You’re Asking Too Much.

Sermon Title: You’re asking too much.

Scripture Text: Mark 8:27-38

ILLUSTRATION:

Several years ago I read a story written by a preacher in the Philippine Islands. One day he was passing a large church on Good Friday when he spotted many selling incense, candles, veils and rosaries. He also saw several small boys who were running about selling crosses. He heard them calling, “Crosses, cheap crosses for sale! Buy a cheap cross!” I am afraid too often we want a cheap cross- a faith that is easy, that is all sweetness and light, one that makes no demands on our time or money or service. The cross of Christ was no cheap cross. Jesus gave up his throne in glory to come and live in this world of sin. He gave His life on a literal cross to ransom us from our sins.

-The cross of Jesus may be cheap to some of us because we didn’t suffer any at all because of it. But for Jesus it meant his life ending in an agonizing torment on a tree on top of a hill in the beaming sun in the capital of the Jewish world.

Today we will be talking about this cross and many other crosses.

NOW HEAR THE READING OF GOD’S WORDS

Mark 8:27-38 NLT

27 Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

28 “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.”

29 Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.”

30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Jesus Predicts His Death

31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things.

33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 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. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul? 38 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.”

THE WORD OF GOD

FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD

THANKS BE TO GOD

I often hear about taking up our cross’. I heard one woman say my husband is my cross. My cross is getting hard to carry. But what did Jesus mean when he said “take up your cross and follow me”. Was it her husband or her?

I think in a lot of cases people don’t understand what I call the cross of Self-denial. It means renouncing oneself as the center of existence; the center of their world. It means not being ashamed of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

I was talking to a young man and I figured out his cross right off. He was planning on buying a new mustang and then an older pick up truck to drive to work and run about in. That was his goal. Nothing past that was in sight. His cross was saving the money to make that happen because he liked to spend money not save it.

-Nothing wrong with his goals. But where is the Cross that Jesus told us to take up. We can actually have both of them if we really understand our God.

From the moment of our new birth into Jesus Christ, self-denial becomes our cross. It becomes a daily exercise for the rest of this life on earth (1 Peter 4:1-2 You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.)

Self-denial and being ashamed of our Christianity is to be avoided.

I once saw a person reading a magazine when I walked by I noticed a book behind it. When I looked closer I saw it was a Bible. We need to grow out of that kind of thing.