Ash Wednesday 2023 | Take Up Your Cross | Matthew 16:21-26 - Clint Leavitt

We live in a world constantly bombarding us with messages about who we are, what the good life looks like, and how we can obtain it. In a culture carried by the whims of personal desire and comfort, we hear values like “follow your heart;” in a culture where we are constantly divided from one another, we start to believe that our spite is justified; in a culture that is constantly blaming others, we jump into the blame game. Yet each of these notions lead us not to life, freedom, or peace, but further into death, captivity, and anxiety. In Jesus’ ministry, He regularly spoke against all sorts of notions that we consider commonplace today, and in listening and applying His words together, we will find a lasting, peaceful, joyous life in the midst of a culture mired in anxiety, division, and hatred. Watch as Pastor Clint explores the common contemporary mantra, "Follow Your Heart," the ways that it has pervaded our hearts and minds, and the radical alternative Jesus teaches us in order to find true, lasting life: to take up our cross and follow him. Sermon Resources: 1. “We have been led to believe that the self is sacred. Just as in an earlier time it was thought never fitting to deny God, now it seems never right to deny oneself.” -Robert Bellah, "Habits of the Heart" 2. “When Jesus calls someone He bids them come and die.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost of Discipleship" 3. “The cost of non-discipleship is far greater…Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness, that stands in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring. The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul…The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane.” -Dallas Willard, "The Spirit of the Disciplines" Join us below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/midtownpreschurch Instagram: www.instagram.com/midtown.pres Website: www.midtownpres.org Community Groups: www.midtownpres.org/community-groups Sunday Services: www.midtownpres.org