The Cost of the Word: Take Up Your Cross

Jeremiah tells the story. God finds a youth, and the youth objects, do not say I am only a boy. God answers, I will put my words in your mouth. The word lands, and by chapter 11 the people threaten him, do not speak in the name of the Lord. By chapter 20 the word feels like a burning fire shut up in my bones. By chapter 38 they throw him in a cistern and leave him for dead. God’s word does this. It comforts the broken and it confronts the self‑secure, and the self‑secure swing back.

Jesus carries the same word. Everyone assumes the word of God will be welcomed, yet the crowds nail him to a cross and walk away. What kind of word draws that kind of heat? Love your neighbor. Forgive those who sin against you. Welcome the outcast. And the big one: you are saved by grace, which means all your religious works don’t count. Jesus names the pattern, is this not how you persecuted Jeremiah and the prophets before me. The word that gives life does it by putting the old life to death.

The call to discipleship takes that shape. Take up your cross and follow me is not a slogan for a safe life, it is a one‑way walk to Golgotha. So when Jesus says, I have not come to bring peace but a sword, he does not bless violence and he is not writing a column on family systems. He shows what happens when the cross cuts: old loyalties crack, false gods rattle, and the self that clings to control begins to die. This is what love actually costs. Love your neighbor sounds charming on a yard sign, but real love means laying down comfort, preference, and pride to make room for another. Forgiveness feels nice in theory, but in practice it means releasing the appetite to be proved right, drowning the old sinner who nurses resentments like they were precious.

Baptism is God’s chosen place to do this killing and making alive. The old Adam is not reformed but crucified with Christ. Not tightened up by a self‑help plan, but drowned and raised. Romans says this dying is freedom, because only those buried with Christ can walk in newness of life. At the font God drowns, at the table Christ feeds, and the church learns to carry a dangerous word in its mouth. The word will cost, it will pierce comfort and divide loyalties, yet the dying is not defeat. In dying with Christ, the baptized rise to love the neighbor true.

Key Takeaways

• 1. God’s word burns and costs The word God puts in a mouth will not sit politely. It sears like fire in the bones, refuses to be muzzled, and draws pushback from hearts wed to comfort and control. The same word that heals also unmasks idols, which is why people would rather silence the messenger than lose their self‑rule. Jeremiah and Jesus mark the pattern the church now inherits. [26:48]
• 2. The sword is the cross’s cut Jesus’ sword is not a sword to swing but a cross that divides, a cutting through rival allegiances. When the kingdom arrives, family, tribe, and self‑interest stop being ultimate, and that loss feels like conflict. The cut is surgical, ordered to life, but it begins with endings the old self will call ruin. [32:38]
• 3. Love and forgiveness crucify the self Neighbor‑love and enemy‑forgiveness do not accessorize a life, they crucify it. To love is to let another’s need set the agenda, and to forgive is to surrender the right to be paid back. Both invite the old sinner to drown, because clung‑to resentments and curated comfort cannot live past the font. [35:24]
• 4. Baptism drowns, it does not coach Grace does not hand out a training plan for the old Adam. It kills him. Baptism buries the sinner with Christ so a new creature can breathe, not the best‑polished version of the old. The church’s hope is not better habits but a better tomb, from which God raises the dead into freedom. [39:48]
• 5. Grace empties boasting and striving Saved by grace means religious scorekeeping does not count, which offends pride precisely because it levels the field. The boastful self would rather do penance than die, but grace insists on a deeper mercy. In losing the merit ledger, the baptized receive a life that cannot be earned or threatened. [28:11]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [24:02] - Who is Jeremiah
• [24:55] - God’s call to a youth
• [26:09] - Threats against the prophet
• [27:35] - Jesus shares Jeremiah’s fate
• [28:11] - Saved by grace, not works
• [29:22] - Whose mouth bears the word
• [30:11] - Safe religion vs stonings and riots
• [31:38] - Hard sayings about sword and family
• [32:38] - Not war, but the way of the cross
• [33:20] - Love your neighbor as dying to self
• [34:22] - Forgiveness and the death of resentment
• [36:30] - Welcoming the outcast in public
• [37:49] - What’s in it for me religion
• [38:44] - Dying with Christ as freedom
• [39:14] - Not reformed but crucified
• [39:48] - Baptismal burial and new life
• [40:07] - A costly word, a living hope
• [40:25] - Font and table for the journey
• [64:00] - Amen and sending

1. In Jeremiah 1:4-8, what reasons does Jeremiah give for resisting God’s call, and how does God respond?
2. According to Matthew 10:34-39, what does Jesus say his “sword” will do, and what does it mean to “take up your cross”?
3. In the sermon, what examples were given of how “love your neighbor” or “forgive your enemies” might lead to personal cost or conflict? [33:20] [34:22]
4. How does Romans 6:3-4 describe the relationship between baptism and dying to self?

1. Why might God’s word, as described in Jeremiah’s story and Jesus’ teachings, provoke resistance or hostility from people who claim to follow God?
2. How does the “sword” Jesus brings (Matthew 10:34) differ from physical violence, and what does it reveal about the nature of true discipleship?
3. The sermon states, “Baptism drowns, it does not coach.” What does this mean for how we understand personal transformation or growth in faith? [39:48]
4. Why might “loving your neighbor” or “forgiving enemies” feel like a form of death to the “old self”?

1. Where do you most resist God’s call in your life because of fear, inadequacy, or comfort? How might God’s promise to Jeremiah (“I am with you”) address that resistance?
2. What relationships, habits, or loyalties in your life might Jesus’ “sword” (Matthew 10:34) be calling you to reevaluate or surrender?
3. The sermon mentions a mother who adopted refugee teens at personal cost. What is one practical way you could “die to self” this week to love someone who is marginalized or difficult to love? [33:44]
4. When have you clung to resentment or the “right to be proved right” instead of forgiving? What step could you take to release that resentment as an act of “drowning the old sinner”? [35:24]
5. How does your baptism shape your daily choices? If baptism is a burial of the “old self,” what parts of your life still need to be “crucified with Christ” rather than “reformed”? [39:14]
6. The sermon says grace “levels the field” by making religious achievements irrelevant. Where do you still strive to earn approval (from God, others, or yourself), and how might grace free you from that burden? [28:11]