Go with me, if you would, to
Matthew 16 again. We'll end the day here in Matthew
16 with a glorious thought. A very glorious thought. And that thought is verse 27. It says, for the son of man shall
come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he
shall reward every man according to his works. That's a glorious thought, isn't
it? That is a glorious thought. I read this and think, just knowing
what we're about to be delivered from and having some heart of faith
to what we're about to be delivered to, it makes me say, come quickly,
Lord. I don't have a death wish. God's people are not morbid. I don't want to die. I want to
live. I really do want to live. And verse 27 says, the son of
man shall come in the glory of his father with his angels, and
then he shall reward every man according to his words. That's a glorious thought to
me. The Lord is coming back for his people. And that's going to be a glorious
thing to witness and experience just the. The event that's going
to be a glorious thing to witness and experience for all who he
comes back for. For every soul that he comes
back for, some are going to be taken when he comes. Some are
going to be taken. Some are going to be left. He
said. How sad, how devastating it will
be for every soul who is left and misses him. Oh, the horror of missing him. That's what our Lord is talking
about right here, leading up to that verse. Our brother just
read these ending verses here. Look at verse 24. It says, then said Jesus unto
his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his
life shall lose it. And whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul? What is worth missing Christ
for? What is worth missing Christ
for? What could this world possibly
offer us that would be worth missing Christ for? Verse 26, what is a man profited
if he shall gain the whole world, the fame of it, the fortune of
it, the respect of it? What is a man profited if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If we could
just remember that this life is a vapor, it's over so fast,
it is just over so fast. What shall a man give in exchange
for his eternal soul? We just looked at this subject
at the beginning of this year and the reason is because our
Lord said this back in Matthew 10. If you turn back a few chapters
to Matthew chapter 10, Verse 37, the Lord said, He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he
that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy
of me. He that findeth his life shall
lose it. And he that loses his life for
my sake shall find. That's what our Lord is saying
again in our text, whoever cast their all on gaining this life. Is going to lose eternal life.
And whoever cast their all on eternal life. He's going to lose
this life. They're going to lose this life.
If a man or a woman lays hold of Christ, they're going to lose
this life. They're going to. But what in this life could possibly
be worth losing eternal life for? What could possibly be worth
it? This is so important. Our Lord
said it twice. Go back to Matthew 16. Verse 24, Then said Jesus unto his disciples,
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake
shall find it. For what is a man profited if
he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" He said, deny
yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. What is denying
ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Him? Following
Him into life, eternal life. If any man will come after me
into life, let him deny himself, take up his cross." What is that?
Verse 25, he said, whosoever will save his life shall lose
it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
What is that? What is saving our life or losing
our life? Saving our life on this earth
is not denying ourselves. This is what saving our life
right here on this earth is. Not denying ourselves, not taking
up our cross, and not following Christ. Losing our life on this
earth is denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord said, the one who does
not deny himself Take up his cross and follow me is not going
to be saved. And the one who does deny himself
or herself. Take up his cross and follow
me. We'll be saved. So clearly this is important.
Very important. I pray the Lord will teach us
this. What is denying self? What is denying self, taking
up the cross, following Christ? This is what the word deny means.
When you look it up in a concordance, this is what it means. It means
to deny utterly. To disown. To abstain from. It's to have no acquaintance
or connection with. It's to forget to lose sight
of self. Self. Man naturally has a very
clear view of a very close acquaintance and connection with self. Man is very acquainted with self. It's all about self. It's all
about me. And that's false religion in
a nutshell. Salvation is all about me. That's false religion
in a nutshell. Salvation is all about me. What
I need to do, how I need to be. Man naturally has no problem
finding self. Well, yep, there I am. I found
me. But our Lord said the soul that's
going to be saved is the soul that loses self, utterly denies
self, disowns self, has no acquaintance or connection with the works
of self because he or she is not even looking to self except
for. what we see right here in ourselves
that makes us want to take up our cross. God's people see something
in self that makes them want to take up their cross. That's why they deny themselves,
it's because they see no good thing right in here. No ability
to do any good thing. It's just sin, it's just loss
and ruin and decay. Nothing worth saving, nothing.
Throw it away. It's not even worth saving. God denies it. I do too. That's
what it is to deny self. And if we truly do deny self,
then we won't have any problem taking up our cross. We won't
have any choice but to take up our cross. What does that mean?
Who deserves to take up a cross? Who deserves to hang on a cross?
Sinners do. Sinners deserve that. To take
up our cross is to say, that's what I am. That's what I am. I'm a sinner. And that's what
I deserve. I deserve the death of a cross.
That's what I deserve. I crucify my works. And God's people do. We do, don't
we? We crucify our works. I crucify my will. Have we not
been given a heart to say by God's Holy Spirit, Lord, it is
not our will, it's thine be done. I crucify my decisions, I'm dead
to all of it. And I lay hold of and I cling
to and I plead the will and the works and the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I want to be acquainted with
And I want to be joined to and I want to have a clear sight
of Christ alone. Christ alone. Our Lord said every
soul who truly desires that will have it. Every soul who truly
desires that will have it. The end of verse 25, he said,
whosoever will lose his life of flesh on this earth for my
sake. shall find life in the spirit
of eternity. Any soul who loses sight of self
to go find Christ is going to find what they're looking for.
He's going to find what he or she is looking for. When he says,
seek my face, and this is how it happens. He says, seek my
face. Seek me with all your heart.
When he says that, we will seek and we'll find. When he says,
behold me, come to me, cast your all on me, we'll behold, we will
come, we will cast our all on him. And for every soul that's caused
to do that, this is a, um, if we have been caused to do that,
if we can honestly say, yes, I deny myself. I crucify everything about me,
everything concerning me. If we can honestly say that,
then this is an exciting promise from our Lord to everyone who
is looking to him and waiting for him. This is a wonderful,
wonderful promise. Verse 27, for the son of man. shall come in the glory of his
father with his angels and then he shall reward every man according
to his works. I just want to break that down
and think about it for a second. Just think about how glorious
this is. Verse 27 says, for the son of man. The son of man. I love that title. Our Lord has
been given some titles and that's one that I just absolutely love.
And do you know why that is? It's because that title means
God is still a man. God is still a man. The son of man. The Son of Man, when he ascended
up, the angels told these same disciples right here, they said,
this same Jesus that you have seen go up, this same man is
going to come back down just like you have seen him go up.
This same man. He told Thomas and all the other
disciples that were there, after his resurrection, In his glorified
state, the state that he's still in right now, he said, touch
me, handle me. You know, God is a spirit. But God made himself to be a
man so he could say, touch me, handle me. He said, give me a
piece of fish, give me some honeycomb. It's me. It is I, the Son of
Man, the God-Man. That is a glorious thing that
God is still a man. Verse 27 says, For the Son of
Man shall come. I love dogmatic promises
like that right there. I just love dogmatic promises,
certain promises. You know, you're probably not
like me, but I have moments of weakness. I have moments of doubt. I have moments where. I mean,
honestly, do you ever find yourself wondering, is he really coming
back for us? Is he really coming back for us? Some of us will
go. He will come for us individually. You know, each of us have an
appointed day to go meet him and go be with him. But then there's going to come
a day when our souls will come gather the
bodies he gave us and he'll come back and gather us all together.
And you ever have moments where you say, is he really coming
back for us? You ever have moments where you question, is this real? For those moments, the Spirit
of God takes the absolute certain Word of God and He convinces
our heart again, He shall. He shall. He shall come. He will come again. He must come
again. His holy truth depends on it. If He said it, it must come to
pass. His word of promise depends on
it. His covenant depends on it. He
shall come and he's coming quickly. He's coming quickly. And when he does. He is coming,
verse 27 says. In the glory of his father. The Son of Man shall come in
the glory of His Father. I just love the thought of that.
The first time, He came in humility. That's how He came. He came in
His glorious humility. The second time, He is coming
in the glory of His Father. He's coming in might. He is coming
in strength. He is coming in power. Every
eye shall see him. Every eye. And they're going
to see him in the glory of his father, which is his own glory,
too. That's his own glory, too. The
glory of the father is also the glory of the son. Turn with me,
if you would, to John 17. John 17 verse one says. These words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son. That thy son also may glorify
thee is thou has given him power over all flesh that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. And this
is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on
the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gave me to do. Now watch verse five. And now,
O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self. with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was." That same glory
that I had with you, your glory that I had with you. Glorify
me. That's the glory of the father
is the glory of the son. Christ, the scripture says, is
the express image of all of God's glory. all of His glory, and
this earth is going to see it. This earth is going to see it. Verse 27, back in our text, Matthew
16. Verse 27 says, For the Son of
Man shall come in the glory of His Father with his angels. He's coming with his angels.
I can't really imagine, but I do love trying to envision that
site in my imagination. This is just my imagination.
Okay. I don't believe one stitch of the sky will be seen. I don't believe one patch of
sky anywhere will be seen. And the reason is because Matthew
25 verse 31 says he is coming back with all of his angels. He's coming in the glory of his
father. And when he comes back, he is going to empty heaven.
Heaven is coming with him. All of heaven is coming with
him. It says he is coming back with all of his angels. And Hebrews
12 verse 22 says it is an unnumberable amount and innumerable company
of angels and they are mighty warriors and they love God's people. They
love God's people so much. It's indescribable how much they
love God's people. They have been protecting, you
know, these angels are continued beings. And on this earth, we
are too, but not on this earth. We have an end point. And these
scripture I could we could turn and turn and turn. And so how
the Lord. Has commanded these angels, these mighty warriors.
to guard his children, to protect his children, to minister. Are they not ministering spirits
sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs? These angels
love God's people and we're going to love them. They're going to love us and
we're going to love them in the Lord Jesus Christ because of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Glory is going to be a glorious
place. It's honestly going to be a glorious
place, but this is going to happen and this is going to be a glorious
moment. Verse 27 says, the son of man shall come in the glory
of his father with his angels. And then he shall reward every
man according to his works. All of God's people are going
to be rewarded for the works of Christ. Everything Christ
has done, he has given those works to us and they're ours. They're ours. When we claim works
before the throne of God, it's Christ's works and they belong
to us. All of God's people are going
to be rewarded for the works of Christ. And it's all because
he was rewarded for the works of us. Every sinful thing recorded
on our record, it was laid on him. Every righteous thing recorded
on his record, it was laid on us. And then the scripture says
the books were opened and everyone was rewarded accordingly. And
if you want to know what we got, what our reward was, look at
the cross of Calvary. That's what God rewarded to me
and God rewarded to you. And if we want to see what Christ's
reward is that has been given to us, just wait on that day. Wait on that day. It's going
to be amazing, glorious. Verse 28 says, Verily I say unto
you. There be some standing here which
shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming
in his kingdom. Many different men have speculated
on what our Lord meant by that. Again, verse 28 says, Verily
I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not
taste of death till they see the son of man coming in his
kingdom. Many, many men have speculated
on that, but none of them believed that he was saying that there
were going to be brethren on the earth that would never die
for thousands of years until the Lord came back in his second
coming. He's not saying that. Some believe
he was referring to the Mount of Transfiguration where he,
some of those men standing there saw his glory. It's in the next
chapter. Some believe he was referring
to the glory of the cross. The coming of his kingdom, the
welcoming in of his kingdom through the accomplishment of the cross,
some believe his resurrection from the dead, his glory that
he arose, he conquered death, he conquered sin. Some believe
it was his ascension back to the father, whatever it was,
whatever our Lord did fully mean in saying that. All of God's
people will not taste of death until they see the Son of Man
coming in all of the glory of His kingdom with God-given eyes
of faith. We see it, don't we? By faith. By faith, all of God's people
will be given eyes of faith to see Christ coming in his glory,
the glory of his kingdom. And with that faith, we. We'll look for him and we do.
We do, we look for him, I expect him. You know, if he does not
return in this lifetime of mine, I'm going to go see him soon.
He's coming for me. I expect this. We look for him. And we wait for him and we will
wait for him through these eyes of faith, and we will trust in
him. We trust his word, we trust what
he's saying, we trust his promise. What a glorious moment to look
for and wait for it. What a glorious hope. That's
a hope. We have an expected end coming. What a glorious hope that is.
The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Come quickly, Lord. Come quickly. Include us, please
include us. Remember us like that thief said,
Lord, remember me. When you come into your kingdom,
Lord, would you remember me? Include us, remember us, give
us a heart to lose ourselves and to gain Christ. I think about
that all the time. Lord, don't let me stray from
this. Don't let me see anything that
this world has to offer is something better. Keep me, keep us. Give us a true heart to lose
ourselves and to gain Christ. Amen. All right.