The Cost Jesus Never Hid
For the last year, I have had the opportunity to work in a new field for me. I started working in the marketing industry, and it is a very interesting world. In fact, I told everybody from the beginning that marketing is about a lot more than making posters. As I have found out, there is a lot that goes into it.
In communicating messages in the marketing world, our goal is to take a product or a service and make it look as good as we possibly can. We find ways to write what we call a headline, and the headline’s goal is to catch your attention and make you stop and think about what is being said. We look for a catchy phrase or something that is going to slow people down, and we write that headline. Then we put it at the top of an ad, and beneath it we put a description of how great the product or service is, how it is going to make your life so much better, and how it is going to fix all your problems. Then at the bottom of that ad, we have what is called a call to action. That is where we say, click here to get this wonderful thing we want you to have, or learn more, or buy tickets, or whatever the case may be.
You have these three pieces that make up every advertisement. Pay attention the next time you see an ad, because it is very interesting. Those are the general principles of marketing. You want to catch people’s attention, you want to convince them that what you have is the greatest thing there has ever been, and then you want to ask them to buy it. In all, marketing falls into those categories.
As I look at Jesus in His life, He did a great job of catching people’s attention. He did miracles. He taught lessons and preached sermons that made people stop and slow down and say, This man knows something. There is something different about Him. He was also great at giving calls to action. He said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. He said, Go with me. Do as I do. He gave plenty of instruction about how we were to follow Him and enjoy Him. He had the headline down. He had the call to action down.
Yet Jesus broke a lot of marketing rules when it came to explaining the product or service. In the marketing world, we want to make it look as good and as wonderful and as exciting as we possibly can. When Jesus talked about being His disciple, many times He actually scared people away. Someone would come to Jesus and say, I want to follow you. I want to be your disciple. I want to go where you go. He would answer, Just so you know, I do not have anywhere to lay my head. Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but I do not even have a home to sleep in at night. Others came to Him and asked, What must I do to inherit salvation? What must I do to be your disciple? He would say, Go and take all you have and sell it, and then come and follow me. Others wanted to follow Him, and He used a very well-known example. He said, Go take up your cross, an instrument of the greatest torture and death invented in the Roman Empire, and follow me.
Jesus would not have made it very long at my job, because when we are trying to convince people how great and how wonderful and how exciting everything is, Jesus was giving them the reality of what it would be like to follow Him.
Now do not get me wrong. He made it clear that if you follow Him, if you drink of Him, He is a fountain of eternal life. If you follow Him, He will pour His Spirit out upon you. You will know spiritual blessings that you cannot find anywhere else. He did promise wonderful things, but He did not try to hide the problems in the fine print. He did not cover up the cost.
Isn’t that interesting? You read a lot of advertisements and they tell you it is only this much, and then there is a little asterisk right next to that price. Then you get a magnifying glass and read that tiny print at the bottom and find out it is going to cost a whole lot more than you thought. Jesus puts the real price tag at the top of the page.
Here Jesus is telling His disciples some things they really do not want to hear, and if we are honest, we do not want to hear them either. We love passages like I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. We love the green pastures. We love the still waters. We read that valley of the shadow of death a little quicker than the rest of the passage. Yet as Jesus is talking to His disciples, He is coming to the end of His ministry. Things are about to come to a close in a very dramatic way, and He is letting His disciples know that things are about to cost.
Jesus Must Go to Jerusalem
Earlier in this chapter, Jesus had His disciples confess who He was. He asked, Who do you say that I am? Peter finally speaks up and says, We believe You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Son of God. You have come to rescue us. You have come to redeem us. You have come to establish us. He is declaring Jesus to be the Christ.
Jesus says, You are absolutely right. Then, right after that, verse 21 says, From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Jesus starts to show His disciples that what He is about to do is not sit upon a golden throne, not grab a sword and lead a conquest, not capture the Roman Empire by storm. He says, I am getting ready to go and suffer. I am getting ready to die. I am getting ready to give My life. Where I am going is going to be painful, it is going to cost Me, and it is going to be ugly.
That does not fit very well in a headline, does it?
I want you to notice something very important here, because if we are not careful, people in the world would be tempted to believe that Jesus’s death was an accident, that He just got things wrong with the wrong people, that He was not kind enough, or that He did not treat people well enough, or that it was all just some big misunderstanding. Yet notice what He says. From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go.
He must go.
Then it describes all the things He is getting ready to face. He is going to suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes. He is going to be killed. He is going to be raised again on the third day. He says that all of this must happen.
Why does He say it must happen? Because He is wanting them to understand that this is not some accident. This is not some misunderstanding. It is not that Jesus got something wrong. It is not that Jesus failed to win the crowds. In fact, He did everything right and still ended up crucified. How does that happen? It happens because this was all part of God’s plan for Jesus’s life.
He said, I must go and suffer at the hands of the elders. I must go and be killed. I must go.
Why must He go? Why must the perfect Son of God be killed and beaten and tortured and laid in a grave? Why must this happen? Because in His suffering and in His death, God was fulfilling a much higher purpose than the disciples could fully understand in that moment. In Jesus’s suffering and in His loss, He was bringing about a greater reward, a greater glory, and a greater plan that could not be accomplished any other way.
If Jesus had not suffered, if He had not done what He did, then men would be sent to hell justly for the sins they had committed. If a perfect Lamb was not slain, then men would have to pay the price for their own sins. Men would have to die, men would have to suffer, and men would spend the rest of eternity paying back the great sin debt that had been amassed throughout their lives. If Jesus had not gone, men would go to destruction.
Jesus knew that this was not something optional. It was not even an accident. It was a plan that God made before the foundation of the world to rescue and redeem a people for Himself.
As Hebrews tells us, He despised the shame. That means He thought nothing of it compared to what lay beyond it. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. The joy that was set before Him was the reality that in His suffering and in His death, and in all that He went through, He was going to bring many sons to glory. He was going to bring many people into faith and into eternal life, and He was going to bring rewards with Him that could not be purchased any other way.
Peter Rejects the Plan
In verses 22 through 23, Peter makes it clear that he is not satisfied with the plan. We need to realize that at this point the disciples are expecting an earthly kingdom to be established. They are looking at Jesus to be victorious against human armies and human kingdoms, and they are expecting Him to do something visible and immediate in this world.
When Jesus starts talking about dying, that blows up all the expectations they had for His plans.
Peter pulls Jesus aside. The text says he took Him, and that carries the idea of force. He grabs Jesus and pulls Him aside and says, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. In fact, the verse says he rebuked Him.
Can you imagine looking Jesus in the face and saying, You have this wrong?
Peter pulls Him aside and says, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
Jesus stops him right there. He turns and says unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan.
Now He is not saying Peter was demon possessed. He is not trying to insinuate anything like that. What He is saying is that the words coming out of Peter’s mouth are not heavenly words. They are not words founded on God’s plans and God’s purposes. They are man’s words. They are words that align with the devil’s mindset rather than God’s will.
Jesus says, My plan involves suffering, and it involves death.
Then Jesus looks at His disciples, and after putting Peter in his place, verse 24 says, Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
What It Means to Take Up the Cross
This is not rhetorical language thrown around lightly. Jesus is using these words specifically because they knew what a cross was, and they knew what a cross meant. The cross was a means of death that the Romans had perfected. They made it the most painful, the most horrible, and the most prolonged death they could devise. It was ugly. It was brutal. It was painful. People would hang there for hours and suffer until they finally lost their lives.
Jesus looks at His disciples and says, If you want to follow Me, if you want to be My disciple, then you have to go and take that cross, with everything that comes with it, and go where I go.
Where did Jesus go? He went to the cross. He suffered, and He died.
What is the implication for us as we hear that? Is Jesus saying that all of us literally have to go die on a cross in order to be His disciples? Thank God, the answer is no. There are some cults in the world that, every year around Easter, will hang themselves on crosses, not to the point of death, but so that they can feel a little of the pain Jesus felt. I thank God we do not have to do that to be saved by grace. He is not saying we have to die on a cross.
Here is something else that may bring you a little comfort. He is not even saying that every one of us must die physically to be His disciple. I thank God for the martyrs who have been willing to give their lives in service of Jesus Christ. I thank God for people who have loved the Lord so much that they were willing to lay down their lives for Him. Yet Jesus is not saying that every single one of us is going to be a martyr. There have been many wonderful and faithful Christians through the years who lived full lives and simply passed away in old age.
What Jesus is saying is that if we are going to be His disciples, the old person we used to be has to die, and we must be raised to new life in Jesus Christ, to be lived not for ourselves but for Him. We are to follow in His example of self-sacrifice so that we might partake in the rewards of everlasting, resurrected life.
He is saying, If you are going to be My disciple, you have to deny yourself. You have to die to self. You must give up the old person you used to be.
Baptism and the Death of the Old Self
The reason this ties in so perfectly with what we are doing today is that this is the picture baptism is actually showing us.
When we get baptized, it is more than a public profession of faith. It is more than going before a crowd and saying, I have decided to be a Christian. I have decided to get my name put on a church roll. When we get baptized, what we are testifying to ourselves, to God, and to the world is that we are taking the person we used to be outside of Christ and nailing that person to the cross with Christ.
Folks, that includes everything about us. That is a total loss, a total death, and a total sacrifice.
That means the things that used to matter so much to you get nailed to the cross. The habits, the hobbies, the interests, the passions, all of that gets nailed to the cross. A lot of times when we think about this, we think only about our sins going away. Yet He is talking about more than our sins. He is talking about every part of our being. If He is talking about death, then He means the person that was is gone.
Your passions, your interests, your loves, your desires, your plans, your purposes, and your vision for your life, all of that gets nailed to the cross with Christ. The person that now is, is a new creation, a new creature from top to bottom.
When you go down into that water, the person you were stays in the water, stays in the grave, and the person that comes up out of that water is now a new person, a person that has never been before, a person that has never had life before. Now Christ is your life. Now He is the one determining your plans. He is the one determining your desires, your passions, your loves, and your will.
When we take up our cross, we are effectively saying, My life will never be the same again.
Now let me make that plain. I already mentioned hobbies, interests, loves, and all of that, and I am not saying you will never do the things you did before you came to Christ. If you studied business, you may continue to be a businessperson. If you were a husband or a wife, you will continue to be a husband or a wife. If you have a talent that God has gifted you with, you may continue to use that talent.
What is the difference? It is not for you anymore. It is not to satisfy you. It is not to fulfill your dreams and your desires and your wishes. Those things that are unique about you are now being given to Christ to use the way He wants to use them, in whatever stage of life He brings you into.
Whether that is a stage of great blessing, where your bank account is overflowing and you have plenty of money and you are healthy and well and happy, if you are in that stage of life, praise God and use it for Him. If you are in a stage of suffering and pain and difficulty, then get on your knees and cry out to God and ask, How do You want to use this?
We take our lives and present them to God, as Romans says, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.
I will continue to be Emma’s husband, but the way I do that is not the same. I will continue to be father to these beautiful children, but the way I parent and the way I lead my family is not going to be the same. Folks, I was a musician long before I ever gave my life to Christ, but my music has not been the same.
When we are buried with Him in baptism, we are leaving ourselves behind, and we are saying to God and to everyone who watches, Lord, have all of me.
That is why we sang that song: Jesus, I my cross have taken, all to leave and follow Thee. Destitute, despised, forsaken. All these things we go through so that we might have Christ.
The Reward That Makes the Loss Worth It
Folks, I want you to understand that Jesus has called us to make great sacrifices with our lives, but not without a promise of great reward.
Look at verse 25: For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Jesus has called us, if we are going to be His disciples and follow Him, to follow Him in death, to follow Him in sacrifice of self, and to give up great things in this world.
Folks, I do not know how great your loss may be in this life for Christ. I do not know what friends you will have to say goodbye to. I do not know what sacrifices you are going to have to make. Yet I can tell you what reward you will receive, because Jesus does not ask us to lay down our lives without promising to raise us up again into a new and better life.
He is saying, You can walk away from Me and gain the entire world. You can be the richest person there is. You can have all the money, all the fame, all the friends, and everything you can imagine. Yet if you gain all of that and lose your soul, what have you profited?
You can forsake earthly suffering. You can forsake the pain of following Christ. Yet whatever you may gain in this world will not compare to the glory waiting in Christ if we are willing to lay this down and follow Him.
Paul said that the light, temporary afflictions of this world cannot compare to the glory that is going to be revealed in Him. I cannot find the words this morning to help you understand that what Christ is offering to us is far better than the loss we are going to experience for following Him.
He told us in another place that you may lose father and mother and friends and houses and lands. You may lose all of that in this world. Yet He said, I will give it back to you a hundredfold in the life to come.
Folks, the sweetness of following Christ, the reward of following Christ, and the blessings of following Christ are far better than anything you will lose in this life.
Lay Down Your Life and Follow Christ
So I beg you this morning, do not cling to your old life. Do not cling to your own passions. Do not cling to your own plans and your own desires. Do not cling to your own comfort and your own will and your own way. Do not cling to this broken and sin-cursed world. I beg you instead to lay down your life so that you can have the glorious life of Jesus Christ living in you.
Give up the temporary and wicked world, and follow Christ into life everlasting. Experience the rewards that come with following Him. It is a decision you will not regret.
If you are here this morning and you have never been born again through Jesus Christ, I want you to know that it is the greatest reward you will ever receive. Do not put it off another day.
Believer, if you are here this morning and you have already trusted in Christ, stop clinging to those old desires. Stop clinging to this world, trying to hold on to both sides with a weakening grip. Let go of this world. Let your old self be buried with Christ, and experience the full blessing of a committed and surrendered life to Jesus Christ, because He has promised that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
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