FOLLOW THE LEADER
Matthew 16:21-26 - September 12, 2004 - Pentecost 15
MATTHEW 16:21-26
21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"
23Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
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Dear Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
Who remembers that childhood game of follow the leader? Maybe some do and maybe some don’t. This game reminds us that there was always one who was to be the leader. And as you played that game, there were always many more who wanted to be the leader. Not many people wanted to be followers. The leader was the one who was the most important. Today in our society we have many choices, choices of what to do, whom to follow. Our Lord reminds us today that he is still our leader. He is still our leader even though the world would look at Christianity and would look at Jesus as something and someone who are not very important. Jesus is often considered to be someone not very important at all, someone without much influence. Sometimes we as Christians might feel the same way. For what is the use of following a leader that the world does not respect, that unbelievers do not even care about. Well the Lord reminds us the importance of following the leader. Christ is our leader into eternity -- past the things of this life, right into the gates of heaven itself. And so Paul encourages us in Corinthians when he says: "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain"(1 CORINTHIANS 15:58).
Today we are reminded to FOLLOW THE LEADER. We follow the leader first of all as our text tells us, I. by knowing the will of God. And then we follow the leader secondly II. by giving our life to God.
II. KNOWING THE WILL OF GOD
Last week we looked at the verses right before this text, and we heard about Peter and his confession: Jesus was the Christ. And it was upon that simple confession that Jesus was the Christ--which Jesus said he would build his church. That church foundation would be established on the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of mankind, and the Savior for everyone.
There was more. Jesus is going to teach his disciples even more, what was yet to come. So our text began by saying: From that time on, (from the time of Peter’s confession on,) Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem. It would be less than six months until Jesus would enter Jerusalem for the last time. Jesus would go to Jerusalem and be put to death. Jesus would suffer at the hands of the church leaders. So now Jesus had a short time to explain that to the disciples.. They already knew that he was the Christ, the Messiah. But what they didn’t know was his mission and purpose. So Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the Law. And that he must be killed. And we know what happens. The disciples hear those words and they kind of almost quit listening. And they don’t want Jesus to suffer. They don’t want Jesus to be killed. Therefore the disciples don’t want Jesus to go to Jerusalem.
But there was to more. Jesus says: …that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. So we see that in these next six months it is going to take lots of explaining to get the disciples past that point of Jesus’ suffering and death. The disciples also needed to understand Jesus is also going to come back to life. We see the misunderstanding of this truth in the reaction of Peter. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him: “Never, Lord!” he said, “This shall never happen to you!” Peter loved Jesus. Peter recognized him as the promised Messiah. He didn’t want him to be killed. And he says to Jesus this will never happen to you. Peter says it in such a way to tell Jesus he would do everything he could do to stop this from happening to Jesus. And he would prevent any harm from coming to Jesus. Peter says never, never would such a thing happen to his Christ. But it would.
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!” Satan was trying to use Peter to distract Jesus. And so it is with temptation. Satan doesn’t use enemies to distract believers, he uses friends to have them go down the wrong path and distract them from following the leader. Jesus says to Peter: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me". Just before this Jesus had called Peter a rock. Peter the rock had made a confession (solid rock) upon which the church would be built. And now this rock had moved from the foundation and became a stumbling block to try to trip Jesus. And why was it? Very simply Jesus explains. First of all, Satan was there. But also Jesus says you are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Peter was thinking in earthly ways. He was thinking like all men that anything that was bad or sounded bad was bad. But the things of God as we know were to have Jesus suffer and die and then rise again. Peter had in mind things of men and not things of God.
It is easy for us to be much like Peter. We live in a world that has in mind the things of men. We live in a world, which is very selfish and self-centered. A world that always looks out for itself. We too are infected with those same thoughts and feelings and thinking as we live in this world. And from time to time we may be very selfish ourselves. And may really want to take care of ourselves above everything else. And we may forget to love our neighbor as ourself. We may even forget to love God above all things or to follow the leader. It’s simply because we have in mind the things of men rather than the things of God. And it happens very easily, because we spend a lot less time in proportion listening to the things of God than listening to the things of man. We hear the things of man on the radio and TV and read it day after day and hour after hour. And sometimes we cut ourselves short of listening to the things of God, or reading them and studying them. And so we become like Peter. If it seems bad it has got to be bad. And if it’s bad for me it’s the worst thing of all. This battle is described for us in Galatians: "For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want"(GALATIANS 5:17). Well, we dare not say it is just our sinful nature, our sinful nature made us do it. For our sinful nature is us. And we have a choice: To follow our sinful nature or to follow the leader. And the Lord says today to follow the leader. How are you and I going to follow the leader?
Well, first of all, we have to look and see what God’s will is. For us, for the church, for the leaders in the world. And even for the world itself, we know that will as we are told: God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Well, you and I have come to the knowledge of the truth. You and I are saved by grace, as a free gift of God’s divine love and mercy to us. And so now to follow the leader we have to make a choice of not listening to the things of men, but the things of God. The Psalm writer says we need to pray and seek the Lord’s counsel. He says in Psalm 143: "Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground"(PSALM 143:10). And so we pray that: Lord help me to see what your will is. Help me to follow you. Because you are the leader.
Now when you search the scriptures you can find all different kinds of passages that tell us what God’s will is. How you and I as believers can walk in the footsteps of Jesus. How we can put our trust in God in knowing his will. One of those passages when we turn towards the back of the Bible, in Thessalonians, God gives lots of advice at the end of that letter. And in a couple of verses just short phrases they continually tell us about God’s will. These verse tell us how you and I are to be as believers. And even though it was written thousands of years ago it is very, very fitting for today, especially as we look at the world around us. When we hear this section, we find out that the world around us is just about the opposite of what these encouragements are for God’s will. I Thessalonians he says: "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus"(1 THESSALONIANS 5:16-18). So he says you as a believer and I as a believers who know the Lord and our Savior, Christ Jesus and are known by him can and want to do God’s will. We know what Jesus has done for us. And so our lives are changed. We follow the leader who is a loving God. And he loves us with an everlasting love. And because of that our lives are changed.
God gives us the advice to always be joyful. How sad the world seems around us, doesn’t it? Maybe we are sad in our lives. The Lord says be joyful always. When we follow the leader we find joy even in this sin-filled life. And if we have a hard time finding joy he says pray continually. Ask the Lord to give you wisdom and understanding, insight into the Lord’s will and a happy and contented heart. And then the Lord says to be thankful. You will find in your life when you are thankful, thankful even for those things, which you might consider bad, when you realize God means everything for you good. Then you are following the leader. Thankfulness chases away all doubt and despair. Thankfulness is God’s will for us. Joy is God’s will for us.
God says follow the leader. He says follow the leader by knowing what God’s will is. Follow the leader then because as you know God’s will then II. you give your life to God .
II. GIVING YOUR LIFE TO GOD
We realize as we look at the disciples, they still had much to learn. They had much to learn in a short time, about what was going to happen. Then Jesus said to his disciples: "If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". When I hear those words they sound almost strange because when we look at the disciples we realize they had already were following Jesus. The disciples had been called out of their daily living, and they left behind their families and followed Jesus. And not only that they also found some others to follow Jesus. They left behind thriving businesses to follow Jesus. And they walked in the footsteps of Jesus even though he had no place to lay his head. They followed the leader, Jesus, even though the people mistreated by the leaders of the day rejected him. Finally Jesus was put to death although he was innocent. But Jesus means even more here. Jesus knew the disciples were committed, but he says to them to take up the cross and follow him: This instrument of death. Jesus was looking for their complete commitment, even unto the point of death. And then he tells them why.
Jesus uses one of those things we call a scriptural contradiction. Jesus says for whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me will find it. In order to find their lives they had to lose their lives. Well, what does Jesus mean? The disciples already understood that partly. They had left behind their earthly living, their earthly life. The disciples had found a life in Jesus. They discovered the fact that eternity was far more important, so that they were not overly concerned about this earthly life, which they once had. From the wealthy to the famous, to the business owner, to a man they gave it all up. And they found joy in God’s kingdom. They gave their life to God. And then Jesus explains why. Why did the disciples do such a thing?
Why would anyone do such a thing? Well Jesus ask two questions, same answer for both. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul. Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul. The disciples knew. There was nothing more valuable than their soul. And they had done that. They had given up their past life that they would find a new life with Jesus. That sounds simple doesn’t it?
When you and I look at the very basic simple salvation message, we see Jesus is concerned about our soul. Again, Jesus reminds us today to be concerned about our souls. And yet what do we see again in this world? We see many who don’t look beyond this life into eternity. But it’s all around us, and sometimes it is even part of us. But maybe we don’t think much about our soul day after day. Maybe we think a lot about our earthly living. What’s going to happen this year or the next? Or how would the Lord provide for us? How will the Lord take care of our physical needs? And it’s easy to think about the things of men again, rather than the things of God. The Lord warns us, he says: "Many live as enemies of cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things"(PHILIPPIANS 3:18b, 19). And from time to time Satan snares us and traps us in with that very thinking of being wrapped up so much in these earthly things so much that we forget about the things of God. Concerned with the things of men so much that we might not dedicate ourselves to God. So much that we think about the things of this life and ourselves, that once again we don’t love God above all things, fear God above all things, trust in God above all things.
Today the Lord reminds us to focus once again on following the leader. We need to look to Jesus as the source of our salvation and also the source of the salvation of the world. We look to Jesus who did go to Jerusalem, even though he knew he was going to be put to death. And that he rose again, not just to prove a point, but to provide a place for us for eternity. In Corinthians Paul writes: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich”(2 CORINTHIANS 8:9). Christ gave up the throne of heaven and died on the cross that you and I might live -- someday forever with on the throne of grace in heaven.
The price of a soul we are told is too much, too costly -that there is nothing that can be paid for it. And there is nothing except one thing, the blood of Christ, the perfect sacrifice. A man, our God, who never sinned. So that we who sinned are looked at as those who have sins forgiven. That is the price that was paid. Christ gave us his life willingly and freely. Sometimes we find a lot to grumble about in this life. We forget about our leader who gave up everything, that you and I would have everything. Peter tells us: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed"(2 PETER 2:24).
Our loving Lord says: "Follow me ". And then he tells us why, because he died on that tree for us so that our sins are forgiven.
So now no longer do we have to follow Satan and live a life of sin and debauchery, but we can follow Jesus and live for righteousness. As Jesus said before to be joyful, pray and be thankful. It can be difficult in our day and age. There are lots of attractions in this life to take away our focus on the leader. The Lord tells us this morning to look to Jesus, the disciples and learn from them to follow the leader. Follow the leader first of all by knowing what God’s will is and to do that by hearing God’s word, by studying it and reading it. And then we follow the leader by giving our life to God. The disciples did. Today we are His disciples. We do all this only and simply because Christ first loved us. In the Book of Romans chapter 12 we read these words: "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship"(ROMANS 12:1). The Lord reminds us, we don’t just worship on Sunday. We worship with our Christian living. We do it whenever we follow the leader by knowing the will of God and giving our lives to God. We focus on Christ our leader. Amen. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
