The Cost of Discipleship // Matthew 16:13-26

I want you to know that that video is the bullseye for our church. We want to make and mobilize disciples, and we want to do that not just here, but everywhere. We want to do that in your neighborhoods and among the nations, in the carpool line and in the Congo. We want to do that everywhere. And here's the thing, guys. I want you to know this. We are becoming, we are ascending church. That's why at the end of services, you're like, "How many times at the end of services are people going to get up?" And we're going back, "They're going to Brazil, or they're going to Mumbai." It's because we're ascending church, okay? And what Jacob is an example of, is he's an example of saying a gospel goodbye and moving for the sake of missions. Now, I believe behind me on the screen is going to be a QR code. If you're still interested in short-term missions, I want you to look into our missions and plan a mission trip for 2025 or 2026, we want you to be a part of a short-term mission trip. But I also want you to know that we're not just sending short-term mission trips. We are sending people down to Lexington to the launch of campus. We're sending people to Davy County to plant a church and we're sending missionaries all over the world. Okay? So listen, I wanted to tell you that at the beginning. But now, you know, open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 16. We are in a disciple series, okay? I'm going to be there in just a few minutes. But I thought, okay, we're in a disciple series, but I know it's Mother's Day. So by the way, happy Mother's Day, okay? But then here's what I was thinking. Is it?

Yes. Just clap for the moms. Well, we're going to do that in a second. But we'll do it now, too. And here's what I thought. This is the perfect series for Mother's Day because who is the number one person who has made the most disciples over the last 2,000 years? Mom! Mom, you want to talk about life on life? You want to talk about discipleship, 18-year investment in the next generation, passing on a vision and a view of God and the values of Scripture. So if you are a mom in this room, maybe you're pregnant, you're about to become a mom, which is Stan. We want to honor you for a second. Stand up. Look at all these moms. So many moms. Yeah. Great. Hey, we love you guys. Thank you. Happy Mother's Day, guys. Okay? Listen. And we don't just love moms. We love the ladies, which is why we're having a women's event. Okay? Women's event. I had to fit that in here somehow. Okay.

June 7th. And it's not just like, we love the women maybe more than the men because the men got a night and the women's get a conference. Okay? They're going to get the main speaker. You can see Felicia, Mason Hymer, and then actually, I'm really excited about this. Talk about discipleship. The women in our church are going to be doing breakout sessions right after the plenary session. So you don't want to miss that. That's going to be June 7th. We'll be coffee here as well, which is great. And then also want to let you know that the men's event was an incredible success. Let's show a couple of pictures of that. We had just over 1,200 men show up. And I just thought, yeah, it's awesome. And I really did. I thought that myself, you know, it's not a competition, but I thought, where else in the triad this whole year will 1,200 men gather together to worship Jesus and be challenged? And I'm just telling you, you got to ask your husband, you got to ask your boyfriend, you got to ask, I don't know, somebody, one of the guys in our church, just what happened because it was a very meaningful and moving time and Robbie Gaudy brought a unique word. In fact, what I hope to do is I hope sometime in 2026, if I can, get promises, we'd love to get him back to pre-storehold church. So with that said, let's pray and we'll get to work. Lord, I am thankful for mom today. Thankful for my mom. Thankful for Marty, who's the mom of our kids. And it's been said that no one grew up poor who had a godly mom. And so we are so thankful for the investment that moms make.

We pray for moms because they often feel just completely overwhelmed, especially in the little years. And we pray, as we often think on Mother's Day, of all of the ladies in here who desire to be a mom, and it's a good desire, Lord. We pray you would give them the desires of their heart, so many of the stories of the Old Testament in the beginning of the New Testament, are you opening the womb so that a woman can become a mom, Lord? We pray you would do that miracle even right now in Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. All right, like I told you, we are in a disciple series. I'm going to meet you in Matthew chapter 16, verse 13 in a few minutes, but I just got to introduce a few things. Now, I've been talking about this for three weeks now, and you might be getting tired of it, but I'm going to give you the definition of a disciple just one more time because we did that in the first week. And I told you before, we can't be a disciple if we don't even know how to define it. Okay? So here's what it is. It's somebody who is following Jesus and helping others find and follow Jesus. And what I love about that and what I told you last week and the week before, is that means that you're always asking what is my first step and what is my next step in following Jesus? And if you're mature, then you're asking what are other people's first step and next And so that was week one. And then last week, we talked about kind of the community of the disciples and we look at all these relationships that Jesus had, but particularly his relationship with his disciples and we basically said, listen, Christianity isn't a spectator sport, Christianity isn't a solo sport,

and you need to tie yourself into relationships because discipleship happens in relationships. Don't think that the way that you're gonna grow the most spiritually is finding a Bible and getting alone for a long time in the woods by yourself. That's how every cult starts, okay, just so you know. And get alone with Jesus and read your Bible, but it's going to be as you tether and tie yourself to meaningful relationships in which you open up your Bible and open up your life. Like here's what you should do. You should get in meaningful relationships with Christians and then you should one another, one another, okay? I mean, all the one another's in scripture. Do that with one another. Pray for one another and bear one another's burdens and forgive one another and serve one another, okay. Now here's what I have to talk about today. Not the call of discipleship, okay. That was kind of easy and fun to talk about. And not the community of discipleship. That was kind of interesting for me to talk about. Today I have to talk about the cost of discipleship, which is not something I'm really looking forward to talking about, you know. It's like I'm sitting on the front row thinking about you guys and praying and I'm thinking, how do I talk to a bunch of modern people in Winston-Salem in 2025 about the cost of fallen Christ.

I mean, aren't we just such a comfortable, domesticated people? I mean, I'm thinking about it. So this is not this one, one time right now, another someone knows. I'm just thinking right now with you guys. But I'm here and I'm thinking to myself before I get up there, I'm like, how am I ready to just talk on the cost of discipleship? I sleep with three pillows. And two of them have to be Tempur-Pedic. I mean, guys, this is just, and so pray for me as I talk to you about this. But I need to talk about the cost of discipleship, right? Because here's the thing, and they get serious for a second. Christianity is costly. And following Christ, you'll see this today. He's very honest and straightforward, that it's going to cost you something to follow Christ, which is why we always say here that being a Christian or Christianity is a terrible hobby. So we would recommend for hobby golf, pickleball, hunting, fishing, running, biking, working out, those are great hobbies. Christianity is a horrible hobby because it's going to cost you so much. Now, when I talk about the cost of discipleship, there's two things, and then we're going to get to the text. I want you to understand,

this will frame what we're going to do today. When you think about the cost of discipleship, two things, when you think of cost, you also have to think of value, okay? I'm not obviously an economist, and I'm not going to talk a lot on economics, but here's the whole idea. There's a cost is what you pay, value is what you get. That's kind of an oversimplification, but, and so you feel good if you spent a certain amount cost, and you feel like what I got was even more valuable, and you feel horrible, right? If you're like, I've spent so much, it costs so much, and when I got it, it was of so little value. What Jesus is going to say today, he's going to tell you both, the cost of following him is enormous, but you will always get more than you give. You can't out give God, and you can't, Jesus will not be your debtor, okay? And so here's the outline for today in Matthew 16. Jesus is going to tell you what discipleship cost him, and then what discipleship cost you. Basically, the first part is what does it cost to make you a disciple? That's the life of Jesus Christ himself. And then what does it cost for you to be a disciple? Okay, so we're going to cover a lot, but it's going to make sense, I think. Okay, so starting verse 13.

We're going to talk about the cost of discipleship and the church, here it is. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, okay, I had a chance to be there, it's 25 miles north of Jerusalem. Basically, I thought he was four. So much, this is life on life. So much of what Jesus does is take short-term mission trips and spiritual retreats with his disciples. So it's about a day's journey, he takes him up to Caesarea Philippi, which is the worst area, like in the sense of morality in that area. It'd be like, I was going, "Hey guys, we're going to go on a trip, "let's all go to Asheville." Yeah, you know? That's what it'd be like. Okay, the astral of the day. Look, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" That's Jesus' favorite designation for himself. And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, "other say Elijah, others Jeremiah, "or one of the prophets. "He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter replied, "Well, you're the Christ. "The Son of the living God," and Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, "for flesh and blood is not revealed this to you,

"but my Father who is in heaven. "And I tell you, you are Peter, "and on this rock I will hear it "as first mention of the word church in the Bible. "I will build my church, "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Okay. This is the first mention of the church in the Bible. and I wanna talk to you about what the church is. Maybe we should first think. So Jesus says, I will build my church and we're gonna see in a few minutes, Jesus is willing to die for his church. That's how he's going to build his church. So then you might ask, and I don't know where we all are in this room, you might ask the question, well then what is the church? And I think the average American would think of the church as a building, but Jesus is saying I'm going to build my building. And other people might think of the church as an event, right? And depending on what denomination and how long the pastor preaches, sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's an hour and a half, and we get a sermon and we get some songs and we get some free childcare, but Jesus is not saying I'm going to die for an event. Some people think of the church as maybe like a social club. It's a great place, this would be less common today,

but a great place to meet people who have similar values. Or some people think of it's a non-profit, that does good deeds. Jesus is not saying I will build my non-profit. I don't do this a lot, but I wanna tell you what the Greek word is. And 'cause it's helpful, the Greek word for church and how it's connected to cost. Okay, so the Greek word for church is ecclesia, okay? It's probably one of the, if you could only know like 10 Greek words, let's, that would be a good one. Ecclesia is the word church. And ech means to call out and laisia means to gather. So literally what is the church? A called out people who gather on purpose. That would be, there's more I could say, but there's not less I could say. It's a called out people that gather on purpose. So here's what I want you to see about the cost of discipleship connected to the church. When Christ calls you to Himself, He calls you out of a bunch of things. And it's hard, right? I remember I was a brand new Christian. I was working at Pizza Hut. You know, and I have this memory of just, I was cleaning the tables of pizza and I was thinking in my, in my, I was, again, I'm bringing to the Lord,

I'm thinking to myself, it's been hard to live without certain sins in my life. I was 18 years old, but I'm like, I dare to just sins. I was young. I didn't even get a chance to live in sin for very long. But I remember, it was a weird, I can picture this. I'm thinking to myself, man, it's really hard to live without certain sins in my life. Jesus calls you out of sin. He calls you out of the world. And by that, I don't mean necessarily always the people of the world. Although sometimes you have to leave certain relationships. He calls you out of the value system of the world. He calls you out of worshiping all of your idols, right? The idols that you're worshiping that don't love you back, right? Your house doesn't love you back. Your job doesn't love you back. All the things that are trying to save you. He calls you out of darkness and ignorance. But here's the interesting. He calls you to gather. We're called to Christ, but we're called to gather with the people. I mean, the idea by the way of gathering is ancient. The first time, really, you could say, if you look at the Old Testament, when is the first time the church gathers?

It's really Moses and Sinai around the 10 commandments. So this is thousands. What we're doing here, guys, I know we have iMac screens and lights camera and sound and light and comfortable chairs. But what we're doing right now is ancient. It's a modern form of an ancient practice. We're gathering around God's word. And this is, by the way, why I don't think online church is gonna work, even though people are excited about it, some people are. It's because God created us to gather. This is why like COVID was so horrible, you know, I remember when first when we came back from COVID, people just showed up at our church crying. Are these sad tears or happy tears? You know what I'm saying? It was just like, "What's going on?" And all of them, it was happy tears 'cause they hadn't gathered. It didn't only been like three months. This is why we get excited about NASCAR, some of you. Some of you, I mean, the people that gather at the Bowman Grey Stadium this time of year, okay? People love to gather, gather for sporting events, gather for birthday parties, we love to gather. Now, here's the thing, we don't think about it this way, but I want you to think about it this way. It is costly to gather as a church. Now, there's two ways it's costly.

The first way we haven't really experienced it yet, not in 2025, not in Winston-Salem, I don't think, which is there's a social cost to gather. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on that 'cause I don't think there's a big social cost right now. Now, you gotta understand, in lots of places in the world, there's a huge social cost to gather. It could cost me being exiled from my family. It could cost me my reputation. I could get persecuted by the government if they know that I gathered. So I don't wanna talk about the social cost of gathering. It's real, and if it was applicable to us right now, I would talk about it for a long time. I wanna talk about the other cost of gathering, which is the cost of time. And the cost of just making it a priority. Some of you are wanting a costless Christianity. And the first thing that it's gonna cost you to follow Christ is you're going to have to make it a priority to gather. Like you're gonna have to decide like we are, if we're in town, we're gonna be in church and church is going to be the priority in our life. And if you're gonna get meaning, it doesn't have to be this church, but if you're gonna get meaningfully connected to any church, maybe they have Sunday school, maybe they have staff community groups, maybe like us they have some kind of discipleship group, maybe they have an age and stage ministry.

I just wanna encourage you, maybe on mothers day I wanna encourage mom and dad, you're gonna have to make it a priority for you and your kids to gather, which means you're gonna have to say no to certain things. Robbie Gallady when he was here, this doesn't sound as powerful for me because I'm not six, six, okay? And I don't have that beautiful beard that he has, but he was walking around the stage and he was like, guys, he was talking to the men, so ladies, he was one of the things he told us. He said, "Man, when it came to church activities "and church involvement with my family, "I was a benevolent dictator." We do not have the committee on committees in our house. We do not decide by vote in consensus whether or not we're gonna be deeply involved in the life of our church. And then he basically said, this is what he said, so I'll say something hard but quote somebody else. He basically said, "If you don't bring your kids to church "in your teenage years, "don't be surprised when they don't go to church "in their adult years." So here's the whole thing, guys, 'cause I'm growing up and learning about all this stuff and now I've got a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old and there's like 4% in me that hopes one of them becomes a professional athlete.

I've got all that in me, just like you do, even though you're right. And so my son, William, is, I'm very proud of this, he got to be the captain of the traveling soccer team. And I would rather watch him play than wake-force basketball or something. I just, I love it. And so it's like a pretty big deal, multiple practices. They traveled to here, they go here, they go here and we just sat down with him and we said, "And there's practices on Tuesdays and Wednesdays "and Thursdays and we just sat down with him and said, "Man, you're not gonna be able to go to practice "on Wednesday nights." And we had to have the conversation with the coach. You know, and it's like, and to my son's credit, this isn't a someone I saw, but he never complained about it one time and then we actually were able to find him a ride and so now he doesn't have to miss Wednesday practice. So the story loses a little bit of his power as I tell you guys it, but there was a season. Now he goes to all the practices, but we had to deal with it. I'm just, it's just real, some of you guys, it's like, look, do not like, you know, with an old joke, you know, spend $50,000 so your kid can play bad division three soccer. It's like, don't do that. And so what we're just saying is tie and tether your life to this church or a church, doesn't it?

But there's, we don't get it. There's a cost to gather. We can't just do it when it's convenient. Okay, so he says this, I will build my church. Now look on, we gotta get moving. Verse two or verse 13, go back. Now when Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say this on a minute? So the second thing he does is if we're gonna understand the cost of discipleship, we need to understand first what the church is, second who Christ is. So I think this is interesting. Jesus engages his disciples in spiritual conversations and he engages his disciples in spiritual conversations by asking good questions. Some of you just need to get better at asking good questions, is it? And he asked the question, who do people say this on a minute? Now you could ask this question. Why would Jesus ask other people who they think he is? One answer would be, is Jesus confused about who he is? And therefore he has to ask other people, hey, I don't really, I'm having an identity crisis. Is he like a middle schooler who's insecure and wants to know what everybody else thinks about him? I mean, obviously not. Jesus is asking who do people think I am because he wants to genuinely, he wants people to know who he is.

So what's interesting about Jesus, I think I've told you this before, is he's the most self-directed, self-centered, self-focused of all the world religion teachers. Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad, they all pointed away from themselves. Jesus points back to himself. So he asked, who do people say that I am? Look here, verse 14. And they said to him, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets, in other words, it's the same thing people say about Jesus today. Here's what they're saying. He's a great guy and a good Bible teacher. I mean, you know, in the Joe Rogan podcast, Jordan Peterson, you know, do you know these names? Andrew, Huberman, all these secular guys out there, they all appreciate Jesus. And they're surprised at what he's saying, is lining up with psychology and lining up with science and lining up with all these other things. And they think, by the way, with what they're saying about Jesus, you could not say better guys than John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah. The thing is they don't see Jesus as Lord. And it's not until you see Jesus Christ as Lord "Who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter replied, "You're the Christ. You're the son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you Simon Barr, Jonah." By the way, the blessing of God, the primary blessing of God in our lives is not possessions or money or health. According to here,

he says, "Blessed are you Simon." Because the greatest blessing in our lives is to know who Jesus Christ is. That's what he's saying. And he says, "Blessed are you Simon Barr, Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Look here. In verse 18, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So, I want us to see two other things about Christ in the church. The first is that the church belongs to Jesus, and the second is that Jesus is the one who builds the church. So, the church belongs to Jesus, not a deacon board, right? Not a committee. You have 20 before for God so loved the world that he did not send a committee, right? But the church does not belong to the wealthy people in the church. The church does not belong to some powerful family with multiple in-laws in the church. I mean, how many times have you seen this? The church does not belong to a pastor. The church does not belong to an denomination. Jesus says, "I will build my church," and Jesus says he's going to build his church. Now, here's where value and cost comes to the picture. The church is very valuable to God and to Christ, and it is very costly to build it, right? Do you have the same experience that I do every once in a while? You just drive it. There's many streets like this, but you know, the first time I moved to Winston Salem, and actually, any time I have a speaker come in town and we drive around and we go to lunch and everything, and we get on Stratford Road and drive to Buena Vista, everybody's like, "Who lives here?" You know, every once in a while, I'm like, "I don't know. That house is so big." And that is such a prime piece of, I don't even know who could have. That must have been passed down. Is that the Haines family? Is that the Reynolds family? Well, here's what you ask. You look at something and you go, "How much did that cost?" I'm overwhelmed by how big it is and how awesome it is. It's like, well, when you look at the church of Jesus Christ, you've got to go, "What did it cost?" And the first answer is it costs... Here's the answer. What did it cost? An enormous amount of voluntary suffering. And then you break it into two categories. It costs an enormous amount of suffering on the part of Jesus Christ to live and to die in our place for our sins, to give all of His blood for us. So it cost us the life of the Son of God to build the church. And then you go, "Well, how did we get?" Right? If you're like, "How did you get from 12 disciples to one billion people saying they followed Jesus?" Well, the only answer is voluntary suffering. But here's what's interesting. As soon as Jesus talks about the church, He cannot talk about the church without talking... Excuse me, without talking about

the cross. Look here, verse 21, we'll drop down to verse 21. This is this, "From that time..." And remember, I don't know if you remember this, in week one, when we were in Matthew, I told you that the phrase, "From that time marks transition." So he says, "From that time..." So in other words, this is a... There was a transition in the book in chapter four of Matthew. There's a transition in the book in chapter 16 right here. "From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief precincts and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised." So, remember, Peter just confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. That just happened. And then Jesus starts to talk about the cross. And remember when Peter confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, Jesus says to Peter, "On this rock, I will build my church." I just read that to you guys. And some people go, "Is Peter the first pope?" And the answer to that is, "Nope." Okay. And I'll show you why in a second. But Peter is... Do we believe in the pope? Nope. But it's interesting because, you know, and I learned this from Dr. Mueller, I am constantly fascinated with how often theology is made. And so here we are 2025 and what has everybody been talking about for the last two weeks, the Pope. Here's what he's saying. The church is built by Jesus, but built through people. And it's built through people who confess Christ. And there's, look, you know this, there's always a cost to confessing Christ. This is why baptism is the line in the sand. Because, you know, if a person can not, and I'm not saying baptism's easy, but it is the first step of obedience. And if a person cannot confess Christ in this room, where all we want to do is celebrate it. All we want to do is like give them a hug afterwards. All we want to do is take pictures and get it on video

so that they can have, that's all we want to do. And we have all these volunteers and all we want to do is congratulate them. If they can't stand for Christ in here, they will not stand for Christ out there. But there's always a cost to confessing Christ. Right? I mean, I can think, if it's in my mind, I was thinking through several stories. Like, I remember I was a brand new believer, here I go back to my brand new believer stories, but I'm a brand new believer. I'm in public high school and my Bible falls out of my backpack. Clumsy Kyle, I guess, you know, whatever, but. And it was one of those, you know, it kind of looked goofy. Do you ever have those or your names in cursive on the cup? You know what I'm talking about on the leather? Tell me you have that right now. It's okay. I'm not, it's fine. They're actually nice, they're nice. Okay, but you know, when you're a 17 year old boy that doesn't look very cool. And my, and actually it's a long story. I got the Bible for free. It's a really cool story. I'll tell you some of the time, but listen. So they, so Bible falls out of backpack in the coolest kid in the class season.

And he grabs it. And he starts flipping, he starts making fun of me in front of the whole class. And here I am, I'm like, I don't know if we can count that as suffering for Christ. I'd like to, okay, if possible. But I thought, you know, but I thought this is it. This is, you know, but at the same time, it's weird. This is what'll happen when you suffer. Many suffer like I do, okay? But you, I, he gave me, I was embarrassed. I was dealing with all my, you know, getting hot and all that kind of stuff. And, but when I, when I got by myself afterwards, I thought this, seriously, I had this thought as a 17-year-old. I am a real Christian. It's like I passed a little test, just a little test. Someone grabbed my Bible, made fun of me at 17. And I said, no, I am a Christian and, no, give me that, give me this guy dead. Well, then I remember I go to Duke University and I go to, I'm a, I'm worried about telling the story if it ever gets out. I've never told the story before, but basically, I go to the religious life fair. I'm a, I'm doing college ministry. I go to the religious life fair, which I think would be like the great, like everyone will wanna talk to me about Jesus there, right? Maybe not, okay?

So I go there and I start sharing Christ and building relationships. And then within like 24 hours, I get an email from the head of religious life at Duke University. Of course, it was a woman with a hyphenated last name. (audience laughing) Always a warning, okay? (audience laughing) And she says, she says to me, I heard that you are aggressively talking to people about Christ, please do not do that on our campus. And I'm like, this was a week one. I just got hired to do this. I remember I'm sharing the gospel with some freshmen at Duke University and the one freshmen, I can't remember if I told you guys the story before. It's been a long time I've had this one freshman says to me, oh, this is interesting. Can I talk to you again this next week? And I'm like, yeah, you can, here's my number, you know? Let's go. And so we get up like a couple of days later. I can still remember where I was sitting on the West campus at Duke. And I said, hey man, I shared the bridge diagram with him. I shared the gospel. I said, what do you want to know? You know, I'm thinking this is awesome.

And he was Jewish and he was from New Jersey. I'm like, come on, Jews for Jesus. Look, I'm ready. And he sits down with me, he's 18 years old and he goes, I actually am not interested in talking to you about Christianity. I thought, oh, no, I'm in trouble. He said, I wanted to meet with you to tell you I hate what you're doing on our campus. I was like, what? I was first, I thought, I would never talk to someone a decade older than me like this. And he basically, I can't even get into it. The things he said to me, the things he accused me of, that I was trying to take advantage of freshmen when they're brand new to the campus. I felt, I was shaking call on my pastor afterwards to help me. There is a danger in going public and confessing Christ. Jesus says, from that time, Jesus says, here's what it means. He says, it's only once he starts, that he talks about the cross, right? I would just try that to you. It says, remember, he says, "I must suffer, I must die." Look at verse 23. "And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him." A-W-K-W-A-R-D? Awkward moment, Peter and me. I mean, this is not, right? This is like, what?

Peter, at least he has the decency to pull him aside. I guess, you know, that mean he doesn't, you know, talk to him in front of everybody. But Peter is about to rebuke Jesus. And he says this, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord, "this shall never happen to you." Okay, here's where this gets real for us. What are the time left? I think in our flesh, when we hear the cost of discipleship, we respond like Peter, which is we don't want to suffer. And we don't know, I can't go beyond the text, right? But it appears from the text, you know, is Peter concerned about Jesus? Maybe, 'cause he loves him. Who's Peter concerned about? Peter's concerned about Peter. And what's interesting here, and here's the reason I don't think Peter is the first pope. There's a couple of reasons. But verse 23 would be at the top of my list. But Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me Satan." You are hindrance to me. Here it is. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man, okay. So why does Jesus call Peter Satan? It's because the last time Jesus spent time with Satan in the wilderness, Satan tried to do the same thing to him that Peter's doing to him now. Do you remember?

Bow down before me, and I'll give you all the kingdoms. In other words, Jesus, here's the satanic spirit. I don't know what you'd think the satanic spirit is. You think it's like this scary spirit that video, whatever. Here's the satanic spirit. You can have Christianity without suffering. That there is some shortcut. There is some hack, and somehow you can have a Christianity that doesn't cost you. You can be a saint without suffering. You can have discipleship without dying to yourself. And he says, "Get behind me Satan, "for you are not having mind the things of God, "but the things of man." Now, but look, I want you to drop the verse 24 because in verse 24, and this is where we'll spend the rest of our time in close, Jesus spends the rest of his time after he talks about his death, he talks about our discipleship, and he connects him. The first word in verse 24 is then. So only after you understand the cross of Christ can you understand what it means for you to be a disciple of Christ. All right, here it is, verse 24. Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, "let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, "for whoever would save his life will lose it, "but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,

"for what will it profit a man "if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul, "or what shall a man give in return for his soul?" I want us to notice a couple of things, a costly call of discipleship, which you just have to read it. I mean, this text needs very little exposition or explanation. You can just read it. You go, okay, when I read the straightforward meaning of that text, that's pretty intense. What I want you to notice first is the call to discipleship is a call to all. He says, "If anyone, he doesn't say, "if you wanna be in full-time ministry, "you gotta do the intense stuff. "You gotta follow me." And, you know, if you wanna be a missionary, 'cause we love Jacob, we love our missionaries, okay? But he doesn't say, if you wanna be a missionary, like if you wanna be this elite class of Christian, then you have to take up your cross and you have to follow me. He makes the call. I told you, in fact, in Mark's account of this, it says that he doesn't just say this to his disciples, but that there are crowds. And so Jesus says, "If anyone would want to follow me." In fact, in another text, it says, in another version of this, in another gospel, it says, "If anyone desires to follow me," here's the first thing, a discipleship starts,

and the cost of discipleship starts with a deep desire to come after Jesus. And in my, I'm oversimplifying, but in my 24 years of being a Christian, I have seen three desires bring people to Jesus. Desire number one is just a deep conviction of sin and somewhere to take it. And that's probably the most common. You'll just hear that. Someone feels the weight of sin. And they read the law of God, and they read the 10 commandments, and they know what the Bible says, or maybe they got caught, or maybe they got addicted, always has to be there at some level. Sometimes the desire to follow Christ comes out of an emptiness. Just, man, I just, I have nothing. I have no one. I'm lonely. And Christ honors that. And sometimes it's simply a desire for more. It's what Blaze Pascal called the God-shaped heart in your, the God-shaped whole in your heart, or the soul, the whole in your soul. So Jesus starts with, if anyone would come after me, he starts with desire. And then here's what he says next. He says he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So here's the thing. I want to talk to us for a second about what, because some of us, we read this passage, right? And if you know the whole Bible, you think, I can think to someone. It's like, where's the grace of God in this? This sounds really intense. Like, where's just the come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give your rest? It's like, well, that Jesus said that as well. Here's what Jesus is saying. Jesus believes Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, Jesus taught costly grace. We believe too often in cheap grace. And here's the way I heard it. I heard, I heard a pastor tell this story one time, so I'm taking this pastor's story, because it was such a great story. He said that he was trying to explain this concept, and it's so helpful. And he said that he said, I'm a pastor. This is him telling the

story. He says, I'm pastor, and he says, I don't make a lot of money. So he said, one time my son said, I want to play this on his baseball team. He said, and so I just said in front of all his friends, I said, well, I don't make a lot of money. And he said that kind of embarrassed him in front of his friends. And he said, but here's the rule. I will pay for you to play baseball, but here's the rule. If I pay, you play. And he said, I mean that two ways. He says, if I pay, you play. In other words, you're not quitting. He says, and if I pay, you're going to be good enough to play on the field, because I'm not paying to sit and watch you watch others. And in some way, if you can hear this in a gospel-centered, grace-filled way, I think what God is saying is, if I pay, and I did, I want you to play. I have paid too much with my life, with my blood for you not to play. So then he says, deny yourself. Now this is interesting. Denying yourself is different than self-denial. Self-denial has its benefits. Every religion on earth has some form of asceticism. It's usually, I don't, I need to watch less of that, eat less of that, spend less on this, right? That's like, I just described all of our New Year's resolutions, basically. Denying yourself is something different. Denying yourself is, well, it's something like, it's probably the best, warmest version of it is self-forgetfulness. That's what Tim Keller says, the late, great Tim Keller. It's the ability to go, you know what, it's not that I'm, it's that I no longer have a relationship with the person I used to be before Christ. You know, it says that Peter denied Christ. What did he say? I don't know the man. And when you deny yourself, you have to say, I don't even know the person that I used to be. I think, here's a practical application of self-denial. You put Christ first and other second in your life, which is so hard, right? Because we live in the selfie culture. And here's the problem. You think about the self without thinking about the soul. And think about the selfie, for example, the selfie, what does the selfie say? By the way, Taylor Swift, a year ago, she said, this was interesting, she said some article I read. Nobody asks her for her autograph anymore. Everybody just wants a selfie. The selfie says, I'm the center of the world in everything else's background, right? Have you ever looked at pictures that you're not in? You're like, these are so boring. Can we get to the pictures I'm in, right? Well, think about all the words, self, let me just give you words, self-esteem, self-care, self-expression, self-fulfillment, self-help. Everything is about the self and Jesus comes in a counter, cultural counterintuitive way and says, deny yourself. And he says, deny yourself. Take up your cross. You know this. That was an instrument of death. You only took up the cross if you were headed one place, Galgotha. Listen, here's what it means. Here's another way.

He says to take up your cross in another place, to take up your cross daily. Remember the apostle Paul, I'm just going to quote scripture, the apostle Paul says, I die every day. What does it mean? I mean, how can you die to yourself daily? Is there, Like I mentioned it right now, and you're like, "I know, I know what it is." Others of you, it's just a good thing that there needs to be less of in your life, or it might be a mindset or mentality toward your spouse or your roommates or your kids. But here's what he says. He says, "This is where it gets real interesting as we close." Here's what he says in verse 25. "For whoever would save his life will lose it." But whoever loses his life, for my sake, will find it. By the way, sometimes when Jesus teaches this, he says, "Whoever loses his life will find it." Other times it says, "Whoever loses his life will save it." And here's the thing. Sometimes when we say these types of things, like when I know this just from being a Bible teacher for years, like a lot of times we'll say these phrases, like, "If you wanna save your life, you need to lose it." And everyone's like, "Amen." And then they're like, "I don't know what it means." (congregation laughing) Right, it sounds great. It's like, "Yeah, preach it." It's like, "I don't know what it means." Okay, let me give you three examples.

When you get married, you lose your life. And you find a new life. Right, every guy gets married. He's like, "She wants to get a bed at the same time as me every night. She wants to spend a lot of time with me." You lose your life, but what I'm trying to say is what you end up finding is something even better. Here's a better example. When you have kids, get ready. You lose your life, right? And you lose sleep, and you lose your mind. You lose all of it. But it's seriously, like, it's weird. And those of you who are in stages like this, you actually can't, do you feel this way? Those of you who are married or parents, like grandparents, you probably have your own version of this, you can't remember your life before it. You know, it's very hard. I can't even remember my life. It's been over 15 years. My life as a single person. You know, I can't even remember what it was like before. I've had kids now for 13 years. And though you lose your life, think about the, what happens when you get a career? Well, a very simple way is you lose being able to do everything, to do one thing. And this is an element of faith, guys.

It's hard to explain what, basically, when you lose your life. C.S. Lewis says, "When you lose your life, "you end up finding who you really are in Christ. "You end up finding that if you allow him to work in you, "you find out who he really wanted you to be." So here's how he ends. He ends by talking about value. We talked about cost and value. Here's how Jesus ends. Let me find this here. It's in verse 26. "For what will it profit a man?" Here it is. "If he gains the whole world," this is why it's so helpful. What does it mean to save your life? We'll just read the next verse. Jesus says to gain the world is the exact same thing as to save our life, which how many of us are trying to save our lives? We're trying to improve and prolong our life all the time. That's why there's this obsession. Overly unhealthy obsession with health, with supplements, with Botox, with trying to look completely. How many of us are just constantly trying to look way younger than we really are? We're trying to save our lives. And he says, here's what it is.

He says, "What would it profit a man if he gains the whole world?" And forfeits his soul. So Jesus goes, "I can't just talk about the self. I've got to talk about the soul." He says, "Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?" And for each of you, it looks different of what it would look like if you gain the whole world, right? The classic American dream is what if you had the awesome house with the awesome cars, with the awesome family, with the job that was meaningful, that also gave you a lot of freedom and flexibility. And then on top of that, you had tons of health. And whatever it is for you, it's different for different people in different cultures. Jesus is going, "What would it profit you if you gained all of that and you lost your soul?" What he ends with talking about there is nothing more valuable than the soul. You are not a body with a soul, primarily you are a soul with a body. And when you die, that will be the end of your body till God resurrects it, but it will not be the end of you. And so here's what I want to end with. The only thing more costly than following Jesus Christ is not following Jesus Christ. There is, I mean, one of the free things

that you learn in life is like there's, no one's getting out of here alive. We're all gonna have to die, we're all going to suffer. And you can either decide I'm gonna live my life with Christ or I'm gonna live my life apart from Christ. And look, I mean, I'm not trying to be with some old school fire and room stone preacher, but the Bible says there is heaven and there is hell. it is very, very costly. And that's why Jesus Christ went to the cross to pay the penalty and suffer the punishment in your place. And what he did in dying, listen, he died yes to forgive your sins and to set you free, but when you think about that, if those are the two things that the death of Christ does, it forgives and sets free. Well, why did he forgive you and set you free? So you could be a disciple and Jesus doesn't ever ask us to do anything he didn't go first him. He's never going to ask us to suffer more than he has suffered. And so here's what I want to do. If you'll close your eyes by your heads, I want to just give you a chance to think about the cost of discipleship in your life. And I don't know if there's an error right now that you would just say, you don't have to do this. Maybe you want to put your palms up and say, Lord, I just want to give something to you. The cost of discipleship starts with realizing and recognizing the cost that Christ paid

to purchase you as a disciple. I don't know if for some of you, you need to decide, the cost of discipleship, I need to start confessing Christ publicly. And some of you need to get baptized at our next baptism Sunday. And maybe just commit that to the Lord right now. Others of you, you know there's a cost as you, you're going to make a decision to confess Christ. And you're going to start telling people that you've never told before about Christ. And you're going to feel the cost of that. For some of you, it is a, it is a, I've got to deny myself in some area. And I've got to start saying no, so that I can say yes more to Jesus. Lord, I pray a spirit of sacrifice over this church. My favorite definition of sacrifice is giving up something we love for something we love even more. Lord, I pray that we would have a deep love in this church for you. That would teach us that when we lose our life in you, we find it, Lord. And what we get to do, even as we deny ourselves to take up our cross, that's not our focus. Our focus is not self to now and take up the cross. Our focus is that's going to help us better follow you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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