The Cost of Discipleship - Luke 9:22-27 - May 7, 2023

 Luke 9:22-27 The Cost of Discipleship

Good morning! We are going back to the Gospel of Luke this morning. Turn to Luke 9:22-27, that’s page 867 in the pew Bibles.

We’ve jumped around a bit in Luke nine over the last few weeks to tie together some different thoughts and this time we are going to backtrack just a bit to give a little better context to this teaching of Jesus found in verses 23-27.

Jesus had been questioning the disciples on who the crowds said He was and who they said He was. The crowds believed He was perhaps John the Baptist raised from the dead, or Elijah, or one of the old prophets come back to life but Peter, on behalf of the disciples gave the good confession in verse 20, “You are the Christ of God.”

Well this morning we are going to look at the implications of that great truth, that Jesus is the Christ, the Chosen One, God’s Messiah. So let’s look at our text.

22 …“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” 

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Let’s pray.

Now it’s important for us to remember that the first verse we read, verse 22, was said to the disciples in private and in verse 23-27 Jesus addresses the larger crowd that was with Him as well as the Twelve.

Jesus had described to the disciples what their confession meant, what being the Christ of God meant.

It didn’t mean that He would go to Jerusalem and go to the palace and take His place as King. It didn’t mean that He would defeat the political oppressors of the nation of Israel and restore their country back to them. It didn’t mean that all of their desires for themselves and their country would be granted to them.

It did mean that He would go to Jerusalem and be mistreated and rejected by their religious leaders. It did mean that he would go to the cross and not the throne. It did mean that He pay the penalty for the sins of mankind and defeat our true oppressor, the devil, and restore our relationship with God our Father through faith in Jesus and His atoning death and resurrection.

And it did mean that instead of granting them the desires of their hearts for themselves and their country that following Him would cost them everything.

And here we have the most popular teaching of the church in the Twenty-first Century: that following Jesus comes at a cost. I know it’s so popular because all the most popular preachers are out there selling books on it and filling stadiums with people who can’t wait to hear what they have to give up in order to follow Jesus.

Now to be clear there is a distinct difference between salvation and discipleship.

Our salvation has already been paid for by Jesus on the cross. That is a completed work, there is nothing more that we could ever add to it nor take away, Jesus paid it all.

But after faith in Jesus comes following Jesus.

I’m not talking about earning our salvation, I’m talking about what happens once we are saved.

As Alistair Begg put it, “The entry fee [to the Christian Life] is nothing, but the annual fee will cost us everything we have.”

 Verse 23, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

This statement of Jesus used to really trip me up when I was much younger. I thought that because Jesus was the only person that I knew of that had ever been crucified that He was the only one who had been crucified and the disciples couldn’t have understood what the cross that Jesus was talking about could have been. This whole idea would have to have been a real mystery to them until after the crucifixion.

But that’s because I didn’t know my history. 

Around the time that Jesus was eleven years old the Romans crushed a rebellion in the city of Sepphoris about four miles north of Nazareth and they crucified around two thousand men along the road from Sepphoris to Nazareth. Jesus and the disciples had all seen those people crucified.  

Crucifixion began with the Assyrians and Babylonians and had been practiced by the Persians since around 600 BC and continued to be perfected and practiced by the Romans until Emperor Constantine outlawed it in the Fourth Century AD. That’s over a thousand years that this brutality was practiced.

What do you see when you see a cross? Maybe you see a reminder of Jesus’ death, maybe you look at a cross and see salvation.

What do you think the disciples saw when they looked at a cross? I think they saw humiliation, suffering, and death. They saw the MOST humiliating way to die, on display for all to see, a long, agonizing, slow death from blood loss and asphyxiation. 

So when Jesus says to those who would follow Him, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,” it was a much more graphic picture of the cost of following Jesus than I ever imagined, maybe you too.

John Calvin wrote, “Let it be the uninterrupted exercise of the godly, that when many afflictions have run their course, they may be prepared to endure fresh afflictions.”

24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

Jesus here shows us the difference between two types of life, a lower and a higher, a natural and a spiritual, a temporal and an eternal. He also shows us the value or importance of each.

And if anyone is unwilling to surrender one for the sake of the other, they will eventually lose both.

To deny ourselves is to do just that, to surrender our lower, natural, temporal life, for the sake of our higher, spiritual, eternal life.

Perhaps the most famous denial is the denial of Peter, the same one who had just declared on behalf of the disciples that Jesus is the Christ of God would eventually deny Him three times saying, “I do not know the man!”

That’s what our denying ourselves has to look like, “I do not know the man driven by the desires of the flesh. I do not know the man that only seeks his own good. I do not know the man that is consumed by self and self-interest.”

What good does it do to follow such a one? We could gain the whole world, as Jesus put it, fill our pockets with gold and silver and all that we desire that is good in this life, but in the end it will only cost us the next one if we turn away from Jesus to get it.

The Apostle Paul, a man who once had it all by the world’s standards wrote in Philippians 3:7-11:

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Jesus said in verse 26,

26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

This is the warning, what will you choose?

To follow Jesus means to take up our cross daily, continuously, and not some gilded, gold-plated, fancy cross either, to willingly, daily, face what the cross meant for Jesus in Jesus’ Name: surrender, suffering, sacrifice, humiliation, and even death.

That’s the cost of following Jesus. And the day is coming that this might be exactly what is required of us. Things in this world are going from bad to worse, it’s not going to get easier to follow Jesus publicly, it’s going to get harder, but we have to keep our eyes on the horizon waiting for the coming of Christ and trusting Him moment by moment as that day approaches.

2 Thessalonians 1:5-12 says,

5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The reward far outweighs the cost of following Jesus.

Amen.

Give a Little Get a Lot - Luke 9:10-17 - April 30, 2023

 Luke 9:10-17 Give a Little Get a Lot

Good morning! We are returning to our study in the Gospel of Luke this morning with chapter nine and verses 10-17. That’s on page 866 in the pew Bibles so please turn there with me.

Last week we skipped over these verses to examine the question: who is Jesus? Which was asked and answered in the sections on either side of this one. 

This passage that we are going to look at today describes the only miracle of Jesus that is described in all four Gospels, you can look those up in your spare time Matthew 14, Mark 6, and John 6. We aren’t going to borrow any details from those other accounts today, we are just going to focus on what the Holy Spirit provides us through the pen of Luke.

Now remember that the disciples had been sent out by Jesus into the villages of Galilee to teach and to heal and now they had gathered again with Jesus. Also, around this time Jesus and the disciples learned of the death of John the Baptist.

10 On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Let’s pray.

Luke’s account of the feeding of the five thousand is definitely more of a summary account than some of the other Gospels, he doesn’t include all of the same details but there are some things worth noting.

First of all, in verse 10 this is the first time the disciples are referred to as “apostles.” This is important considering what all else is going on at the time.

A disciple is a learner, a student, or an apprentice, and so the Twelve were at this point and would continue to be until they were given the Great Commission to go and make disciples as recorded in Matthew 28 and Mark 16.

An apostle is one who is sent as an emissary, or a missionary. Jesus sent out the disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal and to cast out demons, and the fact that He sent them out qualified them to be called apostles, the ones Jesus sent. Luke goes back to calling them disciples after this until we get to his second book, the Book of Acts, also known as the Acts of the Apostles.

It’s very tempting for me to drill down on this statement by Luke that the apostles to Jesus all they had done as if it wasn’t y the power and authority that Jesus had given them to do the work. Perhaps wiser disciples would have reported to Jesus all that He had accomplished through them. I’m not sure that’s really the point but I’m also not sure it isn’t.

It’s possible that the feeding of the five thousand was meant to be a lesson in humility for the apostles, possibly a rather harsh lesson.

They came back to Jesus and reported all that they had done and then they are face with a huge crowd of hungry people late in the day that needed to eat Jesus very clearly told them in verse 13, “You give them something to eat.”

Almost like he was saying to them, “You guys have all this talent and ability and power to heal a cast out demons, you must also have the power to feed all these people!” 

Maybe Jesus was reminding them of their true powerlessness and His almightiness again, but I’m not sure that it was that harsh. That kind of makes Jesus look like a jerk and I’m positive that He’s not. Since He is the gentle Shepherd that had compassion on this crowd of weary, hungry, shepherdless, sheep, I’m sure that the lesson He had for the disciples and for us is a more gentle one.

So let’s look at the reality of the situation. The apostles had just returned from their successful missions trip and were weary, they had around this time learned of the death of John the Baptist which was an emotional blow to all of them and Jesus suggests that they retreat for a while to the wilderness near Bethsaida to rest. 

The crowds also heard where Jesus was and went there to see Him and hear Him and be healed of their various diseases. The Gospels all record that they crowd that gathered was about five thousand men. This was a round figure that didn’t include women and children in its accounting so this crowd could very well have been over ten thousand people, hungry, and out in the wilderness with nothing to eat late in the afternoon.

While the disciple were content to send the crowds away to get some food and find a place to spend the night Jesus says, “No, you feed them.”

Their response? We have nothing, just five loaves and two fish. These weren’t loaves of Wonder Bread either, more like dinner rolls or even crackers.

And this is where the first of two miracles takes place.

12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down.

What was the first miracle? The disciples trusted Jesus and asked the crowd to sit down.

Alistair Begg said, “When Jesus says, ‘Give them something to eat,’ and we have nothing to give them, then we are ready for God’s dramatic intervention.”

The disciples recognized that they had nothing to offer the people, five loaves and two fish weren’t even enough for the Twelve and Jesus to have enough to eat!

Jesus said, “You feed them,” and they said, “We have nothing to give them,” and Jesus says, “You’re right, but it’s okay, I’ll handle it.”

This is not so very different from our everyday experiences, this is no different from Jesus’ call to us all to be ministers of the gospel. He says, “Serve the people,” and we say, “We have nothing to give them,” and He says, “You’re right, just set the tables and I’ll take care of the rest.”

We’re called to give what we do have, to be faithful with our little bit, and trust Him to use it according to His will.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “…he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Again Alistair Begg said, “If you and I are prepared to acknowledge before God that the responsibility entrusted to us to serve others immediately shows us our inadequacy and our emptiness, then if we will offer our open hands to Him He will place within our custody that which He has provided, and allow us, surprisingly, wonderfully, the privilege of extending it to others.”

The miracle of the willingness of the disciples to trust Jesus made room for the second miracle.

And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Out of the little He made much, He blessed what was of little account and had plenty to spare.

Are we as a church family or even individual disciples content to say, “that was just for them then,”? 

Is it not possible that the Lord may well do the same thing again with us? Is it not a great blessing to be of little account so that the power of Christ may be made manifest in us? 

The fact that we are gathered here today is evidence that the Lord will show Himself strong and more than adequate to work and do His good will with little. 

That’s the story of my life, and I bet it is of yours too!

2 Corinthians 4:5-7 says, 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 

Amen.

Who is Jesus? Luke 9:7-9, 18-22 - April 23, 2023

 Luke 9:7-9, 18-22 Who is Jesus?

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter nine, page 866 in the pew Bibles. We are going to be doing our study a little differently this morning in that we are going to look at two different small sections of Luke nine that address one issue while skipping over verses 10-17 which we will look at next time. So we are going to look at verses 7-9 and then 18-22.

And as we look at these verses we are going to consider the most important question ever asked. There are lots of important, life-altering questions that have been asked like, which way to the bathroom, and, do you want to marry me or what?

But the question that we are going to consider this morning is a more important question and it is a question that every person must answer and undoubtedly will have to answer on the Day of Judgment: Who is Jesus?

And in our text this morning we are going to see the answers to that question given by Herod, the crowds, the disciples, and Jesus Himself.

Let’s look at Luke nine.

7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8 by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen. 9 Herod said, “John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he sought to see him.

And skip down to verse 18.

18 Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 19 And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” 20 Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” 

21 And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Let’s pray.

So after Jesus had sent the Twelve out into the villages of Galilee word reached all the way into the halls of government that something was going on, that some new teacher was out there stirring things up. The word was out and everybody had an opinion about Jesus.

Herod the Tetrarch was the son of Herod the Great and he was in charge of the district of Galilee for the Romans. He had often had John the Baptist come and speak to him out of a sense of morbid curiosity but at the request of his wife and daughter had him beheaded in prison.

So when people started saying that John was once again preaching and teaching in Galilee he started to get concerned. In fact, he was scared of ghosts. Herod’s guilty conscience prompted him to wonder if John had come back to get him.

Those around him were telling him all different ideas about who Jesus might be but it only further perplexed Herod. He kind of wanted to know who Jesus was, he kind of wanted to see Jesus himself but he wouldn’t get down off his high horse to seek Him out. Whether it was fear, or pride, or indifference, Herod wasn’t willing to go find out for sure.

So Herod’s answer to the question: Who is Jesus? Remained: I don’t know, I might like to know but I’m not really willing to do anything to find out for sure.

I think we all know people like this still today. I’m curious about who Jesus is but I’m not willing to go where I might actually find out. Whatever their reasons really are fear, or pride, or indifference they won’t come and find out who Jesus is.

Herod, of course, did finally meet Jesus as we read in Luke 23:7-11.

7 And when [Pilate] learned that [Jesus] belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. 9 So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. 10 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. 11 And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

Herod was curious but eventually rejected Jesus, mocking Him and treating Him with contempt though He had done nothing wrong.

So leaving verses 7-9 let’s skip ahead to verses 18-22.

Herod settled for answering: I don’t know who Jesus is. Next let’s look at who the crowds said Jesus was in verses 18-19.

18 Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 19 And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.”

So what was the public opinion of Jesus? This was the voice of the masses, the voice of flesh and blood. 

Some said that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead, after all, how could such a great man of God be taken away forever? That’s just not fair!

Some said that He was Elijah returned from heaven in his chariot of fire. Malachi 4:5-6, the last verses of the Old Testament say: 5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

Others said that one of the other prophets of old had risen from the dead. It was clear that popular opinion held that Jesus was definitely neither ordinary nor insignificant. He was a messenger of God for sure, but still nobody was saying that He might actually be Messiah.

There are still plenty of people today that will agree that Jesus was a great teacher and a person of great historical importance without actually placing their faith in Him. How we designate our years are based on the life of Jesus: BC means Before Christ, and AD Annio Dominae, the year of our Lord, though folks are trying to wipe that away by using the expression, “Before Common Era and After Common Era.”

So Jesus turns to the disciples to ask them the question directly, “Who do you say that I am?”

And of course Peter speaks up on behalf of the disciples and says, in verse 20, “You are the Christ of God.”

To be clear, the word, Christ, and the word, Messiah, mean the same thing. Christ is a Greek word, it’s not Jesus’ last name, and Messiah is a Hebrew word, and they both mean: Anointed One.

What’s interesting to me is that this confession of faith by Peter on behalf of the disciples was not based on complete understanding, they didn’t fully comprehend what Jesus’ work on earth would really entail. All they knew was that Jesus was indeed Messiah, the Christ of God, and at this point that simple faith was enough. It was saving faith.

In response to this confession, which, though incomplete, was the right answer to the question: Who is Jesus, Jesus gives the disciples some strange instructions and then answers the question Himself.

Look at verse 21. 21 And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one,

Doesn’t this seem a little strange? Why would Jesus tell them not to tell anybody that he was indeed the long awaited Messiah? Isn’t that what He wanted people to know so that they could trust in Him and be saved?

Well, eventually yes, just not yet.

JJ vanOosterzee put it this way, “There existed a little congregation in which the faith on Jesus as the Christ was the center of its union. If this community, with its manner of thinking, manifested itself externally, it would here have found premature adherents, and here roused renewed opposition.”

In other words, if everybody believed that Jesus was Messiah at this point He would not be able to do the work that He came to do. The people may have carried him to Jerusalem and put Him on the throne instead of Jesus carrying Him cross through Jerusalem to be crucified outside the city.

And that brings us to Jesus’ answer to the question, who is Jesus?

In verse 22, Jesus said: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Jesus’ answer to the question was that He is the Suffering Servant from Isaiah 53 and that His work as Messiah was far greater than just teaching and healing.

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for the sin of mankind. He is the only one who could give His perfect life in our place on the cross. That was His purpose here on earth.

Jesus is Messiah. Jesus is the Christ of God. Jesus is Lord. That’s the answer to the question.

Amen.