A Glimpse Into the Future
The Challenge of True Discipleship
Matthew 16:21-17:13
Harry Stoliker
September 20, 2009 EBC
Listen
You've heard the phrase: "Get the big picture!" Or the phrase
"Don't lose the forest for the trees." Phrases like these tell us to make
sure we have the whole story, a comprehensive view, a
full understanding of all the details. Don't get lost on one small
part of the story and miss the main storyline. This is
what's going on here in our text today and it's very encouraging.
I. The Main Storyline
A. Jesus mixes the main storyline of His life in with what must happen
to Him in Jerusalem. The main story line is this: Matt. 16:27 "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." The Son of
Man will reign forever over His own Kingdom in the glory of His
Father after He rises from the dead, ascends to heaven
and then returns in power with His powerful angels to judge all
men!
B. If we are thinking about this glorious storyline about the kingly
majesty of Jesus Christ, then we have in mind the things of God
and not the things of men, like Peter did in V.23. Peter
didn't accept or realize that the Cross had to precede
the glory of Jesus return. He rebukes Jesus for saying that Messiah had to suffer.
(This is the same Gk. word as the one used when Jesus 'rebukes'
the winds and waves and demons earlier in Mt.) Suffering has to
come before glory. He got lost among the trees and couldn't
see the entire forest. His window got too small and he couldn't see
the panoramic view of God's great plan of salvation. Human thoughts
always come up short of glimpsing into the coming future glory. So,
Jesus tells Peter to get behind him, stop blocking the way to the
cross with your human thinking.
C. So, Jesus here is painting a full picture of His mission for His
disciples. They however had a very difficult time seeing the ultimate
outcome. They focused on the death and seemed oblivious to the glorious
glimpse of the future that Jesus wove into his explanation. Look at
V.21 "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." Jesus is speaking with a
new and definitive clarity to his men. He is more open
about the absolute necessity of His upcoming crucifixion in Jerusalem.
He was so clear that the prospect startled and probably frightened
Peter into saying something very foolish about trying to prevent
the pain and bring in the glory before the suffering.
D. Jesus knew however that the Scriptures had to be fulfilled. He knew
well that Messiah's
death was predicted in Ps. 22; Ps. 69; Isa. 52-53; Zech. 9-14. It was an
inevitable reality that the disciples needed to deal with. Yet, in the sadness and
fear of such a prediction, Jesus gives them hope by speaking of the BIG PICTURE.
E. His death is not the end of the story! He says: "and that on the
3rd day be raised to life" in V.22. In Mt. there are 3
predictions of Jesus crucifixion and each is followed by the promise of His resurrection
(17:22-23; 20:18-19). Again, look at 17:9. He also says that those
who lose their lives in following Him will in the end gain them
(V.25). And that the Son of Man who is killed will come again
in His Father's glory! (V.27). These are the divine paradoxes of encouragement
for true believers.
II. The Challenge of True Discipleship
A. Now the scene shifts from the concern for Jesus' future
to the issue of the disciples' future. V.24-25 "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." Here's the point staring us in the
face in these verses: "Those who follow Jesus must expect to share His
fate." Don't miss applying this point to your
own life. "Then Jesus said to His disciples…" Sometimes we may water down
these striking words of Jesus to mean that if I am a Christian then
I have to practice some form of self-denial like giving
up chocolate mousse cake because I'm putting on some pounds. It's more
serious than that.
B. Listen to R.T. France: "These words are about literal death,
following the condemned man on his way to the execution. Discipleship is a life
of at least potential martyrdom. It may be legitimate to extrapolate
from this principle to a more general demand for disciples to put
loyalty to Jesus before their own interests and comfort, but that can be only
a secondary application of the passage. Jesus did expect
at least some of his disciples to be killed because of their loyalty
to his cause, as indeed they were. Matt. 23:34 "Therefore I send you
prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some
you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town." Such
a demand makes sense only in the context of a firm expectation
of life beyond death."
C. V.24 Jesus gives 3 aspects of biblical discipleship: deny
self, take up his cross, follow me. To deny
self is to disassociate yourself from someone or something.
Peter denied Christ at one point. Here it means that a true disciple
will be willing to disassociate himself from his own impulse of self-preservation.
He will risk his own life and put loyalty to Jesus above
self-preservation. It means to deny yourself an absolute right to live!
Isn't that what Jesus did? Mt. 10:24-25"It is enough for the disciple
to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the
master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household."
This doesn't always mean that you put yourself in a life-threatening
situation so that you become a martyr. But it certainly means that
martyrdom is a possibility that shouldn't be eliminated.
D. Denying self is also very practical even when we
are in safe America. It should include fearless witnessing
to anyone God puts in our pathway. It includes anything that calls on you to sacrifice
who you are and what you have. A perfect example is the team that
went out to WATTS. Glen and Sharon live there with the staff of
World Impact. They face risk daily. The team from EBC embraced some
very real risks in trying to minister the gospel to poor people in
LA. Our own Todd and Laura Zimmerman embraced many very real risks
when they went to India to reach out to Muslims. These people sacrifice a degree
of safety, a degree of comfort, a degree of rest, ease,
and security for the sake of the gospel. Some believers never go
near such risks! I can't see how you can be a true disciple of Jesus
Christ if you know nothing about taking a certain degree
of risk for the sake of the gospel.
F. "Take up your cross" – it is hard to miss that this
calls for me to deliberately impale myself to my cross! Jews in
1st century Palestine would know that condemned men carried
their own crosses. This is another way of impressing my heart
with a real death to self. A cross was an unmistakable sign of death.
There is a sense of deep union with Christ here. We experience to
some degree what He experienced. That is what the Spirit wants us
to feel. Martin Luther said: "Christ is a bloody partnership for us."
Commentator John Legg says it clearly: "We must be ready to sacrifice
anything in order to live as Christ's disciples, whatever the cost
may be. This is a deliberate choice, not just an inevitable consequence,
for those who believe in Christ. Similarly, taking up our cross means
deliberately following Christ, knowing that this may, almost certainly will,
involve us in suffering persecution for Him."
G. I think we have to keep pressing this for more and more practical application.
What does this mean in your life? It has to mean something more
serious than giving up chocolate mousse for a month. That's little league
stuff and we need to get to the major leagues. We
need to learn to sacrifice our predominantly selfish habits. We must
learn to concretely show sacrificial love to our spouses.
We must graciously give up the strangle hold we have on our own
preferences and desires in our dealings with other people.
The rubber has to hit the road in very practical ways. If it isn't
hitting the road in these things, you'll never endure real persecution
should it ever come.
H. 1 Peter 2:21 "For to this you have been called, (not invited!)
because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might
follow in his steps."
III. The Reward for Being Christ's Disciple
A. 16:25-27 "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will
it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall
a man give in return for his life? 27 For the Son of Man is going
to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each
person according to what he has done." If a man deliberately tries to
keep his life for himself, tries to protect himself
from all risk, tries to save his life for his own desires; he will
lose everything, including the eternal joys of heaven
and eternal life with Jesus Christ. One the other hand, if man will
lose his life for Jesus' sake, give his life up to the glory of
God, embrace risk in order to expand the Kingdom
of God, and trust God if he has to even face physical death
as a Christian martyr, then he will gain eternal life forever in heaven
with Jesus Christ.
I looked for a good example of someone who lived this out and came
up with this: A Max McLean narration of Martin Luther's "Here I Stand"
speech that launched the Protestant Reformation. This is utterly fantastic
and deeply moving! Martin Luther, in the late afternoon of April 18, 1521,
in the city of Worms, Germany, as a 37 year old Catholic monk stood
before Charles the Fifth, the Holy Roman Emperor at the imperial assembly.
The Catholic Church was charging him with heresy as he challenged
the authority of the Pope and the Church. He risked his life
by standing by the truth of what he had written in his books. The speech became
know as the "Here I Stand" speech and marked a critical turning
point in Christian history. Please get a copy and listen to it!
B. Self-preservation at all cost = self-destruction; self-sacrifice
for the good of Christ and His Kingdom = eternal preservation by God.
This is the compelling motivation for biblical discipleship in this
text. You get true life and eternal life by letting go of temporary life.
C. V.26 is the "Do the Math" verse. A man can be ridiculously
rich and go to hell – or – gain eternal life by loving Christ more than
anything. A human soul is worth more than all the money in the entire
world. Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would
only worship him. Jesus understood divine economics, souls above
kingdoms. Souls trump kingdoms. The only thing that makes sense
it to embrace God's value system.
D. I have in my hand a real 10 Billion dollar bill! It came from
Zimbabwe. It was printed by the reserve bank of Zimbabwe.
It is worth absolutely nothing today. It certainly isn't worth what
a human soul is worth in God's eyes! Even if this note
was worth what it says it is worth, it still wouldn't compare to the
inestimable value of a human soul. It's worth more than a billion
dollars for sure!
E. The greatest reward for giving your entire life to work of Christ's
kingdom rather than squandering and wasting on trying to preserve yourself
is that when Jesus returns you will see Him and received His good
Word of commendation and acceptance! Eternity with Christ
is the main storyline of the world!
APPLICATION: Let's be humbled as we look at this demanding
challenge from our Lord Jesus. Surely you can feel how impossible it is
for the flesh to die to itself. You know how hard it is for us to
take any real risk to do something for Christ's kingdom. This has
to humble us and make us cling to the promises in Scripture
that Christ will give us strength to live courageously
for Him. Cling to these promises and go out and bravely live for Jesus
the coming King.
Let's pray,
H.