Good afternoon everyone. I repeat Graham's welcome. Delighted to have everyone here today.
I should perhaps begin with an apology to those who are coming looking forward to hearing Paul Johnson this morning.
I messed up my diary so Paul and I have swapped. You can look forward now to hearing Paul next Sunday morning.
I wanted to begin as we come to the end of the first major section of Luke's Gospel
by saying how much I've enjoyed reading through Luke over the last few weeks.
I've enjoyed it of course because it's the greatest story ever told.
It's the words and the deeds of the Lord Jesus and how wonderful they are.
But I've enjoyed it also because it's just so well written.
I might say of course it's well written. It's the Bible. It's God's inspired word. It's bound to be well written.
And yes, that's true. But there's something about the way that Luke writes that I find particularly helpful and particularly attractive.
And I think it comes down to what's written on the back of this little book.
This little book is actually just the Gospel of Luke. There are lots of copies on the front table.
If you've not got a Bible or if you just want to read Luke by itself, then please take it away.
But on the back of the book it has something that comes right from the beginning of Luke's Gospel where he says,
Since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you.
And it's that word orderly that I think is really helpful when we come to look at Luke's Gospel.
Orderly doesn't just mean it was in chronological order.
Jesus did this, then he did that, then he did something else.
Rather, what Luke has done, he has taken all the evidence he could find about the Lord Jesus.
He's spoken to people who travelled around with Jesus.
He's probably read Mark's Gospel and perhaps other writings about Jesus as well.
And he's gathered everything together and he's put it down in an orderly, in a structured fashion.
And there are two particular things about the passage this morning which I think highlight how Luke has put things down in an orderly fashion
and how it can be helpful to us when we understand that.
The first is right at the beginning of the passage in verse 18 when it says,
Once when Jesus was praying in private.
Luke tells us more about the prayers of the Lord Jesus than any of the other Gospel writers.
Time and again as we read through Luke, we find them presenting to us Jesus at prayer.
And what's significant every time we see Jesus at prayer in Luke,
is it's a sign that something very important is about to happen.
Luke is almost signposting through his Gospel,
taking what was undoubtedly the daily habit of the Lord Jesus, of praying to his Father,
but highlighting at particular times that before something happened, Jesus prayed.
So at his baptism, Jesus prayed and the Holy Spirit descended on him
and then he went into the desert to be tempted by the devil.
The night before he chose his twelve disciples, Jesus spent praying.
He went up a mountain to pray and he was transfigured before his disciples.
He went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed and before his trial and crucifixion.
If you see Luke recording that Jesus is praying,
I think that is in one sense Luke saying to us,
pay particular attention to what's about to come.
It's very important that you understand it.
And that's certainly true of the passage that we've got today.
This is a core passage in Luke's Gospel.
Jesus is coming to the end of the first major part of his ministry
when he's been traveling down Galilee from chapter 10 and Luke onwards.
He'll be in the long journey towards Jerusalem.
He's coming to the end of the first part of his earthly ministry.
And Luke chapter 9 pulls together a number of things about that climax.
And in this passage, Jesus is answering three very simple questions.
My version of them is slightly different from what Peter said earlier,
but essentially the same thing.
Jesus in this passage presents to us three things.
The first is who he is.
The second is why he came.
And the third is what he requires of us.
Who he is, why he came, and what he requires of us.
And Luke highlights that this is really important by mentioning Jesus' prayer at the beginning.
The second kind of structural thing in Luke that I think is really helpful as we look at this passage
is to realize that when Luke puts two things together or just a little bit apart,
there's some significance in that.
So, for example, in our passage today, if you were here last week,
you may remember if you read through the chapter by yourself,
you would undoubtedly notice.
Early on, Jesus asked disciples who the crowd say I am,
and they said, well, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, one of the prophets.
Now, we've just gone back a few verses in Luke chapter 9.
Exactly the same thing was said about Jesus then.
In that case, it was Herod as Herod, the same kind of thing.
John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.
And so the two things close together,
Luke is emphasizing the importance of this question,
who is Jesus?
And what's important, too, is what's in the middle.
We looked at it last Sunday,
and what's in between Herod talking about who Jesus is
and Peter talking about who Jesus is
is the story of the feeding of the 5,000.
Now, if we went to Matthew or to Mark,
between the feeding of the 5,000
and this discussion with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi,
there's about a chapter and a half of other things that Jesus said and did.
The two aren't close together.
Chronologically, they didn't just follow exactly one after the other.
But Luke, I think, is saying to us
that the feeding of the 5,000
is significant in the understanding of the people of whom Jesus is
and also in the understanding of his disciples.
The people think that Jesus is someone special.
They say, well, he looks like one of the great prophets.
He could be Elijah.
Elijah, the great prophet from the Old Testament,
the one who did so many miracles,
who stood up to Ahab and Jezebel
and to comprehensively prove that their Baal worship was wrong.
So people are saying,
this is a wonderful person before us.
Maybe it's Elijah.
Or more recently,
John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod.
Maybe people are saying,
well, maybe this is John the Baptist come back,
almost as a judgment for Herod.
The great things he's doing would be fitting,
not that John did lots of miracles,
but would be fitting with the kind of message that John brought.
Or perhaps he's another of the great prophets from the Old Testament.
And I'm quite sure that the feeding of the 5,000
would confirm the people in their understanding
that Jesus was someone very special.
This wasn't just an ordinary preacher.
It wasn't even just an ordinary prophet.
He was comparable with the greatest of them.
And the feeding of 5,000 undoubtedly would fuel them in that thinking.
And if we read other Gospels,
feeding of 5,000,
the people wanted to make Jesus their king at that point.
But Jesus wants to get beyond that with his disciples.
Yes, the people have realized that Jesus is someone really special.
But have the disciples realized just how special Jesus is?
Now again, the feeding of the 5,000,
the large part of that is a dialogue between Jesus and the disciples
and their amazement that with five loaves and two fish,
he could feed that great multitude.
And so Jesus asked Peter the question,
who do you say that I am?
And Peter on behalf of all the disciples says,
some say John,
Peter on behalf of all the disciples says,
for us, you are God's Messiah.
Or you are God's Christ.
And that goes well beyond what the people were saying.
The people were saying,
here's someone pretty special.
He's comparable with Elijah,
with John the Baptist,
or with the other great prophets that we know about in the Old Testament.
Peter on behalf of the disciples says,
you're more than that, Lord.
You're more than just one of the greats of history.
You are the Messiah.
You are the Christ who has been promised by God.
Now in our day,
we tend to use the word Christ almost as a surname for Jesus.
We talk about Jesus Christ,
sometimes Christ Jesus.
But of course,
if we understand the Jewish history and the Old Testament at all,
then the Christ,
the Messiah,
was someone who had been promised,
who would be absolutely unique,
who would be God's ultimate messenger to the world,
who would be the one ultimately who would bring freedom to God's people.
And in saying that Jesus was the Christ,
or Jesus was the Messiah,
Peter was recognizing just how special,
how important he was.
We return a bit in the chapter,
and you look at it next week with Paul,
and we then get Jesus presented as the Son of God,
takes us a bit further forward.
Again, two instances next to each other,
one Luke presents Jesus as the Christ,
the Messiah,
and then with the voice from heaven,
the next one,
he presents him as the Son of God.
But here,
Peter very clearly realizes Jesus isn't just a good man.
He's not even just a great prophet.
He is God's promised Messiah.
He is the one and only whom God has sent into the world.
I guess for us,
that is the starting point,
isn't it,
as we come to think about what it means to follow Jesus,
and to be part of his kingdom.
We first have to recognize he is absolutely unique.
He's not just a good man.
He's not just a great teacher.
He's not just a miracle worker.
He is God with us.
He is the Messiah,
God's promised one.
He is absolutely unique in human history,
because he is himself the Son of God,
who Jesus is.
I've got to move on.
He is the Christ of God.
And then Jesus moves on,
and having got this affirmation from Peter,
not just an opinion as the people had given,
but a conviction that Peter and the disciples had,
that he is the Messiah,
Jesus moves on,
and he wants them to understand very clearly
what it means that he is the Messiah.
It can be quite puzzling as we read through the gospel,
that sometimes Jesus tells people not to tell other people about him.
So we've got that here in verse 21.
Jesus strictly warned the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Now,
why would he do that?
The reason I believe he did that is if the disciples had gone out and said to the people,
Jesus is the Messiah,
he's the promised one of Israel,
the people would have had totally false expectations about what he was going to do.
They were looking for a Messiah as someone who would come along,
who would expel the Romans from their country,
who would restore Israel to the independence and the ability to worship God as they wanted,
that they had enjoyed in the past.
And so Jesus is saying to the disciples,
I've given you,
I've shown you this truth,
but it's not yet one that the people are ready for.
But he said,
me being the Messiah has some implications,
and it's not the ones that you may expect.
He said,
the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders,
the chief priests and teachers of the law,
must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
The word that really struck me as I was reading this particular verse is the word must.
The Son of Man must suffer.
The Son of Man must be killed.
It is Jesus' mission.
It is the purpose for his coming that he suffered and that he was killed and raised again.
It wasn't something that just happened.
It wasn't something that for him was optional.
That if things went well, he might not have to go through it.
If things went badly, then he might well suffer.
No, for Jesus, this was the very reason that he came.
He came so that he could suffer,
so that he could die our death on the cross at Calvary,
so he could be raised again,
vindicating him on all that he'd done,
all that he stood for,
all that he preached,
and presenting him to the world
as the Messiah,
the Son of God.
It was a compelling mission.
Jesus must suffer.
He must die.
And again, if we're thinking about what it means to follow Jesus,
that is the second thing that we need to grasp hold of.
We need to understand who he is,
that he's the Messiah,
he's the Son of God,
and we need to understand too
that he came into this world
specifically so that he could die
for the sins of the world.
He lived a perfect life,
looking forward always to his death
on the cross at Calvary.
It's only at this point in his relationship
with the disciples that he starts talking about it,
but undoubtedly Jesus knew throughout his life
what it was he had come for
and what the end would be.
Jesus must suffer.
He must die.
And of course he did that for us.
He did that so that he could take on himself,
my sins,
that as I put my faith in him,
as I trust him as Savior,
as I recognize that he is my only hope for eternity,
then I can look to his cross and say,
Jesus died for me,
and because he's taken my punishment,
because he's taken my penalty,
then I can have forgiveness
and I can have a relationship with God.
It was a compelling mission.
Jesus must suffer, must die.
And then finally,
in the remaining verses of the passage,
we have what Jesus requires of us.
And it summarized particularly in verse 23.
Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves
and take up their cross daily
and follow me.
Deny themselves,
take up their cross daily
and follow me.
What does that mean?
I think last Sunday evening,
when Bruce was speaking to us from Luke chapter 3,
we had as good a definition of that
as I've ever heard.
And what Bruce said is that
what it means to be a disciple of Jesus
is to say yes to God,
to say no to ourselves,
whatever the cost.
Yes to God,
no to ourselves,
whatever the cost.
And that's exactly what Jesus is saying here.
He says,
if having recognized who I am,
if having recognized why I came,
you are interested in following me
and coming along with me,
then that requires you to say yes to God,
to say no to yourself,
whatever the cost might be.
You have to deny yourself.
What does deny yourself mean?
Well, it's not just giving up a few things for Lent.
It is saying that
my will is going to be to do God's will.
My priority in life is to do what God wants me to do,
not to satisfy the things
that I might find superficially attractive
and might want myself to do.
We have to take up our cross.
This for us is probably not quite as powerful a picture
as it was to those disciples
as they listened to Jesus.
They would be very familiar with the scene
of someone who is carrying a cross
through their town or their village.
And one thing you knew
if someone was carrying their cross,
it was a one-way journey.
They wouldn't be coming back
and their life was in someone else's hands.
They were about to die in that case.
And Jesus says,
if you're following me,
it's a one-way journey.
There's no turning back.
You've got to be prepared to stay with me
and to obey me,
whatever the cost.
And you've got to treat me
as being even more important than life itself
and to put yourself in my hands.
And he says then,
you deny yourself,
you take up the cross,
and you follow me.
Follow me,
do the things that I did,
look at my life
and see the way that I lived it.
Follow me perhaps even in my death,
in being willing to go to death
for my sake.
For most of us,
it won't come to that,
but that is the willingness
that Jesus requires.
But what does that mean
on a day-to-day basis?
I was thinking,
what does it mean?
What are the areas of my life
where I need to deny myself,
take up my cross,
and follow Jesus?
Let me suggest a few.
In the choices I make,
we all have decisions to make
in our lives about what we do,
about the kind of direction we go in,
about what our hopes and ambitions
for the future are.
If I am denying myself,
taking up my cross,
and following Jesus,
I want to make sure
that my choices
are aligned with His choices.
I'm not doing things independently,
saying,
here's what I think is right,
what I think I should do.
I want to be before God in prayer,
and saying,
Lord, what is it that you want me to do?
Help me to make the right choices,
and help me to be willing
to carry them out.
It's also about my relationships.
It's about how I interact
with other people.
Now, part of that
is the people I choose
to have relationships with,
close relationships with,
and whether that is in God's will.
It's also in the day-to-day
relationships that we have with others.
Someone hurts me,
perhaps they say something nasty about me.
What is my natural response to them?
It is try and get back at them,
and maybe say worse about them
than they've said about me.
And Jesus says,
no, that's not what it's all about.
You have to deny yourself.
You and what people think of you
is not what's important.
You need to follow my example.
And when people revile you,
and you hate you,
you don't respond,
you don't react angrily.
Rather, you depend on God,
and you know that he is just,
and you show them love and concern.
And sometimes that really
is denying ourselves,
in a sense,
taking up our cross,
doing the things
that we find really difficult,
but actually which are really important
if we are following Jesus.
My choices, my relationships,
my work.
Now, some of you,
it may not be working.
Maybe you're studying,
or it may be what you do
during the week,
voluntary work,
or interacting with your neighbours,
or whatever.
My day-to-day life.
It's not about Sundays,
and I go and do something different
during the week.
My work,
my daily life,
has to be completely devoted
to Jesus.
It will affect my choice of jobs,
or it will affect
whether I go for a promotion or not.
It will affect what I choose to study.
I need to be saying,
Lord,
what is it that you want me to be doing?
What is your will for my life?
And I'm willing to follow in it.
And yes,
even my relaxation.
The things I do
in my leisure time,
they too should be focused
on what is it
that is going to bring glory to God.
Not that God doesn't want us to relax
and to enjoy ourselves
and have times of leisure.
But even in that,
we mustn't forget
whose we are
and who we serve.
I think it's great
that there's a sports grouping
set up in the church
to talk about
how those who are interested in sports
can use that
as part of their witness
for the Lord Jesus
and to pray for one another.
The Ember Collective,
the musical group in the church,
again,
great people wanting
to use their gifts
and to put them
at God's disposal
and to join together
in worship for him.
Even in our relaxation,
we need to think,
does that bring glory to God?
Is that consistent
with my commitment
to the Lord Jesus?
So ultimately,
what we're saying,
it is my will
that has to be totally surrendered.
Remember we sang
just a few minutes ago,
take my will
and make it thine.
It shall be no longer mine.
Now I suspect none of us
can say that we match up
to that standard.
That we have totally
submitted ourselves to Jesus
and in every aspect
of our life
we seek to obey him,
to deny ourselves,
to take up our cross
and to follow him.
But that's what we should be
desiring for ourselves.
There's one key word
in the verse,
I'm not sure why
you can read that verse
on the screen,
there's one key word
in this,
in a saying of Jesus
as Peter several times
in the gospel
that is only here.
And that is the word daily.
Jesus says,
take up your cross,
daily,
and follow me.
Sometimes we associate
periods of commitment
with Jesus
when we first become
a Christian,
we put our trust in him,
perhaps when we're baptized,
or we go to a meeting
or a rally
where we're particularly moved
and we rededicate ourselves
to the Lord Jesus.
All of these are fantastic
and there are times
when we particularly feel
the call of Christ
on our lives.
But Jesus is saying
that shouldn't just be
the exception.
Every day
you should be saying,
how can I today
serve Jesus
and totally commit myself
to him?
How can I today
crucify myself
and allow Jesus
to be in total control
of my life?
How can I please
Jesus today?
Now perhaps you're
looking at that
thinking,
well,
is it worthwhile?
Jesus is asking us
to do so much for him,
is it worth it?
Well,
one answer is
it's worth it
because of all
that Jesus has done
for us.
The fact that he came
into this world,
gave up all that he had
and went to the cross
and took our sins,
nothing should be
too much for us
if we really love him.
But Jesus recognizes
as he speaks
to his disciples
that actually
what he's asking
is hard.
It's not something
that comes easily
or something
that comes naturally.
And so that's
what the following
verses are about.
So he says,
whoever loses
his life
for my sake
will save it.
Or the converse
of that,
which actually
comes first
in the passage,
whoever wants
to save their life
will lose it.
What good is it
for someone
to gain the whole world
and yet lose
or forfeit
their own self?
Whoever is ashamed
of me and my words,
the Son of Man
will be ashamed of them
when he comes
in his glory
and the glory
of the Father
and of the holy angels.
Let's not get too involved
in the detail
of exactly what Jesus
is saying
at the end there.
But let's just note
that Jesus says
whatever you give
for him today,
it's worth it.
We are here
on this earth
for a short time.
After that,
there is eternity
and God will reward
those who are faithful
to the Lord Jesus.
And perhaps
if we have been ashamed
of Jesus,
perhaps we've been
not wanting others
to know we are a Christian
or to really follow
and serve him.
It doesn't mean
we're not saved
if our trust is in the Lord Jesus,
if we know him
as our saviour.
But when we have
to give account,
there will be
an element of shame
that we haven't used
our lives more
for the Lord Jesus.
And those who have
will have been willing
to be totally dedicated
to him.
There will be
appropriate reward
for them.
It will be worth it.
That's very much
what Jesus says.
It will be worth it
if you are willing
to do this for me.
And then right there
and just very briefly,
he has this
quite difficult
verse 27.
Truly I tell you,
some who are standing here
will not taste death
before they see
the kingdom of God.
Now again,
this is an encouragement
clearly for the disciples
to keep following him
and to dedicate
themselves to him.
Not entirely clear
what he means
when he says
they won't see death
before they see
the kingdom of God.
All the disciples
clearly are dead now.
Perhaps it refers
to his death
and resurrection.
Perhaps some people
think it refers
to the fall of Jerusalem
when God's judgment
was seen.
I think most likely
it actually refers
to the following verses.
When Jesus is transfigured
before the disciples,
when heaven in a sense
comes to earth,
as Moses and Elijah
come down
and are talking
with Jesus,
and there the disciples
are seeing
the kingdom of God.
Don't worry too much
about it and if you disagree,
feel free to talk
to me afterwards.
It's not the key thing
that we're talking about
this morning.
I want to end
with a quotation
which I'm sure
most people here
will be very familiar with.
When I was young,
I don't think you'd go
to a youth rally
without hearing
someone quoting it.
It's the words
taken from a journal
of a 22-year-old American
with a Scottish
brethren heritage
who six years later
would be martyred
when he was in Ecuador
by the Alca Indians
he'd gone to
with the gospel.
His name is Jim Elliott
and they say
most of you
will be familiar with it
but it's such a powerful
saying.
There's a 22-year-old man
writing a saying,
he is no fool
who gives
what he cannot keep
to gain
what he cannot lose.
He is no fool
who gives
what he cannot keep
to gain
what he cannot
lose.
Let's take that away
today
and think about it
as we think too
on the words
of Jesus.
Are we willing
to give up
for Jesus
anything,
everything
in this life
knowing that
he has a much
greater reward
anything that we give up
will be more than
amply rewarded
in eternity?
Do we see him
as the Messiah
as the Son of God?
Do we recognise
why he came?
Have we got our trust
in him as Saviour
as he said
he must suffer
and he must die?
Are we,
am I,
willing
to deny myself,
take up my cross
daily
and follow him?
Let's pray together.
Our Father,
we thank you
for your word to us.
We acknowledge
that these words
of Jesus
are really,
really challenging
for us.
That they go
against everything
that our human nature
would desire.
That where we want
to be independent
and to make
our own choices,
Jesus is asking us
to allow him
to be the one
who guides our thoughts
and our actions.
And yet we want
to recognise
his greatness,
we want to recognise
who he is,
we want to recognise
particularly what he has
done for us.
That he went to the cross,
that he took on himself
the punishment
that I deserved.
We pray that you will
help us to be
wholly committed
to him,
to take that step
daily
of saying,
Lord,
what is it that you
require of me
today?
How can I today
take up my cross
and follow you?
And every aspect
of our lives,
may we be committed
and dedicated
to him.
We thank you
for your word,
we thank you
for the privilege
we've had this morning
too,
of sharing fellowship
with one another
and of worshipping
together.
And we commit
ourselves to you
now as we give
our thanks
in Jesus' name.
Amen.