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As you turn to Matthew 16, I want to spend a little time before we jump into this passage talking about a little background as to why our next Lead Class is important.
On October 24th and 25th, a Friday evening and a Saturday morning less than two weeks away, Dr. Rosaria Butterfield will be our speaker. Her story is extremely moving. Her stance is extremely controversial. So why is this Lead Class important right now in this cultural moment?
Unfortunately, in our nation, waves of political violence on the left and the right have, at various times, been a part of our nation’s history. But lately, something new has emerged: the rise of trans-activist violence. Let me give you just a few examples.
We are told by groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that Christians who disagree with trans ideology are motivated primarily by hate and bigotry. Many Christian groups have been placed by the SPLC on a hate map with groups like the KKK. All of this, I believe, is predicated on the assumptions of what we could call—and has many characteristics of—a religion, a new progressive religion.
There are three key beliefs in this religion, specifically in the area of identity. We’ll see others later.
This is the thinking, so it should not be surprising that some unstable souls react to that hate.
Katelyn Burns, an MSNBC columnist, compares opposing “gender-affirming care” for kids with committing genocide. Think about that. If you, as a Christian, are not for chemically castrating and mutilating the healthy bodies of young people, you are committing genocide against them. You are essentially, from this view, erasing a category of people, despite the fact that so-called “gender-affirming care” shows no statistical difference in decreasing the suicidality of those identified as trans young people.
Now, as I say this, please don’t miss the fact that there are real people who suffer deeply with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is an extreme discomfort between our brains and our bodies. A tiny percentage of people—we’re not talking about the social phenomenon that has swept through our country, that’s something different—but a tiny percentage of people experience this intense discomfort between psychology and biology. Our psychology is screaming one thing, our biological reality is saying something else.
The difficulty is, there are many biology-psychology disparities (things like anorexia, apotemnophilia), but we don’t treat any of them like this one. We assume that if you just pump someone full of chemicals and cut off healthy body parts, you can somehow alleviate this deep distress, which is much deeper than the way we’re currently addressing this.
So why is this class important at this time? Because whenever there are these—and they’re continually coming in different expressions—these controversial cultural clashes, we as followers of Jesus need to be able to respond culturally, even politically. If we love our neighbors, we’re going to be engaged politically. That’s one of our callings as stewards. But we can easily, very easily (maybe I’m just speaking for myself) respond in the flesh rather than in the spirit, and actually be more unhelpful than helpful.
How do we do that? One way we do that is to plunge deeply into news sources that are designed to algorithmically feed us more and more of what we already assume, and they end up stoking us into a frenzy of fear and anger. That is super unhelpful because we end up missing the moment. What do I mean specifically by “miss the moment?” Here are a couple of suggestions (there are more).
1. We become blind to the amazing things God is doing.
We become much more concerned about a protectionistic mindset (i.e. protecting our way of life) than we are about seeing, “God, you’re up to some big things right now. You are transforming lives right now.” He’s doing this, but some of us, as followers of Jesus, can be so stoked into fear and anger that we are blind, and we miss that.
2. We fail to lead with our ears.
What do I mean “lead with our ears?” We don’t know how to listen.
This struck me several years ago. I was doing seminars on this around the country, and I kept encountering, during Q&A, not many, but some who would push back with the idea of listening.
I asked them, “What are you concerned about?”
Time and time again, they would communicate, “Well, if you’re listening, you’re compromising.”
“Really? So if you’re sitting down with a lost friend and you’re asking them good questions to tell you where they are in their journey and how they came to believe or disbelieve what they believe or disbelieve, you’re automatically compromised?”
“Yeah, you’re compromising. If you know the truth, you need to hit them with it.”
Really? The Bible says people who speak before they listen are what? Fools. You’re not compromising. You’re an idiot if you won’t listen, if you won’t ask good questions, and try to enter into their story. That doesn’t mean you change what you believe or you’re agreeing with everything they say, but you love enough to listen.
If we’re all stoked up in fear and anger, we’re not doing that. We’re looking to zing, not listen, right? We’re looking at pounce, not listen. And so we miss the moment in the sense that—
There are so many of these kinds of conversations I’ve had with those in an LGBTQ lifestyle who will, if they feel safe with you, share their fears. Like, “I’m scared of Christians.” “Well, what are you scared of? Tell me.” They have been, really, brainwashed into thinking that Christians really hate them. By listening, you suddenly have an opportunity to say, “You know something? That’s not true. I love you. We can actually differ and love each other.”
That’s a new thing, isn’t it? That you can think I’m wrong as a Christian, and I don’t have to assume you hate me. I can think you’re wrong and still love you. Does that sound crazy? That is so foreign to our culture. Christians, we have to bring it back. You can love the person and disagree on the ideas, the lies, the beliefs. Vital.
3. We miss the moment when we respond with either truth or grace.
If you’ve been around for a while, you’re going to think this guy’s a broken record. Yes, I’m going to keep saying this because there are tons of people who are standing for truth and they’re arrogant, angry, denouncing people. Then there are tons of people who are sappy, loving, affirm everything in the name of grace, and they’re standing for nothing. They’re not helping anyone.
Jesus is full of grace and truth. If you’re new to the Bible, that’s a quote. He’s full of grace and truth. We don’t have to pick one. It’s super easy to be angry for the truth or sappy for the grace, but full of grace and truth! Jesus never compromised, but he showed compassion. God is calling us to stand firm in grace, to speak the truth in love. By the way, most of you guys are so good at this. I’m preaching to the choir. But we can grow.
So on Friday night, Rosaria’s going to share her story of being totally in and teaching LGBTQ lifestyle and then how Christ wrecked her life and then transformed it. Saturday morning, she’s going to come back and talk about some really controversial things about lies that people believe. Then she’s going to end with what I think is one of the most important, especially for (to use our word for the day) this “cultural moment.” How can we as Christians stand firm on truth, but be radically hospitable? To have hearts and homes that are wide open while standing firm in our convictions. That is one of the greatest needs of our day. If we miss that, we miss the moment.
If you haven’t signed up and can join us, there’s still plenty of room. If you can’t, then we can make lots of book recommendations and things to listen to, because as a church, as God’s people, here in this little expression of his global body, we need to be equipped to respond wisely and well.
Father, please, help us to be aware that you’ve placed us in this country at this time for a reason, that we wouldn’t just be swept along, but that you would open our eyes to your call on our lives, that we would reject the lies and the fear and the anger, and that you would lead us to those who are most hurting, who most need your love, maybe who feel like you’ve given up on them, and we will have the opportunity to speak the truth in love. Now, as we open your word and you describe what this way is like, a way of following Jesus, stir our hearts, we pray. May we follow you, in Jesus’s name, amen.
Matthew 16:21-28 unfolds in three stages. First, you see a major collision, and then a very intense confrontation, and then a commission. We’ll walk through those and see how this unfolds.
A cultural collision. Verse 21,
“From that time…” What time? From the time Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. It’s as if Jesus says, “Okay, you know who I am now. Let me tell you what we’re going to do.”
You can imagine Peter anticipating this, like, “Yeah!” Simon the Zealot, “Finally, this is what I signed up for! Kill the Romans! Break off the shackles.” And then Jesus says this, verse 21:
“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” (Matthew 16:21).
Now, it is difficult for us, looking back, to understand how foreign these words would have been to the disciples. They’re all going, “What? What are you talking about? Did you just say suffer, killed, raised?” The disciples are stunned. Peter’s mind is spinning, so he pulls Jesus towards him. “We’ve got to talk.” Look at verse 22.
“And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22).
“Not on my watch. All this negativity, suffering. Whatever ‘raised’ means. No.” Do you see what’s happening here? This is called a cultural collision. Peter’s cultural assumptions prevented him from being able to conceptualize a suffering, dying, rising Messiah. He had no category for that. A killing, conquering, reigning Messiah? Yeah. A suffering, dying, rising, Messiah? No.
By the way, this is one of the reasons pre-evangelism or cultural apologetics is super important. Cultural apologetics help us analyze the air we breathe and understand the assumptions that our particular culture has that tend to collide with the gospel of Jesus. Let me give you an example.
Not long before the 2016 presidential election, Collin Hansen was speaking at Cornell University in New York. At one point, he was talking to Christian students, so these are Christian students in an Ivy League school. He asked them, “What do your non-Christian fellow students think first about Christianity? What’s the first thought they have about Christianity?”
Their answer shocked him so much that he kept asking other Christian students around the country the same question, and the same answer kept popping up. What do you think it was? Chick-fil-A, no. Westboro Baptist Church.
Nod your head negative — sideways. Can you nod it sideways? Shake your head sideways if you’ve never heard of Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, many of you have never heard of that, and that’s what a lot of non-Christians think is you. Which is stunning when you think about it, because Westboro Baptist Church is a tiny, inbred, cultish church in Topeka, Kansas, with like five people in it. A few more than that.
You say, “Well then, what are they all about?” I can just tell you their website, and you’ll know. You can go to GodHatesFags.com. That is their website. If you go to their media section and click on “signs,” you’ll see. They have some fairly neutral and some good signs. Here are a few examples. The knife is just beautiful. Here are some other examples. You can see their job is essentially to attack everyone. Israel is doomed. This one breaks your heart, “No tears for queers.” This is my favorite: “your pastor is a whore.” Just sharing the love of Jesus.
My point is not to examine the tactics of Westboro, but to illustrate that no one comes to Jesus with a blank slate. They have assumptions about who you are. Think about that when you’re grabbing coffee with a lost friend and just trying to build a relationship that hopefully will give you an opportunity to share the love of Jesus. When they find out you’re a Christian, some of them are thinking of signs like that that they saw at military funerals, at football games, pride parades. That’s you, that’s Christianity from their perspective.
This is why it’s so important to listen, to ask good questions, to get in behind the assumptions. Today, and I’m being very general here, but you could say American secularism assumes at least these five things, in general:
Our country would be so much better if we could get rid of the Christians.
American history. And it’s not just that we have done bad things, which all of us would agree with, but America is uniquely, systemically evil, unredeemably. Another one is that
We talked about that. “I create me, you affirm or you hate.”
Nobody tells me what is right or wrong, except me.
Not a blessing. There are religious versions of these that are swirling around the air we breathe. “If I do more good than bad, I can earn my way to heaven.” “My money and my possessions are earned for me to keep, and I look down on anyone who can’t make it like I’ve made it.” “Jesus exists to make my life comfortable.” Those are the religious versions. There are many more.
Any time you preach Christ and his kingdom, you’re going to have a collision of these cultural assumptions colliding with who Jesus really is and what his kingdom is really like. That’s the cultural collision.
2. A personal confrontation
Peter rebukes Jesus for saying he is a suffering, dying, rising Messiah. Verse 23:
“But [Jesus] 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” (Matthew 16:23).
Wow. How far Peter has fallen. Why is Jesus so firm with Peter? Three reasons (that are here):
Essentially, Peter is jumping in front of Jesus, protecting him from the cross, and Jesus says, “Get behind me.” Why? Peter, you’re a follower of Jesus. Followers do what? Follow. They follow. They don’t get in front and hinder. But you have to love Peter, right? Peter says what all of us are thinking. There are so many times— I wouldn’t say it, but it’s like, “Okay, Jesus. I’ve been following you, and it’s just not going really well. So how about I take the lead for a while, and you follow me?” That’s what Peter’s doing. It’s insane to say that to Jesus, but he thinks he’s helping.
Way back in chapter 4:8, Jesus was in his wilderness temptation. Satan took him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms, and said, essentially, “You can have all of these without a cross.”
Peter is doing the same thing. That’s why Jesus calls him Satan, because he’s emulating the temptation of Satan. “Go for the kingdom. Skip the cross. We can have a crossless kingdom. No death. No suffering. No rising. No redemption. None of that. We’re just going straight for glory.”
That word hindrance there in verse 23 is “skandalon.” We get our word scandalous from that. It means to bait, trap, or cause to stumble. If you think about it, the same guy who was just called “you are the rock” is now the stumbling stone. How quickly we fall. Verse 23, why? Why is he trying to inadvertently trip up Jesus? Verse 23 continues,
“For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Here it is: Your personal and cultural assumptions of who Jesus is and what his kingdom should be like are twisting your minds and causing you to miss who Jesus really is.
At this point, you would think Jesus would just be like, “I’m done with you all. All twelve of you, fired. I’m getting a new 12. We’re starting over.” It is so encouraging to me what Jesus does next, because he moves from this cultural collision (where Peter’s cultural expectations collide with the kingdom) to a personal confrontation. Then Jesus doesn’t write them off; he invites them in.
3. A total commission
You see this total commission. He says, “Come on.” Total commission. Verse 24,
“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone—”
Are you an anyone?
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
Jesus, what do you mean, “Come after me?” He gives us three specific explanations:
Do you see how utterly offensive that is in our culture? Essentially, our culture worships self-creation: “I define me.” Jesus comes along and says, “Come after me, and by the way, deny yourself.” By the way, this isn’t a one-and-done. Like, “I did that at camp when I was 13.” No, this is a new way of living. As D.A. Carson says,
“Death to self is not so much a prerequisite of discipleship as a continuing characteristic of it.”
Christians, as we follow Jesus, the self is not in charge. Self-creation, self-fulfillment, that’s not the goal. Following Jesus is a long, slow transformation from self-absorption into love of God and love of neighbor. “Come,” Jesus says. “Let’s do this.” Deny self.
You’ll hear people say things like, “Yeah, my old car is my cross. It won’t start.” Or, “My spouse is my cross.” “My bad knee is my cross.” There’s some truth to that. The difficult things we face in life can become part of our cross-bearing. However, to take up your cross and follow Jesus is much bigger than just going through some painful or inconvenient experiences. That’s why I call this a total commission, because it is totalizing. It’s like saying, “Hey, grab your electric chair and follow me.” “Hey, find your firing squad and follow me.” The person you were is not going to survive this. He’s going to make you a new creation.
Over the past four years since my wife’s cancer diagnosis, we’ve had so many conversations together about how cancer can be a gift. Not saying it’s all easy. When a doctor says to you, “You’re going to probably live this many months.” And you know, and they know, God is the one. We don’t go by diagnoses, but it is disorienting when someone says, “Yeah, most likely, on average, you—”
What Karen and I have talked about so many times is that disorientation is orienting because it strips away everything that doesn’t matter. You start thinking, “Okay, Lord, whether you’re going to call me home here or here or here, you’re going to call me.” Death is a high percentage chance, unless Jesus comes. You’re going to die (as far as I’ve seen). So you have the privilege of then backing up and saying, “Okay, you’ve given me today. What a gift.” Today becomes much more precious in light of what he’s called us to.
Jesus is saying something like that. When you die to your control and thinking you are the master, and you’ve got it all figured out, and you’re going to find a way to achieve a life the way you think you deserve or desire— You die to that, you take up your cross, and you say, “Lord, you’ve washed away all my sin. You have a purpose for me today, this morning.” The colors are brighter and the breeze feels better, and the relationships have so much more meaning because you’ve died to your own way and you’re living to Christ. So what seems like a curse becomes a gift. Thank you, Lord. May we be a people who die before we die so that we can really live. Like, die early, so you can really live. That seems to be what he’s saying here.
He’s not talking about throwing yourself off a cliff or anything. It’s take up your cross and look at the next one.
“Follow me! Don’t try to get me to follow you,” like Peter was doing. “Follow me. I know what I’m doing,” Jesus is saying. It’s in the present imperative, “let him continue following me.” It’s not just a decision, it’s a way of life.
Think about what Jesus is doing. This is stunning. Peter just made the great confession, but Jesus isn’t going to leave us in a confession. He’s going to call us to a new way of being in the world.
Confessions are vital. You will, if you’re a follower of Jesus, have that moment where you’re like, “Okay, Jesus, I repent of my sin. I follow you, I believe you.” And you might be able to remember the time or place. You might not be, but we have those moments where we say no to sin, yes to Jesus. Then it begins a journey. Continually denying self, taking up the cross, and following Jesus.
Some of you may be thinking, I need a little more help here because I’m not sure it’s worth it. So you notice those three key conjunctions in verses 25, 26, and 27, the little words “for.” He’s giving us three reasons to follow him:
Self-preserving is self-defeating. Verse 25:
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
He’s not talking about trying to loathe yourself or be a doormat. He’s talking about taking your picture, your assumptions of what your life should be, and giving it to him.
“Full and abundant life is the life of service, the life in Christ, the life that takes anyone out of concentration on merely selfish concerns and puts ultimate meaning into life.” -Leon Morris
Self-preservation is self-defeating.
World-gaining is soul-losing. Verse 26:
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)
Are you familiar with the term gentrification? Gentrification. There are good and bad kinds of gentrification. The good kind is when everyone in a neighborhood experiences an influx of wealth and safety. More families move in, you can walk around at night. Everybody kind of benefits from this influx of wealth. The bad kind of gentrification is when the poor are taken advantage of.
For example, you’re a widow, you live in your little house that’s been in your family for generations. It’s not much, needs repair, but it’s your house. You have friends nearby, you can walk to the store…
One day, a slick-looking guy in a suit comes by your door, knocks, and says, “I’d like to buy your house.” You say, “It’s not for sale.” He says, “Well, I can give you $60,000 cash tomorrow. Let me know.” You say, “Well, I’m not interested,” but he leaves his card.
The next day, you’re looking at your car. It needs repair. Your clothes are old. Your house needs repair. It’s like, “Ugh. I’m just going to do it.” And you sell it for $60,000. You’ve never seen $60,000 in one place, and so it seems like a great decision.
You move across town and you get an apartment, you buy a new car, you get some new slick outfits, and for a little while, it goes well. But by the time you pay taxes, buy a car, and get some new clothes, that 60 grand is almost gone.
A year or two later, you decide, “I want to go see my old neighborhood.” You drive back over there, and you can’t believe your eyes: so many new houses. They took your house down to the studs. It looks like a mansion. You check on the price. It’s $450,000— your little $60,000 house. It occurs to you, “I can’t even move back into my neighborhood if I wanted to.” Jesus is saying something like that about our souls.
When you sell your soul for some immoral pleasure, or to fit in with your friends, to gain short-term significance, what you’re doing is (in a sense) gaining the world, but you’re losing what really matters. Over time, if you’re doing that, you will begin to wonder, “What is the meaning of life? What matters? Who am I?” Everything becomes meaningless, even though that moment of pleasure may have been enjoyable.
What Jesus is saying in this verse, he’s using financial language, essentially saying, “You got shafted.” Like, “You took a bad deal.” You sold something that’s worth something for nothing in the long term. This has eternal consequences, when we live our lives selling our souls for what doesn’t matter. Jesus is saying, “No, your soul is worth way more than that. That’s why I gave my life for you. So that you can truly live.” Self-preserving is self-defeating. World-gaining is soul-losing.
Then, finally, the climax.
You can never lose with Jesus. Look at verse 27:
“For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27).
If you’re outside of Jesus, those words are terrifying. Everything you’ve done wrong, you will pay for. All that is unjust will be made right. Either Jesus pays or you pay. Jesus is saying, “Come to me. Come to me, I want to cover you. When I come back, there is no sacrifice you’ve made that you will not receive far more for.”
We’re going to see this in a couple of chapters. For example, Matthew 19:29,
“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”
There is no such thing as a sad ending with Jesus. No such thing.
When Betty Scott was a sophomore in college, she adopted Philippians 1:21 as her life verse.
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
She believed God was calling her to China as a missionary. Shortly after graduating from Moody, she married John Stam, who was also called to China. They went there, learned Chinese, were serving Jesus, had their first child, a communist military group kidnapped them, and executed them. Their daughter was miraculously rescued.
Their martyrdom rocked the world at the time, many thinking, “What a waste.” I love to think about stories like this because both John and Betty, if they had lived the American dream, would still be dead right now. Did they make a bad choice following Jesus? No. When Betty was a sophomore in college, she wrote this:
“When we consecrate ourselves to God, we think we are making a great sacrifice, and doing lots for Him, when really we are only letting go of some little, bitsie trinkets we have been grabbing, and when our hands are empty, He fills them full of His treasures.”
Fills them full of his treasures. That’s what Jesus is saying, “Come follow me. I have way better stuff than the junk of the world. True treasures. When you follow me, you never lose.” Like Jim Elliot, who married Elizabeth Howard, whose family was friends with Betty Stam’s family. Jim wrote:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Actually, he’s quoting a Puritan.
“…gives what he could not keep to gain what he couldn’t lose.”
Look where the passage ends, verse 28:
“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in this kingdom” (Matthew 16:28).
I love that. That’s setting us up for next week because Jesus, on the Mount of Transfiguration, is going to unveil his royalty, his glory, his kingdom, giving Peter, James, and John a glimpse.
When Betty Stam was 19, she wrote this prayer, and I think this would be a good prayer for all of us to pray. If the Spirit is moving your heart, then inside, pray this as I read it. Pray it.
“Lord, I give up my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes and ambitions, and I accept your will for my life. I give up myself, my life, my all, utterly to you, to be yours forever. I hand over to your keeping all of my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me now and seal me with your Spirit. Work out your whole will in my life at any cost, for to me to live is Christ. Amen.”
Father, we don’t want to miss this moment because we get so blinded by our own assumptions and debased affections. Please, may we die before we die so that we can truly live in you. Hear our cries now as we continue to pray this prayer. Lord, you are worthy of all of our lives, all of our affections, all of our praise. Hear our cries now. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.
