September 27, 2026
Sermon Part 5: “Excuse Me, Where Do You Think You Are Going Without Your Cross?”
The powerful and moving classic hymn written by Thomas Shepherd asks the question: "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone and all the world go free?" The song then provides the answer: “No there’s a cross for everyone…and there’s a cross for me!”
So in Part 5 we ask born-again Christians everywhere, “Where Do You Think You Are Going Without Your Cross?
Happy Sunday to all of God’s Chosen People, Saints of the Most-High God!
Church, let’s anchor our hearts in the Glorious Reality of God's Presence this morning. The Bible declares in Proverbs 15:3:
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
Also, the Prophet Hanani reminds us in II Chronicles 16:9 of how intensely God scans our lives to bless those whose hearts are fully committed to Him:
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him.
And lastly, the Apostle Peter drops a hammer on our casual Christianity by revealing exactly who is tracking our footsteps in I Peter 2:25:
For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
Somebody in the House shout: “Thank God, Jesus is the Bishop of my soul!” Saints, look at that Word “Bishop.” In the original Greek, that word is episkopos, which literally means an intensive overseer, a guardian, an inspector, or one who watches closely over something. Praise God, Jesus is not a distant historical figure; He is the episkopos—the active, searching Inspector who is monitoring the exact condition of your soul's devotion to Him right now!
In our worship of Jesus Christ, every born-again Christian must think soberly and understand that before we say a word, before we pray or sing a note, that our Savior and Lord is actively watching over us. Jesus does not look at us with a casual glance; Jesus is looking right through us! Glory be to God!
He is looking past the nice clothes you wear to Church. He is looking past your perfect attendance record. He is looking straight through your religious exterior to see exactly what you are holding onto in your mind and heart. He sees the hidden motives. He sees the secret compromises and sin practice. He looks right through our polished excuses, and He asks a question that stops us dead in our tracks: "Excuse me, where do you think you are going without your cross?"
Jesus, the Bishop of our souls expects to find the sole-ambition of the cross in the beam of your eye, in the core of your mind, and center of your heart!
Welcome to Part Five of our Series, "True Repentance Is the Message God Is Waiting for His People to Receive!" Today is our last Sermon of the Series. I hope the powerful Messages that are coming from this pulpit, by the Holy Ghost and Power, have reproved all areas of sin in your life, and provoked you to turn away from sin and back to God evidenced by a life that mirrors that of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Over the last few weeks, we have established that the gift of True Repentance inspired by Godly Sorrow is not a soft, emotional sigh; it is a violent disruption of the wanton ego of a person and an immediate turning to God and His Way of doing things. I pray you have come to the place where your spiritual and mental ears are on guard for attacks of Satan to tempt you to sin, and by the might of the Holy Ghost, cast it down because of your awareness that sin deeply offends God, and the last thing we should ever want to do as sons and daughters of God is to offend our Heavenly Father God! Right Saints, you do not want to offend God, do you?
Today, we confront the ultimate evidence of a Truly Repentant life—it is called "Cross-Bearing."
Let’s look directly at the Word of God in Luke 14:25-27:
And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
To understand why Jesus spoke so sharply, we must look at the road He was walking in that Passage. Great multitudes were following Him. The crowds were massive. Oh how the people loved the free Bread. Oh how they loved the Miracles. Oh how they loved to sit and listen to His Wisdom. But then Jesus turned around, looked at the sea of faces, and thinned the crowd with a lightning bolt of Truth: To follow after Him, a cross must be borne; the mandate was given to be a disciple of His, a person’s cross must be carried!
Saints here is the misguided Sadness, “Cross-Bearing” should not bring forth the thought of grief and sorrow. Rather, the cross is an exceedingly great and precious blessing of God! When folks hear this Command (in its entirety given in other Scriptures we will cover) from Jesus—that if any person would come after Him, let him first deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him—they instantly become sad. Their facial expressions turn to a frown and spirits sag. No one naturally wants to deny self, and nobody wants to hear about bearing a heavy cross.
But Church, they are so completely misguided in their thinking! Most folks look at self-denial and cross-bearing as an execution sentence, but in reality, denying self and the bearing of cross are exceedingly great and precious blessings! Jesus is not trying to rob you; He is trying to rescue you! When He tells you to deny yourself, He is saying that any person who seeks after Him is going to receive the divine-Opportunity to experience a supernatural exchange. Jesus is offering to take away your dead, fallen, corrupted Adamic-nature, cause your heart to be born-again, and make you a brand-new creation in Christ that never before existed in the earth! (II Cor.5:17) Greater even than Adam in dominion and authority on the earth before the fall! Glory to God, yes we should as Jesus said “hate ourselves” with all of its sin-laden fallen nature of Adam!
Jesus is offering to give you His very Life—a life that is absolutely “Full of God!” He is inviting you to possess the Spirit of the Life and the Mind of Christ, so that Christ Himself may live through you. Look at Colossians 3:3-4:
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Here is a News Flash for you Saints: Christ’s Life includes Cross-Bearing, and yes, it is a must-have blessing because our ultimate Victory—the victory that overcomes the world—comes strictly through Christ's cross! Every single thing that Heaven has for us is made available and ready to receive only through the gory-bloody glorious cross. Reconciliation with Almighty God? It's at the cross! Eternal life? It flows from the cross! Divine healing for your body? It was paid for at the cross! The birthing of the Church? It was established at the cross. Covenant prosperity, our eternal seating in Heavenly places with Christ, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the entire matching inheritance of the Kingdom of God—it is all unlocked and handed to you through the Power of the cross!
And look at the explosive mystery of the Gospel—the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8:17 that we are joint-heirs with Christ, so the cross also must be shared! It’s not optional, the cross belongs to you; you own it! You cannot lay claim to the full inheritance if you reject the execution of the flesh! If we are to be glorified together with Him, we must also suffer together with Him. You cannot expect to inherit the Kingdom of God with hands that refuse to carry the weight of His Mission!
Most important of all, through the cross, God makes available to us our divine Ministry Assignments! The cross is where your “Purpose” is born. It is just the enemy, Satan himself, who wants you to view self-denial and Cross-Bearing as an unnecessary, burdensome task. The devil plays with your mind (thought-life) to make you think the cross is a chore so that you will make excuses for your disobedience, locking you completely out of True relationship and intimate fellowship with God. If Satan can convince you not to take up your cross, then he successfully keeps you from doing the Works of Christ and greater Works! Don't let the enemy lie to you! The cross is not your prison; it is the doorway to God’s Power!
Now in Luke 14:25-27, that we read above, when Jesus uses that shocking, severe word—telling us we must "hate" our father, mother, wife, children, and siblings, and own selves to follow Him—He is deliberately pulling from the deep roots of the Old Testament Law! He is connecting His Words directly to the uncompromising standard laid down in Deuteronomy 13:6-8:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods... Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him."
Under the Mosaic Law, if your closest blood relatives turned away to worship idols, you had to turn away from them immediately! You could not hide their sin, you could not spare them, and you could not let human emotion compromise your loyalty to the One True God!
So in Luke 14, Jesus stands before that massive New Testament crowd and echoes this exact ancient boundary. He is telling them, ‘If your family becomes an idol that stands between you and Me, if your relatives try to lure you into a life of worldly comfort, self-interest, and spiritual compromise, you must love Me so much by comparison that your choice looks like hatred to them!’
Listen to me, Church: If your family chooses to worship false gods or the non-god (Atheism or Agnosticism), you must leave them behind! You cannot stay in that valley of compromise trying to please flesh and blood. You have to walk away because Jesus is the only true and living God! There is no middle ground, there is no negotiation, and there is no shared throne. True Repentance requires you to rip down every idol, even if that idol is sitting at your family dinner table! If your family line demands your loyalty over Christ's Commands, you must choose the Master and leave the family system behind!
My, my my! Still, I feel the need to drill down more on Christ’s Command to deny self and take up our crosses because this is in my estimation the biggest strong-hold in Christian living. Inherently, people “Love Self ” it’s the curse of the Adamic-nature. The very person Jesus said you must hate to be His follower, we love the most!
Let’s be honest with ourselves today: in modern Christian Circles, there are two things that folks absolutely do not want to do. They do not want to deny self, and they do not want to take up their cross! We want the blessing, but we reject the brokenness. We want the comfort, but we despise the commitment. Yet, we completely miss the mystery of the Kingdom of God—because of those two exact things, as I mentioned earlier we run away from, are the very things that bring us into divine-Obedience and intimate fellowship with the Master! You cannot know Jesus if you refuse to walk the Path He walked. You cannot experience His Power if you reject His Path! Christ’s Path on earth was absolute Willful and Committed-Obedience to God the Father in all things. At Philippians 2: 5-8, Paul wrote:
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
In several other Passages Jesus makes the same Authoritative Command to the crowds following Him as He did in Luke 14, and never stutters. He laid down the strict, mathematical order of the Kingdom: You must deny yourself first, and only then can you carry the cross. In fact, look at the three-step Progression Jesus demands in Luke 9:23:
"If any man will come after me, let him first deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."
Saints repeat this after me: “If we seek to know and have fellowship with Jesus Christ, we must (1) deny ourselves, (2) take up our cross and (3) follow after Him!”
You see, you cannot pick up the cross if your hands are still full of yourself! Self-denial is the prerequisite for Cross-Bearing. Yes, you must hate your old-Adamic life, be willing to lay it down and crucify it! If we claim the name of Jesus, we must empty our hands of our own lives first. According to the Amplified Bible translation of Luke 14:33, Jesus warns us:
"So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up (relinquish, forsake, and renounces as destructive) all that he has." Ummm, we need to take a bull-horn and sound the alarm and ask every person who claims the name of Jesus Christ whether they have relinquished, forsaken, and renounced as destructive all that they possess from their former lives.
We have to lose all self-interest. We have to crucify our own little ambitions, our petty pride, and our personal kingdoms. Only when self is completely denied and laid in the dust are we finally ready to reach down, pick up our pre-ordained and arranged cross, and walk in His footsteps into True fellowship! So Saints, let me look you in the eye and ask the very question of this Message title: Where do you think you are going without your cross? Church, hear the unvarnished Truth from the mouth of God today: As Christians, we are going absolutely nowhere with God without our cross!
If you are not bearing your cross, your spiritual growth is completely frozen. You are running on a religious treadmill—sweating, singing, shouting, and putting in effort—but making “zero” forward progress in the Kingdom of Heaven! Why?
First, because the Path Jesus walks is a One-Way street to a crucifixion site without turning back. If you refuse the cross, you have chosen a completely different road than the Master. You cannot follow a crucified Savior while avoiding execution yourself. Second, without the cross, your Faith is just a mental philosophy, not spiritual reality. The cross is the exact point where your obedience is tested. If your Faith doesn't cost you your comfort, your reputation, your self-interest, and your wallet, then it is a “fake-dead-faith” that can take you nowhere! You are stalled out at the gates of the Kingdom because you are trying to enter on your own terms. God is not moving forward with your unrepentant, self-serving agenda!
Make no mistake about it—this is not an optional track for "elite" Christians. Cross-carrying is a sky-high bar, but it is an absolute mandatory requirement for Salvation for every person! It’s a non-negotiable standard of worthiness established by Jesus Christ. Listen to the glorious, uncompromising Words of Jesus recorded by Matthew’s account recorded in 10:37-38:
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."
Hear that Word: “Not worthy.” If you are bypassing the cross, Jesus says you do not belong to Him! You can sing the songs, you can join the committees, you can carry a massive leather Bible, but if you refuse the rough wood of personal execution of self, you are disqualified. Praise God! The cross is the dividing line in the sand between the crowd and the disciple. It is the absolute stamp of divine-Obedience.
But let us be clear today—emptying your hands is not a casual decision. It is not a man-made lifestyle adjustment. Dropping your self-interest is a Work of the Holy Ghost; and requires True Repentance and a deep, shattering Godly Sorrow inspired by Him! We have to look at our hands and realize we have been desperately holding onto sinful things, selfish ambitions, and worldly pleasures that separate us from a Holy God. We cannot just politely lay them down; we must weep over them with acknowledgement and understanding of how our self-centeredness and wicked ways have wounded God our Father, the Holy God! The Bible says:
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. (II Cor. 7:10)
True Repentance means looking at the things we loved—our pride, our secret sins, our independent spirits—and seeing them as the very things that drive a wedge between us and our Creator. Godly Sorrow breaks our grip! It makes us let go of the garbage of this world because we finally realize it is destroying us and separating us from a Holy God. You cannot touch the Holy timber of the cross until you first grieve over the sin that made the cross necessary!
Saints, we all need to examine and judge ourselves. Look at what you are clenching in your fists today!
- Look closely—some of you are holding onto secret dependencies and hidden addictions, white-knuckling the very substances or digital vices that numb your soul while pulling you away from the Presence of a Holy God.
- Some of you are holding onto unclean habits and hidden lifestyles, clutching onto a secret relationship or an ungodly connection that you try to hide from the Church, but that the episkopos (Bishop) of your soul sees perfectly in the dark.
- Look at the bitter roots of un-forgiveness and malice stuffed in the palms of some of you; where you refuse to let go of an old offense or a past hurt, preferring to nurse and rehearse your anger rather than drop it at the Altar of Grace.
- Look at the dishonest gains and hidden compromises in your employment, business, and legal practices, the shortcuts you take, and the lies you tell yourself just to secure an extra dollar or gain an advantage in the marketplace.
We try to compromise with these things. We want to casually place them in a corner and pretend they aren't there. But I tell you, you cannot just politely lay them down; we must weep over them! You have to look at your compromise and see that it is an abomination before a Holy God. Until you allow the Holy Ghost to shatter your satisfaction with sin, your hands will remain too full of the world to ever carry the cross! And, ultimately you cause yourself personal harm (physical, emotional, and financial) by doggedly holding on to sin instead of crucifying it and developing a habit of dying daily to sin. (Rom. 8:13)
If you want to see what it looks like when a person refuses to empty their hands, look at the tragedy of the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18:18-23.
Here was a young man who had everything the world tells us to chase: youth, good-looks, wealth, position, and respect. He ran to Jesus, knelt down, and asked the ultimate question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" He claimed he had kept all the Commandments since his youth. He looked like the perfect convert. He looked like Church-leadership material.
But Jesus saw right through his religious performance. He looked into the young man's heart and saw closed fists. Jesus saw hands that were tightly wrapped around gold, status, and worldly security. So, Jesus applied the knife of self-denial:
Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. (Luke 18:22)
Jesus was saying, ‘Empty your hands of your worldly identity. Drop your self-interest. Only then can you follow Me.’
What did the young man do? Did he fall on his face in Godly Sorrow? Did he Repent of the idolatry that separated him from God? No! Scripture says: "And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich." (Luke 18:23). He walked away from Christ. Why? Because he was unwilling to empty his hands! He preferred his comfortable riches over a rugged cross, and he chose a temporary kingdom over eternal life.
Church, how many of us are exactly like the Rich Young Ruler today? We might not have millions in the bank, but our hands are completely full of our own riches! We are holding onto our time, our weekends, our reputations, our career focus, and our personal comfort. Jesus stands before us today and says, ‘Let it go. Give it up. Share the Gospel. Risk your reputation for the lost.’ But we look at our schedules, we look at our social status, we look at our hobbies, and we walk away sorrowful because we love our little riches more than we love the souls of dying men and women!
Umm, let's bring the Truth even closer to home. We don't just act like the Rich Young Ruler with our time; we act exactly like him with our wallets! Most Christians today are just like the Rich Young Ruler because they flat-out refuse to bring the Tithe and give sacrificial offerings to God! (Mal.3:6-8) Yes, even the whole nation are robbers of God. We sit in the Sanctuary and talk about how much we love Jesus, but the data exposes our naked greed. National research on Church giving drops a hammer on our comfortable illusions:
- Look at the data from Barna Group and Pew Research: Only 5-percent to 6-percent of churchgoers actually follow traditional biblical tithing by giving 10-percent of their income.
- Barna's deep-dive data reveals that a staggering 25-percent of all Christians state they do not give financially to the local Church at all!
- Look at the giving amounts recorded by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research: the average evangelical household gives less than 2-percent of their income to the Church.
- For those who do give occasionally, the average giving level hovers at a pathetic 2.5-percent of their income.
Think about that! God gives you 100-percent of your breath, 100-percent of your strength, and 100-percent of your income, and the average believer can barely manage to return 2-percent to the Kingdom! And Saints, why are our hands so tightly closed toward God?
It is because we are using that money to satisfy our own lusts! We tell ourselves we can't afford to tithe, but our bank statements tell a different story. We have plenty of money for housing expenses, luxury cars, plenty of money for the expensive vacations, plenty of money for the latest tech gadgets, the upscale dining, and the vanity projects. We spend thousands of dollars a year to feed our fleshly cravings, but when the offering basket passes by, we dig in our pockets for loose change and leftover crumbs and many give nothing!
By living this way, Christians prove one undeniable, terrifying fact: Mammon controls their hearts, Mammon controls their minds, and Mammon controls their hands—not God!
Jesus explicitly told us in Matthew 6:24, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
This absolute dichotomy—this fierce internal war raging inside the human brain over the handling of God’s Money—causes a violent spiritual conflict from within. This is precisely why Christian non-tithers and non-givers bristle, stiffen, and react the very moment tithing and sacrificial offerings are mentioned from this Pulpit! They stop up their ears. Their self-will and carnal reasoning attempt to rise above the Knowledge of God, whispering to themselves justifications to keep their hands closed tight. Not understanding that the spirit of Mammon is the puppet-Master behind the scenes feeding the excuses and orchestrating their financial and health demise for themselves and family in their generations.
But the guarantee from Heaven is absolute, and it cannot be bypassed: “God is not mocked, and whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap!” The Scripture warns in Galatians 6:7-8 that if you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. Saints, hear me now—when you surrendered your life to Christ, your life ceased to be your own! Your life was bought with a price, purchased by the precious blood of Jesus shed on the cross. Your body and your spirit belong to Him, fashioned exclusively to glorify God, and not yourself! The worship of self and the hoarding of wealth instantly place you in the dangerous path of idolatry, and a Holy God has “zero” fellowship with idolaters! It’s why Jesus said you cannot serve two Masters.
When you choose to protect your wallet and starve the Work of God, you are bowing your knee to the god of money! You are letting a demonic financial system dictate your obedience, and unlocking a jail cell and positioning yourself their as a “money-slave.” When Mammon rules the wallet, there is absolutely no denial of self, and there is no cross being borne! You cannot bear a rugged cross with hands that are glued to your money!
You cannot follow Jesus when your mind is entirely consumed by your own financial security and fleshly lusts. The tragic Truth is that we are robbing God to fund our personal entertainment! We are starving the storehouse of God just so we can pamper our own flesh. We are drowning in consumerism, using the very wealth God entrusted to us to worship at the altar of self, while stubbornly refusing to give a single dime to win a lost, dying soul to Jesus Christ!
Saints, focus with me for a moment on the Shocking Significance of the Cross Jesus said must be borne by all who would follow Him. Because once our hands are emptied of Mammon through True Repentance, we are forced to look down at the rugged timber we are Commanded to carry.
We must understand the terrifying weight of what Jesus said to those who were following Him! In the first century, the cross was not a piece of jewelry. It was not a pretty gold ornament hanging around someone's neck. It was not a decoration on a Church steeple. To the people standing in that crowd, the cross was a gruesome instrument of execution. When a man picked up a cross in the Roman Empire, he was not going for a casual walk. He was on a one-way journey to his death! He was saying goodbye to his plans, goodbye to his reputation, and goodbye to his future. The cross meant total surrender. It meant absolute execution of the ego!
And hear me today—you cannot execute the ego without a lethal weapon! God didn’t Call you to manage your sin, negotiate with your lust, or put your ego on a self-help program. The Bible Commands us in Colossians 3:5 to "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Paul declares in Romans 8:13, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
In the Greek language, that word “mortify” means to kill, to extinguish, to utterly destroy and put to death! Praise God! The cross is the place of execution! When you pick up that wood, you are carrying the instrument that will kill the very flesh that separates you from a Holy God. True Repentance inspired by Godly Sorrow enlightened and directed by the Holy Ghost demands that you don't just lay your lifestyle choices down gently. No, you drag them to the timber, you nail them to the wood, and you mortify the deeds of the flesh until the wanton ego draws its very last breath!!!
Every born-again Christian must understand when we refuse to Repent, empty our hands, and carry our cross, we are committing a fatal spiritual error. Without bearing our cross, we completely neglect a vital part of Christ’s Life within us! For Jesus died for our sins, and therefore we cannot allow the devil and sin to have any place in our lives whether it be of willful commission or omission in keeping the Commandments of Christ.
Think about it: the God-saturated heart of Jesus (spirit, mind, and soul of Christ) lives inside every True believer. What is the nature of that Spirit? It is a sacrificial Spirit! It is a soul-saving Spirit! Christ within you desires to reach and rescue the lost, but when you lock yourself in the fortress of self-interest, you suffocate His Power. You choke out His Love. You try to enjoy the benefits of His Resurrection while refusing the fellowship of His Sufferings. You cannot have His Life inside you if you refuse to let Him live out His Mission through you! Those who doggedly refuse the Mission openly show True Repentance and Godly Sorrow, and experience with Jesus Christ has not yet taken place.
Paul told Timothy his protégé:
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (I Tim. 1:15)
It was through Christ’s cross that the world is offered Salvation, through Faith in His finished works. This was Christ’s Mission to seek and to save all those who are lost, and so it is for you too! This is your cross: to seek and to save the lost through the preaching of the Gospel! If you are truly born-again, your Mission must be the same as Christ’s Mission: To seek and to save the lost. Praise God, Paul pulls back the curtain on this divine-Design in Ephesians 2:10, declaring:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Hear that Word: Workmanship! In the original Greek language, it means you are God’s own handiwork. You have been meticulously recreated in Christ Jesus—not to sit idly in a pew, not to chase worldly security, but to execute the very Assignments ordained for you from the foundations of the world! And what is that work? What is the centerpiece of that God-given handiwork? It is soul-winning! Your custom-arranged cross is the active, deliberate choice to join Jesus in His rescue operation of lost souls! Our cross is to preach the Gospel, invade the darkness, and win the lost to Christ!
Look at what Paul declared about his own Cross-Bearing life:
For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! (I Cor. 9:16)
Oh when will the body of Christ get a “Woe” in their hearts like Paul and go and preach the Gospel? And again, Paul told the Corinthians that the Message of the cross is our very heartbeat:
And all things of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation... Now then we are ambassadors for Christ. (II Cor.5:18 & 20)
Now Saints take this illustration to heart and never forget it. Imagine a young man who trains for years to become a beachfront lifeguard. He gets the uniform. He gets the whistle. He gets the station. He gets the salary. He stands on his tower, looking out at the raging, treacherous sea.
One afternoon, the dark clouds roll in. The waves start violently tossing. Suddenly, he hears a desperate scream out in the deep water. A swimmer is drowning, going under, fighting for their life. But the lifeguard looks down at his hands. He is holding a warm cup of coffee, a book he wants to finish, and his own personal comforts. He knows that to dive into that tearing surf, he has to drop everything. He has to abandon his comfort. He has to risk his safety.
Sadly, he looks at the drowning soul, but he grips his comforts even tighter. He stays in his chair. He blows his whistle from the safety of the shore, but he refuses to dive into the storm because his hands are too full of himself!
Saints of God that is exactly what the majority of the Body of Christ looks like when we refuse to Repent and bear our cross! We wear the Christian label, we sit in the safety of our Church pews, pretending to be True followers of Christ, we hold onto our pride, our time, and our sinful habits. We refuse to get our hands dirty in the messy, broken lives of the lost. We leave them to drown because our hands are too full of our own ambitions!
We stretch forth our hands to God to enter into His Presence, desperately begging to receive a touch, to receive healing, to receive mended hearts, and to receive a blessing of financial prosperity—and yet, the Lord Jesus is looking at our empty, outstretched palms and asking: “Where is your cross?”
Where is your cross, Saints of God? (I’m talking about your participation in the Great Commission to win the lost to Christ through the preaching of the Gospel). Is it gathering dust in the corner of your convenience? Have you unbuckled it because the wood got too heavy, because the world mocked you, or because you fell right back into holding onto the sinful things that separate you from a Holy God?
Let me give you some more sobering, heartbreaking reality. We sit in Houses of Worship and we talk a good game about Evangelism, we sing our songs about reaching the world, but our daily actions expose our naked self-interest! Lifeway Research and Barna track the state of the modern Church’s-Behavior, and the numbers should make us weep before God:
- Over 60-percent of churchgoing Christians have not shared how to become a Christian with a single soul in the last six- months. How about you?
- Only 31% of Christians today feel a strong personal responsibility to share their Faith. How about you?
- One-third of churchgoers did not invite a single individual, friend, or family member to Church in an entire six-month span. How about you?
- And most terrifying of all, historical evangelism data reveals that 95-percent of all born-again believers will live their entire lives and never win one soul to Jesus Christ! And, how about you? Will this be your legacy, one of sorry-service unto Jesus?
Look at those numbers! Ninety-five percent! We have turned the Great Commission into the great omission! We want a Savior, but we don't want a cross! We want the crown, but we refuse the wood! The Piercing Question is: Why Are So Many Failing?
We have to ask the hard question before this Altar today: Why are so many failing to bear their crosses? Why is the modern Church paralyzed? Why are the pews full but the streets empty of witness? I will tell you why: it is because too many people are still carrying self-interest. They are still holding tight to their own money, their own comfort, their own reputations, and their own schedules. They flat-out refuse to hear and obey the Voice of the Holy Ghost as He Calls them into True Repentance motivated by Godly Sorrow! The Holy Ghost is convicting, He is tugging, He is whispering, but they stiffen their necks. They block their ears because they don’t want their personal kingdoms or their bank accounts disrupted!
For more than 18-years I have been specifically beating the Gospel drum of Evangelism to this Church and fellow Christians and the Message has fallen mostly on deaf ears. But I will not be deterred for the Bible is right, and all who refuse the Truth are wrong.
Those who refuse to heed the clarion Call of Christ to bear their cross never consider how their selfish ambitions and ways hurt God. They never stop to think about how stubborn disobedience breaks the heart of Almighty God! We grieve the Holy Ghost every time we value our luxury and our reputation more than the dying souls He shed His blood to save! Our ways are an insult to the agony of Calvary!
Saints the time for games is over as God is searching the earth for people who desire only to worship Him in spirit and in truth. The time for smooth, comfortable, cross-less Christianity is at an end. Jesus stands at the threshold of this digital Sanctuary today. He is looking at your life, your home, your workplace, and your checkbook. He sees right through the religious mask, right past the Scripture reading, songs and prayers we made; and He is asking you directly: ‘Excuse me, where do you think you are going without your cross?’
You cannot go to Heaven dragging your own agenda. You cannot carry your worldly idols and your greed in your hands and carry the cross of Christ on your shoulder. Like the Rich Young Ruler, you have a decision and a choice to make today. Will you grip your comforts, protect your money, and walk away sorrowful? Or will you let Godly Sorrow break your heart, open your hands, and empty yourself before a Holy God?
Right now, you need to open your spiritual ears. Stop tuning out the conviction! Listen to Christ Commanding you right now to talk to someone about Jesus this week! Listen to Him Commanding you to invite somebody to our digital service next week!
Don't say you don't know how to reach the lost. You have all you need to win the lost with your “testimony” of meeting Jesus Christ upon your Repentance and Godly Sorrow for sins and all the wonderful things He has done in your life. You have the gift of the Holy Ghost, who whenever you open your mouth to talk about Jesus and Salvation, will give you a fresh Word to cause the sinner to ask: “What must I do to be saved?” When you talk about Jesus and His finished Work on the cross, the Power of God will be released and enable you by the Holy Ghost to do miracles, and operate in manifold Works of the Spirit.
Here at Exousia Ministries, you also have a Ministry that has provided training in Evangelism with written scripts to engage all types of people to hear the Gospel and receive Salvation. You have a pastor who will walk the streets with you and tag-team the enemy with the Word of God and set captives free. Moreover, given our Ministry functions online, every week we send the congregation a link encouraging you to invite people to Worship Services.
But Saints, if you refuse to open your mouth to talk about the Savior, you are proving that you are still dragging your cross-less agenda. Remember: you are going absolutely nowhere with God without your cross. If you have realized today that you have been neglecting the soul-saving Life of Christ within you—if you have realized that your self-interest and financial stinginess have been hurting the heart of God—then this Altar is open for you.
Do not walk away like the Young Ruler in our story. Come now and drop the world. Come empty your hands. Come pick your cross back up, lift it high, and follow the Master as He leads you into divine-Assignments to win the lost to Him!
Now, let’s close this Series with prayer. Father we come to you in the mighty, and precious, and holy name of Jesus Christ. We stand before You today overwhelmed by the Power of the cross. We thank You that through that rugged-gory glorious cross of Jesus, we have been completely redeemed! We are now citizens of the Kingdom of God and eternally given crosses to bear. We praise You that the cross has unlocked for us an eternal glorious inheritance—the total forgiveness of our sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our seating in Heavenly places with Christ Jesus.
Lord, because we have received this third-Heaven blessing of Cross-Bearing, we refuse to treat it with cheap compromise. Holy Ghost, we hear Your voice Calling us into True Repentance today. Grant us a deep, profound Godly Sorrow for the ways our self-interest and our lust for money have grieved Your heart. Right now, across this room, we rebuke and tear-down the idol of the spirit of Mammon! We open our fists wide and turn our finances completely over to You. By your Grace we receive forgiveness for our greed, for robbing You in the Tithe, and for holding back sacrificial offerings directed by the Spirit of God, just to satisfy our own fleshly desires. We declare by the Holy Ghost and Power that Mammon no longer controls our hearts, our minds, or our hands—You alone are our Master!
Father, by the Work of the Holy Ghost, cause us to break through every spirit of fear, procrastination, and intimidation that has paralyzed our witness of Christ. On so many occasions we should have been bearing our cross before sinners who are lost and drowning in sin, and we failed to join Jesus the Savior of the world in His rescue Mission. We Repent of it! We understand that our loving big-Brother Jesus bore His cross for the sins of the world, and we too willingly and obediently desire to know Him in the Power of His Sufferings, Persecutions, Death, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension on High!
On this day we give thanks for the Gift of True Repentance and Godly Sorrow, we are reminded by the Spirit of God that every person is precious in Your Sight and You want none to perish. We pray that your people receive Holy-Ghost boldness and embrace the mantel and Mission of the cross and step into their divine-Identity today as anointed Ambassadors for Christ! Reaping harvests in your vineyard.
Give us an unquenchable Fire in our bones to talk to someone about Jesus this very week, and every week thereafter, to invite the lost to our digital services. Cause our Ministry Zoom Services to have national and global reach and impact with the Gospel. We will no longer be silent. We cleanse our hands so that we can reach down, pick up our crosses, and preach Christ to a dying world. Let the sacrificial, soul-saving Life of Jesus shine out through us until the final harvest is won.
Finally, Father we thank you for this Series. We have received the engrafted Word of God on True Repentance with meekness which is able to save the soul. In the mighty, matchless name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.
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