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Good morning, Gateway!
Scripture
Prayer
Intro
Good morning, Gateway Chapel!
If we haven’t met before, my name is Chris, and I’m the pastor of Gateway Chapel, the church that gathers here in this building.
We are a church on mission to plant churches and make disciples who hear, love, and obey Jesus.
We are continuing in our Year of Biblical Exploration…it’s a year long broad overview of the biblical story.
As Christians, we follow Jesus, and Jesus was a full blown Bible nerd.
We want to love Jesus and live our lives through the lens of Scripture like he did.
So maybe you’re reading through the Bible in a year doing about four chapters a day.
Maybe you started that last year and now you’re in Isaiah still trucking along, awesome.
Maybe you’re slowly reading Jonah with a commentary saying, “I want to get this book because there is so much here from the whole story!”
Some gals meet on Sundays to read Scripture together a couple times a month.
Lately I’ve been taking my dog Norman on walks and listening to Psalms and Proverbs.
Consider other creative ways for the Holy Spirit to minister to your soul through Scripture.
Last week we began a series “The Symbols of Easter” and we said how symbols are powerful…like the uniforms of your favorite team, the American flag, a mask symbol on a door.
Symbols carry significant meaning, they tell stories, they unify…and as we lead up to easter, four main symbols of our faith can help guide our hearts towards Easter Sunday.
The Water
The Meal
The Cross
The Empty Tomb
Each of these can be symbols of Christ’s love for us.
The water of baptism reminds us of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The meal of communion reminds us that Jesus is the passover lamb, broken and poured out for our sins so we can be a part of his family.
Today is Palm Sunday.
The beginning of Holy Week, the final days leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Today we’re not going to talk about palms, but we will about another kind of tree…the cross.
The most significant symbol in Christianity, and regardless of your faith, the most significant and powerful symbol in the world.
On the surface, the cross is a very basic symbol.
A logo of sorts for Christianity.
One that can be worn, tattooed, put on a website, on the side of a road to symbolize an accident, all over the place.
But for Christians we proudly display crosses because for us it symbolizes Jesus!
But 2,000 years ago, the cross was less of a logo and more of a threat.
It was a means of oppression by the Roman government against those who would rise up against it.
It’s hard for us to fathom the obscenity of crucifixion.
Roman citizens could not be crucified.
It was reserved for outcasts: slaves and foreigners, the worst criminals.
It was not only execution, it was torture.
It was not only brutal, it was shameful, publically displaying the victim naked while strangers mocked them.
So how did a symbol of tyranny, torture, shame, and humiliation…become for us a symbol of love, hope, grace?
This picture is ancient graffiti.
It’s a drawing from the early Roman empire of someone on the cross with the body of a man but the head of a donkey.
And there is a man next to it, worshipping it.
And the caption reads, “Alexamenos worships god.”
Someone is making fun of Christians.
“How stupid can you be?” Mocked the gentile Romans.
And the Jews said…”You claim this to be a mighty act of God? Hasn’t the OT predicted the Christ would come in glory and victory?
Surely the Christ can’t be crucified, it says in Deut that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed!”
How is it that the cross, of all symbols, is ours?
Or cause us to sing songs that say crazy things like, “When i survey the wondrous cross...” How is Jesus’ death his victory?
Today we’re going to look at Luke 9:23, and ask a couple simple questions: How did Jesus view the cross?
How might we respond?
Before we look at Luke 9:23 together, let’s pray.
Pray
How did Jesus view the cross?
In this section of Luke, Jesus is addressing what it means that he is the Messiah, the promised King, the chosen one if you prefer.
Peter has just correctly identified him as the Christ.
Then Jesus says in Luke 9:22
And then we get to our verse that if anyone wants to follow his particular kind of kingship, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross daily.
A way of life
As a part of this way of life, Jesus says you must deny yourself.
To deny oneself is to refuse, disregard, denounce, or even disown.
The word ‘deny’ is most commonly used to talk about the story of…Peter.
Denying he even knew Jesus three times.
So how do we deny ourselves?
I remember sitting down with a friend in high school who asked me, “So if I follow Jesus, what kinds of fun things do I have to give up?”
I remember not having a good answer.
The tone of his question suggested what many people feel about God, that he’s kind of a killjoy.
I like hanging out with my friends, God would prefer I sit silently in church.
I like playing sports, God prefers I read the King James Bible.
Deny fun things, follow Jesus.
But I think what Jesus is getting at is not that following him means you can’t do things you like anymore, or that you don’t matter.
Because Jesus also said I came to give abundant life!
What he means is as the true King, he gets the final say in our lives.
I wonder if to deny myself means asking questions like, “Jesus, how do you want me to use my money?” “Jesus, I really don’t like that person.
How do you want me to respond to them?” “Jesus, I feel jealous when I see the success of others.
How do you want me to think about them?”
To deny yourself is to receive Jesus as the true king.
The second part of this way of life involves taking up your cross daily.
This is a vivid illustration for his listeners.
They would have stark memories of people from their hometowns picking up a heavy wooden cross, walking through the street beaten and defeated.
They would remember watching that shameful one-way journey.
It’s the most acute symbol of suffering and death available to Jesus.
Jesus says…that’s what following me is like.
Huh?
For the Christian, the cross symbolizes in part that suffering, loss, and weakness are not evils to be avoided, but a daily opportunity to see Jesus.
Matthew 16:21-23...
Pete Scazzero in his book, Emotionally Healthy DIscipleship, comments on these verses by saying:
“At this point, Peter understands only half the gospel.
Like so many of us, he is Christ-centered, but not cross-centered.
Peter has a high view of Jesus as the Messiah.
He is captivated by him as the miracle working, triumphant Savior.
Peter truly wants to follow Jesus - in fact, he’s left everything to follow him.
But he wants to follow a Jesus who avoids, not embraces the cross.”
Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
For Jesus, the cross was a symbol of a way of life for us.
It symbolized denying ourselves, receiving him as the true king.
It symbolized a daily journey of embracing that weakness is the way to life, and not success, wealth, or impressing others.
What’s something in your life that makes you feel weak?
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