Following Jesus

Luke 9:18–27 (NASB 95)

And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.” And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Let’s begin with some context

The Literary Context

Jesus Calms the Storm (showing power over nature) 8:22-25

Jesus casts out the Legion in the Gerasenes (power over demons) 8:26-39

Jesus Heals woman with issue of blood (power over sickness/disease) 8:40-48

Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead (power over death) 8:49-56

Jesus gives the disciples power and authority to heal the sick and cast out demons and sends them out —and they return pumped! 9:1-11

Jesus feeds 5000+ people 9:12-17

***At this point the disciples had all this experiential evidence of the power and authority of Jesus, and even had experienced his power and authority given to them. Their understanding of what the Messiah was going to come and do according to the religious leaders of the day only had an expectation of the Messiah coming back to crush Israel’s enemies and restore Israel as a nation.

The Cultural Context

Let’s put ourselves in the disciples shoes!

-The culture of the Jewish religious leaders’ teaching at the time cast the coming Messiah as a powerful leader and king to destroy the Romans and restore Israel as a nation.

a. During the intertestamental period(between the old and new testament revelations), the religious leaders had written other records and interpretive manuscripts (such as Baruch and the Maccabees) and made other rules over and above what God had made (known as the Mishnah). These are contained in the ancient Qumran manuscripts which were written in a priest community located in Qumran(hence the name).

b. This wrong view of what the Messiah was going to be and do comes out of 2 Baruch and Fourth Ezra(Maccabees)

c. The Messiah is represented as “a Davidic king appointed by God to judge and destroy the Roman empire and the ungodly nations and to gather and deliver his people.” and “The Messiah will assemble the nations, delivering up to the sword those who have oppressed Israel, and sparing those who have not.”

-Because of this concept, the disciples were likely to be looking forward to being given positions of power and ruling over people when the Messiah crushes the Romans, or perhaps maybe becoming Rabbis and having followers of their own someday. The point is, the disciples up to now aren’t seeing that they have to sacrifice and deny themselves, but rather are looking to be great(as evidenced in 9:46 where they are seen arguing about who is the greatest!

1. They had no idea that Jesus was going to die when he begins to ask them who everyone thinks he is and what they think, and so when he immediately tells them that he must suffer, be rejected, be killed and then raise from the dead, they were probably in shock and disbelief.

a. In fact, Peter was so in shock, (as Matthew records it) he rebukes Jesus right after Jesus tells the disciples this! Matthew

Because of this, Jesus addresses what the Messiah is actually here to do, and with it what disciples of the Messiah must do if they want to follow Him.

Let’s go back to our main passage for today and look at what the author’s structure reveals about the point of the text.

*V. 18-20 Jesus’ dialogue with the disciples about who the people think He is vs. who the disciples think He is

*V. 21-22 Key verses Jesus commands them not to tell anyone he is the Messiah because of what must happen to him

*V. 23-27 Jesus plainly tells his disciples and all who want to follow him what they must do in order to follow Him.

The structure of this passage tells us that the author’s focal point is on what the now revealed Messiah must do-that he must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and be raised on the third day, and what that means for what disciples must do.

-we can see that verses 21-22 are the focal point because in the dialogue of verses 18-20 Jesus is bringing the disciples to the point where Peter openly confesses Jesus as the Messiah-as up to this point it had not been revealed to the disciples yet- which is what sets conditions for Jesus to set the disciples straight on what the Messiah came to do.

-The verses following this revelation begin with the “if-then” statement that “if anyone wishes to come after me,” (Jesus), “[then] he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” The rest of the statements after verse 23 are continuing clarifications of what a follower of Jesus does, the consequences of not following Jesus, and the prediction of some of the disciples seeing the kingdom before they die.

*If you look at the wording of verse 23 it seems odd. It appears that Jesus is saying “if anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.” However, there are two different Greek words used here. In the first one were it is translated “if anyone wishes to come after me...” the word ‘come’ is the same used in verse 26 and is a Greek word which in its’ biblical usage is often translated as ‘finding place or influence/make one’s appearance/appear before the public/come forth’ and the Greek word used for ‘after’ is only associated with ‘after or behind someone in location or time’. So what we see is that Jesus is saying “If anyone wishes to come into influence after me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me”. There is no change to the main point of this text with this, but it does reveal even more that Jesus is addressing the disciples’ wrong conception of what to expect for themselves from being a disciple of Jesus, and He ties that directly to what will happen to Him.

-Without understanding that Jesus is the Messiah and what the Messiah must do, the call for the disciples to deny themselves, take up their crosses, give up their lives, and to follow after Jesus make no sense.

What a follower of the Messiah must do is found in what the Messiah must do.

Therefore, the author’s main point to both his audience and to us is that...

Since Jesus Christ gave up his life in obedience to the Father, true followers of Jesus die to their selves and live for Jesus.

There are several options in response to this:

choose to turn away from following Jesus because it sounds like a bad deal for this life

Why? We don’t want to deny our desires and take up our cross because it sounds like a rough life here on earth.

It doesn’t seem worth it, because Jesus doesn’t seem worthy of giving up our lives for.

The end result of this choice is eternity in Hell: verse 24-26

“whoever wishes to save his life will lose it...”

“what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”

“For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the father and of the holy angels.”

Deceive yourself into thinking that you can follow Jesus while still living for yourself

choose to follow Jesus in the way he commands

Because we believe the gospel

we see how infinitely worthy Jesus is of our obedience in who he is and what he did for us all

we see the eternal payoff

verse 24“…whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”

What is the Gospel?

I am a sinner in desperate need of a savior

how do I know this? I apply the 10 commandments to myself-

have I ever told a lie, stolen something, looked with lust on a woman not my wife—I certainly have, which makes me a liar, a thief, and an adulterer.

This puts me under the righteous judgment and wrath of a the only perfectly righteous, just, and holy God—and there’s not a thing I can do about it on my own-no amount of good deeds can save me. Because the standard is perfection. I need a savior.

Jesus is that savior! And the reason why the Messiah must suffer, be rejected by the religious leaders, die, and be raised up on the third day was to pay the penalty for our sin!

Jesus came to earth to be the perfect sacrifice to take the wrath of the Father in our place so that as Jesus took our sin and punishment on himself, WE get his righteousness before God the Father through believing in Him!

Salvation from the wrath of God is ONLY by the undeserved Grace of God through believing that Jesus is God who came to earth as a man, lived a perfect life, died on a cross and took the wrath of God in my place, rose from the dead 3 days later, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God in the heavens.

The Work is finished, and the only thing that I have contributed to my salvation is my sin—it is all because of Jesus that I am alive!

Is Jesus worthy of my life?

choose to follow Jesus in the way he commands

Because we believe the gospel

we see how infinitely worthy Jesus is of our obedience in who he is and what he did for us all

we see the eternal payoff

Jesus the infinite creator of all things who upholds everything but yet who humbled himself by choosing to come to earth as a baby -the infinite became an infant...

He willingly subjected himself to the very natural laws that he put in place in the universe, subjected himself to hunger, thirst, temptation, physical and emotional pain, and death

He ALWAYS had a choice to not endure the cross. How wild is it that Jesus was crucified on a cross made from a tree that he himself spoke into being?

Consider his statement at the garden of Gethsemane about being able to call at any time for 12 legions of angels and he would have it. At every point of suffering, rejection, and torture Jesus had the option to call for those legions of angels and stop his suffering at once, but he didn’t. He was perfect in his obedience to the Father even unto death so that we might have life.

Consider the power and awesomeness of Jesus when he comes back at the end of the earth at the head of the army of the saints:

Revelation 19:11–16 NASB 95

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Are you denying your self, or are you indulging your self?

*How can you tell? Some examples of the self life to be denied

Self-righteousness: Verses Righteousness in Jesus

a. You find yourself doing and saying things that show you think you are better than others who sin in different ways than you.

b. You derive your sense of righteousness before God from how good you perceive you are doing at following the rules.

c. You have no passion, heartfelt love, or gratitude for Jesus and what He has done.

Self-pity: Verses patient endurance through believing in God’s good plan

a. You find yourself constantly dwelling on how hard things are for you and how it’s not fair

b. You find yourself constantly telling others about how bad things are for you so that they will reinforce to you that what is happening in your life is not fair

c. You dwell on your problems instead of on what the Lord is trying to teach you and work in you through the problems

Self-preservation verses boldness in faith to obey Jesus

a. You consistently focus on how you can keep yourself from things that don’t feel good such as

i. Rejection

ii. Hardships

iii. Pain

IV. Difficult situations/confrontations with others

b. You rarely speak the truth to others when there is any possibility that they might be upset with you for it

Self-indulgence verses self discipline in the delight of knowing Jesus

a. You rarely tell yourself ‘no’ when you want something

b. You live for what feels good

i. This is sensuality: living for what tastes, feels, smells, sounds, and looks good to you.

Self-sufficiency verses dependence on God for everything

a. You never ask anyone for help

b. You hardly ever ask for the input of others in making a decision

c. You label yourself as a ‘self-made’ person—got to where you are in life all by yourself with no help from anyone else

Self-admiration verses admiration and awe of Jesus

a. You consistently have thoughts of how great your own achievements are

b. You hardly ever see your own sin-even when others point it out

Self-promotion verses proclaiming the glory of God in Jesus

a. You are constantly putting out the ideas that you are great at whatever it is you might be working on

b. You use false humility (talking unreasonably poorly of yourself)to get others to ‘correct’ you in public or private

***To be clear, denying ones’ self does not mean that you never ever have good things, eat good food, get compliments, talk about your victories, plan to protect one’s family, etc… But it DOES mean that you don’t live for these-rather you live to follow Jesus.

Taking up our cross daily is the vivid imagery of denying our selves to follow Jesus in accepting the suffering, rejection and even death for Jesus’ sake. This is “losing our lives” for Jesus’ sake: living in every facet of our life for the glory and praise of Jesus.

If you are here and you have put your faith in Jesus, but you find that as you look at your life, you have been living for yourself and your own kingdom instead of denying yourself for Jesus, then DO something about it. If not now, when?

—”For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

If you are here and have never put your faith in Jesus and you want to hear more about it, talk with one of us here and we will be overjoyed help you!

Story of the two young Moravian missionaries who sold themselves as slaves in order to bring the gospel to an island of slaves.(leonard ravenhill)

“May the lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering.”

Since Jesus Christ gave up his life in obedience to the Father, true followers of Jesus die to their selves and live for Jesus.