Dare To Ask God For The Power To Take Up Your Cross Series

COMMUNION SERVICE: Power to take up YOUR Cross

We continue in our series Powerful People.

For our Communion Service this evening I want to encourage you to ask God for the power to take up your cross.

It is at the Cross where Salvation and Forgiveness of Sin are guaranteed to all who accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

The unfolding of God’s plan of Salvation for sinners that resulted in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It is at the Cross of Christ where we discover the way to our Eternal home.

There is more to the Cross than the crucifixion of Jesus - there is also the crucifixion of self in our lives as Christians.

In Mark 8:34 Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Let me put this verse into context for you. It was at Caesarea in Philippi that Jesus spoke these words.

He had begun to prepare His disciples for His crucifixion which He knew would take place soon.

But the disciples really didn’t understand, they could not reconcile the cross with a king.

Jesus told them that they, too, must willingly go to the cross. Listen to Mark 8:34–38:

Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own selfish way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when He returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Powerful words, perhaps painful words, but these words of Jesus demand our full commitment to Him.

All of our sins can be traced to love for self.

Sins of the flesh, sins of the spirit, sins of omission and sins of commission.

We sin because, by our very nature, we care more about our wants, our needs, our desires, than being obedient to God’s will and commands for our life.

The world and the devil attempt to drag us down a path of self-gratification, it is all about feeding our desires, our ego, our love of self.

We live in a world that boldly proclaims and promotes sinful and adulterous behaviour.

You have rights, you should have what you want - when you want it.

Jesus commands us to take up our cross and walk a different path.

To really follow Jesus in all our words, all our deeds and all our actions, we need to put aside our selfish desires and give our lives to Him.

If you choose to follow your own selfish path, it might feel like you could gain the whole world, but Jesus is clear that if you do not follow Him then you can lose your soul in the process.

Nothing is more important than your eternal soul.

Nothing is more important than where your soul will spend eternity.

Heaven or Hell, there is no other option.

When we die it is too late to choose we need to make the decision now.

The Good News is that Jesus has paid the price for our sin, for all who believe in Him there is the free offer of salvation for eternity.

We can be saved, we can be set free, we can be redeemed and we can be assured of a place in Heaven because of what Christ has done.

But when we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour we can no longer live however we want.

We can no longer behave however we want.

In our own strength we will struggle and that is why we need to ask God to empower us to take up our cross.

Full commitment, full surrender, to God’s will and purpose for us, every day of our lives, not just for a couple of hours on a Sunday if we go to Church.

Have you taken up your cross?

Is God at the Centre of your life?

When God is truly placed at the centre of our lives, not at the edges, the centre, that’s when our focus is on serving Christ and not our own selfish desires.

Listen to Galatians 2:20-21 the Apostle Paul said, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”