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The Costly Way to Life: Cross-Bearing Discipleship (Matthew 10:38–39) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I am your host and today we are
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sitting down with our resident expert to tackle a text that
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quite honestly, it scares me a little bit.
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We usually come to the Bible looking for comfort, right?
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Or maybe some instructions on how to have a better marriage or
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or manage our anxiety? That's often what we're looking
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for. But the passage we're looking at
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today doesn't seem interested in making us comfortable at all, it
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seems. Well, it seems interested in
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killing us. It's good to be with you, and
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you're right to feel that way. I mean, if this text doesn't
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frighten you a little, you probably haven't understood it
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yet. OK, that's that's reassuring I
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guess. We're opening up the Gospel of
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Matthew, specifically chapter 10, verses 38 and 39.
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And this is a point where Jesus stops being, you know, just a
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teacher or a healer. He becomes something much, much
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more demanding. He really draws a line in the
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sand. He says that whoever does not
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take his cross and follow him is not worthy of him.
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That phrase, not worthy. I mean, it just sticks in my
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throat. We are going to have to talk
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about that. We certainly will.
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And then he follows it up with a paradox that I think is, well,
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it's the central Riddle of the Christian life, OK?
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Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life
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for my sake will find it. It sounds like a Riddle and you
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know, in a culture that is just obsessed with self protection,
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with safety, with keeping our options open, this sounds like
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actual insanity. It's completely counterculture.
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Trained from the time we're in kindergarten, you know, look out
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for #1 We curate our reputations on social media.
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We try to secure our financial futures.
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We avoid risk like it's a plague.
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And here comes Jesus, not offering us a life hack, but
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inviting us to a funeral. A funeral procession for the
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self. That is exactly the image and
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our discussion today. This deep dive, it's going to
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rely heavily on 2 theological essays, The Costly Way to Life,
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and The Great Exchange. OK, And our mission really is to
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figure out why Jesus ties discipleship to this kind of
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radical loss. Why is the only way to be safe
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to put yourself in danger? Why is the only way to live to
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actually die? So before we get to the dying
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part, which I'm still a little nervous about, we have to look
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at the map. We can't just parachute into
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verse 38 without understanding the landscape.
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Absolutely not. This is Matthew chapter 10.
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Where does this fit in the flow of Matthew's Gospel?
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Context is everything here. I mean, if you miss the context,
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you turn this into just a generic call to be a hero or
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some kind of motivational speech.
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Matthew 10 is what scholars call the missionary discourse.
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But to really feel the weight of it, you have to look at what
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happens right before it. In chapters 8-9, Jesus is
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basically on a victory tour. A victory tour?
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I've never heard it put that way.
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We'll think about it. He comes down from the mountain,
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from the Sermon on the Mount, and he starts displaying this
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just raw, unmediated power. He cleanses A leper with a
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touch, something that should have made him unclean.
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He heals A centurion servant from a distance, just with a
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word. He's showing His authority isn't
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bound by proximity. Right.
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And he calms A literal storm on the Sea of Galilee.
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He speaks to the wind and the waves, and they obey him.
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He casts out demons into a herd of pigs, showing his power over
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the spiritual realm. And he even raises a girl from
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the dead. He even raises a girl from the
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dead, so put yourself in the disciples shoes.
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If you're following him in chapters 8 and 9, you're feeling
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pretty good. I'm feeling great.
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I'm thinking we are with the winner.
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This is it. The Kingdom is rolling in and
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it's unstoppable. Precisely, you're thinking.
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The Kingdom is here. You're watching him steamroll
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over sickness and nature and even Satan's minions.
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You are probably, you know, mentally measuring the curtains
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for your new office in the palace.
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You're thinking that following Jesus means participating in
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this unstoppable wave of triumph, Yes?
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And then chapter 10 hits. And the tone changes.
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It shifts violently. Jesus looks at the crowds at the
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end of Chapter 9, and his heart goes out to them.
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He's moved with compassion because they're harassed and
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helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
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He tells the disciples to pray for laborers, and then right at
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the start of chapter 10, he answers that prayer by calling
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the 12 by name and commissioning them.
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So he creates the laborers he just told them to pray for.
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Yes, exactly. Gives them authority.
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But then, and this is the shock, he gives them their marching
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orders, you would expect him to say go out there and dominate
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just like I did, go take over. Keep the Victory Tour going.
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Instead, he says, Behold, I am sending you out a sheep in the
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midst of wolves. That is a terrible recruiting
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pitch. Come join my movement.
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You'll be a sheep surrounded by wolves.
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That's not going to get a lot of signups.
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And it gets worse If he tells them they'll be dragged before
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councils. They'll be flogged in the
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synagogue's brother will deliver brother over to death.
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You will be hated by all for my name's sake.
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Wait, hold on a second. In chapters 8 and 9, the crowds
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were marveling at him. They were amazed.
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Now Jesus is saying they're going to hate you.
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Why the sudden change? If they represent the king who
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heals people, shouldn't they be popular?
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And that is the pastoral realism that Matthew is forcing us to
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confront. The authority the disciples have
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is derivative. It's not their own.
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They don't invent the message. They go where the king directs.
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And because they represent the king in a world that is in
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rebellion against God, they will be treated exactly like the
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King. So the opposition isn't a sign
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that something has gone wrong with the mission.
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No, and that is a massive paradigm shift for us.
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Even today, we tend to think that if things are going
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smoothly, if our ministry is growing, if our neighbors like
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us, then God is blessing us. Right.
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And if we face friction or slander or difficulty?
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We assume we must have stepped out of God's will or we did
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something wrong. But Jesus is saying the exact
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opposite. He is saying that friction is
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part of the design. It's a feature, not a bug.
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It is the inevitable reaction of a fallen world to the presence
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of God's truth. Which brings us to this master
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and servant principle he lays out in verses 24 and 25.
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He says it is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher
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and the servant like his master. And then he drops that line
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about Beelzebel. Right, he says.
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If they have called the master of the house Beelzebel, how much
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more will they malign those of his household?
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And Beelzebel was what a reference to the Prince of
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demons, essentially Satan? Yes, so he's saying they looked
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at me, the one who healed their sick and fed their hungry and
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raised their dead, and they called me the devil.
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And if they called perfect goodness evil, what on earth do
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you think they're going to call you?
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His followers? We have to let that sink in.
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We live in a time where we desperately want to be thought
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of as the good guys. We want the culture to look at
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the church and say, oh, those are the nice people who run the
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food pantries and help the community.
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You want a seat at the table. We want to be respected.
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We want to be seen as a positive force.
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But Jesus warns us that if we are faithful to his message, we
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will not be respected. We will be maligned.
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The crisis for the disciple, then, isn't a lack of
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information. Jesus has been incredibly clear.
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So what is the crisis? The crisis is a battle of
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loyalties. Whose verdict matters most to
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you? It's a question of the audience
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then who are you performing for? Is it the verdict of God or the
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verdict of men? Because if you need the applause
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of the culture that rejected your master, you were in a
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deeply compromising position. You cannot seek the approval of
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the wolves and remain a faithful sheep.
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This sets up the immediate context for our verses just
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before verse 38. Jesus takes this conflict right
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into the living room, verses 34 through 37.
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Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
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I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
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That is one of the hard sayings of Jesus that people love to
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ignore or explain away. We like the Prince of Peace.
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We don't like the Jesus who says I came to bring a sword.
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It creates a lot of cognitive dissonance, but the peace Jesus
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brings is peace with God, and that often comes at the expense
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of peace with men. He says he will set a man
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against his father and a daughter against her mother.
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And in the ancient world, and honestly in many cultures today,
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family is the highest God. Family is everything.
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You do not go against the patriarch.
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You do not shame the family name.
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That's the ultimate transgression.
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And Jesus steps right into that and says I am above that now.
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He's not saying we should be malicious toward our parents.
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He's not overturning the command to honor your father and mother.
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Right, of course, but. He is establishing a hierarchy
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of loves, a pecking order of allegiance, he says.
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Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
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me. There's that phrase again.
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Not worthy. We're seeing a pattern here.
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He demands A loyalty that supersedes the strongest, most
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natural, most sacred biological bonds we have.
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Christ cannot be an accessory. He can't be something you just
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tuck into a life that is actually governed by your
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family's approval or your social standing.
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So if push comes to shove. If it's a choice between
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pleasing your Father or obeying Christ, the choice must be
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Christ. There's no middle ground.
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Which brings us to the ultimate choice.
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I mean, it follows logically, doesn't it?
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If you have to love him more than your family, you have to
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love him more than your own life.
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This brings us to verse 38. And whoever does not take his
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cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
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And we need to stop here. We really need to do some some
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mental archaeological digging because we have 2000 years of
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church history that have sanitized this image, right?
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When we hear cross, we think of a gold pendant on a necklace.
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We think of a steeple on a church.
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Or we use as a metaphor for any minor inconvenience.
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Yeah, oh, my boss is so annoying.
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That's just my cross to bear. My arthritis is acting up.
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It's my cross. We have domesticated it.
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We've turned it into jewelry or a figure speech for a difficult
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mother-in-law. But we have to get back to the
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1st century. We have to imagine you are Peter
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or John or or Judas standing there.
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When Jesus says the word Starro's cross, what image
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flashes in their mind? It isn't a religious symbol, not
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at all. No, it's an image of unutterable
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horror. It's state sponsored terror.
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The cross was the tool the Romans used for slaves, rebels
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and insurrectionists. It was designed not just to
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kill, but to humiliate, to dehumanize, to make an example
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of you. It was a public billboard that
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said do not mess with Rome. Correct.
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And specifically, when Jesus says take up his cross, he is
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likely referring to the patibulum.
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The patibulum? What's that?
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That's the horizontal cross beam.
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The vertical stake, the upright part was often left in the
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ground at the place of execution.
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The condemned man was forced to carry the cross beam, which
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could weigh anywhere from 75 to 100 lbs, for the place of
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sentencing to the place of death.
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So imagine that scene. You're walking through the
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streets of your own town. You're carrying this heavy
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splintered wood. Crowds are jeering at you,
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spitting at you. You're sweating.
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You're bleeding. And here is the crucial part.
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The person carrying the petimulum is a dead man walking
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right. There is no coming back.
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He doesn't have an appeal process.
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He doesn't have a future. His citizenship has been
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revoked. His assets have been seized.
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His rights have been completely stripped away.
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He. Is totally exposed, utterly
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powerless. He is marching to his own death
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in total submission to the verdict of the state.
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So when Jesus says take up your cross and follow me, he is not
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saying put up with a bad back, He is saying come and die.
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He's saying join a procession where you sign over all your
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rights, all your claims, all your future.
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To me that is absolutely terrifying.
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It is the exact opposite of the modern gospel of self
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fulfillment. It's not come and find your best
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life now. It is come and lose your
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autonomy. And look at the verbs he uses.
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Take and follow. The Greek word for take is lamb
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bone. It's an active verb.
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It implies appropriation. It's not something that happens
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to you. So the cross isn't just dropped
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on you by accident. No, you are stooping down and
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picking it up. You are embracing it.
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You are choosing it. It's a voluntary act.
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You're choosing to associate yourself with the condemned 1.
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And then follow Akalithe, which implies A continuous action.
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You are walking behind the Master, and given the context of
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Matthew's Gospel, where is the Master going?
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He's heading to Jerusalem, he's heading to Gethsemani, he's
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heading to Golcatha. So to follow him isn't just to
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mimic his moral teachings or listen to his sermons, it is to
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walk that same physical and social path of rejection.
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It's to say I am with him even when him is being spit upon and
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condemned by the powers that be. No, I want to push back on that
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phrase again. Not worthy of me as a Reformed
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thinker. My alarm bells start ringing.
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It sounds like merit. It sounds like you haven't done
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enough work to earn my love. Is Jesus saying we have to
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suffer to earn salvation? That is the instinctive
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reaction, and it's a good one to have.
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We should be cautious there. We know from the rest of
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Scripture that salvation is by grace alone, through faith
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alone, and Christ alone. So what does he mean by worthy?
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The Greek word is axios. It doesn't primarily mean
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morally perfect or deserving. It's a word that refers to a
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balance scale. Like the scales of justice we
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see in pictures. Exactly.
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Think of an old merchant scale. It's about weight or
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correspondence. It's about a calculation of
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value. OK, on one side of the scale you
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place the value of Jesus. On the other side, you place my
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safety or my reputation or my physical life.
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OK, I see where this is going. This is powerful.
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If you choose your safety over Jesus.
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If you refuse to take up the cross because you want to
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preserve your life, what have you just said about the weight
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of Jesus? I've said he's lighter.
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I've said he's less valuable than my own skin.
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Precisely. You are making a declaration
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with your life that he is insignificant compared to your
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biological survival. So to be worthy in this context
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isn't about earning your salvation.
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That's justification, which is a gift.
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This is about estimation. It's about congruence.
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Congruence. That's a good word for it.
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It has to match up. A crossless disciple is a
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contradiction in terms. You cannot say you are following
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a crucified master while you are demanding A cushioned life for
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yourself. It just doesn't correspond.
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So it isn't that you earn salvation by suffering.
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Not at all. It's that a person who refuses
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to suffer for Christ has fundamentally miscalculated the
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value of the King. They have weighed him in the
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balance and found him lacking. That is a devastating critique.
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It moves the issue from am I trying hard enough to a much
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deeper question, do I actually value?
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Him. It exposes the heart, and that
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leads us right into the paradox in verse 39.
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This is the pivot point of the entire passage.
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Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life
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for my sake will find it. Let's break this down.
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Let's take the first half. The tragedy of finding life.
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What does it mean to find your life in this sense?
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The Greek word is urine. It's a participle that suggests
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a snapshot of success. This is a person who has pulled
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it off. They have secured their
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existence. They've won.
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This sounds an awful lot like the American Dream.
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It is the universal human dream, really.
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It means you have successfully dodged the persecution.
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You've kept your social standing intact.
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You've secured your assets. You have managed to serve God
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just enough to feel religious, but not so much that it gets you
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in trouble with the culture. You have played it safe.
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One of our sources talks about the modern idol of safety ISM.
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I think this is huge for us today.
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Safety ISM is the unwritten religion of the modern West.
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It really is. It's the instinct to keep
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options open and avoid risk at all costs.
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It's the belief that the highest good is to arrive at death
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safely. Arrive at death safely.
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That's so ironic when you say it out loud.
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It is the ultimate irony. We spend our lives trying to
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insulate ourselves from fragility.
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We buy the insurance, we build the fences.
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We helicopter parent our children.
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We stay silent on controversial issues because we don't want to
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be cancelled. We are finding our lives.
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We are clutching them tight with both hands.
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But Jesus says that in that very act of clutching, we are losing
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the word for life. Here is psychon.
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It's a fluid word in Greek. It can mean your physical
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existence, yourself, your identity or your eternal soul.
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The play on words is brilliant and terrifying.
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How so? Explain that a little more.
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By clutching the psychon in the lower sense, your biological
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safety, your bank account, your approval ratings on social
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media, you squeeze the life out of the psychon in the higher
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sense, your eternal soul. So you strangle your true self
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in an attempt to protect your temporary self.
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That's it. There's an analogy in the source
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material about a burning house that I think is really helpful.
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Imagine a man who is frantically painting the walls of a house
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that is already on fire. The roof is collapsing, smoke is
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pouring in, but he's there with a brush and a can of paint,
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trying to make the living room look nice.
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He's working hard, he's being productive.
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He's working very hard. He is finding the life of that
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room, but he's investing in ash. He is trying to preserve
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something that is destined for destruction.
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That is what it looks like to live for this world.
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You're just decorating a burning building.
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And the judgement Jesus pronounces is future tense will
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lose it. The Greek is Apple, say.
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And that word means ruin or destruction or rendering
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useless. The self protected life is
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ultimately a wasted life. You get to the end of your days,
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You've kept your skin intact, you've kept your money safe, but
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you've wasted your existence because you didn't spend it on
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anything that lasts. It reminds me of the rich fool
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in Luke 12. He built bigger barns.
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He found his life. He had total security.
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And God says to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of
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you. He found the shadow and lost the
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substance. That is the tragedy.
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But then comes the flip side, the triumph.
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Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
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This is what one of our sources calls the Great Exchange.
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But let's notice that qualifier again for my sake.
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Why is that so important? Because this isn't nihilism,
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this isn't a call to suicide. And it's not even just the
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nobility of dying for a political cause, right?
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A soldier might lose his life for his country, a revolutionary
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might die for his ideology, right?
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A terrorist might blow himself up for his 'cause.
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Right, so losing your life isn't inherently virtuous.
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The ACT itself isn't the point. Exactly.
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Suffering in itself is not redemptive.
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Pain is just pain. Death is just death.
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What makes this loss redemptive is the connection to Christ for
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my sake. It is lost, grounded,
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specifically in union with Christ.
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So what does that loss look like in practice?
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It's not just physical martyrdom, right?
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Most of us listening won't face that.
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No, though it certainly includes that for many of our brothers
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and sisters around the world. And we should never forget that.
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But for us day-to-day, it is the deliberate handing over of
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rights. It is the death of the claim.
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I belong to myself. It is saying, Lord, my
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reputation is yours to spend. My money is yours to spend.
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My future is yours to direct. You can spend them however you
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want for your glory. And the promise is that if you
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do that, you find it. What does it mean to find life?
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Well, it has two horizons. First, there's the
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eschatological horizon. That's a big theological word,
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but it just means the end times, the resurrection.
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When you lose your life for Christ, you are investing it in
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the only reality that survives death.
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This is where we have to bring in that Jim Elliott quote.
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It's almost required. We must he is no fool who gives
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what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
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OK, let's break that down. Gives what he cannot keep.
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That's this earthly life. It's slipping through our
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fingers like sand. Anyway, we're all going to die.
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Right. You are going to lose your life
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no matter what you do. That's a certainty.
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The only questions of how you lose it.
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Do you lose it by trying to keep it and it gets taken from you by
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sickness or old age? Or do you lose it by freely
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giving it to Christ along the way?
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And if you give it. You gain what you cannot lose,
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eternal life, resurrection life with Him.
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But is it only pie in the sky when you die?
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Is it only about heaven? No, and that's the part we often
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miss. There's a present reality to
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this as well. When you stop trying to be the
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God of your own life, when you stop frantically trying to
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control everything and protect your image and manage your own
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safety, you find a new kind of freedom right now.
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Explain that. That sounds almost
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contradictory. Think about the anxiety of the
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person who is constantly finding their life.
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They're terrified of what people think.
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They're terrified of losing their job.
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They're terrified of failure. They are constantly spinning
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plates. Yeah, that sounds familiar.
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But the person who has already died, the person who has already
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said my life belongs to Christ, he's in charge of it.
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They are free. You cannot kill a dead man.
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You can't threaten someone who has already surrendered
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everything that is. Incredibly liberating.
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If I have already signed my reputation over to Jesus, then I
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don't have to panic when someone criticizes me online.
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Exactly. You are held by Christ.
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You find a life that is robust, that is anti fragile because it
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is rooted in Him, not in your circumstances.
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And all of this is grounded in the resurrection.
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That's the logic behind it. We can dare to lose our lives
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because Christ lost his forest and was raised.
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The tomb is empty, so the sacrifice is never ever in vain.
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We are following a winner, just not in the way we thought in
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chapters 8:00 and 9:00. Amen.
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That's the whole story. I want to pause here for a
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minute and put on our specific reformed thinking hats.
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We need to do some careful theological synthesis because we
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talked about worthiness earlier and I want to make sure we are
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crystal clear on the relationship between this cross
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bearing and our actual salvation.
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This is a vital point to get right.
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If we get the order wrong, we fall into all sorts of air.
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In Reformed theology, we make a sharp distinction between
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justification and sanctification.
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You OK? Justification is a legal
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declaration from God. He declares us righteous not
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because of what we've done, but because of Christ's perfect work
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credited to our account. That is instantaneous.
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It's a gift received by faith alone.
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You do not earn it by carrying a cross.
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So my suffering doesn't atone for my sins, but my cross
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bearing doesn't pay God back. Never.
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Let me be absolutely clear. Your suffering has 0 atoning
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value. Only Christ's blood atones.
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If you think your cross bearing is adding to the finished work
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of Jesus on his cross, you have left the gospel.
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You are back under the law, trying to earn your way.
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So where does our cross bearing fit into the picture then?
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It is the fruit of our union with Christ, not the root of it.
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It is the evidence of a transformed heart.
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Think about it this way. The one who's been truly saved
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by Christ will begin to love Christ, and the one who loves
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Christ will be willing to suffer for him.
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It's not a condition for salvation, it's a consequence of
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it. It's the inevitable result.
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It's what happens when the Spirit of God takes up residence
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in you. Right.
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It's like breathing. A living person breathes.
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Breathing doesn't make you alive.
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It shows that you are alive. In the same way, taking up your
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cross doesn't make you saved. It shows that you are saved.
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It shows that you have the Spirit of Christ within you,
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conforming you to His image. This connects to what Paul says
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in Romans 6. And Galatians 2.20 I have been
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crucified with Christ. The old man, the self-centered
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sin, loving self has to die. That's what the reformers called
23:08
mortification. And the new man rises.
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That's vivification. This finding and losing in
23:13
Matthew 10 is the daily rhythm of the Christian life.
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And it also touches on the doctrine of the perseverance of
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the Saints. It does.
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We believe God preserves his people.
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He keeps them, but he preserves them through their perseverance.
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The assurance that you belong to Christ isn't just a past memory
23:30
of a prayer you prayed at summer camp when you were 12.
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Right. It's not a one and done
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transaction you look back on. No, it's an ongoing reality,
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evidence in a life that continues to choose Christ over
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self even when it costs you. It's the proof of a living
23:44
faith. Let's get practical by looking
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at some common misreadings. Because this text is so sharp,
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we tend to try to dull it. We look for loopholes.
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We've touched on the merit misreading, thinking we earn
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God's love. What about the Stoic misreading?
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This is a really common one, especially I think for men in
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our culture. The stoic misreading says OK,
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Jesus wants me to suffer so I will grit my teeth, I will crush
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my emotions, I will endure pain for its own sake.
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I just need to be hard. The stiff upper lip.
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Christianity. I am a rock.
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I am an island. Exactly.
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But that is not what Jesus is saying.
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He says for my sake, this is relational.
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It's not about an aesthetic of hardness.
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It's about love. You can weep while carrying the
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cross. Jesus did.
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He wept in Gethsemane. He was in agony.
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So. It's not about being an
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emotionless robot. Not at all.
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It's about valuing him more than the pain.
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You can feel the pain. You can hate the cross in terms
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of the suffering it brings, but you love him more so you choose
24:41
to carry it anyway. OK, then there is the ascetic
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misreading. This is the idea that I should
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hate my body, hate good food, hate marriage, because all
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spiritual things are better than physical things.
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That's Gnosticism, not Christianity.
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We have to be really careful there.
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The issue isn't creation. Creation is good, food is good,
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Marriage is good. Money can be a tool for good.
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The issue is idolatry. It's about position.
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It's about what comes first. Right.
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Have these good things become ultimate things in your heart?
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Are you willing to lose them if obedience requires it?
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We don't reject earthly joys because they are bad.
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We hold them loosely because Christ is better.
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You can enjoy a steak dinner to the glory of God, but if
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enjoying that dinner requires you to compromise your witness,
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you push the plate away without a second thought.
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OK, what about the reckless misreading?
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That is the person who basically runs into traffic to prove they
25:34
have faith. I'm going to go provoke a fight
25:37
with the culture just to show that I'm being persecuted.
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The person who is obnoxious on purpose and then claims
25:41
martyrdom. Right.
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I was persecuted for Jesus. No, you were persecuted because
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you were a jerk. There is a difference.
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The call is to faithfulness, not to theatrics.
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We don't seek out persecution, we seek out Christ.
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If persecution comes and Jesus says it will, we stand firm, but
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we don't manufacture it. We need courage, not
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presumption. And finally, the one that
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probably hits closest to home for many of us, especially in
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the West, the costless grace misreading.
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This is the loophole we all want.
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This is the view that says, OK, verse 38 is for the Navy Seals
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of Christianity. It's for the missionaries in the
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jungle. It's for the martyrs in history
26:18
books. I'm just a regular, private,
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safe Christian. I go to church, I write a check,
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but I'm not going to carry a cross.
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I'm in the reserves, I'm non deployable, but Jesus doesn't
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offer reserve status. Look at the text whoever, it's
26:29
universal. If self preservation is your
26:32
ruling principle, you are finding your life and Jesus says
26:35
if you find it you lose it. There is no loophole for the
26:38
suburban believer to keep safety as their God and still claim to
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follow the crucified 1. This isn't just an isolated hard
26:45
saying either, is it? It's not like Jesus had a bad
26:47
day in Matthew 10 and then kind of lightened up later.
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This seems consistent across the entire Canon.
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It is the uniform testimony of the New Testament.
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You cannot escape it. In Mark 8, he addresses the
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whole crowd, calling anyone, not just the 12 to come after him.
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But look at Luke 9. Luke adds one tiny, devastating
27:08
word to the saying. Well, what's that?
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Daily take up his cross daily. That changes everything.
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It means this isn't just about one big crisis moment where you
27:16
face a firing squad. It's about the alarm clock going
27:19
off on a Tuesday morning. It's about the daily grind.
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It's a sustained posture of dying to self will.
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And John 12. With a grain of wheat, Jesus
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says unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
27:29
it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much
27:32
fruit. No death, no fruit.
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It's an agricultural law of the Kingdom.
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And Paul, I mean his whole life seems to be a commentary on this
27:40
verse. Philippians 3 is the biography
27:42
of a man who did this. He lifts his resume.
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Hebrew of Hebrews Pharisee blameless according to the law,
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he had found his life in religious status and what does
27:53
he do? He counts it all as rubbish.
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The Greek word is literally done that he may gain Christ.
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And all the way to the end of the book.
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All the way to the end. Revelation 12.11 How did the
28:04
Saints conquer the dragon, the accuser?
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They loved not their lives, even unto death.
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It is same story from start to finish.
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Following Jesus means walking the way of the cross.
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So we've established the theology, we've established the
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danger of misreading it. Now I want to get really
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practical. I want to know what this looks
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like on a Tuesday. We like to break it down into
28:23
head, heart and hands. Let's start with the head, our
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intellect. How do we need to think
28:27
differently in light of this? I think the biggest thing is we
28:30
have to redefine success. We are pragmatic people.
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We think if a ministry is big, God is blessing it.
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If a bank account is full, we're doing it right.
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If everyone likes us, we're being effective witnesses.
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We have to reject the pragmatism that says growth equals
28:44
blessing. This must be especially hard for
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church leaders, for pastors. It is the primary temptation.
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The temptation for a pastor is to soften the truth, to save the
28:54
church's reputation, or just to keep the pews full.
28:57
He thinks if I preach on this hard text, people might leave.
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The giving might go down. So he softens it.
29:03
He files off the sharp edges. He is trying to find the life of
29:07
the church to preserve it. Exactly.
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But Jesus says we must preach the truth, even if it cost us
29:14
numbers. We have to believe that fidelity
29:16
is more important than immediate results.
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We have to be willing to look like failures in the eyes of the
29:21
world to be faithful in the eyes of God.
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OK, now let's move to the heart. Our affections, our desires.
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What's the idol we are confronting here?
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The idol of comfort, plain and simple.
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And we need to ask ourselves a diagnostic question and be
29:36
really honest with the answer. What can you not bear to lose?
29:39
That is a scary question to ask yourself.
29:42
It is. Is it your professional
29:43
standing? Is it your sense of control over
29:46
your kids lives? Is it the approval of your
29:48
neighbors or your friends? Whatever you cannot bear to lose
29:52
is likely the thing that is functioning as your life in this
29:55
passage. And that's where you're
29:57
vulnerable. That is where you're vulnerable.
29:58
That is where you need to reply the cross and say, Lord, I
30:01
surrender even this to you and. For the weary St. the person who
30:05
is actually suffering right now, who feels like they are losing,
30:09
how does this apply to their heart?
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It should be a word of massive comfort.
30:13
If you are being rejected for Christ, if you are losing
30:17
friends because of your stance on the gospel, do not be afraid.
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Suffering is not a sign of God's abandonment.
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It is a sign you are walking on the same Rd. as the Master.
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You were near him. The cross is where you meet
30:28
Jesus in a unique way. Finally, the hands are volition
30:32
our action. I want to get greedy here.
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Give me a specific scenario, not just be nice.
30:35
What does dying to self look like in 2026?
30:38
OK, let's talk about the home. Let's talk to fathers and
30:40
husbands. It's Tuesday night.
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You've been at work for 10 hours.
30:44
Your boss was demanding. The commute was terrible.
30:46
You are physically and emotionally exhausted.
30:49
You walk through the front door. And my flesh screaming.
30:51
I deserve a break. I've earned this.
30:54
Your flesh says I have earned 20 minutes on the couch with my
30:57
phone. Leave me alone.
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That is you trying to find your life.
31:02
You are trying to reclaim your autonomy, your comfort.
31:05
So what does the cross look like in that moment?
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It looks like the death of the zone out.
31:09
It means you hear the chaos of the kids fighting.
31:12
You see the exhaustion on your wife's face and you say to that
31:15
burning desire for comfort, No, you die right now.
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You put the phone down, you get on the floor and build with
31:21
Legos. You engage your wife, You
31:23
shepherd your family. You lose your life, your
31:25
leisure, your me. Time to find the life of the
31:28
family. That is harder than martyrdom.
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Sometimes martyrdom happens once.
31:32
This happens every single night at six ever PM.
31:35
It is the daily dying or take the workplace.
31:38
It means speaking truth when a lie or even just silence would
31:42
preserve the peace. It means refusing to be a secret
31:46
disciple. The water.
31:47
Cooler moment. Yes, everyone is nodding along
31:50
with some ungodly idea, or laughing at a crude joke, or
31:54
celebrating something Scripture calls sin, and the pressure to
31:58
just nod along, to not make waves is immense.
32:01
It's safe to nod. You don't want to be the weird
32:04
religious guy. Right, But taking the cross
32:07
means risking the awkwardness. It means saying, actually, I
32:10
don't see it that way or I can't join in on that.
32:12
It means risking the promotion, risking the social capital to
32:15
identify with Jesus. You are spending your reputation
32:18
to buy truth. And ultimately it comes down to
32:20
repentance, doesn't it? It does.
32:22
We need to name the specific idol of self protection we are
32:25
worshipping and turn from it. We need to say, Lord, I have
32:28
been trying to save myself. I have been my own savior.
32:30
I stop. I resign from that post.
32:33
As we wrap this up, I'm just struck by the finality of it
32:36
all. The Christian life isn't a
32:37
negotiation. We don't bring our terms to
32:39
Jesus and try to meet in the middle.
32:41
No, it's an unconditional surrender.
32:44
It is a funeral for self will. But, and this is the glory of
32:48
it, it is the entrance into true, actual life.
32:51
That is the beauty. You're either clutching a life
32:53
that is slipping through your fingers like sand no matter what
32:56
you do, or you're releasing it into the hands of the one who
32:58
conquered death itself. And that's the final point.
33:02
Jesus doesn't just expose our idols, He offers himself as the
33:06
better treasure. The question is not just what
33:08
must I give up, it's who am I gaining?
33:11
And if you gain him, you have everything.
33:13
You have a treasure that moth and rust cannot destroy, and
33:16
that death cannot touch. That is where we will leave it.
33:19
Thank you for walking this very difficult path with us.
33:22
It has been a privilege. This has been reformed thinking.
33:25
Until next time, take up your cross and find your life.