Marcus Mecum - My Cross, My Family
Luke 23. Let's look at verse 26, "Now as they led Jesus away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon, a Cyrene. He was coming from the country, and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. And a great multitude of the people followed him, and women also mourned and lamented him. And Jesus turned to them and said, 'daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children'". I wanna talk from this story and specifically what I want you to see is inside of the crucifixion story that we know much about, there is a subtle message to the family.
There's a message to parents. There's a message to the next generation. There's a message to the church. And Jesus says as he's bearing the weight of the cross, he says, "Do not mourn for me, do not weep for me, but instead weep for your families". This setting appears to have chose Simon, a Cyrene. He did not choose the setting. He did not choose this moment. It chose him. It's 9:00 a.m. There's a crowd that's gathered there in Jerusalem. The crowd is not a unified one. It is a divided one. It is a polarized crowd. You have some that would mourn and weep while others would gloat. You'd have some that were there for reasons of relationship.
There are those who were there who were antagonizing, filled with anger and hatred, shouting, throwing, screaming, doing whatever they had to do to punish this man that was believed to be a criminal. It was Roman law whenever a criminal was to be crucified that they would take them down the longest possible route. This was not a short journey that Jesus would go on as he Carries the cross. His trial would be much different than any other trial where he was found innocent. He was declared innocent. He was found to be guilty of no crime, but yet the crowd and because of the pressure of the crowd, he was to be executed.
I want you to think about how he is carrying this cross. He's nearly been beaten to death. As he's on his way to Calvary's hill on which he would die, he collapses under the weight of a cross. This is a peculiar thing that takes place because he's the sinless Son of God. The power that he has, he is divine. He can do anything he wants in that moment, but he divested himself of that divinity and that power, and he's purely, in this moment, walking with the weight of the cross which represents the weight of our sin. He's carrying that. He's burdened by that. And he collapses under the weight of the cross unable to continue.
I love this place in the crucifixion story because it lets us know that all of us at some point will need someone to help us carry our cross. If Jesus himself needed others to help him bear the burden of his cross, don't beat yourself up too much when you feel like you can't do it all on your own, and you feel like it's bigger than you and it's weightier than you, because we understand the importance of relationship. At some point, you're gonna fall. At some point, you're gonna stumble. At some point, you're gonna be exhausted under the weight and the pressure of life. At some point, you'll need someone there to lift you back up.
I'm not on this stage preaching and pastoring this church because I'm really strong. I'm on this stage preaching because I had some really strong people around me that when I couldn't carry it, they helped me carry it. And so, don't gloat too much about how independent you are, and how strong you are, and how capable you are 'cause the Bible says, "A righteous man shall fall seven times, but he'll get back up". But you gotta go to Ecclesiastes that tells you how you get back up and that is, "How can a man, if he walks alone when he falls there's no one there to pick him up". The key is we can keep getting up over and over when life hits us its hardest, but we gotta be surrounded with people that can lift us.
So, a few things that this teaches us. Number one, we do not choose our crosses, they choose us. "Why am I going through this? I would have never chose this. I would have never wanted this". That's a cross. Crosses we're asked to bear, they don't consult with our agenda. They don't check in with "What was your plan"? They don't say, "Oh, you know, I'm trying to figure out if now's the best time to go ahead and put all this pain on you". They don't check with you. They show up unexpectedly. Our crosses can bless our families though if we carry them with the right spirit.
So, you got the cross. It's there. But the purpose is that that cross can send a message to the next generation if we know how to carry these weighty things with the right spirit. So, as we look at Simon, he is man that had to save his money for some time. We don't know exactly how long. Maybe a year. Maybe he made this Pilgrimage every year where he would go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Maybe this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We do know that he has saved his money for some time and he's living a dream to go to Jerusalem at the time of this massive religious festival and we know that he traveled. He's a Cyrene. He traveled approximately 800 miles to be there in Jerusalem. No jets, no planes. You don't have delta. You don't have southwest. You don't have frontier depending on how cheap you are.
I'm frontier. That's what I take. Come on, $20 roundtrip flights. Thank you, Jesus. Just wherever you wanna go. Okay. He don't have a car. There's no road systems. There's no trains. They would make the journey 800 miles and his family would be with him. They finally get to Jerusalem. The Passover celebration is happening. There's massive crowds that line the streets of Jerusalem. And so, Simon and his family decide to push through the crowd to see what's going on because they've heard the excitement that a criminal is being executed, and Simon wants his family to see what is going on. He's probably trying to teach his sons a lesson. We don't know exactly but he's probably there saying, "Hey, this is what happens to someone that breaks the law. This is what happens to a law breaker".
As a father, he's maybe teaching his sons at that moment how they avoid being on the wrong side of the law, talking to them about living right and considering your choices, and the consequences of those choices. As he's in this moment with his family, the soldiers pull Simon the Cyrene out of the crowd and they force him to carry that cross. He didn't want to carry that cross. He did not choose this cross. They pulled him out, and Mark and Matthew both say they compelled him to carry the cross. This was something that he resisted, he refused, he argued, he tried to pull back, he tried to pull away. He did everything that he could do to avoid this scenario. It's a humiliating scenario. It's embarrassing. His sons watching him be powerless in that moment. And he gets pulled away from them and thrown to carry the cross of what they thought was a criminal.
I don't know what Simon said to his sons. I don't what his encouraging words might have been in that moment, but I know that they were there. You do too. Or we can imagine at least. Telling your sons, "I don't know what's gonna happen. I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But take care of one another. Tell your mom when you see her, I love her". We don't know what he did but we know that this is a moment where that family appears to be like they're being pulled apart by this cross that they're bearing.
As he's carrying the cross, he hears the angry mob screaming insults, pushing, and hitting, and throwing stones, and spitting on the Son of God. And at the same point, as he's watching one side of the crowd be angry and hateful, there's another side of the crowd that interestingly enough seems to be mourning and weeping. They're even trying to surround and protect this man from some of the attacks that are going on. And in the middle of this moment, all of a sudden he hears this man that he's carrying the cross for say something that would change his life forever. And he says, "Don't weep for me, don't mourn for me. I see your tears but don't shed a tear for me. Instead, realize that what you need to be weeping for, what you need to be burdened for is for yourselves and for your children".
I don't know exactly what happened to Simon when he heard those words but we do know that it impacted him in a way that he would never be the same again. Some things happen in our lives, some changes happen, some crosses enter, some unchosen circumstances are laid upon us, and we would have never wanted them, but yet if we can embrace them with the right heart and spirit, they can change your life forever. They can change the direction of your life where I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it. But God can use it to change your life. There's a bridge in Michigan. A 100 people jumped of it. 87 of the 100 died the moment they hit the water. 13 have lived. All 13 have gone on to live highly successful and effective lives.
They asked one of the 13, what happened when he made the jump, trying to figure out what has happened to these 13 that have lived. And he said, "The moment that I hit the water, I was in such shock because the water was so cold, I knew I had to swim or I would die". He said, "The shock of that moment has followed me every day from that point on". And the goal of a cross, the goal of an unwanted burden, an unexpected situation that hits your life, the goal of it is to shock us into changing the way we look at life, changing the way we go at life. There's just something about, sometimes, we just think that we got it all together.
Sometimes, we just think that we've got it all mastered, and every now and then God's gotta take us back to school, the school of brokenness, the school of humility a little bit, and say, "Hey, you better be careful. You still need me. You need my strength. You still need my grace. You still need to remember what I've brought you out of. You weren't all together on your own. I'm the one who did that all in you". And a cross can force you to check your life. "Am I responding all that's going on with the right spirit"? Galatians 6:14, "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and me to the world". The point is this. Paul's talking about the cross he had to bear but you don't just bear a cross, you have to bear it with the right spirit.
You see, we don't choose all our crosses, yet we can choose how we carry them. I don't get to choose what hits my life but I can choose how I'm gonna respond and react to it, and how I carry my family will have far reaching effects on my family and children, and even my children's children. Mark 15:21, we learn that Simon had two children, Rufus and Alexander. How many of y'all know Rufus had to know how to fight growing up? If your parents named you Rufus, you're gonna have to be tough, right? I can promise you if there's a Rufus in this room right now, that's a tough man right there. But watch this.
Romans 6:13, "Jesus is carrying the cross Simon's pulled out, his sons there watching". Fast forward, Jesus has died. Jesus is risen from the dead. The New Testament church has been born. The Holy Spirit's been poured out. Churches are being built. And as all this is happening, Paul, the apostle, in Romans 16:13 finds Rufus, one of Simon's sons that was there at the moment that his dad was pulled out of the crowd and forced to carry that cross. Now the Bible says Paul, the apostle, chooses Simon's son Rufus and calls him to be an influencer with him in Rome. And Acts 19:33, his other son, Simon's other son, Alexander, stands up against an angry mob, think about that, and defends the apostle Paul.
Where did he learn that? Where did he learn to stand up for the things of God? Where do you learn to stand up for the goodness of God? Where do you learn to, he learned it from his daddy. He watched his daddy carry his cross and it wasn't just a spectating thing. As he was watching his father carry an unwanted burden, that got in him. And now, he fast forward and now he's facing a battle. He's facing a struggle and he knows exactly what to do because he's solid in his father. The terrible day of humiliation and embarrassment that Simon experienced because he had an unwanted cross paid off in the end. You have to bear your cross, dad. You have to bear your cross, grandad.
Now, I'm one, I'mma talk to you too. You have to bear your cross, mom. Don't mourn. At some point, you have to make a decision. If you're gonna weep, weep for your children. If you're gonna be burdened, be burdened for your children. I understand it's painful but you bear the cross because it's sending a message to them. Whatever Simon caught that day, he picked up the cross. His kids also caught it a decade later. And my prayer is that we would just with honor, and class, and integrity, and humility, just get up under that cross that we're carrying. We've all got it. Matter of fact, everybody in this room, this is the one thing I've learned over the years. Nobody in this room will have everything going good at once. At least, I have not had that privilege.
So, this is more experiential than theological. But I had my pastor years ago say the reason for that is if everything in your life was going good at the same time, you'd get too big of a head. So, if your marriage is going good, kids may not be. Kids are doing good, marriage may not be, or your boyfriend, or your single, or fiance, or whatever, or your future husband, or the no husband, whatever, not going good. Or your money's doing good, family's going crazy. It all kinda seems that every now and then you get something going on and it's a cross you have to bear. Whether you want to or not, you bear it, and if you'll bear it with the right spirit, that'll get on the inside of the next generation, in Jesus' name. So, I came today, I wanted to pray for parents, for those who are raising up the next generation.
You may say, "Well, I'm not a parent". Well, then you're a kid or coming out of being a kid, or maybe in place where you can help us pray for the spiritual children of this place. Can we do that real quick? Why don't you just pray, why don't you just think about your family? Just right now, just put your faith on your family. Put your faith toward those sons, towards your daughters, towards those grandsons, those granddaughters. If you're with your wife or husband, just grab their hand right where they're at. If you're by your kids, maybe just put your arm around them real fast. And all across this room, we lift up families, families that we know the enemy is trying to attack. We know he's trying to destroy the home and the family. I'm reminded of Nehemiah, how he has to build with one hand and fight with the other.
Father, we're fighting for our families and we're building your house. We're building the church. We're fighting for homes and we're building the kingdom. We're fighting for our sons and our daughters, and we're building that which we know gives you glory. So, Father, I pray you strengthen every parent that's here, every grandparent, strengthen them to carry that cross in Jesus' name. Lord, we can look forward into the future and we can see how the message, how the seed of how we carry our cross is planted in the next generation. And Father, we thank you that that seed will produce a mighty harvest and that the next generation will continue to do great things for you. And that father as we carry our crosses with boldness, and courage, and integrity, let that get in our sons and our daughters. In Jesus' name.
Every eye is closed, every head is bowed, no one's looking around. Maybe you're here today and you say, "Marcus, I'm not right with Jesus Christ". Maybe you've not made a decision to put your trust in Jesus Christ. You're here and you'd say, "I'm far from God. I'm distant from God. I'm nowhere close to God", but today, you wanna be. Today, through this service, maybe God begin to deal with your heart. Not asking where you've been. I'm not asking what you've been through. I'm not even asking you about the decisions you've made or whether you think that you're deserving of this moment.
God did not check with us on whether we deserved it. He just sent his son because he loved us. And he died for us so we could come when we least deserve it and say, "God, I need you, and I need forgiveness, and I need mercy, and I need a new beginning". And it's available to every single person in this room no matter how far you think you're gone. You're not out of his reach. He loves you. He's for you. He's got a plan for you. He wants to forgive. He wants to bring purpose. Even to the mistakes, he wants to bring purpose. So, maybe you're here today and you say, "Marcus, I want you to pray for me. I need to get right with God. I need that new beginning. I need that new start".
On the count of three, I'm gonna ask you to lift your hand, if that's you. You say, "Include me in this prayer today. I need to get right with Jesus Christ. I need to invite Jesus into my heart, into my life". And you want me to pray for you. On the count of three, lift that hand. One, two, three. Lift it up as high as you can. Thank you. Keep it raised if you can. Thank you. I love to see hands. It means so much to me. Thank you. It's what it's all about. It's why we do what we do as a church for moments like this. That this right here is the first day of the rest of your life. Life does not begin at 40, life begins at Calvary. This is the beginning of the rest of your life. Let's all put our hands on our heart. Say this with me. Say:
Jesus, thank you for dying on a cross, that you paid the penalty, you paid the price for my sin. Forgive me, cleanse me, wash me. I repent, I turn from my old life, and I do believe you, Jesus, are God's only son that he raised you from dead, and he raised Jesus up into newness of life. I'm being raised up today into a brand-new life, (and we all said) amen.