Going Public

Well, amen and amen. If you've got your Bible this weekend at all of our campuses of the Summit Church, if you'll take them out and open them to Matthew 16.

Matthew chapter 16, if you have your Bibles. I think that the more technologically sophisticated that our society gets, the more that we crave anonymity. I am certainly like that. It annoys me when I go into a convenience store to buy batteries and they want to get my phone number and my email address first.

I'm like, I just want to buy some batteries. Anonymity leaves you with a lot more freedom and control. I know that a lot of us wish we had a fake social media account where we could post all the things that we really think. Some of you want to know who fake J.D. Greer is on Twitter, and I honestly wish that I knew. Because there are so many things that I would love to say that I feel like I just can't say because I'm a pastor.

There were so many times during the debate the other night, on Monday night, that I actually typed something out on Twitter and then deleted it because I thought, I just can't say that. Last I checked, fake J.D. has 16,000 followers, which means that at some point the fake version of me is going to have more followers than the real version of me, at which point I think I will have a personal crisis. It is true.

Anonymity certainly releases you from a lot of accountability. It kind of reminds me of a lady I heard about who came late to the church service. And so she asked the usher, she said, I know I'm late, but I'd really like to sit on the front row. And the usher said, ma'am, I'm happy to do that for you, but I got to tell you, our pastor is super boring.

And there's a real good chance he's going to put you to sleep. And then right there in the front row, that might be embarrassing to you, and so I just don't think you want to do that. And this little old lady looks up at this usher and says, young man, do you know who I am? And the usher said, no ma'am, I don't. And she said, I'm the pastor's mother. The man kind of drops his head in embarrassment, and after a second he looks at her and says, ma'am, do you know who I am? And she said, no. He said, thank God.

And he walked off. So anonymity certainly releases you from certain kinds of accountability, and so it's appealing to us. But I want to show you from Matthew 16 why it was that Jesus never let people remain anonymous in regards to him. As you're going to see in this passage, Jesus forced acknowledgement, usually public acknowledgement. And the most important form of public acknowledgement is baptism. And so this weekend we're going to give you a chance to apply this message in this way if you never have before.

Last weekend we had 147 people that came forward to be publicly baptized as a profession of their faith. All right? No, no, no.

Stop, stop, stop, stop. Okay, that was like a third of you, and I'm going to give you a chance. We're just going to rewind that and do it again. I know the two-thirds of you are going to be excited about it too, all right? Last weekend we had 147 people that came forward to be baptized.

Much better. And so at the end of our service today, we're going to offer you, again, that chance to do that. If you never have, to go public with your faith, to own it, to confess Jesus through baptism if you've never done that.

As always, I tell you, we'll have everything that you need, towels, change of clothes. You may not have come prepared this morning for this, but we at whatever campus you're at at the Summit Church, we are prepared for you. Matthew chapter 16, if you've got your Bible, look at verse 13, and let's walk through this story together. When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am?

Who do people say the Son of Man is? Now, a little background here that may help this story kind of pop in some color. Caesarea Philippi was a Roman city that the Romans had built within the borders of Israel, up on a hill overlooking the entire Jordan Valley. I've actually been there. It's a beautiful spot.

It's right by a natural spring. And one of the main features of it is this huge rock face wall where the Romans had carved into the rock temple after temple after temple to God after God after God. Caesarea Philippi, this rock face, was basically a strip mall for the gods. Well, the newest temple that they had built right around the time of Jesus had been built for Caesar, who was now referring to himself as the Son of God and the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. That was literally inscribed on the new temple that had been built at Caesarea Philippi. By this point in Jesus's life, we know that a lot of people are starting to form opinions about him, and everybody's kind of talking about him, and so who do you think he is? And so Jesus takes his disciples there to this big rock face where all these temples are carved, all these gods, and he stands right in front of that rock face, and he says, who do people say that I am? Verse 34, they replied, some say that you're John the Baptist. They replied, some say you're John the Baptist. John the Baptist has just been executed, and they thought maybe you've been reincarnated. Some say you're still John the Baptist, others say you're Elijah. And still others say you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Verse 15, but what about you?

He asked. Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you're the Messiah. You're the Son of the living God. Verse 17, Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood. It was revealed by my Father in heaven. Interesting, in Mark, the Gospel of Mark's account of this story, which our small groups are studying Mark's version of it. We're in Matthew's. This story occurs right after Jesus heals a man of blindness, and what Mark is showing you is that this power to heal physical blindness is really symbolic of a power to heal spiritual blindness, and that what Jesus is doing is giving people spiritual sight, because spiritual sight is being able to see the truth with clarity about who Jesus really is.

And it's not something you just figure out as a human being because you're smart. It's something that the Father reveals to you. Verse 18, and I tell you that you are Peter. In Greek, that's the word petros. You are petros, and on this petra, which is a Greek word for rock, on this petra, I'll build my church.

It's a play on words. Peter, Jesus is standing right here in front of this big rock accessory of Philippi, and so he's making this statement in contrast to all these pagan temples that are carved into the rock. On this rock, Peter, on this one, not on these, on this one, I'm going to build my church.

Now, there's a little theological controversy surrounding that verse. When Jesus says, upon this rock, I will build my church, the question is, is he referring to Peter, or is he referring to the confession of faith that Peter just made? Which one is the rock on which Jesus is going to build the church? Is it Peter, or is it on the confession of faith?

And the answer is, it's both. The confessing Peter is the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Listen, this is a prediction, a prophecy, that through the apostles, Peter, the chief among them, Jesus would write the Bible, which is the record of their confession of faith, and on that Bible, the record of their confessions of faith in Jesus, God is going to build his church. And the gates of Hades, the Greek word for hell, will not overcome it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. What that means is that they're going to be his representatives, accurately recording the way that people can find salvation. When Jesus says, whatever you loose on earth is going to be loosed in heaven, what he's not saying is, hey guys, from here on out, I'm going to let you make the decisions about who goes to heaven. I'll just leave that judgment to you.

No, of course not. That would contradict too many other things the Bible says in different places. It simply means that they are going to lay out, as Jesus' representatives, the boundaries of the faith. And the way that they lay out the particulars of who goes to heaven will be an accurate reflection of what Jesus thinks. It is true, Jesus did not leave a Bible. When he left, there was no Bible New Testament that existed. But he left a group of apostles whom he had authorized to write one. And he is here promising that the Bible that they write will be accurate and that what the apostles explained to us about the way of salvation is what Jesus really thinks too.

Does that make sense? The reason I point all that out is because I meet people all the time who are like, you know, I think I'm okay with Jesus, but I just can't accept the Bible. Jesus here told us to accept the Bible, so you can't really be okay with him if you don't accept the book that he authorized. One more thing there in those verses. On this rock I'll build my church and the gates of Hades, which I told you is the Greek word for hell, will not overcome it. This place, Caesarea Philippi, had been the very place where in the northern kingdom of Israel they built this gigantic altar to Baal. Now, this was before it was called Caesarea Philippi. It used to be this big altar to Baal, and Baal was the god of the underworld. So this literally for them was the place where Baal, you know, the demons, came out, and so it was literally the gates of hell. Jesus was saying that all of the idolatrous confusion coming out of hell itself will not be able to withstand the apostles' testimony about Jesus. Then we have a really strange verse. Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anybody that he was the Messiah.

Now, why would he do that? Well, you see, for the Jews, Messiah was as much a political title as a spiritual one, even more so, in fact, because everybody assumed in that day that the Messiah would come as a warrior to throw off the power of Rome. Jesus knew that once it got out that he was claiming to be the Messiah, it was on. Right? At that point, it was either revolution or execution.

There was no middle ground. Because to claim that you're a king in a world that already has a king, especially an insecure king like Caesar, was treason. It's like walking into the Vatican and claiming that you're the new pope. Jesus is not ready to die yet, so he didn't want them out there claiming that because what he means by Messiah is not what they mean. What Peter means by Messiah and what Jesus means by Messiah in this place are two different things. So, verse 21, from that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples what he meant by Messiah, 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, that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Verse 22, another great verse.

At this point, Peter takes the Messiah and begins to rebuke him. Every week after the first service I preach here, I preach five live on the weekend. And after the first one, I have a group of people that meet with me backstage after they sat through the first sermon, and they just rip it apart.

They point out things that I said poorly, factual mistakes I made, jokes that I made that they think were either lame or inappropriate. And so by the time I get up for the second service, it's a fundamentally different sermon. All I'm going to say here at this place is it's a bold move to give that kind of sermon critique to Jesus. But it's exactly what Peter does, right? And he's like, Jesus, I don't really feel like you know what you're talking about.

I'm going to have to instruct you on a few things. Head like a rock. Probably not what Jesus meant when he called him the Rock, but still applies, I think. Never, Lord, he said, never.

This will never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. Talk about a spiritual high followed by a spiritual low. I mean, can you imagine Peter talking to his wife at dinner that night?

How was work today? Well, Jesus told me I'd be the anchor of his new church, and then that I reminded him of Satan. By the way, one of the reasons we know the Bible is authentic is that it records encounters like this one. Peter would one day lead the church, this little struggling church. Peter would be the leader, and here in their founding documents, they include a story where Jesus calls him Satan.

I mean, be honest. If you were making up stories to gain support for your religious movement, is this the kind of thing that you would make up? I mean, just imagine if you were trying to get somebody skeptical about our church to come to church. Are you going to tell them like, hey, you should come to our church.

Our pastor flunked out a seminary for cheating, and his professor referred to him once as Satan. No, you wouldn't say that. They put this story in there because it was true, not because it was a cleverly devised myth in order to help foster a movement. Jesus continues, verse 23, you were a stumbling block to me. You do not, Peter, have in mind the concerns of God. You've got in mind merely human concerns. Peter, you're thinking about victory. You're thinking about vengeance against the Romans.

You're thinking about prosperity on earth. I'm thinking about something different. I'm thinking about something much greater and more eternal than any of those things. And so verse 24, Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. All right, let's stop right there, and let's look at what we can learn about the importance of public confession from this. When I use the word confession, I'm referring to the public confession of what you believe. I'm not talking about confessing your sins. That's a different use of the word confession than what we're gonna use this morning, okay?

So publicly professing what we believe, the importance of it. Here we go, number one, we see from this passage that confession of truth is the rock upon which Jesus builds his church. Did you see how Jesus ties all of his power, all of it, to the confession of faith? When Peter makes this confession, verse 17, Jesus tells him, man, these things are not revealed to you by flesh and blood. Peter, you didn't just figure this out. Only the Spirit of God can give you this kind of vision. Only the Spirit of God can give you spiritual sight. I'm not up here trying to out-reason you into the faith. I'm up here depending on God to open up blind eyes to be able to see what God reveals about Jesus.

That's the only way. I think I've described it like this to you before. Imagine a guy who is up on top of a mountain, kind of a rock face, and he's clinically insane. He thinks he is a bird, and so he can fly. So you come up behind this guy, and you're like, hey, don't jump. You offer him a free choice.

You can jump if you want to, but you'll die, or you can come back down with me to safety. Now, he's insane. He thinks he's a bird. What's he going to choose freely every single time? He's going to choose to jump. No matter how you ask the question, he's going to jump. So to say that you had the ability, I don't know, maybe you had like a shot that you could give him that has an antidote in it that would restore his sanity, and let's say that you were able to stick him with a needle and restore his sanity to him, and then you ask him the exact same question, give him the same choice. Say it the exact same way. Now, with his sanity restored, what's he going to choose?

He's going to choose every single time to come back down. The difference is not in how eloquently you asked the question. It's not in how well you presented the problem. The difference is solely in the sanity of the heart that received it. Well, see, in the same way, I know that ultimately I'm not up here trying to out-reason you into faith as if I'm the smartest guy in the room, and if you can just see what I see, then everything's going to be okay. I depend on the Spirit of God to be able to open eyes, which is why I tie myself so closely to the Word of God.

Why? Because the Word of God is like that needle that restores sanity to people. The Word of God is the power of God that is taken by the Spirit of God, and it's used not to make dumb people smarter, but to make blind people see and dead people alive, right? So all of Jesus' power he puts on that confession. Furthermore, verse 18, Jesus says upon this rock, I'll build my church. Jesus takes the confession of faith, and he uses it as the conduit through which he unleashes his power in the church. One of the reasons we urge you to go through baptism is we know that public confession of faith becomes this great catalyst for the outpouring of God's power in your life. When you do it, the Spirit of God begins to work in your life in a new, more powerful way. It's like we saw when Jesus was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended from heaven on him like a dove. Now, it doesn't work exactly the same way for us, but that shows you that at your baptism, the Holy Spirit begins to flood and work through your life in a new and more powerful way. Jesus' uniting of his power to this confession of faith is also why we are careful as much as we can be here to not change the confession. You see, our temptation today, some at church, is to reshape our message according to what we think will work in our society, to make Christianity more appealing by altering it in those places where it's most offensive. Oh, people will never believe. People will never believe if you say there's only one way of salvation. Oh, no, no. You know, if Christianity doesn't change its views on sexuality, then it's going to die.

I hear that all the time. And you all, I'm telling you, that is so appealing. It is so appealing to alter the confession, but when you do that, you cut yourself off from the accompanying power of God. This confession was unpopular in those days, too. I mean, think about where Jesus was standing. He was standing in front of a gigantic monument to Roman pluralism. Rome, in the empire, Rome said, you can worship whatever god you want to worship. In fact, if our god, your god, isn't represented up here, you can just worship a new god, make up your own god if you want.

The one thing you can't do is you can't say that your god is the only god. And you've got to worship God under the rubric of this emblem of Caesar being the king of kings and lord of lords. In fact, church history, toward the end of the first century, one of the emperors, one of the Roman emperors, asked the Christian leaders, they said, we would like to put a statue of Jesus in the pantheon. Pantheon was the place where they kept the statues of all the Roman gods. Now, what do you think the disciples did?

Do you think they were like, are you kidding me? I mean, here we are, a little backwoods movement, a bunch of fishermen, and now we're being invited to put a statue in the pantheon? Look how far we've come. We've got a statue in Congress now. Isn't that amazing?

No. They were like, if you put a statue of Jesus in there, we're going to tear it down, because we're not putting him as one among many of the gods, and we're certainly not putting him in a place that has a symbol on it that says, Caesar is the king of kings and the lord of lords. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He's the son of the living God.

The disciples would not change it, even though it was wildly unpopular, because they knew that if they changed that confession, they would lose the power of God. Now, I've described it before, I think, to you, another way like this. Imagine you've got a high school guy who, you know, has got his eye on some girl, and he works up all of his courage to go talk to her one day at school, and he goes up to her and says, hey, would you like to go out? Right? And he's thinking. She's never going to say yes in 100 years, but to his utter surprise, she says, that sounds great. So he's not prepared for what's next. He hasn't thought about what's next.

He was just bracing himself to be shot down. So he's like, well, why don't you give me your phone number, and I'll figure out what I'm inviting you to. And she says, all right, that's great.

You got something to write with, and he doesn't. So he's like, just tell it to me, and I'll remember it. So she's like, okay, my number is 999, I mean, excuse me, 919-555-1239. And he's like, 555-1239. I'm never going to remember the nine. I'm going to get confused on the nine. I tell you what, why don't we make it 555-1234? That's easy to remember. At which point, she says, you can call 555-1234 if you want to, but the person that answers on the other end of the line is not going to be me.

You're going to dial 919-555-1239. The disciples understood, yes, we can alter this to make it easier and more appealing. But what we will do when we alter it is we will lose contact with the presence of Jesus. In every culture, there is a temptation to compromise something in order to become more acceptable to the culture. In our day, maybe one of the biggest is to remove what Jesus teaches about sexuality.

Oh, just change that. And you won't be so hated in society. I always think about Revelation 2, where Jesus talks about a church that was faithful in every other way except they tolerated those who taught and practiced sexual immorality, and because of that, Jesus removed his presence from that church. People say, well, if you don't soften your stance on this, you're going to lose people. I'm always like, humbly speaking, I'd rather lose people than lose the presence of Jesus any day.

You can keep your CNN pundits. I'll take Jesus. When you confess faithfully, you gain the power of God. The power of God, the power that gives sight to the blind and heals the leper and makes the lame walk and raises the dead begins to flow in the church and in your life.

That's what we need, not a Christianity that reshapes itself to fit society and gains the approval of the Romans. We need a confession of faith that comes with it, the power and the healing, sight-giving power of the Almighty God, which leads me to number two. Number two, if we confess faithfully, we are unstoppable.

If we confess faithfully, we're unstoppable. See verse 18, on this rock I'll build my church and the gates of hell itself will not overcome it. People usually treat this verse like it promises that Jesus will protect us from all of Satan's vicious attacks on us. Oh, don't worry when the church is attacked because the gates of hell will not overcome you.

But this verse is about Satan's inability to keep us from plundering his kingdom, not his inability to plunder ours. Let me ask you, are gates an offensive weapon? Have you ever attacked somebody with a gate? Do you beat them over the head with a gate? No, gates are a defensive weapon.

Gates are designed to keep people out. Jesus is saying that when we confess faithfully, not only will he preserve and protect our church, he will enable us to advance God's kingdom into Satan's most well fortified strongholds. God has grown this church tremendously.

Why have we baptized 5,424 people in the last 14 years? Praise God for that. Are we satisfied?

A few of you are excited, but in our hearts we're all excited. Are we satisfied with that? Are we going to huddle up and say, okay God, now protect our son, our families. Oh God, the candidates this year for president are terrible and America's going to hell.

How are we ever going to survive? Jesus did not promise that he would enable us to survive a slow retreat in our culture. He promised us that if we be faithful in our confession, he would let us advance deeper and deeper in the enemy territory.

That reminds me of a true story. I heard about Abraham Lincoln who was meeting with his war council one day. And right in the middle of the civil war when one of the couriers comes in and whispers something to one of the generals and the general stands up and says, Mr. Lincoln, I am very pleased to be able to tell you that we have finally pushed the enemy out of our territory and back into his own.

Lincoln looks at all the other generals and he said, when will my generals learn that the whole country is our territory? Jesus is not content to simply be Lord of the church. He died to be Lord of the whole earth. There are still 6,400 unreached people groups in our world with little to no access to the gospel. There are parts of the triangle itself with no real credible witness to the gospel. We got a new generation of college students that comes in here every four years from all around the world that needs to be reached with who Jesus is. We got communities of refugees displaced around the globe. Many right here in Raleigh-Durham that need a gospel witness.

We got populations of prisoners, foster kids to be taken care of. So hear me say it very clearly, Summit Church. I confess that and I hope you would confess with me that Jesus is the Lord of the whole earth. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, not Caesar, not a Democrat, not a Republican. Salvation doesn't come in on the Republican platform or the Democrat platform.

It doesn't come in riding on Air Force One. It comes in as the Messiah, which is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I confess that just like He said, He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the one way of salvation for all people, the one name under heaven given among men, the only name ever given among men, whereby we must be saved and that whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved because there's no difference, like Paul says, between the Jew or the Greek or the black or the white, the rich or the poor, the Republican or the Democrat. The same Lord is Lord over all and richly bestows His blessings on all who call upon Him. There's only one kind of, there's only one race of human sinner and there's only one salvation and that's found in Jesus. He is not willing that any should perish, that He wants all to come to repentance. And I confess this because the Bible that Jesus authorized teaches it and I believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and that whether this confession is unpopular or not, I know that it comes with the power of God, which is the last thing that I ever want to lose. And summit because of Jesus' promise that He puts on this confession here, we're never gonna be satisfied when there is such lostness in our community and in our world because the whole country is His territory. Jesus died to be Lord of the whole earth.

People say, well, isn't summit big enough already? When are you guys gonna stop growing? My answer is when Jesus comes back or the last person in Raleigh Durham gets saved. Hell doesn't rest and so neither will we. Third truth about confession, number three. We see from this passage that Satan tries to get us to reshape Jesus according to our liking. The strongest rebuke ever given by Jesus recorded in scripture was the one he gave to Peter here. And it was instigated by Peter trying to force Jesus into the mold of what he assumed the Messiah should be. Verse 22, as Jesus begins to explain what the Messiah is gonna do that Peter begins to say, no, no, no, that's not what the Messiah does. This is what the Messiah does. This is still Satan's greatest temptation to us to reshape Jesus according to our expectations. Now we don't do it in exactly the same ways that Peter and his generation did it as most of us don't grow up dreaming of war with Rome, right?

Unless you play all kinds of video games but then that's just weird, okay? We grow up in our society in a me-focused culture that's swimming in consumerism. And so we reshape Jesus into an Americanized Jesus who is one part genie, one part fan club, one part financial advisor, one part American patriot, and the rest therapists. Or we like to think of Jesus as the great comforter who is progressive and morally permissive like we are, approving of all the things that we approve of, a big cosmic blanket you curl up and just find yourself in.

That is satanic distortion. You gotta let Jesus be who he is, which means that sometimes he contradicts you, sometimes he confuses you, sometimes he makes you mad, and you don't rebuke him or the guy who's telling you what Jesus said just because you don't like it. I think I've told you before, I was watching one of these talk shows, and he had two people on the talk show who were debating some moral issue.

And one person, I mean, to his credit, was trying to explain what the Bible said. And the other person who was more, shall we say, I guess, free thinking, kept looking back and saying, well, I'm religious too, and my Jesus would never do that, my Jesus would never do that, my Jesus. And I'm in the living room shouting, you don't get your own personal Jesus. There's like the real Jesus, and then there's the fake one that you made up. He's not a Burger King Jesus where you have it your way or a Build-A-Bear Jesus where you assemble the deity that you like the best.

There's a real Jesus and then the fake ones that you make up that are really just a deified reflection of you. You ever see how, you ever notice how weird the concoctions people put together at like a Golden Corral buffet line? You ever look at what you come back from the line with? I mean, they come back and you got like a yogurt parfait, spare ribs, a waffle, four cookies, and an egg white omelet. That's not a meal, right?

No chef would ever put that together and say, this is a good meal. It's just whatever struck you at the moment when you were going through the line. See, I look at people as a pastor and I talk to them, I'm like, this is what they've done with Jesus. They've got this obnoxious concoction of Jesus.

They've pulled together from various things. Oh, I like that. Oh, I don't like that. I'm leaving that.

I'm putting this there. And it's as obnoxious as a meal that you're putting together at Golden Corral because there's the real Jesus and then there's the Jesus that you and I make up and you've either got to accept Him for who He is, which means sometimes He contradicts you and makes you mad, or you at least got to own it and reject Him and say, I don't believe anything He says and He's not who He says He is. Number four, Satan's biggest distortion is a Jesus who keeps us from suffering in this life. You see in this passage, probably Satan's biggest distortion is a Jesus who keeps us from suffering in this life. Specifically, Peter objects to the concept of a Messiah who suffers.

And y'all, even though we're in a different time and place, that's still the substance of his biggest distortion today. Peter expresses what I would call the heart of Christian immaturity. And that is the belief that Jesus Christ came so that I wouldn't suffer. And Jesus says, no, Peter, I'm not going to save you from suffering, I'm gonna save you through suffering. I'm going to save the world by going to a cross and then I'm gonna work out my salvation in you and then through you to others by means of a cross too.

So I'm not gonna stop your pain, I'm gonna redeem your pain and I'm gonna give your pain meaning and I'm gonna work through that pain and I'm gonna use it to bring life to yourself and to the world. And by the way, Jesus tells Peter verse 23 that until he understands this, he should stop speaking for Jesus. Give behind me Satan, means Peter shut your mouth until you understand this. You see, there's a lot of immature Christians today and a lot of them have radio shows and TV ministries who teach that Jesus is some kind of ultimate good luck charm and if you walk with him the right way, he's obligated to remove any bad things that would ever happen to you.

Financial hardship, health problems, challenges with your kids, he promises to make all your foul shots go in and to make your stock soar. And so what happens when people believe this, when they go through bad things, they think that God is somehow not keeping up his end of the deal. Jesus never said that when we came to him, he would end all the problems in our lives. In fact, he indicates that a lot of times when we come to him, they intensify. That's what carrying a cross means, doesn't it? That's a problem. His promise is that in these problems, he will work to produce life both in you and in others.

So here's the question. When you figure that out, when you figure out that Jesus may not save you from all earthly pain, are you gonna keep following him? When he disappoints you in some area, are you gonna keep following him?

To Peter's credit, he doesn't go away. I mean, you gotta respect a guy that gets called Satan by Jesus and says, I'm not going anywhere. It doesn't record this here, but there was another time when Jesus made statements like this one and a bunch of the followers of Jesus are like, what?

Like we were all into you when you were talking about healing and bringing our lives together and restoring the missing piece and giving us solid families and fulfilling romance, but all this suffering for me stuff, that's not what we signed up for. And they all quit following Jesus. And Jesus turns to the disciples and Peter, and he says, are you guys gonna go away also? Peter's response is not inspiring. Peter's like, where else are we gonna go? I got nothing else to do. I seriously got nothing else to do. You're the only one with the words of eternal life and Jesus, I don't like what you're saying, and it's making me mad and I don't agree with it, but you obviously have the words of eternal life and so I'd rather be here with you even when you make me mad than I would be anywhere without you.

Ultimately, Peter passed his test. Are you? Because here's what I see. There's a new show on the TLC. How does he know? How does he know, you ask?

I'm not answering that question. It's called 90 Day Fiancé. And it's totally unoriginal. I wouldn't recommend it to you by any means, but the basic gist is this. You fill out these applications and they match you up with what is an ideal fiancé. And then you got 90 days that you guys are together and during those 90 days, you gotta decide if you wanna be with the person that you thought you wanted to be with because you know what happens is there's a lot of things that when you're dealing with a real person don't match up with the resume. And all of a sudden you're like, well, I didn't know they did that and I didn't know they think that and I don't know what they, you know?

And so you got 90 days. I see that premise of that show and I'm like, that's what I feel like I watch sometimes as a pastor people do with Jesus. They come in with this idea of who he is supposed to be and then inevitably something happens and he disappoints you. He doesn't work something out the way that you think he's supposed to work it out or he says something in the Bible and you're like, whoa, I had no idea that was in there.

Man, I didn't know about that. And now you're in that point where you're in the middle of a test. The question is, are you gonna walk away?

Are you gonna pass your 90 day test, so to speak? Are you gonna let Jesus be who he is or are you gonna force him to be who you want him to be? Which leads me to number five. Jesus seeks committed followers, not anonymous consumers. Jesus seeks committed followers, not anonymous consumers.

He ends this whole discussion, verse 24, by saying, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. I've explained to you before that in those days they would not have regarded the cross as a piece of sentimental jewelry or a cool tattoo you put on your ankle. I had a friend who collected ornamental crosses from around the world and she displayed them on her living room wall.

That's cool, there's nothing wrong with that, but nobody in those days would have done that. Wearing a cross around your neck would be like wearing a necklace with little electric chairs dangling from it or like having as the lock screen on your phone the picture of a picture of a beheading or somebody being hung or being shot. The idea of the cross as kind of an ornament, a sentimental ornament, wouldn't come for hundreds of years later in the church.

For them, it was a horrific, evocative symbol of death and shame. Jesus was telling them that if we're really gonna follow him, sometimes our obedience to him is not gonna feel like abundant life. Sometimes our obedience to him is gonna feel like death. That's what carrying a cross means.

Write this down. Salvation is free. It costs us nothing, but following Jesus will eventually cost you something, maybe everything. Salvation is free. It's a gift that he gives.

It doesn't cost you anything, but following him will eventually cost you something. You see, there are all kinds of things that Jesus provides for you when you follow him. He gives you the assurance of heaven. He puts stability in your family. He gives you the promise that he's working in all things for your good, but at some point, faithfulness to him is gonna feel like death. That means your desires are gonna go one way and he's gonna tell you to go the other. For example, he's gonna tell you to end a relationship that you don't wanna end. He's gonna tell you to uproot your life and go with one of our church plans, even though it wasn't part of your 10-year plan. He's gonna tell you to make a financial sacrifice that's totally gonna alter your lifestyle. He's gonna tell you to forgive somebody that you don't wanna forgive. He's gonna tell you to deny your desires and submit to his vision of sexuality. He's gonna tell you to take a stand on something.

It'd be much easier for you just to be silent about. He's gonna tell you to take somebody into your home that you don't really want to. He's gonna tell you to speak the gospel to somebody that you're intimidated by. For some of you, it's simply the call to be baptized.

It's like I often say, if you can't get wet for Jesus, are you really ready to carry the cross? At some point, obedience to Jesus is gonna take you in a direction 180 degrees opposite of where you wanna go. And when that happens, you're gonna have to answer the question, why are you following Jesus? Are you following him because of something you think that he can do for you? Or are you following him because you want him more than anything and you'd be willing to give up anything and everything just to have him? You see, a consumer is somebody who follows Jesus to get something from him. A follower is somebody who would leave anything else just to have him. And what Jesus says to Peter, he says to us, I'm not gonna tell you, Peter, that if you follow me, you'll avoid pain.

In fact, it might intensify. But what I'm gonna promise you is that I'll always be with you in that pain, that I'll never leave you or forsake you in that pain, and that I will be using and redeeming all that pain for my good purposes. Is that enough? Is that enough?

Is he enough? Are you a consumer looking for something from Jesus or are you a follower who is content with Jesus? In fact, to get up all in your business here this morning, let me give you, I just made a little list of a few indications that you're a consumer, not a follower.

All right? I'm not your judge. I'm not your judge. But these are indications that you're probably a consumer, not a follower. You have areas of your life where you know that you are not in alignment with what God wants.

Maybe they're small areas, but they're just not convenient for you right now. And so you're like, I really want God to be a part of my life. I certainly don't wanna be apart from Him, but I'm not ready to bring this part of my life in alignment with Him, so I'm just gonna postpone obedience right there. You're a consumer, not a follower. You've never offered your career or your future to God.

Hey, I got news for you. God wants more than Sunday morning. He wants the other six and a half days also. Have you ever offered your full career, your future to God?

You've never offered your possessions to Him to ask what He wants to do with them. You don't spend time with God daily. Your attendance at church is sporadic.

And when you come, you sit on the sidelines. You don't volunteer. You're not involved in ministry. Your kids are not involved in student ministry. You're not involved in a small group. You're a consumer, not really a follower.

How about this one? You've yet to act on Jesus's first command to be baptized as a public confession of your faith. You're like, well, it's just inconvenient. And Jesus said, I didn't say it's inconvenient. I said, follow me, which means that you begin to obey and not postpone to tomorrow what I tell you to do today. You see, Jesus asked us like He did Peter for a confession. He says, I don't want you to be anonymous. I want you to own it publicly. I want you to declare to others that you're not ashamed of Me, that you're willing to boldly confess before others who I am and that you're ready and you're willing to go all the way with Me. He wants you. He wants you to own it personally.

Check this out. My name is Anna Parr, and I have been coming to the Alamance campus at Summit since January. I was baptized as a baby and would have been a part of the same church up until I went to college, and it was a huge part of what I did throughout high school, middle school. Being baptized as a baby is obviously a wonderful thing, but I also think that that's something that you have to decide for yourself. That's what a relationship with Christ is, and fully accepting Him is my own decision and not my parents's, although I'm so grateful that they started that process for me.

Since I came to Summit, it's been kind of a different outlook in the church I grew up on. It wasn't believer baptism. It was that you were baptized as a baby, and here, just hearing about baptism, I thought, probably doesn't apply to me because I have a history in the church, and God was relentless with my heart and quiet time and prayers, just really showing me that this is something for me right now and to celebrate with those that are here. Romans 5-8 says that God showed His love for us and that when we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God does not call us to be perfect, but He calls us to be His. God loved me so much that He sent Jesus to remove my every blemish so that my heart could be seen the way that God originally intended it. Jesus took my sins on Him, and He wore them on the cross for me, and He died my death. Then He conquered that which otherwise would have consumed me. It's hard to think about that kind of love without stopping in a moment of awe. I acknowledge today that God has captured my heart, and He's continuously humbling that so that He can work through me to bring glory to His name. God has given us the opportunity to live here on earth in His love and He promises that one day we'll meet Him face to face. That's something for all of us to celebrate today.