1. "Lynchings are probably not too far off causing the emotionally jarring response in us that mentioning crucifixion would have had among the Jews back in the days of Jesus' earthly ministry."

2. "On this side of the cross, we have rightly sung of Jesus keep us near the cross, and Jesus paid it all on the cross. The cross for us is shorthand of God's amazing love not only shown to us but provided for us on the cross and by means of the cross."

3. "Friends, your boss does not have the final say in your life. Jesus does. And nothing is more important than the salvation of your soul, yourself, when you stand before Him on that final day and forever. That coming day urgently needs your attention. Take Jesus as your Savior, because He will soon be your Judge."

4. "Worldly gain, even gaining the whole of this world, is dangerous to us because it so easily deceives us. It's easy to sell our soul cheap, forfeiting our lives, not for Christ and His sake, but for such smaller returns, like this whole created order, passing as it is, like a shadow or a mist."

5. "Some people around us in Washington, D.C. look at worldly power as if it's all there is. Pity the poor fools. Life will show them their folly soon enough to the breaking of their own hearts and hopes."

6. "Some people seem to act like if they are just busy enough, death will never find them because they can't be bothered with it. But death isn't really concerned about how busy you are."

7. "The most you can ever do with money or land or houses or things in this world or power or reputation or influence or education is to borrow them for a time. You will outlast them all. You will face the judgment of the Son, and you should prepare yourself for that."

8. "Acting with this life as our single guiding determinative factor is self-destructive. It is actually so self-destructive it's suicidal."

9. "Even the best things in this world, those that are nearest and dearest to you, are not meant to bear that kind of weight. The weight of your soul resting upon them entirely. Only God is meant for that. Only He can bear that kind of weight."

10. "Just at the point we think Him most severe to us, the truth is He is deepest in His self-sacrificing love for us."

Observation Questions

1. In Matthew 16:24, what three commands does Jesus give to anyone who would come after Him?

2. According to Matthew 16:25, what happens to the person who tries to save his life, and what happens to the one who loses his life for Jesus' sake?

3. In Matthew 16:26, what two rhetorical questions does Jesus ask about gaining the whole world and forfeiting one's soul?

4. What three specific aspects of the Son of Man's coming does Jesus describe in Matthew 16:27?

5. In Matthew 16:21, what did Jesus say must happen to Him in Jerusalem, and what was Peter's response in verse 22?

6. According to Matthew 16:28, what does Jesus say some standing there would see before they taste death?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why would Jesus' command to "take up your cross" have been shocking and offensive to His original Jewish audience, and how does understanding the cross as an instrument of execution (similar to lynching) help us grasp the weight of this command?

2. How does Jesus' teaching in verses 27-28 about His coming kingdom and future judgment provide the foundation and motivation for the commands He gives in verses 24-25?

3. What does it mean that Jesus presents Himself as worthy of losing one's life "for My sake" (verse 25), and what does this claim reveal about how Jesus understood His own identity?

4. How does the sermon explain the relationship between God's judgment of works (verse 27) and the gospel message that we are justified by grace through faith in Christ?

5. In what sense had the kingdom already come during Jesus' earthly ministry, and what "fuller displays" of Christ's reign does the sermon suggest Jesus was pointing to in verse 28?

Application Questions

1. What specific ambitions, possessions, or relationships in your life are you tempted to treat as ultimate—things you might be unwilling to sacrifice even if following Christ required it? How can you hold these things more loosely this week?

2. The sermon asks what you would be willing to die for. What does your daily use of time, money, and energy reveal about what you actually live for, and how might that need to change in light of Jesus' teaching?

3. Have you experienced any cost—whether strained relationships, career setbacks, or social rejection—for following Christ? How does Jesus' promise that those who lose their life for His sake will find it encourage you to persevere?

4. The sermon warns against making this temporal life the "ultimate aim and guide" for decisions. Think of a decision you are currently facing: how would approaching it with love for God as your most fundamental motive change your approach?

5. Jesus calls His followers to "deny yourself." What is one specific way this week you can practice self-denial—putting aside a personal preference, comfort, or desire—in order to serve Christ or love someone else?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Matthew 10:34-39 — This earlier passage contains Jesus' first teaching on taking up the cross and losing one's life, providing important context for understanding the cost of discipleship.

2. Romans 3:19-26 — This passage explains how God can be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus, clarifying the relationship between judgment by works and salvation by grace.

3. Isaiah 53:1-12 — The Suffering Servant prophecy shows that the Messiah's path necessarily included bearing our sins and sorrows, explaining why Jesus had to suffer.

4. Daniel 7:9-14 — This vision of the Son of Man receiving dominion and an everlasting kingdom provides the Old Testament background for Jesus' self-designation and His teaching about His coming reign.

5. Philippians 3:7-11 — Paul's testimony of counting all things as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ illustrates what it looks like to lose one's life for Christ's sake and find true gain.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Cross: A Jarring Image Then and Now

II. The Son of Man Has Come to Reign (Matthew 16:28)

III. The Son of Man Will Come to Judge (Matthew 16:27)

IV. Don't Waste Your Life (Matthew 16:26)

V. Find Your Life by Losing It (Matthew 16:25)

VI. The Call to Follow Christ (Matthew 16:24)

VII. Following the Suffering Messiah

Detailed Sermon Outline

Brian Stevenson, noted author and lawyer, 30 years ago now started something called the Equal Justice Initiative. One of its most well-known fruits opened in April of 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. This past summer, the staff and I went down to Birmingham for the Southern Baptist Convention. And we went down a day early in order to go down to Montgomery and to visit this national monument. The memorial is a simple, powerful concept.

Eight hundred six-foot-tall metal rectangles, long boxes, are suspended from the ceiling of a long, square covered walkway. Each one has a little information about a person lynched, the state and county it happened in, their name, the date.

These 800 are not every documented lynching. There were thousands.

But these stand for them all and are to evoke to the visitor something of the scale of the violence and to provoke reflection.

As you walk through the walkway, the walkway slopes downwards and these monuments, each suspended from the ceiling, Come to more and more be at the height that would suggest the body of a hanged person, suspended up in a tree above your head.

Why bring up such a grotesque image in this happy season of Christmas decorations and family gatherings?

Because lynchings are probably not too off, too far off causing the emotionally jarring response in us that mentioning crucifixion would have had among the Jews back in the days of Jesus' earthly ministry.

After 2,000 years of Christianity, of knowing the story of Jesus' life and how His earthly life ends, it's hard for us to separate the cross from all there is that's good about it. And on this side of the cross, we have rightly sung today of Jesus keep us near the cross, and Jesus paid it all on the cross. The cross for us is shorthand of God's amazing love not only shown to us but provided for us on the cross and by means of the cross.

But on the other side of the cross, before it happened, when Jesus would mention it, as He has a couple of times now in Matthew's gospel as we've been studying through, it no doubt would have been as confusing and jarring and as offensive to them as talking about a lynching at Christmas is to us.

Let's recall what we've already heard. The first time Matthew mentions this is a few chapters back from where we are now, back in Matthew chapter 10 in a section warning the disciples about how they would be received. Jesus is teaching about coming persecution And he says in Matthew chapter 10 verse 34, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a person's enemies will be those of his own household.

Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Now where we are in our study of Matthew's gospel, in chapter 16, last time in our study Peter confessed Jesus' identity as the Messiah, and then Jesus gave His first explicit prediction of what was going to happen to Him. You remember that from our study? Last time. So let's pick up reading in Matthew there, in Matthew 16. Let me go back to verse 13.

You'll find this on page 822 in the Bibles provided. It'll be helped to follow along. If you do open your Bibles, 822 in the Bibles provided.

16 is the chapter number. That's the larger numbers. Beginning at verse 13. Matthew 16, beginning at verse 13.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' and they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' and Jesus answered him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then He strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, 'Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you! ' But He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me, Satan. You are a hindrance to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.' Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul. Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

The focus of our study this morning is just those last five verses. Verses 24 to 28. We'll start at verse 28 and then we'll work our way backwards up through the text in our passage, finishing up with a very familiar verse 24. I think we'll understand it better that way. In these verses we hear what Jesus teaches about Himself and about us if we would follow Him.

I pray that God will write these truths in our hearts as we study His Word together. First, what Jesus teaches about Himself in these last couple of verses, verses 27 and 28, we see in verse 28 Jesus teaches that the Son of Man has come to reign. And just before that in verse 27, that the Son of Man will come to judge. Let's start with verse 28, because this is often where people are confused in this passage. Verse 28, Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.

Here we see very simply that the Son of Man came to reign.

Now though the reign of the Son of Man culminates in the final day of judgment where He exercises His authority by calling all of humanity to account for our actions, it doesn't begin there.

Think of that verse we hear so many times this time of year, Isaiah 9:6, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness, from this time forth and forevermore.

Or think of the very passage that Dylan just read to us from Daniel chapter 7, just those couple of verses, verses 13 and 14, where we get our understanding of the Son of Man as a divine figure. And it says, To Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom in Matthew's own gospel. The wise men come in chapter 2 to worship who? The one who had been born King of the Jews. Herod's slaughter of the male children came because he recognized in the male child a threat to his kingdom.

Years later when Jesus began His public ministry, we read in chapter 4:17, From that time Jesus began to preach saying, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, at hand, just as John the Baptist had said immediately before Jesus began in Matthew chapter 3. When Jesus sent out the 12 to preach in chapter 10, this is what He told them, Proclaim as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And friends, that phrase at hand means is here.

So if you'll look at the Garden of Gethsemane over in Matthew chapter 26, When Jesus lets the disciples know that the betrayer has come, He does it by saying, My betrayer is at hand. That means He's here now. The parables that Jesus had told His disciples back in Matthew chapter 13 illustrated the point that the kingdom could be present even if it were for a time invisible to some. Some may not have been seeing it. But it was still really and truly there.

Just review those parables this afternoon. Again and again Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven as a present reality. Well then what could Jesus mean here in verse 28 by speaking of some seeing the Son of Man coming in His kingdom? Well in one sense they had already so seen Jesus. As long as they had seen Him.

They had seen Him in His Kingdom. But in another sense, they had seen Him more truly just now when Peter had confessed who He was. And now looking at the same Jesus, they perceived more clearly that He was the Messiah. He was the Son of Man, the Son of God.

Almost certainly what Jesus meant here was that the fuller appearance of His identity as the Son of Man from Daniel that we read about in Daniel 7. Certainly this would happen at the Second Coming and the Day of Judgment, no doubt. But would His evident divinity be hidden until the Second Coming, until the Day of Judgment? Would Jesus' divine nature be entirely hidden until then? No.

It had already been shown somewhat in His miracles, in His teachings, in His actions among them. And they were just on the cusp of a series of much more evident displays. The Transfiguration is the very next passage that we'll come to next week, Lord willing. And then soon after that, in quick succession, the crucifixion, the resurrection, His ascension, His Spirit being poured out at Pentecost, with His church being founded and His gospel expansion beginning to all the nations. Jesus was simply saying here in verse 28 that such signs of His reign were about to come well within the lifetimes of some of those present.

And it's clear from the other gospels that it's not just the 12 who are hearing Him say this. So who knows how many people are there? So when it says some, the point is not that like 17 of 28 will be surviving. When these things happen. The point is these things are not in the far distant future so that nobody will see them.

You hear, many of you here will see these things. They're about to happen. That's what Jesus is saying in verse 28. His rule and his reign is real and present. Brothers and sisters as Christians, we ourselves know something of that rule and reign in our own lives.

In our own marriages and families here in this congregation's life together. We're experiencing already what will from heaven's vantage point seem like just the early days of the Son's reign at the Father's right hand. But more is to come. And that's what Jesus had just alluded to in verse 27. So let's look at verse 27.

In verse 28 we see that the Son of Man has come to reign, but we see in verse 27, the Son of Man will come to judge. Look again at verse 27: For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done. So here in verse 27, Jesus mentioned three particular aspects of His coming, which would not happen until the very end. Now remember, one of the things we've been noticing throughout Jesus' teaching in Matthew's gospel is His basic instruction to the Jews to separate out two comings: the initial coming where He comes to save, and then a second coming when He will come to judge. This is clearly that second coming.

It fits with what Jesus would teach at more length in Matthew 24. About His Second Coming. Matthew 24 verse 30, Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Where shall I be? That's where we are, gathered by Him if we are His elect on that day when He comes.

Then will be great glory. That's what they were expecting would be the Messiah's initial coming.

But Jesus was teaching them throughout His earthly ministry, no, that is Me, that's Me coming, but that's not Me coming now. Then will be great glory, then will be... He'll be accompanied by His angels. But His Kingdom has not begun then, only in the future at the Day of Judgment. No, it began at His birth with the adoration of the angels and the shepherds and the kings from afar.

He was born a King. The most striking aspect of Christ's second coming to us is that last phrase in verse 27, He will repay each person according to what he has done. Friends, this has long been taught in the Bible. God is not morally indifferent to any of our actions. This was part of the ancient revealed proverbial wisdom of Israel.

We read in Job 34, For according to the work of a man, he will repay him, he being God.

We read David's Psalm 28, Give to them according to their work, and according to the evil of their deeds, give to them according to the work of their hands. We could produce many other passages like these from the Psalms, from the Proverbs, from the prophets. Jesus would teach on this in a still more expanded fashion in Matthew 25 where he talks about the sheep and the goats. When he comes, those who will be at his left hand, those at his right. In Paul's letter to the Romans, we read in Romans 2:6, He will render to each one according to his works.

We read in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 9, We make it our aim to please Him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Friends, truths of God's justice and of His mercy were about to come to their climax.

In the crucifixion of the Messiah, probably just a few months away at this point. That's what Paul described so powerfully in Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 19, Romans chapter 3, beginning at verse 19. Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped. And the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Friends, our own church's statement of faith concludes with this very simple statement of the world to come. We believe that the end of the world is approaching, that at the last day Christ will descend from heaven and raise the dead from the grave to final retribution, that a solemn separation will then take place, that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment and the righteous to endless joy, and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men in heaven or hell on principles of righteousness. Friends, when you look into Scriptures about the end, you do see that there is a separate moral identity of the righteous and the wicked, that God makes a distinction between the two. And yet, what we find also is that our righteousness is insufficient for our salvation. In fact, no one's righteousness in themselves is sufficient for their salvation.

That's what Paul had written in Romans 3. By works, the works of the law, no man shall be justified. But the gospel that we proclaim from Romans 3 doesn't replace this judgment of works, as it were. It's built on top of it. It supplements it.

It's not that God becomes morally indifferent to all actions. God is morally indifferent to no actions. But it is exactly because of His lack of indifference, because He cares about everything we do, that then He sends His only Son to be a sacrifice for all of us who would turn and trust in Him. And so on Christ is laid the penalty, the judgment that we are due for our sins if we trust in Him. That's the good news that we have as Christians.

That's why Christmas is a happy time for us. It's not just because we like trees and evergreen and family and ornaments and gifts and carols, but it's because we understand that with the coming of this King, there was the coming of one who had come to be our Savior. Friends, He rules and reigns in righteousness and He will hold us account for that righteousness. And if we do truly have saving faith in Him, we will become relatively righteous. This is what we were studying with Isaac in James a few weeks ago, in James chapter 2.

If you say you have faith and you have no works, well, you know, you lie, you self-deceived, your faith is worthless. No real faith will make you relatively righteous, but not perfectly or sufficiently righteous, ultimately, for salvation. So we proclaim that our righteousness that we rely on for salvation is the righteousness of Christ, but that there is a real righteousness that we ourselves possess, worked in us by the Holy Spirit, as a reflection of that new life that He has put in us. That's what we've experienced as Christians. So friends, just to be very clear, your boss does not have the final say in your life.

Jesus does. And nothing is more important than the salvation of your soul, yourself, when you stand before Him. On that final day and forever. That coming day urgently needs your attention. Take Jesus as your Savior, because He will soon be your Judge.

Now let's see what Jesus taught about us, if we would follow Him. Because that four at the beginning of verse 27, shows the relation of truth about Jesus as the Son of Man in these verses 27 and 28 with his kingdom at hand and his second coming ahead to how we should live today here in verses 24 and 25 and 26. Because these things are true about Jesus down in 27 and 28, we should live like this up in 24 and 25 and 26. And let's start with verse 26 as we keep working our way up. Notice what we see in verse 26, it's a strong exhortation really to Don't waste your life.

Look at verse 26, For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Jesus vividly paints this choice. And it might surprise some here today that the choice to gain the whole world could ever be wrong. The whole world?

I could gain the whole world? I would really enjoy the whole world. I mean, all the things I could do with the whole world. Well, I could do a lot of good with the whole world. I could help so many people with the whole world.

But friends, worldly gain, even gaining the whole of this world, is dangerous to us because it so easily deceives us. It's easy to sell our soul cheap, forfeiting our lives, not for Christ and His sake, but for such smaller returns, like this whole created order, passing as it is, like a shadow or a mist. Some people around us in Washington, D.C. look at worldly power as if it's all there is. Pity the poor fools. Life will show them their folly soon enough to the breaking of their own hearts and hopes.

Do you remember what Jesus had taught in the parable of the sower?

Matthew 13:22, As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches chokes the word and it proves unfruitful, the deceitfulness of riches.

So riches appear as if they're really, really obvious in what they are. I'm an awesome bank account. I'm a great health report. I'm a super job. I'm a great piece of property.

But you see, none of them tell you the truth about yourself ultimately. They're all telling you some temporary attribute at best that will pass before you know it. Or that quickest of verbal sketches in James 1:11. This one's so good, you guys should just turn over there. James chapter 1.

If you don't know where James is, don't worry about it. But if you know where James is, just go to James Chapter 1, verse 11. You might want to just mark this one down. I think this one may have escaped your notice. Just because it's just a phrase in the middle of a sentence, but it's always struck me, and James is making exactly this point.

James is describing the rich man, and do you see how he describes him there? What he says will happen to him there in chapter 1, verse 11, he will fade away. In the midst of his pursuits. He will fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

Some people seem to act like if they are just busy enough, death will never find them because they can't be bothered with it. But death isn't really concerned about how busy you are.

Fades away even while he's in the midst of his pursuits.

Friends, the most you can ever do with money or land or houses or things in this world or power or reputation or judgment or influence or education is to borrow them for a time. You will outlast them all. You will face the judgment of the Son, and you should prepare yourself for that.

My non-Christian friends, is it surprising to you that Jesus teaches that we were not made merely for this world?

I wonder if there's anything in your own experience that's communicated that to you. Maybe a longing that you have. Maybe some loss that you've suffered.

Maybe you've somehow already gotten intimations that you weren't made merely for this world.

Do your longings or your losses make any sense to you? Coming at it another way, turning around. What would be worth dying for? For you. What do you understand to be of ultimate value?

The word here for soul in Matthew 16:26 is the same word for life in verse 25, psyche.

We think we easily understand what Jesus means in verse 25, By losing one's life that's dying. Or at least spending all of our living days and years on something. We'll come to that in just a moment. But here in verse 26, Matthew 16:26, what would it mean to lose one's soul?

Surely Jesus is not talking about some kind of spiritual extinction or cessation of being, not at all. Jesus is imagining the situation here in which the highest of all worldly goods gaining the whole world could actually be obtained by you or me. But he's imagining the purchase price is our very life, in the sense of our very self, our soul. It would be a gaining which could only be achieved by acting in such a way as to threaten the well-being of our soul and to finally forfeit our soul in this sense wouldn't mean to cease existing, but to spend eternity in hell under God's good and right justice. That's forfeiting your soul in this sense.

Friend, do you perceive the value of what is eternal versus what is temporary and passing? Do you realize any self-preservation here in this life, in this world doesn't work, it doesn't last ultimately?

So this afternoon you could spend your time worse than just grabbing your ambitions and taking them aside for a little chit-chat. What are your ambitions?

What are those things that you're really hoping, maybe even trying to achieve? Consider what it means to lose yourself. It means to fall under God's good and right judgment and wrath forever. What in this world would be worth that? Friends, I'll tell you, there's nothing in this world that's worth that.

So, friend, what are you working to gain? How long can you keep it? Till this administration's gone? Till your party loses power?

How many times have I already seen parties change power in the White House? In the House, in the Senate, just since I've been here.

Don't waste your life.

Positively, Jesus has exhorted the disciples in verse 25 to find your life. It seems in verse 25, Jesus was telling them that there was a correct, a good reason to lose your life, to forfeit it, and this was for His sake, for the sake of Christ. And yet that loss would be only apparent and temporary. Truly following Him is how you'll find your life, ultimately not lose it. Look again at verse 25: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Now Jesus is not teaching that any self-preservation is foolish. He is not dismissing dieting or budgeting or medical care or financial plans. He's not saying all of that is a waste of time. He's not saying that any of that is something that you should never do. Anything that we might describe as saving our life.

No, Jesus seems to have in mind here an ultimate aim upon our lives here and now in this world only, as if we think this is what it's all about. The central paradox of the Christian life in many ways is just right here. Acting with this life as our single guiding determinative factor is self-destructive. It is actually so self-destructive it's suicidal. And that means medical care and health and money and fame and your spouse or your family or any other positive attributes you can think of in this life.

If you make that the ultimate goal, the be all and end all of what you do and value and think and love, if that is you make it an idol, then it will disappoint you and you will finally lose it all. Even the best things in this world, those that are nearest and dearest to you, are not meant to bear that kind of weight. The weight of your soul resting upon them entirely. Only God is meant for that. Only He can bear that kind of weight.

From you or me and our hopes and desires.

But in the second half of the verse, Jesus lays out the alternative. But He says, Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Now the losing his life is a literal losing, whether it's being entirely absorbed in something or finally dying for it. The finding the life at the end of the verse is finally eternal life with God through Christ. But it would also involve the life lived in this life for its true and real purposes, the purposes that we've been made for and redeemed for.

And then that brings us to the one phrase of the verse which we haven't considered yet, that crucial little phrase, For my sake. Did you notice that? For my sake. Jesus is presenting Himself as an appropriate goal and guide for our lives. More appropriate than gaining the whole world.

Really? Just consider the claim he's making about himself even in saying that.

He's just in verse 26 he's saying, Look, it's not worth you gaining the whole world, but If it's for me and my sake, yeah, that's good enough. So he says, whole world over here, him and his sake here. That is worthwhile in a way the whole world is not. He must understand himself to be the Son of God incarnate, the Creator of the world and the Judge of all the earth. He understands himself precisely to be the incarnate Son of God already reigning, about to accomplish the salvation of his people through his substitutionary death and resurrection.

And as he would die for his people, so now he calls us to lose our life for his sake. Not as a substitute for him, he needs no substitute, but as his subjects. My Christian brother and sister, I wonder how you've lost your life. For Christ's sake. I know that some here have lost jobs for the sake of following Christ.

More are wondering how much more you can take where you are right now, how to understand its tension with your faith in Christ. For others, you've found yourselves alienated from your family because of your faith. Maybe it's your parents. Maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's your children.

Whoever you are in this group, you've experienced something of this life-forfeiting cost of following Christ. Maybe there's a cherished sin you had to part with in order to follow Him. And yet even so, we pray that you are continuing to be sustained. And that you will be until He brings you home to Himself.

This verse shows us the sharp division between a distorted, truncated, ignorant self-love being at the center of your life and the love of God being at the center of your life. Can you imagine deciding what you're going to do next week or next spring or summer or next fall.

Most fundamentally, because of your love for God. Like beginning there and being happy to move any circumstance around so long as your love for God is your most fundamental motive for the decision that you would make for what you do.

That's what's to be typical of us as Christians. I pray that God will deliver us from that selfishness of the rich young ruler or Judas Iscariot. Pray that He would give us the kind of selfless living which the transformed Apostle Paul's life became. Which one's more like yours? Which would you like your life to be more like?

Centered around your bodily temporary life or your spiritual eternal life? Jesus calls us here to live for His sake entirely... entirely.

Finally, let's turn to that first and most shocking of these verses, verse 24. Where we hear the call to follow Christ. Here in verse 24 are three short, sharp commands to any who would follow Christ: Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Me. Look at verse 24. Then Jesus told His disciples, if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

Oh, friends, the irony in this. Just look up a couple of verses. What had Jesus just done? Predicted his own death. And what did Jesus do?

He predicted his own death. And what did Peter do? He rebuked him for it. And now, not only is Jesus saying to Peter, no, no, no, I am going to die. You're not understanding this at all.

I am going to die. He's saying to Peter, and by the way, if you would follow me, you're going to die too.

Just completely different from the way the Jews at the time were expecting the Messiah.

It's not that everything they were expecting was wrong, it's just that there was a bigger story than that. The ruling and reigning would all come, but first some saving had to be done. And saving necessitated some rejecting that had to be done, and some dying. Jesus tells us, Deny yourself, even take up your cross. Not because there's any power or virtue inherent in you or me denying ourselves, sinners as we are, taking up our cross.

All of this and more we would deserve at the hands of a good and just God, because of how we've wrongly lived and loved in regards to others, yes, but especially in regard to Him. Friends, that cross is something we should take up. We deserve that cross. In a different way even than Jesus means it here in a final way. We deny ourselves because our tendencies and temptations would have us give up our lives to the small and passing ambitions of this world instead of plunging our whole selves into Christ.

You know, these verses about taking up your cross are there back in chapter 10 of Matthew's gospel. We turned there at the beginning of the sermon. We just looked at them. But you know what the difference is?

Although the phrases are almost exactly the same, there, back in chapter 10, though Jesus said, Follow Me, He had at that point given no prophecy about His own fate, that the Messiah would be crucified. This is the new note that has now been added by Jesus' revelation of His own faith in verse 21.

Brothers and sisters, it's true that these verses have in them a call to us to endure a lynching-like kind of shame and social condemnation.

But if we are to believe in and preach and follow the true Christ, Christ crucified, How else can we? Honestly, if we're not willing to endure what He endured?

I think of Paul's words he wrote to the Galatians, Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Jesus is, as we read in Hebrews 12, the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.

This is the one who calls you and me to follow Him. Listen so carefully here, dear ones, lest you misunderstand the severity of this passage. This passage is so often invoked with a wrong sense of kind of, Ugh! These are real Christians. These are the Marines of the Christian life.

Take up your cross, not the namby-pamby stuff. You could not be further from understanding the truth of the verse when you hear it like that. That is the exact opposite of what this is.

The reason that the requirements of Christ are so sharp here is not that He's trying to cut down on the number of nominal followers. He's trying to get rid of the dead wood, only to have the elite religious, really serious types follow Him. No, it's because, friends, that's the way He went.

He went the way of the cross. If He would save people like you and me, there's no other way He could go. Our sins had made that pathway necessary.

So far is He from choosing that cross, trying to narrow and thin and winnow out the weak, He took that path only because of your sins and mine. We made that path necessary for Him.

So friends, if you want to follow Him, there's not an alternative. You can pick some fake version of Christianity out there that don't have a cross, but that's not the real thing. That's not following Him.

His path as steep and arduous as it was was laid out by our own sins. He could only follow such a path because of His love. His love for His Father who had elected us and for us.

Friends, just at the point we think Him most severe to us, the truth is He is deepest. In His self-sacrificing love for us.

Knowing what you know now, would you be united to Christ by faith? Are you confident that whatever it may cost you, you would come out ahead?

Will you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Christ?

We should conclude, tied up with the very heart of what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah was to understand that He, in His sufferings, would take up our infirmities. He would carry our sorrows. That's what the Lord prophesied in Isaiah, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions. Transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. By His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Friends, for Jesus to be the Messiah, He had to suffer.

For us to follow Him then, We will have to suffer too.

Mac Siles is a good friend of many of us here. As a congregation we've supported his work for years. Right now he pastors a church in Iraq and has seen good fruit there. A number of years ago Mac told me about a time where he was out in rural Kenya preaching that people who lived in that area were largely Muslim and after his sermon a young man An older boy really came up to speak with him. He said, My name is Robert.

And he looked down at the dust. He said, what you talked about in there, I'd like to have it. Mack said, okay, Robert, let's talk. And then he went through God, man, Christ, response. And he really hit cost very clearly.

He said he stressed it. And he asked Robert if he understood the cost. Robert said, He said, Robert seemed like he had heard that before. And he asked Robert if he wanted to become a Christian. And Robert quietly said, Yes.

And Max said, Robert, you seem to know most of what it means to become a Christian. It seems like you've heard this before. What's held you back from accepting Christ before in the past?

And he said, Robert looked down at the clay and he made circles in the dust with his foot. And he said, simply, My father has told me that if I become a Christian, he will beat me.

So tonight I will bleed.

Robert's story is not unique, is it?

How many of us can think of things that we have suffered or people we have known who perhaps like Robert have suffered physically for choosing to follow Christ.

What was it Jesus said? If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.

Let's pray that God give us the heart to follow Christ who was condemned, who did suffer death, but who was finally and forever raised to new life. Let's follow Him. Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that you would give gifts of faith, give us the wisdom that we need to understand the truth. Put yout love in our hearts.

Convict us of our need.

Show us the truth of what yout have done for us in Christ. Help us to hear and heed this call to follow Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.