Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2946
“Take up the cross, and follow Me.” Mark 10:21.
YOUR mind’s eye can see that procession yonder. Notice it carefully. At the head of it there walks One whom we rightly call Master and Lord. You may know Him by the prints of the nails in His hands and feet. I observe that He carries a Cross and that it is a very heavy one. Do you see the long line following Him? They are all those of whom the world was not worthy. That line has been continued even to this day and will be continued until the present dispensation shall close. As you watch these different followers of Christ in the procession, one thing will strike you—however much they differ in some respects, they are all alike in one thing—every one of them carries a cross. There is no exception to this rule! From the Master down to the last disciple, it is a procession of cross-bearers. The day will come when there will be a transformation scene and you will see all these cross-bearers transformed into crown-wearers! But, rest assured that the old motto, “No cross, no crown,” is certainly true and those who refuse to carry the cross after Christ on earth shall never be permitted to wear the crown with Christ in the land that is beyond the stars.
The chief business of a Christian is to follow Christ. You may sum up all his life in that expression. He has Christ in him, Christ gives him new life from day to day and the very way in which that life expends its force is in the following of Christ. I would, dear Friends, that you and I would aim at so following Him as to gain a distinction for the closeness of our walk—for there are some in Heaven of whom it is written, “These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” There are some who seem to follow Him but partially. There are many wanderings and many inconsistencies in their life, but thrice blessed shall he be who, like Caleb, follows the Lord fully and with purpose of heart puts his foot down in the very footprints of his crucified Lord! If you are a disciple of Jesus, your chief business is to follow Jesus. But there are difficulties in the way and these difficulties are what is meant by “the cross.” There are difficulties in the way of making a profession of faith in Jesus and of walking worthy of it. And these difficulties are a burden too heavy for flesh and blood to carry. Only Divine Grace can enable us to take it up—and when we do take it up, we are fulfilling the words of the text, “Take up the cross, and follow Me.”
I am going to urge you to ask yourselves, each one, first, ” What is my cross?” Secondly, ” What shall I do with it?” And, thirdly, ” What should encourage me to do so?”
I. First, then, WHAT IS MY CROSS?
I have said that the meaning of the cross is, principally, that which is involved by difficulties in following Christ. To some, the cross they will have to carry, if they become Christians, is that of reproach and rebuke for Christ’s sake. Perhaps they have relatives who hate all true religion so that if they should profess to be converted, they would be sneered at, ridiculed and misrepresented. All their action would be twisted to mischievous ends and motives would be imputed to them which they, themselves, abhor. It is very hard for young people, especially in ungodly families, to dare to call themselves followers of the Crucified! Nor is it easy for a working man, in the workshop, to bear that perpetual “chaffing,” as his companions call it, which they delight to inflict on those who are better than themselves. The same kind of thing takes place in other classes of society, though it is not generally done quite so overtly. There is the cold shoulder, there are suggestive hints and innuendoes and there are avoidances of the company of those who come out decidedly on the Lord’s side. Some of you do not know much about this style of treatment. You were dandled on the lap of ease in this respect, for your parents rejoiced over you when you were converted and all your Christian acquaintances
kept high holiday, as it were, when they heard that you had decided to be a follower of Jesus! I wonder whether you would have been quite as firm as we might have wished if your first speech upon religious matters had been met with an oath, or if some brutal father had proceeded yet further and uttered horrible threats against you? There is many a child who has had to bear all that. Or if you had had a coarse, drunken husband who hated the very name of Jesus, I wonder whether you would have been able to bear it, as I have known some good women do from year to year, enduring a lifelong martyrdom for the sake of Jesus Christ? Now, dear Friend, whoever you may be, if anybody will sneer at you, or think the less of you, or say hard things about you because you become a Christian, that is your cross, and Christ says to you, in our text, “Take up the cross, and follow Me.”