THE RULE OF GOD COMES BY JOYFUL DYING
Matthew 16: 21-28
INTRODUCTION
Charles Colson tells the story of Mickey Cohen in his book "Loving
God". Mickey was a mobster, one of the leading "godfathers"
in Los Angeles during the 1940’s. In 1949 one of his "men",
Jim Vaus, became a Christian at the Billy Graham Crusade and renounced
his life of crime. Through the influence of this former colleague in crime,
Mickey met Billy Graham and attended a private gathering of a number of
Hollywood celebrities to hear Billy preach. During the next 5-6 years
Mickey was in contact with a number of Christians. Finally, through the
influence of a businessman named Bill Jones, Mickey prayed the "sinner’s
prayer" to receive Christ. The Christians were excited that such
a notorious criminal had professed faith in Christ. But, over time his
interest in being with Christians waned. He eventually quit spending time
with Bill Jones and Jim Vaus and returned to his old cronies and his old
ways of life. Colson reports, "This perplexed and upset Jones, who
went to Mickey and told him that as a new Christian he ought to be putting
as much mileage between himself and his mob connections as possible. ‘Jones,’
Mickey replied, ‘you never told me that I had to give up my career. You
never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie
stars, Christian athletes, and Christian businessmen. So what’s the matter
with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all that—if that’s
Christianity—count me out.’"
While Mickey Cohen’s story reads like a movie script and seems miles
away from any of our experiences, his question is really our question.
"So what’s the matter with being a Christian gangster?" What
Mickey did not understand is something that is misunderstood by millions
of professing Christians in America today. We, who make up the conservative,
Bible believing, evangelical church in America have lost our hold on how
to put together the biblical statements that we are saved by grace alone,
through faith alone and that "without holiness no one will see the
Lord." We have a hard time putting together Romans 4:5, "However,
to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked,
his faith is credited as righteousness." And 1 Cor. 6:9, "Do
you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?"
Matthew 16: 21-28 joins together what we regularly tear apart. Nowhere
is the gospel of Jesus Christ more clearly at odds with human nature and
human religious systems than at this point. Nowhere is the paradox of
Christ and his message more obvious. These verses are both a warning and
incredibly good news. God wants every true Christian to live in the certainty
and joy of his saving work. But God also wants to rescue those who are
resting in a false security. It is my prayer that these words will be
both a scourge to arouse some of you out of your false security and a
balm to assure others of you of your favored position.
MAIN POINT
True faith in the joyful, dying Christ always leads to a joyful, dying
life because…
I. Jesus suffered and died "for the joy set before him"
(vv. 21 & 27)
We saw last week, in vv. 13-20 that God had revealed the identity of
Jesus to his disciples. The vast majority of people who witnessed Jesus’
miracles and listened to his teaching either rejected him outright as
an imposter or agent of Satan or they saw him as a merely human prophet.
No one, except Peter and the other disciples, knew that Jesus was "the
Christ, the Son of the Living God." They knew who Jesus was because
of the gracious work of his Father in their lives, not because of any
spiritual insight inherent to themselves. Jesus also said that these twelve
apostles would be the foundation stones of the church that he was building
and the ones who would declare to men the requirements for entry into
his kingdom.
Note that as soon as Jesus saw that God had revealed his true identity
to these men, he began to tell them what he must do as the Messiah. Jesus
had talked about his suffering and death prior to this but always in a
veiled and symbolic way. However, now that they know who he is, he begins
to openly describe what is his chief work. The word, "began"
shows that this isn’t the only time he shared this information. In fact,
this became the central focus of his conversations with his disciples
from this point onward. What Jesus says in v. 21 is absolutely shocking.
We have heard these facts: Jesus going to Jerusalem to suffer, do be killed
and to rise on the third day—so often, that they have lost their ability
to shock us. What Jesus says here is like one of our Presidents saying
in his inaugural address that, in order to bring peace and prosperity
to the United States he was going to Washington, D.C. to be tortured by
the Supreme Court justices, to be killed by the Secret Police and then
to rise from the dead. If one of our Presidents said that we would respond
to them just like Peter did to Jesus.
This is the scandal of Christianity. How can it be that the that Jesus
must suffer. die and rise in order to establish God’s rule over his world?
Jesus does say it is necessary, "he must go to Jerusalem to
suffer many things, to be killed and to rise on the third day". Why
must Jesus suffer, die and rise? This is the central question you
must answer if you are going to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The NT is written to answer that question. There are a number of answers
given to it: It is the only way a just and holy God can forgive guilty
sinners. It is the only way God can declare guilty, wicked people perfectly
righteous and not be called a corrupt judge. It is the only way that God
can justly send the Holy Spirit to give guilty sinners new hearts. It
is the only way God can reverse the curse of sin on the universe. It is
the plan that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit determined should happen
before the world began. These are a few of the reasons given. However,
I want to concentrate on the one that Jesus concentrates on in this passage.
He must go to Jerusalem to suffer, die and rise again because this was
the only way he could return to the enjoyment of God’s glory and, at the
same time, rescue his people. The cross was God’s will for him and the
means by which he would be exalted to God’s right hand and receive the
glory that was his before the world began. In v. 27 we see that he knows
that He will one day come, "in his Father’s glory, with his angels
and judge be the judge over all humans." He could only gain the joy,
the glory of verse 27 by enduring the suffering and death of v. 21. He
could only have resurrection after suffering and dying. He would only
gain the joy of vindicating his Father’s reputation and of saving his
people by first suffering, dying and rising. He could only become the
judge by first becoming the sacrifice.
I want to encourage you to read through the accounts of Jesus’ arrest,
trial, beatings and crucifixion and ask yourself these questions. How
did Jesus, the eternal Son of God, endure the arrogant, self-righteous,
hypocritical accusations of the religious leaders? How did the one whose
word holds together the entire universe put up with the sniveling cowardice
of Pilate? How did the one who is the judge of all men stand silently
while the petty Roman governor, Herod berated and insulted him? How did
the King of kings and Lord of lords permit himself to be mocked by the
Roman soldiers? How did the sinless, innocent one withstand the beatings,
floggings and torture of the cross? How did the one who deserves all praise
and honor hang on the cross without cursing God and man? How did the one
who commands legions of angels not send them to assert his innocence?
He did it by fixing his attention on the joy that was set before him.
He did it because he wanted maximum, eternal joy, not the temporary joy
of personal vengeance and vindication. He did it because he loved his
Father and his people more than he loved the respect of his disciples
and fair treatment by the authorities, more than he loved not being tortured.
He wanted to enjoy the company and glory of his Father, not the satisfaction
of being proven right before mere humans. He wanted to save his people
from an eternal hell, not merely give them relief from suffering while
on planet earth.
True faith in the joyful, dying Christ always leads to a joyful, dying
life because…
- Jesus suffered and died "for the joy set before him"
- And because…
II. Opposition to the dying Christ reveals a heart opposed to God
(vv. 22-23)
Verses 22-23 would be comical if they were not so convicting. Peter is
again acting as the spokesperson for all the disciples. After hearing
Jesus talk about suffering and dying in Jerusalem, Peter, with the full
agreement of the other disciples, takes him aside and rebukes him for
talking like this. They are absolutely shocked by what Jesus has just
told them. They are certain that Jesus, as the Messiah has come to save
the Jewish nation from the oppression of the Roman armies and the corruption
of the religious leaders. They can only envision that happening in one
way. He must use the awesome, miracle working power of God to overcome
all resistance and provide the Jewish nation with the prosperity that
will set her above all the nations of the world. They are not only shocked.
They are offended by what Jesus is saying. They are offended because Jesus
is treating them and the rest of the Jewish people as if they cannot protect
their Messiah. Peter’s reasoning runs along these lines; Jesus, by talking
about his suffering and death is being overly pessimistic. He’s making
too much of Roman power and the religious leaders’ cunning. He should
be hopeful because he has the disciples on his team and, as soon as the
crowds know who he is, they will gladly join him in open rebellion. He
will not die because there will be so many good-hearted humans fighting
by his side.
Peter views himself, the other disciples and the Jewish nation as God’s
champions. They would never let anything bad happen to their Messiah.
Peter does not understand the depth of his sin and so he does not understand
the need for a suffering, crucified Savior. He does not understand that
the only reason he understands is the grace of God. He believes that his
insight into the identity of Jesus is the result of his own native ability
and not a special work of God’s grace. He thinks too highly of himself
and not highly enough of Jesus. Regardless of how shocking and offensive
Jesus’ words were, he should have stopped and reasoned like this: "Let’s
see, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Therefore, he knows more than
me about God’s plans. So, even though I don’t understand I will wait for
Jesus to explain what he is saying." But instead of thinking like
this he arrogantly rebukes Jesus. That word rebuke is very strong. In
essence he is accusing Jesus of sin. He is accusing Jesus of not trusting
God. "Now Jesus, I know that Herod murdered John the Baptist and
that the religious leaders are very unfriendly. But come on Jesus, God’s
on our team, we can’t lose. You’ve got us and soon you’ll have the crowds
that love you. Let’s trust God. Let’s stop with the negative vibes."
Now look at Jesus’ response to Peter. We discover what is really going
on in Peter and the other disciples. First, we discover that Peter is
speaking on behalf of Satan. The same man who moments before spoke under
the inspiration of God is now speaking under the inspiration of Satan.
He has, in response to Jesus’ talk about a crucified Messiah, switched
his allegiance. Jesus says he is a stumbling block to him. In other words,
Peter, by rebuking Jesus is seeking to cause Jesus to sin. He is an agent
of temptation. Peter thinks he is defending God and promoting God’s will
but in fact he is urging Jesus to abandon the will of God and to pursue
his own will. How often the voice of Satan comes to us cloaked in spiritual
language, pretending to promote God’s will. We must remember what Jesus
knows so clearly, Satan is the great deceiver and just because God’s name
is used, just because someone says he loves Jesus, this does not mean
the one speaking is his representative. How easily we are deceived into
thinking we are promoting God’s will when we are promoting the will of
the enemy.
Second, notice that Jesus tells us how it is that Peter was so willing
to become an emissary of the devil. His mind is set not on the things
of God but on the things of man. The word that is translated "have
in mind" is not merely intellectual understanding. Rather it refers
to the things that a person values and thus thinks about. He loves the
things of man and so this is what he thinks about and therefore this determines
how he will behave. It is simply a matter of human nature. We think about
the things we love and then these internal loves and thoughts drive our
behavior and reactions. Most parents have experienced what is happening
here on many occasions. You make plans to go hiking to Devils Lake as
a family on a Saturday. You talk about it for weeks. You get out the maps
of the state park and pictures of Devils Lake you took when you were a
teenager. You enthusiastically talk about how much fun you’ve had hiking
there. You plan a picnic lunch. The day finally arrives and it’s a beautiful
day. You get everyone up and prepare a wonderful breakfast of pancakes
and eggs and bacon. As you pack the car, your 15 year old comes up to
you and says, "Dad, my buddies are going to see "Lord of the
Rings" for the fifth time this afternoon. I want to go with them.
I don’t like hiking. It’ll be boring." You’re about to explain how
awesome it is at Devils Lake when you’re seven year old says, "Dad,
I want to watch cartoons. I agree with Ralph. It’ll be boring. I want
to play with my friends this afternoon." While your mind has
been filled with pleasant thoughts of hiking with your family, enjoying
the beauty of God’s creation and the warmth of family togetherness, your
children’s minds have been filled with thoughts of the boredom of hiking
and the fun of movies and cartoons and friends. So, like most Dads, you
say, "Get behind me Satan! You’re not setting your mind on the things
of Dad but on the things of American pop culture and peer dependent, social
conformity."
Peter rebukes Jesus because Peter loves and dwells upon the things of
man and not the things of God. What we see in Peter is that believing
the truth about Jesus does not mean that we are actually trusting in Jesus.
While we cannot be 100% sure it appears that Peter’s heart remains, at
this point, unconverted. While God has begun the process of bringing Peter
to himself, that process is not yet complete. What was Peter’s mind full
of? What kinds of thoughts were occupying his attention? Peter was imagining
how great it would be to live in a kingdom where he would never have to
wonder about where the next meal was coming from. He was thinking about
how pleasant it would be to rule over the Gentile nations. He imagined
ordering Romans around. He imagined having the religious leaders bow when
he entered a room. He was daydreaming about never having to return from
a fishing trip empty-handed. He was thinking about how nice it would be
to not have to be afraid of Roman soldiers entering your house in the
middle of the night and carrying you or one of your children off to prison.
He was dreaming of the armies he might command or the buildings he might
build or the places he might freely visit. He saw himself at the center
of the coming kingdom, an indispensable member of Jesus’ ruling council.
Peter was thinking about God’s kingdom in purely man-centered and earth
bound ways.
He was not thinking about what it meant that Jesus was the Christ, the
Son of the Living God. If Peter really understood what he was confessing
about Christ ought he not to have wondered at how marvelous it was that
God became man? He wasn’t filled with wonder and gratitude that he actually
knew the Messiah and was one of his companions. It seemed natural to him
to be included among the companions of Jesus. It didn’t shock him that
Jesus, the Messiah, would choose to live with him. He didn’t meditate
on the ways of God in revealing the identity of Jesus to him. He thought
of himself as better than others, not as God saw him, a sinner saved merely
by God’s grace. He wasn’t thinking about building the church but about
building his own portfolio. Rather than marveling at Jesus’ description
of what he "must" do, he was offended by his words and critical
of Jesus for talking in this way. His heart should have been bursting
with the joy of knowing Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
True faith in the joyful, dying Christ always leads to a joyful, dying
life because…
- Jesus suffered and died "for the joy set before him"
- Opposition to the dying Christ reveals a heart opposed to God
- And because…
III. What you love, trust and hope in, is revealed by the pleasure
you pursue (vv. 24-28)
Jesus now addresses all the disciples because he knows that what is infecting
Peter is also infecting them. But, notice that what he says is not limited
to just these disciples. He makes a universal statement by the use of
"anyone". Here we have from Jesus’ own lips what it means to
be a Christian. We also have here the reason for being a Christian. These
verses describe what faith is. They tell us not only how to become a Christian
but also how to live the Christian life. Let me be very clear here. Many
have said that these verses are meant for only really serious Christians.
Some have said that this is not a description of how to become a Christian
but of how to become a serious disciple of Jesus. You become a Christian
by accepting Jesus as your personal Savior and then at a later time you
submit to him as Lord of your life. This is a lie. These verses are Jesus’
definition of what it means to be a Christian. There are not two classes
of Christians, those who don’t deny themselves and those who do.
Verses 24-28 are a very tight logical argument. Verses 25, 26 & 27
all begin with the word "for". In other words, each succeeding
verse gives the reason why the previous statement is true. Verse 24 begins
by describing saving faith. The only people who belong to Jesus are people
who deny themselves, take up their cross and follow after him.
All of us regularly deny or disown ourselves. When you decide to watch
the Olympics for an evening, you must deny yourself dozens of other pleasures.
In effect, you die to the pleasures of an evening out to dinner with your
wife or the pleasure of having a clean house or the pleasure of finishing
a homework assignment. When you watch the Olympics for an evening, you
separate yourself from or die to every other pleasure. What pleasure must
you deny in order to follow Jesus? What joy must you kill; separate yourself
from, in order to belong to Christ? In one sense the pleasures that you
must die to are far different from the ones I must die to. But there are
at least two that we all share in common. First, we must deny ourselves
the pleasure of boasting before God and man that we are, in ourselves
acceptable to God. We must deny ourselves the pleasure of believing that
we are good and God should be happy to accept us into heaven as we are.
If you do not die to the pleasure of thinking of yourself as a valuable,
good, important person, you do not belong to Christ. All of us must deny
ourselves the thrill of believing we are acceptable to God because of
who we are and what we have done. It means we find more pleasure in embracing
Jesus’ description of us in Matthew 16: 4, we are "a wicked and adulterous
generation"; or in Matthew 12: 34, "You brood of vipers. How
can you who are evil say anything good?"—than in believing we are
good people.
But second, we must deny ourselves the pleasures that come from loving
and being friends with this world. We must deny ourselves the pleasures
of sin. What Peter shows by his rebuke of Jesus is that what he loves
is the pleasures of fame and power and money. He does not love the pleasures
of being with Jesus. What I’m not saying is that it is wrong to enjoy
eating, or playing with your children or enjoying a hobby. What Jesus
is saying is that the only way you can belong to him is to die to your
need to have these pleasures in order to be happy. The core of
our sin is that we must have these pleasures or we will die. This
is the source of our anger, our depression, our fear, our lust, our broken
relationships, our alienation from God. This is what Paul means in Romans
1. He says that we have "exchanged the truth of God for a lie and
worship and serve created things rather than the Creator." Let me
use financial security to show what it means to worship and serve a created
thing. Worship is the spontaneous response of our hearts to obtaining
what we value. We worship money when we are happy to have it and sad when
we don’t have it. We don’t serve money by doing things to meet the needs
of money. We serve money by doing all we can to get more of it. In other
words, we serve money by enjoying it so much that we deny ourselves other
pleasures in order to obtain more of it. In the same way we must die to
our demand to be happy in this world and pursue all our happiness in Christ.
Verse 25: Why is it that denying yourself the pleasures of this world
and dying to your demand to be made happy in this world is necessary to
belonging to Jesus? It is because "whoever seeks to save his life
will lose it but whoever loses his life for the sake of me will save it."
Jesus is simply stating the obvious. You cannot enjoy the pleasure of
watching the Olympics tonight and at the same time enjoy the pleasures
of going out to dinner with your wife. The young man cannot enjoy the
pleasures of being engaged to Sue while at the same time he enjoys the
pleasures of being engaged to Cindy. You can’t enjoy the pleasures of
being a U.S. citizen and at the same time enjoy the pleasures of betraying
your country. Notice that the "losing of your life" is for the
sake of Jesus. Just as an engaged person gladly "loses" the
pleasures of dating other people because they are so taken up with the
pleasures of being in the company of their beloved, so the follower of
Jesus gladly gives up the lesser pleasures that this world offers for
the joy of being in the company of Jesus.
Verse 26: Why is losing the pleasures of this world for the sake of Jesus
better than pursuing your pleasure in this world? Verse 26 says it is
because enjoying all the pleasures this world offers for 80 or 90 years
is nothing compared to suffering forever in hell. Jesus is appealing to
your love for yourself. He’s like a good advertiser or a good financial
adviser. He is laying out the cost/benefit analysis. He is seeking to
awaken you to what is at stake. What will it be, 80 years of pleasure
here and an eternity of torment when I die or dying to my demand to enjoy
life here and an eternity of pleasure at God’s right hand forever. Is
a life of pursuing your happiness here, however you define it, worth the
cost of your eternal life?
Verse 27: Why should you take what Jesus is saying here serious? He is
going to come again in the power and authority that belongs to him as
the eternal Son of the Living God. He will send out his angels and they
will gather up, out of his kingdom all who practice evil and who cause
evil and he will cast them into the furnace of fire where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. In addition, he will reward all those who
practice righteousness with the eternal pleasures that come from living
with God forever. If you are paying attention to what I am saying and
you know anything about the NT, you are perhaps questioning my choice
of words. I said, he will reward "all those who practice righteousness"
with heaven. I did not say, all those who trust in Jesus as their only
Savior. Why did I say this? Because it is what Jesus says at the end of
v. 27 and it is saying the same thing as "those who trust in Jesus".
I hope you can see why they are the same thing. You are practicing righteousness
when you are denying yourself, losing your life for the sake of enjoying
Jesus. Faith is not simply assenting to the facts about Jesus. It is not
simply saying I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe I am a sinner.
I believe that Jesus died on the cross for sinners. Therefore, I believe
I will be in heaven because Jesus died for my sins. Faith believes all
these facts but also loves them. Faith believes that all that God promises
to be for me in Jesus is better than all the pleasures of this world.
You know that you believe this because you regularly deny yourself the
pleasure of having your spouse apologize to you. You regularly kill your
desire to be approved of by your peers by not joining in with their off
colored jokes. You regularly lose your pleasure in owning new things by
giving money away to the cause of Christ. None of this is motivated by
some kind of bartering system with God. "I’ll be good if you’ll be
nice to me." Rather we do it the same way we deny ourselves the pleasure
of reading a book when we prefer the pleasure of watching the Olympics
on TV. We do it because we believe it is more pleasurable to watch the
Olympics. We deny ourselves, die to our desires, and lose our lives because
we are so amazed at the love of God in Christ that died for our sins and
rose to give us eternal life. We love Jesus and so love to do as Jesus
commands.
True faith in the joyful, dying Christ always leads to a joyful, dying
life because…
- Jesus suffered and died "for the joy set before him"
- Opposition to the dying Christ reveals a heart opposed to God
- What you love, trust and hope in, is revealed by the joy you pursue
© Copyright 2002 John Swanson.
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If you would like to post this material to the web, or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
mail@riverhillsonline.org
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