From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Matthew 16:13–20
How to find your self.
I. Difficulty
II. Distinction
III. Depth
I realize that “how to find your self” is a pretty ambitious theme for a 20-minute sermon. But this is not my life coaching, this is Jesus speaking. In this reading, he takes on this massively important topic of how to find your self. A little Greek lesson will help show what I mean. The New Testament was written in Greek, and in this reading there’s a Greek word that keeps coming up again and again. It’s the word ψυχη, and you can probably guess what it is just from how it sounds. We get our words psyche and psychology from ψυχη. It basically refers to that “you” you have that gives life and motion and desires to your body. Whatever you want to call that—life, soul, consciousness, self—that’s ψυχη.
This is an issue that is very close to us, right? Think about how many thousands of people probably moved to Chicago just this past summer to find themselves. We grew up learning about how the goal of life is to figure out who are and then to be true to our self. To achieve that feeling of “I know who I am as a person and I feel like I’m living out my potential.”
So Jesus says whoever wants to save their life (ψυχη) will lose it, but whoever loses their life (ψυχη) for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul (ψυχη)? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul (ψυχη)? Jesus says that to find your ψυχη, your self you have to stop trying to save your self. If you try and save your self, you will lose it. But to find it, to find yourself, you actually need to lose it for Jesus. What is Jesus saying? How does this help you find yourself?
It stands to reason that if Jesus is God, as he claimed to be in last week’s reading, he knows better than even you the best way to find yourself, the best way to live out your life. The creator knows how his creation works. And so Jesus is able to show you today how to find your self. In the first section of our reading, we’ll see the difficulty of finding your self. Then, thankfully, Jesus shows us the distinction that helps you do so. And finally, we’ll see the depth of his love that, more than anything else, makes up the core of your self.
I. Difficulty
Peter and Jesus have some difficulty in this exchange. Peter gets angry and Jesus, Jesus then turns on Peter. Let’s understand why the tempers flared.
This reading follows immediately after last week’s reading. And last week’s reading was the first time anyone ever said that Jesus was the Messiah out loud. The disciples and Peter had been with Jesus and God revealed to them his identity, that he was God, and his mission, to be the Messiah: the Savior.
And once the disciples knew this, from that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter hates this idea: Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you! We look at Peter’s objection and wonder why he got so angry with Jesus. Didn’t he just say that Jesus is the Messiah? Didn’t he know that the Messiah’s whole job was to suffer and die?
No. He didn’t. In the Old Testament, the Messiah was prophesied about for years and years, he was supposed to overthrow all of Israel’s enemies and unite the rest of the world to them. When the disciples pictured the Messiah, they pictured a strong leader, a genius warlord, a just ruler who would reign with power, sitting on the ancient throne of Israel’s greatest king David.
But there was another figure who had been prophesied about as well: the Suffering Servant. A person who would be rejected by everyone, betrayed, beaten to a pulp, unjustly killed. The Jewish people before Jesus thought, naturally, that the Messiah and the Suffering Servant were two different people. They thought the Messiah would come and rule, and the Suffering Servant would come at another time and atone for people’s sins.
So the disciples had concluded, rightly, that Jesus is the Messiah. But then he says he must suffer and die. And Peter said: no, no, no! That’s not what the Messiah is supposed to do. On the surface, that’s where the anger came from. They thought they knew God’s plan, but they were actually dead wrong. And Jesus responds with righteous anger to Peter, saying Peter this plan of yours is a temptation for me. It is a temptation to use my divine power and take over and rule. Get behind me, Satan. I need to stay focused on God’s plan, the plan that will lead to not just victory and a peaceful kingdom for some; the plan that will make eternal salvation available to all.
And sometimes we find ourselves in Peter’s shoes. We think we know God’s plan for our lives. We have this whole idea about how God wants us to live out our lives to our highest potential, to find fulfilment for our self. We evaluate our selves. We take inventory of our talents, of our desires, of our personality. And then, over time, we get more and more clarity on what we want our future to look like. We look for a spouse who’s loving and fun, and who comes at the right time . We look for a job that lines up with our passion. We try and consume the entertainment that most interests us, and find friends who share the same interests.
And notice—what Peter wanted for Jesus was a good thing. Jesus eventually did assume the throne of David, did he not? Don’t we say in the apostle’s creed that Jesus “ascended into heaven and he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead?” Peter wanted Jesus to rule, and Jesus ruling is a good thing. The things that you want for your self are probably good things. You want a loving and godly spouse. You want a job that is fulfilling. You hopefully want to be a great person that other people love to be around.
But here’s the issue that lies under the surface: Satan is really, really good at getting you to take those human concerns, your vision of what you want your self to be, and saying this is the reason for your existence. This is God’s ultimate plan for you, is for you to search your desires and find yourself. He’s great at convincing you that God is your assistant. He makes you think that if you decide you want your self to be a certain way, that it’s now God’s job to go and make that happen. He made Peter dream about his future glory as the right hand man of the Messiah, and Peter was expecting to be on the path to his best life.
Jesus says to Peter: Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of humans. There are human concerns and concerns of God, and Peter’s earthly desires for power and glory took his mind off of God. And when he took his mind off of God, he limited his self to what he could make of it instead of what God could make him into. Yet, we can sympathize with Peter. Because it was surely difficult for him to make the distinction, as it is for us!
II. Distinction
How can we know? How can we know that we’re following God’s concerns for us, and not just our own goals? Said another way: if chasing after something good would actually derail God’s purpose for our selves, how do we know which good things to chase and which good things to reject?
Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Jesus says to take up your cross. He does not say to go out and find a cross. He does not say to go out of your way to make life harder on yourself in his name.
Have you heard of Simon Stylites? He was a Christian who lived in the 400s AD. He wanted to get closer to God, and he thought that when Jesus told him to deny himself and take up his cross, that meant he had to get rid of any possible stimulus for sinful desires that he could. And so he went into the desert of modern-day Syria, set up a pillar, and lived on top of the pillar for 36 years. Before I
Jesus is not telling us to disengage with the world. He’s telling us to live our lives in the world, evaluating our talents and trying to determine the best ways to live. But, he’s also telling us that when we do this, when we live in the world as Christians, we will encounter crosses directly in our paths. And it will be very obvious that if we pick that cross up and carry it, we will lose a part of our self that we really might’ve been looking forward to enjoying. And Jesus says that when this happens, we need to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him.
These crosses: you’re either carrying one right now or there’s one right in front of you and you know you need to pick it up, but you’ve been avoiding it. So I’ll give a few examples of what they might be, but odds are, if you read the ten commandments, the summary of how Jesus wants us to live, you know better than anyone the crosses that are in your path. A few examples: the cross of forgiveness. Are you holding back from forgiving someone because it would change your view of yourself as the one with the social capital? Or the cross of sexual desires. God is perfectly clear sex is a gift given only to those who are married, and he’s perfectly clear that he’s guarded sex for your good. Are you indulging outside of marriage because that’s a part of who
Carrying crosses is incredibly difficult. It’s a death. Every time we do it, a part of who we envision our self to be dies. But it’s so difficult for a reason. Part of the reason we care so much about finding our self is that we have this idea that we only get one life, so we don’t want to waste it. This is why mid-life crises exist, right? They’re unfortunately a bit of a punchline but they shouldn’t be. Because this is a very real concern for many people who get to a certain point in life and start to fear they’ve wasted their life.
III. Depth
Jesus takes away that fear. And he uses his cross to do it. He tells us to take up our cross and follow him. Every time we do this, every time we forgive even if that means humbling ourselves; every time we surpress our sexual urges; every time we prioritize our relationship with God, the pain of the cross reminds us who we truly are.
That’s because our crosses remind us of his cross. Jesus was so determined to get to his cross, his real, wooden, splintery cross, that he was willing to yell down anyone who hinted that he should avoid it. He was willing to shout at Peter his beloved disciple. He was willing to go down and submit to scorn and mockery, to let the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers defeat him. He was willing because he knew that by denying his self the life he was capable of for a short time, he would win life so much greater: a life that could be lived with all his beloved people forever. With you—forever.
And as a result, his cross shows us that you never have to worry again about wasting your life. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. When we hold on to our cross, we cling to Jesus’ cross, and his cross wins us eternal life. Don’t ever think that you only have one chance at a good life. Don’t ever think that you’ve wasted your time. Don’t ever think that if your life doesn’t look like the spitting image of your plan, that you haven’t found your self and you’ve become a failure. You have eternal life ahead of you.
Yes, the crosses that are in your life will cause you tremendous pain. Yes, it will seem like so many other people who are not carrying their crosses are finding their selves more than you are. But you can know that your Creator, the one who knit your brain together, has placed the crosses right in front of you that will form you into who he desires you to be.
