Well, we're going to consider this morning a short passage from Luke's orderly account as Jesus makes His way from the judgment seat of Pilate to Golgotha, the place of His crucifixion, outside the city gates where the sin offerings were burnt and the accursed things were taken. We know this is pictured for us in the Old Testament specifically by all of those ordinances. And I'll kind of give you your homework assignment a little bit early this week. If you want a blessing, look back at Genesis chapter 22, where we see the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham under the command of God. And we can't be absolutely emphatic, but I don't think it's too far a stretch to know that he was given a three-day journey to come to the mountain or the country of Moriah, which is where Jerusalem was built. And it says in the text that God showed Abraham the mount that he was to ascend and set up the sacrifice. And it was on that mount that the ram was found in the bush and sacrificed in the place of his son. And I believe that that was probably the very same hill to which Jesus now is marching. What we see this morning in the text is a man named Simon. and some women who will teach us great lessons regarding our obedience and about the compassion shown by our Lord, even as He takes upon Himself the wrath of God, the full wrath of God that was due our sins. We're told in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, that Simon of Cyrene carried the cross as Jesus made his way to the place of a skull. Mark tells us that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus, reminding us again of how our God loves the details of his covenant faithfulness. Simon was coming from the countryside and was compelled to carry the cross somewhere along the journey. And we know that it was somewhere along the journey because John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus, bearing his cross, went out to a place of a skull, which in the Hebrew is called Golgotha. Now, it's interesting that John makes no mention of Simon carrying the cross of Jesus. And He also, in His Gospel, does not include any of the many discussions that Jesus had with His disciples and others about taking up a cross to follow Jesus. And I want to take a moment to review some of those passages that are given to us by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Because I think what we need to see here this morning is that we have, with Simon being compelled to carry the cross of Jesus, a graphic illustration of what Jesus was teaching. It is not, I believe, the typical picture that we have in our mind when we quote those verses where Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. The image should not be of taking up some challenge that we might face or going through some suffering that we might need to do for Jesus. But rather, the image should be of Simon, who is called on to carry the cross of Christ, which is the source of our Lord's suffering and victory. Luke, along with Matthew and Mark, give us the account of Jesus asking His disciples who the people say that He is. In Luke, it was in chapter 9. When Jesus asked the disciples what they thought, they rightly answered, the Christ of God. Jesus then goes on to teach them about the very time in His life that we're now studying in Luke. and a truth that is graphically illustrated by the image of Simon carrying the cross of Jesus. We'll pick it up in Luke 9.22. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, which we've seen, and be killed and raised the third day. And then Jesus said to them all, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of Him, the Son of Man, will be ashamed when He comes in His glory, and in His Fathers, and of the holy angels." Luke gives us a second account of Jesus giving very similar instructions in chapter 14, when He tells those who are gathered around Him that they must be willing to put Jesus above all else. In Luke 14, verse 25, we read this, Now great multitudes went with Him, and He turned and said to them, If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it? Lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and is not able to finish." In Mark's Gospel, we have one other situation recounted where Jesus talks of carrying a cross. It's in Mark chapter 10, beginning at verse 17. Now, as Jesus was going out on the road, one came running and knelt before him and asked, Good teacher, what shall I do that I might inherit eternal life? And so Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good, but one, that is God. You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. And honor your father and your mother. And he answered Jesus and said, Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, One thing you lack. Sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, take up the cross and follow Me." In the other accounts, Jesus said to take up your cross. And here, He says to take up the cross. And I think it's important that we see that in the Christian walk, these are one in the same. This is what is illustrated for us this morning in the text with Simon carrying the cross of Jesus. We don't know if Simon came to Jerusalem as a disciple of Jesus or if he was converted by this experience. But church history records that he continued in faithful service along with his sons. And they might even be those that are mentioned in Acts and Romans. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross. He is not encouraging us to establish some sort of works-oriented religion where we strive to please God. He is telling us that the way of salvation comes through the cross upon which He was crucified. That is the cross that must be carried. if we are to properly follow Jesus. And this is why the picture of Simon is so important. Simon has been compelled to carry the cross, just as we are commanded to do so. But it is not Simon who will be crucified on that cross. It will be the Lord Jesus. That is why in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus could say, Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. You know, we ought to be thinking when some verses like that say those kind of things. What do you mean, rest with a yoke? Have you ever watched an ox out in the field? The picture doesn't seem to fit. And yet Jesus says, take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Now again, as we think of Simon, from a human standpoint, what we see and are often taught to see, is Simon coming along to assist a helpless Jesus who is no longer strong enough to carry His burden. But from a divine perspective, as God lays out His story of salvation, He is showing us that we must carry the cross of His Son if we are to be the true followers of Jesus. There is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved. And those who confess Jesus must confess Him both as crucified and risen. He suffered, He died, and He rose again. We see this beautifully illustrated with Christian in Pilgrim's Progress. where he's got a load and burden of sin upon his back that has just piled up from all of his life. And it does not fall off, not when he tries to climb Mount Zion or Sinai or any of the other things that he does. It falls to the ground when he comes to the cross of Christ. Paul proclaims in Romans 6 that we are dead to sin and alive to God because we are united with the death of Jesus. Romans 6 verse 3 reads, Do you not know that as many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? If you wear the name of the Triune God, if you have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, you have been baptized into His death. You little children who don't remember your baptism because your parents brought you up just weeks after you were born. Your parents were saying to God, I can't save this child. I can't raise this child. This child needs to die. This child needs to die to sin so that he or she can be raised in life. That's what it means to be baptized. in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Paul continues, therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the lightness of His death, Certainly, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for He who has died has been freed from sin." We need the death of Christ so we can have the victory of Christ. There is no new life. There is no Christian walk, there is no sanctification, unless we first carry the cross and are crucified with Christ Jesus. But, there is abundant life that Jesus came to bring, if we do. Paul continues in verse 8, Now if we died with Christ, We believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, that the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." This is truly the joy that was set before Jesus as He approached the hill of a skull, with Simon carrying the cross on which He would die. We're going to see the application for that in a few moments from Hebrews, but Luke also gives us one other bit of information as the Lord proceeds to Golgotha. He tells us of some women. And illustrates the compassion of our Lord. Compassion that is shown even as He walks toward His place of execution. As we noted last week, at this point, Jesus has been up all night. Probably hadn't slept much all week. He was beaten at various trials. He had been scourged by the Roman soldiers. Tormented with a crown of thorns. Isaiah says that Jesus was marred beyond recognition, picturing, I believe, the fall of sin and what it had done to the image of God in man. So it is not surprising that we would see some women along the way weeping over what they see and feeling sorry for Jesus. Now, we're not told if these were faithful women or just some who were there and overwhelmed by these events. The fact that Jesus referred to them as daughters of Jerusalem probably means it was the latter. But, I think it is important that we note that it was women. You know, all of the feminist study centers that we have in the great universities of our land decry the fact as often as they can, that Christians in the Bible are male chauvinists who are hell-bent on keeping women down. And I would like to politely disagree with them this morning. You see, there is a reason that Christians don't burn their widows at the time of their husband's death, like some in India have practiced. Christians do not hide their women under burkas or walk them behind the animals like they do in the Muslim cultures. It is Christians who oppose the degradation and exploitation of women through pornography or physical abuse or even slavery. And the reason for this is quite simple. The Bible holds women in very high regard. And to the degree that Christians are faithful to the Bible, they will hold them in high regard as well. As opposed to all of the pagan cultures that have existed in all of history. Now that might sound like a sweeping accusation, but I would challenge anyone to find a pagan culture where women are treated as they are in the Scriptures. We see the Christian view throughout history with the classic tales of knights defending women, and it carries down even to today with the almost forgotten customs of opening a door or giving up a seat for a lady. Our passage this morning should remind us about how women are presented in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Testament. You married men should pay special attention here. because it reminds us that we need to respect our helpmeets and to treat them properly because we desperately need their help. For you young or older men who are not yet married, it should remind you about how important your search for the right helpmeet really is. Now, I'm sure some of you are saying, wait a minute, where did we go astray here on this rabbit trail and how are you getting all of these out of these verses? Well, Luke included this in his orderly account for a reason. And I think the reason is that he wanted us to take note that it was women who were there weeping for Jesus as He went to the cross. Since His arrest in the garden and all through the trials, Jesus has been mocked falsely accused, beaten, and disgraced by men. There is not a single record here or actually in any of the Gospel accounts of a woman speaking against Jesus. In fact, it's just the opposite. It is the women who play an important role in the ministry of Jesus. It begins with His faithful mother Mary. who, unlike Zacharias, believed the angel and submitted to the Lord's will and faithfully raised Jesus. Throughout the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, over and over again, we see a group of faithful women who give of their time and possessions to care for Jesus and His disciples. A faithful woman was given to us in the account from Luke. who washes the feet of Jesus, treating Him properly while He had been abused at a Pharisee's home. Mary, just a few days before, anointed Jesus for burial at Bethany, an act that will be remembered for all of time. During the trials, it was only Pilate's wife, a woman, who argued and tried to save Jesus. We will see the faithful group of women who followed Jesus and cared for Him present at the cross. These same women will be the last to be at His grave that night, and they will be the first to be there on the morning of His resurrection. And finally, it was to women that Jesus first appeared after His resurrection. It was the women who first believed. The men who saw the empty tomb either doubted like the disciples or told lies like the Roman soldiers. So men, I hope you get the picture. We need our helpmates. We need them desperately. And so we see here in Luke's account women who are weeping and lamenting. Jesus, in the midst of His suffering, shows them compassion and gently reminds them that they should be weeping for those who will reject the work that Jesus is now doing to save His people from their sins. He tells them that if what is being done to the sun, the green wood, is enough to cause weeping, It is hard to imagine what will happen when God's wrath is poured out on Jerusalem, the dry wood. Now, we've covered this judgment at some length, but we should take special note of the curse that Jesus points out, because it may not be as shocking as it should be to us. Again, in large part, thanks to all of those feminist studies that we have all been subjected to. Jesus tells them that they should weep for themselves and their children. 4 Indeed, the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are barren wombs, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed." Now this would have been a shocking statement in the Hebrew culture. Children were seen as a gift from God, and a barren womb was often considered a curse. We can think of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, or Hannah, the mother of Samuel. But here Jesus says that the barren womb would be looked upon as a blessing during the coming judgment. And a lack of mothering would be a good thing. Now sadly, in our age today, the childless woman who figures out a way to join the Marines or has a successful career is considered the one who is blessed. And, you know, who wants all those burdens of childbearing? That's the whole reason that we have abortion on demand, so that women can have a choice in these matters. And sadly, We have chosen very poorly. We have sought and praised things that should be a blessing only if we are in the midst of God's judgment. We as Christians are to stand against this wisdom of our age, this foolishness of men. And we do so by seeking God's blessings as we take up the cross upon which Jesus bore the penalty for our sin, and claiming His promise of salvation. We are to claim it for ourselves, to claim it for our children, and to claim it for their children. We are to proclaim it to the world, believing that God will save all those who are called into His kingdom, just as we saw Simon compelled to carry the actual cross of Jesus on that terrible day. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 13, as I mentioned earlier, calls us to obedience, to the fruit of the Spirit. He does so in the same way that all of the New Testament does, by reminding us as God's children of what happened that day. And we need to learn to not separate them. You know, verse 1 says, let brotherly love continue. We've had lots of sermons on love. There's lots of teaching on love. But we often forget the context of where the writer of Hebrews is taking us when he asks us to do these things. In verse 2, he says, do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels. And here at Church of the King, we put a high regard on hospitality and reaching out and caring for strangers, but we should never forget why. It says, remember the prisoners as if chained with them. Those who are mistreated, since you were yourselves, are in the body also. We think of prisoners as bad guys that ought to be kept away from us, not those who should be ministered to. Marriage is honorable among all, the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such as we have. That's a pretty busy list of things to do. We are then, however, told why we should strive to do all of these good works. For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man can do to me. See, the world is going to make fun of us if we try to live the way the writer of Hebrews is telling us to live. But then we are given even more commands. He says, remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the Word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. We are to be under good teachers and to listen to their instruction. But we are also to avoid errors. It says in verse 9, do not be carried away with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. Remember, this book is written to a Jewish audience, and they're still caught up in the Old Testament laws and procedures. And that's why in verse 10 he says, We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. There was a day when you couldn't enter the Holy of Holies. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people," that's us, with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Then we are reminded why we must carry our cross. It says in verse 13, Therefore, let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the One to come. There is no Christian life without the cross. The city of Jerusalem would be judged and destroyed because they rejected the work of Christ. But we seek and serve the New Jerusalem, the Church, the Kingdom of Jesus that is filling the earth. In verse 15, the writer continues, Therefore, by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name, but do not forget to do good, to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you." We, brothers and sisters, are to live the joy that was set before Jesus. We need to remember that the disciples walked in the presence of Jesus, sat and discussed and listened to Him for three years, and yet now they are scattered and defeated. In the book of Acts, we will see them empowered by the Holy Spirit and serving faithfully Because then they will understand what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus. Remember, Peter's initial reaction was, oh no, Lord, we don't want that. And over and over and over and over again, Jesus told them about what was going to happen. It went right over their heads. But after His resurrection and with the empowerment of the Spirit, just as we can from His Word and Spirit today, they understand. the picture that we're given with Simon carrying that cross today, that we may live in the joy and the power of His resurrection. That's what Jesus calls us to today. Let's pray.