Will You Bear Your Cross?

Devotional

Day 1: When the World Compels You to Carry Its Cross

Simon of Cyrene didn’t volunteer to carry Jesus’ cross—Roman soldiers forced him into service. This moment reveals how the world often thrusts burdens upon us, whether through systemic oppression, sudden crises, or societal expectations. Just as Simon’s cross-bearing began with coercion, our own struggles may feel imposed rather than chosen. Yet even in these moments, God’s purpose unfolds. The text reminds us that crosses forced upon us can become sacred ground where we encounter Christ’s suffering and strength. What looks like interruption might be divine intersection. [01:02:24]

“As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon; they compelled this man to carry his cross.”
(Matthew 27:32, NRSV)

Reflection: When has an unexpected burden become a doorway to deeper faith? How might God be reshaping your resentment into resolve?

Day 2: The Messiah Who Needed a Brother’s Shoulder

Jesus, fully divine yet fully human, grew too weak to carry his cross alone. His exhaustion dismantles myths of self-sufficiency, showing even salvation’s architect required help. Simon’s assistance didn’t diminish Christ’s mission—it advanced it. In a culture obsessed with independence, this moment sanctifies interdependence. Our crosses aren’t meant to be borne in isolation but shared in community, just as Christ’s vulnerability invited Simon into sacred partnership. [01:02:47]

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
(Isaiah 53:5, NRSV)

Reflection: Where has pride kept you from accepting help? How might your weakness become someone else’s holy assignment?

Day 3: Crosses Kissed by History’s Sun

The preacher named slavery, redlining, and stray bullets as modern crosses—inherited weights kissed by “nature’s sun.” These aren’t abstract sufferings but historical realities shaping Black bodies and communities. Like Simon, a Libyan Jew navigating Roman occupation, we carry crosses forged in the furnace of systemic sin. Yet these burdens connect us to the cloud of witnesses who carried faith through fire, reminding us resistance is woven into redemption’s story. [56:57]

“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
(Galatians 6:2, NRSV)

Reflection: What ancestral cross are you called to carry forward? How does your struggle echo the saints who marched before you?

Day 4: The Fulcrum of Divine Destiny

Simon’s cross-bearing placed him at history’s pivot point—his obedience helped fulfill prophecy. Every choice to shoulder Christ’s call realigns the cosmos. The preacher imagined Simon asking, “What if I drop this cross?” Our daily yeses to God’s assignments—feeding the hungry, confronting injustice, loving enemies—tip eternity’s scales. Destiny hangs on ordinary acts of faithfulness, turning bystanders into kingdom collaborators. [01:09:09]

“Choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
(Joshua 24:15, NRSV)

Reflection: What “ordinary” act of service in your life carries extraordinary eternal weight? Where is God inviting you to pivot from spectator to history-maker?

Day 5: What If Simon Had Dropped the Cross?

The sermon’s climactic imagination—Simon realizing the world’s fate hung on his obedience—challenges our trivial excuses. Had Simon refused, resurrection’s timeline might’ve unraveled. Our crosses, too, ripple through generations. Every act of justice, mercy, or endurance writes eternity’s script. Like Simon, we’re links in a chain of grace stretching from Cyrene to civil rights, proving ordinary people bearing crosses birth extraordinary change. [01:11:07]

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
(1 Corinthians 15:58, NRSV)

Reflection: What future victory depends on your present faithfulness? How will your cross-bearing echo in eternity’s halls?

Sermon Summary

Matthew 10 sets Jesus before his disciples, not just giving sweet church talk, but giving realistic expectations for anyone who claims to follow him. Jesus commissions them to preach, heal, cleanse, and cast out devils, and Jesus makes plain that discipleship will not be a Primrose path to heaven. Jesus moves them from being recipients of Christ’s ministry to becoming agents of Christ’s ministry, and that shift carries weight.

Matthew’s world sits under empire, under the powerful, the elite, the influential, the one percent, and Jesus knows exactly what kind of world he has stepped into. Jesus sees the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the displaced, and the forgotten. Jesus knows that the kingdom of God will upset the status quo, and Jesus knows that those in power will do whatever they can to keep power. The text will not let Christ followers keep quibbling over church trivialities while failing to do what Christ says.

The cross in Matthew 10 is not decoration, jewelry, or religious language with no cost. The cross is a social and political weapon, a state sponsored killing apparatus, a public reminder of servitude and suffering. The cross is anything placed upon life that threatens destiny, whether slavery, Jim and Jane Crow, redlining, racism, bullets, sexism in the church, sickness, injustice, or any burden that presses down the soul. Jesus says that whoever does not take up the cross and follow him is not worthy of him.

Matthew 27 then shows Jesus bearing the old rugged cross himself. Jesus does not ask anybody to do what Jesus has not already done. Jesus feeds, heals, clothes, suffers, bleeds, and carries. Jesus is betrayed, mocked, stripped, crowned with thorns, beaten, and marched toward Golgotha until the burden becomes too heavy.

Simon of Cyrene enters the text as an African brother compelled to carry Jesus’ cross. Simon’s place in the story shatters the illusion that strength means needing nobody. If Jesus, in purely human form, needed help with his cross, then every other cross will be more than one person can bear alone. God steps into the story by sending somebody to help carry what has become too heavy.

Simon’s compelled burden becomes destiny. The wicked world may force a cross upon a person, but Christ can turn that forced burden into a place at the fulcrum of the future. Simon’s question becomes bigger than self preservation: what happens to the world if the cross is not borne? The old rugged cross still asks one searching question: will the believer bear the cross and live for Jesus?

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Key Takeaways

1. Take up the real cross [53:49] The cross is not a church phrase to sing and then leave sitting in the pew. Jesus ties worthiness to following him in costly obedience, not religious posturing. The disciple who claims Christ must let selfish and sinful ways die, because accepting Jesus is easier than living Jesus. [53:49]
2. Empire still resists the kingdom [51:15] Matthew’s world was ruled by power, greed, conquest, poverty, sickness, and public cruelty. Jesus’ kingdom was not preached in a vacuum, and faithful discipleship still collides with systems that protect themselves. The call of Christ makes spiritual life impossible to separate from suffering neighbors, unjust power, and the real conditions of the street. [51:15]
3. Jesus carried before commanding [59:43] Jesus never asks for a burden he has refused to touch. The cross of Christ means the Savior has already entered betrayal, shame, violence, weakness, and death. The believer’s obedience rests on a Lord who does not shout orders from safety, but walks the road to Golgotha first. [59:43]
4. Help is part of holy weakness [01:03:25] Simon carrying the cross of Jesus shows that needing help is not failure. If the Messiah received help under the weight of wood, then no disciple should pretend that faith means solitary toughness. God’s mercy often arrives with hands, shoulders, names, and faces sent to share the load. [63:25]
5. Bearing the cross shapes futures [01:10:40] Simon’s burden was not only about Simon’s discomfort. One act of carrying stood inside a larger divine story where redemption, justice, hope, and history were at stake. Faithfulness often asks a person to stop asking only what will happen to self and start asking what will happen to the world if obedience is refused.

## [70:40]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[43:21] - Consecration and Opening Worship
[46:38] - Matthew 10 and Matthew 27
[47:46] - Will You Bear Your Cross?
[48:00] - Church Trivialities and Real Discipleship
[50:24] - Jesus Commissions the Disciples
[51:15] - Empire, Poverty, and the Status Quo
[53:49] - Taking Up the Cross
[55:42] - The Cross as a Weapon
[58:35] - God Steps Into the Story
[59:43] - Jesus Carries First
[62:04] - Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus
[65:02] - Crosses Too Heavy to Bear Alone
[66:18] - Compelled to Carry
[70:40] - If Simon Did Not Bear It

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading

Matthew 10:38
“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” [47:14]

Matthew 27:32
“As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.” [47:29]

Matthew 10:1-42
“And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.’”

Observation questions

In Matthew 10, what kinds of work does Jesus send the disciples out to do, and what kinds of opposition does he tell them to expect? [50:24]
What are some of the ways the cross is described here besides being a religious symbol? [55:42]
In Matthew 27:32, what exactly happens to Simon of Cyrene, and what word in the verse shows that this was not his idea? [01:06:24]
What details in the passage and message show that Jesus himself carried suffering before telling anyone else to take up a cross? [59:43]

Interpretation questions

Jesus says that whoever does not take up the cross and follow him is not worthy of him. What does that seem to mean about the difference between admiring Jesus and actually following Jesus? [53:49]
Matthew 10 connects kingdom work with danger, rejection, and pressure from the surrounding world. Why is it important that discipleship is presented so honestly instead of as an easy road? [50:54]
Simon is compelled to carry the cross, yet that painful interruption places him inside God’s larger purpose. How can a burden that is forced on a person become a place where God works out calling, witness, or destiny? [01:08:40]
Jesus receiving help from Simon challenges the idea that strength means carrying everything alone. What does that suggest about the way God may use other people in seasons of suffering? [01:05:02]

Application questions

It is possible to spend energy on church talk and still avoid the real work of following Christ. Where is the strongest temptation right now to settle for talk, image, or routine instead of obedience? [53:49]
Taking up the cross means letting selfish and sinful ways die. What is one attitude, habit, or pattern that needs to be put down in order to follow Jesus more faithfully this week? [54:36]
The world still places heavy burdens on people through injustice, grief, sickness, and disappointment. What cross feels especially heavy right now, and is it one that needs to be named honestly before God and trusted to him? [56:34]
If Jesus accepted help, then no believer has to pretend to be strong all the time. Where might pride, fear, or embarrassment be keeping someone from asking for help they truly need? [01:03:45]
God often helps carry burdens by sending somebody. Who has helped carry a cross in a hard season, and how might gratitude for that help shape the way care is now offered to someone else? [01:05:25]
Simon’s question can become larger than “What will happen to me?” and grow into “What will happen to the world if I do not obey?” Where might obedience in one hard area affect not only one life, but family, community, or future generations? [01:10:40]
Choosing Christ does not remove every cross, but it does change how the cross is carried. In a present struggle, what would it look like in real terms to keep following Jesus instead of surrendering to bitterness, fear, or despair? [58:35]

Sermon Clips

72s

#LiveJesusDaily

“Say it again, pastor. We are preening and prancing as Christ followers, but we never get to doing what Christ says for us to do. We claim to follow Jesus, but have we listened to what Jesus has asked of us to do? Have we taken up our cross? disciples knew what it meant to take up their cross. It meant that you might end up on the wrong side of ice. It means hanging with Christ could literally get you home. And for us today, Christ's message often does mean does not mean literal death. It commands that our selfish and sinful ways figuratively die and that we live for Jesus. We used to sing a song back over on that church says, take up your cross and what? Live for Jesus. It's easy to accept Jesus, but living Jesus is the hard part.”

63s

#GodSharesYourBurden

“And when that cross gets too much for us to bear, it just seems like that is when God steps in. God will help carry your burdens. God will help deal with your situations. God will help fight your battles. God will share your load by sending someone to help carry your cross. Am I talking to somebody here? Minister Holmes, pastor Gomes, the old preacher would say, if Simon were not there to aid Jesus, a great gust of divine wind would have propelled Jesus to Calvary. And I don't have any qualms with that. That may be true, but the text says, Simon was there and came to help Jesus. Jesus needed some help and so do we. And this becomes our lesson as we look at our lives through this book. When we bear our cross, we will need god's help.”

53s

#TakeUpYourCross

“The soldiers representing a wicked world compelled Simon to take a cross. Truth be told, all of us can empathize with Simon. If we choose a savior, we know that the world may be against us, and we will have to bear a cross. Or just like with Simon, the world may choose us and give us an unexpected cross regardless. And if and when that happens, we are going to need a savior anyway, so it just makes sense, Metropolitan, to choose Jesus Christ first from the start and just take up your cross and live for Jesus. See, I brought that all the way back around, but here it is. The text ultimately teaches us, like Simon, when we take up our cross, we place ourselves, watch this, at the fulcrum of the future.”

46s

#NoCrossAlone

“But it gets deeper. text lets us know that if the Messiah had some trouble dealing with a cross, then any cross that you and I will have to carry will be more than we can bear. Can I do it again? If Jesus had to have some help with his cross, then you better believe you and I are gonna have a cross that we can't bear.”

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