Speaker 1: 0:13

I'll tell you, it's getting kind of full in here. Be careful, we're gonna have to knock down these walls in the back. This is good. Oh, all right, so real quick. I just wanna start with a couple announcements, just because there are things coming up.

Speaker 1: 0:25

April is here and we have got a lot of really cool stuff going on. We're doing baptisms, if you don't know, on Easter Right now we got 51 people for sure doing it. Easter Right now, we got 51 people for sure doing it. I'm excited about that. If you want to get baptized, man, I would love the opportunity to dunk you and hold you under the water, help you back up again. If you want to do that, that next steps card that's right in front of you there. If you just let us know, we'll call you this week. Figure out which service you want to do it at. We're going to do three services seven, 9, and 11. So you can do one of those services. You have time to invite your family and your friends and because family and friends are coming and it's kind of like a family reunion at Easter, we're doing a 7 o'clock service. It's like a sunrise service. So if you could come at 7, that would be great If you're able to make space, because this place is going to be packed. It's going to be awesome. It's so much fun. I enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Leading up to Easter, we're doing a 24-hour-a-day for seven days, starting on Friday, the Friday before Palm Sunday that ends on Good Friday. We're doing a prayer room that'll be up here on the campus, so the campus is going to be open the entire week. The gate will be open every hour. We're going to have people in that space. It's, you know, a place that you can go with different kinds of expression and prayer. You can come with a group or your family or your community group, or even just by yourself. There's a sign about there. I don't want you to miss that.

Speaker 1: 1:51

And then I can't believe this we're almost done with Matthew after like a thousand days. I'm not kidding, some of you have. You know, your hair has gotten kind of gray. You've had kids, people have graduated, you've retired Like life has lifed in the midst of going through Matthew. And it's unreal that our last week in Matthew is actually April 27th, and so I want to invite you. Then we're going to have a party, we're going to celebrate and then, just to do it, we're going to be in community. Like spring is going to be springing and some of the best weather around here is actually the end of April.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So on the 27th, after the last service at like one o'clock, from like one to four, we're going to open up the parking lot, kind of like a tailgate, but picnic with a view. We have a killer view up here. Everything's beautiful. You can bring food, you can cook food, you can make something that I'm going to try, whatever you want, but in a week or two we'll have sign-ups for that, just so you can like reserve your spot and get some people to come up here. It's so much fun, it's good. The last thing I was going to tell you is usually we have.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Well, last week, what we started doing is we had seniors that are starting to read up here, because seniors are getting ready to graduate from high school, not like senior seniors but, like you know, younger seniors, and so last week we had Sam and it's we're going to have a different senior, but this week we don't have a senior reading, and that's because they're all at a different church today, why? Well, we really just want to invest into our seniors, and so what we've done is. Sammy actually took a bunch of them over the bridge to a different church, because a lot of them they're going to like leave here or go away to college and they're like how do I find a church and get into a community? And so they went there and they're separating and they're going to go in, they're going to experience a little church and afterwards they're going to get together for lunch and they're going to be like what did you like, what didn't you like, what do you want to experience? So some of the seniors might not come back because they found another church, but it's cool, we just want to invest into them. So next week we'll have another senior that we get to highlight and I love that we're doing that and helping these young people to stay connected to a faith community. It's so important.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Have you guys ever heard that term? You know, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a sound? Yeah, so it was actually a philosopher, bishop George Berkeley, who proposed this question. It's related to him and really the premise behind it is like does an event need a perceiver to exist? Does someone else need to be a part of it? That even took place and happened as a witness, and I don't know if you've ever been in the forest. The forest makes actually quite a bit of noise. It's very noisy, it's beautiful sometimes and sometimes it can be very scary, especially if you're at night or if there's a bear involved that's chasing you. That's a little PTSD. If you guys have seen that video, I'll tell you some of the most alive I felt was actually this last year A couple nights took my kids out and we went on a night hike with zero flashlights.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yeah, I'll tell you right now yous alive. You go out and you just have to let your eyes adjust and you literally can see bears walking around doing what bears do at night. And the forest is very noisy in the middle of the night when you don't have a flashlight or anything with you and you're walking around. So much fun. But does an event need a paper? Some of you guys are like zero fun, like they're not. It's not even it's not fun.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So does event even exist if there's not a perceiver of it? So this is where we've been. We're in chapter 27 of Matthew. We're wrapping up Jesus's like final moments, literally hours. We've only been got hours left. So what's happened so far is we found ourselves, actually just weeks ago in the garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus was praying this, you know, very difficult, sorrow-filled prayer of this cup that he was getting ready to bury. He had three disciples with him, and this is after they enjoyed a Passover meal together, and so it's just hours after this Passover meal.

Speaker 1: 5:46

They've made their way up to the Garden of Gethsemane, which is just outside of the gates in Jerusalem, overlooking it, and his betrayer showed up. Judas showed up and gave him away to this large crowd that was sent by the chief elders, the chief priests, to arrest Jesus, and they did this because there wouldn't be a crowd around. It's the middle of the night. They brought this mob and Jesus is finding himself like why did you guys bring weapons? What's going on? Why are you making this such a scene?

Speaker 1: 6:11

They take him then, and then we've seen two trials take place and remember, this isn't hours, this is not days, this is the midst of hours. It's so fast, so chaotic. So they take him to Caiaphas' house, which is the high priest in the Sanhedrin, and they put on a trial, and essentially, they accuse him then of being a spoken king, and so this gives them an opportunity to actually hand him over to Rome to have him executed, because he's not just a threat to the religious institution. Making a claim that he's a king is a threat to the Roman empire, and so they use this as an opportunity to actually have him crucified. So, after Caiaphas, they send him off to see Pilate, and so Pilate puts him on trial. When Pilate's doing this trial, he actually sends him over to Herod and then he goes from Herod. Herod doesn't want anything to do with him, goes back to Pilate. Pilate ends up making him guilty, an innocent man. We saw that last week in a conversation. Pilate even offered another criminal, a guilty man, as a replacement for an innocent man, and yet the innocent man took the guilty man's place in place. And so this is again hours. This is like early now in the morning, like this has been happening all through the night, which is just so fast, so chaotic.

Speaker 1: 7:40

And we pick up now in verse 27 in chapter 27. It says then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. Now it's important to understand this in just this scene that's taking place. First of all, it's the praetorium. This is like where Pilate would live. This was his palace, and so they've taken him back here, and this isn't just like three or four soldiers that have now taken Jesus here. It says that the whole company of soldiers so what does that look like? This is literally like 120 to 200 Roman soldiers that are participating now in this moment, around him.

Speaker 1: 8:13

It says in verse 28, then they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. Then they put a staff in his right hand and then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail the king of Jews. They said so I mean, this is just a mockery. They're like you know, you play dress up as a kid. They're like we're going to dress up the king guy. He thinks he's the king. Like look it, we're going to just start thrashing you and mocking you. And like, oh, look, you're the king. Then it says they even spit on him. After that, they took the staff from his hands and then struck him on the head, and scripture emphasizes this again and again. This is brutal. I think that this kind of goes soft on us. Like we read this and we're like, oh interesting. They hit him and they put a crown on his head and they mocked him A crucifixion they literally would try to beat you within inches of your life.

Speaker 1: 9:11

I mean to start the process that then the cross was going to finish. That was the point of this. After they had mocked him, they took the robe off of him and then they put his own clothes back on him and then they led him away to be crucified. And again we just kind of read past that and we're like, oh yeah, they led him to be crucified. This was like the most torturous way you could experience a death. He had already been flogged. We saw that last week. He's now had this crown put on him. He's been beaten in the head again and again and again, and crucifixion took place in multiple ways. Sometimes you would carry part of a cross. Sometimes you maybe would carry an entire cross to a place for it to finish the job. As an example, Sometimes rope would be used to hang someone up, but the Gospel of John actually tells us particularly that what was used for Jesus was nails that's where we get that information from to crucify him.

Speaker 1: 10:10

And as they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon and they forced him to carry the cross. Now, they forced him because, I mean, jesus literally was so weak he wasn't even able to get to there. So I mean the soldiers had been worried like we need to actually get him and put him on the cross so it can finish there and not here along the way. And they came to a place called Gagatha, which means place of the skull. A couple years ago a bunch of friends from Northgate here and myself went to Israel. We actually got to see potentially what this space was. You can see in this picture the place of the skull. You can see like in the side of the hills right there. It kind of looks like the eyes of a skull and the nose, even still to this day, is one of the places where this took place.

Speaker 1: 10:56

And there they offered Jesus, it says, wine to drink mixed with gall, but after tasting it he refused to drink it. Now, what's the gall stuff? So gall is like a numbing agent, like a narcotic that they would give just to get rid of some of the pain that was involved. That you would survive long enough to actually be crucified all the way and experience this atrocity and refuse to drink it. And what's interesting is like, why did he do that? I mean, like in his weakness. It's literally like he said no, no, no, I can't have anything numbing me to this situation. I have to suffer all the way and experience this to the very end.

Speaker 1: 11:35

And when they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. So this is literally like tossing dice. That's what casting lots is, like they were gambling for who's going to get a piece of his clothes. But also this not only was he physically abused to a degree, he was dehumanized and like sexually abused. We often think like he was still wearing clothes. They took his clothes. He was down naked on a cross. You know we have this picture. We've seen pictures of Jesus or you've worn a necklace of him, like a little like cute towel on there. No, there was no towel on there. So this is like abuse to like the deepest degree of a human, completely exposed and sitting down. They kept watch over him there and above his head. Then they placed the written charge that was against him. This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. These were revolutionaries. Jesus was a revolutionary guy, this upside down kingdom, and most likely these two rebels were friends of the man who was released that was to be executed with him and Jesus took his place.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And then those it says in chapter verse 39, those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying you are the one who is going to destroy the temple and build it in three days. Save yourself, come down from the cross if you're the son of God. So remember at this time again, like this is festival, this is Passover day when this is taking place. So the city of Jerusalem has literally ballooned to probably around 50,000 people, which is, that's, so many people in the ancient times that have traveled from all over the countryside and even other countries for the festival of Passover. And they was.

Speaker 1: 13:37

This was done outside of the gates and this was on purpose. That crucifixion would take place on the outside because, as you entered in, it was a very stern and clear warning Don't do what that guy did. See this person that we're dehumanizing, demoralizing, crucifying in this way. This was a clear threat Don't play, don't play around with us. And so they would pass by and they would hurl insults at him In the same way. Verse 41 says in the same way, the chief priests and the teachers of the law and the elders. They mocked him. The religious people mocked him. He saved others, they said, but he can't save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, I am the son of God. In the same way, the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults at him. Isn't it interesting the reflection that's taking place right here.

Speaker 1: 14:40

If you recall, as Jesus started his ministry, he was baptized and immediately was led off into the wilderness for 40 days and literally found himself in a very weak place. He was hungry. In that moment, he was tempted to not go through that pain, to not be weak. And Satan came around him and said hey, there's a rock over there. You're the son of man, just change it into bread. You don't have to suffer, don't do this suffering. Hey, there's a temple where they can just jump off. I'll give you everything that you see. Just kneel down to me and the angels will save you. And this was Satan, knowing that this is God's son coming for the atonement of man and was offering him an easy way out. Now, in this same moment, we see people hurling insults at him, saying let God rescue him now, for he said I'm the son of God. In the same way, let this happen, just come down from the cross. If you do that, we'll believe in you. And in his weakest moment, again on the edge of death, they're saying you don't have to do this, you can come down and we'll believe in you.

Speaker 1: 15:54

I want to go back, actually, and focus for a minute on this one liner that I feel like often we pass by when we're reading this story. It says in verse 32, as they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. So, first of all, I've always wondered, and maybe you've wondered, where's Cyrene named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross? So, first of all, I've always wondered, and maybe you've wondered, where's Cyrene? You just assume it's like on the outskirts of Jerusalem, just some small town in the countryside there. Well, actually it's about 900 miles away. It's in Northern Africa and Libya. It would have taken him, if he was gonna walk, about a month to get there, and we can assume that he's there actually for the festival of Passover to experience this. We know from history that there was small groups of Jewish communities that lived in that area, and he had traveled all of this way. I would say most likely probably by boat, but we don't really know. You can take a boat there as well.

Speaker 1: 16:57

And how did this happen? How is Simon even involved in this story? Well, remember, jesus had just been flogged and brutally beaten and struck over the head many times and you know the other gospels expand on this a bit more and what we can learn about from history of crucifixion and so, literally, he is on the verge of death, just at his weakest point, and so the soldiers were probably in a panic, as he wasn't able to go much further. They've got to get him outside of the city and up on the cross to finish the job there, not inside where they were. And there was a rule that the Roman soldiers, they could grab anybody they wanted to out of the crowd and actually force them to carry and do certain things. In fact, jesus talks about this earlier, and this was common that a soldier could just pluck someone and make them carry their gear for up to a mile.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Jesus, earlier in one of his teachings, talked about the sacrifice of if you were asked to go one mile, just go two. Like really put it out there. If you were asked to go one mile, just go two. Like, really put it out there. Show them how extreme that is. And so Simon of Cyrene is in this crowd and now he's been plucked out of the crowd to participate and he has no choice in the deal. And here's the deal with the cross.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Carrying the cross is no fun. Like it's tiring, it's painful. This is awkward. What I'm carrying right now, like this, means suffering. It is by and large an inconvenience, like I don't want this right now. It makes me feel weird. Standing up here holding this cross right now in front of you. It makes me feel like out of place, like there's no way to make this right, like that's what it does in our lives.

Speaker 1: 18:40

Simon didn't want this experience. He didn't want to do this. This was hard, this was painful. It was a huge inconvenience. Being asked this disrupted his day, maybe even his week. It didn't fit in his life or his timeline. He probably had plans for the day. Again, this is the day of Passover. He had things he wanted to accomplish. He had thoughts on how this day maybe was supposed to go and to be, and this didn't really meet with any of that.

Speaker 1: 19:08

And with that in mind, we get to remember what Jesus said about carrying a cross From the gospel of Luke, chapter 9, verse 23,. Jesus said to them all whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. In the gospel according to Matthew, in chapter 10, verse 38, he says the same thing, but I think in a little bit of a harsher way Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Now let's just pause for a minute because I don't want us to misunderstand this. This is about being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. This is about if our faith actually makes noise in the woods, in the life that we have, and if our faith is actually making noise that people see and feel and are impacted by and we know this, those of you who have given your life to the Lord, that when we are saved from our sins, we're saved by our faith in Jesus Christ and what he has done for us that there's actually nothing good enough that we could actually do to save us from our sins In the sacrifice of Jesus, ultimately on the cross, in the wonderful grace of God. That's actually how we are saved. But that just makes us a Christian. That does not make us a disciple.

Speaker 1: 20:42

And so many of us Christians we like stop right there. Like that's a line. It's probably because of one's selfishness. Like that's a line. It's probably because of one's selfishness, awkwardness in carrying a cross, inconvenience. We don't like to be disrupted. My friend, john Ortberg, once asked a psychologist of 40 plus years what was the most common regret that your clients felt. Without hesitation his response was selfishness. Like why was I not the spouse or the parent or friend or contributor or giver or forgiver that I could have been? Then he asked him how many of your clients named selfishness as the problem that came in to see him to get help with. He quickly responded zero. And the problem that people most regret is the problem people least seek help for. Why? Because of one's selfishness, awkwardness, inconvenience, the disruptive nature. And we may have faith, but there's no noise that is seen, heard or felt in the woods.

Speaker 1: 22:08

And Jesus says that being his disciple means denying ourself and carrying our cross. This means his timeline, his schedule, his plans, his wants, his desires, not ours. This means being available to suffer and to hurt. But really like nowadays, in our culture let's just be honest in this community and where we live, many of us aren't really like threatened because of our faith, like actually being persecuted and beaten for it. If anything, we're just, if we're really honest. We're just if we're really honest. Our lives are just kind of being inconvenienced Like kind of like me right now carrying this around. It's kind of like an inconvenience and we must ask ourselves are we truly available to carry the cross?

Speaker 1: 23:11

And if I'm going to carry my cross in today's world, what does that actually mean? What does it look like to carry our cross today? What do individuals who carry their cross do? Well, carrying our cross today means putting people before opinions. Carrying our cross today means putting family before finances. Carrying our cross today means love before lust. As a church, carrying our cross today means church outreach before personal church preferences. It means that I'm going to put people outside of the church and the chance for them to come and hear the good news of Jesus Christ, the life change. I'm gonna put that before my own personal worship song preferences, how the church looks, how it feels, how it sounds, how all the things that the church does, all the things that we give to and invest in that. I'm gonna put the people, the outreach to the people, before my personal preferences. Carrying the cross, our cross today, means sharing hope instead of sharing hate and division. It means sacrificing to actually stand together instead of selfishness that stands apart, that separates us.

Speaker 1: 24:32

The cross is carried by the parent who chooses family over their career and their 14, 15-hour days, or their hobbies, or their bank accounts, their shiny cars. The cross carried by the young person who chooses to care, to have an open heart, to look at the needs of others and to ask themselves how this hurts or impacts or loves and cares for someone else, that what they do before they do this before their own social status, lifestyle and comfort. The cross carried by the Christian who chooses love, encourage, disciple and to invest truly, to look into the life of someone else, no matter who they are, before their own personal gain, public opinion or public gripping. The cross is carried by the family member who chooses to forgive, to communicate, to uplift, no matter what, the past, letting go of anger, letting go of division, the deep grudges, and choose family and choose love, friends. The cross exposes me. The cross exposes us.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Think about how much we've been convoluted by the word follower. Right, we say, like I'm a follower of Jesus. Right, but like, what is the world and culture done with the word follower? Now, isn't that what you do on social media? You like, follow people or things. What does it mean that you're actually doing? I mean, have you ever thought about that? Like I'm following something and it's just like I'm scrolling through and I'm checking on it. I'm like, oh, they ate today. That's great, right. Oh wow, they're on vacation. That looks really cool, right. Or like, oh wow, they're like ranting about something. Block, right, you've never been like, oh wow, they're ranting about something. I'm going to change my opinion. This is great. I am following them and learning from them and wanting to be like them.

Speaker 1: 26:40

No, that's not what we do. Isn't it so casual following you know? Like we'll say, just staying in touch. We do that Like there's ways to stay in touch. But what if we?

Speaker 1: 26:55

I mean, maybe we need to actually change the vernacular in the church in a life of following Jesus, not a follower in today's terms, maybe a cross bearer, like what has to die in me to live in a new way, in a new kingdom bearing the marks of a new king? Like what conveniences must I lose when carrying things like lust, whatever that is I'm lusting for, or gluttony, whatever it is that I'm just consuming too much of. Or greed I mean, how many of us would honestly admit and raise our hand like, yep, my struggle is greed, right. We just kind of slough it off to the side, like, oh, that's okay, it's just a desire, I deserve it, right. Or sloth Like, where are we just bored in our life and just lazy about what we're doing? Or wrath this is one that a lot of us spend a lot of time on but we won't tell nobody about. If we're just going to be honest.

Speaker 1: 28:12

Envy, envy. I'm going to tell you, some of you guys maybe envy one another. Just in this room. You've already had a side A over there. You envied what they were driving up here or not driving up here, what you think they are, what they looked like. Or the last one, I think, is the Christian cancer of pride. It's sneaky, it'll get ahold of you. It can take everything away from you as you hold on to things so tightly.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Now, here's the deal. I get it right. Like, why carry a cross? Like, why carry this through life If I can just like oh, I feel so much better If I can just go through life and I can go to heaven and have eternity and I can experience good things here with just my faith and I don't actually have to do this. Like, not this awkwardness, not this struggle, not bear this burden. Like, why do this? Why not just live for me? Like this is good, right, because. Bear this burden. Like, why do this? Why not just live for me? Like this is good, right, because. Why? Let's be honest, because carrying a cross is so disruptive. We hate being disturbed and that's why we run from it.

Speaker 1: 29:23

And we can only imagine in this moment what Simon of Cyrene was thinking as he carried that cross today. I mean, I imagine at the very beginning he had to be asking this question why me? There are thousands of people around, why me? Like, when they said Simon I mean there's so many Simons in the Bible he probably went there's got to be another one around here. Like, seriously, like me? Him, no, like, why me? Why was I the one chosen out of thousands of people. I just came here to the festival. I'm just what is going on? Everything's bloomed up. There's a scene. There's a man I don't we don't know if he had already been a follower of Jesus or he had seen him teaching in the temple that entire week beforehand. He heard some of this and just was kind of like following the crowd what's really going on, what's happening and sees them. We don't think that. You know, it wasn't like he just saw them and was like, oh my gosh, we got to help him get there so he can finish the job there. Let me help him. Curious, no, it says that they grabbed, they forced him to do this. Why me? Don't we say that too?

Speaker 1: 30:27

Have you found yourself in a situation where you're sitting there going, why me? You're here and you're desperate for purpose. Let me invite you Pick up your cross. You're here and you're feeling empty. Let me invite you Pick up your cross. You're here and you're bound by shame. Let me invite you Pick up your cross. You're here and you're hungry for more Friends. Let me invite you Pick up your cross. You're here and you're feeling weary and anxious. Let me invite you Pick up your cross. You're feeling like you're not enough. Let me invite you, friends, pick up your cross. You're here just like Simon, like you're just coming for a Sunday service, you're just doing a check-in. You're like going through the motions, you're checking stuff off of the church list. You're sitting outside in the crowd being a fan. Let me invite you, pick up the cross.

Speaker 1: 31:39

And we can only imagine that what he was witnessing, what he was actually participating in, began to actually change him, and I encourage you to hear this. The greatest way for you to bring out transformation and healing in your life and the lives of others around you that you care about is to carry your cross for Jesus Christ. You want noise in your woods to be heard. You want your faith to be heard, to be seen, to be felt, to have an impact. Carry your cross. Simon's life changed and, to the best of our understanding, is that the lives of others around him changed as well.

Speaker 1: 32:31

This story is found in three of the gospels Matthew, mark and Luke about Simon and, interestingly enough, we get a little bit more from the gospel. According to Luke, it actually involves two other names that aren't found anywhere else in scripture, and those names Alexander and Rufus. Now, who are Alexander and Rufus. They're Simon's sons. Why are they involved here? Why are they here in this moment? Well, we know that the book of Mark was written for the Christian Roman church it was actually Peter's gospel and Mark was the scribe and so we recognize that those names were listed here. Because those two individuals that the Christian church in Rome knew it says Simon of Cyrene and his two sons were with him Alexander and Rufus. And this wasn't done so that 2,000 years ago we could read just some random names. This was done because it was being written to a group of people that would have known exactly who they are, recognizing that these names were listed here. They said they could say this is Alexander and Rufus's dad. You want to know about this scene? Just go ask them. They were there, they participated in this, and not only that, because of our early church understanding that both of these individuals, alexander and Rufus, became missionaries and cross-bearers, disciples themselves. It changed them and we can recognize this wonderful truth Carrying our cross changes lives.

Speaker 1: 34:16

It makes sense that we all honestly ask ourselves if we are seeking to change the lives of our loved ones and seeking to change even our own lives. What is it that you are carrying? Who are you carrying it for? What does this world see us carrying? What do our children see us carrying? Our loved ones see us carrying with us? What are we carrying at home, at work, at school, right now, in the church, and what are we really carrying right now with us? Ask yourself that. In my hands, in your arms, what is it that we prioritize? What are we carrying with us? And as I stand here in struggle right now with a severe forearm cramp, I want you to know that carrying the cross takes all of you.

Speaker 1: 35:21

There is no room for anything else but the cross, and sometimes it is uncomfortable, sometimes people don't understand, sometimes it's odd, sometimes it feels weird, but I want this to be what people see. Sometimes people don't understand, sometimes it's odd, sometimes it feels weird, but I want this to be what people see that I'm not always perfect at that. I need a regular reminder sometimes to put down other things, because I find them in my arms, I find myself prioritizing them, I find myself carrying them around, I find myself just checking in, watching at a distance and hoping I'm not called out from the crowd. But I would encourage you, friend, pick up the cross, join Simon of Cyrene. I'm going to tell you there is no small print in the Bible. It is very clear. Jesus is very clear about what he asks us to do. There's no sneaky small thing or that quick radio, you know, 130 words per second giving you the little small print he tells us. Pick up your cross, follow Jesus, be a cross bearer with Jesus and see how your life will change.