Uncommen: God GoalsSample

Pick Up Your Cross

Matthew 16:24-25 "Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

As we continue on our list of God Goals, we get to one that makes the previous ones look a lot more attainable. The statement, "Picking up our cross and follow me," is a lot bigger than those seven words sound. The eternal impact on our lives and others around us following Jesus while carrying our cross is indeed a God Goal.

As you may have noticed in the text, the charge to "deny" oneself is a requirement to follow Jesus. But, unfortunately, denying ourselves is not quite what our culture is into these days. Instead, selfies, influencing others, and instant gratification are more in line with today's people.

Our text doubles down here and when Jesus says, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." You may read that and say, "lose my life?" So what? The preacher didn't say anything about that last Sunday.

Take heart and read the last part out loud, "but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." I know you may still be stuck on the "losing" part of the verse, but when you start to deny yourself, you may feel like you are dying.

Our goal here looks to be one of willingness, perseverance, and trust as we're not carrying this cross across the street. We are carrying this cross daily wherever we go.

It will be heavy, awkward to carry, may leave a splinter or two, and people may ridicule and encourage you to put it down. But, don't listen to them. I'm sure Jesus heard all kinds of things being shouted from the crowd as he carried the cross to his death. Notice the parallels here that we may experience a sliver of what Jesus did that day.

Thankfully Jesus did not stop or put down the cross on His way to pay our sin debt. So when they pulled Simon from the crowd to carry the cross, it was symbolic for us to see our role in the process.

Be willing, my brothers! Be Uncommen!

Uncommen Questions:

Have you picked up your cross to follow Jesus?

What have you struggled with the most while doing so?

Uncommen Challenge:

I challenge us all to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Be willing to deny ourselves and lose our life only to gain it again in Jesus.