What Profit?

 

Text: Matthew 16:21-28

Focus: following Jesus

Function: to help people see how loving others is sacrificial

²¹From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

This is a passage about our commitment to Christ. There is a very powerful verse in the text this morning with a clear warning and it is difficult to hear. Jesus said that if we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross then follow him.

I have always believed that the phrase “Take up your cross” was a metaphor for living a sacrificial life for Jesus.

In the most basic form, following Christ is refusing selfishness, for selfishness is at the heart of most sin -according to my theology professor.

I don’t want to preach against selfishness, but I want to unwrap just what does it mean to live sacrificially in this day and age?

Because, Spiritually and eternally, there is little profit in hoarding earthly wealth.

So let us unwrap the passage a little bit. When Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me, is Jesus calling us to a life of poverty?

I remember that Jesus also said, “I came that you might have abundant life.” And “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Those verses are a big contrast to taking up a cross.

And, without contradiction, both concepts come from the mouth of the Lord.

How do we have an abundant and yet sacrificial, or selfless life?

Growing up, I was taught that since Jesus died on the cross to keep me out of hell, in order to escape hell, I had to live a life of sacrificial poverty. In the service of God, we lived below the poverty level and survived by the local food pantry.

My dad was called by God to serve where he served and it paid poorly. But, we had an abundant life.

Our life was filled with the purpose of serving God and we felt it in our Spirits and in our bones. We had a close family with a lot of love, support and nurture.

And being poor, we were happy.

And you know this, money does not buy happiness. It may give us a feeling of security, it may even give us a sense of accomplishment if we have amassed enough to be comfortable. But, happiness is a choice that we make inside of ourselves and Jesus promised us that kind of abundant life.

For my dad, it started with the choice to “follow Jesus.” That is what this passage is calling us to and the context of it is in the fact that Jesus himself is going to suffer and die.

Peter can’t understand it, but God is the God of the resurrection.

I always wrestled with the idea that many Christians were called to witness to their faith by surrendering their own lives instead of following the system that the world had built up that didn’t care for the least of these.

The New Testament called it “The New Way.”

Jesus said that if we are called to be martyrs like them, that we should rejoice, because heaven is real and our reward in heaven is great for demonstrating that we believe in God’s reward over earthly reward through the way we lived our lives as a blessing to others.

My dad wasn’t a martyr, but he was willing to be. It was his faith that said, I believe in God’s just reward and I will live my life for that reward instead of for what I can gain here on earth.

We are not all called to be Martyrs, but we are called to be willing, and that is difficult. But Jesus, in this passage demonstrates his faith in the reality of heaven and eternal reward. When he rebukes Peter, he reminds him that Peter is not thinking in terms of an heavenly reward.

I suppose that those who have made the choice to follow Jesus are those who are part of the kingdom.

And just as I was raised with the sense that we were on a mission for the Lord in our family’s life and that sense of mission gave purpose and meaning to my life, I realize now that this is what the Kingdom of God is all about for all of us. We endured the poverty because we knew that we were being a blessing to others.

There are several places in scripture where God calls His people to be a blessing to the people around them.

When the Jews were deported into Babylon, God told them to invest in the new city they were going to and make it prosper because God’s people are there to bring a blessing and God’s loving refreshment to a thirsty world.

When God blessed Abram and changed his name to Abraham, God said that he would bless him in order that he would be a blessing to the world around him.

In the Church we have the clergy, me, and the laity, non clergy. I am not sure I like the distinction because we are all ministers of God’s grace and mercy.

But the word Laity means “The called out ones.”

We signify that the people in the church as being different than the people who are not in the Church, the body of Christ. We signify them by calling them “the called out ones.”

We are called out by God. Called out of selfish living and given to the world at large, by God to be a blessing to the world.

We live for others because, like Jesus, we have made the commitment to live our lives for the good of those around us and not for selfish reasons.

And that is what it means to me to take up my cross and follow Jesus.

And, going back to my introduction, I don’t believe God wants to scare us with the threat of hell in order to accomplish God’s purpose.

We are called to embrace faith and the hope of eternal reward, living for heaven over earth and the reward that is to come instead of the what he says in the passage; “gaining the whole world and losing our soul.”

We are so distracted by advertising in our culture that we believe that we “deserve it all” as long and if we can’t afford it, charge it!.

Advertising is designed to make us unhappy with what we already have and want more.

And we know that more things do not make us happy. What makes us happy is people, love, peace, joy, the fruit of the Holy Spirit as she brings us into community with family and friends.

So, the question that Jesus poses is what does it profit you if you are rich and have no eternal reward?

It’s like Jesus is asking: Do we believe in eternity?

And will we live selflessly in love for others by the power of His Spirit inside of us?