All thy work shall praise thy
name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and
mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Please be seated. I'm so thankful that we don't
have to understand what we believe. What do we understand about holiness? Other than it's not anything
like us, but we believe that He's holy and we worship Him
as the Holy One. By His grace, the Lord enables
us to bow to him and to rejoice in his
holiness. Thankful for that hymn. Thankful
for you all. Thankful for this past year the
Lord's given us and one more year closer to glory. I was thinking
this morning maybe this will be the year the Lord will come
back. We're going to be in the book
of Mark both hours this morning There are two characters mentioned
in the book of Mark that the scripture has very little to
tell us about. One is Simon of Cyrene and the
other is Barabbas. And yet the Holy Spirit in his
infinite divine wisdom put both these men in his word in order
to teach us something about the gospel. And so I pray the Lord
will be pleased to show us from Simon of Cyrene this first hour
and Barabbas the second hour what he would have us to know
about Christ and his gospel. Let's pray together. Our merciful
Heavenly Father, We thank you for the faith that
enables us to believe that you alone are holy. Lord, you are unapproachable.
We would not dare. Enter into thy presence. Apart
from knowing that we have the Holy One of Israel. Who has made
the way? presented himself on our behalf
in whom you are pleased and in whom we have all our acceptance.
We ask Lord that in these hours that you would cause him to be
lifted up. That you would cause us to fix
our hope, our attention, our lives on my dear son. That in him we would know something
of your life, your love, your grace, and your mercy. And Lord,
we do thank you for the blessings of this past year and for the
way in which you have been so merciful and faithful to keep
us and how we pray and hope that that would be our experience
in this upcoming year. Lord, we ask that you would put
into our hearts a longing desire. To be made whole. To have the
experience of our bodies redeemed. To be made like Christ. Lord, that you would rend the
heavens and come down and deliver us. And we ask it in Christ name. Amen. Mark Chapter 15. verse 21, and they compel one
Simon of Cyrenian who passed by coming out of the country,
the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. Now from scripture
there's only four things that we know about this man. We know his name, we know where
he's from, We know what he did and we know who his associations
were. And those are the only things
we know about him. And my hope this morning is that
the Lord would bring these four things to our
hearts and cause us to have some experience in knowing what Simon
means that we would have some experience in knowing what it
means to be from Cyrene. That we would have in our hearts
some experience as to what it means to bear the cross of Christ. And that we would have some experience
as to the same associations that Simon of Cyrene had with Alexander
and Rufus. Now as I said in my introduction,
there's This is basically, Matthew doesn't give us much more information
than what Mark gives us about Simon of Cyrene. But we do know
these four things about him. And what a picture, what a type
of every child of God. The name Simon translated means
heard, heard. That's what his name means. You and I come into this world
spiritually deaf. We're not able to hear the voice
of God. We're not able to hear the gospel
of God's free grace. We have to have our ears unstopped. The Lord often said, let him
who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit has to say unto the
churches. So the Spirit of God is speaking.
He speaks every time His Word is preached. He speaks in so
many ways to our hearts. But if the Lord doesn't give
us ears to hear, we're not going to hear. We're not going to hear.
We have to have hearing. We know that without faith, it
is impossible to please God, for they that come unto Him must
believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that
diligently seek him and that faith is a gift of God for by
grace are you saved through faith not of works lest any man should
find any reason to boast faith is looking to and resting in
and putting all our hope and trust in the glorious person
and accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ for all our
righteousness and for all our justification. Man won't do that.
He will not believe on Christ. So how is it that we receive
faith? Well, faith is the only means of grace that there is.
There is no other means of grace. Sometimes people call the Lord's
table or baptism. They call them sacraments or
they say that this is a means of grace or that's a means of
grace. There is but one means of grace and that's faith. There
are means to faith and the primary means of faith is hearing. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God. So Simon of Cyrene represents for us a believer
in that he heard something. His name
at least represents to hear. The Lord makes it clear that
his sheep hear his voice and they follow after him. Turn with me to Matthew, John,
I'm sorry, John chapter 12. John chapter 12. My hope right now is the Lord's
gonna give us ears to hear. Because if he doesn't do it,
you know, hearing is what he requires of us. Hear ye the word
of the Lord. And what he requires He must
provide. He commands us to hear, and we
come to Him and say, Lord, I know that's what You commanded me,
but I'm going to have to have You to give me what You require.
I'm going to have to have You to open my eyes. I can hear everything
else. I can hear all the audible noises
of this world. I can hear all the unbelieving
philosophies of this world. But Lord, if you don't give me
ears to hear, I won't hear you. Look what the Lord said in John
chapter 12, beginning at verse 47. If any man hear my words, This hearing is more than just
hearing audibly. It's more than just hearing with
some intellectual understanding. It's more than just being able
to recite some doctrine and to know some truths. That's what
he's saying here. If any man hear my words and
believe not, They've heard and we've been there, I've been there.
Spent years studying this book. Hearing but not hearing. Understanding but not understanding.
And as we've often been reminded, the most often passage from the
Old Testament quoted in the New Testament is found in Isaiah
chapter 6. where the Lord says they will
have ears but they will not hear, eyes but they will not see. And
that's such a description of those who study the Bible and
the theology of the Bible and haven't believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ. They have not rested their hope
on him. They're trusting in their knowledge
or in their understanding for the hope of their salvation.
And so that's what the Lord's talking about here. He says,
if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not
for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that
rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth
him. The word that I have spoken,
the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken
of myself, but the father which sent me, he gave me a commandment
that I would, what I would say and what I should speak. And
I know that this commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever
I speak therefore, even as the father said unto me, so I speak."
Every time the Lord Jesus Christ opens his mouth, he's speaking
as the word of God, the word of God. And when God gives us
ears to hear, We just believe everything that God says. Everything. People, yeah, I'm amazed people
say, well, how much of the Bible do you have to believe to be
a believer? Every word of it. If you're a believer, you just
believe God. Understand it? No. Believe it? Yeah. Yeah. Faith comes before understanding.
The Lord said in John chapter 10, other sheep I have which
are not of this fold, them I must bring. Now the Lord is speaking
to these Jewish believers, his disciples and he's saying to
them, I have other sheep that are not of this fold. He's talking
about us. He's talking about Gentiles. Them I must bring and
they will hear my voice and there will be one sheep fold. one church, all to be able to
hear the voice of God. Turn with me to John Chapter
8. John Chapter 8. Simon of Cyrene represents every
child of God in that his name means to hear, to hear. John Chapter 8 Look at verse,
now I know what sensitive, tender conscience believers are thinking
right now. My heart's deceitful, desperately
wicked. I'm capable of deceiving myself. Lord, have I really heard? Have
I really heard? You know, if that's what you're
thinking right now, that's a good thing. That's a good thing because
that will cause you to flee to Him to be able to hear. It will cause you to not rest
in some knowledge that you might have. Others will think, well,
I've heard. I got it. I got it. I've heard. And those
are the people that need to be concerned for their souls. So
if you're thinking, Lord, have I heard? Have I really heard
or have I deceived myself? That's a good place to be because
that will drive you to Him in order to be able to hear. John chapter 8, look at verse
43, why do you not understand my speech? Even because you cannot
hear my word. The Lord was making it clear
that he was the bread that came down from heaven. I'm the bread
of life. You're not going to have life
anywhere else outside of me. Why do you look to your works?
Why do you look to your will? Why do you look to anything other
than me for the hope of your salvation? Why can't you hear
what I'm saying? It's not that, you know, I heard one time it said it's
not the IQ, it's the I will. and and there's a lot of truth
to that. You know, you cannot hear because you're not willing
to hear. You won't come. You won't bow. Which of you convinces me of
sin? And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me? The older I get, the more I live,
the more I realize How simple truth always is. Always is. Had a young man I was talking
to the other day, and he was all concerned about his career
for the future and how he was going to prepare for it. And
I told him, I said, I got three words of advice for you. They're
real simple. On time, every time, with a good
attitude. How many of you men and women
that hire people would hire somebody that met those three qualifications?
On time, every time, with a good attitude. You'd hire them in
a heartbeat, wouldn't you? Because everything else can be
learned. It's that simple. Anyway, this young man wrote
me back a few days later. He said, well, I've been thinking
about what you said, and I can't get away from it. And I responded
to him. I said, that's just the way truth
is. It's just simple. It's simple. Truth is always simple. We're
the ones that want to complicate everything. And the simplicity
of the gospel is that Christ is all. He's everything in salvation. We want to say, yeah, but. No,
no buts. No buts. You can't hear my voice
because you're not of me if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ
is all in your salvation. All in your election. All in
your redemption. All in your justification. All
in your regeneration. All in your sanctification. All in your glorification. The
salvation is of the Lord. It's all, it's all Him. It's
all Him. In what other scripture, I fear
lest as Satan deceived Eve that your minds would be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. Men hate that simplicity. Why? Because it takes away their
pride and their knowledge and their achievements and all the
things that men look to for the hope of their salvation. They
won't rest their souls on Christ. And the Lord says, you can't
hear me. You can't hear me because you're
not of mine. You won't hear the gospel. Turn me to John chapter 6. We're on the first point of this
message and I will go through the others quickly hopefully
but this is Simon of Cyrene. Simon's name translated means
to hear, to hear. Speak Lord for thy servant listeneth. Look at John chapter 6 at verse at verse 58, and this is the
bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead. He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever. These things said he in the synagogue
as he taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of his disciples
when they had heard this said, this is a hard saying, who can
hear it? The gospel's not complicated,
but it is hard. It's a hard saying. And the reason
it's hard is because it'll strip you naked before God. It leaves
you with no pride, no righteousness, no ability, trusting Christ alone
for all your salvation. This is a hard saying. And they
went out from him. And the Lord looked at the disciples
and said, will you leave me also? And what did Peter say? Lord,
where are we gonna go? You've shut us up to this hard
saying. We've got no place else to go.
No place else to go. Well, we know something about
Simon from his name. And we know something about Simon
from where he is from. Now, Cyrene translated means
bridal. It means bridle. And what I want you to see from
this is that what the Lord has to do for each one of us. Number
one, he has to give us ears to hear. And number two, he has
to bridle us. Because otherwise we're like
wild horses. And he has to put us in submission
to himself. And this is what he does. He
breaks us. He causes us, as the scripture
says, to turn our swords into plowshares and our spears into
pruning forks. He does that. He causes us to
lower our fist, our rebellion against God, and to bow in submission
and in worship. He does for Paul. Paul said that
his conversion was a pattern for every believer. What was
the pattern? Well, he was breathing out threatenings
against God. Against God. Simon, why persecutest
thou me? Who art thou, Lord Jesus, whom
thou persecutest? You say, well, he was attacking
the church. No, he was attacking God. And what's the next word out
of Simon's mouth, out of Peter's, Paul's, Paul's, Paul's mouth? Lord, what would you have me
to do? He bridled him real quick, didn't he? He bridled him real
quick. He makes us willing in the day
of his power. He causes us to bow in submission
to Christ and to give up on all our hopes of salvation outside
of him. Thirdly, we know what Simon of
Cyrene did. What did he do? Well, he carried
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is essential for salvation. This is every believer's experience.
Every believer's experience is that he'll have ears to hear
given to him by God. Every believer's experience is
that he will be bridled in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
every believer's experience is that he will bear the cross of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When the 5,000 were leaving the Lord, he said to them, he
said, the only reason that you're following after me is so that
you can have your bellies full. Now you know that the belly is
a picture of the flesh. And the flesh rebels against
the cross. Who wants to bear a cross? Who
wants to go to a cross? Who wants to die to self? And the Lord said to the disciples,
or said to those 5,000, he said, He said, if you want to be my
disciples, you have to be willing to deny yourself, take up your
cross and follow me. And all those three things are
the same thing. Denying yourself, taking up your cross and following
after Christ is the same thing. It's the same thing. It's identifying your life in
the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's saying that Christ's life
is my life. That's what it is to deny yourself.
I'm denying myself all my righteousness and all my pride and all of my...
I'm looking to Christ, taking up his cross. Paul said, I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. When Christ died, I died. I'm identifying the justice of
God in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no other
way to put away my sin other than what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on Calvary's cross. If he didn't satisfy the justice
of God for my sin, then I have no place else to go. Now that's
what Simon of Cyrene does. He takes up the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ and he bears that cross Now I know what the
world says, taking up your cross is the troubles and difficulties
of this world. Listen, there are unbelievers
who will die and go to hell who live a whole lot harder lives
than you and I live. Whole lot harder. Matter of fact,
the scripture says the way of the transgressor is hard. There
are rebellious transgressors who will die in their rebellion
against God who are suffering in this world the consequences
of their sin in ways that that's not what it is to take up your
cross. And many of them are hoping that
their life of suffering is going to count for their redemption.
But it's not so. the life of the suffering of
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where I'm looking. Not
to anything I'm suffering in this world, but what He suffered
on my behalf. Taking up your cross, denying
yourself, and following Christ. Looking to the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This gospel, well, the scripture
says to the Jew, it is a stumbling block. Now
the Jew is a reference to the religious and to the religious
Paul said we preach Christ and Him crucified and we profess
to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the crux of the matter and
all the hope of my salvation is bound up in what he accomplished
on Calvary's cross and to the Jew to the religious. It's a
stumbling block. It's a rock of a fence that the
builders cast away because that doesn't fit into my narrative. It doesn't fit into my religion.
It doesn't fit into my belief system. My belief system is that
I've got something to do. And so it's a stumbling block
to the Jew and to the Gentile, to the Greek, to the irreligious. It's just foolishness. It's foolishness. Why would you spend so much time
and effort being concerned about that? About something that happened
2,000 years ago? About something that's going
to happen after you die? You know, just eat, drink, and
be merry for tomorrow you shall die. That's the irreligious view
of life. And so to them, the cross is
foolishness. But to them which believe, both
Jew and Greek, it is the power of God. The power of God. Taking up the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ, identifying with the life and death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And notice in our text that he
had to be compelled to do it. There's something in our flesh
that resists the cross, isn't there? We want to take comfort
in everything else. But when the Lord compels us,
he lays that cross on our back and he makes us willing in the
day of his power. But sinners have to be compelled
to come to Christ. They won't come on their own.
They won't take up the cross on their own. and he went outside the camp.
That's what the scripture tells us in Matthew in particular,
coming out of the country in our text and going out and the
scripture says that, let's turn with me to Hebrews, Hebrews chapter
13. Verse 10, we have an altar. Our altar is a person. That's
why we don't have an altar here. We don't come down here and kneel
or we don't perform some ceremony on a table. Our altar is a person. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who
manifests Himself through the preaching of the Gospel, who
is seated at the right hand of the Father and can only be known
by the Spirit of God in the heart. We don't want to replace the
truth of who Christ is with something that we can identify with physically. We have an altar, whereof they
have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. Those who are
looking to their service to God for the hope of their salvation
have no right. That's what the Lord was talking
about when he said, I'm that bread that came down from heaven. You're going to eat anywhere
else. You're not going to eat this bread. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp. So the remains of these
bodies were taken outside the camp and they were burned. Wherefore,
Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood
suffered without the gate, outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore
unto him outside the camp bearing his reproach. Simon, a man who
had ears to hear of Cyrene that was bridled by God, took up the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and followed him outside the
camp. That's every believer's experience.
Every believer's experience. Now my last point comes from
our text in Mark chapter 15 verse 21. The father of Alexander and Rufus. Now that's all that the Holy
Spirit put in God's Word about Alexander and Rufus. Leading us to conclude that everyone
that read this knew who Alexander and Rufus were. Why? Because they were prominent believers
in the church. Everybody knew who Alexander
and Rufus were. They were leaders. Everybody knew them in the body
of Christ. And my last point is this, that
every believer's experience is that when they hear the gospel
and are bridled by God, when they're brought to identify their
life with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, they're given a
new and better family. They're given by God a new and
better family. I've had family members say to
me, well, you know, blood's thicker than water. I say, yeah, and
the blood of Christ is a lot thicker than our blood. I'm not saying that we treat
our family with anything other than the highest respect and
love and affection. But when it comes down to it,
we don't have anything in common with an unbeliever. I don't care
if they are of our own blood. We just don't. You know, you
exhaust the conversation real quickly, don't you? With your
own kin. And yet, what fellowship we have
in the body of Christ. Simon was the father of Alexander
and Rufus. Everybody knew who they were.
They were part of the church. They had gone outside the camp.
Now, you know, sometimes the scriptures, and
we need to be rebuked for not coming out from among them and
be separate, saith the Lord, but the truth is, The truth is
that when God puts you into the family of God, it's so much better
than anything you ever had before that you don't feel like you've
lost anything. Let those who are of your own kin, if they
so desire, treat you as an outcast. Like
I said, we're not going to treat them that way. But the Lord made it clear that
our enemies will be of our own household. But here's the truth. We don't have any enemies among
God's people. None. We have fellowship with
God's people. We have a love for God's people.
We have a longing with the people of God. And there's a connection,
isn't there? There's a fellowship that takes
place when spirit meets spirit. And that fellowship's around
the gospel. We fellowship with believers when we're talking
about Christ and talking about the things of God and rejoicing
in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. So every believer's experience
is that God gives them ears to hear. He bridles them, making
them to bow in submission and worship to him. He causes them
to identify their life with the life, death, burial, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He gives them a new and better
family. Alright, let's take a break. Okay.