Turn with me, please, then to Luke chapter 9. We are continuing our journey through this gospel. When I began it some time ago, as I've shared, I wasn't certain that we would go all the way through, and we're certainly not there yet. We'll continue to try the Spirit and ask Him to direct and guide, but He has certainly placed this next portion of the gospel of Luke upon my heart today to present to you And I pray that it would be done in a way that would be honoring to him, glorifying to God, edifying to us, and show us what Jesus has to say to us about discipleship in particular. Luke chapter nine, let's read together verses 23 through 27. And Jesus 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 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. but I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God." The context of this call of discipleship is, I believe, necessary and essential for us to understand what Jesus is saying about discipleship. I think removed from its context, like any scripture, really like any word spoken or written. Removed from its context, it can lose its meaning and can sometimes even mean the opposite of what was intended. And we know that Peter has just confessed that Christ, that Jesus is the Christ of God. Know that incredible moment and that scene when Jesus has asked his disciples who others said he was, and we looked at that last week, and then After receiving the answers that they had about who the crowd thought he was, he changes the question entirely and says, but who do you say that I am? And that moment as it hung there in the air before Peter answered, but he answered rightly, you are the Christ of God. And that was truly something that we are told elsewhere in scripture that God had revealed to Peter because flesh and blood hadn't. By looking at Jesus, there was nothing about him that would proclaim him to be the Messiah, the Christ of God. He looked like a man. He talked, he spoke, he walked, he ate, he slept. He lived his life in humanity. And though there was much about him that would lend itself to knowing there was power in him, unlike anyone else, yet still he was the Christ of God, and yet in human form, and so many missed him. But Peter rightly declared it, you are the Christ of God, and so many missed him because he was unexpected in many ways. That the Son of God would come into the world and bleed and die on a cross and suffer at the hands of men, this was unexpected. This was not the Messiah. that many people expected. The passion, the suffering that he predicted about himself, that he had just said in verse 22, this was unexpected. Jesus was an unexpected Messiah, and he has, for you and me, an unexpected discipleship. The title for our thought today is just that, an unexpected Messiah, an unexpected discipleship. This immediate context, as we've said, is key to truly seeing what Jesus is saying to us in this call to discipleship. These scriptures that tell us in no uncertain terms what it means to be a disciple of Christ, to be a follower of His as an unexpected Messiah, Discipleship to this unexpected Messiah is also itself in many ways unexpected. Jesus makes this clear, and if Christ defies expectations of the Messiah by going to a cross and dying there for the sins of man, I think it just stands to reason that we would see that our discipleship of this unexpected Messiah would itself be unexpected. There are many people who have the wrong idea about what it means to be a follower of Christ, because to be a true follower of Christ is unexpected by us. It's not something that we would want. Perhaps it's not something that we would expect. In fact, it's not something that men and false prophets today and days in the past will have promised you, that if you are a Christian, that your life is going to be easy, that it's going to be filled with nothing but good times and, as they say, sunshine and roses. And I think it's our expectation of discipleship that is corrected here by Christ. If Christ denies expectations about himself as the Messiah, then we also are facing an unexpected discipleship. But God is not obligated to conform to our false expectations. And neither, by the way, is discipleship necessarily to be conformed to our idea of what it is. I know you've read these passages many times, and you've read this verse many times, and you've heard this call of Christ many times. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. I know you've heard this many times and perhaps we won't bring anything new to you today, but perhaps we'll remind us together of the unexpected nature of discipleship so that we don't fall victim or that we don't fall into the path of easy discipleship or a discipleship that we would expect to be able to follow in. If we're to follow Christ, it's going to be an unexpected path. Our lives are going to be lives lived in unexpected ways. And this call of Christ of discipleship, when it says, He said to all. He has just now, in the previous verses, been speaking only to His disciples. He asked them the question. And they were having a conversation, but now Jesus addresses everyone, the disciples and the crowd. And he tells everyone. He speaks to all. This is the call of discipleship, if anyone would come after me. So the path of discipleship is common for all, though it might be unexpected by us. It's a singular path. It's a path of self-denial. And this path of self-denial is not for some. the path of discipleship, the call of discipleship, of self-denial. This isn't for, well, preachers have to walk that path. They have to deny themselves, or this one who truly takes their Christianity seriously, but Maybe some might be guilty of thinking, I'm a Christian, but I'm not extreme. I'm not radical. My path of discipleship is different from someone else's. I don't have to go that route of self-denial. But Jesus doesn't allow for that. He says to all, to you, if you want to be a follower of Christ, this path that Jesus outlines is your path. And it's mine. It's not just for some. It's not just for those who are more spiritual, perhaps we might say, than others. It's for anyone who would follow Christ. Jesus makes this very clear. He says, if anyone is going to follow me, these are the things that must happen. And I want to just look at these together today and hope again that it would be of a help to you. It's been a help to me to think about these things and to ponder on these things once again, to remember the unexpected path of discipleship. and to be reminded of what it looks like and what it requires and the fact again that it's for every last one of us. For me, saved some 40 years, preaching some 30 years, it's for me and it's for the one who was saved yesterday. It's the same path. And we want to look at them. There's three things, three imperatives that Jesus gives. One, deny yourself. Two, take up your cross. And three, follow me. So examine yourself and your own heart here today in this unexpected path of discipleship. And we say it's unexpected again because at the time, remember, the Jews were expecting a Messiah largely that would come and overthrow Rome. These would be men who followed the Messiah, would be the conquerors in the world, the victors, the strong ones, the one that the world would look and see and admire. Jesus says, no, this is, I'm not that Messiah that you're expecting. I'm going to a cross. And so we then must conclude, and Jesus makes it very clear then that the path of a disciple of such an unexpected Messiah is a path of unexpected discipleship. It's not one that we would expect, but it's the only one that is available if you would follow Christ. These three things, deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me. Verse 23, I want to point this out. I believe it's important. He said to them all, if anyone would come after me, let him. Let him. I believe this makes it explicitly clear that to follow Christ requires our volition, our will, our choice. The verb in the Greek here, it truly means to will, to desire, to want to. This requires your desire, and so I ask you today, do you desire to be a follower of Christ, to walk the unexpected path of discipleship of this unexpected Messiah? Is that in your heart Jesus did not compel? The entire condition that Jesus places here on discipleship requires a person's willingness to follow. Jesus is not coercing. He is not mechanically moving people into discipleship. He's issuing a call that must be voluntarily answered. This is not, if I drag you along, God might say, or, if circumstances force me, I'll follow Him. Or, if I just happen to passively drift into discipleship, then I'll be there. That isn't it. If you will, let Him This is an if you will come after me. This is not anything, this does not have, this does not lose or you cannot avoid the reality that to follow Christ, it does indeed require your choice. There's no one in heaven today that's not there, that's there against their will. There's no one in heaven today that did not choose to go after Christ. There's no one in heaven today who found themselves there and were surprised. Listen, if you're not certain about where you're going to be when you leave this world, I pray that God would give you the desire to seek Him and know for sure and undoubtedly. And so that when you open your eyes in heaven, you say, yes, this was my great expectation because I chose to follow Jesus. Discipleship is a matter of the will. It requires conscious, deliberate choice. And choice, by the way, and deliberately made, even and most importantly, when it might not be in your best earthly interest. This requires a choice. Let him, he says, let him do what? Well, first, deny himself. The word in the Greek means to refuse to give thought or express concern for oneself, almost a disregard, to almost pay no attention to. It doesn't come into the equation. When Jesus lays out the path of discipleship before you and me, we look at that path, and Jesus says, let him, and so we choose, and we choose that path of denial, and it's as though we don't regard our own interests. We pay no attention to them. Outside of this, our interests are aligned with Christ's. Our interests are His interests. Our will is His will. Our desire is His desire. Deny Himself, to let go of His own will, to say no. Another resource that I read about that Greek word said it was basically to say no to yourself. And I thought about that for a minute, and I thought about children whose parents never tell them no. And having never learned from a parent as a child what it is to be told no, these people often in life struggle as an adult to tell themselves no. And sometimes in our path of discipleship, we're not really good at telling ourselves no. No, I won't go down that path. I will not choose that road. I will not choose that job, that path, that lie, that sin. I'll not choose that because I am, Jesus said, let him come. I'm choosing to go the path of discipleship and I'm denying myself in doing so. It's not a passive. self-neglect, but an active self-refusal. It's a deliberate choice. And hold with me here because I do recognize, and I want to address it momentarily here in a minute, that it would be easy to misunderstand this and take this to a place that we ought not take it. So please hold on. I know the concerns perhaps that might have come into your mind already about this Self-denial and how it can really turn into a different kind of selfishness But this deliberate choice of discipleship it is a choice to treat our own agenda as Irrelevant in light of the agenda of Christ and God's will Now listen let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, follow me. The destination of discipleship is Christ himself. And this is where I believe that we can sometimes go amiss in our view of discipleship. Jesus says clearly there in verse 23, if anyone would come after me. Discipleship's very goal is not about the self, but about Christ. The correct goal of discipleship, which is Christ himself, is also, by the way, the only thing that makes the cost of discipleship, our complete self-denial, worth it. I want to say that again because it's an important point, I think, that the Lord wants us to hear today. The goal of discipleship, which is Christ himself, is the only goal, the only thing that will truly make the cost of discipleship, our complete self-denial, worth it. Denying oneself to perform for others or to punish oneself will not, in the end, prove enough to walk the path of discipleship. To deny oneself through some sense of sacrifice that will then earn you the pleasure of God or the approval of men will not, in the end, prove to be enough. First of all, there is no good works we can do to merit the pleasure and approval of God and the approval of men. It's a fickle thing. It's here one day and gone the next. But if you deny yourself and live a disciplined life, as they say, and you try to be a good person, and you deny yourself things, and you gain from that some kind of idea that you are living a righteous life because you're denying yourself, you can miss The point of discipleship entirely, which is the destination, is Jesus. The destination of discipleship is Christ. The denying of oneself is the means to the end. It's the means to Christ. It's how we get to Him. It isn't the end itself. Self-denial as punishment is ultimately born from pride, and pride ruins everything that it touches. I think this is what Jesus was experiencing when, in Hebrews 12, verse 2, in describing what he endured, It says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The unexpected discipleship, its goal is Christ. Its goal is Christ. I ask us all to examine our lives. I ask you to examine yours. and see perhaps the times in your life that even in Christian activity, the goal was something other than Christ. Any activity in your life, whether it be good or bad, is judged by you or others if the goal is something other than Christ. And you examine that closely. I say that one of two things is true. You've already hit the wall of despair. or you're heading for it. If anything is the goal of your self-denial, if anything is that goal outside of Christ, you're going to find that goal unworthy of the cost. We are to bear this and deny and to bear this cross and to follow Christ and we are to do this, Luke says daily. daily. It's not a mistake that that word is there in the Greek daily. Take up his cross daily. The call for self-denial and discipleship is not a call made once. It's a call that is laid before you every day when you wake up. It's a call that God will place before you every morning The call of self-denial to follow Christ as the goal is a call that is like the mercies of God as well, renewed every day. If you followed Him yesterday, we know that none of us can ever say we did so perfectly, but if If the balance of the day was an obedient path of walk toward Christ to be in His presence, if that was the path walk yesterday, then let us rejoice in the joy that that brings, but let us also always remember that the call to discipleship is renewed every day. Now that can be, I hope, encouraging to you. Maybe yesterday you didn't. and maybe the day before you didn't and the week before that and the month before that and maybe it's been a long time since you have had Christ and Christ alone as your goal and the path and the means to that was self-denial maybe it's been a long time since you felt that but I say to you today to take courage because today the call is renewed daily daily make this choice daily take up your cross daily deny yourself daily come after me that's the call i want to give you the reasons that jesus gives us to obey such a call in verses in the in these following verses when that word begins for verse 24 for whoever would Save his life, we'll lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, we'll save it. You've read that so many times. You've turned it around. You've done Bible studies on it. And all is good effort and time well spent. But let us look maybe freshly at this again today. The world's way is save your life. And if you do that, you'll lose it eternally. That's the words of Christ. Christ's way is lose your life for His sake and save it eternally. Let me ask, this question just kind of hit me as I was studying and preparing. Why is it wrong to save our life? Why is that wrong? besides the obvious fact that Jesus said we are to deny ourselves. But why is it wrong? Why? Is there reason? Is there something that we can take hold of to understand why this calling is as it is? Is this just some kind of, is Christianity just some kind of a path that people walk because they'd like to make themselves feel better because they're acting better than other people? Is it a path that's walked because people find some kind of morbid joy in self-denial and living a life of self-abasement and self-punishment? Why is it wrong to save our lives. A lot of people object to Christianity because they have that view of it. And I want to speak to that today. Why is it wrong? You want to know, I think, fundamentally, one of the reasons that we can say it's wrong to save your life? Who said it's yours to save? It isn't. Your life is not yours to save. To attempt to save our life is to presuppose ownership of it. It's to think, this is my life. I'm going to save it. I'm going to live it the way I want to live it. It's wrong to save your life because it's not yours to save. We're not the cause of our lives, not a single one of us. We're not here because we decided to be here. Not a single one of us. None of us had a conscious thought. I want to live and so we lived. Not a single one of us. God in his mind said, I desire and I deem that Kent Welch live and form me in my mother's womb. I didn't choose it. I just am because He is and He called. My life is not mine to save. Therefore, it's not mine. Psalm 24, verse one. Listen to what the scripture says. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. That's you and me. It's all God's. You know, beyond even that, when we submit to Him in repentance, and we exercise faith, and we place our trust in Christ, and He saves us, He redeems us, He regenerates us, He gives us peace, and He forgives our sin, and He regenerates us, we've been bought back according to 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20. We won't take time to read them, but in essence, you remember the words. Paul says, don't you know you've been bought with a price? You're not your own. So, listen, for those who've been saved, we are owned twice over by God, once in creation and again by purchase. It's not my life to save. It's not right to attempt to save my life. It's like me as a tenant trying to sell a building that's really the landlord's. I'm renting some home and I sell that home as the renter. Well, the whole transaction is void because I don't have ownership of that house. Well, that's my life. When I try to save it for my purposes and my desires and my will and my goals and my objectives, I'm stealing what is not mine. I'm a steward of the life God has given. I am not an owner. Neither are you. I know this is 180 degree different worldview thinking than we will hear on the television, and on the radio, and on the internet, and on Facebook, and on Twitter, and on Instagram. I know the bombarding of the lies that are hit with us, that we are hit with every day, and it's our life that we should be able to choose what we want to do. It's mine, it's mine, it's mine, and we're wrong every time we say that. It isn't mine. Too many think of their lives as my life to live, when they should be thinking about it as it's mine, my life to steward. The only way it could be your life. Listen, I think this is just rational and reasonable to say. The only way it could be your life is that you were the cause of it. But you weren't. Not only were you not the cause of it, you're not the sustainer of it either. Acts 17 28 Paul tells those philosophers on that hill in Mars at Mars Hill he said That we live and we move and we have our being in him It's not mine My very life we are to lose our lives and listen We are to lose it for one purpose and one purpose only the sake of Christ Throwing our lives away on anything less is not discipleship The pastor who throws his life away for the sake of his ministry is not a disciple. The man who throws his life away to gain the respect of others is not a disciple. The parent who throws their life away for the sake of their children is mistaken in their purpose. Deny yourself. Lose your life for my sake. Nothing less than that. Nothing less than that. And Jesus goes on in verse 25, for what's it profit you? What's it profit? What good is it? If you gain the whole world, forfeit yourself. You know, the world offers you everything except the one thing that actually matters, your soul. It'll offer you everything in exchange for that. I wonder how long the line now is and one day will be of the men and women who gained the world, but lost themselves. I think in that line, if we could look at it today in our mind's eye, we would see the rich young ruler, unless he straightened it out after the account in scripture, that rich young ruler whose great wealth caused him to walk away from Christ. In that line, perhaps we would see Judas, who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed Christ Maybe we'd see Demas, remember him? Paul talked about him, who abandoned Paul and the others and the gospel because of his love for the present world. We'd see many Pharisees in their robes standing in that line who love the glory that comes from men rather than the glory that comes from God. And I wonder, will you be in that line with them? Will you be among the many who have paid for empty gains of the world with your very soul. And I say to you today that Christ himself faced this very temptation in the wilderness when Satan said, look at all the kingdoms of the world, I'll give them to you. Just worship me. Jesus looked at that and I believe he was offered just what he was offered, all the kingdoms of the world. Then he denied it. What trinkets have you sold your soul for? much less kingdoms. The choice is one of two, the world or Christ. Our choice then is really this, the world or Christ. There's no third option. There's no neutral ground. There's no purgatory that we can hope to at least be transiently placed in. While the ultimate case gets decided, it's Christ or it's the world, so make your choice. And Jesus says, if anyone's gonna make the choice to follow me, this is what they must do. To choose the world is to lose our very identity as beings created in the image of God. This is why men, I think, in whole societies begin to act more like animals than human beings when they reject God. They move through their lives, we might say, almost by instinct, seeking one pleasure after another rather than purposeful, meaningful relationship with God. Mindfully considering the choices that they're making and instead they're just almost running around making decisions by their fallen instincts. Always looking for the easy and the quick pleasure that vanished so suddenly. instead of living with a mindfulness and a spiritual awareness that they've been created in the image of God and only in fellowship with Him will they truly ever find themselves. Because like our lives themselves, the world isn't ours either. So listen, while some may think that they've gained the world, they've actually gained, in reality, they've actually gained nothing. And in the pursuit of stolen treasures of the world, they lose their own soul. They try to go through the world, and they try to take things that ultimately are going to be taken from them again, because it isn't theirs. It isn't theirs to keep. The intention of saving our lives, which are not ours, or to gain the treasures of the world, which likewise are not ours, this is to forfeit. our own selves. In a terrible twist of irony, we lose ourselves in the attempt to steal ourselves. Jesus is not merely making call and a demand, he's pointing out what the result will be of our choice of him or ourselves. If you're gonna come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Jesus gives a warning here in verse 26, and we'll conclude soon. Some people might say, well, the riches of the world, they don't really tempt me. I've kind of defeated that particular temptation in my life, and so I'm good. I'm following Christ as a disciple. I'm not rich in the world, and so I'm good. But I think some that might be clear of verse 25 and its implied warning, that doesn't necessarily mean they're clear of the warning that we have in verse 26, which is basically said, if you're ashamed of me and my word, I'll be ashamed of you. Some may think themselves clear again, but discipleship is about openly embracing Christ and everything he said. Unexpected discipleship is to embrace Christ publicly and that by the way, there's in the Greek this idea the words It's a public proclamation I am telling the world. I am not hiding what Christ has said. I am not ashamed of what he has said. I do not find in myself the strength or I don't give myself the credit for anything that he has done. And I do not distance myself from anything that he has said or that he has done. And my discipleship of Christ requires me to not be ashamed him or anything that he has spoken many want to cheapen Jesus words or create a more politically correct version of his call and I know that we are at least for a time in a season it seems having something of a respite from that that had started to go off the rails and the political conditions of our nation have kind of paused that at least and But perhaps maybe we can hope that it's reversed it, but don't know what tomorrow may bring, but still yet many want to cheapen what Jesus said. Discipleship then is an ever-pressing effort to know and understand what Jesus has said, to base one's life on his word. to consider the Word of God and of Christ the ultimate arbiter of truth and the guide in our lives. That's discipleship. I'm not ashamed of what he said. He said, if anyone tries to come into heaven outside of me, the same as a thief and a robber, then I say with Christ, if you're trying to get to heaven outside of Christ, you're a thief and a robber. Not because I said it, because he did. Not ashamed of Him or His Word. To be ashamed, by the way, of His Word, to be a little bit ashamed to speak it, is to be ashamed of Christ. They're not two different things. And that choice, again, is one of two. Public identification with Christ in the world, which will bring to you suffering and self-denial and cross-bearing. But that's the choice. The other choice is public shame. from Him. If you're ashamed of Him today, you will stand ashamed before Him tomorrow. And we close with this concept, this idea, this verse 27 that of course has been the subject of a great deal of debate and discussion among commentators, theologians of the past. What does Jesus mean? I tell you truly there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. I will say this about it and move along. There are many potential explanations. I have not settled in my own mind what I am fully convinced of. I think either of these are an option. He immediately is going to go to the Transfiguration, Luke is. He's going to see, he's going to talk about the Transfiguration of Christ and some have said that That is when they saw the kingdom of God ushering in with Moses and Elijah and Christ exalted and glorified in their eyes. Some have said, no, it's when Jesus died on the cross and rose again and the kingdom entered into the world in that unique way. And some were there who saw those things. Others think it's the resurrection. Some think it's Pentecost. I think there's any number of possibilities. But I will simply say this about it all. when we see the kingdom of God and we understand what the kingdom of God is and what we have gained in it, then the cost of discipleship will prove to be the best purchase we've ever made. The self-denial, the sacrifice will seem but nothing when we realize what we have gained we will find our true eternal identity in Christ. We will realize with the clarity that eternity alone brings that we merely listen. This is what the disciple of Christ has figured out about the world and its treasures and its things. This is what the disciple of Christ has figured out. He didn't so much as deny himself those things, though he did, it's almost as much or more he refused to take what was not his, which is his own life to do with, as he will, or the things of the earth that have not been granted to him by God. He merely refused to steal the life that isn't His or the treasures that aren't His. And we will realize that in denying ourselves, we have gained Christ and therefore gained it all and have really given up only what was never ours to begin with. And I know there's some things to think through there. But I want to close today. The call still stands. Will you choose the world? Will you follow Christ? Take this unexpected path of discipleship. Will you lose yourself for the sake of Christ, or will you choose yourself and then, in a twist of irony, lose yourself? Will you openly and publicly claim Christ and all He said, or will you distance yourself when the world pressures you to be ashamed of Him? Will you see the kingdom of God ushered in in great joy or in great fear? Are you choosing him today? Will you choose him again tomorrow? It's an unexpected discipleship, perhaps, but it is the only discipleship that Jesus describes and is the only real discipleship available to any of us who would be followers of Christ. An unexpected discipleship. When it's seen clearly and through the lens of Scripture and through God's Holy Spirit, we begin to see what it truly is and that it only stands to reason that it's unexpected. Pray that something has been said to help you And you're striving after Christ. And if you don't know him, I pray that you begin today and do what you're going to need to do in a sense every day. Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow him. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, the author and the finisher of our faith, who once died on the cross and died for all. And that includes you. I pray that God will be with us.