The Path To Glory

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0:00Good morning, everyone, and welcome. My name, again, is Joel, and I serve here as pastor. At the prompting of my wife, I just want to say that I haven't said this before, but I'm the kind of person that I don't mind when people respond in the sermon, so if you hear something that you agree with and you want to say amen or hallelujah or something, then I like that, and it's not going to throw me off, so you have my welcome, my encouragement to respond in the sermon, so I just want you to know that. Amen. There we go. Getting this started. Imagine someone that you're close to, someone you know really, really well, taking you aside and saying there's something you should know about me. That would get your attention, wouldn't it? No one says there's something you should know about me about something trivial. No one says there's something you should know about me.

1:07I ate a really big lunch, and I'm really not hungry for dinner yet. It's usually big news if you're going to get a phrase like that. Sometimes what they share is going to change how you see them, and they're bracing you for that. Sometimes it changes how you see yourself, if you are connected with them somehow, if you're family or a close friend or something. It may even, what they had to say may even impact the rest of your life, and that may be why they are setting you up to really listen to what they're about to say. Now that's basically what's happening in today's passage.

1:51Jesus is saying to his disciples, there's something you should know about me. He's going to reveal something to them about who he is and what his mission is, and he knows it's going to challenge their expectations, and it's going to impact every one of their lives. And if you're a Christian, that's how you should be listening and responding to what he says today too. He has something to say about himself, something you should know, and it does impact you. So go with me to Luke 9. It's in your bulletin. It's also up on the screen. We're going to start in verse 18.

2:39This is the word of God for us today. Let's receive it, let's pay attention to it, as the very word of God who is trustworthy and true. Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, who do the crowds say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others that one of the prophets of old has risen. Then he said to them, but who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, the Christ of God. And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. Now about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James and went up to the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and

4:58Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep. But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah, not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them. And they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him. And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, send your word into us, not just in our ears, Lord, but deep into our hearts. Help us to grapple with who you are, Jesus, your suffering, your glory, to be in awe of you, and to hear clearly your calling on us and how we should respond to you. Bear good fruit in us. Help us to be your faithful people on account of your great faithfulness to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The path to glory. This sermon, this passage, it tells us that Jesus saves through sacrifice and he calls us to become like him. Now I mentioned this last week, but I'll say it again. Jesus is making a turn here. He's making a pivot in John 9.

7:12He's now focusing on his disciples. He wants to prepare them for what's about to happen. And he wants to prepare them for what's going to happen after he leaves the earth. And right now he's going to ask them a question. Here's the crucial question. Who is Jesus? The disciples think back about what we have learned so far in Luke. They've been following Jesus around for probably between one and two years at this point. They've seen Jesus do remarkable things, incredible things, miracles, exorcisms, healings. They've heard him teach. They've heard him talk about the kingdom. They've heard him challenge the religious leaders and never ever lose one of those battles. They've seen firsthand his authority in his power in all kinds of ways. And now Jesus turns to them and he wants to hear what they think, what they believe. They've been watching, observing, but now Jesus asks them a question.

8:21Who do the crowds say that I am? Now this isn't just idle curiosity. He's not just probing the rumor mill. He knows that the crowds have all kinds of mixed views on him, views that all fall short of who he really is. But this is just a setup for the real question. Who do you say that I am? You, my disciples that I'm looking at right now. Now everyone has questions. Questions about life and truth and the very nature of reality. We all have questions, questions that depending on how we answer them are going to determine a lot about us. A lot about who we are. There are many important questions in life, but the most important question is not what family are you from? What do you do for a living? Who do you vote for? It is not how old is the earth? Or how did the universe begin? The most important question isn't even who do you say that you are? The question that we think oftentimes is the most important question.

9:45That's not it. The crucial question for each person on earth is this, who do you say Jesus is? You can be amazed as you read Scripture, as you open up the Gospels and you read stories about Jesus. You can be amazed by him, by his miracles. You can marvel at his wisdom, how profound he was, how he refuted the conventional wisdom of the day, the shallow arguments of the Pharisees. You can be amazed at his wit, his insight, his truth. You can even agree with it. You can respect his life and his practice of love.

10:33There were surely many among the crowds who felt all of those ways. But who do you say that he is? Who is he? A wise man? A great humanitarian? A spiritual example? A prophet? A teacher? Or is he all of those things and yet still more than that? Friends, no one else's answer to this question matters but your own. This is not a group project in school. The kind where you can pass just by kind of being near somebody who really knows the answer. You can't just be in church and not have answered this question and be okay. If you're curious about the Christian faith, have you ever asked yourself this question? Or have you been avoiding it? Have you been putting it off? The time must come to answer this question. If you have a friend who isn't a Christian, someone that you're talking with about spiritual matters. Have you ever asked them this question? Or have you been avoiding it?

12:12Putting it off? The time must come to ask someone this question. Now we don't know how long the question hung in the air when Jesus asked his disciples. But Peter clears his throat and he has an answer. The Christ of God. This is a dramatic statement. Something that he hasn't said before. Christ, it's another way of saying Messiah, Savior, Deliverer. Peter is saying, you're the coming king. You're the one we've been waiting for. You're the one who will save people and give them life. Of God means he's saying, you're the one Jesus who fulfills all of the prophecies, all of the promises of God. You've come from him.

13:23You're of God. You're not the Messiah that people have set up and say, save us. You're the Messiah that God himself has sent the Christ of God. Now, Peter is right. But Jesus knows they don't fully understand yet what this means. They haven't yet come to see or understand what he will do as the Christ of God. They don't understand how he will accomplish his mission. And the how is really, really important. And that's where he turns next. He starts describing the sacrificial path that he's on.

14:08How will Jesus save? Now, Peter, the disciples, most Jewish people at this time who were looking for the Messiah, not all were, but some were, what they expected was a king, a literal king, a political king, someone who would march in, would gather up forces and march in and overthrow Rome and set up a new empire for Israel. They expected God to send this kind of savior because they thought their biggest problem was their political helplessness, their national weakness and insecurity, their occupation by a foreign power. That's what they thought their biggest problem was. So that's what they thought the savior was going to do. But they were wrong. That wasn't their biggest problem. They had a much deeper helplessness, a much more significant weakness. They were occupied by a much worse power than Rome.

15:22And so that isn't what Jesus was going to do. Now, whatever you think is the biggest problem in your life, that's what you want a hero to free you from. If your biggest problem is loneliness, you say the hero is going to deliver me from loneliness. If it's, I want more stuff, I want more financial security, the hero is going to connect me with the right resources. Think about this. Any good doctor will not stop at treating the symptoms, even if that's all the patient asks for. Even if the patient bangs on their bed and demands it. I just want the pain to go away. A good doctor will address the cause. They'll say, no, I can't stop there. I've got to go deeper. The problem that Jesus came to address was way worse than Israel's political weakness. It was the problem of sin. This is why he says that he will suffer, be rejected, and be killed. That's what he will do as the Christ. This is the first time, note, the first time that he is telling his disciples explicitly what he's going to do.

16:40This rattles their whole world. It shocked them. It would have been preposterous. Imagine expecting a political king, and he says that he's going to do this. He's going to be rejected, and then suffer, and then be killed. This makes no sense to them. How are you going to solve our problem with our nation if you'd go and do that, Jesus? It's no wonder Peter, just after this episode, says, stop talking like that. Jesus, you're either being pessimistic or literally crazy. That's not what the Messiah does. Don't you know, Jesus? That's actually why he tells them to be quiet once Peter confesses that he's the Christ of God, because he knows people aren't ready.

17:41They're going to take him and force him to be king, a literal king. But it shouldn't have shocked them, right? God had said through the prophet Isaiah and through other prophets that the Messiah would do this. Look at this verse, these verses here. He was despised and rejected by men. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. With his wounds, we are healed. This is Isaiah's great prophecy of the suffering servant sent from God to deliver. I know people who have just read this chapter of the Bible and then become Christians because they see how clearly hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Isaiah prophecies about exactly what Jesus would do. The mission is to save people from their sins, and Jesus knows this can only happen if he takes their place and suffers and dies for them. That's what he will do. So now he's turned their expectations upside down about what he will do. He wants now to tell them how this impacts them. He's about to define discipleship for them. This is the gracious calling. How should we respond?

19:09Now think about this. If Jesus is who he says he is, then he gets to call the shots, right? If you agree with Peter, you're the Christ of God. You should want to hear what he says next. Now some people would say, look, I said the prayer. I asked Jesus into my heart. I walked down the aisle. I know where I'm going, and I'm good now. To that, I would say, don't accept the gift without following the instructions.

19:48I know most people don't like to open up the manual when you get a gift. Just like to play with it. Don't accept that gift this way. If you agree with Peter that he's the Christ of God, the Messiah, you should be interested in what he says next, what he says you should do in response, right? And not just a little bit interested, not like, okay, fine, I guess Jesus, I'll give Jesus five minutes to kind of, you know, say what he wants to say. I mean really, really interested in what he has to say.

20:18Interested like you're meeting with a doctor. A doctor who diagnosed you with a terminal illness and then took you into the OR and opened you up and removed the thing that was going to kill you. And you're now sitting with him in his office hearing about how he wants you to live for the rest of your life. I mean interested in that kind of message, right? You'd be very interested in listening to that doctor, wouldn't you? You would clear your calendar. I'm not, I don't have anywhere else to be. You tell me how I need to live now. You're the one who saved me. Tell me what I should do. Well, here's what he says. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself. My, my, my.

21:14At a time like right now, this might be, I'd put it in the top three of most controversial things Jesus ever said. The message of today is be who you are. Accept yourself. Own your truth. The spirit of the age is one of extreme, radical autonomy. I define for myself good and bad, right and wrong.

21:51To deny yourself is to say no to autonomy. Saying no to defining for yourself what is good and how to get there. It's to submit all of that. All of that and your very self to God Almighty. This is radical and it's difficult. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that it's easy. If you've been following Jesus, you know it's hard. It's hard. Sometimes it can feel like every fiber in us, the old self in us is like, no, I want that autonomy back. We want to listen to the spirit of our age, the siren call of our age. Own your truth sounds awfully enticing, doesn't it? Man, it sounds good. It sounds like freedom. It's a lie. It's a lie. We have to reckon with the fact that Jesus said this.

23:04And because he said it, we have a response to give to him. We can either reject what he said and then reject him as savior. Those two things go together. Or we can believe that he has a good for us that is beyond what we understand or even what we want sometimes. But then he goes on. Let him take up his cross daily. Now, Jesus hasn't died yet, but they got the reference. They had seen crucifixions. They know that the Roman government, the authorities would make convicted criminals carry their cross up to where they would be crucified. This was a sign of the ultimate submission, the ultimate coming underneath the authority of the government. And later they would understand that the cross is where Jesus saved through sacrifice, through giving of himself, through suffering, and he did it obeying the father. He wasn't knuckling under the Roman authorities. He was obeying his father willingly.

24:25To take up your cross, it's not a call to endure hardship. It's not a call to endure hardship. It's a call to obey God. To imitate Jesus for giving up of yourself for the good of other people.

24:46And the word daily shows us it's not occasional. The specific situations change, but the sacrificial call does not. It persists throughout our lives. Now, finally, he says, follow me. Following his instructions, following his commands. He can't be your savior if you have no interest in doing what he says. But following him also means devotion. He doesn't want people following him, doing what he says, but bitter about it, hating him the whole time. He wants your heart, and he earns your heart through loving you first and better than you will ever love him. And we also follow Jesus by adopting his posture, by doing it how he did it, by doing what he says to do the way that he did it. And that's really what this call is all about, following Jesus, looking like Jesus. Now, why does Jesus take us down this path? I mean, he's the one who had to suffer and die for sin. Why can't it just be instant gratification for us? We put our faith in him, we trust in him, and we immediately get all that he's promised. Just like that. Why can't it work like that? He's not a genie. Yeah, I mean, for one thing, I think that this would entice us to treasure the blessings, the stuff that we get from him more than him himself. But more importantly, this path of discipleship is how we are made to look like Jesus. His mission was fulfilled by denying himself, by taking up his cross through suffering and dying. Everything that he said here that we should do, he did it first, and he did it better, and he did it completely. The atoning sacrifice

26:45was his alone, but we follow his pattern. It makes us resemble our Savior, look like him. He's not waving a magic wand over us, making us look like him. He's calling us to a pattern of living that shapes and forms us into the image of our Savior. It makes us, it reminds us that we've been united to him in his death. And so it begs the question for all of us, all the time, how much does my life look like Jesus's?

27:21How much does my life reflect self-denial and sacrifice? If it does, don't resist it, my friends. Don't resist it. This is how, this is you working out your faith. You're being conformed to the image of the one who loved you before you loved him. It's a beautiful thing. It's hard, but it's glorious. And if your life doesn't look much like Jesus's, well, it's not too late to start. Make a start today. Put your trust in him. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Don't be afraid to walk the path that Jesus walked. And Jesus himself gives you an incentive here, a secret, an unexpected twist. This path, which seems to cost us everything, cost us nothing.

28:17It actually gives us everything. It's the very path that gives us life. Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Isn't that remarkable? That's about like the third twist that's happened when he's talking to the disciples. The instinct of self-preservation is actually what costs you everything. Surrendering your life to God is actually what saves it. It's true. Jesus said it, and then he proved it himself. Someone asked me a really big spiritual question this week. It's a great question. He said, the glory that we experience through faith, is it now or is it in the future? And I said, well, it's both, really. We experience some now, but there's a lot that's awaiting for us in the future.

29:33And that's what Jesus shows his disciples. This is how we're going to close here. The glorious future. How will the story end? How will the story end for Jesus and how will the story end for you if your faith is in him? So it's been a few days, eight days. Jesus takes his innermost circle up on a mountain and something remarkable happens. The appearance of his face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. It's been a while since I've been to the movies, but when you go see a movie in a theater, at least what used to happen is they show you coming attractions, right? Movies that would be released soon. They've lost a little bit of their sparkle because you probably have seen the coming attractions on your computer before you got to the movie theater. But back in the day, before internet, before YouTube, that would be the first place that you would get a sneak preview of a movie that you heard about. I can remember theaters that got more hype for the coming attractions of some huge movie that we were all waiting for than the movie itself that actually played later. Anybody remember that? You would see it like, what? They're going to release a new one of those movies? And that's what happens here. That's exactly what happens here. The change in Jesus's appearance, it's like the coming attractions, the sneak peek of his exultant glory, the glory that he would have when he was victorious over death, when he would rise again. Peter and James and John were witnessing his future, and it was like nothing they had ever seen. The glory is the future for Jesus.

31:23It comes only through his suffering, the completion of his mission. And that glory is something that he shares. He shares. He shares it with us. It's the future for all those who belong to him in repentance and faith. Look at Colossians 3, 4. It says this, when Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. That glory is for you. This is a promise. Just as his suffering leads to glory, our suffering leads to glory. This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Hallelujah. Our resemblance to him will someday be complete.

32:16We will still be us, but we will resemble our Savior in a full and complete way. Peter, James, and John saw the coming glory of Jesus. They didn't want it to end. Pastor, it's good that we're here. Let's build some tents. But they heard a message. This is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him. This is the same thing that we should pay attention to today. Listen to Jesus because he took up his cross first for our sake. Listen to Jesus because losing our life for his sake saves it. And we can listen because he walks with us. The path of suffering that leads to glory, he walks it with us. He is right there by our side. We are never alone. Listen to him now and hear him say this. Fear not, for I've redeemed you.

33:24I've called you by name, and you're mine. Pray with me. Jesus, these are hard words in this passage, hard words that you gave your disciples. And yet, Lord, we know that they're for our good, even if we don't always understand. And we know that we can trust you because you went ahead of us. You went ahead of us into suffering. And you went ahead of us into glory.

34:05Will you give us strength, please, to respond to you? If there's anyone here who's considering that question of who do you say that I am, Lord, make today the day that they respond. That they agree with Peter and say you are the Christ of God. And Lord, help everyone who has responded to you. Listen to you.

34:32And by the strength that you give us through the Spirit, help us to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow you. Because losing our life for your sake is what saves it. Jesus, we love you. We trust you. And we want to follow you. We pray this in your name.