In his sermon 'Discipleship Described and Assessed,' Peter Allison emphasizes the demands and implications of being a disciple of Christ, drawing from Luke 9. He explains that true discipleship involves denying oneself, taking up one's cross daily, and following Jesus. This means disavowing worldly desires and yielding one's will to Christ, placing His will above personal ambitions or comforts. Allison highlights the tension between the desires of the flesh and the spirit, urging believers to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. He discusses the cost of discipleship, including potential loss of reputation, friendships, and even life, for the sake of Christ. Furthermore, Allison addresses the idea of being ashamed of Christ and His teachings in a world that may find the exclusivity of Jesus offensive. He concludes with a call to commit to following Christ, denying oneself, and taking up the cross in anticipation of the Kingdom of God, which he asserts is already present, initiated by Christ's first advent.

Luke chapter 9. I'd like to begin reading at verse 21 to get the complete sentence. Luke 9, 21. And he strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, The son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and be raised on the third day. And then he 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 own glory and in his Father's and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God. May God incline our hearts to perform His statues forever.

Almighty Heavenly Father, we ask that You would speak to us that Your Word that we have heard might be mixed with faith. And I ask that these sinful lips that you might sanctify and cleanse and consecrate to speak and proclaim the riches of your grace. Lord, may you, our Savior, be exalted this morning. May your Word be opened to us, and may your Holy Spirit empower and equip and move us and incline our hearts to obedience. In Jesus name we ask.

Amen. Have you ever been signed up for something, persuaded to start something, persuaded to join something, to do something, not realizing all that would be involved. Have you ever thought halfway through something, well if I had known this is what it's like, I might never have started. I might have found something else to do. Probably, probably all of us I recently agreed to do something, just volunteer and they told me, well, it's just for four meetings a year, four meetings a year.

Well, that's not too bad for meetings a year, once a quarter. Well, then it became after I agreed once every other month. What they didn't tell me was well sometimes these meetings can go into the wee hours of the morning. What I was thinking was, well, two or three hours, not six. Well, Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men.

But it wasn't until well into his ministry, after they had been following him for two years, and he's entering into the final phase of his earthly ministry, that he's explaining to his disciples his calling as a messiah. And it wasn't to lead a Jewish army to victory over the Roman army and free Jerusalem from Roman occupation, it was to suffer, to be rejected, to die, and then to rise again. And it wasn't what anybody, most there in Israel, were expecting. It wasn't what the disciples were expecting. In fact, it was downright shocking the Messiah to be rejected, to die.

It was offensive. Mark and Matthew, in their parallel account of this event record that Peter is so shocked that he begins to rebuke Jesus. Rebuke Jesus. It's a strong word. When Jesus began to tell him what his calling as the Messiah was, he thought Jesus was going far off script, at least the script that He had heard and learned growing up.

That wasn't what the Messiah was supposed to do at all. Jesus had an equally strong response. He turned around and looked at Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, Satan. He rebuked Satan.

He rebuked Peter for being moved by Satan in that moment, to seek to put a stumbling block, to put a roadblock in front of Christ, to say, to dare, to rebuke Christ for doing what He came to earth to do. And then He went on to explain to the disciples that were there, and from the other account there were probably more people there as well, What exactly was involved in being a disciple of Christ? To follow Christ is to be a disciple of Christ, To be a Christ follower. That's what a disciple is. Somebody who follows somebody else.

It wouldn't be uncommon if you are a disciple of somebody to live with them or near them, so that you're able to work with them every day, to interact with them, to learn from them, to see firsthand how they live and how they think and how they make decisions. We might call that today being an intern. But it's even more than that. We think of interning maybe as you work with somebody in their professional world, but this is to work and to live with Christ. Jesus went on to explain what was involved if they were going to be Christ followers.

That's what a Christian is, a Christ follower. The Christ followers were first called Christians in Antioch, and we've been called Christians ever since. A Christian is someone who is a disciple of Christ, somebody who follows Christ. And so Jesus tells his disciples here for really the very first time what is in store for them, what they signed up for, what He called them to. Because He called them and they came.

And He says, well, if you're going to be My disciple, You need to deny yourself. You need to take up your cross. You need to follow Christ, to follow me. To deny ourselves. That's what a disciple of Christ is.

If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross daily and follow me." How do we deny ourselves? To deny a person is to disavow any knowledge of them, to assert that we don't know anything about them. We don't know what they look like, we don't know their name, we don't know where they came from, we don't know where they live, we don't know them. That's to deny someone.

Peter denied Christ. After walking with him for three years, he denied that he even knew that man was over there. That's the same word that's used here. We are to deny ourselves. Jesus is saying that if we want to live, if we want to live as a Christian, If we want our life to count for something, then we have to forget ourselves.

We have to disavow our flesh. We have to deny our flesh. Remember we battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that's the sense here. When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, we are denying our flesh.

We're denying our old nature and what it wants. The flesh wants its pleasure. It wants what feels good. Wants what it thinks will bring it happiness, comfort, accommodation to its pleasures. But we are new creatures in Christ.

And Paul tells us in Galatians that those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. We still have them. They rear up their head. They don't reign in those who are in Christ. But Paul speaks of that warfare, that struggle, that we do what we don't want to do because of this battle with our flesh that we still have.

The sin that still dwells in us. The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are contrary to the desires of the spirit. Now the works of the flesh, that which the flesh desires to do, are these things. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions.

Outbursts of wrath are when we don't get our way, when our flesh is not running things, it's not getting what it wants. Outbursts of anger. Contentions is when we don't get our way, we have a fight, idolatry, when we have desires for the things of this world that God has made that displace, that are stronger than, are desired for Christ. And it's so easy. Because as Calvin said, our hearts are like idle factories.

So easy to begin to desire what God has made more than we desire Christ Himself. And so the desires of the flesh are contrary to the Spirit, and that list goes on. Contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, erathea. That word is literally electioneering, and it's a really, really good word. Because what do people that we call politicians today, What do they do?

What are they known for whether known for self-promotion? They're known for talking about how good they are. Every ad that we see right now, this is the season of electioneering. That word is the same word, electioneering, selfish ambition. These people, They tell us how good they are, all the wonderful things they've done, and why we should support them.

That's electioneering, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, sex. Heresy is a sect, breaking apart, envy, being jealous of somebody else's success and hating them for it. Murders. Drunkenness. Revelries.

And the like of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Because these are things, if we're going to be Christians, if we're going to be Christ followers, these are the things that we must deny. One of the things that we must deny. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us That denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly Righteously and godly in this present age. To live soberly is to live with self-control To not be led by every whim, every desire that flits across our mind.

To live soberly with self-control. To live righteously, That means to live according to God's commandments, according to His Word and what He has said. Remember, the law of God is that law of liberty. It is itself a transcript of God's character. The law is a transcript of the character of God.

It's a mold of who God is. That question, what would Jesus do, is a really great question. As long as you answer it biblically, what would Jesus do? Well, the law is the transcript of God's character. The law tells us what Jesus would do.

And the Scriptures apply it to many, many situations. And so they teach us how to apply this transcript of the character of the Holy God to every situation that we are in. So we're to live soberly, with self-control. We're to live righteously, according to the law of God. We're to live godly.

We're to live following Christ in this present age. And if we lack that discipline, then we aren't Christ's disciple. We aren't coming after him. We're not a Christ follower. We're not going where he went.

So to deny ourselves is to deny our flesh. It's also to yield our wills to Christ. Our will is what we want to do. Our will is free to choose what we want to do. And it always chooses according to the desires of our heart.

It's called the liberty of the will. We are to yield our will to Christ. We are no longer seeking to be the captain of our soul and the master of our fate. We are seeking for Christ to be our captain. For our will to be fully yielded to His will.

I Remember growing up there was some campaign, it was something, it said, people put these bumper stickers on their car that said, Jesus is my co-pilot. And then of course the answer came back, If Jesus is your co-pilot, switch seats. We are no longer seeking to be the captain of our soul. Paul told the Colossians, for you died, And your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory.

We have died to our own will. Our life is no longer about getting what we want, whether that's the little things, the thousand little things that make up every day of our life, our life is no longer about getting our will, or about the big things, Those big major decisions in life. Our life isn't about us getting our will. It's about Christ. It's about Christ's will being completed and fulfilled in us.

Paul told the Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. It's no longer my will that's running things, but my life, my will is yielded to Christ. Jesus didn't come to earth to do His will. He said, I didn't come to do my will, I came to do the will of my Father who sent me. And our calling as a Christ follower is not to do our will, but to do the will of Christ who called us.

Now that doesn't mean we don't have gifts, It doesn't mean we don't have gifts. It doesn't mean we don't have desires. It doesn't mean we don't plan. That doesn't mean we don't set goals according to those desires. But it does mean that we commit our way to the Lord.

Everything. That we commit our way to the Lord and when the Lord sends a detour we recognize that this is the Lord Directing our life as He has said he would do as we have asked him to do and so we can be thankful for that We can be thankful for his directions. We can even be thankful for his detours because he is good and he is accomplishing his will. And that's what we want. To be a Christ follower is to be willing to deny ourselves and to become slaves of Christ.

Paul would often sign his letters, a doulos, a slave. That's the lowest of servants. We're slaves of Christ. We dedicate our life to serving Him, to going where He sends, to doing what He commands. It means We put our duties as a Christ follower above achieving our goals.

It means we put obedience to the law of God as He's revealed it, above our success financially or in a career or anywhere else. It means that we put ourself, our lives, at Jesus' disposal. As Paul said in Romans 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, not just your minds, not just our spirits, but our physical bodies as a living sacrifice. A sacrifice is something that is wholly dedicated. Wholly dedicated.

Presents your bodies as a living sacrifice to Christ. That's the difference between in a ham and egg breakfast. It's the pig that is committed. It's the pig that's wholly dedicated to that breakfast. Now that's not saying that we need to do more.

That's not saying, oh, we're not doing enough. Putting ourselves at Jesus' disposal, yielding our wills to His, might mean that we do less in some times. It might mean that we're doing too much. Remember Martha and Mary. Martha was doing a lot, a lot of good things.

She was serving, she was busy. And she was upset at her sister who didn't seem to be doing very much at that moment. Her sister that was sitting at Jesus' feet learning, enjoying the presence and the company and the teaching and the words of her Savior. She was following Christ. Remember, Martha came to Christ a little upset that her sister wasn't doing enough.

And Jesus said, Martha, Martha. Martha, Martha. Mary has chosen the better option. Denying ourselves means denying our flesh, yielding our wills to Christ. It also means putting others' interests ahead of our own.

Putting others' interests ahead of our own. How much time do we spend thinking how to advance our interests? How to get our list of things done, how to improve our life, how to satisfy our pleasures versus the time that we spend thinking of other people's interests. That's a very convicting thought to me. And you notice everything I point at you, there's more fingers pointing back at me.

We are told not to think only of our own interests, but to also think of the interest of others. So we are to deny, Jesus said a disciple, he wants to follow me as to deny himself and then take up your cross. Take up your cross. This, brothers and sisters, is an invitation to die. To take your cross, in Paul's day, was a very clear reference to a condemned person who was being sent out to be crucified, being given the cross beam of their cross on which they were to die and required to carry it to their own site of execution.

That's to take up your cross. And Paul takes that graphic image of a prisoner who's condemned to die, being required to carry the cross on which they would die, he says, that's what you're to do as a Christ follower. Take up your cross. To carry one's cross is to go willingly. To go willingly even to death.

Now, to take up our cross sometimes is used to refer to trials of various kinds that come to us to test us or to sanctify us or to purify us. But that's not what this is referring to. Taking up our cross in this context doesn't mean that we submit to these trials that we count them a joy and so forth as James tells us to do. You see, this is something that we are to take. James says, count on a joy when you fall into various trials, trials of various sorts.

Jesus is saying here, We're to take something. Taking something is not something that just happens to us. This isn't something that falls onto us or we fall into. This is something that we initiate. This is something that we take up.

It is to engage in activity that could result in pain, in suffering, in humiliation, in loss. That's taking up a cross. It's something we initiated. To take up our cross is to willingly serve Christ, to willingly choose to serve Christ, when it means potentially the loss of friendships, The loss of family, the loss of reputation, the loss of wealth, the loss of our livelihood, and maybe even the loss of our life in service to Christ. Taking up our crosses, this is Paul as he said goodbye to the Ephesian elders and in Acts 20 that was a tearful emotional parting because Paul said I see now I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem.

Everywhere he had gone, the prophets in those churches said, Paul, don't go to Jerusalem, you're going to be bound there. So Paul said to these elders, now I go bound in spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there. This isn't something that's being done to Paul, this is Paul willingly going there, because that's where God called him to go. Except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. Prophet after prophet in every city is testifying to Paul through the spirit of what would await Him in Jerusalem.

But, He says, none of these things move Me. Nor do I count my life dear to Myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus Christ, to testify to the grace of God. I don't count all this stuff, even my life, I don't count it, dear. None of these things move me so that I can follow Christ where He's called me to go. He could have avoided these chains.

He could have avoided the tribulations, just by stopping to follow in Christ, stopping denying Himself, and served His own interests for just one day. Paul's cross consisted of, he tells us in Corinthians, in stripes above measure. I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Five times I received forty stripes minus one.

Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen as Jews, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. There were many people that harmed Paul. And he names many of them in his letters to Timothy, those pastoral letters as he's teaching Timothy, counseling him on how he ought to conduct himself in the Church of Christ. He names these false brethren who harmed him in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness, often in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold, in nakedness, besides all the other responsibilities that come upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches.

He's looking out for the interests of all these other people and not his own. You read that and I say, wow, I haven't even begun to face anything like what Paul endured. But he could have stopped at all in a heartbeat. He could have stopped giving offense to the Jews. Could have stopped going where God called him to go.

Stopped yielding his life denying himself. He could ended all that But he as a Christ follower Took up that cross And he did it daily or to take up a cross daily. It's not something that we did, oh I took my cross 30 years ago. Jesus says we take our cross daily. Daily, it's daily that we pick that up, decide to follow Christ.

Every day, every day we choose to endure reproach. For Christ's sake. To take up our cross is to bear reproach. To bear the reproach of Christ. That implies that we are in an environment that is hostile to Christ.

And as long as God tarries, there will be hostility to Christ. Because Christ will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. All enemies. So as long as this earth endures, not all of Christ's enemies have been put under His feet. But it is a progressive victory.

And you can just think over the last 2, 000 years of all of the enemies of Christ that have been defeated. There are many, many, many things that we enjoy today, even right now, in our present circumstances, that we enjoy because Christ has defeated His enemies. And He is continuing to defeat His enemies. And He calls us to follow Him as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Therefore, whoever confesses Me, Matthew says in this parallel account, whoever confesses Me before man him, I will also confess before my Father in heaven.

But whoever denies Christ, Jesus said he would deny. We bear the reproach, we deny Christ when, and we don't bear His reproach, when we are ashamed of His words. And the exclusivity of Christ is very offensive to many people, very offensive to people today. In fact, I was surprised to read in one survey that The most offensive verse in the Bible today is 1 Timothy 2.12. And I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man but to be in silence.

There are many Christians that take offense to those words. The exclusivity of the cross is offensive to people today. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. You mean Jews and Hindus and Taoists and Confucianists and Muslims? You mean they are not going to heaven?

You mean they are excluded? That's offensive. That is offensive. That will earn the reproach of Christ if you dare to suggest that Jesus is the only way. The Roman Christians were persecuted because they said Jesus is the only way.

The Romans were very happy for them to say Jesus is a way as long as You have this God over here, you worship Caesar, and you worship these other gods, you can worship your God all you want. But if you say Jesus is the only way, now you've crossed the line into reproach. Or Jesus' words about His defeat of His enemies. It's offensive. Some of them are offensive even to Christians today.

Take Psalm 137, speaking of judgment on Babylon. Babylon was God's servant that He raised up to judge the nation of Israel because of their unfaithfulness. And in Psalm 137 we have a prayer. Oh, daughter of Babylon who are destroyed, happy the one who repays you as you have served us. Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock." See, that's not personal revenge.

That's praising God for the glory of divine justice. This is the defeat of Christ's enemies. That's what Moses said. Every time the ark was moved, he said, rise up, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered. Let those that hate you flee before you.

Some would say, well, that was acceptable in the Old Testament, but they would be ashamed to hear Christians singing or praying those kinds of things today. This is the New Testament age. But even in the New Testament, Paul prayed this way, exactly this way. He expressed a prayer in 2 Timothy 4.14, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works.

That wasn't Paul taking vengeance upon a personal enemy who had done him much harm. That was Paul praying as the Lord taught him to pray, your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. If God's kingdom has come, that means Satan's kingdom is being destroyed. That means Christ's enemies are being defeated.

And that's what we ought to pray for. That's what Christ taught us to pray. We are ashamed of Christ when we are ashamed of His rule and of His law. When we are ashamed of that by which He rules, that transcript of His character, as I've said, there are many parts of the law of God and its application that make people cringe today. Christians cringe.

They are ashamed, they are embarrassed that these things are in the Bible and it's something that atheists love to do is to throw out all these things in the law of God. Are you ashamed of God's law? It's a perfect law of liberty. It's good. It's a transcript of our beautiful Savior Jesus Christ, and we shouldn't be ashamed of His law.

His law teaches that homosexual fornication is a sin, and that the maximum civil penalty could be up to capital punishment. Are you ashamed of Christ's words, of His law? We can be ashamed of Christ by being ashamed of those who are in chains for the sake of Christ. To be in chains even for a noble cause is a shameful thing, even when it is for the cause of Christ. It's humiliating.

To identify with those who are in chains for Christ, is to not be ashamed of Christ. Paul urged Timothy, this young pastor, not to be ashamed of him, Paul, his father in the faith, because of his chains. Not to be ashamed of his chains. And Paul commends Inesophorus, because he was not ashamed of Paul's chains, but came and ministered to Him. Paul says to Timothy that in one case, at his first defense, no one stood with him.

Here was Paul being tried in a court. He was a prisoner in chains. And apparently, Nobody was willing to stand there in court with him. They were ashamed of Christ. Just like Peter was ashamed to be known, to even know, to be known that He even knew who Christ was.

A Christ follower is not ashamed of Jesus Christ. He's our Savior. He's the one we follow. He's the one we yield to. We're not ashamed of His words.

We're not ashamed of His law. We're not ashamed of those who are in chains for the sake of the cross. Discipleship described is to deny ourself, to take up our cross and to follow Christ. What is discipleship assessed? Jesus gives an assessment here.

Those who desire to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it. Just the opposite of what we might think. And then he gives a cost-benefit analysis. What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and is himself destroyed or lost? What profit is it?

Mark, the parallel accounts in Mark and Matthew, instead of saying life, They say soul. What if we gain the whole world and lose our soul? But they're parallel, they're synonymous. Life here is our soul. What profit is it to us if we gain the whole world, If we have all the power in the world, if whatever we say goes, whatever we command is done.

There is nothing in the whole world that could resist us. We have all of the wealth of the world at our disposal. We can command all the armies of the world. We can command the labor of all the people of the world. We can have whatever we want to have.

We can even imagine, Not even the wealthiest people of the world can say that. They have a lot. Jesus says even if you have the whole world, if you gain the whole world and you lose your soul, you lose your life, What profit is it? What benefit? It's not worth it.

It's not worth it. And that comparison really only makes sense if the soul is immortal. If the soul is mortal and dies, well there are a lot of people that probably say, you know, if I could have the whole world, I'd be willing to endure some finite amount of torment in exchange for that. There are a lot of people having been caught doing something and having paid the price, what do they say? They smile and they say, it was worth it.

It was worth it. Rebellious children sometimes say that when they've been caught doing something wrong. And they received a correction, but might not have been sufficient correction to bring them into yielding. They will say, yeah, I got whooped, that word, but that's what it said. But it was worth it.

Jesus is saying, you can gain the whole world. You can gain the whole world, but if you lose your soul, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Whoever is ashamed of me and in my words of him, the Son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and in his Father's and of the holy angels. But truly, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

There shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. There shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. Now, there are no people living that were standing there when Christ spoke those words. And so that means that The kingdom of God has come. Jesus came pronouncing the kingdom of God is at hand.

The kingdom of heaven is here. And it has come. It has come. The kingdom, that's why I'm not a post-millennialist, because that believes in a literal thousand-year period. That's what the word means.

And you believe Christ came at the end of a literal thousand-year period, or He came at the beginning of a thousand year period. But the Scriptures, I believe, teach that the millennium, this thousand year period, this reign of Christ, came with Christ's advent. Whether you say it was when He ascended and 70 AD, that's when Christ's kingdom came. And there were many people who were living at that time. Jesus told the Pharisees, asked Him, when would be the kingdom coming?

What would be the sign of it? Because they were expecting this outward kingdom. And Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is within you. You're not going to say, look here or look there, for the kingdom of heaven is within you. It's when Christ is reigning in your heart.

And that began with Christ's first advent. And that will continue. That kingdom will continue until He comes again. There are many post-millennialists in the time of the Puritans, and they were all having discussions about when the Kingdom would come. Some, many of them thought it would come shortly after, in their life, or shortly thereafter.

And we're talking in the 17th century, in the 1600s. Many of them thought, Well, some thought it had just come. Some thought it was shortly to come. Because they were looking at the world, they were looking at these external signs, and they were seeing what they thought, and what was in fact the advancement of the kingdom, the defeat of enemies. And so they were thinking that, well then, the kingdom of heaven is shortly to come.

But I think the scriptures teach that the kingdom has already come with Christ's first advent and that That kingdom is within us. And so, he said, truly there are some standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. Those people saw the kingdom of God. Brothers and sisters, we are living in the kingdom age where Christ is reigning, and He will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. And that last enemy to be destroyed is death.

And so our calling as His disciples is to occupy until He comes, to be faithful followers of Christ, to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to follow Him. May He give us His Holy Spirit and the power to do so. Almighty Father in heaven, we thank you for the clear marching directions that you have given to us in your Word. We this morning are your people. We do commit to following you as Christ followers, as Christians.

Lord, we do commit to denying ourselves, ourselves to taking up our cross and to following you. And we ask Lord for your strength to do this. We yield ourselves to you as individuals, as families, as crown and covenant congregation. Lord, we want to be used by You. We want to see Your kingdom come.

We want to see Your will be done here on earth, even as it is in heaven. And Father, we commit ourselves today again as Your disciples. We ask for Your strength to take up our cross each day And to follow you, to bear your reproach, to deny our flesh, to deny our lusts, to deny our own pleasures in order that we may do your pleasure and do your will. We ask all this In Jesus' name, amen.