Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Did I do it? Hey, good morning, church man. What a joy to be together today. I am so glad you guys are here, and I am glad that I get to do this with you. We are continuing our series in Matthew that we're titling. Who is Jesus? And I am excited for this time together. We're zoning in on this question, guys, seriously, just because Jesus himself puts a lot of emphasis on it. We saw this last week as we stepped into this series. In our text that Jesus asks his followers, he says, hey, what do people say about me? Who do people think I am?
[00:00:45] It's kind of a weird thing to hear from Jesus. You're kind of like, come on, Jesus, aren't you kind of above the whole, like, how you looked world thing, right. I. But when you dig into it and when you begin to understand the overarching narrative of the scripture as a whole, it actually begins to make a ton of sense.
[00:01:05] It seems like a strange sort of thing for Jesus to care about. But Jesus, when he zones in and goes, no, no, no, not everyone. What do you think about me? It actually points to this really important thing about Christ. Beloved. The reality is, once you hear about Jesus, once you learn of Jesus, you must deal with him.
[00:01:30] You have to. You don't get to ignore that decision. Now, your decision can be to dismiss him.
[00:01:38] You can dismiss him as crazy or wrong or spiritually deluded, or even, like, nefarious. But the reality is, Jesus of Nazareth makes wild claims that affect our lives today, thousands of years later, in a different country. And each and every one of us need to decide what we think about Jesus and his claims. Because the truth is, if Christ is who he says he is, if he is who he claims to be, and that means something, guys.
[00:02:14] If Jesus is truly God, the creator of the universe, clothed in humanity, if he genuinely entered into our broken and cursed world to fix the problem of both evil, death and suffering, to make a way for us to be made whole, if that's true, then that truth is monumental.
[00:02:35] That truth is insane.
[00:02:38] Because the question of who Jesus is, it isn't just about Jesus. It's about you and about me. It's about how we live our lives. If he is who he says he is, that kind of requires us to make some changes in who we are, how we live our lives in this world. We're gonna be in Matthew 16 today. If you wanna go ahead and turn there, by the way, if you don't have a Bible with you today, they should be spread out over the room. Just look under the seats in front of you there around. We really believe in the importance of physical access to God's word here at Emmanuel. So if you're here today and you don't own a copy of the Bible, I'd strongly encourage you to snag one of those or talk to one of the pastors, and we'll get you a nicer one. But we're gonna be in Matthew 16 today, and we're gonna really see how Jesus begins to flesh out the reality of his claim to be the long promised messiah. Now, I'm going to freely confess what I'm about to do as cheeseball, but you just. I'm up here, so you kind of got to deal with it. My study this week, it kept bringing me back. Back to Obi Wan Kenobi's death scene in Star Wars. A New Hope. You know what I'm talking about? That's the first place you went mentally when I said Matthew 16, and that's fine. Listen, no controversial opinions on Star wars today. The last time I did that, I got more feedback on that sermon than any sermon I've ever preached in 15 years of ministry.
[00:04:02] But if you remember back the Star wars movie, the first one, it culminates in this really cool scene where Obi Wan Kenobi, the Jedi master, jumps into a lightsaber duel with the evil Darth Vader to distract him and allow the main characters, Luke Leihan, to escape. And, I mean, look, you don't have to like Sci-Fi you don't have to be a nerd for this scene to just be classic cinema, right? They're standing there in the space station the first time. It's like.
[00:04:33] And they're sitting there. It's just. I mean, it's classic, right? And there's this great line that Obi Wan says right at the end, I'm gonna put it on the screen. He says, I mean, I can't. I can't. Well, I have to. He says, if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can imagine.
[00:04:54] This is amazing scene, right? And right when he says that, he lowers his guard and just stands there, and he lets Darth Vader just slash him, and then he disappears.
[00:05:05] And if you don't know how the story progresses, if you're not a Star wars nerd, what you learn over the next couple of films is that Darth Vader is so consumed by hate and power that he can't imagine any purpose in dominating or winning a duel. But Obi Wan's sacrifice in that moment not only allows the others to escape, it allows Obi Wan to merge with the Force. Right. And for the rest of the films, he's there still giving guidance and wisdom to Luke as he develops into a Jedi knight. In that moment, in a new hope, it looks like Obi Wan lost. I mean, he literally gets killed and. No, you know the whole thing. But if you know the larger story, you know that Obi Wan actually won, right? His seeming defeat was actually a larger victory because it not only protected Luke and set him up for his own development.
[00:06:03] Lays the path that leads to Darth Vader himself being redeemed at the end of the story. Okay, I'll stop nerding out with you guys, but hopefully you see my point. And if not, believe me, I'm pretty sure you will by the time we get to the end of this text. Beloved, our main point today is pretty simple. It's this. Jesus is the victor.
[00:06:25] We're asking this question over each week in this series. Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? Jesus is the victor. He wins. And in him, our victory is assured.
[00:06:39] Jesus is the victory. He reigns. But his work and his kingdom, they don't look like victory. Through the lens of this world. By almost every earthly marker, Jesus life, his ministry, his work, and ultimately his kingdom look like nothing.
[00:06:58] By earthly standards, they look like complete and utter defeat. But just like Vader swiping Obi Wan, Christ's seeming defeat is actually his ultimate victory. It's his ultimate victory, and he has drawn us up into it with him. It's amazing. Beloved, in Christ, you are victorious even when your life is painful, even when your life, when your circumstances look like defeat. In Christ, you are victorious in the only battle that actually matters.
[00:07:36] In Christ, you have victory. Church. Pray with me. We're gonna jump into this text. Jesus, we ask that you would just speak to us this morning, Lord, be our disciple or open up the text to us, God, as we look at something that in our cultural moment, in our kind of unique expression in life, of seeking and following you, it just feels foreign, Lord. So, God, I pray that today you would give us fresh, clear eyes to see your word, to hear from you, to engage this hard truth, Lord, and to find real peace, real hope in your work accomplished on our behalf. We love you, Lord. We pray these things in your name. Amen. Okay, we're in Matthew 16. We're going to start in verse 21. We read this.
[00:08:23] From then on, Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests and scribes be killed and be raised on the third day. So our text is picking up in the middle of a narrative. Last week, if you guys remember, we began this chunk, but let me kind of remind us what happened. We're at this kind of definitive turning point in Jesus ministry. Jesus has, at this point, grown a major following, but also major opposition from lots of places. He's traveled north to one of the most northern regions of Palestine. And in this incredibly gentile region, he asked his followers what they thought about his identity. Right. That's where we ground this whole series. Who am I? Who do you think I am? And speaking for the twelve, Peter declared Jesus both Messiah and the son of God. And we saw in our text last week that Jesus, for the first time, just plainly accepts this title. Yes, you got it. You're right. I am Messiah. Jesus says that God himself revealed this truth to Peter, but then he strangely warns his followers not to tell anyone that he's the messiah. It's like you finally get the big reveal, and he goes, yep, you guys got it. Now, don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone. And this would have been so strange for them to hear, because you have to remember that the purpose of the Messiah and the jewish mindset was to save God's people.
[00:10:02] And in the first century, God's people were in sore need of saving. They were conquered by Rome and terribly mistreated. Sure, Jerusalem had been elevated to kind of this international city again, but the jewish people were subjects of Rome. They had no rights. They weren't even allowed citizenship. They needed help. So why does Jesus tell his followers to keep a lid on it?
[00:10:27] Well, our text kind of answers this for us. It opens up by saying that from this point on, Jesus began teaching the twelve something new.
[00:10:38] From this point to the rest of the story, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all agree on this massive fundamental change in Jesus teaching focus in this latter part of his ministry. They record Jesus reteaching the same truth multiple times as he makes his way south toward Jerusalem for the last time in his earthly ministry. And what is this new truth like? What is the thing he starts coming back to? Telling them over and over and over again that it's necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, suffer under the religious leaders, be killed, and rise again on the third day.
[00:11:18] Hey, just so you know, we're headed to Jerusalem. Yes, I'm the messiah. It's not going to go well.
[00:11:24] Here's the plan.
[00:11:26] We get there, I'll be betrayed, tortured, and killed, and then I'll resurrect three days later.
[00:11:33] That's crazy. But notice, guys, notice that Jesus says it is necessary.
[00:11:42] It's necessary. He didn't say, this is just what's going to happen. He didn't say, well, circumstances are such, and we have to roll with it. He says, this is necessary.
[00:11:53] And, guys, I know it feels like I'm zoning in on, like, a nuance here, but it's really important for us to remember Jesus messianic work was unexpected, but it is necessary work. If one understands the flow of the narrative of scripture, then Jesus suffering, his unjust death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension to heaven, these are the plan.
[00:12:18] God designed this story from the beginning. This is God's plan a. In fact, it's plan a through z for destroying the power of death, sin, and the curse.
[00:12:31] This is what he set up from the beginning. I tell my 7th graders, this, my Bible class I teach. It's really easy to forget this because we get this beautiful thing in this kind of single bound volume. But it's easy to forget that the Bible is a library of books, right? It's 66 different books written by different authors in different languages, in different times, in different places over the course of thousands of years.
[00:12:58] It's a diverse library of books. And I'm pretty sure for pretty much any of you guys, if I handed you a bookshelf with 66 different books on it, written in different languages by different authors over the course of thousands of years in different places, your baseline assumption would be these probably have nothing to do with each other, right?
[00:13:16] And yet, when you look at the Bible, in spite of that diversity of what makes up this library of books, there is an incredible unity of purpose and theme and story. In fact, there is a singular story that runs through the veins of the entire scripture. Genesis through revelation. It goes like this. If you were to put the story into its chapter titles, it would have five of them. It would go like this. Creation, sin, promise Jesus new creation.
[00:13:45] That is the story of the Bible, and that's the story of the Bible as it progresses. It starts at creation, it ends at new creation. But what you find is that the individual books of the Bible go back through that story over and over and over. In fact, I promise you this. You can open your Bible to any random page that is actually scripture, right? Like, not on the maps at the back, but you can open your Bible to any text, any text, and you can locate it within those five chapter headings. In fact, you can locate it probably within multiples of those five chapter headings.
[00:14:14] Is it declaring God as creator? Is it showing the reality of sin? Is it showing that God promises that he will fix what sin is broken? Is it revealing Christ in his amazing work? Or is it pointing toward the new creation?
[00:14:26] Every single text in all of scripture is caught up in that story because that is the story of the Bible. And beloved, Jesus is the climax of the narrative.
[00:14:40] He's the climax of the story. His work is not arbitrary.
[00:14:45] Jesus was not responding to the circumstances he saw. His work is specific. His work is chosen. His work was planned. And hear this, beloved. His work is necessary.
[00:14:59] Jesus is stepping into this part of the story with full knowledge of exactly what awaits him.
[00:15:08] There's no doubt in his mind.
[00:15:11] And yet he has full dedication to the task.
[00:15:16] And by the way, we're going to get there.
[00:15:19] But don't mishear me saying that, like, because Jesus is Jesus, like, this wasn't hard for him, right?
[00:15:26] Imagine having full knowledge of what Jesus has full knowledge of, that. I'm about to go into this city and the people who should recognize me, who should be proclaiming my gospel, are actually going to condemn me and work to betray me and my closest friends. Will either one of two options, betray me to them or abandon me to them, and I'll be left alone to be slowly tortured to death in public.
[00:15:50] And then God the Father himself will pour out the full wrath and weight of sin upon me.
[00:15:56] I'll experience the full cup of wrath, every drop, none left over.
[00:16:02] It's why Christ himself says, hey, God, can we do this a different way?
[00:16:08] That's Christ's prayer in the garden. This doesn't sound like something I want to do, but not my will, but your will. Christ has full knowledge of what his work, his ministry will be, and he has full dedication to the work.
[00:16:25] Beloved, is the gospel not amazing?
[00:16:28] What an amazing gospel, that Christ himself has been planning this work for all of eternity, that this was his plan to bring us into eternal, perfect union with him. You know, back in Matthew 13, Christ himself said this. And the author of Hebrews, it's such a good point. The author of Hebrews actually echoes it. But the Bible has been pointing to Jesus the entire time, that this work of Christ is not new. It's not a change or shift in the themes of the Bible. It's what it's been pointing to the whole time. In fact, Christ says the prophets, when God revealed to them his gospel truth, like the story of what he was doing, they longed to see the day of Jesus.
[00:17:13] The prophets longed to see the ministry of Jesus. They longed for it because Jesus work in Jerusalem is not a fluke. It's the plan, and it's necessary. Let's continue on in verse 22.
[00:17:26] Well, then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Oh, no, Lord. This will never happen to you. And Jesus turned and told Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me because you are not thinking about God's concerns, but human concerns.
[00:17:44] The twelve are horrified by this new teaching from Jesus.
[00:17:50] Jesus is the Messiah. This means he'll unify the religious leaders of Jerusalem. How could it be any other way? He has to unite Israel so they can overthrow Rome. Once the religious leaders, once they realize what they've missed, that Jesus is the true Messiah, surely they'll gather around his leadership, right? I mean, that's the expectation. So Peter, again, speaking for the twelve, speaks out.
[00:18:16] And by the way, who else could it be besides Peter, right? Like Jesus just told Peter, you're my rock, your faith, your leadership. They'll be pivotal to the church we're building to go attack the power of sin and death. Of course, it's Peter who speaks up. And yet the same Peter who had just spoken what God the father revealed to him now speaks for Satan.
[00:18:39] This is one of the strongest rebukes we ever hear jesus give anyone. And it comes right on the tail of him. Honoring Peter's faith. Right. I'm guessing that was a humbling moment for the dude. But it speaks this truth that's so important for us today.
[00:18:56] Peter, just like that, has gone from being a rock of faith to a satanic hindrance.
[00:19:05] And Jesus tells us exactly why. Because he stopped thinking about the concerns of God, and he has focused on human concerns.
[00:19:15] His focus, his desires, his heart, they've shifted from the kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world. Okay, wow.
[00:19:23] Can we talk about that for a second?
[00:19:26] Because can we just, like, can we be honest how easy it is to shift the focus of our hearts from eternal things to the petty things of this world?
[00:19:39] Right? Like, it's very easy, very easy to see Peter's foolishness in this text. But we're all Peter. We all do that. We all shift our hearts from the eternal things to the things of this world. And notice, notice, by the way, that Peter, Jesus doesn't say Peter is focused on bad things or evil things. He's focused on human things, earthly things. I mean, remember back to Satan's temptation of Jesus. You remember the story when Jesus, right before the beginning of his ministry. He's off in the wilderness and Satan tempts him. You remember this. Satan doesn't tempt Jesus with, like, these blatantly, like, mustachioed villain, evil things, right? He doesn't, like, appear in a black cloak and go like, yes, let the hate flow through you. Sorry, another Star wars reference. I couldn't get away from it.
[00:20:34] He wasn't tempting Jesus to murder or destroy. No. Satan tempted Jesus with good things in the wrong place.
[00:20:42] He tempted him to eat a meal and take care of his body. He tempted him to take authority over all the people of the world. He tempted him to guide the religious leaders into piety. Good things.
[00:20:54] Good things that the father had planned differently from eternity past.
[00:21:00] Right?
[00:21:02] How easy is it to do the exact same thing in our own hearts?
[00:21:07] To over focus on wonderful and good things, but to do so in either the wrong context or at the expense of our focus on eternal things?
[00:21:18] We're lonely and so we demand community and connection. Who's reaching out to me? Who's taking care of me? Hey, listen, community and connection are wonderful and you should have them, by the way, but they're best found by seeking the kingdom and finding your community. In the shared journey of seeking Christ, you want a companion and a family. So we hyper focus on relationships. Above all, we make dating, we make our spouse, we make our kids the center of our universe, and we forsake the work of the kingdom for them. But beloved, beloved, your heart will find its deepest love and companionship in Christ himself.
[00:21:58] And if you are married or you have kids, guess what? Your spouse will find more companionship and more life in Christ than in you.
[00:22:08] Your children will find more love and wisdom and protection and guidance in Christ. Christ than they will in you guys.
[00:22:19] How easy is it, man, to just build for them accomplishments in sports and school and careers and to build this path and to put that above all else, when really, like, the best thing to build for them is a way toward Christ.
[00:22:37] Companionship, connection with him. I could go on, could talk about our relationship with money, our relationship with our schedule, our obsession with health or appearance or bodies, our anxiety. There is so much to living life in this world. It's complex. Our lives are complex. And it's easy. It's easy to lose track of eternal things in light of all the temporal things that demand your attention day by day and minute by minute.
[00:23:06] It's easy to do so.
[00:23:10] So, beloved, it's a really good question for us today when we look at Peter. Are you keeping track of your concerns.
[00:23:18] Are you keeping track of them? Who has your heart?
[00:23:24] Does this life in this world these few years, these few months? Do they have your heart and attention today? Or does the kingdom of Jesus?
[00:23:32] Because as we see in our text today, unfortunately, they are irreconcilable.
[00:23:41] You can't do both. You can't focus on this world, even the good things of this world, at the expense of the heart given to the kingdom. To do so, to do that is to speak in the accent of hell.
[00:23:58] That's what Christ says. Doesn't say it like that. But you get what I'm saying.
[00:24:04] You can't do both.
[00:24:06] And guys, don't mishear me. I'm not saying you shouldn't love your family and work hard at your job and take care of your body and take care of your schedule. Those are good things that should get a chunk of your attention. They're just not the main thing.
[00:24:24] They have a place in your life, an important place in your life. But, beloved, Jesus is life.
[00:24:35] The gospel is the lens through which you understand those other facets of your life.
[00:24:40] It's not a thing you put into the slots alongside them. Read on with me in verse 24.
[00:24:48] Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life because of me will find it. For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world and yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? For the son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then he will reward each according to what he has done. Truly, I tell you, there are some standing here today who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.
[00:25:23] Jesus goes hard in this text, right?
[00:25:26] Peter, you missed me. You know I am Messiah.
[00:25:32] But as I tell you what that all means, you miss it.
[00:25:36] And you missed him because they're, they missed him because their hearts were stuck here on earth.
[00:25:41] And so jesus gives them an attention adjustment, right? Listen, if you want to follow me, that won't work.
[00:25:51] That whole thing you just did, that earthly minded thing. If you want to follow me, that won't work. You can't be so earthly minded and follow me. It is incompatible. If you want to follow me, pick up your cross and follow me. Now. We got to stop here for a second because modern christians, myself included, we so miss the weightiness of this statement. And here's the reason why in our experience, the cross is a religious symbol.
[00:26:22] It's in here somewhere.
[00:26:25] It's a religious symbol for pretty much all of us, our entire lives. When we see crosses, the immediate and mental emotional connection we make is spirituality, religion, faith.
[00:26:36] It's a beautiful thing. And sometimes we think about, like, the discontinuity of that, that, you know, Jesus died on a cross. But at the end of the day, that immediate subconscious reaction to cross imagery is faith. Right? Like, that's how we function. We put them in our churches, we wear them on our necks. It represents Christ, represents love, it represents peace, salvation. We even use phrases like, well, you know, I mean, that's just my cross to bear. And when we say that, what we usually mean is here's this hard but beautiful thing I get to do, right?
[00:27:08] But you have to remember that at this point, the cross had zero religious connotation, zero spiritual imagery connected to the cross. It was Rome's symbol of its absolute brutal power.
[00:27:25] Crucifixion in the first century was a public, horrific, theatrical execution that was designed to be so loudly abominable that it terrified people into subjugation.
[00:27:39] That was the point of the cross, to murder someone in such a horrible, long, agonizing, loud, public way that you wouldn't mess with anyone who had the ability to do that.
[00:27:52] Rome reserved this punishment for anyone whose crime was such that it challenged Rome's authority. So you live in Jerusalem. When you steal from a store, probably a fine, maybe some prison time if it was real bad. Maybe you get like a finger or a hand cut off. But you steal from the roman tax collector.
[00:28:10] You're beaten with whips until your ribs and organs are exposed, and then you're nailed to a wooden post and left outside the city gate for days until you slowly suffocate in your own blood.
[00:28:21] Sorry.
[00:28:24] In Jesus day, the cross had one meaning, and the meaning was this, don't mess with Rome.
[00:28:29] Don't mess with Rome.
[00:28:31] And here Jesus says, you want to follow me?
[00:28:36] You want to be on Team Messiah? You want to do that? Cool. Grab a cross.
[00:28:44] You want to follow me? You will be following me to my death. And your death.
[00:28:50] The work of Jesus is to be betrayed, tortured, and murdered, and it is necessary work. This is where he's headed. And he looks at the twelve and he invites them to join him in that work.
[00:29:06] Talk about a sales pitch for Christianity.
[00:29:11] This is not what you do with the cold. Call doorknock. Right. Hey, have you ever been talking about our Lord Jesus Christ? Yeah. Cool. Thought about dying recently, because Jesus takes it a step further as he goes on with this challenge to them.
[00:29:27] If you want real life, a life worth living, you must give up the life you have.
[00:29:33] In fact, if you try and preserve the life you have, you will miss out on the life worth living. The life that I'm offering you. You don't get both.
[00:29:43] You do not get both. Jesus says, if you want the life I'm offering, you lose the life you have, period. And then he pushes even harder. He says, what good? Why would you want that? What good could this world possibly have that would be better than the life that I'm offering you?
[00:30:03] What would it do for you to get everything this world has and then miss out on the life I'm offering you? Is that what you want?
[00:30:11] It reminds me of this. I shouldn't keep referencing movies, but any of you guys watch the original Matrix back in the day? You know what I'm talking about? It's about these people, like, stuck inside a computer simulation and they get out, and when they get out, the real world's awful.
[00:30:27] And there's this one guy who betrays him back to the bad guys. And the deal he makes with the bad guys is this. He just goes, I just want you to put me back in. I hate how hard life is out here. Just put me back in. And there's this scene where he's gone back into the computer world and he's meeting with the bad guys and they're at this steakhouse and he's eating this big old steak and he just goes, you know, I know this isn't real, but I just don't care.
[00:30:51] I just want to live my life like this. Yeah, I'll betray all my friends to you if you just plug me back into the computer. It's nuts. Because he'd rather be comfortable in the matrix than suffer in real life. Right?
[00:31:07] Jesus says what this world has to offer us, all the comfort, all the success, all the pleasure, all the pursuits, the best this world has to offer us. It does not mean anything if it keeps you from the real eternal life you are made for.
[00:31:28] There's no way to compare it. It's like stake in a computer game. It's nothing.
[00:31:35] It's nothing.
[00:31:37] And then he says, why?
[00:31:41] He says that his coming betrayal and death are not the actual end of the story.
[00:31:48] You see this as it goes on?
[00:31:51] Yeah. I'm going to go there and I'm going to be betrayed and I'm going to be killed. But that's not how the story ends.
[00:31:57] See, one day Jesus will return. And this time when he returns, his messiahship, his kingship, his deity, they won't be veiled. He will return as king and judge. Paul sums it up beautifully in Philippians two, in the Christ hymn. I'm going to read this to you in totality because it puts it all together for us. This is in Philippians two. It says, christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And for this reason, because of the work jesus did on our behalf, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the very name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, everything in reality will submit to the kingship of Christ when he returns as the triumphant king. And every single tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. Whoo.
[00:33:10] Now, before you, let that take you to this place of going, oh, it's fine then, because in the end, everyone will express Christ as Lord. Here's the problem.
[00:33:18] Yes.
[00:33:19] Every, every single person, every mind, every creature, every facet of creation will bow its knee before Christ and confess his lordship when he returns. But you need to know, some will do that in celebration, and some will do that in subjugation.
[00:33:41] Some will do that because they've been awaiting the moment when their king returns. Some will do that because they have no choice, because the power and authority of Christ has overwhelmed them.
[00:33:54] That's intense.
[00:33:57] Jesus the king, Jesus the ultimate judge. When he comes back, everything on earth, everything in reality, everything throughout time and space and history will submit to his authority.
[00:34:13] And Christ says there will be a reckoning, and all good and all evil will stand before his judgment. Whoo.
[00:34:24] Who would trade some stake in the matrix, some pleasures on earth for the eternity of freedom and life that Christ has for his elect?
[00:34:37] That is a terrible trade, beloved. It is one not worth making.
[00:34:43] And, guys, remember, like, we're practicing our faith in a time and a place, in a culture where taking up your cross and following Jesus will almost certainly always be figurative, right? Like, it's just incredibly unlikely that you'll be asked to give your literal, physical life for the sake of the gospel in the United States.
[00:35:05] To be completely honest, as much as this is a wonderful privilege, the privileged status of religious practice in our country is an amazing thing. It's a thing worth protecting.
[00:35:16] It also creates problems for us american Christians because it's so much easier for us to slip into fleshly, earthly, mediocre practice of our faith.
[00:35:31] It's so easy for us to go to church on convenient Sundays and to follow some inspirational accounts on social media and to decorate our house with some stuff from hobby lobby that has Bible verses on it. But to never actually do the hard work of killing our flesh and repenting of our sin and walking in holiness and discipling our brothers and sisters and proclaiming the gospel to the lost world all around us that desperately needs it.
[00:36:04] It is so easy to ignore those things.
[00:36:09] Guys, we can do this in our time and place because following Christ doesn't threaten our lives, but to be bold for him, well, that can make our lives inconvenient, that can create some hiccups and our plan toward a great career, an awesome family and a paid off house and a good retirement.
[00:36:29] But beloved, we have to remember, as great of a time and a place in a culture we live in.
[00:36:36] As privileged as it is to get to live the lives and the life of faith we get to live, it is nothing in comparison to the kingdom of God. It is nothing.
[00:36:48] There is nothing your life has to offer you now that makes it worth it to miss out on God's call on you today.
[00:36:57] There's nothing this world has that is so good that makes it worth it to miss out on Jesus.
[00:37:05] Because here's the piece guys, this is where it all comes together. Remember, this series is all about answering Jesus question. Who is hedgest? From the outside, looking in from an earthly perspective, the work of the Messiah looks like suffering, pain, death and defeat. It looks like a roman cross. It looks like a loser.
[00:37:27] Jesus is not defeated.
[00:37:30] Jesus is the victor. Jesus is the king. His death is not defeat. His death is his plan, it is his purpose, it is his glory and in it is his victory.
[00:37:43] And when he returns, it will be as victor, as judge, as king. And you and I, beloved, we don't want to be on the wrong side of that.
[00:37:55] It's not worth it. There's nothing worth that.
[00:38:00] And so our text ends with this strange verse that's confused countless followers of Jesus. Some of you still be alive when I come into my kingdom.
[00:38:07] And it's so easy to read that, like Jesus is talking about his triumphant return, right? Which makes no sense because he died in rode 2000 years ago and he hasn't come back yet. And everyone who heard him say, that's long dead, right? And so you're kind of like, well, either he got that one wrong or it means something else. But I think the answer here is actually very simple.
[00:38:27] What he's saying is we don't have to wait for his return and judgment to be validated in his victory.
[00:38:36] We as his followers now, we don't have to wait until he comes back to be validated in his victory. In fact, in the very next text, Jesus reveals his true divinity to three of the men standing there. In that moment, Jesus will show his power, his authority, his victory in many ways to his followers before the final judgment. What Jesus is saying here, beloved, and how we're landing today is this. Jesus is the victor. And you can trust that even though the victory is still ongoing, you can trust that Jesus is the victor, and his victor secures your victory band. If you want to come back up.
[00:39:22] In Colossians one, Paul says this to us, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints that God wanted to make known among the gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And so we proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone of all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
[00:39:47] I labored for this striving with his strength that works powerfully in me. What we see, guys, is that the kingdom of God is a mystery. Strange. It's upside down. It makes no earthly sense. It's foolish. To those who judge by earthly standards, Jesus wins. By losing, Jesus makes the least, the most and the last the first.
[00:40:13] In following Christ, you gain life through death. It's weird. It's mysterious. It's upside down. But, beloved, it is life.
[00:40:23] It is Christ in you. It's his work accomplished for you. That is where life is found. That is where victory is found. It's worth trusting him. It's worth seeking him. It's the only life worth living.
[00:40:36] So I want to encourage you guys to take a few minutes in prayer and response.
[00:40:41] We did this last week. I asked you guys to think through who are the lost people in your life that you can be praying for? And I asked you guys to pick one or two names and to write them down and put them in your Bible so that you can actually spend time praying for them. Every time you open your Bible. I don't know about you, but that's actually been really good for my heart this week.
[00:41:00] Every single time, see those names and just stop and go, Lord, I want you to save me. Please, Lord, move in my kid's life, move in my neighbor's life, move in my friend's life.
[00:41:11] So really good for my heart.
[00:41:14] I want to encourage you to take a few minutes to consider your own life.
[00:41:20] Right. Think about what we said earlier.
[00:41:23] Where's your perspective? Who has it? What are you dwelling?
[00:41:28] Things of this earth, things of the kingdom.
[00:41:31] I want to encourage you to think about that name. Think about those one or two people. Say a prayer for them.
[00:41:38] And I'd even encourage you guys, a next step, if you've been praying for that person for a week, is this. And we put invite cards in the back of the room on the table there. And what a great week or two over these next few weeks to actually think about inviting that person to come to church with you, just boldly asking them to come and sit and worship with you and hear the gospel.
[00:42:01] Because, guys, the kingdom of God is weird. It's mysterious, it makes no earthly sense, but man, it's the only thing worth living for.
[00:42:11] There's this song we sing sometimes that I really love, and I want to just read a line to it from us. It goes like this.
[00:42:19] It's a couple lines, but I want to end with the line that we can pray on.
[00:42:23] I once was lost in darkest night.
[00:42:26] I thought I knew the way. The sin that promised joy and life had led me to the grave. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will. If you'd not loved me first, I would have refused.
[00:42:40] But as I ran my hellbound race indifferent to the cost, you looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross and behold God's love displayed. You suffered in my place. You bore the wrath reserved for me and now all I know is grace. And the song goes like this when it gets in the chorus. Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life, beloved, that is the truth for us today. All I have is Christ.
[00:43:12] Jesus is our life, beloved, let us sit in this truth, let us rest. Let us meet with God and do the work we need to do.
