Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 16, continue our study
of Matthew chapter 16 this morning. Before we look into God's word,
let's bow in prayer. Our Father which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. How we thrill to one more
time hear the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to hear him preach,
to hear more of him, to have the opportunity to look into
your word, to hear a message from thee. And Father, I pray
that you would do that to us today. In this hour and next
hour, when Brother Darwin comes to preach, Father, give us a
word from thee. Let us hear the message that
you've prepared for your people, and let us hear it with a heart
of faith. Leave here this morning rejoicing in Christ our Savior. Father, we pray that you would
be with those today who are in times of great difficulty and
sorrow. We pray for Evelyn's family at
this time of loss, that you'd be with them and comfort their
hearts. Let them find in their hearts a place to rejoice in
your mercy and your grace to our dear sister. For others who
are sick and hurting, we continue to pray for Aaron and Barb and
Father, others who need you especially. Be with your people. All these
things we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. You may recall that last week
we looked at our Savior. He had just finished telling
his disciples in this conversation he had with them and telling
Peter to get behind him, Satan, how that he must go to Jerusalem
to suffer and die. And now he's going to tell us,
continuing this conversation, the importance of believing Him,
the importance of us trusting Him to be all it takes to save
us, trusting in His sacrifice. If you and I would be saved,
we must give up trusting anything but Christ. If we would be saved,
we've got to give up any glory, any credit that we think we can
earn from our morality and our religious activities, and we've
got to give it all to Christ. If we would be saved, we must
quit going our way. We must quit going the way of
the flesh, the wisdom of the flesh, the wisdom of this world,
and follow Christ. Now that's what saving faith
does. And I have three points I want us to look at in this
matter of true faith in Christ that denies self. Number one
is faith's beginning. Number two is faith's value.
And number three is faith's reward. Now verse 24, we see faith's
beginning. 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. And here's where saving faith
starts, where it starts manifesting itself. It starts when God gives
it to you. It starts with God's purpose. But here's where it
starts manifesting itself, denying self. Now, what does that mean
to deny self? That if I would follow after
Jesus, if I would go after him, come after him, to deny myself,
what does that mean? You know, there's a lot of things,
religious opinions that have just been pressed upon us, and
our flesh probably remembers them because it's flesh. But
most people think, well, denying myself is giving up the pleasures
of this life. It's sacrificing. pleasure that
I can have in this life, being miserable in this life so that
I can be happy in the next life. They think that denying myself
means I've got to deny myself the pleasures of sin so that
later on I can enjoy, you know, in the next life, pleasures of
righteousness in Christ. Like you don't enjoy the righteousness
of Christ now. See? See the error in that kind
of thinking? And listen, I'm all for conducting
ourselves in holiness, in honesty and integrity. I'm all for not
giving in to every sinful whim that we have just because we
can't do it. Just because, you know, I'm I
know I'm still guilty of sin. I think about it. I desire it.
Even if I don't act on it, I know I'm still guilty of it. But even
though that's true, don't give in to it. You know, we just ought
not be doing it. A believer should fight against
acting on sin and acting like this flesh. There should be a
difference if Christ is our master and Christ is our savior. A believer
should be known as an honest and an upright person, a kind
person. And I know it won't be perfect.
We don't do it to add to our salvation because you can't add
to Christ, but our conduct should reflect our faith, shouldn't
it? You simply cannot separate faith and conduct. But that's
not what denying ourselves really means. That's not what the Lord
is really talking about here. Denying ourselves means a whole
lot more than that. If we would be saved, we must
deny our flesh any glory, any credit, any contribution to this
matter of salvation. That's what denying self is. If we would be saved, we've got
to deny ourselves and follow Christ. Follow Him as the only
way of salvation, of life, of righteousness. If we would be
saved, we must deny ourselves our own righteousness. Now you
want to talk about giving something up. That's what the flesh can't
do. We've got to give up our righteousness. We've got to give
up our obedience. We've got to give up those things
that we think make God happy with us. We've got to give up
our righteousness and submit ourselves to the righteousness
of Christ. If I have the obedience of Christ, is my righteousness.
If He is my righteousness, I don't want any of my own. No, I want
His. I want Him to be my righteousness. But if we would be saved, we've
got to deny ourselves any glory. We've got to deny ourselves any
credit by what we do or what we don't do. What we do and what
we don't do, that's not what saves us. We've got to give the
glory and the credit to Christ since He did all the work. He
did all the work. Then we want to give Him all
the glory. If I would be saved, I must deny
myself. I've got to give up all my fleshly
ideas. I got to submit myself to Christ. I got to submit myself to his
word. It doesn't matter what I've always thought in the past.
This argument is so full of holes. Somebody said, well, I see that,
but that's just not what I've always thought. Who cares? Who cares what I think? Who cares
what I think about anything? What does God's word say? And
the true faith says, I see something in God's word. And so I believe
that. It doesn't matter what I thought
in the past. I bow to that. I believe God. Let God be true
and every man a liar, me included, me included. If we would be saved,
I'll tell you something else we've got to deny ourselves.
We've got to deny ourselves what we try to do, seeking to hide
our shame, seeking to hide our sinful fleshly nature. That was Naaman's problem, wasn't
it? He wanted to stay dressed in his finery and not take it
all off and reveal to everybody he's a leper. If he's going to
be cleansed, he's got to admit, I'm a leper. I've got to quit
trying to hide the sinful fleshly shame of this nature because
all that is is self-righteousness. It's just, I got to deny myself
my own righteousness and admit the shame of it and come to Christ. And our Lord says here to take
up our cross, to take up the cross of Christ. What does that
mean? To take up our cross. Well, I
can tell you this. Let me be like John Gill and
first tell you what it does not mean. Taking up our cross does
not mean that salvation is a cooperative effort between me and Jesus.
You know, Jesus suffered on the cross in order for me to be saved.
I've got to suffer, you know, in this world and kind of, earn
my way, you know, into heaven. No, there's a, there's a song
in our songbook. Sean, let's never sing it. Must
Jesus bear the cross alone? What a dumb question. Yes. Yes. He must bear the cross alone. And if we try to help, if we
try to help the transaction that happened on Calvary's tree, you
and I are going to pollute it. Yes, Christ must bear the cross
alone. Yes, he must accomplish the work
of salvation alone. Taking up our cross also doesn't
mean to take up an actual cross. You know, you see this whatever
time of year, once a year, it seems like you see people carrying
crosses down the highway, you know, but notice what they do. They make it out of lightweight
material or they put wheels on it, you know, to kind of, you
know, you're pulling, That's man's idea of the cross. That,
in the picture, is man's religion. Lower this thing down to what
I can do. Just lower the requirements of
the cross. Lower the requirements of righteousness. I was quoting
this to Holly yesterday, something Brother Henry said. He said,
I can jump a barn, if you let me build a barn. It's just, they're
low, and when they do that, they're just, well, let's make it easy.
Let's not make it impossible. Scripture says with the flesh,
with man, this is impossible. Well, let's not talk about salvation
like it's something that's impossible with men. Let's lower the standard.
Let's make it easy. That's what they're doing. That's
what they're doing instead of trusting Christ. So taking up
our cross means this, that if I would be saved, if I would
come after Jesus, I must take up the offense of the cross and
say that what the offense of the cross is true about me. That's
taking up my cross. What is the offense of the cross?
Why is the cross so offensive to the flesh? Well, this is what
the cross says. Christ dying on the cross says
this, I am so sinful. The only way my sin can be paid
for is if God died for me. That's how sinful I am. God's
got to die. That's offensive to my blood.
Well, that tells you that the utter depravity and corruption
of my flesh does. that God's got to die for me
to put that sin away. Defense of the cross says I am
so dead in sin. I cannot earn a righteousness
of my own. Christ has got to do it for me.
He's got to obey the law. He's got to be perfect. And then
he's got to be made sin for me. He's got to give me his perfection
and take my sin and put it away because I am so dead in sin.
I can't do one blessed thing to earn a righteousness. Christ's
got to do it for me. Now that's offensive to the flesh.
That takes away any ability of the flesh. That takes away any
glory of the flesh. It's dead, rotting, corrupt flesh.
But I've got to take that offense to myself if I'm going to know
Christ, if I'm going to trust Him. The offense of the cross
is I am vile. I mean, sin is not just breaking
the rules. You know, well, I should have
done that. You just get a slap on the wrist, you know, with
a ruler. Sin is I am so vile that the only way I can be cleansed
is by the blood of God's Son. Now that's offensive to the flesh,
isn't it? You can't just wash that off
with dial soap now. That's offensive. The cross says
I am so worthless that me, suffering in hell, will never pay for even
one sin. That's how worthless I am. If
my sin's gonna be paid for, God's Son's got to die. That's offensive,
but if I'm going to trust Christ, I've got to say that about myself. The offense of the cross says
that Almighty God had to choose a people to save and had sent
his son to do the saving or nobody would be saved. Who did Christ
die for? It wasn't everybody, was it?
Who did he say he was dying for? John 17. I pray not for the world,
but for them which thou hast given me. They're mine. They're
dying. They belong to us. That's who I'm dying for. Taking
up the offense of the cross says this, I need God to choose me. I need that. I need it. I need
Christ to come die for me because left to myself, I'll never choose
him. Left to myself, I'll never be
drawn to him. God's got to do that for me. The offense of the cross says
that my flesh is nothing and Christ is everything. That's
offensive to the flesh. That's glorious to the new man,
isn't it? But now that's offensive to the
flesh. If I'm going to be saved, I've got to say that's true about
my flesh. I'm not just saying that's true about your flesh.
I'm saying it's true about my flesh. I'm taking up my cross. See that? Taking up my cross
is identification with Christ. Saying the only hope I have of
salvation is through union with Christ. Now we think about the
cross. And we think about, you know,
when, when scripture talks about the message of the cross, it's
not talking about a wooden plus sign. It's talking about what
was accomplished, what Christ accomplished on the tree. Well,
Christ is the one who suffered and died there wasn't he? Christ
is the one who accomplished the salvation of his people. He,
he bought it with his blood, the blood of his sacrifice there
at the cross. So in that way, the cross is the cross of Christ,
isn't it? It's a cross of Christ. But here's
how it's my cross. It's my cross through union in
Christ. It's my cross by saying that's
my salvation. His death, Christ's death to
the law and to the justice is my death. His death on the cross
is my death because when he died, I died in him. It's union with
him. So taking up my cross is saying this, the only hope I
have of salvation is that I was in Christ. This is what believer's
baptism pictures. When he suffered, I suffered
in him. When he died and was buried, I died and was buried
in him. And he rose again, I was rose in him. That's the only
hope of salvation I have. Salvation is not what I've done. Salvation is what Christ did
for me. Who he is and what he did for me. So I've got to deny
myself and trust Christ. Take up my cross. Taking that
up just means that I believe it. I believe him, I believe
everything he says about me. horrible about my flesh. So I
deny myself, I got to deny. And this is not a one time thing. This is a constant, constant,
constant battle for the believer. Because you believe Christ, you
know this, your flesh is alive and well, alive and well. So I've got to constantly deny
myself trying to earn my own righteousness by keeping the
law. This is I've got to deny myself looking at the law. trying
to gauge how well I'm doing. Because if I died in Christ,
I'm dead to the law. I'm dead to the law. I trust
Christ to keep the law for me. I trust Christ to satisfy God's
justice for me. And since he did that, I'm free
from the law in the death of Christ because Christ died. A
believer does not have to keep the law. Don't look to the law
to see what you've got to do. You don't have to keep the law
to earn a righteousness because you're dead to the law. Any more
than a dead person has to obey the speed limit. Evelyn Yates
will never again have to worry about the speed limit. I mean,
that sounds like a stupid statement. Of course not. She's dead. You
who believe Christ don't ever have to obey the law again. That's
the way to earn a righteousness, because you're dead to the law.
if you died in Christ. See that? And that's what Paul
meant when he said, I'm crucified with Christ. What he meant was
I'm dead to the law. I'm dead to that. And if I have
faith in Christ, this is going to be another constant battle.
I'm going to have to deny my flesh, glory and credit in this
world. No matter what it costs me. No
matter. What's the cost? compared to
Christ. What's any cost you can think
of compared to Christ? If it cost me friends, so be
it. So be it. If it cost me family
relationships, so be it. If it cost me ridicule, slander
behind my back, it cost me snide comments, it cost me scornful
looks. Darby, you've seen it. How many
people just Give you a scornful look when you're preaching. Then
you get out of the pulpit, ain't your friend. So be it. I'm not compromising this. I'm
not compromising the Savior who loved the likes of me and gave
himself for the likes of me for that. No, sir. If it costs me
time and money, I'm happy to give it. Happy to give it. See,
this thing, is a commitment to Christ. It's a commitment to
Him. I give the life that I have now
in the flesh to the Lord. It's His. I go where He sends
me to go. I do what He gives me to do.
And it doesn't matter what it costs me. Because my life is
not my own. My life belongs to my Master.
And who's your Master? That's the question. Who's your
Master? My life belongs to Christ, my Master. He paid the price
to buy it. He bought it. He gets to tell
me what to do with it, doesn't he? He's the master. He has the
right to use me as he will, no matter what it costs me. It's
a very encompassing thing to deny ourselves and take up our
cross, isn't it? It's denying ourselves the glory,
denying ourselves any hope in the flesh. And the Lord goes
on here, verse 25. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it. Whosoever will lose his life
for my sake She'll find it. Now, if I try to save my own
life, if I try to save, okay, well, I'll trust Christ, I'll
trust His grace, I'll trust His mercy, but I'm going to hang
on to a little glory and honor of the flesh here because of
how faithful I am. I'm going to hang on to a little glory
of the flesh here because how doctrinally straight I am and
nobody else is, you know, and I don't deny myself that. I don't admit my complete and
utter need to Christ to save me all by Himself and trust Him
alone. I'll get some credit and glory
to my flesh. I will, but I'll lose my soul. It won't last forever. When I
lay this body down, I'll gain something temporary from my flesh,
but I'll lose my soul by not trusting Christ alone. If I try
to protect my fleshly life and try to just seek out an ease
of life for this flesh first, and I'm not willing to suffer
reproach for the sake of Christ, for my flesh, I mean, you know,
If you believe Christ, your old man is constantly afflicting
you, constantly persecuting you. Other flesh will too. But if
I'm not willing to bear that reproach for the sake of Christ
and protect this life, that's fine. I'll protect some, you
know, some ease of this life, but I'll lose my soul. See, true
faith just cannot put any stock in anything the flesh does. It's
going to trust Christ alone. True faith involves a consecration
to Christ. It's a dedication to Him. I believe
Him. I trust He's my Savior and He's
my Master. So I surrender myself to Him. To His will, not my will. Matthew
Henry made this statement. Grace is free, but it's not cheap. Faith in Christ involves a total
surrender of myself to Him. is my prophet, my priest, and
my king. His dominion has to be complete
over me. That's denying myself and taking
up my cross. That's my first point. The next
two are gonna be much shorter than this. That's faith's beginning. Now here's faith's value, verse
26. For what is a man profited? If
he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul. For what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Now we can't put
a value on our souls. The value of a soul is infinite. The value of a soul is higher
than everything in this world put together at once. Couldn't
buy one soul. All of its value couldn't buy
one. And our problem is this, human beings are too short-sighted
to see that. We're just too short-sighted. Our fallen nature is so blind,
we can't see the value of anything spiritually. anything. We can't
see the value of Christ. We can't see the beauty of Christ.
We can't see the sufficiency of Christ. And we can't see ourselves
as we are. We can't see ourselves in our
sin and our need of Christ. We can't see. Our nature is just
short-sighted in every way. It's hard to get people to save
for retirement. It's hard. I've worked for companies
that required it. If you're going to work here,
we're going to take money out of your retirement first, because
we don't trust you to do it. And probably a good thing, because
people are so short-sighted, they won't do that. Well, they're
certainly so short-sighted, they're not going to see Christ. They're
not going to seek him. That's why Johnny was willing
to bet the devil when the devil went down to Georgia looking
for a soul in steel. That's why Johnny was willing
to make that bet. That song's popular, because all of us are
so blind by nature, we think. It'll be worth that nine eternal
souls for a hunk of gold. That's exactly right. We can't
place a value on our souls. The value is just too high. The
cost to buy it, the cost to redeem it is just too high. Then what
must Christ the Savior be worth? If the value of your one soul
is so high You can't find anything that would be valuable enough
to redeem it. You're one soul. How valuable
must Christ the Savior be worth if by his one death, he redeemed
a number of souls no man can number? How precious must he
be? And you, therefore, which believe
him, he is preciousness. He is preciousness itself. What
must Christ be worth if the value of His blood could redeem all
those souls? What must He be worth? What must faith in Christ
be worth? What must trust in Christ be
worth if believing Him gives our souls eternal life? Eternal
life. What must it be worth? This is
one of the frustrations I know every preacher has. I know I
have it. I wish I could tell you better.
I wish I could find better words. The Spirit would enable me to
tell you more clearly the value of Christ, the beauty of Christ,
the glory of Christ. The Queen of the South said of
Solomon, the half has not been told. The smallest fraction of
Christ's worth hasn't been told, can't be told. So if you make
it your goal to get as much of this world's goods, as much of
this world's friendship and as much ease in this world as you
can get, more than likely you'll get it. More than likely you'll
get it. It's just astounding to me how
human beings can set a goal and accomplish it. I mean, it's just
astounding. But before long, you're going
to have to give it all up. Get it, get it, get it. Before
long, you're going to have to leave it all behind and leave
it to somebody else. But if you make it your goal
to know Christ, to win Him, to be found in Him, not having your
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
faith, the faith of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ to redeem
you, the faithfulness of Christ to do everything it took to save
you, and the faith that God gives to believe. If you make it your
goal to know Him, to give up, to deny yourself those things
that we talked about earlier, Anything that the flesh can earn, you'll find it. You will. The Lord said that. In the day
you seek me with all your heart, in the very day, you'll find
it. You seek Christ, you'll find
it. And you'll have rest for your souls. And you can't put
an earthly price on it. You just cannot put an earthly
price on it. That's faith's value. It's the
value of laying hold on Christ. All right, now thirdly, here's
face reward, 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. Here's another verse
false religion has taken and run the wrong way with. Now this
is a true statement. When Christ returns, there's
gonna be a judgment. He's gonna judge the world in
righteousness, and that means he's gonna give the righteous
judge is going to give every human being exactly what they
deserve. Exactly. Scripture plainly teaches
that there are degrees of hell, the degrees of punishment. Everybody
there is going to receive exactly what they deserve. The righteous
judge will give every unbeliever exactly what their sinful works
and what their unbelief deserves. Exactly. No more, no less. Everybody will have to admit
that's a righteous, just sentence. And the righteous judge will
give every believer exactly what they deserve to. That doesn't
mean you go do a bunch of good works, God will give you what
you deserve, and he'll give you a house on a better street in
heaven. That's not what that means. You know what the righteous judge
is going to give every believer? Exactly what they deserve. He's
going to give them exactly what Christ earned for them. He's
going to give them exactly what Christ's obedience deserves.
He's going to give them exactly what the precious blood of Christ
deserves. And it'll be a just sentence.
He doesn't give them something that has not been earned. They
didn't earn it. Christ earned it for them, but
he's going to give them exactly what Christ earned for them.
See, their works are Christ's works. Since they were in Christ,
had union with him, he's their head. Now look at verse 28. Verily I say unto you, that there
be some standing here which do not taste of death, Do they see
the Son of Man coming in His kingdom? There's a lot of misunderstanding
about this verse, and I hope I can clear it up quickly. Now,
you know good and well that the Lord's not saying here that some
of those disciples standing there, their bodies are not going to
die until the Lord returns. You know, there's nobody 2,100
years old walking around. You know that. You know, somebody
turns 105 in France, you know, somewhere they put it on the
news. You know, it's rare. Nobody's 2,100 years old. That's
not what the Lord is talking about here. He's talking about
the same subject He's been talking about. The salvation of His people. He can only here be talking about
His spiritual kingdom. He's not talking about the kingdom
that will be established in His second coming. He's talking about
right now. Coming after Christ right now. Denying yourself right
now. Believing Him right now. He's
talking about His spiritual kingdom. And here's what He's teaching
us. And this is our confidence. in preaching, none of God's elect,
none of them can possibly die until the Lord gives them faith
in Christ. Until he reveals himself to them and in them, it's utterly
impossible. Not only are we immortal until
the moment that the Lord calls us home, the Lord's already assigned
an exact moment every one of us is going to die. And we're
immortal till the end. Absolutely nothing can kill you
till the end. Absolutely nothing. Well, God's
people are immortal in this sense too. That before, until God sends
him a preacher and he reveals Christ to them from his word,
it's utterly impossible for them to die. It's impossible. It's
impossible. The father chose them. He's going
to have them. The Son died to redeem them.
He's gonna have them. The Holy Spirit will give them
life. He will. They must have that
life. Remember the Lord promised Simeon, that old man. He promised
him, you won't die until you see God's Christ. Until you see
Christ in his first coming. And he didn't, did he? He didn't.
Well, the same thing's true in this. That's just a picture to
us. None of God's elect can die until they see Christ by faith. And seeing Christ by faith is
a whole lot better than Simeon seeing that baby. I promise you
it is. Simeon's joy in seeing that baby
wasn't the joy in seeing a cute baby. I mean, somebody brings
a baby in, oh, just so cute. That's not what made Simeon happy.
You know what made him so overjoyed? Faith. He's holding God's salvation
in his hand. And his heart was thrilling.
His heart was thrilling. We're holding God's word in our
hands, in your lap is God's word. How thrilled should we be that
this declares God's salvation? Oh, thrilled, thrilled. And I know that the Lord's here. He is talking about his second
coming, but then he ties it to this, to him coming to his people
now. You're kind of using that as
a picture of him coming to his people now. Every appearance
of the Savior is glorious. every appearance. How glorious
is it for you to see him by faith now? How often have you drug
yourself in here? Just feeling down. Dumbing down,
trodden down by the world. You feel dry, you feel dead.
And God gives you a message and you leave so thrilled, so happy. Oh, you saw him by faith. It
just gives you the strength to keep going. How glorious is it
to see the Savior by faith now? You and I cannot imagine how
glorious it will be to see the Savior who loved us and gave
Himself for us, face to face. Getting a side of Him by faith
throws you. What will face to face be like,
huh? Too glorious for words. It'll
be rapture. That's faith for you. I hope
the Lord blesses that.