Lent: Take Up Your Cross | Associate Pastor: Matt Armstrong

Good morning, everybody.

Morning.

My name is Matt Armstrong.

I'm one of the pastors here, and it's my uh privilege to get to bring you the word this morning.

Uh today we're continuing in our Lenten series.

This is the season of Lent that leads up to Easter.

It's about 40 days.

Well, it's exactly 40 days, uh, except for Sundays.

Sundays are feast days during the season of Lent.

And it's very much like Advent.

It's a time of preparation for something to come.

In Advent, we prepare for Jesus coming into the world in Christmas, at Christmas, and during Lent we prepare ourselves for Easter and Good Friday.

And because of that, Lent is a time of reflection.

It's a time of preparation.

It's a time of renewal.

It's a time when Jesus invites us as his people to kind of pause and to reflect, to be introspective and actually to look into the dark crevices, nooks, and crannies of our hearts, those places where we would rather not go.

And the reason isn't because Jesus wants us to wallow in our sinfulness, but because what he wants from us is that we would invite him into those dark places.

And that he would come and bring his healing light and continue to free our hearts from those things that bring us shame, separate us from him.

And this for this reason, Lent is one of my favorite times of year.

And I think our passage this morning captures the heart of Lent very well.

So let's look again at our passage, verses 31 to 33.

And he, Jesus, began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

And he said this plainly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But turning and seeing the disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

Point one.

The way Jesus' kingdom comes into the world is often confusing and frustrating, destabilizing for us.

Now this scene comes immediately after a climax in Jesus' ministry.

He's just performed some amazing miracles, and Peter, on behalf of the disciples, has made the confession for the first time that Jesus is the Christ.

He is the Messiah.

He is the anointed one, the promised king, who would come and sit again on his father David's throne.

And he would renew and restore Israel to its former glory.

This is amazing news.

In Peter's eyes, and in fact in the eyes of most Israelites, the Messiah was the coming general who would lead God's people to overthrow their tyrannical overlords, the Romans, and set them back on top where they used to be, where they used to enjoy the top seat under David and Solomon.

But then immediately after this incredible confession that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus then drops this bomb.

He says to his disciples and to the crowd, I am going to be rejected by the leaders of Israel.

In fact, I'm going to be killed.

And on the third day, I'm going to rise from the dead.

Now, this would be like a student athlete committing to go to UGA on a football scholarship to play under Kirby Smart, right?

That's he's the head past uh head pastor, head coach.

I mean, I'm learning this context at Redeemer.

I think you guys think UGA is maybe where the Messiah's gonna come from.

But anyway, back to the illustration.

You know, a student, athlete, goes, he commits, he moves to Athens, he starts taking classes, and then the first team meeting, Coach Smart gathers all the players around to lay out the plan for the season.

He goes, listen, guys, here's what's gonna happen this year.

We're going to lose every game.

You might not be surprised if one of the players kind of took him aside and began to rebuke him and say, Coach Smart, this is not the way we want to start the season.

Right?

Coaches and generals don't plan to lose.

But that's exactly how Jesus is presenting himself here.

And Peter, like the rest of the disciples, they believe that the Messiah came to take care of the bad guys and to give them a pain-free life.

And so he rebukes Jesus.

And then Jesus gives him one of the strongest rebukes that we see in the New Testament.

But before we become, we get too hard on poor Peter, let's reflect on how we respond when our plans, when our lives take a turn that we did not expect and that we did not want.

I remember a few years ago, I think it was 2020.

Does anyone remember that terrible year?

There was a season in 2020, there was four or five weeks in a row where something like terrible happened in my life.

And it seemed to happen on Tuesday.

I don't know why, but after a couple weeks I just started dreading Tuesday, and then it kept happening.

And uh I remember praying after in week three, okay, Lord, really, uh this can stop, please.

Uh but little did I know that this was just the beginning of a 24-month period of time with a lot of difficulty and suffering in my own life.

And only in retrospect could I see what God was doing.

He was doing a good work in my own life, in my own heart, and in the lives of the people around me.

Like Joseph, I was eventually able to say, God intends this for good.

But in that moment, what I felt in my relationship with God is that I had been abandoned.

This is not where my life was supposed to go as a pastor, as a faithful Christian.

And I would say I threw some temper tantrums over that time.

I'm not too ashamed to admit.

So whether it's our plans for the day getting interrupted, or the loss of a job, or an unexpected illness, when these events come into our lives, we tend to respond like Peter.

We are bold enough to rebuke God or to argue with him or to get angry, frustrated, perhaps even depressed.

But what Peter couldn't see and wouldn't see for some time was that this seeming catastrophe was actually the channel through which God would fulfill all of his promises, all the things Peter was looking forward to would come through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What Jesus was teaching and showing his disciples is that his kingdom was upside down.

That's a phrase that a lot of modern theologians use.

Jesus' kingdom was upside down compared to the kingdoms of this world.

All right, let's look at verses 34 and 35.

Jesus called to him, the crowd and his disciples, and he said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.

Our second point is that Jesus' life is a template for our own life.

See, not only is Jesus' kingdom upside down in his ministry, but his kingdom is upside down in our own lives.

This week I listened to uh a fun podcast, and they were discussing Back to the Future, one of the greatest movies of all time.

Uh came out in the 80s when I was just in the prime of my adolescent life.

Uh incredible, incredible fun movie.

Um they pointed something out that I, you know, I had seen but didn't really reflect on much.

At the beginning of the movie, Marty McFly, the uh the main character, his family is a mess.

His dad is a loser.

Uh this guy right on the right, that's Biff, that's his high school bully who continues to bully him now in adulthood.

His mom seems exceedingly uh tired and depressed.

His brother and sister are kind of going nowhere.

His brother is dressed conspicuously in a McDonald's uniform and still lives at home, right?

And Marty fears that this is where his life is going.

His family are all losers, and he's gonna be a loser too.

But after traveling back 30 years into the past, to the 50s, after some hijinks ensue, and Marty inadvertently uh changes a few things, he comes back to the future, and his family is completely different.

His mom and dad are happy and fit, they play tennis, his dad's a successful author, his brother and sister are now dressed in uh you know successful business wear.

Um he now drives a four-wheel Toyota Tacoma.

I mean, it's it's the pinnacle of um 1980s American success.

This is the gospel of the movie, Back to the Future.

This is what we all want.

We know that we're all kind of messed up and broken, we come from messed up and broken families, and we want someone to come, and it'd be great if we could be that person, the hero of our own stories, that we would come and kind of fix everything.

And then, and and what does success look like?

It looks like you know, worldly success and affluence.

Right?

This is what Peter wanted and longed for.

It's what the nation of Israel longed for, and it's what we long for.

And that's why Jesus' words in these verses are so disturbing.

Not only is Jesus going to be crucified and resurrected on the third day, right?

Part there's parts of us that's like, that's great.

Thank you, Jesus.

Please go do that.

I'll be over here.

I would love the benefits of all of that.

But Jesus says, not only am I going to do that, but anyone who would come after me, anyone who would be a Christian, anyone who would follow me, they will need to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me there.

What Peter had to learn, and what Jesus wants us to learn, is that just as uh he brought, God brought redemption and healing into the world through Jesus' suffering, so our sufferings will be part of God's redemptive work in this world.

The pattern of Jesus' life, the gospel, will also be the template of our lives as followers of Christ.

The Apostle Paul put it this way in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

He said, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, something to be grasped.

But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Like Peter, we want a Savior who will come and take care of all of our problems and give us that pain-free life that we long for.

But what Jesus tells us that if we are going to follow him, our lives will look like his life.

We too will need to follow him into a type of death.

But how we ask, I ask on a regular basis, how can this be good?

Well, the answer is that in God's upside-down kingdom, the way God works is that he brings life out of death.

He brings strength out of weakness, and he brings healing out of suffering.

Like Peter and the other disciples, we tend to miss what Jesus had just said.

Yes, he said that he would be rejected by the leaders of Israel, and yes, he said he would experience death on the cross.

But he said, Finally, I will rise from the dead.

And in the same way, when we humble ourselves and follow Jesus where he wants to lead us into our own death, he has promised that we will resurrect too.

Though we struggle to see it in the moment, Jesus is able to bring incredible redemption through the pattern of the gospel in our own lives.

And if you've walked with Jesus for some time, you've probably experienced this in big and small ways in your own life.

God often uses our sufferings to free us from the sin and idols that entangle us.

And he changes us as he frees us from those idols, from those empty cisterns.

We are now free to receive Jesus in all his glory as our Savior and all the benefits that come to those who love him.

We gain a new identity as children of God, fully understanding, more deeply understanding what it means to be loved as sons and daughters of the King.

We gain a peace that surpasses understanding because we know that no matter what comes into our lives, God is with us.

He will never forsake us, and he will always provide.

We gain the ability to comfort others who are also suffering, as we have suffered because we have been comforted by God.

And we are able to love others with the love that we have received from our gracious and loving God.

I love the way Henry Nowen describes this.

He says, powerlessness and humility in the spiritual life do not refer to people who have no spine or who let everyone else make decisions for them.

Rather, they refer to people who are so deeply in love with Jesus that they are ready to follow him wherever he guides them, always trusting that with him they will find life and find it abundantly.

This is Jesus' promise.

He tells us that if you will follow me to the cross, I will bring life and redemption and healing into your life and through your life to the world around you.

Finally, let's read verses 36 to 38.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, Jesus continued, and forfeit his life?

For what can a man give in return for his life?

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, to him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father and the holy angels.

Point three, confessing our weakness and need for Jesus is the way to life.

Jesus is telling us.

Now these are hard words.

These are some of the hardest words Jesus says in the Gospels.

But Jesus is showing us that he loves us enough to tell us the truth.

The worst thing isn't to be told our need.

The worst thing is to be left alone in our need.

But Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

I love the way Eugene Peterson captures this idea beautifully here.

He says, pain isn't the worst thing.

Being hated isn't the worst thing.

Being separated from the one you love isn't the worst thing.

Death isn't the worst thing.

The worst thing is failing to deal with reality and becoming disconnected from what is actual.

The worst thing is trivializing the honorable, desecrating the sacred.

We don't become mature humans, being uh human beings by getting lucky or cleverly circumventing loss, and certainly not by avoidance and distraction.

Learn to lament.

We're mortals after all.

We and everyone around us are scheduled for death.

Get used to it.

Take up your cross.

It prepares us and those around us for resurrection.

Beloved, this is what the season of Lent is all about.

It's a time to reflect, it's a time to see our need where we fall short.

Because it is just in those places that Jesus wants to meet us.

It's when we see our lack that we cry out to the one who has promised to meet all of our needs.

And he says, I love you.

I will never reject you.

And I've come to heal you.

And so, beloved, during the season of Lent, I invite you to invite Jesus into those places of your heart, where he is leading you down into death to say no to things that you run to for life apart from him.

Because he wants to be your all-in-all.

He loves you more than you can understand.

Let's use this time of Lent as preparation to celebrate what He's given us at Easter.

Let's pray.

Our Father, God in heaven, Lord.

These are hard words.

None of us enjoys taking up our cross and denying ourselves.

And yet you tell us that you bring eternal, everlasting life to us through resurrection.

Lord, we pray all of this with thanksgiving in Jesus' name.

Amen.