1. The Cross of Christ The path to Life

2. Matthew 16:21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

3. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

4. 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

5. 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

6. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

7. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

8. 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done."

9. The cross is the very path to life itself. "soul"-

10. Mark 4:19 …but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

11. Worries: Possessions: Pleasures:

12. Mark 4:19 …but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

13. Matthew 15:25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

14. 1. Willingness to die right rather than live wrong. 2. Repeated decisions to live rightly. 3. Live according to His words, not yours. 4. Work fervently for His cause. 5. I choose loyalty over life.

15. John 12:24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

16. All scores will be settled.

17. Matthew 19:29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

18. What this world gives, no one can keep. What Jesus Christ gives, no man can take away