Narrow | 3 Musts of Every Disciple

Hi, and thanks so much for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.

I hope that you enjoy this message by Nate Milman.

Okay, uh Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

So if you have a Bible, I want to invite you to got t-shirts all over the place up here.

Um Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

So grab your Bible, open it up.

Uh, this is where we are going to kind of launch into what God has for us together this morning.

Jesus doesn't start this conversation with his disciples where we started it.

Jesus starts it a little bit earlier.

And this is very important when we consider the invitation Jesus gives us, these three musts, and then the reward that will come as a result of choosing to ultimately follow him.

For Jesus, he even sets up this most important question with kind of a setup question.

I hope it's one that you've considered.

Jesus asked his disciples, he's up in Caesarea Philippi at the beginning of Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

So he's kind of away from Jerusalem a bit inside of the hub.

And he asked them this question Who do people say I am?

It's kind of a setup question.

Who do people say?

What's what's out there on the streets?

So they kind of answer.

And then Jesus asked them in Matthew uh chapter 16, verses 15 and 16, he says, this, but what about you?

What about you?

Who do you say that I am?

And what we want to identify and make as clear as we can before we get into Jesus' invitation to deny, to carry this thing he calls a cross, to follow him, is a question.

One of the ways we talk about this around here is that faith has a starting point.

And we need to be really, really clear that it's not a certain amount of things.

It's not how you vote.

It's um not how old the earth is.

It's not your view on Israel.

Sits down with these guys.

He says, I'm gonna ask you a question.

It's the question, it's the starting point.

Who do you say I am?

Peter responds famously in this text, and you have it in your Bible in verse 16.

Simon Peter answered, you know, Peter, he's just like, I got it, I got it, I got it, I finally got one.

He says, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

Jesus says to Peter at that point, what all the disciples are thinking.

Peter, you didn't come up that with you didn't come up with that on your own.

God gave you that.

He revealed it to your heart, he opened your mind to know who I am.

What did this mean that he's the Messiah, the Son of the Living God?

For them, it meant something very particular and in some ways makes sense of a lot of what we read with regards to the disciples' actions after this declaration of clarity around who Jesus is.

Because if Jesus is the Messiah, if Jesus is Israel's final king, here's what's going to happen next in their minds.

We are going to turn towards Jerusalem.

We're going to pick up some supporters along the way.

We're going to hatch a kind of secret, God-ordained plan to fight against those leading in Jerusalem and specifically the temple.

And we will eventually come to the place where Jesus, Messiah, final king, is sitting on the throne in the temple, crowned the king of the Jews.

This is where we're going.

When he says this, this like, this is where we're going.

This is why the disciples have all these confusing conversations.

Because for them, this means something very, very specific, which again, we can't pick up on unless we really are seeped in this Old Testament promises that God makes.

But this is where they are going.

And before we get too critical about them, consider for a second what you thought would be on the other side of your acknowledgement or answer to Jesus' question.

You ever thought about that?

For some of us, it's a little ways back, right?

But like I put my faith in Jesus, I crossed the line of faith.

That was my starting point.

He is my savior, he is my Lord.

Trusting Him for forgiveness.

What did you expect would happen?

How did you think life would go after that?

I mean, I was a kid.

So for me, I honestly thought I wouldn't sin anymore.

I thought, man, I'm like I got an instant sanctification.

Nobody told me that.

I just thought he's forgiven me.

I've seen clearly, like revealed this action that God did on the cross to pay for my sin.

Why would I ever sin again?

And I remember like lying to my parents about something, I don't know, it's kind of a daily activity.

And I just remember thinking, how maybe it didn't take.

Maybe I missed it.

I honestly thought that my friends that I would tell about Jesus after coming to faith in him would all sort of bend a knee and like repent, and it'd be like these big revivals all over the place.

Now I was too scared to actually tell them about Jesus, but I would bring them to church.

And our amazing youth pastor would tell them about Jesus, and they would be like, Some of them.

Now, many of them come to faith later in life.

But I, like the Jewish disciples Jesus was walking with, had an expectation around what Jesus would do in my life and with my life.

I mean, most of us think, well, after putting our faith in Jesus, we ought to at least have more good days than bad days, right?

I mean, it ought to trend up somehow.

And so we have these expectations.

Jesus is going to invite the disciples here and also us into the truth of what we can expect.

So let's pick up the story in Matthew chapter 16, verse 21.

Matthew 16:21

From that time on, after this proclamation of who Jesus is, he's the Messiah, God's final king, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go where?

To Jerusalem.

Right?

It's at this point where they're like, Yeah, of course.

Of course, we're going to Jerusalem.

It's about time, Jesus.

If you're the Messiah, let's go crown you king.

And so they're on board until I can imagine what he has to say next.

And we realize they don't understand.

Jesus says, We're going to Jerusalem, where I will suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must then be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

We all clear disciples, like we're all seeing this the same.

Spelled it out.

This is where we're going.

This is what's going to happen.

Peter, verse 22.

He's the one that remember he got it right.

Woo-hoo, go, Peter.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Gotta love that Peter takes him aside.

You know, he's like, Lord, I got some things to say to you, but I don't want to embarrass you in front of everybody.

So he kind of takes him aside.

And what does he say?

Never, Lord.

Suffer and die.

Wait, you just heard us say Messiah, crown, king.

What's that have to do with dying?

Suffering.

Never, Lord.

He said, This shall what?

Never happen to you.

Jesus turns and says to Peter, get behind me, Satan.

You are a stumbling block to me.

You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Verse 24.

Then Jesus said to the disciples, what'd Jesus say?

Okay, here's I'm gonna have a volunteer in a second, so get yourself ready.

I'm gonna give away this cool shirt.

You ready?

She's ready.

I saw a hand over there.

You can get a different size.

This one's a medium.

I don't know if that'll work.

But we've been talking this summer about what it looks like to follow Jesus, to walk with him.

Our creative team even made these rad shirts.

Talking about narrow.

Talking about that Jesus says there's a narrow path that leads to life, there's a wide path that leads to destruction.

In some ways, it's our choices that take us down those particular paths.

So here we go.

Do you have it?

She's studying, I could tell.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, What'd Jesus say?

You have to stand up and say it from memory.

I mean, come on, this thing's like 25 bucks.

Oh, she's gonna read it.

Okay, for the courage to read it.

Go ahead, nice and loud.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take it after the cross and follow me.

Okay, great.

Give her a hand.

Oh, sorry.

Whoever wants to be my disciple, he says three things.

You must deny yourself, sign me up, you must carry a cross.

I'm not sure what he's talking about there, and then follow me.

Jesus will follow this with a bit of a reward.

How we read his instruction in verses 25 through 27.

Each of these three phrases starts with this little interesting word gar that's translated into for or because it's really pointing us to the reward that comes if we, this is the promise Jesus Himself makes for those that choose to deny themselves, to carry their cross, and to follow.

Here's what Jesus says.

Verse 25, for whoever wants, and we heard Matt articulate this well, I think, whoever wants to save their life, hold on to it, will what?

Will lose it.

Whoever loses their life, Jesus says, for me, will actually find it.

What good will it be?

This is really, he says, for what good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul.

Or what can anyone exchange for their soul?

For, this is our third one, for the Son of Man is going to come in the Father's glory with his angels.

What a day, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

According to what they have done.

Four things Jesus invites us to consider, four musts, if you will, for those that are going to follow Jesus.

The first one is this a disciple must set a new priority.

Set a new priority.

I love Jesus' language when he responds to Peter.

He says, Hey, you're living with the concerns of man, not the concerns of God.

You've got this wrong.

Your priorities are off, Peter.

You need a new ROI, you need a new definition of success.

When you put your head down on the pillow at the end of the night and you say, okay, how did I do?

You begin that self-talk.

Is success faithfulness?

Is it trusting?

Is it taking these steps and following?

A disciple must set a new priority.

So I just thought about my own list.

I don't know how you assess yourself with your priorities and things, but uh, as thinking about this, I thought I'd share a list that uh sort of goes through my um mind when I consider my priorities.

When I have a sort of discipleship mentality or perspective or priority, I know that's when I'm less concerned about what I want, which oftentimes is very me-focused, results focused, tranquility focused, and more concerned about faithfulness to the will of God.

I know that I have a discipleship mindset or priority when I'm more focused on the reward of heaven than on the praise of man.

I know I have a sort of discipleship uh mindset or priority when following Jesus is my first win, my greatest success, and my highest priority.

It's when I can sort of move away from the concerns of Nate and step into and prioritize what concerns my father.

Now, I want to be really, really clear with this next statement because somebody I heard recently left our church because of a misunderstanding of something that I said.

Um, and we've cleared that up, but it took a little bit of work, so I don't want to have to clear this up.

I just want to be really, really clear.

So, so kind of tune in in the next couple of moments.

Here's what I want to say I put a lot of time and energy and focus into these messages.

And at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, when I leave here in a while and I think about how to go, what I really, really want more than anything else, is for you to like me.

I want you to give more money, and I want you, once you've done those, to pledge allegiance to the kingdom of Sierra Bible Church.

So we're gonna tattoo people after the service, and yet no, right?

Come on, somebody needs to say what Jesus said.

Get behind me, Satan.

Nate, come on, and yet here's the deal: you and I all have something that makes that list.

You and I all have an earthly, human, you-centered concern that sneaks in so quickly, and you'll miss following Jesus.

You'll miss saying the things you need to say, you'll miss going to the places where you need to go because it is your concern.

And being a disciple of Jesus means I set a new priority.

I serve Him.

I love you, but I serve Him.

And that's where I have to go.

And if you're gonna take a step, it's resorting your priority.

Did we get that whole no part?

Get behind me, Satan part.

Okay.

It's so easy for these messes to get in our spirit, and I'm, I don't think, alone.

A disciple, second, must not just simply set a new priority, but must have a new passion.

Passion's about desire.

This is a place of our heart.

I love being at Hume like this last summer with our kids for a couple nights.

Talked about the story of David, invited them into his story.

One of the things David is known for in the New Testament is a man after what?

You know, God's own heart.

Man, I don't know about you, but it's like if there's a line in heaven, I want to be in that one.

I was the man after God's own heart.

And one of the things they challenge the students on the first night, and I'm sitting there going, this is great.

I'm taking this in.

Where is your heart?

Where's your heart?

What do you want?

Jesus says, Whoever wants to be my disciple, if you want it, chances are you're gonna do a whole lot of things, some of which will be easy surrender, because why?

You want it.

It's what you want, it's what you're pursuing, it's what has has the sort of affection of your heart.

Now, some of you might be thinking, yeah, but I know Jeremiah.

And Jeremiah says, you know, the heart is deceitful above all else, who can know it?

And so I typed into the computer this week.

I said, How can I find my heart?

It was a little more creative than that.

Here's what they told me they said, go on to your social media and look at what people are trying to sell you.

Because those are the things they think you want.

Now, I don't do social media a lot, so I had to actually like log in.

But once I logged in, I found out what the algorithms in the universe think I really want.

They assessed my heart.

Here's what they said.

First thing I must really, really want is a roller to put hair back on my head.

I was like, you're right, I want that.

Like, so next week, I ordered this, it's coming, it's gonna be amazing.

I'm gonna paint it on, we're gonna preach the gospel.

Come on, can I order any others?

I see a few out there that might need help with a paint on.

There's other things that they told me that I really want if I were to listen.

Next slide.

This guy, right?

He's like, as you get older, how does he even know how old I am, right?

I mean, I never met this guy, but I do want to be a fit old guy.

So I'm looking at him, I'm like, all right, yeah, I want to be able to like do that when I'm whatever next week.

Because I want to be a fit old guy.

So I'm like, okay, I should probably watch the rest of this because this is what I want.

Next one.

Now, this one just kind of came out.

This wasn't an ad.

This was a couple of parents celebrating the fact that they bought this as a first car for their daughter, which just made me feel really poor.

So I wanted more money.

I mean, I don't know if she was trying to say that, but like she was like, You pretty much stink as a dad.

You gave your kid a 20-year-old Corolla.

Look what we gave our kid.

So maybe the boys still have a chance.

I'm saving, right?

And next slide.

Now, this one sometimes like this is just a vacation of a missionary who really, really needed time off.

She got to watch Santa, she got to hike to Santiago.

I mean, it's just cool stuff.

And I looked at that and I honestly thought, like, yeah, that's what I want.

I want to travel, I want a few months off to walk in and out of these ancient, you know, buildings of worship.

And this would be amazing.

Why don't why do I have to?

Next slide.

That's what I want.

This one kind of caught me off guard.

I didn't even know I could be as happy as this guy, nor did I know that I could buy Dr.

Squatchy's, you know, arm smelly stuff, and like my wife would then follow me around, and like after the service, like, hey Nate, give me a whiff.

Like, look how happy she is.

She's smelling his armpits.

And I was like, I didn't even know I wanted that.

But once I saw it, I was like, oh babe, come on.

Like, you're gonna smell this and it's gonna be magical, right?

It's crazy.

But I have to ask myself, what do I want?

What are the things that capture my heart?

Am I just at the end of the day, too bald, too poor, not long enough vacations, too smelly of armpits.

I learned I can retire in like 35 years.

I learned that my church is too small, it's not mine.

I learned I'm too lonely.

I learned all my toys are too old.

There's a whole lot of things that work their way in, right?

Then this guy, he said that my marriage is dying.

And I was like, shoot, I didn't even know my marriage was dying.

I asked Kathy, I said, is our marriage dying?

She's like, not that I know of.

I'm like, well, you gotta, he's literally telling.

Now this guy came with a solution, which I loved.

He's like all over.

He said, for just 27 bucks, he can stop the decay in our marriage.

So there's hope for us.

Don't worry about it.

We're gonna keep pressing on because I gotta tell you, I want a great marriage, but where is your heart?

A disciple must set or have a new passion.

Let me ask you one more time.

What do you really, really want?

Jesus says, for whoever wants, for whoever wants, step into.

I had the privilege yesterday of standing up here and helping with the funeral service of a 39-year-old man that had his life tragically taken in our community a couple weeks ago.

Some of you knew him.

He went to see our Bible, brought his kids here, raised his two daughters pretty much on his own, absolute rock star, hero.

And I got my truck later that afternoon, and I just turned the music off, and I said, Jesus, what I want is more of you.

I want to know how to follow you.

I can't follow you like Michael, I can't follow you like David, nor am I asked to.

But I am asked to follow you.

Like, like only I'm being called to do.

So help me want.

Teach me to follow.

Because there's gonna be a day, right, where the dash gets a number.

And Jesus says, there's some choices, Nate, you can make in the midst of this.

Jesus follows up this whoever wants with three kind of action verbs, and we're gonna go through these pretty quickly.

A disciple must choose a new path.

We've been talking about this all summer, right?

It's the narrow path Jesus invites us onto.

It's the tough path, it's on and on and on.

He says lots about this.

The first thing, first thing he says is this it's for, he says, you must deny yourself.

You must deny yourself.

And really simply, it's easy to kind of articulate that.

What he means is like, pull out the pink slip that has your life's name on it and give it back.

You don't own it.

We've been talking about this with stewardships, like just give it away.

We a number of years ago sort of inherited a great little uh RV from my aunt, and but we rarely use it, but we still have to pay for the insurance on it, God bless insurance and the taxes and all that stuff.

And so earlier this summer, I said, Hey, I'm gonna sell our little RV.

We use it only a few times a year, unless I can find someone to partner.

With and I'll sell half of it to them.

So now I own only half an RV, which is great, right?

We split the cost, they use it some, we use it some.

As I was reflecting on what Jesus' invitation to deny ourselves, I think that a lot of us, myself included, sublet out our lives and our hearts.

You know, we'll give Jesus, we might even give them kind of the 51%.

That might sneak us in the door to heaven.

But I'm not gonna give it all.

I'm not gonna sign it all.

I'm gonna sign on half of it.

You can do with that, but but not too uncomfortable, but not too risky.

Don't ask me too much.

And Jesus says, here's where we start.

We don't start with following, we start with considering whose it is.

Will you deny yourself?

Will you choose to sign over the pink slip of your life?

The second thing Jesus invites us to do is to take up your cross.

Now, again, this is long before Jesus would go to the cross.

Jesus said a lot of crazy things about discipleship.

And I want to kind of just highlight some of them.

I mean, these were just nuts, right?

And these are some of the things we chose from this summer as we were thinking about this.

Can you throw up there the list of stuff?

We skipped this first, but here's some of the things Jesus, like if you want to be a disciple, you got to come like a little child, which let's be honest, that's a weird thing to say.

You got to learn to love your enemies, which is absolutely crazy.

Let the dead bury the dead, Jesus said.

Hate your father and mother, sell all your possessions.

He said that to one specific guy.

None of these are the mark of everybody's discipleship per se, but to him it was.

Then Jesus at one point says, You got to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

That one lost a few people, rightfully so.

They're like, We're heading for the door.

Jesus then right asked his disciples, like, Were you guys gonna go too?

And they're like, Who else has the words of life?

We're in.

We're not sure what you just meant by that, Jesus, but we're we're in.

And then today we have this phrase, take up your cross.

They had not seen Jesus hanging on a cross, they had not even seen that in their mind's eye, as we alluded to.

But part of what crucifixion was for the Romans was a public, shaming, excruciating, long death.

They would have walked by, even just in the lifespan of Jesus, somewhere between 15 and 20,000 people slowly dying on a Roman cross.

They would have seen the stages, they would have known that in some way, what take up your cross is a little bit like what we celebrate in in baptism when we come down.

It's saying, take the position of death, lay down who you are, die to yourself, and let Jesus then bring you up.

He says, take up your cross.

They would have seen these, they would have known what Jesus meant.

And then lastly, he says, follow me.

He says, deny yourself, hand over the pink slip, take up your cross.

There's gonna be suffering.

This could be public, it's gonna be painful.

Let's go.

This is part of what it will look like to follow.

These are the new expectations, he says.

And then he says, and then follow me.

270 times.

He says, We're gonna do this together.

I mean, friends, from the beginning of the statements he makes here, it's all guided and inspired by God.

He's in it all.

Even the the choices, he helps us make those when we turn towards him.

But he says, follow me.

And in essence, this is that that you know simple thing of saying you you hand the steering wheel, which I know doesn't work, so you kind of got to get out of the car and let Jesus drive the thing.

And all those human concerns that well up, deny, allow the cross to be central and follow him, allow his words to be that which you respond to, how to define how you react and um live in this world.

Kyle Eidelman, uh, an author and pastor, he wrote a book called Not a Fan.

And what he what he was doing in this book is kind of trying to talk about hey, in Christianity, we've got some fans and we have some followers.

Now, most of us can say, yeah, I know a bunch of those fans, but what I want us to do in the next couple of moments is to evaluate not them, but evaluate us.

And and here's what Kyle says he says this in his pretty strong language.

He says the biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians, but aren't actually interested in following Christ.

Sure, they want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.

Jesus invites us to follow.

There's no greater invitation.

Lastly, a disciple will experience a new promise.

And it comes in this language, right?

Where he says, hey, here's the here's the reward.

He says, You can try and hang on to your life and you're gonna lose it.

You can try and save your soul, you will not have it at the end of the day.

But if you lose your life for me, Jesus says, you will have all of those things.

What's he hinting on here?

It's really this understanding of sort of the answer to the question, who are you, or who am I?

Beneath all the stuff, beneath all the labels, beneath those weird nicknames our friends in high school gave us, or the things our parents, who are you?

Jesus looks at us and he says, denying yourself, picking up your cross, following me is the way by which you will begin to understand the truth of who you are.

You will have your soul, you will walk in the fullness of life.

It is the reward.

The path is narrow, the road is hard at times, but the reward, the promise, is sure.

Let me introduce you to a couple different people.

I made these up.

The first one is Larry.

His name is Larry, thank you.

Larry was born in 1954.

Larry came from pretty simple beginnings.

He worked hard, got himself a great education at Stanford, super good job, two and a half kids and a dog, and a great retirement plan.

If you asked Larry, who are you?

His answer would likely be what he does and how he votes while wearing his Stanford sweater.

Let me introduce you to the second person.

Her name's Isabella.

We call her Izzy.

She was born in 2004.

She was born into a broken family.

She had to bounce back and forth between mom and dad's house.

In junior high, she was given an iPhone so that she could begin to interact socially with the world.

She went to college, but she didn't know why.

If you were to ask Izzy, who are you?

She would likely mention her mental health struggles that are real, her gender status, and her religious affinity.

Jesus says, into our world, if you choose to follow me, predicated by picking up the cross, predicated by denying yourself.

This is the pathway into beginning to understand the truth about who you are.

Beyond all that other stuff and noise, this is where you find from the very one that created you from the inside out, that knew you before you were formed, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You're God's workmanship.

And he wove you up for a purpose.

And man, don't let it go to your hell, your head, but he's crazy about you.

Crazy about you.

That's who you are.

And Jesus says, Man, we're out here chasing our soul around, trying to figure out who in the world we are.

Some of us, it's written on the college we went to, the job we have, the house we live in, the what we do.

Some of us, man, we've taken that deep look inside, tried to figure it out.

Who am I?

Who am I?

And Jesus says, Let me let me break through the noise.

You're mine.

Follow me.

We'll sort it out.

We'll learn to love each other.

We'll learn to live in to who I created you to be.

That's the reward.

That's the invitation.

Will you and I step into the choices that God lays out?

God, thank you for bringing us into a place where we can think for a few minutes about the incredible truth that you are the Messiah.

That the work that you did on the cross is cause for celebration.

It's cause for us to kind of jump out of our seats and say, You're the Messiah.

I don't have it all sorted out.

I don't know where we're going from here.

But you, Jesus of Nazareth, are the Messiah.

I'm going to learn to trust you.

And then in response, let us hear Jesus' words.

Whoever wants.

Whoever wants.

I'm going to be with you along the journey, but you got to make the turn.

You got to take the step into that which is uncomfortable, into that which you can't, yeah, you can't see the guarantee, but you can hear the words of Jesus.

Saying, I made you, I formed you.

And together we'll walk out this beautiful person that you are.

God help us take those steps.

Thank you for being a God that intervenes in our life, that walks with us.

We love you, we trust you.

We pray these things and you're amazing.

Thanks so much for joining us, Church.

We hope that you enjoyed this message.

To find more messages like this, or to see where you can get connected or to give financially, please visit Sierra Bible.