The Commitment to the Cross

Returning to the Cross Sermon Series

“The Commitment to the Cross”

KEY PASSAGE: Matthew 10:32–39 (NASB)

Thank you, Worship Team, for blessing us and ushering us again into the presence of God. We thank You, Father, for giving us time to consider the greatness of what Your Son did when He rose from the dead. We bless Your name for the resurrection. We realize that You are in charge of our lives in every situation. We thank You for allowing us to face Monday, face the rest of our lives, and say, “Death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” In the name of Christ our Lord and Savior, with thanksgiving, we pray, and everyone says, Amen. You may be seated.

TITHE and OFFERING

We will call on the ushers to pass around the offering plates so we can give our gifts to God. The worship team will lead us [again] with a song as we collect our tithes and offerings.

PRAYER FOR TITHE and OFFERING

I pray that the tithe and offering collected will be used with integrity and honesty for Your work here at the church. Bless the use of these gifts in communicating the wonders of Your love and the measure of Your mercy. Bless these gifts to enrich the human spirit, and may Your name be honored and glorified in it all. Help us to trust You in the name of Jesus, Amen.

WELCOME

Welcome, everyone, to our Easter Sunday Worship Service. Please stand up, greet some folks around you, and welcome them to worship. Our first-time visitors, please stand so we can see you. We also welcome all who join us online.

ANNOUNCEMENT

·  Wednesday Night [Remember] is our Bible Study Connect at 7:00 p.m. Please join us on Wednesday night to study and navigate the Word of God.  We are almost done with the Book of First Corinthians. We have two chapters left, and we will start

the Book of First Samuel next month. Our Corporate Meeting is every Saturday at 8:00 a.m. If you have a prayer request, please complete the online or in-person prayer request form so we can pray for you.

· Worship Night is held on the last Friday of each month. This month’s Worship Night is scheduled for April 25, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. Women's Night is on April 26, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. This is a time for women to unite, fellowship, pray, and encourage one another.

· Due to Kenny Hughes’ Memorial Service on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. here at the church, there will be no Community Meal on that day. All the weekly activities for the church are posted online on the church’s website.  

DECLARATION of FAITH in GOD

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together. Please remain standing as we pray.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Please close your eyes, and let us pray. Father, thank You this morning for bringing us together on this joyous Easter Sunday. A time when we so excitedly set apart our thoughts and minds from all other things to concentrate upon the resurrected and living Christ. We thank You for the fact that You are alive. We thank You that we do not worship a … a dead idol, one who cannot respond, one who cannot speak, a silent god, but we worship a living Christ, who moves and walks in our midst. We are very thankful for this reality. Bless our hearts as we attend our attention to the Word of God. There is nothing I have to say but only what Your Holy Spirit would speak through me. Exalt Your Son, Christ Jesus, through the Word. We pray in His blessed name. And everyone said Amen. You may be seated.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

One of our [greatest] problems today in the church is that so many of us Christians have been satisfied with regular Christianity. We are regular Christians; we attend church every Sunday. We have a regular Sunday worship experience, and we are satisfied with the regular Sunday worship service because it feels so good. Regular is not too bad. A regular Christian is not too bad. But there is so much more to this Christian life. Jesus said in John 10:10, “I have come to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly.” INTERPRETATION: I came to super-size your life. Jesus did not die on the Cross 2000 years ago so that you could be a regular Christian.

If you are satisfied with a Sunday sermon and a Sunday praise and worship song, you are a regular Christian. If you are happy [satisfied] with a good feeling or [you] are spiritually entertained by your preacher on Sunday because your pastor is a Bible expositor [a good preacher], you are a regular Christian. If you say grace before eating your meal and know you are a pretty nice person, you are a regular Christian. But what God wants to do for Christians is super-size us. It is called abundant life. When something is super-sized, there is an overflow because it is much bigger.

When Jesus talked about super-sizing life, that is to experience life at a new level and dimension. The word Jesus would use for that is the word discipleship. Jesus would often invite people to come to Him for salvation, but then He would challenge them to become His disciples. Salvation, as we all know, is when you trust Jesus Christ as your sin-bearer. When you place faith in His finished work on the Cross as your [personal] substitute, sins are forgiven, eternal life is granted, and you become a Christian.

But we also know that you can be a miserable Christian, a defeated Christian, and a failed Christian. You can be a Christian who has very little to say about the reality of God at work in your life experience. You are on your way to heaven, but you are not experiencing the reality of heaven. You cannot get heaven to meet you down here on earth. The tragedy about being a regular Christian is that you think you are doing okay, [Alright] because everybody else around you is a regular Christian.

SERMON EXPOSITION

In the Bible, salvation is FREE; you don’t pay to be saved. We are told that, it is by grace alone that we are saved. Romans 3:24 says, “We are justified freely by His grace.” Whenever anybody charges you to become a Christian (To become saved by coming to Jesus), you know something is wrong because we are told that salvation is free, but to super-size your life, that will cost you something. So, whenever Jesus talked about this concept of discipleship, He would always tell them the price. Discipleship comes with a cost.

Jesus consistently emphasized that discipleship comes at a cost—it requires sacrifice, commitment, and a willingness to follow Jesus. Luke 9:23 says, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Discipleship means self-denial and daily surrender to Christ. So, the question before us is: “Do you want a super-sized life?” And over, and over, and over again, Jesus would repeat the price of discipleship. In Matthew, chapter 10, He says in verse 38, “who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” Jesus made a strong demand in verse 38.

The context of that statement is very revealing because Jesus is talking about discipleship. When you go down to verse 24 of Matthew chapter 10, He says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.” You will never get in trouble for believing in God; Jesus is what causes folks to get into trouble. Belief in “God” can be general and accepted, but proclaiming Jesus as the only way to salvation will get you into trouble. Jesus says in verse 32, “If you confess Me before men, that is, it is clear that you are a visible and verbal follower of Jesus Christ, then I will confess you before My Father who is in heaven.”

If you deny Me before men, if you are a secret-agent-Christian, a spiritual CIA representative, or an undercover operative, I will deny you before My Father. God wants to use many Christians today to carry on His Kingdom agenda and objectives here on earth, but we are either too busy or not fully committed to God. We are not committed to the Cross. God desires His people to participate actively in His Kingdom work, but distractions and divided commitments prevent our surrender. There are repercussions associated with Jesus. In verse 34, Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

“For I came to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” Verse 36, “And a person’s enemies will be the members of his household.” “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves sons or daughters more than Me is not worthy of Me.”That leads Jesus to verse 38, “He who does not take his cross” … bearing the Cross.  Association with Jesus can create problems even in your own family, and you will be put in positions where you must make a choice. You will have to choose the love of your mother over the love of Christ. You will have to choose the love of your father over the love of Christ. You will have to choose the love of your children over the love of Christ.

SERMON EXPLANATION 1

Our sermon series is on Returning to the Cross, and we have been saying that the Cross is not simply an event that took place two thousand years ago. The Cross became relevant to you the day you accepted Jesus Christ into your heart. The Cross brought redemption to you when you trusted Christ as Savior. The problem is that we go to the Cross for salvation and then leave the Cross.  Jesus says,” You are not supposed to leave the Cross when you meet Me at the Cross—You are supposed to take up the Cross and carry the Cross with you.” You are not supposed to leave your house without the Cross! The Cross is to be your point of reference forever.

You don’t leave the Cross … because it is a two-thousand-year-old event. Jesus is not saying you are not a Christian. What Jesus is saying is that we have a long-distance relationship. We know something about Jesus, but we don’t know what it is to know Him, so we don’t experience the life (the abundant life) that Jesus is offering. Jesus says, “Bear the Cross and follow Me!” All this talk about following Jesus and there is no Cross..… you are not following Jesus. Confess Me before people means to identify with Jesus. Your cross has to do with that which relates to your identification with Jesus Christ—that is the Cross.

The Cross is not a general problem that you experience every day. We all go through trials and circumstances, but that is not the Cross. The Cross is when your friends reject you because they want you to do something, go somewhere, be a part of something that brings you in conflict with Jesus Christ, and you lose your friends because you decide to put Jesus first; that is the Cross. That is bearing the Cross.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 1

Far too many Christians today do not bear the Cross. We go to church on Sunday, but don’t follow Jesus from Monday to Saturday. Bearing the Cross means fully surrendering to Christ, embracing sacrifice, obedience, and perseverance in faith. Some Christians today struggle with this call to take up the Cross and follow Jesus, and we prefer comfort over commitment or convenience over discipleship. And our churches today are filled with cultural Christians, social Christians, and compromised Christians.

SERMON EXPLANATION 2

Why did Jesus bear the Cross? Jesus died on the Cross to bear our sins. In other words, there would have been no Cross if there were no sins. The Cross was there because Jesus was going to be nailed to it as a substitute for our sins. That is the essence of redemption—sin created the separation, and the Cross became the means of reconciliation between God and humanity. The Cross is the bridge between sinful humanity and a holy God, fulfilling both justice and grace.

The Cross has to do with sin. To bear the Cross means that I am addressing something from God’s perspective, from Christ’s perspective, and that is, sin. There would have been no Cross if Jesus had not died for the sins of the world. Jesus died for the sins of the world to address the issue of sin. Until you and I are willing to bear the Cross [that is to take up the Cross], that is we identify with Jesus Christ and His position on sin, either in our own lives, or in the life or the situation or person that we are dealing with … Unless we are willing to address the (Sin), issue, you are not bearing the Cross. If you don’t address the sin issue, you are not bearing the Cross because the Cross only exists because of sin.

Jesus says you must bear your cross, that is your identification with Jesus … you must face the sin, or you cannot follow Jesus! And if you cannot follow Jesus,  guess what? You are all on your own! Because Jesus is not leading you anywhere. Jesus is not taking you anywhere. And most Christians today are on their own, they like the world, and they will tell you to your face – I am trying to make it! Trying to make it; Why? Because they cannot point to any [Watch This] supernatural activity governing their direction, because they are not following Jesus. They are not committed to the Cross.

Have you ever noticed? There is too much distance between us and Jesus. And this distance is preventing us from carrying the Cross. Identification with Jesus on the Cross to address the sin, because that is why the Cross exists. [This is what you need to know about the Cross.] The Cross was a radical way of addressing a big problem. Identifying with Christ and facing your [-own] righteousness is the Cross. Identifying with Christ and having to go to another brother or sister, [and] say, “Well, what you are doing now is not in keeping with the will and Word of God.”

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 2

Identifying with the Cross is not pretty, but it is the only way you and I can follow Jesus!  Luke 14:27 says, “Bear your own Cross.” And this is where the problem comes. The Cross can only help you if it is addressing sin. As long as you excuse the sin, the Cross is ineffective [inconsequential]. If you blame somebody else and don’t address the issue from God’s perspective, the Cross cannot help you because the Cross exists to deal with the issue of sin.

Some of us are in financial debt that is related to sin. And we try to make it sound sophisticated and give it a name called bad [or poor] financial management. No, the Bible calls it “Sinful financial management” because you are managing your finances independently of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over money. You don’t see it as sin because it is your money. And if you see it as your money, you cannot follow Jesus to financial freedom. Jesus is not going to lead you to financial victory over your money. You cannot get deliverance and have a super-sized life unless you see the sin involved.

We must love Christ, take up the Cross, and follow Christ. Jesus said, “Follow Me!” When the disciples followed Jesus, He gave them experiences that would blow your mind! Jesus put the disciples in extraordinary situations. The disciples saw things that they had never seen or heard of before. And all they could say was “What manner of man is this?”

Matthew 8:27, Jesus calmed the storm: - The disciples said, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!" Jesus raised the dead and cast out demons. The disciples witnessed the supernatural firsthand because they chose to follow Christ. Your decision today to follow and walk with Jesus will allow you to see His authority over your life, His power over the forces of darkness you are dealing with, and His ability to transform your life in ways you have never seen before.

SERMON EXPLANATION 3

If you bear your cross, Jesus has somewhere to take you. The question is:  Do you want to super-size your life? Or do you want a regular life? Get up out of bed, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch your television show, go to bed, and repeat that for the next 50 years. Is that what you want? Or do you want to experience an abundant life with Jesus? In verse 39, Jesus says, “The one who has found his life will lose it, and the one who has lost his life on My account will find it.” This is one of Jesus’ paradoxical statements. The word life used here is the word for soul. Your life is not your body; your body is the house that your life lives in. Your life is your soul. Your soul is your mind, intellect, and will. Those are the three ingredients of a soul. Everybody has three parts: body, soul, and spirit. Body—living in the physical world;—soul—living in the reality of yourself;—spirit—living in the reality of God. Spirit is God. Soul—is you, Body—is the five senses environment.

You don’t find your life by looking for your life! Jesus says, you find what you are looking for by losing what you are looking for. Jesus said it another way in John 12:24: “Except a seed falls to the ground and dies, it will in no way give life.” If you are going to plant something, you have to bury that thing for that thing to grow and become alive.

You can put the seed on top of the Bible—it is on top of the Word of God, and you can pray all you want. Nothing will happen with that seed unless it is buried so it can live! It is the paradox of life! You must lose yourself in Jesus to experience the life you are looking for in Jesus. You must pick up your cross—identification with Jesus and deal with sin.

Sunday only happens because Friday took place. On Good Friday, we are told that Jesus was crucified. [Jesus was put to death on the Cross.] On Sunday morning, early Sunday morning, a little while before daylight..… We celebrate Easter. Easter only happened because Friday occurred. In other words, for a Glorious Resurrection on Sunday morning, there was a painful death on Friday evening.  

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 3

Let me ask you a question. Do you know when you will go to heaven? When you die! You are not in heaven right now because you are not dead. Everybody [Every Christian that I have talked to] wants to go to heaven, [heaven is our ultimate destiny], [Philippians 3:20 says, “Our citizenship is in heaven”], but nobody wants to die. Everybody in here wants to go to heaven, but nobody in here wants to die. You and I have to be willing to die if we want to live. Paul says these words in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 10 and 11. “Always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.”Paul says, if you don’t agree to die, you won’t experience living. Paul says, ‘I keep dying so I can keep living.’

SERMON EXPLANATION 4

We are not talking about physical death; we are talking about dying to yourself so that you might live to Jesus. I wake up and say what Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane—“Not My will, but Yours be done!” Let me identify with sins that would keep me separated from Jesus. Let me bring my sins to the Cross in identification and association with Jesus, I die today.” The moment you stop dying to yourself is the moment you stop living to Christ Jesus. It is a paradox! But that is the only way to follow Jesus [to take up the Cross], and it is the only way to experience Jesus.

Jesus died on the Cross so you could carry your cross and I could carry my cross. And yes, there will be difficult times in bearing the Cross because of your association with Jesus Christ. There will be times when you are rejected because of Jesus Christ. Yes, there will be times when you are persecuted because of Jesus Christ, but you must follow Jesus, which means you get Him to lead you into places you never thought you could go. You will see Jesus do things you never thought you could see with your own two eyes! The disciples got to see all they saw because they were willing to associate with Jesus. Resurrection comes through death!

Luke 14:28, Jesus talks about counting the cost. “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation.” Jesus is talking about counting the cost of discipleship. Jesus came from heaven to earth to get a job done. Jesus came intentionally from heaven, with a divine mission to establish His Church and Kingdom. Jesus’ earthly ministry was marked by sacrifice, obedience, and purpose, concluding with Him dying on the Cross, where He secured salvation for all who believe. Commitment to the Cross requires surrender to Jesus. Commitment to the Cross involves trials and persecution. Commitment to the Cross demands loyalty above everything else. Jesus paid the ultimate price on the Cross, and the best you and I can do is to be fully committed to the Cross.

FAITH APPEAL, CALL to ACTION, and ALTAR CALL

Jesus is not looking for folks who want to hang out at church on Sunday morning.  Right now, in church, I wonder if this is a congregation of Jesus’ fans. Fans of Jesus, groupies of Jesus. They want to be connected with the Name of Jesus. They want to be associated with the personality of Jesus; they are followers of Jesus. Jesus has a lot of fans today, Jesus has a lot of groupies today – they want to be connected with the Name of Jesus.  We have church groupies. Folks who come to church and sing ‘Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.’ ‘God is good, all the time. God is good, but when you confront them about what Jesus is saying about what is happening with them, they will tell you that it is not your business. That has nothing to do with you. And that is because they are church groupies.

When you audit a class at a school or a university, you want the information, not the assignment. You don’t take test or exam, you don’t turn in your assignments when you audit a class. You want the information, without the commitment and the responsibility. Many Christians today want to audit their Christian life; let me get the information from the pastor on Sunday and Bible Study on Wednesday, but don’t expect me to be responsible with the information I receive. When you audit a class, when the class is over, you don’t get credit.

In closing, how do you respond to this message? The questions I will leave with you in closing are: Do you want to know the information about Jesus, or do you want to experience Jesus firsthand? Do you confess Christ with your mouth? Do you confess Christ in your lifestyle by reaching out as He reached out to you? By loving as Christ loved you, by caring as Christ cared for you. The choice to commit to the Cross of Christ is in your hands. The choice is yours—but the reward is eternal. The call to commit to the Cross is personal and holds eternal significance. Jesus offered Himself fully—now He is calling on you [Jesus is calling on us] to respond in faith, obedience, and surrender today. May His grace guide every step of that commitment. God bless you!

If you are here today and don’t know Jesus, I want you to come to the Cross, give your life to Christ, and trust Him to be your Savior. If you need prayer, please come forward so we can pray for you.  Let’s stand on our feet.

BENEDICTION [CLOSING PRAYER]

Let us pray.

Lord God, our Father, You have called us to follow You at any price, to be Your servants and disciples. I pray that You make us faithful, marked by the hallmark of discipleship and commitment to the Cross. We are Christlike, and we don’t fear the world. I pray that You will lift us above that we may say nothing less and nothing more than You have whispered in our ear through Your precious Word by Your Spirit. Make us bold and use us in a mighty way. Thank You, Father, for our time today. What a good time. We pray, Lord, that You will drive deeply into our hearts Your truth, and I pray that You make us faithful. God, raise out of this congregation faithful people that we might touch this city and this world we live in for Your glory and and to advance Your kingdom. Help us to be genuine and real disciples of Your Son, Christ Jesus. Thank You for meeting every need brought to You, for Christ’s sake. We offer our prayers in the name of Jesus, with thanksgiving, glory, praise, and honor. And everyone says, Amen.

God bless you. We will see you next week at 10:30 a.m.