TREASURY OF SERMONS
What is Cross Bearing?
By Rev (Dr) Jeffrey Khoo
(Preached at Calvary Pandan BPC Sunset Gospel Hour, 25 Oct 1998)
Text: Mark 8:27-38
Introduction
In Mark 8:34, Jesus said, "Whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
me." Jesus tells us to bear the cross. What is cross bearing? In the
Philippines, the Roman Catholics take it literally. Yearly, on Good
Friday, there will be those who literally crucify themselves on the
cross. This they do to atone for their sins. Their crucifixion is of
course not unto death. They hang there for about an hour. The nails
used have been soaked in alcohol for a year (thoroughly sterilised).
There is no profuse bleeding, there is no danger of infection.
Moreover, a lot of fanfare accompany these people who go to the
cross; Jesus was mocked when He was on the cross but these people
are cheered. They do all this because they think that God will
forgive them of their sins if they go to the cross themselves. Can
our sins be forgiven in this way? No, not at all. The Bible clearly
states it is faith that saves, not works—not even crucifying
ourselves on the cross. In order to be saved, we must look to Jesus
alone, not to ourselves.
Those who crucify themselves have really
compounded their sin, because by so doing they are telling Jesus
that what He did on the cross was not enough to save them; that His
death was not powerful enough. This is an insult to Jesus, is it
not? If you want your sins forgiven just look to the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world. If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.
So what is cross bearing? What did Jesus mean
when he said anyone who wants to follow Him must take up his cross?
It is important that we study the context of Jesus’ words. This is
the key to understanding what cross bearing means. Jesus in Mark
8:27-38 tells us that bearing the cross consists of these 3
requirements:
Cross Bearing Requires Us to
Know Who Jesus Really Is (8:27-30)
In v27, Jesus asked the disciples, "Whom do men
say that I am?" Please know that by this time, Jesus had already
spent two years in ministry. He had taught the people many things
about the Kingdom of God. He had done many miracles to prove that He
truly was their Messiah. As a matter of fact, He had just fed the
5,000 miraculously with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, and then the 4,000 in
a similar way. But after revealing Himself in so many different ways
that He was truly their Messiah and Saviour, did the people realise
who He really was? Sad to say, the Jews, up till this point, failed
to recognise Jesus as their promised Messiah.
Jesus lamented in v21, "How is it that ye do not
understand?" It is because they had their minds set on the material
and temporal things of life instead of the spiritual and eternal.
When Jesus fed the crowds miraculously, they wanted to make Him
king. Why? Because of free food! Jesus told them, "Ye seek me, not
because ye saw (understand) the miracles, but because ye ate of the
loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth,
but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the
Son of man shall give unto you . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of
life" (John 6). The multitudes saw the bread that was miraculously
produced, but were totally blind to the Producer—the True Bread. We
read in John 6:66, "From that time many of his disciples went back,
and walked no more with Him."
Then Jesus asked the 12, "Will ye also go away?"
Peter gave a most wonderful answer, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God." Others only saw
Jesus as one of the prophets, but Peter by God’s grace managed to
see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. What does "the
Christ" mean? The Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew
Messiah—the Anointed One. In the OT, only special servants of God
were anointed, namely, the prophet, the priest, and the king. By
calling Jesus the Christ, Peter was in effect saying, "Lord, you are
Prophet of prophets, Priest of priests, and King of kings."
Is Jesus the Christ—the Son of the living God;
Prophet of prophets, Priest of priests, and King of kings to you? Is
He the Lord and Saviour of your life? Some people say, "I only want
Jesus as my Saviour, but I don’t want Him as my Lord." "I want to go
to heaven, but I don’t want to surrender every aspect of my life to
His Lordship." If you think and behave like this, you are not
bearing the cross. Jesus said, "Whosoever will come after me, let
him deny himself." You must no longer be lord of your life. Christ
must be Lord.
Making Jesus Lord of your life is the most basic
step of cross bearing. If you don’t then you won’t be able to do the
next thing in cross bearing which is to suffer for Christ.
Cross Bearing Requires Us to
Suffer for Christ in this Life (8:31-33)
Jesus in v31 tells His disciples that He "must
suffer many things, and be rejected, . . . and be killed." Now this
is difficult to swallow for Peter. Peter rebuked Jesus openly. He
did not want Jesus to go to the cross. He did not want Jesus to die.
Why? Didn’t Peter just make a remarkable statement that Jesus was
the Christ—his Lord and his God, and was commended by Jesus for so
confessing Him? Why did Peter rebuke Jesus and dissuade Him from
going to His death? It is probably because Peter had big plans for
himself. He was Jesus’ number one disciple. And he probably thought
that the confession he had just made about Jesus had put him in a
good position to be Jesus’ right hand man when He became King over
all Israel. You see, Peter still thought that Jesus was going to
overthrow the Roman government and set Himself up as King. He was
looking forward to Jesus’ victory over the Romans. He was ever eager
to fight for Jesus. Later we find him quick to draw His sword to
fight the mob which came to arrest Jesus. Also, if Jesus were to
suffer, be rejected, and killed, it would also mean His disciples
would suffer the same fate. Peter didn’t want to suffer, to be
rejected, to be killed. He showed it when he denied the Lord three
times.
Peter wanted glory without the suffering! Jesus
had to rebuke Him in v33, "Get thee behind me Satan: for thou
savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of
men." Jesus called Peter Satan here. This does not mean that Peter
was possessed by Satan for if Peter was demon-possessed, the Lord
would surely have cast the devil out. Jesus called Peter Satan
because Peter here displayed the sinful ambition and pride of Satan.
Satan was once God’s archangel Lucifer (light-bearer). He was
created very beautiful and was made a chief angel. But pride entered
Lucifer, and he tried to usurp God’s throne. For this rebellion, he
was cast out of heaven. Like Satan, Peter wanted his will to be
done, not God’s will: "for thou savourest not the things that be of
God, but the things that be of men." Peter wanted the crown without
the cross. This was not God’s will. The cross must come first before
there can be the crown: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross."
Jesus must die first before He can be raised.
God’s pattern to success is condescension before exaltation,
humiliation before glorification, demotion before promotion.
Peter was not wrong to think that Jesus must
become King, that He must rule over all Israel, and over the whole
world, sitting on the throne of David. The Old Testament talks about
Jesus ruling over all the earth, but the time is not yet. Jesus had
to come first as a Lamb, before He comes as a Lion the second time.
It was not wrong for Peter to want to rule with Christ either. But
Jesus had to impress upon Peter that before we can reign with Him,
we must also suffer for Him.
No cross, no crown. Spurgeon rightly said,
"There are no crownwearers in heaven that were not crossbearers here
below." To what extent must we carry the cross? Here is the 3rd
requirement:
Cross Bearing Requires Us to
Die for Christ if Needs Be (8:35-38)
Jesus said, "Take up the cross, and follow me."
"Follow me" in what way? Jesus was on His way to the cross. He is
telling His disciples to go by way of the cross. Cross bearing means
being willing to lose one’s life for Christ or for His sake. "For
whosoever will save his life shall lost it, but whosoever shall lost
his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it"
(v35).
Peter and the rest of the disciples have been
thinking of great things. Peter wanted power. James and John asked
for power. Both wanted to occupy the left and right hand seats of
power with Jesus. They were very ambitious. They wanted the world.
But Jesus reminded them in v36, "For what shall it profit a man, if
he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" "Or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (v37). No amount of
money in the world can pay the price of a soul. All the money in the
world combined cannot buy back your soul from eternal damnation in
hell. The only thing that is powerful enough to redeem our souls
from eternal punishment is the death of Christ on the cross. The
blood Jesus shed on the cross is the only thing valuable enough to
save us from our sins. Unless we do as Jesus did, we will be lost.
Just as Jesus denied Himself by forsaking His glory in heaven,
humbling Himself to be clothed in human flesh, and dying a painful
and cruel death on the cross, did He succeed in saving us from our
sins. So also, if we want to be saved, we must die to self (our
pride, our ambition, our big plans), and live only for Christ. Jesus
said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John
12:24).
As Christians, if we want to useful to the Lord,
we must bear the cross. We must say, "I am ready to die for my
Lord." We must serve Him without conditions. To those who are in the
full-time ministry, or who are training to be full-time workers, or
who intend to serve the Lord full-time, we must not say, "If only
the Lord will do this for me, or take care of this and that, then I
will serve Him." I know of a fellow college-mate of mine who was
asked to pastor a small church. He told this church, "I will only
pastor your church if you can pay me a four-figure salary." Is this
the way of Christ? Is this bearing the cross of Christ?
We ought to learn from the martyrs of the
Cambodian Church who gave their life for Christ. Jimmy Rim—a
missionary to Cambodia, an eyewitness of the Cambodian
holocaust—tells us the testimony of 3 Cambodian Christians in the
face of death before the Khmer Rouge executioners. Read pp113-4.
This is taken from his book—With Christ in the Killing Fields. I
urge you to read the whole story. It is a thriller. Copies are
available at the book table outside.
The testimony of Jimmy Rim has stirred the
hearts of 3 of our Korean graduates to become missionaries in
Cambodia. One is working in Phnom Penh among the orphans and slum
children. The two others are in Kompong Som, going into the
neighbouring villages planting churches. Altogether they have
already established 5 B-P churches. This is not an easy thing to do.
I have visited them once, and I can appreciate the situation. The
Cambodians don’t trust people easily. The war has made them very
fearful people. But our Korean graduates have learned to bear the
cross. They live with the people, eat with the people, and serve the
people sincerely. Rev Jonathan Lee lives in the slum area in Phnom
Penh, and takes care of the slum children (about 50 of them). They
come to him naked, dirty, hungry. He cleans them up, clothes them,
cut their fingernails, their hair, and give them food. They can’t
afford to go to school, so he conducts classes for them teaching
them English and the Bible. All of them know Jesus Christ. When he
was down with dengue fever recently, they surrounded his bed and
prayed for him in tears.
Rev Moses Hahn goes out to the villages
preaching the gospel. He has established 3 B-P churches in SW
Cambodia. It is dangerous to live in Cambodia. We don’t find there
the law and order that we find here in Singapore. There was one
night, some robbers with guns came to the mission house. They tried
to get in but could not. Since they couldn’t take anything from
inside, they took all the good furniture that were outside. The
robbers went next door, broke in, shot and killed the man inside. He
was the Cambodian language tutor of our missionaries. They wrote
back to tell us about it, and to pray. They were of course afraid,
but there was not one word about wanting to come home. Certain
missionaries would have asked their home churches to evacuate them
immediately. But our missionaries stayed put. That is cross bearing.
Rev David Koo has his computer ministry. He
teaches computer free of charge. All his students (over a hundred of
them) attend his Sunday service. The government recognises his good
work, and when he applied for official recognition of his church,
they approved it without hesitation. He calls his church, Jesus
Christ B-P Church, with a huge signboard. Some missionaries may be
scared to put up a huge sign board with the name of Jesus Christ
especially in a land dominated by Buddhists. But our missionaries
are not ashamed of Christ and His name. Our missionaries are not
ashamed of Christ and His gospel. They preach Him openly, publicly,
and freely. If we don’t want Jesus to be ashamed of us in heaven,
then we must not be ashamed of Him on earth. We must not be ashamed
to bear the cross. The cross is an emblem of suffering and shame.
V38 says, "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son
of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the
holy angels." In Rev 2:10 Jesus promised, "Be thou faithful unto
death, and I will give thee a crown of life." I’d rather have crowns
in heaven than crowns on earth. Earthly crowns will not last, only
heavenly crowns will. But the cross must come first before the
crown. Are you willing to bear the cross of Christ all the way
unconditionally?
Conclusion
What is cross bearing? Cross bearing involves
these 3 requirements: (1) Cross bearing requires us to know who
Jesus really is, that He is not only our Saviour but also our Lord;
(2) Cross bearing requires us to suffer for Christ in this life; and
(3) Cross bearing requires us to be willing and ready to die for
Christ as His true and faithful disciples.
This poem describes cross bearing well. It is
entitled: "God Counted Crosses."
I counted dollars while God counted crosses.
I counted gains while He counted losses.
I counted my worth by the things gained in
store.
But He sized me up by the scars that I bore.
I coveted honours and sought for degrees.
He wept as He counted the hours on my knees.
And I never knew ‘til one day at a grave.
How vain are these things that we spend life
to save!
May the Lord help us to deny ourselves, take up
our own crosses, and follow Him till we see Him face to face. There
must be the cross first before there can be the crown. Let us pray.
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