207 ~ DENY . CARRY . FOLLOW ~ PART 1

Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a. Local church based here in

Chennai, India. We are so glad you are with us

and hope that this will encourage, inspire and instill

fresh faith in you. Our theme for the year 2024 is

set apart, and today we look at how God sets us apart to carry

our cross. Jesus was open and honest with

his disciples of the kind of life they would be called to

live should they choose to follow Him.

It's not one that's easy, but one of great fulfilment and

eternal rewards. As you listen in, would you ask

God to show you how better to carry your cross and follow

Jesus, his Son, into the spaces he leads you?

Hi Church, it's my joy to bring God's Word to you today.

As you know, we've begun the season of Lent.

As a church, we've been praying together.

We've been really seeking God. One of the things that we

decided to do over the next 40 days as individuals is to really

take stock of ourselves. It's very easy to take stock of

what's happening in the world, in our city, in our families.

But sometimes we need to do a personal inventory check, you

know, check how we are doing, how our heart is, how our mind

is, and that's what we're going to be doing over 40 days.

But as a church, in terms of our Lent series, we've been really

praying and asking God, Lord, what is it that you are calling

us into? And this is the word that God

gave us that you know, we are set apart to carry the cross and

that's what we're going to be looking at today.

Now the interesting thing I was just I my daughter didn't know

that I was preparing this sermon and then she comes up to me and

she says, Mum, I have a joke for you, so I want to share.

That joke with you, Because I feel like it goes right

alongside our sermon today. Please don't get offended.

She asked me if I knew how Jesus maintained his abs.

And if you didn't know, it's because of CrossFit.

That's not all. There's another story that I

read about how this man, every morning before he went to work,

decided to start carrying his wife right up to the door.

He would leave her there, put her down and then head out to

work. And so his wife and kids were

puzzled. They said, what are you doing?

And he said, well, in the last few weeks the pastor has been

talking to us about, you know, each of us needing to carry

across daily. So I decided to do that.

If you're getting offended, I'm really sorry, but this is just

some humor before we start a rather hard and inconvenient

series. It's not going to be for the

faint of heart, because, you know, when we're talking about

the cross, we know what it implies.

And I believe that each of us have been called to carry a

cross, because that is the mandate that Jesus gave his

disciples, and he gave it to everyone who chooses him.

So even as we get into God's Word today, I want you to come

in with this place of. Laying aside whatever you have

thought this. Series going to look.

Like whatever you are thinking about the cross if.

You could just come in with this heart, ready to learn maybe, and

absorb something. You might just get something new

from this. So we're going to be.

Looking at the book of Luke today, Luke Chapter 9 verses 18

Luke 9:18–23

to 23. The same narrative is repeated

both in Matthew and in Mark as well, but we're looking at Luke

specifically as the central passage because it has so many

elements that we want to look at.

So what we're going to do is want to read it and then we're

just going to go into the text a little deeper.

So Luke Chapter 9, verses 18 to 23.

Luke 9:18–23

This is what it says. Once when Jesus was praying in

private and his disciples were with him, he asked them who did

the crowd say I am? They replied, some sage on the

Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the

prophets of long ago has come back to life.

But what about you? He asked.

Who do you say I am? Peter answered, God's Messiah.

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone, and he

said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by

the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and

he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Then he said to them all, whoever wants to be my disciple

must deny themselves, take up their cross daily.

And follow me. This is a.

Direct instruction that Jesus is giving his disciples.

And it's not just for them, it was for us as well, Whoever

wants to be my disciple. A bit of history here.

Jesus is talking about carrying a cross even before he had

encountered his cross, even before the disciples saw him

suffer on a cross. So it was literally out of the

blue that he brings this up now. But this was not such a random

thing because the Romans commonly used the cross as a

method of punishment. Any criminal was made to carry

his cross, walk down a thoroughfare and then go up and

then actually watch the cross being erected, and he would be

hanging on. And this was common.

So the people of Judea had seen this time and again.

And so it was a visual, you know, indication of the kind of

death that Jesus was going to suffer.

God was. Jesus was giving them, you know,

like a literally like a highlight.

Really think this was going to happen to me, But my question is

why would Jesus give such a poor campaign speech to guys who had

just become his disciples? If you want guys to join your

campaign, what do you do? You motivate them.

You say they're perks. They're these things that are

going to come. It's going to be amazing.

But Jesus is so upfront. He says, hey, this is the life

you were signing up for. Interestingly, he first says

this is the death I'm going to suffer, but he invites them into

the life, the kind of life that they're going to have to live

for him. He's telling them that you would

have to count the cost. He's not giving them false

promises. He's saying that you know, this

is what lies ahead. Are you ready?

Are you willing? So it was, in our eyes, a poor

campaign speech. Probably a good way to, you

know, weed out the initial candidates.

But. The 12 disciples were gathered

around him, knew what they were getting in for.

And each of us today, wherever we are on this journey, Maybe

you've already been a mature believer, but you have found

that the journey has been hard. It's not been easy.

And you know why? You know that you've been called

to this. Maybe you're a new believer and

you're saying, I didn't sign up for this?

I didn't sign up for this many waits.

I didn't sign up for these many closed doors.

I didn't sign up for this hardship, this relationship

struggle. But I just want to encourage you

that this is the life you signed up for, and it's got so much

that is to be desired. It's not just about the

hardship. There's so much of good that

comes in this life. But I want to ask you this.

What do you think the cross implies?

When we look at that cross, the Jesus Board, all we think of is

shame, suffering, persecution, and why the Christian life will

entail all of that. It's also so much more.

It doesn't just end with that. It's not such a negative

connotation alone. It's something even more

profound and beautiful when you look at Jesus life.

If you look at the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 53 has this

passage which is called the Suffering Servant.

Isaiah prophetically writes about Jesus and what he was

going to suffer on behalf of his people in order to.

Redeem Israel and he writes about the whole chapter and a

half, just about what Jesus could suffer, right?

When you see that, you realize that Jesus assignment for his

time on earth was his death, and the cross was very central to

Jesus's assignment. So today, for you and me, the

cross implies our life's assignment.

As much as we'd like to say that the cross implies all of the

negative parts of our life are the, I believe the cross implies

the entirety of our life's assignment.

And it's not an ordinary assignment.

You know why? Because it's a Kingdom

assignment. It's not the assignment that we

put for ourselves. It's not the things that we grab

and put on our plate. It is a weighty Kingdom

assignment. So what is the cross today that

you are being called to carry? It's a weighty Kingdom

assignment and I want to just bring this to your notice that

it is weighty simply because. Of three things.

Three things that I want you to just remember if you're ever

thinking, Well, I thought the cross was something different.

Well, I want you to turn that around and think of the cross as

your life's assignment, A Kingdom assignment that is very

weighty, which is why you feel the weight of it very often in

this lifetime. And the reason that it's so

weighty is because, first of all, God's glory rests on you.

The Psalms write so beautifully how you set your glory above the

heavens. And what is mind that you man,

that you're mindful of him. You have made him a little lower

than the angels and crowned them with.

Glory and honor. He says that in Psalm 8, which

means that the glory of God, which is actually in its

original meaning, means weighty. It's not something that's just

about light or a visual effect, it is an actual weight.

And so when you're living with this, the implication of the

cross being your Kingdom assignment and if it's a weighty

Kingdom assignment and that you will feel the weight of God's

glory on, the second reason why it's weighty is because it will

not just impact you, but it will impact generations to come, not

just the generations that come from you.

It will impact people around you.

It will impact generations out of them.

And that's why sometimes when you feel oppressed with things

that are happening and coming at you, things that are going on,

the ill health you experience, it's not about you, it's about

all the impact you were created to have.

Direct reason that it's weighty is because it involves bringing

light Into Darkness. It is not ordinary.

That is why this Kingdom assignment is very weighty.

And that is why it is a cross. When you look at Luke chapter 8

Luke 8 · chapter mention

that we just looked at what Luke is writing about, there is a

threefold message which he leaves, which Jesus leaves with

his followers. He says first of all you have to

deny yourself. She says you have to take up

your cross daily. You have to follow him.

What does this look like? Honestly, you know, if we are

doing this on a daily basis, the process is very seamless.

I learn to deny myself. I I lay down the things I don't

need. I pick up the things that God

wants me to, you know, take up and do, and then I just follow

after him. I get led by him.

But the problem is, so often we we get, you know, halted right

at .1, which is denying ourselves.

So over the next few weeks as we do the.

Series called DCF Deny, Carry, Follow.

We're going to look close at what it really looks like in

today's times to actually deny ourselves what it looks like to

carry the cross, what it looks like to follow him.

But today, what we're specifically going to be looking

at is how each of us can live, set apart to carry a cross.

As we saw right from the beginning of January, we looked

at how the Father chose us and set us apart even from before

our birth for certain things. We saw how Jesus, through our

salvation, when we believed Him in Him, set us apart.

We saw how the Holy Spirit brands us and He uses us on a

daily basis. He's shaping us, He's nourishing

us. He's nurturing us, giving life

and shaping us into the image of the Son.

But in order for all this to happen.

In order for us to actually grasp the entirety of being set

up. This is a very important

component that we realize we have been set apart to carry a

cross. And this cross is that Kingdom

assignment. It is an assignment that is for

every one of us. None of us get to say I don't

want an assignment because it's really not about us.

God saved us for so much more. And I want to just, you know,

before we get into a deeper thing on this, I want you to

understand that the nature of your Kingdom assignment is very

interesting. It's almost like an oxymoron

because the Kingdom assignment will be very ordinary yet

extraordinary. What do I mean by that?

It's ordinary in the sense it will take the most mundane parts

of your life and make it powerful because now it's

Kingdom life, because now the king has breathed life into it.

So you could be a parent, you could be a spouse, you could be

a single mother or a father. You could be a single person

navigating, you know, career and your your home or whatever.

You could be someone who is, you know, aging.

But the beauty is that in the mundane, ordinary parts of your

life there is assignment given even in that nothing is below

God being you, God using it. It's ordinary.

It's powerful. So why I say this is because a

lot of times people say I'm, I'm waiting for my Kingdom

assignment and they give up on the responsibilities that have

been entrusted to them. You know, the responsibilities

of marriage, the responsibility of having a child, the

responsibility of of running your home.

No, that's not what you've been called for.

Sometimes the Kingdom assignment is literally meshed in with our

ordinary. It means that we need to do the

ordinary well, and in that ordinary you'll find it so

powerful. For me, I thought so often when

I was preparing this, I just put down, you know, what I believe

my Kingdom assignment was. And after I wrote it down, the

next night I had a dream. And I had a dream about my three

children facing some sort of harm.

And when I woke up at 4:00, I just sat up to pray.

For a bit. And I was so disturbed by the

dream. And you know when, as a mother,

as soon as you see something happening to your children, you

freak out. And I was just sitting quietly

in the room. I checked on all of them I came

back to. Room.

And I was just praying quietly and I felt like God was saying,

right now your Kingdom assignment is to pray for these

three, pray continually for them.

You see what I'm saying? Sometimes we magnify the Kingdom

assignment to say, oh, I need to reach these many souls.

I need to take my writing out there.

I need to do this. I need to do that.

And he says in the ordinary because I'm going to call you

first to cover them in prayer, because generations will be

impacted. And that brings me to why it's

extraordinary. The impact you have on that

student in your class, the impact you have on that person

that you supervise, the impact that you have on a Co worker,

the impact that you have in that business enterprise with someone

who is servicing your company extends beyond them.

And that's the beauty of it. You will find that when you

carry that Kingdom assignment with with so much of humility,

God does. Incredible.

Things with it I remember reading this book as a as a

young child, chicken soup for the teenage soul.

And there was this one story that never left my mind.

It's about this young man who is walking with his friend to work

and it's in a busy Manhattan St. and as he's walking, he starts

smiling at people, random people.

He smiles at a teenager getting onto a school bus.

He he smiles at a single mum struggling with two babies.

She smiles at different people along the way and his friends,

looking at him like something's wrong with him.

He says, you're creeping me out. What's going on?

What are you doing? You smile at a construction

worker. You smile at people from

different walks of life. You smiled.

You even shook somebody's hand. What's going on?

I've never seen this side of you.

And he said, well, this is my plan.

If I can impact that one person today, imagine for that single

mum with wrestling. With two little babies, the fact

that I saw her smile at her will make her day a little better.

She will be in a better frame of mind to parent those two little

kids. When I smiled at that teenager,

the one who feels unseen, I hope that I gave her some confidence

to get through her day. Well, when I smiled at that

construction worker, I maybe made his hard job a little less

hard. When I smiled at that banker who

was walking in, maybe the rest of the day in his boardroom

would workout a little better than it does Usually.

You see what happens when we take our ordinary Kingdom

assignments and we allow God to use it.

The the IT becomes extraordinary just because God moves in such

different ways and impacts so many more people than we could

ever imagine. And it's very humbling.

So while it is ordinary, it's powerful, while it's

extraordinary, it's humbling because it's really not about

what we are doing, it's just us being available as being open to

what God is going to do and he does great things.

So I want to want us to go back to this.

When Jesus said carry a cross, the cross was the assignment for

Jesus. It was a divine assignment given

to him by his Father. He came down to earth, became so

humble, accepted it and walked in obedience towards it.

Today for each of us when we have to carry a cross, it is a

weighty Kingdom assignment. It is not going to be easy, but

the beauty is that since God's glory rests on us, a lot of

times the weight which we feel is also the weight of that glory

because he's doing things in US and through us that are beyond

our wildest dreams. So my question to you is this,

Are you ready to take up that Kingdom assignment?

Now you may ask me, well all of this sounds great, but how do I

discern what my assignment is? How do I know is God going to

give me like you know, a dream saying this is your assignment

or is he going to speak through someone?

Well the 1st way in which you can find out your Kingdom

assignment, first thing is you ask the King for your Kingdom

assignment. Too many of us are looking to a

parent for our Kingdom assignment.

Too many of us are looking at a spouse and saying what should I

do with my life. You're looking at a friend who

goes to church or maybe someone who you think is very spirit

filled and saying you tell me what my assignment is.

But today the king is saying what do you want Come to me.

You see what when he was talking to Peter, he says what do people

say? I am.

And Peter was very clear. He knew what the crowds were

saying, but he said no, but what are you saying?

Who are you saying I am and? Jesus, today is asking you that.

Why don't you come to me? I made you.

I called you. I'm your king.

Ask me for your Kingdom assignment.

Maybe you're looking to Instagram for that one word

about what you need to be doing. Have you asked the king?

He should be the one that you ask.

There are parts of this journey as a Christian, as a follower of

Jesus, which would be so heavy. And you will find that there are

times when you don't have an endorser inside, you don't have

someone to validate you, you don't have people who are

standing on the sidelines cheering you on because some

parts of that road will be so lonely.

But the beautiful thing is, the king never leaves you on the

journey. The one who has called you is

with you every step of the way. The one who has given you the

assignment has promised to never leave you, not forsake you.

I love that when God speaks to Joshua and says this is the

land, Moses is gone. You're in charge.

Come on now, get up. Don't be afraid.

Don't be dismayed. I'm going to be with you.

You keep the book of the law front and center.

You'll be fine. God's calling each of us into a

place of personal relationship with him so that he can

personally download on us what our Kingdom assignments are.

It's very important that you soak and meditate in God's Word

in order to find out what your Kingdom assignment is and the

interesting. Thing you know, the interesting

thing is lot of times we may not only find it in God's word, it

comes superimposed on a lot of other things.

What do I mean by that? If you look at the newspaper, on

any given day, the kind of needs around us are in the billions.

There is caste violence, there's communal disharmony.

There is discord. There is a lack of education.

There's there's illiteracy. There is a lack of health,

health care, there's inequality. There is so much that is

happening around us, world over. There are wars, threat of wars,

calamities that have hit people, the homeless, the

disenfranchised. So much is happening and the

question is, am I only reading the word, taking back what I

need for the day and just moving on?

Or am I taking the word, superimposing it on what I read,

what I know of the world, and asking God, Lord, where do I fit

in in this grand story? You put me on planet Earth in

the year 2024 with these skills, with this heart, with this

working mind, what is it you want me to do?

I want to encourage you that when you seek the King for your

Kingdom assignment that you superimpose the issues of the

world or a pressing need you feel in your heart with the word

of God. I remember many years back I've

shared this before when I was so broken about the situation of

women being abused sexually. I remember being in another

continent but my heart breaking for the women of India, for the

children of India and God said you do something.

And I said, are you kidding me? I'm a biotechnologist.

I have no background in social work.

I have no idea what I could do. But I had this stressing need,

this felt need of of my heart breaking for those who have been

traumatized by abuse. But I didn't know what more to

do. So I got into God's word And

that year he spoke to me from Isaiah 58 where it says that we

will be bridge builders, repairers of foundations.

And how will we do it? We remove the yoke.

We stopped the pointing finger. We released the oppressed.

We released the captive. And when he spoke to me from

that, it didn't make sense. But now I had the word.

I had the felt need. I kept it and incubated it. 10

years later, it took ten years. God has enabled us to identify

how we reach the abused, how we help in their rehabilitation.

He has literally given us a road map, but it happens when we take

our felt need we put the word of God be superimposed?

Because without a biblical lens, I can just do social work and

get by. It is with the Holy Spirit's

help when he reveals the scriptures to you and says this

is the way you do it, this is where you occupy.

This is your Kingdom assignment. It changes the landscape of your

life. I want to encourage you today.

Have you been reading the word just to get by?

Have you been meditating on it just for yourself as much as we

abide in God? As much as we have to rest in

him and be with him that has to overflow in US doing things for

him. So I need to repeat this.

Will you ask the king to give you your Kingdom assignment?

The second thing, the second thing that is very important.

As much as you ask the king for your Kingdom assignment, you

also need to discern in your life the non Kingdom

assignments. So often we put these agendas on

ourselves. You know this is where I want my

career to be in the next 10 years and while it's good to

plan, it's important to have a vision, it's important to have

direction. I wonder if there are a bunch of

things in our life which are non Kingdom assignments, stuff that

doesn't even require us to be sweating and striving the way we

are. Maybe you've been single and you

feel that God is calling you in a certain direction, but you are

stubborn about finding that person and then I will pursue

maybe God saying. Why not take this my way?

What is the non Kingdom agenda that you have been pursuing?

Some of us tend to want the assignment that was given to

someone else. Oh well, that person started a

small business. Maybe I should start.

That seems lucrative. Maybe I should do that.

That seems an easy way to, you know, make money.

I should probably do that. Do not covet another person's

assignment because you will not have the grace that they have

for their assignment. Each burden has a grace

associated to it. You will not have that place,

you cannot bear it. What is the assignment given to

you? Is it Kingdom?

Is it non Kingdom? It's so important to understand

that what works for someone else may not work for us because that

is not in God's will for us. This past week I've been

meditating on the Book of Two Kings and as I was reading about

these different kings I just realized how different the king

of kings and Lord of Lords is from the earthly kings that we

read about. There were two kings in specific

that really stood out to me and I want to leave that with you as

you understand what it's like to live on non Kingdom assignment

and Kingdom assignment. You know Hezekiah.

Was one of the great kings of Judah.

He was a good. King.

He followed after his forefather.

You know, David, he did what was right.

He cleared the land of idolatry. He moved people to actually rely

on God. And when he was faced with a

formidable enemy in Sennacherib of Assyria, he didn't, you know,

an attempt to fight. He just took it to God.

He took those threatening letters.

He wept before God. Isaiah brought him a word and

said, God's going to deal with them.

I'm glad you came to me. I'll deal with it.

It's amazing what happens in his Hezekiah's life because of his

trust. But what happens towards the end

of his life is he has gets sick. He develops a boil of some sort

about to die. God says put your house in

order, I'm taking you home. She turns to the wall and asks

God for an extension of his life and Isaiah comes back in almost

immediately after giving him the word that he's going to die

saying hey, God changed his mind, He heard your prayer, you

get a 15 year extension. Now Here's when Hezekiah moved

from being so Kingdom minded to being self minded.

She doesn't believe what Isaiah says, so he says I need proof.

You're telling me 15 years extension?

I want proof? He asked.

What is the proof you want? He says well there's a sundial

where the sun actually shines and the shadow moves.

He says I wanted to move 10° up so that I know that God has

actually given me this word and God condescends to do it.

He gets the sign, he gets his extension as he recovers.

As he recovers, Hezekiah gets visitors from Babylon.

Hezekiah seems to have lost some of his vision.

He seems to have lost some of his direction.

He shows the Babylonian envoys the entire city.

He shows them his treasuries. He shows them the palaces.

He shows them his wealth. After they leave, Isaiah comes

in and says, what did you do? And he says, well, I just showed

them, you know, they came to wish me well.

And I just showed them everything that was, you know,

that I possess. Isaiah says this thing, he says,

you know what? They came to spite.

They came to actually survey the land.

Because in a couple of years, these guys are going to take

over the land. Your sons will be eunuchs in

their palace. They're going to clear the

treasury or they're going to clear the temple out.

They're going to leave it barren.

You just unconsciously showed them what they would come and

take over. And Hezekiah says this one line

which is such a when I was reading it I was so disappointed

in him because he says who? OK, it's not going to happen in

my time. I'm secure.

It's going to happen after my time.

And that's the end of Hezekiah's story.

Not much is mentioned about him after that.

Hezekiah lived on Kingdom assignment up until that time

when his trust moved off. Up until that time when he lost

the bigger call. As a king, he couldn't have

afforded to be so self-centered, he needed to look at the bigger

picture. Now, in contrast, within a few

chapters, the next king comes about and his name is Josiah.

Josiah is this incredible king. He's mentioned as one of the

greatest kings. After him there was none like

him. It says now what happened with

Josiah. Josiah had was an honour.

Honour, you know, Desire had a desire to rebuild the temple.

So there was money that had been collected for it.

So he tells his people, let's get started, let's start

repairing the temple. So the people start collecting

money. They start working on the

temple. As they clear out the temple of

all the old stuff, they find the Book of the Law hidden and dusty

inside. Ironically, this was the book

that should have led their reigns.

It's the thing that should have guided them, but it was now

collecting dust. In an inner room.

So his people find it, they bring it to him and they open it

and say this is the book of the law.

We found it. We don't know what to do with

it. So Josiah takes time to read it

and as he's. Reading the book of the law, he

realizes just how far his people and him have gone from it, and

So what he does now. To begin with, Josiah was a good

king. He had not promoted idolatry.

He he ran the country well, he looked after his subjects.

But after that it says, he tore his robes, fell to the ground

and said, God is going to punish us.

We've done terrible things. What do we do?

And so the prophetess Haldar comes in and says, you know

what? There's punishment, which has

been decreed because one of your ancestors, Manasi, did such

terrible things. So you are going to go into

excel. These things are going to

happen. But Josiah, nothing's going to

happen to you because you were so repentant.

You were so penitent. It will not happen in your

lifetime. Doesn't it sound vaguely similar

to Hezekiah? Interestingly, Josiah's response

is different. He hears that and then he

collects the entire nation, people of low standing, high

standing, everyone in between. He brings them into a common

area. He gets the book of the Lord,

read out loud. He stands beside a pillar.

He gets the people to commit to wholehearted worship of God.

He gets the entire community to repent.

He goes on a rampage against all the heathen idolatry in the in

the city, in the country. He removes altars.

He burns down altars, breaks down asherah polls.

He is on a on a on a real, you know, course of gridding the

land of everything that had triggered God in the 1st place.

He was not content that he was safe because he had a bigger

picture. The Kingdom assignment was

bigger. It was not about him.

It was about the people of the land that he could afford to

influence for God. You see the difference.

Sometimes we behave like Hezekiah.

We're so caught up in just shaping ourselves, in shaping

our immediate family. We forget that there's a bigger

assignment. You were saved not just for

yourself. You were saved for the Kingdom.

You were saved for bigger things.

What have you been doing with what has been entrusted to you

and me? What have we been doing?

Have we been so caught up in ourselves that we forgot that

there's a bigger call out there? Would we be like Josiah?

That even if we know we are in a good place with God, it won't

end there. But we will say, Lord, I'm ready

to run this race outward. Focus to do more for your

Kingdom. Let your Kingdom come.

Has that been our desire if? You want to come in line with

the King's assignment. You need to seek the king.

You need to discover and discern the things that are not of his

assignment. Find out this is not Kingdom.

It's. I'm pursuing this for my own

gain. I want to promote myself.

Therefore I'm pursuing this. I want to preserve myself, so

I'm pursuing it. But maybe this is not Kingdom.

Bring it to God. Lord is this Kingdom.

Is this not Kingdom. She has amazing ways of showing

us what's not. In his will for us as we

continue reading chapter Luke, Luke Chapter 9, I'm going to

Luke 9 · chapter mention

read from 24 to 27 just to give you a holistic view before we

end Luke chapter 924 to 27. It says for whoever wants to

save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for

me will save it. What good is it for someone to

gain the whole world and get lose of of it their very self?

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be

ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of

the Father and the holy angels. Truly I tell you, some who are

standing here will not taste death before they see the

Kingdom of heaven. Here's the interesting thing

that you can be. You and I can know Jesus.

We can love Jesus, but there have been times when we've been

ashamed of what it looks like to follow him.

We've been ashamed of His word of the Gospel.

We have shield away from actually proclaiming our faith

or saying I stand up for Jesus. And he says if.

You are ashamed from of me. I will be ashamed of you when I

return again. Peter is the best example of

this, right When Jesus actually started mentioning that he was

going to suffer and he talked about you know this is what is

going to happen to me, Peter took him aside and rebuked him

and said said Lord never this will not happen to you and Jesus

calls calls him out and says I rebuke you Satan for you have on

your mind. The things of man, not the

things of God. So often our assignments are

things of man. But he's saying, I want you to

start thinking on things of God, because there is no use if I

choose to not deny, not carry, not follow, What I'm choosing is

to indulge. I'm choosing that I will indulge

in whatever I desire. I'm choosing to take into my

life everything that I feel is an assignment and do it whether

God ordains it or not. And the sad thing is, he says

you could accumulate everything but lose your soul.

If you ask someone like that, you say, I know Jesus, but I

don't think I'm ready to deny carry and follow.

It's not too late. Peter repented, Peter came back,

and he lived on assignment till the day he died.

He was one of the most powerful apostles.

You and I have that potential, but it requires that we are

ready to say I'm here. Lord, I will deny myself daily.

I will carry that cross every day.

I will follow you continuously, lifelong.

Now, if you're like me and you're probably saying, well,

you've told us such a huge bunch of negatives, this Christian

life sounds hard. I want to leave you with two

encouragements. There are perks in carrying the

cross. Over the next few weeks, we're

going to look at how amazing it is to actually walk this kind of

life. Jesus may have shown them how he

was going to die, but he was also showing us the kind of life

we are going to live. And this life is truly one that

is amazing. Matthew 16 talks about the same

passage, but he explains the rewards a little better.

Matthew 1627 to 28. It says 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 they have

done. Truly, I tell you, some who are

standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of

Man coming in his Kingdom to rewards.

When he returns, he will reward each of us for what we have

done. It's very clear he is going to

reward us based on what we have done.

The Kingdom assignment is real. What you and I do with it is

what he's going to reward us based on second thing he says.

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not be his

death before they see the Son of Man coming into the Kingdom.

The beautiful thing is that applies today.

It is literally present, continuous.

We are continually I I love that I often say this as pastors.

We have the greatest view when we see the Son of Man coming

into his Kingdom. We see it happen when people's

lives are transformed. We see it when people we've been

journeying with suddenly have that turn around and their eyes

are open to the beauty of Jesus and life in him.

You and I get to see that it's not just eternity, it begins

now. Like I said, heaven is

constantly invading earth. You know, at that baptism,

heaven invades earth. When that person experiences

reconciliation, heaven touches earth.

When that healing happens, heaven touches earth.

We recently were in a prayer meeting at church when one of

our young people shared how she'd been having this

persistent ankle pain for almost a couple of months.

She had been on a brace and she was struggling, she said.

One afternoon she was at home. She was worshipping God when she

felt the presence of God in her room.

And he said, why don't you ask me to heal you?

You've been struggling. You haven't asked me so in.

Faith, she put her own hand on her ankle and said, Lord Jesus,

just heal me. She was healed in a second, and

not just that, she wanted to test it.

She was able to jump rope 1000 times.

Can you believe it? Heaven touching earth.

The Son of Man has come in his Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is here and the violent take it by force.

Not the reticent, not the complacent.

He's asking for those who be passionate, who will take that

Kingdom assignment up every day. Why do I need to take it up

every day? Because there will be days when

you want to just lay down and say God, I'm done.

But it requires that every morning we wake up, we say no to

the things that have been holding us back.

Pick up that assignment and follow.

Would you be ready to do that? That's the call.

As we go through Lent, as we take stock of ourselves, we're

going to be looking deeper at where we need to deny ourselves,

where we need to die to ourselves, and where we need to

live for Christ. As I close, I want us to look at

the image of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here he was 3 disciples outside, half asleep, fully asleep.

I don't know. He's alone in the in the garden

of Gethsemane. He knew his assignment, the

moment of his assignment had come and reached its peak.

This is why he had come and even him, him being God.

And yet man was struggling with the weight of the assignment.

And it says he was crying out to his father and said, Lord, take

this cup away from me. Yet not my will, but yours.

Be done. For those of us who know the

weight of the cross. For those of us who know the

weight of our assignment, may that be our prayer.

You can come as you are to the Lord.

You can see that this is very heavy.

I didn't sign up for this, but yet, Lord, let your will be

done, not mine. It's the most powerful prayer

that we could pray. Maybe you're someone who said I

love Jesus, but I'm not ready to DCF.

Can I just ask that you would pray this prayer?

Lord not my will. But yours be done.

Because when we do that, we surrender everything.

We're no longer holding on to our need to self preserve and

promote and protect. We're saying I'm ready for

whatever you're calling me. And so as we get into this week,

as we get into the couple of weeks that are coming up, can I

ask that you would say, Lord, I'm here, and I know you've set

me apart to carry my cross, but I don't know what this cross

looks like. Tell him if you're afraid of it.

The beauty about it is when we live in a place of carrying that

assignment, she gives us the grace we need.

She gives us victories along the way.

Even when we are hard pressed, we are never really destroyed or

demolished. It's amazing what his spirit in

US does. So I want to just pray for you

As we pray, I'm specifically going to ask God that he would

open up your eyes to see your Kingdom assignment.

Read the papers. Ask God, Put on my heart what is

breaking yours? Is there a part of life in this

area that I live that is breaking your heart that you

want me to step into, to bring light into that darkness?

Use me here I am. Can I do that for you?

Can I just help you as you start seeking Godfather?

We just invite you here. I just pray that Lord, each one

of us will have clarity about our assignment.

We thank you that, Lord, you are the one who assigns us these

assignments. And I pray that we will be able

to bear the weight of this assignment, that you would give

us grace for it. You would give us courage for

it. We thank You, Lord, that the

rewards are eternal. We thank you that the rewards

begin now. We thank you, Lord, that we will

see your Kingdom come. We will see it advance.

We will see your Kingdom pervade the spaces we are in.

Help us to be faithful. Help us to be courageous.

Help us to lean on you. Jesus.

We cannot do it apart from you, Holy Spirit.

Empower us. Strengthen US.

Open our eyes. I pray for anyone who's

struggling to identify their Kingdom assignment That Lord,

you would show them this week. You would open hearts.

You would open eyes. Things that have been pressing

them down. We now have clarity.

I pray for those who have been unwilling to deny, to carry and

to follow. Father.

I pray that you will open up their spiritual hearts to open

up spiritual eyes to see Lord the life they are missing out

on. Help them.

We commit ourselves into your hands in Jesus name and pray.

Amen. Amen.

God bless you. We really hope that this series

where we learn to deny, carry and follow will bless you.

It won't scare you, but they challenge you.

God bless you. Have an amazing week.

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