Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. I. ONE'S COMING AFTER CHRIST. This is the thing which some do aim at, and all should. 1. Christ in the world was in the way to His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven (Luke 19:12). 2. Accordingly He was in the world, not as a native thereof, but as a stranger travelling through it, with His face always away-ward from it, home to His Father's house. 3. Our Lord Jesus made His way to His kingdom through many bitter storms blowing on His face in the world, and is now entered into it (Hebrews 12:2). 4. There is no coming into that kingdom, for a sinner, but at His back, in fellowship with Him (John 14:6). 5. There is no coming in at His back into the kingdom, without following Him in the way (Psalm 125:5; John 15:6). II. ONE'S DENYING HIMSELF TO COME AFTER CHRIST. 1. Implies two things. (1) That Christ and self are contraries, leading contrary ways. (2) That the self to be denied is our corrupt self, the old man, the unrenewed part. 2. Wherein it consists. In a holy refusal to please ourselves, that we may please God in Christ. Hence, in self-denial there is(1) Faith and hope, as the necessary springs thereof. (2) A practical setting up of God as our chief end, and a bringing down ourselves to lie at His feet. (3) An unlimited resignation of ourselves unto God in Christ — "first gave their ownselves to the Lord" (2 Corinthians 8:5). Faith taking hold of God as our God, according to the measure of faith, the whole man is swallowed up in Him; God is all, and we become nothing in our own eyes: the whole soul, the whole man, the whole lot, is resigned to Him. (4) A refusing to please ourselves in anything in competition with God; but denying the cravings of self, as they are contrary to what God craves of us (Titus 2:12). III. ONE'S TAKING UP HIS CROSS, AND THAT DAILY, AND FOLLOWING CHRIST. 1. God will lay down the cross for every one who seeks heaven, that they shall have nothing ado but to take it up. "In the world ye shall have tribulation" (John 16:33). They shall not need to make crosses to themselves, nor to go out of their way to seek a cross: God will lay it down at every one's door. He had one Son without sin, but no son without the cross (Hebrews 12:8). 2. He will lay it down daily to the followers of Christ, that they may have a daily exercise in taking it up, and hearing the cross of the day. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:34). A change of crosses may be got, but there will be no end of them as long as we are here. 3. We must not be choosers of crosses. Every one must take up his own, allotted to him by sovereign wisdom. 4. We must not trample on the cross, and step over it, but take it up (Hebrews 12:5). The sullen manliness and Roman courage wherewith some bear their crosses is the produce of self-will, not of self-denial, and speaks contempt of God, not submission to Him. When heaven is our party, it becomes us to stoop, and not to make our faces like flint, lest God be provoked to dash us in pieces, 5. Yet neither must we faint at the sight of the cross; for at that rate we will not be able to take it up (Hebrews 12:5). 6. As we must not go off the road of duty to shift the cross, so we must not stand still till it be rolled out of our way, but take it up, and go forward. It is easy going off the way, but not easy coming on again. There are quagmires of sin and sorrow on every side of the cross, where the shifters of it may come to stick (1 Timothy 6:9). 7. We must take up no more for our cross than what God lays down; not what Satan and our own corruptions lay to it: it will be our wisdom to shovel that off in the first place, and we will take up the cross the easier. 8. But however heavy the cross be, we are not to refuse it. Our very life, which of all worldly things is dearest to us, must be laid at the Lord's feet, and we ready to part with it for Christ. 9. We must yoke with the cross willingly and submissively: God can lay it on us, whether we will or not; but He will have us to stoop, and take it up on us (James 1:2). 10. We must bear it, going evenly under it, till the Lord take it down. It is what belongs to the Lord to take it off; it is our part to take it up. There must be an exercise of patience in our coming after Christ (Luke 21:19). 11. We must follow Christ with the cross on our back. (T. Boston, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. |
    |