This message, titled, Following Jesus, from Luke chapter nine, verses 21 through 27, was preached at Winchester Reformed Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Kansas. For more information, visit us at winchesterrp.com. Well, brothers and sisters, if I can admit it this morning, as I come to this pulpit, I feel, perhaps what you might say in a very unique way, the burden of preaching. The 17th century Puritan Richard Baxter, in recounting his preaching ministry, once wrote these words that have become very popularly used by many preachers. Richard Baxter once wrote, I preached as though never to preach again, and I preached as a dying man. to dying men. And in a certain way, I feel that burden as especially heavy this morning because I am utterly convinced that the truth that is being preached this morning from the words of Jesus is a truth of eternal significance. It is not just a truth that is going to impact tomorrow morning when you wake up. But the truth that Jesus is conveying here and the one that if the Spirit is willing will be preached with faithfulness is a truth that will determine your eternity. That's what is at stake. That is what we aim at this morning as we come and gather around the Word of God. And what Jesus says here can really be summed up very succinctly. It can be summed up in this way, friends. There is a way for you to live your life where all your gain will be loss. And there is a way to live your life where all of your loss will be gain. And that is a big difference. And the determining factor of this monumental difference has to do with whether or not you follow Jesus. To follow Jesus means that at the end of all things, all your loss will be gained. But to not follow Jesus means that at the end of all things, whatever you may gain in this life will prove to be loss. Brothers and sisters, when we preach, And when we teach and when we talk and when we call men and women, young and old, everybody, when we call everyone and anyone to follow Jesus, we are not playing games. Christianity is not a game. What Jesus calls us to in each of our lives is not a game, but he is aiming for eternity. And that's what Jesus is doing here. As he instructs his disciples, as he comes in his life to the last year of his earthly ministry, and it is what Jesus says to each of us this morning. And Jesus defines for us with great plainness, with great clarity, what it means to follow him. And if the Spirit is willing this morning, I want to break that apart and I want to look from these words at three specifics for what it means to follow Christ. If you enjoy outlines, on the back of your bulletin there is an outline for where I hope to go this morning as we look at the specifics of what it means to follow Christ. I want to speak on three points. The foundation of following Christ, the demand of following Christ, and finally the outcome of following Christ. So I'm preaching to you this morning, the first thing that I want to call your attention to is the foundation. The foundation of following Christ. Look with me for just a moment there in the 23rd verse. There Luke writes, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Now let's pause there for a moment this morning. I assume that if I were to ask you the question, who is the me? Who's the me of verse 23? When we read from the hand of the inspired author, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, I assume this morning that it would almost come naturally to all of us. Well, of course we know who the me is. It's Jesus. I've got a red letter Bible and I can see that that word is printed in red. It's Jesus who is speaking. And that is true. Jesus is saying, if anybody would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. But this morning, as we come to think about this, I want us to go a little deeper than just a superficial understanding of that. Because you see, in this passage, as Luke writes it and as Luke records this, there is what you might call an internal flow. There's an internal flow that begins to inform us of the depth of that two-letter pronoun, me. And what do I mean by the internal flow? Well, if you go back for a moment to verse 18. In verse 18, now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him and he asked them, who do the crowd say that I am? And they begin to answer, don't they? We don't have time to break that apart this morning, but then Jesus puts it to them, doesn't he? And he says, well, I'm not interested at the end of the day in what the crowds think of me. And in a very personal way there in verse 20, then he said to them, but who do you say that I am? A fundamental question that all of us need to answer. And what does Luke tell us? Luke tells us there in the 20th verse, and Peter answered, the Christ of God. And for many of us who have grown up in the church, For many of us who are familiar with this, we are perhaps so familiar with it that we don't stop to think about the significance of what Peter says there. In the parallel account in the Gospel of Matthew, do you remember what Jesus says to Peter in that moment? Blessed are you, Peter. Why? Because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Perhaps for the very first time, In human history, Jesus is being confessed as the eternal Son of God. As true God of true God, as the ancient creed has taught us. The one who is true light of true light, who has come in the flesh. Who is the promised one. whom the prophets bore witness to, whom the law bore witness to, whom the Psalms bore witness to. This is, you are, Peter is saying, you are the Christ of God. You are the anointed one. You are the prophet, priest, and king. You are God who is over all and blessed all forever in the flesh. You are God incarnate. And perhaps for the first time in human history, Those words are uttered from the lips of a man, confessing Jesus to be who he is. But then you see the scene continues to unfold, doesn't it, in the 21st verse. And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one. A little strange, we don't have time to focus on that detail this morning. But then look in verse 22, saying, The son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised." Do you begin to sense the internal flow of what is going on here? Jesus says to them, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, you're the Christ of God. That's who you are. And now Jesus comes in the 22nd verse and he tells us, here's what that means. What does it mean to be the Christ of God? What does it mean? It means this. The son of man must suffer. The son of man must be rejected. The son of man must be killed. And the son of man must be raised on the third day. The emphasis of what Jesus says here, brothers and sisters, is on that four-letter word, must. Jesus is saying, Peter, you are right in who you confess me to be. You are right, I am the Christ of God. And it's as if Jesus is saying here in this moment to his disciples, and by the Spirit to you and I, you are right, I am the Christ of God, and here's what that means. And what it means is that I must, it is necessary, that I suffer, that I be rejected, that I be killed, and on the third day, that I would be raised from the grave. And Jesus is saying, and oh, that we would feel the force of that this morning, there is a divine necessity that these things happen. There's a divine necessity that I suffer, that I be rejected, that I be killed so that on the third day I can be raised again. If I can put it this way this morning, Jesus is simply saying, that's what it means to be Jesus. What does it mean to be the son of God? What does it mean to be the Christ of God? It means I have to die. And then we have verse 23. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And the me of verse 23 is what has just been revealed. The me of verse 23 is the Christ of God, the one who must suffer and die. And you see, friends, what Jesus is doing, if I can say it this way this morning, what Jesus is doing is he is telling us that the foundation of following Jesus is first and foremost found in fellowship with Jesus. Jesus is not merely the end goal of the life of discipleship. Jesus is the foundation. He's not merely the end goal. He is also the source. And Jesus is saying, here is a truth, and here's the truth that you need to understand. If you're going to follow me, you've got to follow me. You've got to follow who I am as revealed in the gospel, in that good and glorious news of my life for your life. of my condemnation for your pardon, of my being cast out that you might be accepted. Jesus is saying, here is the foundation of following me. I'm the foundation. It's me. And following me begins in fellowship with me. And brothers and sisters, what that means for us this morning is that the Christian life is not a self-help program. Go to your local bookstore and go to the self-help section and you will not find this. Because Christianity is not self-help. The Christian life is not one of five simple steps that you need to follow to achieve happiness. The Christian life Following Jesus is a life that is lived out of the fellowship with Christ by faith in who he is. In who he is and in what he has done. The life of following Jesus begins by fellowshipping with Jesus in his life and in his death, that we in him might attain the resurrection. This is what theologians call union with Christ. And the New Testament authors go to great lengths to plumb the depths of what it means to be united to Jesus Christ. And brothers and sisters, we don't have time for it this morning, but we will spend eternity coming to terms and an understanding of what it means to have fellowship with Christ in his life and in his death. But Jesus is saying, there's the foundation. There's where a life of following me begins. It begins in fellowship with me. If I can put it very plainly this morning, what Jesus has done actually tells you and I what we must become. And Christ grounds it all in his person and work. It's the first specific to a life that follows Christ is the foundation. Christ himself is the foundation. But the second specific of following Christ that I want you to see from these words is the demand. The demand. If you would allow me this morning to make an observation, I hope it doesn't come off as simply some kind of pessimistic criticism. But to make an observation that I think is an honest evaluation, and that observation is this, brothers and sisters, we live in a day and age. And we live in a cultural context. We live in a time of cheap Christianity. And what I mean by that is we have reduced Christianity and we have been deceived into thinking that what makes somebody a Christian is, for instance, well, I was born into a Christian family, so of course I'm a Christian. My mom and dad were Christians, so that just comes naturally to me. Some of us have been deceived into thinking that Christianity is a matter of, well, there was a time in my life when I raised my hand. Somebody asked me, do you believe in Jesus? I raised my hand, I'm a Christian. Some of us have come to think that being a Christian, the sum and the substance of it, is that we signed a card or we prayed a prayer, that we were able to answer yes to a few questions that somebody put before us and we were patted on the back and we were told, congratulations, you're a Christian. And I think it's generally true that we live in a day and age where we have so reduced Christianity that the result is we've got a cheap Christianity. And we've been deceived by this. And we've been bamboozled by it. And we've only been so to our great shame. We live in a day and age of cheap Christianity, where all the Christian life is, is a matter of words. We, I believe in Jesus, as if that's the end of the discussion. And you see, brothers and sisters, it's into that kind of idea of cheap Christianity that Jesus' words come. It's into that kind of cheap Christianity that costs nothing that the demand of Jesus comes. And Jesus defines for us what the demand of the Christian life is. And we need to remember that. It's Jesus who gets to determine what it means to follow him. It's Jesus who gets to set the demand for what it means to be his disciple. And into all of our notions of cheap Christianity, here's the words of Jesus. If anyone would come after me, Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. What does Jesus demand of you? He demands that you deny yourself and you take up your cross and you follow him daily. And when I say that this morning, I want you to know that that is inclusive of every single one of us. The demand that Jesus lays here is not a demand for men and not for women, it is for men and women. The demand that Jesus makes here is not for young people who stand on the threshold of their lives to the exclusion of elderly people who stand at the end of it. The demand that Jesus lays down here is for young and for old, for men and for women, for boy and for girl. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. And so I say that this morning because I don't want anyone here to be deceived into thinking this is great for the crowd around me. I hope they hear it. This is the demand that Jesus makes, if anyone would come after me. And what is the demand? Well, you see very plainly in the 23rd verse that the demand is personal. The demand is personal. Look at the way in which Jesus says this. If anyone would come after me, let him. It's in the singular. Let him deny himself. and take up His cross daily and follow Me." There is something profoundly individual about what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is saying here, you for yourself and you alone, here is the demand. If you want to follow me, you are the one who has to follow me. You are the one who has to deny yourself. You are the one who has to pick up your cross and follow me. And we need to remember this. This is not something your parents can do for you. Jesus does not say, if anyone would come after me, let his mom and dad pick up the cross and follow me. That's not what Jesus says. Your church cannot do this for you. Your pastor and your elders cannot do this for you. Your friends cannot do this for you. Your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your spouse, your fiance cannot do for you what Jesus says here. The demand is personal. And that's because the Christian life has to do with you and with Jesus. And so we need to feel, if I can say it this morning, without being accused, I think we have the liberty to inscribe our name in those words. Kyle, if you would come after me, then Kyle needs to deny Kyle and take up Kyle's cross to follow me. There is something profoundly personal in what Jesus says. And friends, to be blunt this morning, there will be countless multitudes in hell because they thought they could live off someone else's laurels. They thought that they could get by by riding the coattails of their parents or of their church or of their grandparents or of their heritage, their denomination, their friends, their spouse. But Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. So the demand is personal. The demand is also one of self-denial. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Friends, we need clarity this morning. Because I think sometimes when we think about self-denial, we simply think of it in terms of not doing something. You know, once in a great while in my life, I decide to go on a diet. And it's hard, because I love sugar. But I endure that diet. I'm going to forego. I'm going to deny myself. I'm not going to eat the chocolate that I want. And we tend to think in terms of self-denial in that way. I'm just denying myself. I don't get to do something that I want to do. And there's a tremendous danger, there's a tremendous danger in thinking of self-denial simply in those terms. Because that's not a biblical picture of self-denial. How can I illustrate that this morning? Imagine that I am going on a date with my wife this coming week. And as we get up in the morning, and we know that the date's coming in the evening, I say, you know what, honey, I'm gonna yield to you tonight. We went to a Marvel superhero movie on our last date, but now it's your turn to pick. I'm gonna deny myself, you tell me what you want to do, and I'll go along, I'll do anything that you wanna do on the date tonight. And imagine, and maybe it's not too far from reality, that my wife says, great, we're gonna go to an opera. I consider myself to have a very diverse musical interest. I have no interest in opera. It's not aesthetically pleasing to me in any way, shape, or form. It's close to torturous. But imagine I say, OK, well, you rule. I'll go to the opera with you. And imagine we get into the car. And all I do as I talk to my wife is say, you know, Really don't want to go to the opera, but I'm yielding to you. I'm denying myself. Imagine we get to our restaurant, and we order our food, and I strike up a conversation, and all I can say to her is, I don't want to go to this opera tonight, but I'm denying myself. Imagine that as we're sitting in the opera and the music is being sung, all I can do is sit there and think, you know what? I really, really don't want to be here, but look at the way I'm denying myself for the sake of, is that self-denial? Not a chance. That's morbid narcissism. That is self-centeredness of self-centeredness because everything is about me, myself, and I. I want, I want, I want, oh, but I'm going to deny myself. Friends, that's not the self-denial that Jesus is calling us to. As if it is sufficient for us to say, you know, I really want to do that, Jesus says I shouldn't. So I'm just going to deny myself. Oh, I really, really want to do it. I really long for that. That's what I want to be like. That's what I want to do. That's what I want to say. But I'm just not going to do it. It's not biblical self-denial. And how do we know? Because Jesus likens here the denying of self to taking up a cross. Let him deny himself and take up his cross. Friends, there is one thing that you knew about a person who was carrying a cross, and the one thing you knew about that person, they are as good as dead. You did not carry a Roman cross as one who was headed to the abundance of life. You carried the cross as one who was already dead. And Jesus says, there's the measurement of self denial. You've got to pick up the cross. You have got to regard yourself as a man, as a woman, as a boy, as a girl. Who's as good as dead. so that it is no longer about what you want. It's about what Jesus wants. And you don't live in this regret. Jesus wants this, but boy, do I want that. But to have that faith-wrought complacency, if I can say it that way, it's not a matter of what I want. It's all about what Jesus wants. To deny yourself is to say, you know what, it's not about my desires. It's about what Jesus desires. He is revealed by his spirit in the word. It's not about my pleasures. My life isn't about my pleasures. It's about what Jesus takes pleasure in. My life is not about my ambitions and my hopes and my dreams. But to deny myself is to say in a faith-wrought way, it is about the ambition of Jesus Christ. Self-denial, brothers and sisters, the self-denial that Jesus demands is a self-denial that says, it's not about my agenda. It's about Jesus' agenda. The self-denial that Jesus calls us to hear, that He demands from those who would follow Him, is to say again in a faith-wrought way, it's not about my definitions. How desperately we need in our own day and age to understand that it is not about my self-identification. It is not about my definitions for myself and for my life and for whatever else around me. It is about Jesus. It is about His agenda. It is about His will. It is about His pleasures. It is about what He delights in. It is about His definitions. True biblical gospel-oriented self-denial is to say in the deepest depths of our hearts, not my will, but yours be done. And if that means your will for me is a cross, then I will embrace it. With tear-stained cheeks, I will embrace it. Because it is not my will. It is yours. The Christian life is not about me, myself, and I. It's about Jesus. And Jesus says, if anyone would come after me. Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." The demand is personal, the demand is self-denial, and the demand is daily. It's a little detail that Luke adds. Both Matthew and Mark have, more or less speaking, the same scene But it's only Luke who says in verse 23, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Friends, do you hear what Jesus is demanding? Jesus is saying, you know what, the Christian life, following me is not something that is simply a one-time decision. It's not something that just happens in a definitive moment in my life. If I'm allowed to say it this morning, it's one of my, can I put it this way? It's one of my frustrations with so many Christian testimonies. We tend to want to live in the past. And we say, you know, there was a time 10, 15, 20 years ago that the Lord did a work in my life, and I'm all great, and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for the display of God's free and sovereign grace in the history of people, in my own history. The Christian life is not something that is lived in the past. It is something that is lived in the present. And Jesus says, here's the demand, here's what it means to follow me. You gotta deny yourself and pick up your cross daily. Tomorrow morning when you wake up and you put your feet on the ground, you've gotta make the decision to deny yourself to pick up your cross and follow Christ. And guess what? Tuesday morning, when you wake up and you put your feet on the ground, you need to deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow Christ. And Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning, and Friday morning, and Saturday morning, and next Lord's Day, this is the routine of our lives. Following Christ is not a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It's not a definitive act. But it is something that we do daily. That's the demand. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily. And follow me. That's the demand. The demand is personal. The demand is self-denial. And the demand is daily. And finally, in just a couple minutes this morning, I want to call your attention to the third specific of what it means to follow Christ. And that is, that is the outcome. The outcome of a life that follows Christ. And I want, friends, for you to feel the force of this this morning. Know that the Spirit would be willing that we would hear and sense the force of this. Jesus says in verse 24, for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of Him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." You know what one of the greatest tragedies of our lives is? That you and I live in the inconsequential. Friday night was a football game for our high school. They slaughtered their opponents. 58 to 0. And as a JCN charger, I'm very pleased with that. I'm very happy with that. But let me ask, what does a victory like that matter on Monday morning? What's a victory like that matter next week or a month from now? a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, 50 years from now, in eternity. What does a victory like that mean? To be blunt, it means absolutely nothing. It's of no consequence. It's fun, we're glad, I don't mean to diminish team spirit. But you see, the tremendous tragedy of so many of our lives is that in a thousand different ways, we live for the inconsequential. We live for the applause and the accolades of this world. We live for popularity and for reputation. We live for money and we live for success and we live for entertainment and we live for pleasure and we live for delight and we are trivializing our lives. And you see what Jesus is saying here is, here is something that is not trivial. Here is something that is not inconsequential. But here, brothers and sisters, the life of following Jesus is of the utmost consequence. Because here's what's at stake. Jesus says, if you don't follow, if you don't pick up your cross, and deny yourself, you forfeit yourself. But if you live this life as one who loses their life, you will find it. It's one of the tremendous paradoxes of the gospel, that life is actually found in losing it and that life cannot be found by trying to save it. And Jesus says, here is the tremendous consequence. Here is the outcome of a life that is lived without me. A life that is lived ashamed of me and my words. Jesus says, the outcome of such a life is that when the Son of Man comes, He will be ashamed of you. I don't even, I don't know and I don't want to imagine what that means to have Jesus Christ on the day of His glory and judgment to be utterly ashamed of those who did not follow Him. To be utterly ashamed of those whose only goal in this life was to accumulate to themselves wealth and pleasure and reputation and success and entertainment and family and safety and security and health. No other cares in this world. And Jesus says, when I come, I will be ashamed. But I want you to notice what Jesus says of those who do pick up their cross. In verse 24, for whoever would save his life will lose it. but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Brothers and sisters, Jesus is saying that you may live your life in such a way that by losing your life, you will actually save it. you will actually find it, that by losing your life, you will actually gain all things. Jesus is saying here, there is a loss that we can endure in this world. And it is a loss. It can be hard, it can be painful, it can be tremendously painful. To be one who denies yourself and picks up your cross to follow Jesus, that is not something that comes easy. And Jesus doesn't expect us to live life with this indifference. It's hard. He measures it as a loss. Whoever loses his life for my sake, but here's the game. You will save it. You will save it. Jesus is saying there is a way to live your life where despite everything that you lose, in the end you will gain. You may lose your family. You may lose your reputation. You may lose the pleasures and the delights and the entertainments of this world. You may lose all the power in this world. You may lose your physical life. but those who lose their life for my sake will save it. See what Jesus is simply saying, brothers and sisters, if we live this life and we cross the finish line, clinging to the cross of Jesus Christ, then whatever we lose in this life, we will gain in eternity. One of my favorite hymns, 10,000 times 10,000, this line, that when Christ comes again, oh joy for all our former woes, a thousand fold repaid. Jesus is saying a life that is lived in fellowship with him, following him daily, is a life that is not wasted. Whatever it costs in this world, it is a life that is not wasted. Let me close. This morning, some of you have heard the name Jim Elliott. Jim Elliott was a missionary. On January 8th, 1956, Jim Elliott and his friends landed on a beach to bring the gospel to the Akua people. And as most of you probably know, Jim Elliott and all of his friends were speared to death by the Akua people, killed for the sake of the gospel. Jim Elliott once famously said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliott was motivated in missions, to go to a people knowing that he risked his life, realizing it is not foolishness to give what you cannot keep, to gain what you cannot lose. But if I can say it this morning, Jim Elliott did not begin to die on that beach that day. But what makes that man's life so tremendous, and what makes the life of every follower of Christ so tremendous, is that that moment on January 8th, where he was speared to death, was the result of a thousand daily decisions to follow Christ. To say, I'm picking up my cross to follow Him, no matter the cost, I deny myself. And friends, that's what Jesus is calling us to. To end as we began, there is a way to live your life where all your gain in this world will be loss. And there is a way to live your life where all your loss in this world will be gain. And the determining factor of that monumental difference is whether or not you follow Jesus. And friends, he is worth it. He is worthy to be followed. He is worthy. Let's pray.