The Cost of Discipleship

Bible Passage: Matthew 16:13-25

INTRO

“Soma Church exists to love the body of Christ and equip them to do the work of ministry here, near and far, all for the glory of God.”

This doesn’t happen very often but every once in a while we have weeks where we are in between series which gives us as a pastoral team an opportunity to address very specific things.

This morning I wanna take some time to discuss something that I do not believe is talked about nearly enough in the modern church and that is this… The Cost of Discipleship.

The call to come and follow Jesus is the most beautiful and rich calling that anyone could ever receive.

But like anything good and beautiful, it comes with a cost.

I have recently gotten back into lifting weights and going to the gym and being a new lifter or getting back into it can be hard.

I look around the room and you see these jacked dudes in stringer shirts moving a whole stack on their lat pulldowns then I look in the mirror to be reminded of the size of my man boobs.

So then I go online to see how I can look like those guys and the options are stick a needle in your butt or eat right, workout, get good sleep, and count your calories.

The needle isn’t the option for a plethora of reasons so it sounds like a long road ahead for me.

There is a cost associated with choosing to be healthy and look a certain way. You could apply this to any number of things in your life.

In the same way, their is a great cost associated with following Jesus.

I feel it important to say that I am not talking about salvation, because that is free. But discipleship is not.

I believe that birthed out of really good intentions, we have blurred the lines of grace and obedience and what we have created is this soft & apathetic version of christianity that you will not find in the Bible.

So what is the cost of discipleship?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book titled The Cost of Discipleship, said “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

The cost of following Jesus is laying your whole life bare before in complete submission.

It is saying, “No longer I who live but Christ that lives in me.”

Let me ask you Christians in the room, When is the last time following Jesus cost you something?

I want you to chew on that question while we look at a story in the book of Matthew.

BODY

Matthew 16:13–17 “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus and His disciples have found themselves in a place called Caesarea Phillippi.

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It is significant that this discourse happens in this place because of what went on here.

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Caesarea Phillippi was a place devoted to the worship of Caesar but primarily a god called “pan”

He was a goat-man who would be the inspiration for many artists depictions of satanic imagery.

At Caesarea Phillippi, all sorts of things would happen like child sacrifice, sexual rituals and many thought of it to be a hell like place.

It’s here that Jesus chooses to look at his disciples and ask them who they believe Him to be.

Their responses vary…

Some people say your this guy or that guy. Maybe even the second coming of one of the great prophets like Jeremiah!

Then Jesus flips the script on them and asks them a truly timeless question…

Matthew 16:15 “He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?””

I really don’t think I can stress to you enough just how relevant this question is and will be until Jesus comes again.

Every person must answer this question.

Who do you say that Jesus is?

Is Jesus a good dude? Is Jesus a wise sage? Is Jesus a con man? Is he just another religious zealot?

Or is He God?

Matthew 16:16–18 “Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has 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 build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

The bold and ever outspoken Peter has this moment where he gets it right.

“You are the Savior, Jesus! The Son of the Living God!”

Jesus commends him and tells his that he is blessed and that upon Peter’s confession Jesus will build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

Jesus takes His disciples to Hell to show them where their confession of the gospel must go.

Now, there is so much that I could talk about there but I wanna focus on Peter for the sake of our time together this morning.

I can imagine, he has to be feeling pretty good about himself.

He was the only one who answered the question and he got an “atta boy” from Jesus his rabbi.

Peter prolly starts walking around with a little swagger after this.

But then Jesus starts doing things that Peter doesn’t like.

Matthew 16:21–22 “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.””

Peter, offended by the words that Jesus is telling them about his future death pulls him aside and gives him the what for!

Anybody ever done this before?

Discontent with your life. Don’t like what God is saying. And you go after His plans?

Jesus responds to Peter and says Matthew 16:23 “But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.””

Jesus has gone from commending Peter for his statement of faith to rebuking him and calling him Satan!

We’ve gone from, building the church upon the confession of Peter to calling out Peter’s motives and calling him satan

So what happened?

I think we can gain some helpful insight from what Jesus says next…

Matthew 16:24–25 “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.”

I think Jesus’ words point us to the heart of Peter’s actions.

He was able to go from confessing Jesus as the savior to being called Satan because his desire for Jesus to stay away from the cross was not to protect his rabbi, but himself.

Peter was more concerned with what being with Jesus provided for Him than actually following Jesus.

If Peter really understood what Jesus came to do then he would have rejoiced that Jesus had to die, because Jesus dying meant that Peter had hope!

But instead Peter was only thinking about what he would lose if Jesus were gone. He’d go back to just being a fisherman. He’d lose his power, status and authority.

Peter’s idea of following Jesus was all about gain.

Gain power, gain influence, gain purpose, gain status.

Jesus’ call to follow him is all about dying.

Let me ask you, how often are you thinking about dying for the sake of Christ?

Taking up your cross, your means of death. throwing away everything and following Him no matter what it costs you!

And it is actually when we die that we learn what it means to be alive!

Some of you in the room have decided to follow Jesus with a lot of but’s.

“I follow Jesus but only until I have to give this up”

“I follow Jesus but only until it gets uncomfortable”

“I follow Jesus but only when my friends and neighbors aren’t around”

Jesus didn’t give us any but’s. He said come and let me kill who you were so I can raise up a completely new person.

CLOSING

For those of you who are so obsessed with controlling your life this morning, what if today you let go and let God?

What if today you found your life in Christ because you laid it down?

Christians, I wanna come back to that question I asked at the beginning…

When is the last time your christianity cost you something?

It made you push through discomfort? Forced you to have a difficult conversations? Made you draw a line in the sand? compelled you not to play with sin but to kill it? Led you to have your neighbors or lost friends around your table?

I wanna remind us that Jesus has given everything so that we would be able to give everything!