God promises you a cross.
Matthew 19:20-22 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Matthew 8:18-22 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Today I’d like to look at a few things that Jesus said and did. In the first passage posted from Matthew 19, Jesus tells a young man who wants to follow Him to go and sell his possessions, give the money he makes to the poor and then he can follow Him. The young man leaves sadly because he can’t bring himself to do that. In the second passage from Matthew 8, Jesus tells another young man that if he wants to follow Him, he needs to do so now, not later after he has buried his father.
What do those passages tell us today? Is it saying that we should sell all we have and give the money to the poor so that we too can really follow Jesus, or that we can’t bury our parents? No, of course not. The Lord included this in His Word to teach us about carrying our cross and what the cost is to be His disciple. If you look at the next 2 passages posted, you’ll see that the others that Jesus called, immediately left everything to follow Him. Does that mean that we too must leave everything we have? Again, no, it’s there to show us the cost of being His follower.
In the case of the rich young man, it shows us that we must put Jesus before our jobs, money, wealth, or possessions. If any of those things mean more to us then Jesus does, if we would not willingly part with them, then we need to do some praying and ask the Lord to strengthen us. The Lord does not ask us all to give up these things, but He does ask us all to put Him first, before those things, and to trust Him in handling them for us. How differently that story would have turned out if the young man had indeed been willing to trust our Lord! Even the disciples were curious about this and asked the Lord what they would receive for giving up everything to follow Him. Here’s what Jesus said:
Matthew 19:28-29 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.
His answer reminds me of the story of Job who lost everything he had, children, wealth, property, his health, everything. At the end of his testing however, do you remember what the Lord gave him?
Job 42:10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before…….12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.
This too is something we need to remember. Whatever cross the Lord asks us each to carry, the reward for carrying it will far outweigh the temporary loss, pain, or trial that we had to go through.
Let’s take a closer look at Matthew 8:18-22 now. First a man comes and says he will follow Jesus, but His reply almost doesn’t seem to make sense at first. He says basically that He has no place to lay His head, indicating how poor He was. We have to remember that our Lord knew (and still knows) people’s hearts and their real reason for doing things. During the time period that Jesus lived in, it was quite normal for well known teachers to gather disciples to follow them, and of course the more well known the teacher was, the more famous the disciples would be as well. Jesus of course knew this too and realized that this man was looking for fame and glory and did not have his heart in the right place. He let the man know that he would not find what he was seeking by following Him because He didn’t own a nice home or anything else for that matter.
Next, another man who had already been following Jesus, (we know this because he is called a “disciple” says that he wants to go home and bury his father before continuing with Him. At this point our Lord tells him something that sounds quite cruel at first glance; He tells him to “let the dead bury the dead”. First we need to realize that this mans father had not just died, he was still very much alive. We can know this because it was the custom to bury the dead immediately then. So this man was actually telling the Lord he wanted to go home, wait for his father to die, bury him and then go follow Jesus. It’s possible he wanted to see what his inheritance would be, or perhaps he simply wanted to be there to fulfill his duty to his father when he eventually did die. We aren’t told this. What we need to do though is realize that Jesus knew exactly what was in this mans heart and mind, even though we don’t. This man was basically telling the Lord, “I’ll follow you BUT….”. By saying, “let the dead bury the dead”, the Lord let him know that there were no “buts” allowed! Jesus was letting everyone know that following Him had to be their first priority, not their second or third one.
He also included in His Word many examples of those who were willing to put Him first and follow Him. Here are just a couple that we can learn from:
Matthew 4:18-22 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Luke 5:27-28 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
When our Lord asks us to do something, we need to be prepared to “leave everything” and “immediately” do as he has asked. Have you noticed how even I have used the word “ask”? In reality, we need to remember too that when our Lord “asks” us to do something, it really should be taken as a command. He is not just another human being, or just a nice guy that gave up His life for us. He is God; our creator; and we are nothing more then His creation. Paul used the example sometimes of being in the military. I’m sure military life back then was very much as it is now. When your commanding officer gave you an order, you didn’t question it; you didn’t even consider not obeying. I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying that when someone tells us to jump, we should respond by asking “how high.” Even that isn’t acceptable though when it comes to our Lord. When He tells us to jump, we need to simply say “Yes Lord!” and jump as high as we possibly can for as long as we can until He tells us to stop! He is our commanding officer and we are in a war!
For each of us there will be times that putting Jesus first in every area of our lives, will require a sacrifice. It might be a sacrifice of our pride because co-workers make fun of us for asking them not to take the name of our Lord in vain. It might be the sacrifice of our job because the Lord has asked us to go and work elsewhere or because we have been fired for insisting that we will not work on Sunday. It might be the sacrifice of money because the Lord has laid it on our hearts to give a certain amount of money to a specific individual, or church or ministry etc. It could be more serious and be a sacrifice of our beloved family because they refuse to accept Jesus and constantly insist that we betray Him. It could even be the sacrifice of our physical life because He has placed us in a position where Christians are being killed. Whatever it is, that sacrifice then is our cross for that time.
2 Timothy 2:3-7 Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.
