Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
13 sermons cite this verse
Then Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Jesus, as if looking at his disciples, said very simple, but radical words for each heart. Follow me. Jesus, looking into the eyes of his disciples, said just very simple two words, but they are radical words. Follow me. And I believe the Holy Spirit is telling each one of us today, follow me. And in these simple words, I believe there is so much depth that is our walk with Christ is reflected how we respond. And Jesus was so able to convey the meaning of his simple words in depth and give it to each one of our hearts. He invites us to action. Because he is calling each one of us to act upon it. He says take the first step. come out of this crowd and follow me and he is calling each one of us to follow a narrow path American bolognese Edwin Tozer said these words follow Christ and you will see it And then the theologian Tozer said the following. …
… aren't we? Jesus said, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. What does that even mean? Oh, you're gonna take up the cross and follow Jesus. Great, what does it mean? A lot of people don't know. Sometimes people misuse that idea and they'll say, my cross to carry is my mother-in-law. and your mother-in-law says my cross to carry is my son-in-law or my cross to carry is this problem or my cross to carry is something else now i'll tell you what it means to carry the cross because it's the same for every person it means to die to yourself you say i don't know what that means it means resisting what everyone around you perhaps say would say is normal example it means being faithful to your spouse that you're married to for a lifetime. It means forgiving people who have genuinely wronged you. It means asking forgiveness from people that you have wronged. …
… right? What does Jesus say in the gospel? He says, whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Then he says this massive line. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life. Jesus is making it so clear that we can lose, but no one ever gets beaten out of their soul. They simply forfeit. And we do it in a bunch of different ways. We make little trades, right? We make little compromises. We make little exchanges. We forfeit. Or we violate the rules and we forfeit. Or sometimes we concede. Sometimes we just simply stop playing and we forfeit. And the question we hear is Jesus saying, what profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his life? Another way to say it here at the beginning of school year is the reality is this. …
And so I think Paul had to first reintroduce them to kind of his way of saying what Jesus said. if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. So you got to have that in place. And as you're doing that, you look for the promise. You live in hope, as Paul says in Romans. Now, who hopes for what he sees? We don't see it yet, right? But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it with endurance. And that's the part that the Corinthians were missing. I think this is an accurate thing to say, Mike, that it's only in the Corinthian letters that Paul calls the gospel foolish and weak. Only there. In Romans, it's just the power of God for salvation, right? In Ephesians and Colossians, it's the message of Christ's triumph over the powers. But in Corinth, see, this was the cultural need, and he had to try to put that to death so that they could emerge again and hope for the fullness of life. …
… want life in your praise and life in your relationships. This book is the key to life and life more abundantly. Luke chapter 9 and verse 23, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me daily. We're supposed to die to what we want and what we do. People who call themselves Christians, there's no cross in their life. Many of them, they don't ever think of denying themselves anything, whatever they want. But when Christ is the center of your life, you take up your cross daily. I live for him. I live to please him. I live to honor him. I need to constantly be in his presence because he is my daily bread. Listen to this great verse, Luke 19, verse 47 and 48. And he taught daily in the temple. Jesus made it a point to teach daily. The same teacher in the temple in Bible days today, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And he waits to teach you. You have a personal helper and teacher and instructor called the Holy Spirit. He shall teach you all things. …
… Look at Luke 9, 23. Jesus said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. All, anyone. This is where it all starts. deny yourself, die to yourself, and follow me wherever I lead you. So your life is God's to spend, period. But it'll keep going in light of the picture we're looking at here for the spread of his church. So we've now seen how over the last 2,000 years, God's been multiplying his church by calling out and sending out people from one church to go and plant another church. What we read in Acts chapter 13, verse 2. Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for this work to which I've called them. There's a lot that that verse means. One of the things it means is in any worship gathering, any gathering of God's people at any time, God could speak and say, I'm setting apart You and you and you to go here or there for the spread of the gospel and the multiplication of the church. …
… Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. Acts 14, 22. Whoever would live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2 Timothy 3, 12. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, which is a place to suffer and die. Matthew 16. we are fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him you're going to suffer Christian this issue of enjoying Jesus has everything to do with doing that well if you don't get this you won't suffer well that's number one I care about your suffering and therefore I care about making plain what enjoyment of Jesus is and isn't. Number two, why do I care? It has everything to do with loving other people. The Bible says, if you love your neighbor, you have fulfilled the whole law. That's a big deal, right? That's huge. You can fulfill the whole law. How? By loving people. Love your neighbor as yourself. You have fulfilled the whole law, Romans 13, 10. …
… we must deny ourselves, we must surrender our self-serving expectations and follow Him. See Matthew 16.24-25 From the Christian perspective, there is some truth to this answer, that the path toward patience involves eliminating our expectations. However, the picture the Bible gives us is not a snuffed out candle, but a holy fire that bursts from hiding and can't wait to be found. That's what Moses saw when God met him on the mountain in the bush. The bush was on fire, but not burning up, not being consumed. It was an unextinguishable fire. Exodus chapter 3 tells us the fire was lit by God's own expectations for his good creation. God's world, where he wants to be found. In the Bible, the problem with the world is not expectations. It is the all-consuming self that tries to be God and won't make space for others. It is the fire we started when we rebelled against God, our Creator. We started treating each other like fuel for our own desires. But God met Moses as a holy fire that cannot be snuffed out so that we might find the God who can't wait to be found. In all of God's dealings with Moses, with the people of Israel, even with Pharaoh and all the enemies of God, repeatedly God shows himself patient. In the Hebrew language, patience doesn't mean acceptance, but rather slow to anger. God is slow to let his anger burn. See Exodus 34 verse 6. Slow to anger, but not empty of expectation. God does not eliminate his expectations because he desires …
Matthew chapter 16, 24 through 25, it says this. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him or herself deny himself, 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. I got this whoop band. It's an athletic flex. Yep, doing high rocks in December. This thing tracks everything. And if you don't know what a whoop is, it just tracks your sleep, optimize all the stuff, you know? And they got this new feature and it's like your life expectancy. So based on your habits, how long you're gonna live. The problem with this is I have a seven week old and a two year old. So every morning I wake up and it's like, you got 12 years left to live if you keep sleeping at this rate. And I just had me thinking in the current age and culture that we're in, have you noticed that there is this desire, this pressure to optimize, to push, to grind, to succeed, to achieve. …
So Jesus called the crowds and they gathered with his disciples and he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. because whoever would save his life is going to lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. Because what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? because what can a man give in exchange for his life? Because everyone who's ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, I'm going to be ashamed of him when I come in the glory of my father and the holy angels. so if you want to follow Jesus then you deny yourself and you take up your cross and you get behind him because because because because I'm going to linger here at the surface level of grammar and words for just a moment to make two points. first. If any graduates can read Mark 8, 34 to 38, and not see the four layers of argumentation that Jesus gives for following him, then in your case, we have failed. …
… it says 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 for whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul so he just says hey if anyone wants to follow me Jesus everyone's following me he's gonna have to deny himself okay it can't be about you you got deny yourself you're not here to please yourself anymore if you're gonna follow me he's gonna have to pick up your cross and follow me that means die to yourself then he makes a promise He goes, if anyone tries to save his life, I promise you, you'll lose it. That's a promise. Okay, let's admit it. Most of us want to save our lives to some degree, right? I kind of like this. …
… Jesus said in 1624, he said, If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Back to verse 24 again. If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Let me address one more point that I addressed last week, and we'll probably do again in the next several weeks, is that there are some who have taken the teachings of Jesus, what he did, he closed out the Old Testament. Are you with me? His last three and a half years of life and ministry on the earth ended with the death and resurrection, that the blood shed, the resurrection, that was the moment of the new covenant the New Testament began. So his teachings actually existed in the Old Testament time frame. But they had a double-edged effect. They closed the Old Testament but introduced grace for the new. …
… block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. And then Jesus said to the disciples, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he's done. And this is God's Word. Now, Jesus, as we just mentioned, right here in the middle of this passage, says if you do this, this, this, and this, and this, you will find it. Find what? Well, in verse 25 and 26, over and over again, a Greek word is used, and it's the Greek word psyche, from which we get our word psychology, of course. And the translators translate it differently, so in a sense, it masks the fact that the word is being used so prominently. …