Amen. Please be seated. And if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 16 this morning, one verse, verse 26. Matthew 16 verse 26, Jesus here in the passage, the larger context invites us to be His disciples, but why would anybody want to do that?
I mean, why would that be a desirable thing to follow Jesus? Why would it even be a reasonable thing to do, a rational thing to do? That's what Jesus is addressing here in these verses surrounding. Let me invite you to give your attention and consider this for yourself.
Matthew chapter 6 verse 26, this is the Word of God. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? Amen.
This is God's Word. Let's look at him in prayer. Our gracious Father, because of Christ, by the work of the Spirit, take your Word and pierce our hearts for Jesus' sake and our own eternal good. In His name we pray.
Amen. Well, if you remember your history, you know the name Emperor Charlemagne or Charles the Great, he is sometimes called the Father of Europe because he united in his reign most of Western and Central Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. And he died in 814 AD. And about 180 years after his death, Emperor Otto came along and ordered his tomb to be opened, the tomb that was in Southern France.
And so they opened the tomb in addition to finding lots of treasures buried with Charlemagne. They found also the skeleton of the king seated on a throne crown on his skull with a copy of the gospels in his lap. And it said a skeletal finger pointing to these words, what does it profit a man? If he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul, Jesus of course means what would it profit a man, what would it profit a woman, what would it profit any person?
He asks you that question today. He asks you to think through the answer to that question today. Now it's a question that comes after he had just been speaking of Christian discipleship in verse 24. He had just said if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
So he's saying, I want you to be my disciples. And this is what discipleship entails, right? You can't be a Christian if you're not also a disciple. There's no such thing as two stages of salvation.
You can get saved and become a Christian, but discipleship is just whether you want it or not. So Christians are enlisted to be the disciples of Jesus and true Christians by the work of the spirit of their heart begin to follow Jesus. And Jesus tells us what that looks like. It involves three things.
We saw this previously, but so we catch the context for the verse before us. It involves three things. One that we deny ourselves. We turn our backs on ourselves, he says.
We look at ourselves and say, no. Self-denial we say isn't about giving up chocolate or sugar a few weeks of the year, but giving up ourself, giving up on ourself. One person put it, you must become apostate from your egocentric self. Dick Lucas says, he's not saying ignore yourself or try to pretend that you're not there.
That's Buddhism, not Christianity. And it's obvious that Jesus wants you to save your life. He's speaking on your behalf. Jesus here says, I don't want you to lose.
Your precious valuable life. I want you to save your life. I'm simply telling you the conditions upon which you may have life and the conditions we might say under which you don't. Jesus doesn't want you to lose your life.
He wants you to gain it in this life and in the life of the world to come. And so he speaks directly. You must deny yourself. You must give up what?
Well nothing, as Dick Lucas says, in the end, but what will destroy you? This is what we have done actually when we first truly repented of our sin and turned away from self-righteousness, thinking we could save ourselves and turn to Jesus to be all our righteousness and our salvation. We said, no, I don't want Lord to depend on me to save me. I want you to save me.
I don't want to follow me. I want to follow you. I want to be my own Lord. I want you to be my Lord.
We not only deny ourselves, but we, he says, take up our cross. That is, last week we noted the cross as an instrument of death. For those who were about to be crucified by the Romans, they were required to carry their cross, or at least the cross bar upon which then it would be attached to the pole. We said, well, what that means is to carry your cross.
Not that just you have little problems in life and everybody has the cross to bear, but no, the cross was an instrument of death. The carrier cross was to be on a one-way trip where your old life was over. There was no going back. All that yet, a way to do was the actual physical death of bicrucifixion.
And spiritually then, what we said was in terms of discipleship, taking up our cross, means we realize that in Christ, where new creations, the old has gone, the new has come, the old man's scripture says, has been crucified with Christ. We're new in Christ and we're being renewed after the image of Christ. We're another way to look at it is we're no longer in union with Adam. In union with Adam in sin and rebellion and guilt and condemnation.
But we are now in embracing Christ in union with Christ. And we have righteousness before God. And we have peace with God in Christ because we have died with Christ and buried with Christ and raised with Christ that we may walk in newness of life. And so because that is true of us in union with Christ, we are, as Romans 614 says, to count to get to be true of us in Christ.
That is, he says, we are to consider ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Why do you consider that to be true? Because he says it is true for all who are in Christ. You have died.
You have been raised. You have a new life. You're on a one way trip in a new direction. Count that old life as dead.
And thirdly then follow and keep on following Christ. Give yourself daily over to following Christ. It's a present tense continuing experience. It's not something you simply did once in your past when you perhaps said, I will follow Jesus, but maybe for the last 20 years ever since you haven't actually been following Jesus.
No, you haven't been following Jesus. You're interested in what you're doing right now. Not what you say you did a long time ago. Are you following Christ?
Are you in Christ? Are you walking as a disciple of Christ? Because it isn't Christianity if you're not. Granting.
Christian stumble. Christians fall. Christians get distracted or distract themselves. They get lost and wander away.
It's true. We make a mess of being a disciple of Jesus. I have, have you? But like a good shepherd, our Savior picks us up when we fall.
He finds us when we go astray. He woo's us with his kindness and he reinvigorates us by his spirit that we might keep on following him. We said last week we don't do any of these things to gain salvation. That is to purchase it by our works.
Salvation is a gift. It's a gift of grace. It's something we don't deserve. God simply gives it to us by the, because of the finished work of Christ on our behalf.
But we receive it in repentance and faith and what do we do? Because we're thankful. What do we do in gratitude? We say Jesus.
I want to follow you. So we continue to. Deny ourselves. Take up our cross and follow him.
That's what discipleship is. And Jesus here wants to incentivize us. He wants to motivate us. He wants us to tell us that this is the reasonable thing to do.
It's the rational thing to do. This is the smart thing to do. He doesn't end in verse 25 when he says, for, and he gives you a reason, we saw it last week and verse 26 he begins here, for and gives us reasons and verse 27 we'll see next week, for, so for whoever would save his life will lose it and so on verse 25. And today, for what will a prophet of man, if he gains the whole world before, if it's his soul, so on.
Verse 27, for the son of man is going to come with the angels and the glory is father. And then he will repay each person according to what he has done and so on. He's giving reasons. And he's asking you then to consider what he offers to you.
In contrast to what the world offers to you, what he offers to you in the glories of what is to come and what the world, all that it can give you, well, the horrors, the alternative. And so last week we said, you know, he gave us the first reason for whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Now this morning in verse 26 he puts two questions to us and that's what we're going to pull apart then from this passage. We're going to look at each question he puts to us.
Notice in the first place verse 26 that first question, for what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Notice that word prophet. Jesus here speaks the language of the world. I mean it's the language of commercial transaction.
And so notice here that Jesus invites us to consider what would truly benefit us, what would truly be an advantage for us, a gain, even a positive accumulation. And why does he talk this way? Because he understands how people think. We think about what will advantage us, what will it profit us?
And he says, well, I want you to think about the eternal prophet that I can give to you and I want you to think by contrast of the disappearing prophet that the world can give to you. Now there's an example of this way of speaking, this, well, some might call it crash, a crash commercial talk. This is an example of it in Revelation chapter three. Do you remember that lukewarm church that was neither hot nor cold?
It couldn't decide. We're going to follow Jesus and we're going to follow the world. It was somewhere stuck lazy lukewarm in between and Jesus says, I want to speak you out of my mouth. He said, basically, you make me nauseous.
Well, how did that get that way in Revelation three? Well, Jesus tells them verse 17, for you say, I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing. You see, they were satisfied in this world and with the things of this world and they felt that they needed nothing more. They're not really needing God, not really needing Jesus or salvation or forgiveness or the Holy Spirit of eternal life.
And what they failed to see is what he says next. He says to them, you say I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Now that's a bit of a punch in the face, isn't it? But what is he saying?
He's saying on your own, don't you see it apart from me? Don't you understand this? As you are in yourself, you are spiritually naked and need clothing, blind and need healing, poor and need the spiritual riches only I can give you. And because of that, you're pitiable, you're wretched.
And then what does he say to them? He doesn't leave them there. Listen to this language verse 18 of Revelation three, I counsel you to buy from me gold, refined by fire so that you may be rich, white garments so that you may clothe yourself in the shame of your nakedness may not be seen and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Buy from me, Jesus says, commercial language.
He puts salvation in the language of a financial transaction for goods. And he doesn't because he's making this point, you need to get from me and be sure that you have it from me. You need to secure it from me like you would go to the market and buy stuff and then it would be yours. But buy from me what?
Gold refined by fire so that you may be rich. He means spiritually rich. Remember, Saint Corinthians eight verse nine for the grace of our Lord Jesus that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. You know when Paul's writing that he's writing to a church where a lot of people are in physical impoverishment and poor.
He's not mocking them and saying if you just look at it in a different light you know you were physically materially rich. It's not what he's saying. But because I in all the wealth of the universe so to speak became poor for you I give to you every spiritual blessing there is in Christ in me and you are spiritually rich. Get that from me or buy, he says from me white garments not dirty or stained clothes but clean linen even a robe of righteousness.
That will cover your moral and spiritual nakedness and buy from me he says south to anoint your eyes that you may see. Get the healing balm that gives you spiritual eyes. Now of course Jesus doesn't mean salvation is for sale. It's all a free gift but the commercial language because the others for commerce is there there are so to speak products and supplies available and you need to see that you need them and you need to make sure that they're yours.
They become yours not by theft not by pilfering not by your own self-creation. And Jesus says I have them and I would gladly give them to you. And if you get them from me they are surely yours as much as if you actually purchased them. So then what is Jesus saying here in Matthew 16 for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Well one thing you're saying is don't invest in the wrong stuff. Don't spend your whole life investing in the accumulation of the stuff of this world, a world which is perishing but then you will perish with it. And what would you have gained? What would matter if you became the richest person the universe has ever known a human being.
So what if the moment your soul dies you are separated from God forever and endure his justice in the hell that you deserve? What would a dime of it matter then? He who dies with the most toys doesn't win. And no matter what you have at the end you can't take it with you.
Why would you forfeit your soul? And if you will not deny yourself take it across and follow me be my disciple then you will forfeit your soul for eternity. And that would be horrible is what Jesus is saying. For Jesus is saying that your soul is worth more than all the treasures this world has.
Nothing is worth more than what you are worth to God. So don't be dazzled by money or houses or cars or vacation homes or retirement accounts. Don't be fooled by wealth or power or fame. You live your life like that.
If you live to accumulate for yourself what can do nothing for you in the end? What a waste. What a tragic waste. Sometimes I think it's helpful to hear from others who have gone ahead of us in this a waste.
Some of you know the names are Anthony Hopkins, the Welsh actor, director and producer. Fabulously successful in his work. Honored with riches and honors and measurable in two Academy Awards for BAFTA's which is the British version of that too. Primetime Emmy Awards.
The Lawrence Olivier Award. The Cecil B. DeMille Award. The BAFTA Fellowship in O8.
Denited by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to drama fabulously wealthy. How about as high as you can go in the world of entertainment? And he says if you chase the money it's not going to work and if you chase success it's not going to work. You know I meet young people.
They want to act. They want to be famous. And I tell them when you get to the top of the tree there's nothing up there. Most of this is nonsense.
Most of this is a lie. Or Jim Carrey in his council for a moment. You know Jim Carrey from Ace Ventura Pet Detectives. Truman Show, Liar, Liar, Lemony Snicket, Dumb and Dumber.
How they drenched the whole Christmas. He says I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of. I'm not commending that part of it but here was his point. I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so that they can see that it's not the answer.
So Jesus has to even consider that. What would a prophet of man if he gains the whole world? And four-fence his soul. And then he puts a second question to us.
Do you see that at the end of verse 26? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? I mean if your soul is about to be forfeited what would you possibly give in exchange for it? To rescue it?
What could you pay to redeem it? What could you exchange to get it back once it's forfeited? Do you really think you have what it takes? You think God will accept your gold or your silver, your IRA, your retirement pension or annuities or anything like that in exchange for your soul?
No. But you're so valuable to him who created you for himself that when you finally meet him face to face in the day of judgment as we all will there is nothing you can give him that you would have accumulated in this life that you could give in exchange for your soul. You can't buy yourself out of owing to him your very self because that is what you owe to him. I mean what kind of deal could you make or bargain could you strike with a holy God who says to you you must love me with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength all of the time and then sees that you haven't done that.
You've made the wrong choices in this life. You've loved other things. You've had other gods. You've counted people and things of greater worth than him as we all have.
And now as you stand before his face to be judged by him for the life that you have lived and the things that you have loved and the sentences you will be separated from me, the only living and true God and the only source of lasting life and lasting happiness. What could you possibly give in exchange for your soul? You owe a debt you cannot pay. You are a debtor to God's justice so to speak.
The wages of sin is death, eternal death. That's what you and I deserve because we owe to God what we've never given him. We owe to him our very self, our very life and heart and mind and soul and strength, our perfect love, our perfect obedience from the heart all of the time, everything there is and nothing is sufficient that we could offer to pay to redeem our soul from death and hell when we deserve it. Nothing we can give.
And so you ask me preacher, that sounds like really bad news. You have no good news for me today. I tell you, I have great news for you today. What will it profit a man?
He gains the whole world and forfeits his soul. You know that that was the false purchase, the devil pitched to Adam and Eve. God had created them to be his son and daughter and live with him and the garden of Eden, the garden of paradise, of luxury and to enjoy everything that he had given them, the whole world for them to enjoy it and eat from it. Except one thing of course, one thing, the fruit of the tree, the knowledge of good and evil was a point of testing.
In other words, will you listen to me. I give you everything will you obey me as your father and live with me as my son, my daughter and my house. Will you value me above everything else or will you claw at more unsatisfied with me and my gifts to you? And they said, we want more.
And they took and they ate and they lost the right to it all for themselves and for their descendants after them. And you and I are in Adam, but you and I have likewise ourselves also said the same thing. What I will claw at everything but you and I will not be satisfied with what you have given to me. You're not enough.
I want your stuff and I want as much of it as I can get and I want to pile it up and carry it with me as long as I can until I die. And you said to me, that didn't sound like good news. That's not like more bad news. And that's true.
But there is one. There is one who did not walk like us, who did not walk like Adam and Eve, a second Adam who went not into a garden of luxury but into the wilderness and was pitched the promise of everything, even all the kingdoms of this world. If he would just forsake God, worship the devil and grasp for all the stuff that God had made. The devil you remember took Jesus to a high place, a high mountain, showed him however he did it.
All the kingdoms of this world and all their glory and said, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. And then Jesus said to him, what? Be gone, Satan. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
He said no to the devil and yes to God as we all ought to have done but haven't. And Jesus did it why, for what purpose, that he might purchase a people for God. That he might give up his own perfect life upon the cross in exchange for your soul. What shall a man give in return for his soul?
You don't have what it takes. But there is one. Jesus lived the perfect life you've not lived. He's not in debt to God's justice.
He's righteous and right with God and his law. And he agreed with God the Father to come and purchase people for God from every tribe and tongue and language and nation to give his life as a ransom for many. And the purpose of Christ redemption wasn't simply to purchase forgiveness for you or even so to speak to purchase heaven for you. It was to purchase you for God that you who trust in him might become yes co-heirs with Christ of all things in a new world paradise regained.
And so you, Jesus said, you should consider seriously this reasonable appeal, this rational choice before you. Or after all, we might say, consider the length of your life. Just consider it for a moment. I mean, create a timeline.
So to speak, put a dot on the page. That's the universe that's been from its beginning till now. Where are you on that dot? Well, you're just right up next to that dot.
Now draw an arrow from that dot all the way and just let that arrow keep going. That's eternity. You are right at the very beginning of all things, but you will go on forever and ever. Your life here is but a breath, a mist, a vapor, like seeds of a dandelion here today and gone tomorrow.
And it is in this world, in trusting Christ or rejecting Christ that heaven or hell stands before you, either an eternity of regret and remorse and sorrow and anguish with no remedy because you have rejected Christ and refused to follow him or an eternity of joyful bliss in the presence and pleasure of your loving heavenly Father together with all his beloved, with Jesus the Savior who loved you and gave himself for you, for those who put their trust in him to do for them what they cannot do for themselves, those who in gratitude to him for what he has done for them, those who deny themselves take up their cross and follow Jesus. The prophet is all yours. The advantage is all yours, for he gave everything in exchange for your soul upon the cross. The ransom paid by him, he gave himself for you.
Give them yourself to him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Son. We pray that he would gather up many sons and daughters for you in the way that only he can.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.