Cross Bearing to Conquer Evil
Matthew 16:21-24 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. 22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" 23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Introduction:
I heard the story of a Russian man who was born to atheist parents, grew up in an atheist town and attended an atheist school. He had never in his life heard of Jesus Christ. But somewhere along the path of his life he saw a picture of a man who had died on a cross. He never forgot that picture and often wondered why he was strangely drawn to that picture. He wanted to understand it. At first he thought the man must have been a very bad criminal. Then he thought that he might have been a very persecuted man. Eventually he met a Christian who also knew about this picture, and he explained it to him. That explanation, that the Son of God suffered and died on the cross to take away his sin, was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.
Jesus is the Christ - What Does This Mean?
Last Sunday our Gospel lesson came from the verses right before today’s lesson where Peter boldly confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. But Peter didn’t fully understand what that meant. Jesus went on to explain that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer, die, and rise again. Peter, like so many people before and after him, could not conceive of the Son of God suffering like that. The Son, he thought, should be crushing His enemies, not being crushed by them. But Jesus was only fulfilling the plan that God had in mind from the foundation of the world. In the very first promise of the Messiah, God told Satan, “You will crush His heel, but He will crush your head” (Genesis 3.15). Jesus would suffer and die at the hands of God’s enemies. But in the end He would rise from the dead, and His victory would mean forgiveness and salvation for those who trust in Him.
If we would all be honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that this makes no sense at all. We can understand Peter’s confusion. When has anyone conquered by being killed? What army has ever won a war by being destroyed in battle? It doesn’t make sense as long as we have in mind the “things of men” as Jesus says. But so typical of Jesus... There’s much more to this.
Gregory of Nyssa lived in the 300s A.D. from the region of Cappadocia, which was known for its famous “Cave Churches.” Gregory was a bookish pastor who loved to explain the deep mysteries of the Christian faith. Here is the way he explained the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus: He said that Jesus, the Son of God, was like a hook buried in the flesh of a worm. He became the bait for the devil who attempted to devour Him on the cross. Instead, when Jesus died, the devil was caught by the holiness and divinity of the Son of God, and all his powers over believers were taken away.
What Peter was struggling to understand and what Jesus was gradually unfolding before his eyes in His earthly ministry was that He was not just another ordinary man. He wasn’t even just an extra-ordinary man. He wasn’t a man who came to use the ways of men to destroy evil. He was the perfect, pure, righteous, truthful Son of God. Satan had the power to crush anything of this world and of men. But he couldn’t crush Jesus. In fact, by trying, he was crushed. This is why we, like the Russian man, are not only drawn to this picture of a dead man on a cross, but more importantly to the meaning of it. In death, the death of the cross, Jesus defeated the cause of death and ended its reign of terror over this earth.
Now, Jesus says something just as shocking about the cross. He says that those who follow Him must take up their cross as well. Please remember that in Jesus’ day the cross represented the worst punishment for evil that anyone could think of. Today He might have said, “Take up your electric chair, or lethal injection, or a bullet to the head” This was serious. As He defeated sin and Satan through death, so must we. What are our crosses?
Your First Cross: Repentance
The first cross, and the most difficult of all, is the cross of repentance. Only the Holy Spirit can bring about that change in our hearts that causes us to quit making excuses, and to quit blaming others or even God for our failure to live according to God’s commands. If Jesus came to die for our sins, then we have to acknowledge those sins and present them as our spiritual sacrifice to God. But uncovering our shame and turning from our sins is not easy. The very core of our sinful nature is to lie to ourselves and cling to our self-righteousness. But those sins cannot be forgiven as long as you cling to them.
How can we repent of them? Jeremiah taught us three very simple but powerful prayers. The first two are in chapter seventeen (v. 14): “Heal me, and I shall be healed; save me and I shall be saved, for Thou art my praise.” The third comes in chapter thirty-one (v. 14): “Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned.” “Turn,” is the main Hebrew word for repentance, and this prayer shows us that repentance is something that comes from God. He gives us the power to do what we can’t do by ourselves. Job also prayed in this way: “Make me to know my transgression and my sin” (13.23). This, the hardest of all crosses, can only be taken up with the help of God.
Your Second Cross: Scorn of the World
The second cross is that which the world puts upon us for being Christians. In chapter ten of Matthew Jesus said, “You will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (10.22). The world despises true faith because it despises the object of true faith: God. The world either denies the existence of God or exchanges God for an idol of its own creation. In either case it is men who become their own lawgivers. Rather than seeking God’s pleasure, they seek their own. One by one what God calls evil they call good: disrespect of parents, disrespect of life, disrespect of marriage, promoters of dishonest gain, denial of truth, and uncontrollable desire to have whatever they want. Jude describes them well saying they are: “wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shameful deeds; wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved forever! ... These people are discontented grumblers, walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage” (Jude 13, 16 HCSB). Truth and righteousness become whatever they say it is, and woe to anyone who tells them otherwise.
How do we handle this? Paul tells us, “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4.15). Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5.44). This cross also can only be lifted up with prayer. I have often said that when we watch the news of the world, we are watching the dispatches that come from a spiritually dysfunctional world. It is tempting to become disgusted and even angry about it. But don’t let that take you off track. Instead write down the dark things you see and hear and add them to your daily prayers. You must look at the scoffers not as your enemies. Satan is the enemy, and they are simply living under his influence. Pray that they would be delivered from that influence to the influence of the Holy Spirit as you have been delivered.
Your Third Cross Is Satan
The third cross is Satan himself. Satan wants us to think that he is a joke. But he is very real. He works to tempt us and to draw us away from God, and he has many disciples doing his bidding for that purpose. But finally, he is our earthly destroyer. John, in Revelation 9.11 says that the world has a king, “whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon.” Both words mean “destroyer.” Jesus told us of a woman who had “a spirit of infirmity” who was bent over and could not stand up for eighteen years. Jesus healed her, and when she could stand up she immediately glorified God. He went on to say that this woman had been “bound by Satan” (Luke 13.10-17). Peter said that Jesus, “Went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10.38). Paul had a thorn in the flesh that he called, “a messenger from Satan” (2 Corinthians 12.7). This world is totally afflicted by Satan which God allows because of sin.
What do we do when we are told we have a disease or are injured in an accident? What do we do when we face pain and suffering? We can ask for something to numb the pain, and there is nothing wrong with this. Even Jesus drank sour wine when He was dying on the cross. But there is something else we can do. We can face the pain and pray for God’s help to endure it faithfully. We can look upon the pain and suffering of this world as a battle with Satan, which it is. Satan wants the pain to drive us to despair. He wants to use it to drive us away from God. But when that doesn’t happen, when a Christian responds to pain and suffering with faith and prayer, he is defeated. He is defeated in so many ways. First, he failed to turn you from God. Second, many people who saw you suffering and yet trusting in God were inspired in their faith and drawn closer to God as well.
Conclusion
Let’s summarize this message by focusing again on Jesus’ words “the things of men” and the “the things of God.” We cannot fight evil with the things of men. Humans are by nature sinful and weak. Our powers may seem great, but they are no match for ultimate evil. The things of God are truth, righteousness, love, and good works. These are the things that defeat evil. This is what Christ has given us in His cross bearing, and this is what empowers us for our cross bearing lives.
Andy had the unfortunate fate of being born to a very immature and ignorant father. His father routinely mocked him for his lack of athletic ability and for his difficulties in relating to girls. Andy was tempted to hate his father, and for a time he did. He even had day dreams about killing his father. But something was holding him back. Andy was a Christian, and his family regularly attended church. For Andy this sometimes made everything worse. His father was a blatant hypocrite. Andy, however, took up his pastor’s recommendation that he actually read one of the Gospels to learn about Jesus for himself. As he read through the Gospel of Matthew, he came to this passage that we’ve read today, and he realized what his cross was. It was his father. From that moment on he stopped hating him and began to pray for him. Andy didn’t allow Satan’s venom that was working so effectively in his father to infect him. He grew up to be an outstanding young man, advancing far beyond his father’s achievements in every way. Andy didn’t flaunt his success in front is father. He didn’t stop talking to him, visiting, or praying for him. He just felt sorry for him. I wish I could tell you that his father finally came to repentance, but I can’t. This isn’t a fairy tale, this is real life. But I can tell you that Andy’s life did not go unnoticed. He had a brother and a sister who also struggled with the pain inflicted by their father. Through Andy’s cross bearing life they also learned to be cross bearers themselves instead of hypocrites full of hate.
Here is your challenge today: Look at all the problems you face. You may pray that they go away, and I’m sure some of them will. But just as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not My will, but Yours be done,” so be prepared for the fact that not all of them will go away. Now, looking to Jesus, who bore the cross for you, take up your cross and follow Him. Good will come of it, I promise. Amen.
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