The Church's Confession

Makes me want to answer the question literally. Have you looked for a steeple on a building? What you want to do is find one of those buildings with a steeple or cross or maybe just one that has church in the sign so that you know that's a church. But that's not actually what they're saying. There's plenty of buildings. They know where they can find a church, a building that has church on it. What they're really saying is this. We haven't quite yet found what we're looking for in a church. So what they're saying is we've gone, we're looking at these other different bodies of believers, and we haven't yet found what we're looking for in a church. And really, this should lead us to ask, what determines and defines a church? Because that's what we should be looking for in a church. What is it about a people gathered that makes them a church, and how do you identify it? What we should be asking ourselves is how do you identify those things from God's word? What does Christ say about his church? And then how do you identify those things when you're looking at a people? Because quite frankly, there are a lot of buildings that have church on the sign and even Jesus, but that doesn't necessarily make the people gathered within that building a church. This morning, we're turning to Matthew 16, as you just heard read. And this is the first time of only two times, we know of Jesus actually mentioning the word church. Now obviously there's a lot of teaching on the church, but here we have a specific declaration about the church, the first one of two, the other one is in Matthew 18. And so I want us to think about ten truths about the church, and there's a handout, if you don't have it, they're in the back foyer. And I want us to walk through this because we're about to start the book of Acts. And we were gonna do another series, but as I prayed and thought about where we are as a church, where we're going, especially studying the book of Acts, I thought, let's see what Jesus said. Let's go back and consider what Jesus said about the church before seeing the history of the church. So it's a fairly ambitious text and a sermon in the sense that I've got three points that I'm gonna try to trace the argument of Jesus in. That's the church's confession, the church's mindset, and the church's call. But there's going to be these ten declarations that I believe we can glean from the text on the church. So first, the church's confession. Jesus comes to the district of Caesarea Philippi and he asks his disciples. Now notice it's in the plural. The question's in the plural. Who do people say that I am? He's asking them together. And they answer. They answer. There's some that say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others say Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And I notice what Jesus does here in verse 15. He wants to know exactly what y'all say, the disciples. Who do you guys, my disciples, say that I am? In verse 16, we see Simon Peter being, Simon Peter, always the first one to speak. I don't know what that would be like. Son of Peter, he usually is the first one to speak, and he's oftentimes speaking on behalf of the apostles. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus has pressed in on the most important question, and Peter makes this grand declaration. Two parts. You are the Christ. You are the Son of the Living God. Now, this is a good Jewish boy. And what he's saying here is profound because of who he is. The Israelites know because they've been given the oracles of God, they've been given all the Old Testament, they knew they should be looking for a promised Savior. And we would recognize that promised Savior because He's been anointed by the Holy Spirit to heal the sick, to forgive sins, to be the Savior. That's what it means to be the Christ, to be the anointed one. to bring about the fulfillment of God's plan. Here, Peter is saying, you are the one we've been waiting on all this time. The second one's even more bold. The son of a living God. There's only one God. There is only one God. If there's any truth sacred to the Old Testament Israelite faith, there is only one God. And Peter, while being true to that Old Testament faith, one God, he's saying that one God is Father and Son. And while we could flesh that out more, we just want to recognize that this is an amazing proclamation. This is a confession of faith that's declaring that the one God is Father and Son. And notice what Jesus says in response. Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, that my Father, who is in heaven, Jesus affirms the answer and he makes it clear how Peter came to know this answer. First, it's a blessing. A blessing is a gift you don't deserve. A blessing is something you don't earn. It's not a right that you get. A blessing is a gift. And then notice where he says he gets it. This is a blessing. It did not come from flesh and blood. This was not a natural thing that you have discovered. But my Father, who is in heaven, has given it to you. This isn't a discovery that Peter figured out by studying all the data. This wasn't an introspection of all the things he's heard and learned that Peter finally figured it out on his own. No, it's a revelation that comes from heaven from the Father. This is what makes this confession so special. It's not based upon human wisdom. It's not based upon human knowledge. It's not based upon the IQ. It's based upon the fact that God let Peter know who Jesus Christ was. His Son. This is the kind of confession that one is granted and given by God. It's a confession of who Christ is and his true identity. It's a confession from above and that it's saving. And so as we think about the church, I want to say there's two things about the church we can say here. And the first is this. A church confesses that Jesus is the Christ. The one Savior for sinners. Jesus is the Christ means that he is the one who has been anointed by God to save sinners. Being the Christ means he's the one that all of history has been waiting upon. He's the Christ, the one Savior for sinners. The second thing is, a church confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. He's fully divine. No one really questions, well, few have questioned if he's truly human. You know, everybody likes Jesus who's a wise sage, a good teacher, a good moral example, but He's so much more than that. In this confession, we see that He's fully divine. He's the Savior. He's God Himself who's come down to save us from our sins. If you want to reflect upon those two truths, I'll point you to 1 John chapter 2, verse 22 and 23. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. You see there, John is making it very clear. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Son of the Father. You can't deny any aspect of that and be in fellowship with God. Now, as we look at this passage, I want to challenge us all. We should all be asking this question. If you're a Christian, if you're a non-Christian, you have to ask the question, who is Jesus? As Christians, we should be asking this question constantly because we need to be reminded constantly, He's the forgiver of our sins. He's our Savior. That is the demonstration of God's love for us. He is rich in grace. He's the one who once for all has set aside our sin. He's the one who frees our consciences. He's the one who frees us from the power of sin. We need to be asking constantly, who is Jesus? Because we need to know who He is so we can know what He's done for us. If you're not a Christian, I want to challenge you to ask this question. I want you to pursue this question in a way that you don't normally pursue an answer. Usually when we have a question, we want to gather data, and we want to think through it, we want to figure it out, but that's not how you come to a real understanding of who Jesus is. You're not going to be able to gather enough information to believe. What you can do is pray, God, I want to believe. Help my unbelief. Father, would you please, God, would you please tell me who Jesus is? I want to know who he is and if he's really your son. One of the most basic truths of Christianity is you do not gain enough understanding so that you will believe. You believe so that you can grow in your understanding. If you're not a Christian this morning, you pray for faith. Ask God to show you who he is. This morning, I want to tell you what Scripture says about Him. God is a Father and He's a Son and the Holy Spirit. There's one God. And that Father sent His Son to die on a cross. That Son was perfect. He was righteous. He had no sin. So that when that Father sent the Son to die on the cross, He crushed Him, not for His own sins, but for all the sins of those who believe in Him, so that we can be forgiven. Ask God to help you to see those beautiful truths, so that you can believe. Now, verse 18 takes the confession in an interesting direction. You're the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Blessed are you. The Father has told you these things. And now, Jesus is going to take it in a very interesting direction. I tell you, you are Peter. The word there is rock. You are rock, and on this rock I will build my church. There's a play on words that's very important for us to recognize, and this is a very important text in the history of the church. In case you're wondering, this text is where Roman Catholics will primarily go to declare that the Pope is the vicar of Christ, that Peter was given a unique authority among all other human beings, and that there's been a succession of Peters, the Pope, who have a unique authority in the church. Now, I do think Peter is primarily in focus here. I actually think there's an understandable interpretation in that Jesus is speaking specifically to Peter. He's talking to Peter, but it's a complete wrong application of it. I want to tell you what I think this passage means. I believe the best interpretation of this passage is that the rock that the church is built upon is a confessor confessing the right confession. It's not about Peter. It's about God giving a revelation, and then there's one individual among the many who's going to speak up, and the rock the church is built upon is a confessor who confesses the right confession. The simple truth is, right now, it's simply Peter. Jesus asked, who do you all say I am? And Peter's the first to speak. This passage is not about Peter. It's about God. declaring His truths to His people and letting them believe it and confess it, because these are amazing truths. We can look to Paul, and we can see that he says the church's foundation is the apostles and the prophets. Those who have been given the truths by God, the confessors who confess those truths, those truths which we now have in Scripture, that's the foundation. The church is made up of those confessing confessors. That's our third observation from the text about the church. The church is a people who are confessing. The church is made up of confessing confessors. It's not about one man, Peter. It's about God giving people a confession of faith to confess. The fourth truth is this. A church recognizes there are truths that must be believed and confessed. A church recognizes there are truths that must be believed and confessed. A church just doesn't gather around whatever they want to. A church gathers around the truths that have been revealed and they're confessed. We must believe what God has said and confess it to one another. Let's continue in our text. I tell you, you're the rock, and on this rock, on you, the confessing confessor, I'm going to build my church. In verse 19, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and I will bind on earth, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. I'm sorry, before we do that, I need to say something else. Jesus says this, On this rock, I will build my church." Notice there, Jesus declares, I will build my church. Whose church is it? It's Jesus Christ. I think it's funny how, and this is just an actual way of saying, you know, I'm coming from so-and-so's church, and they'll name the pastor. I remember I called a church once looking for a friend, and I thought, You know, I think somebody works there, is this Pastor So-and-So's church? No, sir, this is Jesus Christ's church, but he does work here. It was like that. And it was in a nice Georgian accent, too, so it was precious. But it's a wonderful reminder, it's Jesus Christ's church. And that's a special thing to remember as we think about who Jesus is and who we are. Jesus loves his church. It's his people that he died for. It's his people that he poured his blood out for. It's his people that he redeemed. We have to remember, no one loves his church more than Jesus Christ. But remember, it has nothing to do with how lovely that church is. He died for her while she was still a bunch of sinners. The church's loveliness has never been a reason to love her, from Christ or for us. Christ loves His church more than anybody else. And notice He's the one who builds it. He desires to gather people. He desires to grow that people. And sometimes growth, it hurts. We have to remember, as we're going to see in a moment, sometimes the best way to purify the church is through trials. But here we're called to trust Christ. He's building His church. Elders, I want to give us a special charge here. Christ is building His church. We're not. Christ is building His church. I believe we will do well if we simply try to keep up with what He is doing, rather than decide how we should do it. We will be busy enough if we're just simply trying to keep up with the way Christ is seeking to build His church, rather than coming along and saying, this is how we think He should build the church right now. It's funny, as I've tried to make plans for six years, it's always amazing as I have a certain plan and I want a certain outcome, and that certain outcome, rarely it ever happens, but the outcome that has happened is always better than I wanted. Because Christ does, with our efforts, what He wants to do, and He is always gracious and He is always powerful. Christ builds His church. We trust Him. We try to follow Him. Yes, we do have to make some plans and some purposes, but we sit back and we just wait and we say, God, Christ, how are you going to use this? The other thing we see here is he builds his church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against him. Gates are defensive structures. Christ is building his church and gates are defensive structures. What does this mean? We have to remember that the world is ruled by the evil one. He's enslaved many with deception. with temptation of sin, and what Christ is saying is that as the gospel, as that confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, as that gospel that Jesus is the Son of the living God, as that goes forward, the gates of hell cannot stop it from being effective. As the church confesses who Jesus is, Christ is going to bring victory through redeeming the dead and giving them new life. The whole book of Romans was about this. Remember, they, the church, are not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The church cannot be ashamed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, because that is the power that goes against those defensive gates and gives victory. Now that we've seen he builds his church, it's a victorious church. Verse 19, the keys of the kingdom. What are these keys? I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So if we ask what the keys are, well, they bind and they loose. What does that mean? We also see that they've been handed from Jesus to you, and Peter is in view here as the confessing confessor of Jesus Christ. So what are the keys? And I believe as we ask the question, what are the keys? How do they bind and loose? Let's just think about what they could be in the context. Jesus just asked, who do you say I am? Jesus then confirms that confession of that confessor. I believe Jesus, who has the keys naturally, just bound that confessing confessor. As Peter declares the truth from the Father that he revealed, Jesus binds him and then he gives him the keys to bind others. And this is the work of all the disciples. I believe the keys of the kingdom and the binding of the loosing are intimately connected, necessarily connected to hearing a confession of faith and affirming, that's binding, or hearing confession of faith, recognizing it's denying essential truths and loosing. Now Peter's the first to speak. And so Jesus is speaking to him, but I want to make it very clear, from Matthew 18, 18, we know Peter alone does not possess the keys. You can go there and study it later, because the church specifically is given, the word church is given the keys to bind and loose. Now this is important for us, church, because we are supposed to be gathered as a people confessing the right confession. The church has given the authority to hear a confession, to recognize it as a true confession, and then to affirm that confession. And the binding and loosing as it is on earth as it is in heaven, this doesn't mean we have a spigot of grace that we're giving out. It means we're listening for the words, the gracious words that someone can say, and saying, yes, God has given you that truth. The church has authority here. It's a very specific authority. Listen for a confession of faith so that you can affirm it. Church, this is a responsibility. This is part of your job description. And so I want to say, number five, a church cares about who is united to this body. A church cares about who is bound and knit and united to the body. They care if they're confessing Christ, And the reason is, when you're a church, the name of Christ is connected to the people gathered. A church cares about who is united to the body. That they're confessing Christ because His name is attached to the body as a whole. We have to care about who is confessing and how they're united. So church members, I have an application for you. It's a very specific application from this very specific text. Tonight at the members meeting, we're going to hear, Lord willing, four different confessions of faith. One of the most important things you can do is come to hear those confessions of faith because one, they're going to encourage you. You're going to hear about how God has saved different people in different ways at different times with the one and the same gospel of Jesus Christ. But more importantly, you can actually practice what Jesus is commanding right here. You hear that confession of faith. You're able to affirm it is a confession of faith that the Bible declares true. And you get to affirm it. You get to practice the keys of binding. Church, recognize that that is a weighty responsibility. Our voting in new members is not something we should be taking lightly. It's one of the most important things we do. as a church. It deserves our attention and our prayers. So that's a meaty passage because there's a lot of debated issues in that passage from the history of the church. But there I believe we see there's a confessing confessor, Christ affirms that confession, now it's bound, and now that confessing confessor and the other confessing confessors hear the confessions. Now let's go to verse 21 and 23 because we're going to learn more about the church. Here we see a church's mindset and Peter again is in the forefront and Peter is always the first to speak up. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised. Notice here that after the disciples get the first question right, who are you, he starts teaching them more. But Matthew makes it very clear, now he's going to start teaching them something that's going to be even harder, that Jesus Christ is the Christ, and he's going to suffer, he's going to be killed, he's going to rise. This was difficult truth as we see that Peter, verse 22, he takes him aside and began to rebuke him. Now, it's kind of odd here, right? Peter just said, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God, and then he rebukes him. Peter's an act first, think later kind of person. Peter rebukes him. No, Lord, far be it from you, this will never happen to you. This will never happen to you. And so Jesus turns and says to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." As we think about this passage, let's just go back and look at Jesus has to suffer, He has to be killed, and He will rise again. These are the three truths that are core to the gospel. Jesus came to suffer. Jesus came to die. Jesus came to rise again. He died for our sins, He conquered death, He conquered sin, He took the penalty of sin on Himself, and then He rose again to give new life. These are the truths that we as a church must affirm. The sixth truth I believe we can say about a church is that a church embraces that Christ suffers and dies for sinners and rises again to give them new life. These are truths that must be not only affirmed, but embraced. Now, Peter comes in to light, and it's helpful to remember, Peter's wrong oftentimes. He says, this can never happen to you. And even after Peter's rebuked, remember, Peter's the one disciple that he starts attacking the Roman officers as they're coming to get Jesus, so that this is fulfilled. Peter gets it wrong oftentimes, but he's always ready to repent. So verse 23a, or the first half of 23, Jesus turns to Peter. Get behind me, Satan. I believe in the words of Peter. Jesus is hearing the lies of Satan. This isn't the way the kingdom has to come, Jesus. Remember the temptation of Jesus in Matthew? Matthew 4. Matthew 3, rather. This isn't the way it has to happen. He hears the temptation and the lies of Satan. So he says, get behind me. You're a hindrance to me. This is a strong rebuke. It's harsh. But notice that the rebuke comes with a correction. A good rebuke always lets someone have a clear path to repent. You're not setting your mind on the things of God. That's the problem. You're setting your mind on the things of man. This is what is wrong with Peter. So what does that mean? He's not thinking God's thoughts after him. God just revealed to him that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He's the Christ. What he's saying must be true. He's not letting that change every other thought. This is the real point, I believe, of what this pastor is getting to. Peter has not yet realized that the mysteries of the glory and goodness of God are hidden in suffering. He has not yet understood, realized, and embraced that the mysteries of God's glory and goodness are hidden in his suffering. He's thinking like a natural man. He's thinking like we naturally think. If God really likes me right now and he approves of me, then my life should feel better the way I think it should feel better. I should be more relaxed. I should have more comfort. I should have more casual time. Everything that I like should simply be better. And that's what God's blessing looks like. But Jesus is saying that's how you think of a natural man. Jesus thinks that the Messiah, when he comes, he needs to do the things that he wants done. That's the way a natural man thinks. But Jesus is saying, no, that as Scripture always teaches, the mysteries of God's goodness and glory, they're hidden in suffering. As we've already thought about the Roman Catholics and how we differ from them in the interpretation, this is actually one of the most important differences of the Reformation. The Roman Catholics taught God's blessings make your life tangibly better. The equation is obedience equals blessing. If you obey, your life is happier in this world. Luther said that's not true. Luther said, God's blessing comes by way of suffering that purifies your worship. Suffering brings about righteousness. Christ's suffering brings about us being declared righteous. Our suffering brings about a purifying in our righteousness. See, God's way is to show Himself to be great in the midst of suffering. God's way is to show His sovereign, He is sovereign over suffering and death. God's way is to use suffering for our good. God's way is to strip us of everything that we love in the wrong way so that we love Him more purely. And that oftentimes comes through suffering. Peter, one of the confessing confessors, has to learn this the hard way. He learns it through suffering. So the seventh truth, the church sees the role of suffering and teaches to trust God in suffering because it is one of the most effective tools to show us his glory. The church sees the role of suffering and teaches to trust God in suffering because it is one of the most effective tools to show us his glory. I want to pause here for a moment. I want to encourage you with the life of Peter. Peter, who is at the forefront of all these conversations so far, he fails miserably. He gets it right, and then he gets it wrong. He denies Christ at the most important moment of Christ's suffering. Even after the resurrection, and after the ascension, and after the Holy Spirit comes, Peter still has to be corrected by Paul. The Christian life isn't about becoming a Christian and then just being a good person. Christians fail. Christians get it wrong. And this is the beauty of it. God is patient and faithful and gracious to us all the time. Our failure, Peter's failure, does not cause his status before God to change in any way. God is faithful to him. We see in Peter someone who's willing to repent, willing to persevere towards the prize of Christ. For those who are in suffering, that's when Satan wants to make you question, is God really good? But when we're in the midst of a trial, that's when Satan starts putting that question in your mind. Is God really good? Think about your life right now. Can God really be good? Whenever that happens, you have to think about the cross. You have to think about the worst thing that has ever happened in human history, and it simultaneously was the greatest thing to ever happen to humans. This is the first thing that humans have ever done. It's the best thing that's ever happened to humans. It's the worst thing because we murdered God. Suffering took place on the cross like suffering's ever been experienced by any other human being, because not only humans tried to murder God, But the Father Himself poured out all the wrath of all our sin on His own perfectly innocent and righteous Son. It's the worst thing to happen in human history. But it's the best thing to ever happen to us. Because God died to save those who murdered Him. Those who were watching that day, a man beaten, mocked, spat upon, and hung on a cross, that would not have been obvious to them. They would have simply seen a man suffering greatly, crying out for help. And that's where the beauty of it is. God's goodness. It's a mystery in the midst of the suffering. For those who are given eyes to see the gospel, we have to look to the cross and see that He used suffering for our good. He uses our suffering for our good. As we look to the cross, we can see He did not withhold His own Son for us. As the author Paul in Romans challenges us, if He did not spare His own Son, what good thing would He ever withhold from you? A quote from Spurgeon has become the plaque in our home. If there was any other condition better for you than the one which you are, Divine love would have put you there. Wherever you are, whatever kind of suffering you have, if there was a better condition, the divine love that has been demonstrated to you on the cross of Jesus Christ would put you there. When we wrestle with if God is good, we have to look to the cross. Finally, our third point, the church's call. We finally come to some commands. We love commands. We don't know what to do. So here's what Jesus says to do. We see the confession. Jesus is the Christ. He is the Son of the living God. We see the confession. He suffered. He died. He rose again. Now, what does it mean to be a disciple? Well, this is Discipleship 101. This is the most basic teaching on discipleship. One, deny yourself. Two, take up your cross. Three, Follow me. Let him deny himself, let him take up his cross, and follow me. Let's look at these in order. First, deny. This one is fairly counterintuitive at times. Because we also want to ask, what do I deny myself of? Do I want to take away a simple pleasure like some? I'll deny myself the comfort of a pillow at night. that literally has been a model of how people have applied this passage. And it's fine if you want to deny yourself a pillow. I'm not. I believe the heart of this is actually saying that there are inclinations of our hearts that are opposed to God. There are feelings that we call gut feelings. Things that seem and feel so natural to us as sinners that have to be denied because God's Word says they're wrong. The temptation to lust. The temptation to lie. The temptation to defend yourself and say, no, I'm going to win this argument. The temptation for sensual pleasure. The temptation to say, I deserve better. The temptation to gossip or complain or to grumble against God. Those things sometimes feel so compelling, it's hard to say no. But God says, in His Word, deny yourself. And here's the good news, Christian. He not only says, deny yourself, he says, I'm going to give you the grace so that you can deny yourself. A faithful, mature disciple will deny their inclination towards sin. We are all supposed to be growing in our denial of sin. And this gets us to our eighth observation about a church. A church is made up of disciples who deny ungodliness and repent of worldliness. A church is not supposed to be worldly. We deny ungodliness and repent of worldliness. The second command for a disciple, take up your cross. This one has been, I think, misunderstood oftentimes because there's people here that have a cross around their neck or maybe tattooed or on your shirt. The cross has become a popular symbol that people embrace and like. In this day, the cross is disgusting. The cross is one of the greatest symbols of shame. The cross was the place where the worst kind of criminals were put to death. It was shame and suffering for the worst kind of people. And Jesus is saying, take up your cross. And this has to be connected to what Christ does on the cross. I believe this isn't just taking up any kind of thing that you do that's difficult. I believe the specific way that we take up our cross is to endure the suffering that comes because we follow and proclaim Jesus Christ. Taking up your cross is enduring and persevering through the suffering that we receive for the specific cause of Christ. So a way this doesn't, I think, apply. If you get a flat tire on the way to lunch today, that's not taking up your cross. That's just a bad event that's very frustrating and annoying. If you share the gospel with your co-workers and they complain about you and you get fired, that's suffering for the sake of Christ. That's taking up your cross. We have to realize that most Christians throughout the history of the world have suffered for their faith. We realize we live in a very blessed age that may be coming to an end. I don't know. But the suffering is sometimes physical, sometimes emotional. Being mocked, undermined, questioned, and attacked because of what we're doing for Christ. I want to encourage you. There's a way you can prepare yourself to persevere through suffering, to be able to take up your cross, and that's by living a sacrificial life now. Learning to sacrifice for the cause of Christ. With your money, with your time, your energy, and your priorities. We can live the good life, or we can spend all of our life for the purposes of Christ. And so we see the ninth truth about a church. A church perseveres through persecution and suffering for the name of Christ. A church perseveres through persecution and suffering for the name of Christ. The third thing, follow me. Follow me. This means we take our orders from Jesus. What he says is true. What He says, we will do. We follow His example. We seek to lead by following Him. He came to be a servant to all. He came to pour out His life for all. We seek to follow Him by pouring out His life for us. To follow Him says, He is now my Master. He's not just a good teacher that we're going to learn from a little bit. No, He's King. He's the Lord. So a church obeys the commands of Christ. A church obeys the commands of Christ. There aren't optional commands. Let's look at the rest of this passage. Notice that it's a constant contrast. If you want to save your life, you're going to lose it. If you want to lose your life, for my sake, you'll find it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul? There's a choice being presented here. You can deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Christ, and you can gain eternal life. You can live your life the way you want to live, gaining all the different prestige and power and enjoyment in this life, and you're going to lose it. There's two ways to live here, and it has eternal consequences. Look at verse 27. For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then repay each person according to what he has done." He's going to repay each person according to what he has done. Some will say, well, I prayed a prayer. God? Okay, well, you should be praying a prayer, and you should be confessing the right things, but a right confession leads you to be a disciple who denies yourself, takes up your cross, and follows me. Praying a simple prayer is not the way you get into heaven. It's by saying, I am a sinner, and I need to turn my way by the grace of God to Christ, relying upon His grace, and now denying myself, following Him. That's what this passage teaches, what a disciple is. So there's being repaid for those who deny Christ, who never lived for Christ. And that payment is the wrath of God on you forever. Unless you repent, believe in Jesus Christ, deny yourself and follow Him. Christian, I want you to see that He will repay us according to what we have done. There is a judgment for Christians. we will give an account. We are supposed to be living in such a way that we're longing to hear when we stand before Christ, well done, good and faithful servant. We're supposed to be living our life in a way that's denying and following so that when Christ sees us, He says, you made much of me with all that I gave you. The church has this heavenly reward always before it. Always the goal. This is what we're longing for. So as we look back and conclude, a church must strive to be obedient to Christ in all that He teaches. We confess who He is. He's the Son of God, the Christ. We confess what He's done. He suffered for us. He died for us. And He rose again to give new life. We care about who we unite with in this confession. We know that God uses His sufferings to teach us His great love and His glory. We long and we strive to be disciples together, denying ungodliness, sacrificing and suffering for Christ and following him. Let us pray that we would be people with these commitments. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have sent your son, that he suffered for us. He died in our place. He rose again. And now we have new life in him. We have your Holy Spirit. To convict us of sin. To turn us to You. To give us the grace to fulfill these very, very hard demands. To deny ourselves. To see those sins that we need to deny. To see those commands that we need to obey. To see how we need to be bold. Not ashamed. To be bold in proclaiming that confession. That Jesus is the Christ. May we have confidence in Him to be a faithful church, living out these commands, claiming all these promises. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.