Picking up Your Cross: A Guide to Self Sacrifice
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Well Folks,
I am glad you could all sacrifice your time this morning to join us here at Hillcity. You totally could have done the things you wanted this morning. Go to brunch. Lay in bed and not get up til noon. Have coffee and read a book. Maybe you just wanted to stay home and clean your house to get a start to the new week. Whatever that may be, you have sacrificed the things you wanted to do or could be doing to be here. And maybe you want to be here this morning. I do not deny that you may be pumped and excited to be here. But do you always feel that way? I know I sure don’t.
I want to be exuberant about Church and God but because of the nature of humanity and this world sometimes I struggle. So letting go of the things that I want and taking on the things that God wants is difficult for me at times.
I remember back in HighSchool and I was playing football. You know real tackle football with Pads and all that hitting stuff. Yeah well what I loved about Football was the camaraderie. During my junior year I was lucky enough to be able to start as the left Guard. This was awesome I got to play every offensive play. I got to feel that bond with my teammates. But during our first game in the fourth quarter I was injured quite badly. I had the right guard block somebody and they fell into the inside of my left knee as I was planted and engaged with a player on the opposing team. I left the game and the tests coming in from the doctors appointments over the next few weeks leaned towards me needing surgery. I was out for the rest of the year. Now I know some people in highschool when they had injuries would stop coming to practices. I knew it was gonna be a struggle for me for a while. But I chose to Go to every practice and every game. And it sucked. It was hard to watch your team win without (feeling as if they didn’t need you) or when they lost (and wondering if you could have a made any sort of difference). But the reason I kept going was cause I felt like there was maybe still something I could offer.
I sacrificed all that time I could have been doing something else like hanging out with friends or playing games, to help the team out in any way I could which was running a camera for film to helping pickup the training equipment. That is what I chose to do. And it was not for me. But it was out of a sense of teams-manship and wanting to help someone more than doing something comfortable for myself.
The Point is sacrificing is not easy it not fun a lot of the time. But it something a lot of us do? So why do we Sacrifice things and are we sacrificing the right things Now that is the question.
This I should clarify is something I struggle with. So if you are thinking that Max is up here talking about how he is really good about sacrificing That is not true. I ask this question of my self all the time and is what led to this Sermon.
And these words from the Apostle Paul, springs to my mind quite often. During these moments when I know that I am struggling with doing the things I should be doing.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
What is Paul Speaking about in this passage? He is asking us to give up the things that we want, our earthly and materialistic dreams and wishes, and focus on the things that God asks of us. He is asking us to give up The naughty things we do on the internet. He is asking us to get rid of those thoughts we have people that may be contrary to the Commandments of God. He is asking us to give up who we want to be. When He says do not be conformed by this world he is literally asking us to put on our glasses and look at world though the lens of the Christ. We can’t look at the world through Rose tinted Goggles. Why because we have to try and see the world for what it is. The Good and the bad. Not just the bad. So Aaron you and I need to start a podcast. Christ Tinted Goggles.
Anywho Paul is just asking us to give up all the yucky stuff in our lives and focus On Christ.
So what does it mean to sacrifice the way Paul is talking about it? Like what does that mean? Are there gradations of sacrifice or is it all on or all off like a light switch. What am I supposed to sacrifice?
Think of this story for a moment. As you know or maybe you don’t know I love reading and my favorite books of all time are the Lord of the Rings series by Tolkien. And I know my nerdiness is gonna come out in this story as I talk about a minor character in that story, but in the overall theme he is rather significant and offers a good example and analogy for this idea of sacrifice.
So just imagine yourself in pitch black. And all of a sudden Music the likes of which you have never heard starts playing and is causing the fabric of the universe around you to take shape. And then there is world Fully created and ready to go. The Elves awakened but they need to get away from This Dark lord so these elves. were led across the continent on which they awoke to the west to the sea. One of the Elves was named Cirdan. And in the beginning as his people were being led to the undying lands. This was the nice place to be away from the Dark Lord. But during the migration Cirdan’s King went missing so he and a bunch of other elves went back to look for him. And During that time they literally missed the boat.
And Cirdan Well He was bummed. You see the only thing he wanted to do. His biggest dream the only thing he desired was to travel across the sea and spend his life in the undying lands.
But He was given a gift. He was gifted the knowledge to be able to make these special boats that were able to cross the sea to the undying lands which were blocked off unless you had these special boats. But here is the kicker. He was not the only one left behind. And over the course of the years and ages. His people had been scattered across the continent.
So what did he do? Well He built boats and stayed behind so that he could continue to help all those others of his people who longed to make it to the undying lands. Until after nearly 10,000 years he could finally make the trip and see the land that he had been longing for since the beginning.
And You all are gonna say well, Max, this is just some made up story. Why should it matter? I would say that we can learn a lot from stories. For example Cirdan gave up his one dream. The only thing he wanted to allow others to get to where he wanted to go.
But if you want another story that is not made up, how about the one about A man. You guys are probably not ready for this.
This Man was born to a family who grew up as a carpenter, he Taught the word of God ,performed miracles, and Sacrificed his life to the people he was saving by take on the weight of the sin of the world and Dying on a cross. To resurrect on the third day and Fulfill a covenant and a promise made by God to us. That if we walk with him and devote our lives to him that we may spend eternity in his kingdom.
But that comes with sacrifice. We are called to sacrifice like Christ, We are called to be sacrificial in our lives. Much like Christ. Christ Gave up Living Comfortably in heaven. Her gave up living a quiet life. He was brutally and painfully killed and didn’t stop it. God is asking this of us. And i would argue that we are called to sacrifice fully the same way Christ did. So what does that look like.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
This passage in scripture tells us that we are going to have to sacrifice things in our lives as a cost to following him. And you know those things may not be easy to give up. In fact it is going to be very difficult to give up certain things in your life Like your time or maybe a close relationship with a friend because you need to keep them here instead of here. Or your family. Jesus talked about set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household What this is talking about is there may come a point when your faith in Christ breeds resentment in your own family people are not always going to like you for this. And it may not feel like that here where the US is rather tolerable of the Christian Faith but there are places that this is not the case. And It could very well destroy a family. And when Christ said this he was thinking about what he was saying and how it could destroy a family in that time. Following him was not popular among the jews. And then we get to after his crucifiction and his followers are still being persecuted and put do death. It was probably tearing families apart then. I am not saying it will tell your family apart. But there may come a time when you are going to need to do this. In fact I would go as far to say that bible is saying that you should be ready to sacrifice yourself in the same way that Christ did and his early followers did. When they were killed for their faith.
So when it says in Romans That we are to present our Bodies as the living sacrifice we are literally called to sacrifice things in our live that go against what God wants from us and we are supposed to not let the comforts of our lives make us complacent to what Christ’s sacrifice on the cross really meant. Because we are commanded to be the same. And though This does not necessarily mean that we will be called to give up on our family or be out to death, but it may cause strife and it may hurt and it may be uncofortable and it may ask us to give up things we really enjoy(Like video games or social media if they are getting in the way of our relationship with Christ). We are to look to God first over all of those other things. But that is because God is number one. And he should be.
Did you know that things that show up in scripture more than once tend to be important things that we should probably pay attention to. Ands this idea about taking up your cross is not just in Matthew 10
It is also here.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
And here
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
and here
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
and here
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Jesus is using a very strong symbol in the cross, BEFORE HE WAS CRUCIFIED, before he took up his cross and carried it to the site of his execution. It is significant because it is not what we think of when we see the cross. We see the cross and we see a symbol of our Faith. When Christ was talking about picking up your Cross he was talking about picking up the instrument to your own execution. He was talking about dying to yourself and to the world.
When Jesus is talking about carrying our cross he is talking about denying our worldly selves and submitting to the Authority of God. Being a disciple of Christ is not merely looking at the bible and saying I will follow this and I will follow that. No it is taking stock of God’s word and denying what you want in this world and sacrificing all of your wants your ambitions and look to the scriptures to be the Authority on your life and how you live.
We need to think and get in the mindset that it is not what we want. It is what God Wants. See God could do nothing more for us than he already has and it would have already been more than enough to gain our commitment. For us to want to pick up our cross and die to ourselves and be reborn as a disciple and follower of God.
How do we know what to sacrifice and to give up and handle certain situations so that I know I am carrying my Cross?
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
And how do we do that? It says to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, so that we may test and discern the will of God. Just Before that it calls us to be a sacrifice. Therefore we can look at our example of Sacrifice to see how Jesus knew what it meant to pick up our cross and lay down what we may desire. Peter also confirms the words of Paul.
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
So if we act According to what Paul and Peter are saying we are to thrown down our worldy passions and sacrifice all those things. pick up our cross and devote ourselves to the submission of God’s Authority. And change the way we think. Pauls says it by the renewal of your mind Peter says to arm ourselves with the same way of thinking.
This is were that question come in. One that I struggled with as well way back when. Way back in the day when I was younger and didn’t quite understand the magnitude of that sacrifice. The renewal that Paul talked about and the arming yourself that Peter is talking about are to think like Christ and view the world through the lens of of what God is saying. Not what We see.
When I was much younger like 6th Grade. I was struggling in school and in sports. Specifically baseball. I was squinting a bunch. Now this was becoming a problem and I was getting headaches all the time. My mother took me to the optometrist. eye doctor. And we were expecting that I maybe will need glasses or contacts. But it was much more than that. Turned out I had an astigmatism in both eyes. An astigmatism is just a condition where your Eyes are not sahped quite right so it messes with light intake and causes you to not see quite as clearly. I like to say my eyeballs are more football than basketball. So, to continue I got some contact trials to take home and on the drive back to my house I am staring out the window in just pure wonder. I remember very clearly saying to my mom. “Mom! There are leaves on the trees!” And of course I knew there were leaves on the trees but I was able to see them clearly from a distance for the first time since I could remember.
Having no glasses or contacts is like when you look at the world with nothing to help you see the world. We look at the world with out being aware of the things we need to do. We do don’t know how to interact with the world in the way God intends. I struggled when I fist got Glasses because it took time for me to get accustomed to what I was looking at. I didn’t have to sit in the front of the class. I could sit in the back. I could see a baseball I hit my first homerun. I could read things on the screen at church. So if you have bad Eyesight it is ok you are welcome at the front. Aaron and I don’t bite much.
I tell you this story because when we start to look at the world through the lens of the Scripture. of Gods word. The way Both Paul and Peter tells us to. right We are to be transformed by the renewal of your mind, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, We better can better know what God is intending in our lives, But Do not pick and Choose what from scripture you want to listen to. Listening to just part of scripture is like looking at the world through lenses with cracks and scratches. Scripture also confirms this for us. So as the worship team comes back up. Lets look at Timothy.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
This letter from Paul to Timothy he is confirming that all the teachings of Christ all of the the Old Testament is what we should be using to create that lens that we should be looking at the world through.
To sacrifice like Christ and be that Living Sacrifice that Paul is talking about in romans calls us to sacrifice like Christ. So whether that is to give up a dream we had because we are called to be a Father. Or to give up that sports game because you are Officiating your best friends wedding. Or maybe it is more and you are having to have tough conversations with your family. and they may not want anything to do with you anymore or you because of your faith you are in a position you are called to be in by God. We are called to sacrifice Like Christ.
And to know this we need to throw off our rose tinted glasses of this world and and renew our minds like Paul says through the word of God. So lets Put on those Christ Goggles and figure out what we are supposed to to give up. So that we may pick up our Cross and Follow Christ.
To know what God wants us to Sacrifice we need to spend Time in his word!
So start by sacrificing a little more time in your life to spend time with him. In fact if you forget everything I say this week. Remember that. Because with this this small little change you will start to see all the other changes you can make to to be a better follower of Christ.
So sacrifice a a little more of your time to Spend time with God and his Word.
