Coming To Christ

Matthew 16:21-26

This is a very powerful historic scene involving Jesus and His disciples. Peter has made his confession to Jesus about who that he said Jesus was..............This is the confession that is the foundation the church is built upon: Matthew 16:16 “And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Not a bunch of words, but if rightly divided the most powerful confession a human can make!

Christ: The Anointed One------The Messiah------The Deliverer

All of which was promised in the most specific way, even by giving when Jesus was to be born.

Jesus speaking even in the OT in Isaiah 49:26 “And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; And they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: And all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour And thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.”

This is the Messiah talking, the redeemer, saving us from our iniquities and sins that we have committed against God.

The Son of The Living God: God in the flesh........God the Son.

Undeniable, even the Pharisees couldn’t deny the works that Jesus performed had to come from God!

This is a powerful moment and will turn into a heavy moment.......(From that time forth) right straight from there Jesus began to prepare His followers for His death. The public profession had been made, now that they have confessed Who Jesus is, He will tell them how it was to go.

Jesus came to give His life for our sins, there is no other way to God! If we had to die for them we stay dead for eternity (2nd death)!

God the Son could take that death and be delivered in 3 days.......making our sins paid in full!

Let us not ever get it in our minds that our sins have no penalty or even guilty verdict, they do and they were paid for!

This is why Jesus come........the confession of Peter is right on, but Jesus could never be the Messiah without shedding His blood!

Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

So, Jesus came to give His life for the sins of humanity! The teaching is great, but the fulfillment of that teaching is life everlasting and that the purpose for Jesus’ coming!

Now, we get to Jesus telling them of His death and Peter was not having any of it!

This is never going to happen, Peter said! Not while ole Peter is around!

Peter was rebuking Jesus, without any hesitation!

Jesus then rebuked Peter, basically telling him that he was satan.....this was God’s will and nothing was going to stop it, not even Peter out of love for Jesus!

Peter was after the things of men.......those things seem innocent and well meaning, but still can be the works of satan! I will come back to this thought....

Jesus gives how we as believers should rationalize the things of God......If you want to come after Christ you must:

Denying our self.....denying our self is a way of life, where self-interest/worldly interest are denounced and abandoned........You take Christ on His terms not yours!

You know this is a selfish world we live in, there is a lot of I’s, Me’s, and my’s in our thoughts and mind!

Truly, if what Scripture says is true, then we have nothing redeemable to God! Then why are we taking those efforts to God or think they have merit?!

Jesus was the only good that ever stepped foot on the earth and He was giving His life

The Just for the unjust..........Our earthly thinking is that we can’t let that happen, but we must abandon those thoughts to where they have no power!

That is what self-denial is trust God’s way over ours! Put our selfish desires in the trash and just follow Christ!

A.W. Pink said this about self-denial: ““Growth in grace is growth downward. It is the forming of a lower estimate of ourselves, it is a deepening realization of our nothingness. It is a heartfelt recognition that we are not worthy of the least of God’s mercies.”

Taking up their cross........is the rejection of the decision of abandoning the flesh and following after Jesus!

The disciples knew full well what the cross was........when Jesus said that it got serious!

Taking up the cross, might not seem as serious today as it did to them, but rejection by the world comes in several different oppressions!

Anything that causes difficulty in you following Christ will be just that........you can follow Jesus and suffer what the world is dishing out or you can conform to the world and die in your sins!

This is why Jesus told them Matthew 10:37 “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Imagine your family ridiculing and forbidding you to stop following Christ....that would surely be a cross bearing........

Before we get to haughty with ourselves we must understand that our cross bearing carries no merit before God, it is the cause of following after Christ, Who is our merit before God!

Taking up our cross simply means: “It is the willingness to endure persecution, rejection, reproach, shame, suffering, even martyrdom, for Jesus’ sake.”

Peter was willing to fight the death of His Christ the Son of the Living God and that was his flesh speaking, but it is not the will of God.......we must as well fight those earthly, fleshly, worldly motives/thoughts as innocent and believe Christ in His terms not ours....whatever we face or see maintain that faith that is His terms!

The next 2 verses seem to sum this up: If you are willing to give it all up for Jesus’ sake, for His Truth, for His Gospel, you will find life eternal........if you are not willing then you will lose it!

Seeking life down here is not really life at all, it is only the spiritual life (soul) that is of value!

What does it profit???.........What is the profit for gaining the whole world........One writer stated that gaining the whole world is the maximum imaginable and there is no circumstance where you can gain the whole world.

If you could, what is the profit/value? death would be your only promise, eternal death!

The last part of verse 26 Jesus asks, what will you buy your soul back with if it is lost to perdition? Nothing!

No profit if you gain the whole world and no way you can exchange the whole world for your soul!

All of this, states the obvious now, it makes self-denial and facing the consequences of self-denial not as scary as they are portrayed! If you lose your life for Christ’s sake you will find life eternal!

I read this from an old preacher: “I remember the story of the man in the South on a plantation that had some Black slaves. There was this one Black slave who was always happy and excited and positive and singing. And no matter what you did to him, he never changed. So, his master came down to him and said one day, “What have you got?” He said, “Well, I love the Lord Jesus Christ and He puts a song in my heart. He’s forgiven my sin.” And the man said, “I want what you have.” He said, “All right. You go put on your white Sunday suit, and you come down here and work in the mud with us, and you can have it.” He said, “I wouldn’t do that.” And he rode away. Came back a little while later and he was haunted again by this man’s life, and he said, “Look,” he said, “what do I have to do to have it?” He said, “You put on your white Sunday suit, you come down here and work in the mud with us, and you can have it.” And he rode off in a huff again. Some weeks later he came back a third time and said, “Now listen, I want you to give it to me straight. Now, what do I have to do to have what you have?” He said, “I told you what you have to do.” And the man in desperation said, “I’ll do it.” And the slave said, “Then you don’t have to do it.”

“I’m not saying God’s going to make you be a martyr, I’m just saying that if you come to Jesus Christ on His terms, you’d be willing. That’s what it says. Be willing to lose your life in His cause apart from the world to gain eternity rather than spend your life trying to get it here and lose it forever.”

Look with me at 1 John 2:15-17..........This is familiar verses of Scripture.......

Do not love this world or the things in this world.......why?

The world and the world system will pass away....2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

This is what is in the world/world system:

Lust of the flesh: A strong desire for evil things by the sin nature of man

The rebellious self dominated by sin and in opposition to God.

Remember, evil things can be anything that opposes God!

Lust of the eyes: Satan used fruit which looked good to the eyes but was completely sinful

Get it? It was beautiful in appearance but brought spiritual death!

Pride of life: arrogance over one’s circumstances!

I will give you an example: Luke 18:11-12 “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.”

James 4:16 “But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.”

It is pride in what you are doing in this life, it has no merit, we can find that in the self-righteous and also those living for the glory of the world!

All of these things profit nothing, because the world passes away, but those that come to God on His terms, through Christ, will abide forever!

In closing Galatians 1:3-4.............Before I finish the point here I just want to point out what Martin Luther said: “The greeting of the apostle is refreshing. Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends forever. The two terms, grace and peace, constitute Christianity!”

Lastly before anyone talks about what this world has to offer, we must believe that this world is what we are being delivered from!

Again from Luther: “..........the world is bent on evil. The people of the world are slaves to the devil. If we are not in the Kingdom of Christ we are of the kingdom of the satan and we are then pressed into his service with every talent we possess.......Paul justly calls it the evil or wicked world, for when the world is at its best the world is at its worst.............With the words that He might deliver us, Paul argues that we stand in need of Christ......”

If we are delivered from the world and the world is recognized as evil or wicked, then why live for it? If we gained it all, it would only be evil at its best!

Jesus is calling us out of the world because He has made the offering of deliverance out of this world for every human!