that's what taking up his cross meant for Jesus and so I have to believe that when Jesus says to us his followers take up your cross he is warning us that when we choose to follow him we can expect to experience those four things as well you see when you truly follow Jesus you will experience opposition some of you who perhaps have a relationship with God and are trying to live out your faith in your school you've experienced that opposition right you have a classmate who's really hostile towards your faith or maybe some of you you don't come from a Christian home and you have parents who don't like you hanging out with your religious friends right or others of you you're finding yourselves having to separate yourself from a certain friend group because the things they're doing are the things that they're saying they're not necessarily what God or what Jesus would want you to be doing you see when we truly follow Jesus it often means living in opposition to much of what the world will teach us and so when we become a disciple of Jesus we can expect to experience that opposition and secondly when we choose to follow Jesus we will experience shame and we will experience suffering again maybe for you it comes from a sibling or someone at your school who just relentlessly makes fun of you for what you believe oh you believe that Bible stuff that's just old stories how could you be so stupid to believe that or maybe I don't know for you maybe it's it's a boyfriend or a girlfriend right who is forcing you or really really calling you a prude if you don't do certain things physically with them that that they want you to do and they're making you feel bad about it they're saying oh you don't care about me oh you don't love me and you're just feeling incredibly shameful because of it see when we choose to follow Jesus we choose to be his disciple the world will often try and shame it out of you and lastly when we choose to follow Jesus we also must follow him into death did you know that every single one of Jesus's disciples except for Judas and John every single one of them was martyred for their faith most of them were killed in the exact same way that Jesus was killed they were crucified on a cross because they believed in him and because they followed him and Judas and John didn't get out much better Judas killed himself because he betrayed Christ and John was exiled to a deserted island to die there alone and while this still happens in the world today right while there are still places in the world there are still countries where people are being persecuted and even killed because of their belief for most of us pretty much all of us in this room that's not going to happen to us no one is going to kill us for being a Christian most of us but you see we still must experience a different kind of death if we are to follow Jesus the type of death that Jesus calls all of us into is a death to self right we talked about this just a little bit earlier today we talked about how Jesus calls us to put to death the old self right Jesus calls us to die to lose to forfeit our physical life so that we can receive a new spiritual life in him and you see when you choose to follow Jesus you have to be willing to follow him into that death you have to be willing to put to death the old self to die to your physical life you see when we truly follow Jesus that means taking up the cross as he did when we are truly a disciple of Jesus we will experience opposition we will experience shame we will experience suffering and we need to experience a death now I know what you all are thinking opposition shame suffering death this is very encouraging John you're really making me want to follow Jesus I really want to be a disciple now I love shame and suffering yes firstly though I I hope you didn't think I was going to come here and sugarcoat it for you being a disciple it has never been easy and it never will be easy however I want to change our understanding of what those four things mean really quick what is vitally important to understand is that amidst this scary slightly dangerous proposition of take up your cross right in the middle of that command from Jesus are actually two hopes that we can cling to the first one is something that we talked about earlier today a little bit the first is that as followers of Jesus we can experience opposition and we can experience shame and suffering and death because we are following a God who experienced it first this is what makes Jesus this is what makes our God different than any other God in any other religion is that when you experience opposition from people at school or on your team Jesus knows what that feels like to experience opposition when you are stuck in shame when other people are shaming you jesus knows that shame when you experience suffering Jesus has felt that suffering no matter what you face in life no matter how much pain you are going through no matter how hard the opposition no matter how deep the shame Jesus has already gone through it and you are not alone in it I want you to hear that tonight because there are some of you in this room tonight who you are experiencing your own version of opposition or shame or suffering or even death and I want you to know tonight that you are not alone there are other people around you who are experiencing the same thing and more importantly you are worshiping a God who knows exactly what it's like that's the first hope we have that when we enter into those things we are not alone and the second reason that we have hope is because for Jesus the cross wasn't the end of the story was it you see for Jesus the opposition that he faced it didn't end in opposition it actually ended in reconciliation with God you see the shame of Jesus didn't end in shame but it actually ended in honor with him sitting at the right hand of the Father the suffering of Jesus didn't end in suffering it ended in peace bringing an end to the battle against sin and you see the death of Jesus it didn't end in death they thought that he was done for when he was hung on a cross but the death of Jesus doesn't end in death it ends in life when three days later he rose from the grave and see friends this is the hope we have take up your cross it is not an invitation to opposition and shame and suffering and death take up your cross is an invitation to know that those things do not have the final word in your life take up your cross as an invitation to know that just as Jesus's opposition wasn't the end of the story neither is yours just as his shame didn't end in shame neither will yours just as his suffering wasn't in the end for him yours isn't either and just as his death wasn't the end of his story neither will yours be take up your cross means that as a follower of Jesus we deny ourselves we take up that cross and when we do that we experience all four of those things but they do not have the final word and this is so important to understand because this is earth-shattering because for all of history before Jesus those four things they had the final word some of you might remember a story from Genesis chapter 3 in Genesis chapter 3 we read about how sin was born into the world why because of opposition to God we read about Adam and Eve in the garden in opposition to God because they ate from the tree that God told them to never eat from and out of that opposition what happened they experienced shame they were aware of their nakedness and they were ashamed of it and so out of that shame was born suffering because then greed and violence and selfishness and war and disease all of that was born into the world and then out of that suffering eventually came death and that was the story and so now because of sin these four things happen in life no matter what I have news for you friends these four things don't just happen because you're a follower of Jesus my guess is before you were following Jesus those four things were happening in your life anyway because in life you will experience opposition in your life you have probably experienced the opposition of sin and because of your living in opposition to God you probably have felt the shame of the mistakes that you've made and the wrongs that you've done in life you will experience suffering some of you in this room right now you may be experiencing unimaginable suffering maybe you lost a loved one maybe your parents are going through something terribly difficult I don't know but one way or another you will experience suffering and guess what someday you will also experience death it's a fact of life that we will experience these four things no matter what and guess what without Jesus opposition is just opposition end of the story guess what without Jesus the shame that you enter into just stays shame suffering just suffering and without Jesus death ends in death but Jesus came and he died on a cross to make sure that those four things don't have the final word in your life friends do not leave this room tonight without making the decision to remove the power from opposition to remove the grip that shame and suffering have on you to remove the power of death and instead say Jesus has the final word in my life you see we may think that the command to take up your cross sounds very scary and sounds very dangerous like we have to prepare for just a life full of suffering and pain and difficulty and that's what I thought for the longest time because you know what that is what Jesus's first century audience would have thought they would have thought we were absolutely crazy for wearing a cross as jewelry because to them it was a symbol of death they would have thought we were insane to wear a symbol of death on our t-shirts we'll put a symbol of death on the top of our churches but guess what we don't wear crosses for necklaces as a symbol of death DUII we don't put crosses on our churches because it's a symbol of death I tell you what I certainly didn't throw this cross on my phone because I wanted to put a symbol of death on it would you see what Jesus did when he took up his cross he turned this into a hopeful message because the cross that used to be a symbol for death when Jesus took it up he turned it into a symbol of life and so when Jesus invites you to take up your cross what he's actually saying is choose the life that I am giving you friends Jesus is not inviting us into death he's inviting you into a life that is more incredible and more eternal than you could ever imagine that's the invitation of Jesus to his followers to know that whatever opposition you feel whatever shame you're sitting with right now whatever suffering you go through today or tomorrow or the next day and even one day when you die that is not the end of your story but the end of your story is a resurrection the end of your story is hope the end of your story is reconciliation the end of your story is love and grace and peace and reconciliation intimate relationship with God don't let death have the final word and the only way we can ensure that friends the only way that can happen is through a relationship with this Jesus the Jesus who took up his cross and died on it for you [Music] so that he could have the final word and again if you are here tonight and you have never made that decision that decision to take up your cross and maybe part of it is because you were afraid of the opposition that you might experience or maybe it's because you were so ashamed of the mistakes that you've made you never thought God could actually forgive you or maybe the suffering you're experiencing right now is so bad that you could never understand why God would cause this to happen or allow it to happen but I'm here to tell you if you've never made that decision Jesus is calling you tonight to take up your cross which essentially means here is a new life here is a life where the sin that you are caught in here is a life where the opposition that you feel from those around you here is a life where you're suffering it's still there and it might still hurt but it doesn't end that way [Music] bringing you [Music]

Channel: JonJorgenson

Views: 26,979

Rating: 4.8855586 out of 5

Keywords: Jon, Jorgenson, Take up your cross, jon jorgenson sermon, jon jorgenson preaching, preaching, christian speaker, christian sermon, jon jorgenson speaking, youth group speaker

Id: GdOjROaBzwY

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018