Turn back to Matthew chapter
16. Matthew chapter 16. Now, what we read earlier in
Matthew, and our brother read it from the book of Mark, it's
also found in Luke chapter 9. It appears in all three of what
are called the synoptic gospels. And for this reason, we must
consider it one of our Lord's more important exhortations. Now, even as I wrote that word
exhortations down in my notes, I thought, there are going to
be young people here that have no idea what an exhortation is. In fact, you probably don't hear
the word outside of church. It's just that kind of word.
But you young'uns, I'll tell you what an exhortation is. It means to strongly urge someone
to do something. But that may even sound a little
bit more grown up than you're used to hearing. So let me give
you an example. Your parents might say, time
for homework. Well, that's just a statement
of fact. That's not an exhortation. But if they say, you must get
your homework done or you will fail that class and I have to
take it over again, that's an exhortation. They are giving
you information and by giving you that information, they're
trying to persuade you to take some kind of action. That's an
exhortation. And our Lord here in this passage
is giving information and persuading his disciples to act upon what
they have heard. Now, James speaks to us along
this fashion, faith without deeds is vain being dead. And what
does he mean by that? Well, claiming to believe something
means nothing if you don't take action on it. It's like if someone
told you, I've got a surefire investment. You
put $1,000, you invest $1,000 in this enterprise, and I guarantee
you in 10 years, it'll be worth a million bucks. Now, you can
believe that person as much as you want. You can be utterly
convinced that what he said is true. But if you don't put $1,000
in that investment, your faith was vain, being dead. And our
Lord here is giving instruction and then showing us what action
this instruction should produce in us. And the fact is, if we say, I
believe the instruction, but then we never do the action,
It means that our faith in the instruction is vain being dead. People say folks ought to act
according to what they believe. Everyone does. Everyone does. What you truly count valuable
and what you truly believe in, that is what you're pursuing.
Therefore some, to, in a general sense, a person could look at
what you're pursuing, what drives your life, and they can determine
then what you trust in. Now, this exhortation concerns
following Christ. He says here in verse 24, if anyone would
come after me, He must deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. Now that's the exhortation. That's
the action based upon the instruction that he gives a few verses back. Now this whole lesson begins
with this instruction. Look back up at verse 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. Now, Mark adds to this, you know,
where Matthew says, from that time on, and then Mark adds this,
he taught them plainly about this. You know, in the Old Testament,
this was taught. In fact, our Lord said to some
disciples on the day of his resurrection, later that evening, as they're
on the road to Emmaus, he says, didn't you understand that the
Christ must suffer? And it's in the Old Testament.
Isaiah 53 is one of the most notable examples of it when it
talks about who has believed our report and to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed for he shall grow up before him as
a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no
form nor comeliness that when we should see him we would desire
him. Surely he hath borne our griefs.
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now that's suffering. grief,
sorrow, punishment. All these things were prophesied
in the Old Testament, but not in such a way that many people
understood it. So the Lord begins here to plainly
tell his disciples what's going to happen. His suffering was necessary.
You say, why? Well, First of all, his suffering
is necessary because God ordained it. Now, I don't mean he just
said, well, if there's going to be salvation, it has to be
this way. He said, this is what's going
to happen. We believe that God is in sovereign control of all
things. that all things that happen happen
because God ordained that they would happen, and they happen
in fulfillment of His will in order to accomplish His purpose,
which is the salvation of His people through Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter one, when Peter is speaking to, excuse
me, Acts chapter two on the day of Pentecost, when Peter is preaching
the gospel, the first time the gospel was preached, after it
had been fulfilled, and the Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles
in order to enable them to preach it, and he says to them, you,
according to the foreordained purpose of God, have with wicked
hands killed the Lord of glory. People say, you say God ordained
sin? Well, that's the worst sin that
was ever done. When men raised their hands against
Christ, they were shaking their fist in the face of God. And
yet God ordained it, and by something that only God can do, he took
that which was the most grievous sin, worse than Adam's sin, worse
than Adam's sin. He ordained that sin. Men from their own wicked hearts
and with their own wicked hands carried it out. And yet all of
it was done to bring about God's purpose of salvation. And it
couldn't be avoided. I don't get the idea because
God foreordained it. There were Jews saying, I really
don't want to say crucify him, crucify him, but I just can't
help it. Crucify him, I'm wanting to stop, but I can't. No, it
wasn't like that. They loved what they were doing. They chose
to do it, but God ordained it. That Roman, nailing him to a
cross, had no reluctance whatsoever. Maybe took a certain measure
of grim satisfaction in it, a sense of power. But all that happened because
God ordained it. Our Lord Jesus came into this world on a mission. His mission was not to set himself
a throne over there in Jerusalem. It was not to topple over Herod
or Pontius Pilate or even the emperor of Rome. He said on the
day of his crucifixion, my kingdom's not of this world. And that's
why he didn't mess with anybody in this world. That's why he
did not fight like the people of this world fight. He came
in to establish a spiritual and eternal kingdom, a heavenly kingdom. And he came into this world headed
to the cross. The cross is not plan B. It's not even plan A, subsection
B. He is called the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. Before God called this universe
into existence, it had already been determined that Jesus Christ
would be born at such and such a time and that he would die
in the place of God's people on such and such a day by such
and such a method. He must because it's been ordained. He must suffer these things because
if he does not suffer, there is no salvation. If he is not
rejected by those who are very religious but very much in rebellion
against God, if he's not rejected by them, then that means he's
one of them. And we cannot be saved by someone who's one of
us. Our Savior must come from outside of us. He must be rejected. He must be killed. Why? Well,
the law puts it this way. It's the blood that makes atonement
for the soul. If there's to be an atonement,
somebody's gotta die. The book of Hebrews recites much
the same thing when it says, without the shedding of blood,
there is no forgiveness of sins. Now, you and I have a great deal
of sins. God's people, though chosen in
Him before the foundation of the world, yet they come into
this world exactly like everybody else, carrying within them that
poisonous blood of Adam. Having within them what theologians
like to call original sin, but it simply means we are born sinners. David said, I was conceived in
sin and shapen in iniquity. And he did not mean by that that
the act of his parents in conceiving him was sinful. It meant the
moment he was conceived, he was a sinner. Why? Because of who
his parents were and who their parents were and their parents
were all the way back to Adam. We come into this world sinners
and it doesn't take long before we prove what we are. Once again,
David said, I came forth from the womb speaking lies. Someone says, well, how does
someone come forth from the womb speaking lies when he can't speak
at all? They can cry a lie. A cry is supposed to mean you
need something, that you're hurting. It's supposed to be an indication
to those that care for you that you need attention. But anybody
that's had children knows this, sometimes they cry just because
they want to cry. Sometimes they cry just because
they want attention and they know that that usually gets it.
And so there's nothing wrong with them, but they say there's
something wrong with them. And the lie of self-salvation,
the lie of self-righteousness, it's born in our hearts. And
the moment we get the opportunity to make any declaration about
ourselves, it will be some kind of justification of ourselves. You know, it's hard sometimes
when you're raising little children, because you see this principle.
And they say things that are just so funny. because they think
it's going to work. There's self-justifying deception
in our grandson, Carter, and his brother, Logan. Well, Logan
started crying. Of course, Carter's the bigger
and older one, so you assume right away something happened.
And Mary asked, and he said, well, I accidentally spanked
him. If it's an accident, it's okay,
you know. How do you accidentally spank someone? See what I mean?
The lie. And we laugh about that in kids,
because it is kind of cute. But what it is, besides being
cute and funny, what it is is proof of what the Scriptures
say about us. We are sinners from birth, liars
from the day we were conceived, and all we need is the opportunity
to speak, and we'll start telling lies. And most of all, we'll
tell lies about our own goodness. We will justify ourselves. I
thank you, God, I'm not like other men, said the Pharisees.
And he was exactly like other men. We're sinners, and only blood
puts away sin. And he must be raised to life.
because Apostle Paul said, brethren, if Christ is not raised, we'll
not be raised. And if our hope in Christ is
only for this life, then we are of all men most miserable. The resurrection, and I've said
this before, the resurrection is not so much an event in itself
It's actually just the beginning of his return to his place at
the right hand of the Father. And he made a stop for 40 days
here to give some final instructions. But him being raised from the
dead was God's seal of approval upon his work. That the sins
he bore, he'd actually borne them away. And since he bore
them away, he no longer bore them. Now, Peter says he bore
our sins in his body on the tree, but that by the time they took
him off of that tree, he had borne those sins away, there
was no sin on him, no sin in him. It wasn't there. That's why he could say to that
thief, today you'll be with me in paradise. He didn't die on
the cross and then go to some place of punishment and be punished
for the three days and three nights he spent in the grave
and then get out. No, he said it is finished. And
when he said that, it really was done. He had fully borne
our sins and borne them away. They were gone. He didn't bear
them. And three days later, God gave us his testimony that indeed
that was the case. He no longer bore sin. And the
grave is a place for sinners, not for righteous people. So
he raised his son from the dead. So these things must come to
pass because God ordained them. They must come to pass because
they are necessary to the salvation of God's people. Without these things happening,
there would be no reason for you and I to meet together like
this Sunday morning. We might as well be out doing
what our flesh told us this morning we'd rather be doing anyway.
Whatever it is that may have given you a little resistance
to come this morning, may as well have been doing that if
these things never happened. That's how important this matter
is. And that's why he began to speak
it plainly. And from that point on. Now, he was killed, not as a
martyr, not as an example, but as a sacrifice. If he was a martyr, it would
have to be said that his life was taken from him. But he said,
no man takes my life from me. I lay it down. I lay it down. He's not a martyr. And while we may find a certain
example out of his willingness to die for his people, yet that was not his primary
purpose. Because after all, we cannot die for anyone else like
he died for all his people. I can't die as your substitute. You know, if a man were found
guilty of a crime in a court of law, a capital offense, and
they put him to death, and then it was found, lo and behold,
somebody else did it, and they caught that man, Do you think
they would let that man go free? Saying, well, we already killed
one. Wouldn't be right to charge somebody else with a crime. No,
not in this world, and it shouldn't be that way. They should be extremely
sorry that they got it wrong with the first guy, but justice
is justice, and one guy cannot die in the place of another and
put that person's crime away. And therefore, the man who really
did it, when they catch him and try him and convict him, they
should execute him. Why? because the wrongful execution
of the first man did not put away the crime of the second
man. But when Jesus Christ, and beloved,
I tell you, this is what'll give strength to your heart if you
can lay hold of it. The Bible says it's good for the heart
to be strengthened with grace. Here's some grace. Jesus Christ,
dying in the place of the sinner, put away the sins of the sinner
so that the sinner never bears them. and God, in his justice,
is satisfied. When Paul was, in Romans 8, was
talking about the certainty of our salvation, he says, who is
he that condemns? It is Christ who died, yea, rather,
is risen again. You'll notice that it does not
say, who is he that condemns all of these people believed?
Now, I know that the unbelieving shall be condemned, but I also
know this, the believing shall not be justified on the foundation
of their faith. Rather, they are justified on
the foundation of the object of their faith. which is Christ
and Him crucified. It's Christ's death that put
away the sin of His people. And therefore we can say this, all for whom Christ died shall
receive the fullness of God's salvation. As Paul later said
in Romans chapter eight, who spared not his own son, but freely
delivered him up, or delivered him up for us all. And that's
one of those alls that you've got to take within the context
of what he's speaking there. Shall he not with him freely
give us all things? Now, what's that saying? If it's
saying nothing else, it's saying this, everyone for whom God gave
the Savior as a sacrifice, every one of them will receive all
things which are in Christ. Our Lord put it this way, that
there was a people that belonged to the Father, the Father gave
them to the Son, and the Son says, and I will not lose one
of them, not one. Now my soul can rest in that. Why? Because that tells my soul the
work is done. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
do a work that awaited my approval. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
do a work that got me 99 and 99 one hundredths percent of
the way there, but there's some little thing I've yet got to
do to finish the work of Christ. Jesus Christ said, it is finished. And that means whatever he came
to do, it was done. And he told us what he came to
do. He said, I've come to give my
life a ransom for many. He said, I've come for God's
sheep. I've come to seek and to save
that which is lost. You say, well, everybody's lost.
No, they aren't, just ask them. I guarantee you, every lost person's
gonna get saved. We're gonna get found, let me
put it that way. Every lost person's gonna get found. Why? The shepherd,
good shepherd's looking for them. And he's not gonna lose one.
He's not gonna say, well, it's only one out of 100. I mean,
come on, how much effort should I put out to go find this one
silly lost sheep? He'll put out all the effort
that God could put out to find him. And that'll be enough. He
found you, didn't he? He was raised again to prove
the validity of his work. Well, Peter objected to this.
Peter took him aside. Sometimes I can identify so well
with Peter. He opened his mouth way before
he should have. He's one of these guys, as soon
as a thought popped in his mind, it came out of his mouth. And
let's face it, to the eye of the flesh, that didn't look like
a very good program, did it? The master be killed? The savior
die? How's he gonna save anybody if
he's dead? And so Peter, you know, and I'm
sure Peter didn't realize what an act of self-righteous condescension
this was on his part. So they're like, Lord, come over
here now, come on. That's just not gonna happen. You know me,
I got a sword. And I'm a fisherman, I got some
strong arms. Now that's just, you just put
that out of your mind. And on the one hand, we might
say that that statement came out of Peter's love for the Lord
Jesus Christ. His concern for the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know what that shows us?
That Satan can even make use of what otherwise might be virtues.
to bring about something awful. Because the Lord looked at him,
he looked to Peter and he said, get behind me, Satan. Can you
imagine what Peter felt like when the Lord said that? You're
calling me the devil? Well, the devil was using him. You are a stumbling block to
me. You're getting in the way. You're making this thing even
more difficult. I know our Lord is God. I don't
understand altogether how that can be, but I know that he lived
his life here entirely as a man. The book of Philippians says
that he humbled himself. He surrendered his divine rights
and privileges, humbled himself, and though by nature he was God,
he took upon the nature of man. And he came here, and you know
something? Pain to him was pain. Hunger was hunger. Thirst was
thirst. Death was death. He did not say, well, I'm going
to go to the cross. Look, it's just a three-day thing. I can deal
with anything for three days. No. As he faced the cross and
all that it meant, it says in the Garden of Gethsemane that
so great was his stress that he was sweating There's a medical condition,
I think it's called hematidrosis. But you can be under such stress
that the blood vessels in your pores break. And therefore, as you sweat with
the sweat that goes with stress, blood comes with it. That's how
distressed our Lord was about this. And he begins to plainly
tell about it. And Satan says, here's an opportunity
to get in the way of the Lord, because he knew if he can stop
this, if he can stop that crucifixion, then there will be no salvation,
Jesus Christ will not be glorified, and the whole thing's gonna fall
down. And so he enters, as it were, the mind, or uses the natural
mind of Peter and his love and affection for Christ, and he
moves Peter to get in the way of the Lord. And the Lord recognized who was
really operating right there. He didn't really call Peter,
Satan. He looked at Peter and what Peter
was doing and recognized who was using Peter. And he said, you get behind me.
Don't you dare stand between me and the cross. This is a difficult
enough path. You savor the things of men,
not the things of God. Jesus said to his disciples,
Mark says that he said not only to his disciples, but he turned
the whole crowd following him. You can hear him as he lifts
up his voice, because I'm sure what he said to Peter there,
probably only Peter heard it. But he speaks up loud enough,
and he says, and this is based on what he said about what he
must endure. If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." Now this thing called the Christian
life is nothing like what most religious Christians think it
is. It's probably not a whole lot like what we think it is
because we are not only reborn spirit, we still got this flesh
and it's still interjecting all of its thoughts in there, but
it'll read something like this and said, yes, if we want to
follow Christ, we've got to become radical about Jesus. Well, you
know something? They're right if you understand
what the word radical means. Our word radical comes from the
same Latin word as the word root. And to be radical means to get
at the root of things. And indeed, whoever follows Christ,
whoever would follow after Christ, is getting at the real root of
the issue. He's getting to the root of the
problem that he has. Now, the world is perfectly happy
to deal with the superficial aspects of the problem that men
have. That is the sins that they commit,
which are merely the symptoms or fruit of the sin that is within
them. But they think if they can get
you to quit drinking, and they can get you to quit carousing,
and quit stealing, and quit lying, and they're working on getting
you to stop doing these things, and it's a good thing if you
can stop doing them, but, well, I believe in God's sovereignty,
so saying good luck with that wouldn't make sense, but you
know what I mean. We struggle with it, don't we?
And we never get any of these practices put away once and for
all. But most of the religious world
is happy with the superficial. The believer in Christ is concerned
about the root of the matter, which is in him. And he wants
someone to fix the problem in him, knowing that if God fixes
the problem in him, in time, all the symptoms will likewise
go away. That won't happen till we die
or till the Lord comes back. But sooner or later, us and sin
will have no relationship whatever. And so we're radicals in that
way. But most people, when they say radical these days, what
their meaning is fanatical, kind of acting crazy, or utterly consumed
with a certain thing. Well, The Lord Jesus Christ does
not call us to that kind of fanaticism. Now, there are some within the
kingdom of God who God has called to such a level of devotion of
their time and energy that we might call them fanatics. And that's fine, but that's not
what our Lord means here. when he says, if anyone would
come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow
me. That's not what he's talking
about. If it is, I've met only a handful of people in this world
that would qualify there, and I'll be honest with you, I'm
not among them. You say, well, you're a pastor. Yes, but I'm not as energetic In my
work, as I might be, I'm not real fanatical about much anything. I'm radical. I'm radical in the
sense for all the time that I've been here, I've been preaching
the same thing, getting at the root of the matter. But I'm not
fanatical, and the Lord's not talking about fanaticism. Here's
what He's talking about. If anyone would come after me,
He must deny himself. Self-denial. Now you say self-denial
among most religious people, and that says, right, we've gotta
live lives of poverty, and you've got certain people that they
get into, they think that they're gonna be especially useful to
Jesus Christ and his kingdom, and they take on a vow of poverty.
Well, you know, Abraham is called the father of the faithful. He
is held up before us as someone who is a believer and an example
of a believer. And yet he was a very wealthy
man. So was Job. So was David and
Solomon. There've been many people in
this world. who you'd call them both radical and fanatical about
the things of God, and yet they were wealthy people. So when
he's talking about self-denial, he's not talking about taking
a vow of poverty or denying yourself innocent pleasures in this life. Men enter the ministry in some
religions and they take a vow of celibacy. And I'm thinking,
if you've got to take a vow in order to accomplish it, don't
try. If celibacy is not natural to you, don't try for it because
you're not going to make it. We aren't built that way. Say,
well, Paul says a man should remain married, excuse me, unmarried. Yes. And then he said, but if
he burns, let him get married. What's that saying? If it presents
a problem to a man to be single, let him get married. His only
idea at that time was that if a fellow is going to be in the
ministry, if he can do it as a single man and not have the
care and concern, that is a traveling ministry such as Paul and the
Apostles. He said if he can have it without
the concerns of taking care of a family, that's better. No, people think to deny themselves
means somehow or another to make themselves miserable. But many
who think that they're denying themselves for the cause of Christ
are doing exactly the opposite of what this scripture means.
For to deny yourself, as the Lord is using it here, means
to deny yourself. worthy of God's salvation or
capable of doing anything which would earn a blessing from him. And he puts that first. Why? Because no one will ever lay
hold of Christ until he set himself down. No one will ever trust
Christ until he quits trusting himself. Now look over Philippians
chapter 3 and I'll show you that in the life of Paul. Philippians
chapter 3. Paul in the first six verses,
well actually starting in verse 4, he says, though I myself have
reason for such confidence, What he means by that is there are
people who have confidence in their own flesh and what they've
done in the flesh. And he said, but really, if anybody
can say that they have a right to confidence in the flesh, I
can. And he gives his pedigree, all the things he had done as
a Pharisee in Judaism. A Pharisee was a radical, fanatical
Jew. He gives all of that. And then
he says, verse seven, but whatever was to my prophet, I now consider
loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything
loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things and consider
them rubbish that I may gain Christ. What all things was he
talking about? That pedigree. That Hebrew of
Hebrews. circumcised on the eighth day,
as zeal, touching zeal, persecuting the church, as touching that righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. That was Saul of Tarsus, and
he had to be denied. And all of us come into this
world thinking we got something. And we don't. And we gotta learn
to deny ourselves and all hope in ourselves and all goodness
in ourselves. And quit thinking we're somebody
and that God's especially pleased with us and he's more pleased
with us than he is that guy over there because we do this and
he doesn't. And then we don't do that, but
he does. That's what it is to deny yourself. And nobody can
do that without the grace of God. Really, they can't. Everybody without the grace of
God is self-righteous, even if they appear to be one of the
nicest people you've ever met. Within their heart is that wickedness
of self-righteousness. Deny yourself, take up his cross. Paul enlightens us on what that
means in Galatians chapter six. Verse 14, he says there, may I never boast
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the
world has been crucified to me and I to the world. What does the cross symbolize?
symbolizes being cut off from the world, all of it, to being cursed. Paul says, by the cross, the
world no longer had regard for him, and he no longer had regard
for the world. Didn't mean he didn't love the
people in it. But that whole way of natural human life, particularly
as it pertains to the worship of God, You're not, that'd make
any difference. They could say to Paul, why,
Paul, you're a sinner. And he'd say, well, you think
you're telling me something new? Something I didn't already know?
But this is a faithful saint and worthy of all acceptation.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of which I am
the chief. See, the world couldn't embarrass
Paul about his sin, because he confessed it long before they
ever accused him of it. They couldn't say, now you quit
preaching or we're gonna kill you. Okay, don't count my life
dear to me. I only want this, that I can
finish my course. That's the only thing I'm interested
in. See, the world didn't mean anything
to him. He could enjoy what it had so long as the Lord gave
it to him, but he was not of the world and neither is any
believer. They're not of this world, they're
in it. They live within it and participate in some of the things
it does, but they're not of it. Take up his cross. And what is
it to take up our cross? Well, actually it comes out this
way. To take up our cross means primarily, if not altogether,
to take up his cross. is our only glory and our only
hope is to bear His cross before the world. And when they say
such things as they commonly say to believers, well, you all
think that a person can sin all they want and go to heaven. You can say, look, I already
sin more than I want, but thank God I'm going to heaven anyway. They'll say things like, well,
yeah, Jesus Christ died, but he died for everybody. It's up
to you to accept or reject his sacrifice. And you say to them,
listen, I can't accept or reject his sacrifice because it was
never offered to me. It was offered to God and God accepted it. And he sent his spirit to testify
to its power within my heart. And he let me know that when
Christ died, he died for me. The old hymn writer said, this
is my hope, this is my plea, that when Christ died, he died
for me. And me making that my hope and
my plea is not what made it effective for me. Rather, him dying for
me set in motion a whole series of events that led to me saying,
Jesus Christ is my hope and plea. take up his cross. That doesn't mean you do like
that one guy. Well, several did it, but the first guy that did
it, I think his name was Arthur Blessed. And he fashioned himself
one of those traditional looking crosses. And for the sake of
his own ease, he put wheels on the end of it so he could walk
around with it, trying to act like Jesus Christ carrying his
cross on crucifixion day. besides it not being an accurate
representation of what it meant to pick up a cross. All that
they were required to carry was a cross beam. But to think that the Lord intended
for us to fashion something shaped like the traditional looking
cross and drag it around, that that somehow is what it is to
take up our cross and follow him. No, that's to be part of
the world. You're saying, look at me, look
at me, see how devoted I am. I'm a big C Christian. Maybe all capital letters. No,
sir. Taking up his cross means denying
yourself any good in yourself, any value in yourself, any hope
in yourself. Taking up your cross, which is
nothing other than his cross trusted in by you. And following
him as one who did not care what the world thought. But submitting oneself to God
and to his son. It's not that hard to get people
to dedicate their lives to Jesus. And when that doesn't work, they
can rededicate them and rededicate them and get them to make vows
and promises. People love to do that. Why?
It's something they can glory in. There's nothing in the gospel
for you to glory in, but it says here, For whoever wants to save his
life will lose it. For whoever loses his life for
me, and Mark or Luke, I can't remember which one, adds the
words, and my gospel. We'll find it. That isn't talking
about dying necessarily, though some did. Some have. It's gone
to that point. But it means you simply give
up on yourself. Paul said, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. That's what it is to die to self,
to take up your cross and follow Christ. And it says there's gonna be
a time when the Lord returns in his Father's glory with his
angels, and he'll reward everyone according to what he's done.
You say, wait a minute, that just sounded like we suddenly
took a U-turn. No, again, everything's gotta
be determined within its context. He'll reward everyone according
to this. Did you deny yourself? Take up
your cross and follow him. Or did you love the world's approval
more than the ridicule or more than the gospel knowing that
you'd be ridiculed by the world for it? Did you love what the world has
so much that you were unwilling to forsake it and forsake what
you are? in order that you may win Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of your own,
which is by the law. It's not going to be a judgment
about whether you cheated or not, or whether you lied or not,
or whether you did this or that and all the sins that people
talk about. He will reward everyone according to this. Who did you
trust? Yourself or God? or Christ, because right now
you're trusting one of them. Right now, this minute, everybody
here who's old enough to think about these kind of things is
trusting himself, something he's done or hopes he'll be able to
do, or he's trusting Christ for what he's already done. And when
the Lord returns, Everyone will be divided into two camps, self-trusters,
Christ-trusters. The self-trusters will get exactly
what they deserve according to what they have done. And all
the Christ-trusters will say, I'm not getting what I deserve.
I'm getting the reward. that Christ earned and gives
to me freely by grace. You ought to be ready to deny
yourself, because Paul said, I realized I was just a bunch
of rubbish anyway. You might as well throw it out.
Deny yourself. Take up the cross as your only
hope. Make his cross your cross and
follow him. And if you do, just like him,
you'll suffer. Not to the degree he did, but
you'll suffer some from the world. But just as his suffering led
to his glory, so will your suffering lead to everlasting glory in
the presence of the Father. The Lord bless his word.