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Well, if you have your Bibles
this morning, turn with me to Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9, and
we are going to read verses 23 through 27 this morning as we
continue to make our way through the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter
9, I've entitled this message, The Cost of Following Jesus.
because Jesus is going to lay down here what it costs to follow
Him. Salvation is free, but it does
cost us to follow Jesus. There are things we will have
to give up. And we see this in verse 23. It says, And He said
to all, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow Me. 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 My words, of him the Son of Man
will be ashamed when he comes in His glory and the glory of
the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are
some standing here who will not taste death until they see the
Kingdom of God." Let's pray. Father, as we come to this passage
this morning, we pray, Lord, that You would just Help us to
understand it. Help us, Lord, to do what you
have called us to do if we are going to follow after you. Father,
I pray that you would give us a willing heart to surrender
all to you, to surrender every thing that we have down to the
money we have, the life we have, the home we have, I pray that
everything in our life would be surrendered to You, that we
would leave all to follow You. Father, give us a greater faith. Increase our faith, Lord. Help
us to, Lord, just love You above all the things of this world.
I pray that all of the things of this world that are passing
away, Lord, we would see them for what they are, that they
are nothing but rubbish in comparison to Christ. Lord, just stir our
hearts this morning to just have one pure and holy passion, which
is to know You and follow hard after You. Lord, we ask these
things in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Many
years ago, I was watching I believe it was on Fox News years ago,
there was a man who was a Muslim, or a former Muslim. He was giving
his testimony about how he had come to Christ. He was a Palestinian
man. He grew up in the Gaza Strip.
His father was a jihadist. and he was trained himself to
be a jihadist as well. And this man who had lived in
the Gaza Strip, he had come into contact with a group of Christians
who befriended him, and he got to know them, and he began to
see their life, and he began to see the life of his family.
and his own life, and he began to question what he believed. And so, the man took up a Bible,
and he took up the Quran, and he went out, and he began to
study both side by side. He began to read the Quran, and
he began to read the Bible, and at the end of it all, he realized
that he had been following a false religion. And so he realized
that Christ was the only way, and the one thing that struck
him and stood out in comparison to his religion was the love
of God. And so this man, he realized
that Christ was the only way, that Christianity was true, and
so he had a decision to make. He had a decision to make, either
follow Christ or continue to live the life that he had been
living. And there was much pressure on the man because his father
was a Muslim man, and it was an honor and shame type society. If he goes back to his father
and to his brothers and family and everything else, they would
disown him and perhaps even kill him because of his new found
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, he had a decision to
make. Do I abandon my family, who is going to kill me because
he couldn't go back there, or do I go on and I give up all
to follow Christ? Well, this man chose to follow
Christ. He decided and realized by the
grace of God that Christ was the only way of salvation and
so the man had to flee his family for fear of his life. They would
have taken his life. And so the man ended up moving
to America and began to serve the Lord and to live for the
Lord Jesus Christ. And what a hard decision that
must have been for that young man. Most of us do not come to
that a point in our life where we have to make such a decision
when it comes to following Christ. Yes, there are things that we
have to give up, but none of us really in here probably ever
had to decide between our Father and following the Lord Jesus
Christ. But many people throughout the world have to do this every
single day, especially in the Muslim world, in the Buddhist
world, in the Hindu world, and so forth. But when it comes to
Christ, we know from what the Scriptures say, it will cost
us something. It may not cost us our family,
it may not cost us our job or anything like that, but it will
cost us everything if we're going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ,
which is what Jesus shows us here in this passage. We are
going to see in this passage that if we are going to follow
Christ, we must be willing to give up everything. But this
is the thing that the American church today does not understand. Many people who name the name
of Christ do not understand this. They have been given a gospel,
a message that, oh, just pray a prayer and you're alright.
You're in and you can just continue to live however you want. But
that's not what true Christianity is. The Bible is clear that when
we come to Christ, we must give up sin. We must give up our old
way of life if we are going to follow Christ. We must surrender
all to the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many people in our
day who claim that they are Christians, they name the name of Christ,
but sadly, they act like the world. They think like the world,
and they do everything that the world does, adopt the same ungodly
standards, and live however they want to do, and never give up
anything. and yet they claim to be a Christian. Jesus talked about this and warned
us about this in Matthew chapter 7. In Matthew chapter 7, He talked
about how there will be people, and He was speaking of the religious
crowd, who on that day will say to Christ, Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy? Did we not cast out demons? Did
we not do these miraculous things? And Jesus will look to them and
He will say, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of
ungodliness or lawlessness. What was the problem there? They
called upon the Lord, right? They named the name of the Lord,
but the problem was they had not given up their sin. They
continued in iniquity, continued in sin, and yet they named the
name of Christ. You cannot do that if you're
going to follow Christ. If we're going to follow Christ,
we must give up everything. George Barna, the pollster, speaking
on this very subject said, of the Christianity in our day,
he said the term Christian has become somewhat of a generic
term rather than a name that reflects a deep commitment to
passionately pursuing and being like Jesus Christ. And that is
certainly the case. when you hear the word Christian
or disciple and things like that, it's just a term people just
throw out. I mean, you go out and witness, you will find that
just about everybody and their dog is a Christian, because it's
just a term that is thrown around. But here when we come to this
passage, we see what it means to be a follower of Christ. It's
not what I say, but what Christ says. He lays down what it looks
like to follow Him. So let's look at this passage
that is set before us. Before we dive into verse 23,
let me just set the stage real quick. In the passage that comes
right before this, from 18 to 22, Jesus has just asked his
disciples. They've been with him, they've
seen all the wonderful works that he had done, the miracles,
and he comes to them and he asks them two questions. He says,
Who do people say that I am? And then he says, Who do you
say that I am? And Peter rightly answers that
question by saying, You are the Christ of God, that is, the true
Messiah that has come from God. And so, we see that the disciples,
they get it right, they have come to an understanding, they
have verbalized who Jesus is, and they get it right, but there
are many things that they must learn. about who Jesus is. They believed that the Messiah
was going to be somewhat of a political figure who would come and overthrow
the Romans. We see them even in Acts chapter 1. It's like
they still are waiting for Jesus to do something like that. But
Jesus corrects their understanding in verse 22 if you will look
at Luke chapter 9. He said, 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."
In other words, instead of being this political figure who was
going to overthrow the Romans, and rescue them physically from
their enemies. Now one day Jesus will come and
he will establish his kingdom on this earth. It will be a visible
thing. He will overthrow the nations
and we'll see him as Lord of Lord and every knee will bow
and every tongue will confess. But here we see that Jesus did
not come to do that. He wasn't the figure they had
hoped for. He had come to rescue them physically
from their enemies, but Jesus made it clear that his goal and
mission at this time in coming was to die, to suffer, to be
handed over to evil men, to be rejected by the elders and the
chief priests and the scribes, be killed and defeat the power
of sin and death, and to be raised from the grave to save men from
their sins and the wrath to come. And in light of that path that
Jesus was going to take, which was the way of the cross, Jesus
demonstrates and tells them that if you're going to follow me,
you're going to have to follow this same path. You too are going
to have to take up your cross. You too are going to have to
die to self. And that's what we see here going
on in verse 23 in this passage this morning. So let's look at
verse 23. We'll read verse 23 and talk
about it just a little bit. He says in verse 23, in light
of what he was going to do. He said, And he said to all,
If any would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross daily and follow me. In verse 23, when it says, He
said to all, we must take note of who Jesus
is addressing. Now, He's been speaking specifically
to the disciples when He asked them the question, who do men
say that I am? Who do you say that I am? But
now we see that He's addressing not only the disciples, but He's
also addressing the crowds. We know this from Mark chapter
8, which gives us a little bit more insight to this passage.
Mark chapter 8 and verse 34 says, And he summoned the crowd with
his disciples and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after
me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. Just like the gospel is to be
preached to all, so the message about what it looks like to follow
him is a message for all. It's not just for the disciples.
It's not for a select elite group that they would do such a thing,
take up their cross and follow Him and deny themselves. But
this is a message for all. It was for a message for the
crowds. It was a message for the apostles. And by a way of
extension, it is a message for you here today and for me. that
if we're going to follow Christ, if anyone would desire, if anyone
would wish to come after Christ, this is what it's going to take
if we're going to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If we're going
to be a disciple, if we're going to be a Christian, if we're going
to be a follower after Jesus, this is what it takes. And notice
what he says, if anyone, that is the disciples, the crowds,
people in the first and second century, or you or me, if anyone
of you would come after me, let him deny himself and take up
his cross daily and follow me. That's a very simple message.
It's very simple. If anyone wants to follow Jesus
and be one of his disciples or call themselves a Christian,
this is what it looks like. And he doesn't say, well, say
this prayer and you're a Christian or just say that you're a Christian
and then just go live however you want. No, you must deny yourself
and take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. But what does
it mean to deny ourself? What does he mean when he says,
take up your cross daily and follow me? Well, I think there's
a number of things that we could say about this to kind of help
us have a better understanding of what it means. We know the
cross was not some piece of jewelry in that day. It wasn't a symbol
that we put on the wall, though it became that, and we look at
these symbols and it reminds us of the cross of Christ and
what he did there. But in that day, it was a cruel
thing. Enemies and thieves and all kinds of evil men would be
hung upon a cross. It was like an electric chair
in our day. And so it's like, take up your
electric chair, is what he's basically saying. Take up that
thing, that instrument that's going to kill you. Take up that
instrument of death. You are to die to yourself. But what does it look like to
do this? Well, think about the man in general. We come into
this world, and we think that everything centers on us. We
think it's all about us. We think that life should exist
for us. We think that people around us
and things are all about us, and we're very self-centered
people. And we're always looking out
for number one. I mean, kids do it. As soon as they come into
this world, their sinful nature comes out and mine, that is mine. And they fight with their siblings.
They fight with others because that's how we are by nature. It's all about us, but Jesus
says, if you're going to follow me, you must die to that way
of life. So when Jesus says to take up
your cross daily, when he says to deny yourself, I think the
first thing that he is saying in all of this that we need to
take note of is that he's not teaching a works-based salvation. Let's be clear about that. He's
not teaching that you do this and then you'll be a Christian.
So we'll start with the things he's not talking about. He isn't
saying that if you will deny yourself and you will give up
things and die daily that you're going to earn your salvation.
Salvation is not by works. It's not something that you do. Ephesians 2, 9 is clear about
that. It's salvation is not by works lest any man boast. He's also not telling us that
we are to go out and take up our cross literally like some
do in the Philippines. Every year in the Philippines
there are men who will take up a cross and they will literally
be nailed to a cross. to try to identify with Jesus.
Jesus isn't telling us to do that, and He's not telling us,
like, you've seen people, they'll take up a cross and they'll walk
across America with it. Well, that's fine if you want
to do that, and use that as a launching point to share the gospel with
somebody, but that's not what Jesus is talking about here.
He's not telling us to literally carry a cross. He's also not
telling us or calling us to some legalistic or ritualistic practice. Jesus isn't promoting rigid rules
that we follow. Now, there's things that we are
to obey in the Scriptures, yes, but this isn't legalism. You
know, there are people who think that dying to self means that
I have to live a miserable life, that I have to go around with
a long face, and I have to have all these little things that
I can't touch and taste and everything else. And so, there are people
that do that. They come up with all these extra
biblical things like, I can't taste this, I can't enjoy certain
things, and all of the rest. And what people do is, they do
those things and give up those things, not really for Jesus,
but out of a legalistic practice that somehow they will earn God's
favor if they do these things. We see people do this, and I
would call them extremists. They are miserable people. They
are miserable people. They think that living a miserable
life in self-denial is what Jesus is talking about here, like living
an ascetic life. You've seen this in church history.
or go out and give up everything and dwell on a pole, just sit
there and just meditate and all of that. That's not what He's
calling us to do here in this passage. In fact, 1 Timothy 6.17
says, God has given us richly all things to enjoy. Food is
to be enjoyed and received after we've prayed over it. So Jesus
isn't telling us that we have to become ascetics who live a
legalistic lifestyle of do not taste, do not handle, do not
touch, or do not enjoy and just be miserable all of the time. That's not what He's talking
about. But what does it mean to deny ourself and take up the
cross daily? denying ourselves and taking
up our cross means that we are to abandon self-righteousness. I think that's where it begins.
We abandon self. We don't trust in ourselves any
longer. Instead of us trusting in ourselves,
our own righteousness or what we can do or trying to save ourselves,
When we become a Christian, when we become a follower of Christ,
it is we give up on ourselves. We no longer trust in ourselves. We don't trust in man, but we
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I think this is what Paul
meant in in Galatians 3.20 when he was speaking to those Galatians
who were relying upon circumcision and laws and rules to be saved. He said, I, giving himself as
an example, I have been crucified with Christ. I've died with Christ. It's 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. Now, Paul wasn't like that previously. If we looked at Philippians chapter
3, we would see that Paul said that at one time, he was just,
he had this... great pedigree, this great application,
if you will, to say, look, I am very qualified to be accepted
before God. At least in his eyes he thought
that. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Pharisee of
Pharisees. He was trained in some of the
best schools. He knew the law and everything else. He was zealous
for the law. All of these things. He was religious,
but then he realized that all of this was nothing but dung.
It was nothing but rubbish. And so, he gave all of those
things up and counted them as loss. He realized that he himself
could do nothing to earn a right standing with God. And so, he
gave up on himself and he put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he's talking
about here in Galatians 3.20. The life I now live I live by faith, not in self,
but in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So
what Luke means, or what Jesus means here when he says, deny
yourself and take up your cross, that is, deny yourself, be done
with self. and look to me for salvation. I think he also means in all
of this, denying ourself and taking up our cross, it involves
dying to sin, dying to that old sinful way of life, life of rebellion
against God, a life of walking in darkness, a life of being
opposed to the will of God and rebelling against King Jesus.
He says, if you're going to follow after me, this is what it's going
to require. You're going to have to die to
that old way of life. You're going to have to die to
that sinful way of life. You're going to have to repent.
You're going to have to turn from that and you're going to have
to come after me and turn from those sins. Turn from that life
of living in rebellion to Christ and live a life of submission
to Christ. This is what Paul could say,
or this is why Paul could say in Romans 6.6, of those who have
come after Christ, who have trusted Him as Lord and Savior. He says
we know that our old self was crucified. Our old self died,
in other words, died with Him in order that the body of sin
might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be
enslaved to sin. If you read Romans chapter 6,
you'll see that Paul talks about that when we are united with
Christ, when that unity or that union takes place when we trust
in Christ alone for salvation. We're united with Christ and
we die. We die. We die to the old way
of life and we're risen to walk in the newness of life. So it
involves repentance, this dying to self and dying to or in taking
up our cross. It involves repentance and turning
from sin. Denying ourselves and taking
up our cross involves yielding your life to Christ as king before
you were living how you wanted to. You had your own ambitions.
You had your own dreams. You had your own desires. And
you went after the things of the world. You look to the world
to please you. You look to the world to to get
ahead. And now you've come to Christ.
And then Jesus says, if anyone would follow me, then you must
yield your life. Everything you have must come
under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Your money, your family, your
work, your hobbies, everything that you do, everything about
your life must come under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christ is now king. and He rules
over all. He becomes king over even your
thought life. Before, you were thinking in
terms of how you would do things. You were trusting in self and
your own wisdom, but now you come to trust in His wisdom. You adopt a biblical mindset,
a biblical worldview. You think biblically about things
rather than just going out and doing things how you want. You
may still go to the same job after you've come to Christ and
you may do some of the same things, but instead of going to work
or doing those things out of self-interest, now you see those
things as a platform to glorify Christ. Christ is now Lord over
those things. And everything in your life now
becomes about Jesus. When you deny yourself and take
up your cross, now it's about a life of obedience to Christ. Before you were living how you
wanted to, doing what you wanted to do, but when you follow after
Christ and you deny yourself and you take up your cross, you've
died to your ways of doing things, and now you've come under the
Lordship of Christ. And now you want to walk as He
walked. You want to obey His commands.
And His commandments are not burdensome because you love Jesus. You see, the legalists, they
may have a list of commandments, and some of them may be good,
but they're doing it just to earn salvation, and it's all
about them. But the Christian He's following
Christ. And out of love for Christ, he
now does those things out of obedience from the heart. And
a person who has denied themselves and taken up their cross, now
they do these things because they love Jesus. First John 2.
At the end of verse 5 and verse 6 says, By this we know that
we are in Him, that we are a Christian. Why? Because whoever says he
abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. We walk now in the direction
that Jesus is going, rather than walking in our own direction.
The other thing about the Christian life, is that when we follow
after Jesus, if we want to follow after Him, we must be willing
to share in His sufferings. Share in His sufferings. As one
old evangelist said, to take up your cross means to associate
yourself with Christ, and to share His rejection, it means
that you stand for Christ, even though people make fun of you,
or persecute you, or even when they want to kill you. That's
one of the reasons I read Matthew chapter 10. He told his disciples,
listen, if they've done this to the Master, and they've rejected
Him, and they have called Him names, and all of the rest, don't
be surprised when they do that to you. But if you're going to
follow me and you're going to live your life for me, just know
that it's going to cost. There are going to be family
members who will come against you. There will be friends who
will reject you. There will be the world who laughs and mocks
at you. But Jesus says you must deny
yourself and come after me. You must share in his sufferings.
And then denying self again takes taking up our cross, it basically,
to summarize it all, it is complete surrender to Christ. The way
I think, the way I act, the way I live, everything that I have,
it comes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I'm no longer holding
on to these things for myself. I'm no longer looking to myself
to save me. But everything has come under
the Lordship of Christ, and I'm following Him. I'm living for
Him. I'm being obedient to Him. I
am trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Americans
need to hear in churches all over the place, maybe even in
this place. We need to hear this because this is what Jesus says
has to happen if we're going to be a follower of Christ. I
say that because, again, many in our society, many in our churches
think that we can be a Christian But it doesn't cost. We can just
do however we want. They've bought into this idea
of cheap grace that, well, God just forgives you and you just
can continue however you want to live. But that's not what
the Bible says. Grace is free. Salvation is free. But if you're
going to come and receive this grace, if you're going to come
and follow Christ, this is what you must do. You must depart
from those old ways. But there are many people today
that think they can just be a Christian without any cost. They think
they can have salvation without a cross. And so they live however
they want. But Jesus said you must die to
self and come and die daily. You must deny yourself and follow
me. But unfortunately, many will
not be willing to do this. We see in the Scriptures, for
example, there was the rich young ruler. He eagerly came to Jesus
and he said, what must I do to be saved? Or what must I do to
have eternal life? And what did Jesus say? He said,
well, do this and do that. He gave him the commandments,
the commandments that reflect following the Lord Jesus. He
said, well, I've done, I've kept these things. And then he says,
well, there's one thing you lack. Go and sell all that you have
and come and follow me. His Lord, that rich young ruler,
his Lord was his possessions, and he wasn't willing to give
up his possessions and surrender them to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the Bible tells us that he went away sorrowful. There
was a man who wanted eternal life, but he wasn't willing to
give up. He didn't want to. He realized
that it would cost him too much. He would have to part with these
things. in order to follow Jesus. Then there was Demas who followed
with the Apostle Paul doing ministry. He followed for a while, but
Paul says in his writings that Demas has left me. Why? Because
he's left me because of his love for the present world. He went
back into the world. He followed for a time, but realized
this costs too much. And so He goes back into the
world. In John 6, 66, we are told that
many of Jesus' disciples, some that were right there with Him
for a long time, following along, listening to Him, watching Him
do miracles, They would come along, but they could not bear
to hear the words that Jesus had to say. And so, they did
not have faith, and they rejected them, and it says in John 6,
66, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with
him. It was going to cost too much
to follow Jesus in their eyes. But that's what we must do if
we're going to follow Jesus. And we must do this on a daily
basis. Notice that Jesus says that if
you're going to follow me, if anyone would come after me, he
must deny himself and he must take up his cross daily. You
know, there's something in the Bible that keeps coming up about
the idea of daily walking with Christ. Give us this day our
daily bread. Jesus isn't telling us to look
at it over the long haul. Take one day at a time. When
you get up out of bed in the morning, when you get up out
of bed, thank the Lord for giving you life. and surrender your
all to Him at the beginning of the day. And if you see yourself
throughout the day perhaps drifting from His Lordship, maybe drifting
and getting away from Him, then just give up the reins and go
back to God in prayer and say, God, I'm sorry. Forgive me of
my sins. You are Lord. I want to follow
You. Keep me close to You. And just keep, one day at a time,
living for the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise to those who die
to self and take up their cross is found in verse 24. Jesus said,
for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses
his life for my sake will save it. Here we have what seems to
be a paradox. Lose my life and I will save
it? And save my life and I'll lose it? What do you mean by
this, Jesus? Well, it's quite simple. One of the hardest things
to do is to say no to ourself. Our natural tendency is to please
our flesh, to preserve ourselves, to put ourselves first, to gratify
ourselves and all of the rest, to indulge ourself the way the
world does and not live for the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus
says we're to do the opposite. We're to give up pleasing ourselves,
we're to give up gratifying ourselves. We're to give up indulging ourselves
in the things of this world. Give up these things, follow
me, and you will have eternal life. You will gain life. You'll
gain eternal life. You'll gain the abundant life.
But if you hang on to these things, these sins in your life, these
idols in your life, and just like the rich young ruler did,
yeah, you may gain for a season, a short time, a short while,
but you're going to lose everything in the end because you will die
in your sins. That's what Jesus is talking
about here. You lose your life now, give up, die to self, but
you're gaining everything. You're gaining eternal life because
salvation is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. But you hang on
to this world, you hang on to your wants, your dreams, your
desires, and you live for self and you reject Christ. and you
will lose everything. The moment you take your last
breath and you depart into eternity, you will lose everything because
you will not have the righteousness of Christ covering you as you
stand before the throne of God. That's the great paradox of the
Christian life. Gain the world, lose your soul.
Give up everything to the Lordship of Christ and look to Him for
salvation and you will gain everything. And if we pursue our own agenda,
we will lose everything in the end. But if we let go of our
selfish aims and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus, living for
Him and His purposes, seeking His will, looking unto Him alone
for salvation, we will gain eternal life and we will receive a multitude
of blessings while we live and in the life to come. And as Jesus
says in verse 25, in light of this, I mean, He uses logic here. He says, what is it profit a
man? Think about it. There may be some hesitating.
I don't know if I can give up all of these things. Jesus says,
what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
he loses or forfeits himself? What does it profit you? If you're
the richest man in the world, like one of these guys like Zuckerberg
or Bezos or one of those guys, what does it profit you to have
everything this world has to offer, all of the luxuries, all
of the pleasures of this life, all of the indulgence of the
flesh? What does it profit you to have
all of these things, all of these material things? and yet lose
your own soul. Now, I'm not saying that it's
wrong to have anything. We know godly men in the Bible
who had things, but it was under the lordship of Christ. What
I'm talking about is the person who will go out, and that's all
their focus is, is what they can get out of this world. And
God is nowhere in the equation. They go out and they make things
their God. They worship things and they
seek after these things. And Jesus is saying, what is
it profit you? What is it going to profit you
on your deathbed if you are the richest man, you have all this
money in the bank, and then you come to that day and you are
on your deathbed, and you are five minutes, a minute away from
dying, and you die. What will it have profited you?
You know, the one thing that you don't see when people die
and that hearst is going to the cemetery, you don't see a U-Haul
behind it. I mean, you go to maybe the Middle
East and you might find in places like Egypt and stuff these kings
and stuff that were buried with all of their goods, but you dig
them up and open up their casket, the goods will all still be there,
the gold, the jewelry, and everything else. Not the man. He'll be there
nothing but a skeleton. Why? Because He's gone. Those
things didn't profit Him in the afterlife. They didn't profit
Him in this world. He died without Christ. And so
that's what Jesus is talking about. What does it profit you
to hang on to these things? Let them go. What does it profit
a man if he gains the whole world, but yet loses his own soul? Forfeits himself. This is what
motivated Jim Elliot, the missionary, back in the 1950s. Jim Elliot,
young man, full of love for the Lord. He gave up all as a missionary
to go to Ecuador to meet a tribe or reach a tribe that had never
heard the gospel in their entire life. A tribe that was at war
with others. There was much conflict and much
sin in this tribe. And Jim Elliot, out of love,
went there. He gave up everything to go there. And there he died at the end
of a spear as a martyr trying to reach this unreached people
group with the gospel. And you know what he said in
all of this before he had died at one point in his life? He
said, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain
what he cannot lose. Let me say that again. He is
no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot
lose. Jim Elliot realized there's nothing
in this world that you can hang on to. But if you abandon all
to God and you follow him, you cannot lose. You cannot receive
anything but blessings because blessings are to be found in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true treasure. Now,
in verse 26, there is a warning about not following Christ because
you're ashamed. Now there were some in Jesus'
day, as we will see later on, I believe it's Luke chapter 12,
but there were some who believed who Jesus was. They would say
that he was the Messiah, but they would not follow him because
of fear of being put out of the temple, put out of the synagogues.
And so Jesus says in verse 26, 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. So there were people who had
heard the truth. They knew the truth. And for
them, the thing they didn't want to give up because they and what
was keeping them from following Christ was the fear of man. What's the world going to think
of me if I follow Jesus? What is people going to think
of me if I go and get baptized? What are people going to say
if I go out after Him? What are my family going to say?
My friends, the world, they're going to reject me if I follow
Christ. That could have been the hang up for some, and I know
it was from what the Bible says. But Jesus says, whoever is ashamed
of me. If you're ashamed of me and my
words, you're ashamed of the truth of the gospel. There are
people who are afraid. They don't want to say anything
that is true from God's Word because of how they might be
perceived and how might people look at them. And so they're
ashamed of Christ. But Jesus says, 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. This is why in Matthew
10, the verses we read earlier, Jesus said, Don't fear. Don't
fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather,
fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not
two sparrows sold for a penny? And do not one of them fall to
the ground apart from your father? But even the hairs of your head
are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, for you
are of more value than the sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges
me, listen to this, everyone who acknowledges me before men,
I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But
whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father
who is in heaven." If you go over to the book of Revelation,
we know that some of the people that will be cast into the lake
of fire are the cowards. Those who fear men rather than
God. Those who will not stand for
the truth who will not publicly make a declaration that they
are following Christ because they're ashamed of Christ and
they're ashamed of His words. Christ will reject such person
in the life to come. If you're going to follow Him,
deny yourself. Don't care what people say about
you. Don't care what people think
about you. Follow Christ and stand upon His Word. And then
there's the promise to those present with Christ in this passage.
He says in verse 27, But I tell you truly, there are some standing
here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of
God. What is Jesus talking about here? That's the first century He's
writing this. There are some here who will not taste death
until they see the kingdom of God. Did Jesus' words prove not
to be true? Because He hasn't come back yet.
The Kingdom of God hasn't been fully realized. We don't see
the Kingdom of God. Now, we see the workings of the
Kingdom, but seeing it physically with our eyes, we don't. So is
Jesus wrong here in what He said? Well, no, He's not. There's four
ways which people take this passage. First of all, there's one that
we can say, well, that's not the way we should take this verse.
Liberals say that it was a mistaken prediction. They say that Jesus
would come back before some of the apostles died. We can dismiss
that. We know that that's not what
Jesus was saying. He wasn't saying that he was
going to come back before some of these apostles died. Others
relate it to the destruction of Jerusalem in 87, but it is
difficult to see why That is even an option. I don't believe
that that's what Jesus is saying. Others interpreters, or some
interpret it as a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit
at Pentecost and the rule of Christ through his church. But
I think the most plausible explanation of what Jesus is saying here,
when He says, there are some standing here who will not taste
death until they see the Kingdom of God, is what we find in the
context of this passage. If we look on and we read on
in the next few verses, we're going to see that there were
some among the disciples who were standing there, some who
was even among the crowds that were numbered, there were exactly
three that we're going to go up on the Mount of Transfiguration
in these next verses. They're going to go up on this
mountain, and they're going to see Jesus transform. They're going to see him in all
of his glory, and they're going to see the kingdom. I believe
that's what Jesus is talking about here. And those three would
be Peter, James, and John. And all the early church fathers
believed that that's what Luke was talking about. as well are
referring to. There were some standing there,
they were not going to taste death until they saw the kingdom
of God. And they would. Peter, James,
and John, as they went up on that mountain, they were going
to see Christ lifted up. They were going to see Christ
for who He was. They were going to get a glimpse of the Son of
Man, the Son of God, in His kingdom there on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now, as we close in this passage
from looking at it, The thing that we see is it costs to be
a Christian. Let me ask you this, has your
Christianity costed you anything? You named the name of Christ,
but have you given up sin? Have you stopped trusting in
yourself to save yourself? There are some people who have
not given up on self because they think that if they just
do enough things, they go to church enough, they pray enough,
they give enough, then they are right with God. Give up on yourself. You are a sinner condemned by
God, and the only way to be saved is to look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. and be saved. Abandon, be done
with self, and look to Jesus by faith. And the other question
is, have you repented of your sin? Jesus, in the Gospel of
Mark, in chapter 1, I believe it's verse 5, he says, Repent
and believe in the Gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand.
We must repent, we must turn from our sins and surrender it
all to Jesus who can save us from our sins. Have you died
to self and come to Christ for salvation? Have you come to him
alone for salvation, given up everything and said, Lord, I
want you alone to be Lord of my life? I want you to save me. I want to follow you. And I don't
care where you tell me to go, what you tell me to do. I want
to follow you. And I know with you is life.
And so I come now by faith, trusting in you alone to save me. Have
you given up everything to follow Jesus? That's what it means to
be a Christian. It's free. Salvation is free. But it will cost you everything
if you're going to come. and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Christian, I know there are still times that we struggle
when we get up daily. There are things that will try
to take priority in our life. There will be things that will
come by way of temptation to lure us away. And even Peter,
who heard this passage, or heard these words of Jesus, come and
die daily, don't deny me. Guess what he ends up doing a
few chapters later? He will deny Christ three times. But does that mean it was the
end for Peter because he messed up there? No. Jesus came to him,
allowed him three times to reaffirm his love to him, and Peter was
forgiven. There will be times when you
don't do this perfectly. And Jesus knows that you won't
do it perfectly. That's why there is sanctification.
There is an ongoing process in the Christian's life whereby
he becomes more like Christ. And so you may, as a Christian,
look at your life and say, well, I've surrendered a lot, but there
are things in my life that need to go. There are sins that I've
been petting that I need to let go. I need to repent of. There
are things that I know that Jesus is calling me to do, but I've
been too fearful. I've been fearful for what people
might think of me. I've been fearful of what it
looks like, what I would have to go through. And it just scares
me to let go. Let go and trust the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christian, what area in your
life do you need to die to? What area of your life do you
need to give up in your life to Christ? What area do you need
to come and die? Whatever that is, I want to encourage
you to go to the Lord as we go to God in prayer and ask Him
to forgive you. Surrender all to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Maybe it's your money. Maybe
it's your job. Maybe it's your future, maybe
it's your future spouse or your education. Whatever it is, surrender
your entire life to the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it profit
a man to gain the whole world and to lose his own soul? Let's
go to the Lord in a word of prayer. Father, as we come to you this
morning, Lord, we know that we are nothing without you. And
we are so tempted to be selfish, to focus on ourselves, to try
to preserve ourselves and to try to be in control. But Lord,
I pray that there would be a full surrendering of our lives to
You. Father, change our hearts. Give us a heart that is just
fully abandoned to You. Lord, if You have been calling
some here today to maybe be baptized or maybe to be to surrender their
life, to go and preach the gospel in some foreign country, or maybe
you've been calling someone to go and share the gospel. Lord,
I pray that whatever it is that You would give them courage,
and pray that they would desire today just to follow You and
they would surrender it all. If there's someone here today
that's without Christ, and they know that they have been trusting
in themselves, they've been trusting in their baptism or trusting
in some words they have said, Lord, I pray that they would
look away from those things and they would trust in Christ and
they would come now to you looking to Jesus alone by faith to save
them. Lord, give us a heart that is
sold out to you. I pray that every person in this
room would have such a heart, that we would love you and we
would just abandon ourself to you to come and to follow you.
Lord, we love you and we praise you in Jesus's name. Amen.
The Cost of Following Jesus
Series Luke
| Sermon ID | 1062415172160 |
| Duration | 47:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 9:23-27 |
| Language | English |
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