As You Go – Part 2 – Count the Cost
Scripture:
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 man.’ 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.” (Matthew 16:21-28)
Church – this morning what Christ lays out for us is what we need to do if we want to take intentional steps in our walk with him.
Reject Comfort Christianity:
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.
- The text opens up here kind of in the middle of a thought. So I will give you a quick context. This is towards the middle of Jesus’ ministry. and to be honest, at this point it’s been full of highlights.
- In fact, in the passage just before the one we are in this morning – Jesus asks his disciples – “Who do the people say that I am?”
- and the disciples respond and say “well rabbi – alot of people think that you are John the Baptist, or Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets come back from the dead.
- But then Jesus turns the question toward them. He asks “who do you say that I am?”
- and peter steps right up. As he always did. Peter always had something to say even if that was foot into mouth. But he says “you are the Christ. You are the son of the living God.”
- And Jesus praises him here. look at your text here in Matthew 16:17-18, he says, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. 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.”
but now in the next passage Jesus has switched the topics. He talks to his disciples that victory is not this smooth ascending slope where we just stay comfortable. But that the road ahead is difficult.
- specifically as the passage we read above – He says in the coming days – It’s God’s will that I am going to suffer – I’m gonna die – then I will be raised from the dead.
- look at Peter’s response.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’
- But Jesus responds to him – take a look at what he says in verse 23 (SLIDE 15)
“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 man.'”
Peter had a picture in his mind of how everything was going to happen. In his mind – Jesus wasn’t going to die for sin and be resurrected –
- in his mind – Jesus was going to be a conquering King – He was gonna come in and wipe out the Romans, establish the kingdom of heaven – make Peter’s life easier
- There was no cross in Peter’s expectations – he just saw the crown.
Jesus calls it out – he says – you aren’t saying what you are saying because you are looking at life through God’s perspective through what he says is good
- he says you’re holding to what you think is good and how things should go.
- Peter is clinging to his preferences of how he thinks things should go.
- And that brings us to the second thing we need to do if we’re going to take intentional steps in our walk with Christ. once we turn from comfort christianity we must
- Count the Cost:
Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (vs. 24)
Jesus says that if you want to follow me – He says we must deny ourselves and pick up crosses and follow him.
- or in other words – Just as I am committed to obeying my Father’s will, even when that means going to the cross, you must be willing to surrender your will and follow me, too.
- I think there’s two major aspects of what Jesus is saying here and what it means for us to count the cost.
each of us must surrender the authority over your life.
we must choose choose obedience over comfort.
the last component in actually taking these next steps AS WE GO in our christian walk is not only rejecting comfort christianity and counting the cost – but it’s actually
Choose True Life
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.”
- Jesus turns how we often view our life on its head. So many of us view that the way to gain the life we’ve always wanted is by grasping after things and holding them tight.
And we just think that in order to get the life we want we have to amass all of these things and clutch them tight.
but those that lay down their life – surrender their life – find true life.
- What’s he saying? He is saying that true life is not found by grasping tight to the things of the world or your comfort or your plans – but it is found in belonging to the one who made you.
I love what Paul says in Galatians about this
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but 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.” (Gal. 2:20)
Jesus isn’t asking us to lay down our lives for someone who is unwilling to lay down his own.
- When Jesus says for us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him – we are talking about the same Jesus that carried the cross for our sin. And bore OUR shame and sin – and pulverized it on the cross – so that we could be forgiven and reconciled back to God.
which means we aren’t carrying our cross in order to be loved by God – as if it proves somehow that we are worthy of his forgiveness
- he can respond to him because Jesus already went. He purchased new life.
and now he says walk in it.
- Pick up your identity in Christ.
- Lay hold of the forgiveness that he has purchased for you.
- Trust in his plan, even when you don’t understand it in the moment.
- And then take the next step.