OAKRIDGE BIBLE CHAPEL

“Get Behind Me” and “Follow After Me” (Matthew 16:21–27)

It’s one thing to hold a membership at a fitness centre, it’s another thing to use it. It’s wonderful to belong to a gym but its potential benefits are more fully experienced if time, sacrifice, sweat, and a bit of pain are exerted. Similarly, there are many people who have become saved members of God’s household who, for countless reasons, are not experiencing all of its familial blessings. They are redeemed by Christ but not abiding in Christ. They are converted to new life but not committed in their whole life. They are Christians but they are not disciples.

Last week we were reminded that to be saved one must believe in the person and work of Jesus, that he is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). This week we are going to see what it means to follow Christ, what it costs, and what it provides those who take up the call.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT

It’s one thing to hold a membership at a fitness centre. It’s another thing to use it. It’s wonderful to belong to a gym but its potential benefits are more fully experienced if time, sacrifice, sweat, and a bit of pain are exerted. 

Similarly, there are many people who have become saved members of God’s household who, for countless reasons, are not experiencing all of its familial blessings. They are redeemed by Christ but not abiding in Christ. They are converted to new life but not committed in their whole life. They are Christians but they are not disciples.

Last week we were reminded that to have eternal life one must believe in the person and work of Jesus, that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. This week we’re going to see what it means to follow him, what it costs, and what it provides those who take up the call.

What’s immediately clear in this text is that consistently following Jesus involves submission to Jesus, to his plans and to his purposes. And this is difficult because the plans and purposes of God are often offensive, counterintuitive, and incompatible with the plans and purposes of people, even saved people. But if we’re going to make the most of our membership, experience all of its blessings, and bring God the most glory, it’s going to require some sacrifice, sweat, and bit of pain.

“Get Behind Me!”

I want to organize our study around two commands given by the Lord in our passage. The first is “Get behind me!” Can I point out, it’s hard to follow someone if you aren’t first behind them.

From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

Matthew 16:21

These things must happen: visiting Jerusalem, enduring suffering, being murdered, raising again. They’re not only a necessity but a divine necessity. Why? To fulfill prophecy, redeem creation, and save sinners. This was God’s plan and purpose for his Messiah.

But it offended, confused, and was incompatible with the plans and purposes of Peter.

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.”

Matthew 16:22

Probably speaking for all the disciples, Peter’s stunned and says, “It can’t be!” Assuming he misspoke, Peter takes Jesus aside and oxymoronically rebukes his Lord. “How can you topple Rome and establish your government, Jesus, if you suffer and die? That’s not very kingly!”

But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Matthew 16:23

There’s the command: “Get behind me!” While Peter had just declared, in verse 18, the rock of Jesus’s identity, he now becomes a stumbling block to Jesus’s destiny. He’s attempted to place himself between Christ and the cross because God’s plans and purposes were incompatible, offensive, and counterintuitive to Peter’s.

Jesus is quick to point out that such opposition, no matter how well-meaning, no matter how zealous, and no matter if it’s coming from one of his beloved followers, is furthering the efforts of the Adversary and not the Almighty. Peter has his mind not on God’s but human interests. 

I can relate to Peter. I have a picture in my mind of how life should go and how plans should pan out. And, when things get in the way—inconveniences, hiccups, surprises, blindsides—it bothers me. 

I know that God is sovereign, causing all things to work together for the good of those who love him, that he never leaves me nor forsakes me, that he’s bringing unity to all things … under Christ, and that he’s conforming me to the likeness of Christ often through trials and inconveniences. Yet, even with all that being true, when I’m met with the reality that God’s plans and purposes don’t always align with mine, it’s offensive, confusing, and irritating. “God forbid it, Lord!” Looking back, I getting pretty close to rebuking God. Maybe you can relate.

God, I thought he was the one. That job would have been perfect for me. Why aren’t my kids walking with you? Why does it seem like you don’t want me to have money, Lord? Why would you allow that sickness into my life? Why won’t you heal my friend? Why would you take that person home so young? Why did my spouse cheat or leave? Why do you not lift this dark cloud that seems to follow me? God, you’re not operating like I expect and want you to operate!

Questions like these are not necessarily sinful or irreverent. In fact, they can be worshipful declarations of dependance on God—“Lord, I need you. Every hour, I need you.” 

However, they can make us a stumbling block, thinking more in line with the Adversary than the Almighty. These objections can be evidence that we’ve placed our plans and purposes above God’s, longing for him to submit to us rather than the other way around. When that’s so, we need to hear what Peter heard, “Get behind me!”

“Follow After Me!”

And the reason we need to hear that first command is that unless we get behind Jesus with a heart posture of submission to his plans and purposes we can’t hear the second command from this text: “Follow after me!”

Again, what Jesus is talking about in this passage is not how to be saved but how to live once you’re saved. Remember to whom Jesus is speaking: Peter and the disciples. With the exception of Judas, they already believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

Matthew 16:24

Here’s what it looks like to really follow Jesus, to taking his yoke upon your shoulders, committing yourself to serving him and becoming more like him. It involves, first, self-denial, that is, giving-up ownership of our lives. Like when you sell a car or house, you get payment, sign the papers, and hand the keys over. Following Jesus means handing the keys of our lives over to him who bought us (see 1 Cor 6:19–20).

Theologian, Don Carson, has written: “To die to self means to consider it better to die than to lust; to consider it better to die, than to tell this falsehood; than to consider it better to die than to … [you name the sin].” 

This concept is completely foreign in our culture today in which the self is the highest possible authority. Higher than science, logic, the collective good, and certainly higher than God. I get to determine my reality and if you impede, or even disagree, I can call it a safety issue because the self has been violated. By nature we are narcissistic self-worshippers and our world has green-lit that rebellion.

Jesus says, if you want to follow me, to come after me, you must give up your right to your own cravings, identity, and morality. You lay it down, sacrifice it on the altar (see Rom 12:1–2).

Again, this is not an essential step toward salvation, but a faithful step of those who have salvation.

Following Jesus also involves cross-carrying. This isn’t a symbol of inconvenience but of total submission to the point of public death and deep shame. In many ways, this is the extreme end of self-denial in that, as we learn to follow Jesus, we are even turning over the keys to our reputations and the air in our lungs. It all belongs to him who denied himself—the heavenly throne room—and would, not long after this conversation with the disciples, carry a cross for them and for us. 

Again, in a world controlled by self-preservation, self-esteem, self-congratulation, and self-promotion, Jesus calls for—and would eventually model—the opposite: self-denial and cross-carrying. He says, follow me. As Spurgeon once quipped, “Far be it from us to seek a crown of honour where our Lord found only a crown of thorns.”

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Matthew 16:25–26

Here lays a tragic reality that even many Christians fail to understand. Those who work hard to preserve what they have—their reputation, opinions, preferences, comfort—they’re still going to die. While Peter was offended by the idea of Jesus’s death, Jesus calls for them to be willing to follow him to theirs. The verb for “lose” here can also have the idea of ruin or waste (see 9:17). Either way, what Jesus is saying is that all that concern for man’s interests as opposed to God’s, amounts to nothing. I’ve never met a Christian who, on their death bed, confessed to wishing they committed less to the Lord.

But here also lays a wonderful reality. Those who are willing to get behind him, not try and stand in his way as a stumbling block, but deny themselves, pick up that cross and follow him no matter what, they will find life abundant.

This is the wonderful paradox of Christianity. We think we’re laying down our identity but we find we’re gaining one much more precious. We think we’re laying down our time, but it’s being redeemed. We think we’re sacrificing our preferences only to find them purified. We’re invited to lay down our lives and end up being truly given them back.

Then Jesus provides further motivation.

“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.”

Matthew 16:27

As would be the case for Jesus himself, so it is for those who get behind him and follow after him: glory follows suffering. When he returns in glory, those who followed him—who denied themselves and carried their crosses—will be rewarded for their faithfulness (see Rom 8:17–18).

Two commands ultimately linked together: “Get behind me!” and “Follow after me!” In fact, Jesus uses the same verb in both sections so that we won’t miss their connection. To Peter (v. 23) Jesus says “Get behind me.” Then (v. 24), to the disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me.” Same word. “Peter, get behind me and, if anyone else wishes to join him back there, here’s what you can expect …”

You’ve become a member of God’s household, of the true Goodlife fitness centre, but we’re being invited to actually use it and to experience the benefits therein. But it’s going to take some time, sacrifice, endurance, and maybe pain. But, the God who can’t lie, the God who has saved you, is telling you it’s more than worth it. 

Don’t be a stumbling block when you find God’s plans and purposes don’t align with yours. Submit to him. Get behind him. Deny yourself, pick up that cross, and follow after him.

Follow the (Messianic) Leader!

Have you ever seen kids play Follow the Leader? What we’re being invited to here today is a high-stakes game of Follow the (messianic) Leader.

And to help us take some practical steps this week toward faithful discipleship, I’m going to suggest to you the following.

First, identify one thing you know God is calling you to do (e.g., trust Christ, be baptized, start giving to the church, share the gospel, repent of a specific sin, start serving in a specific way). 

Second, admit you’re being a stumbling block in disobedience. 

Third, ask God for help to get behind him and to follow after him in this specific issue.

Finally, act. Deny yourself—your self-consciousness, your pride, your opinions, your sensibilities, your fear—pick up that cross, trusting in the promises of God, and follow the (Messianic) Leader through suffering, through embarrassment, through inconvenience, through fear, toward glory.

Identify one thing. Admit you’re being like Peter. Ask for God’s help. Act on the conviction. Pick up that cross.

Augustine: “A man who could be seen was not to be followed; God was to be followed—but he couldn’t be seen. So in order to present human beings both with one who could be seen by human beings and with one whom human beings might properly follow, God became a human being.” And he invites us to follow him on the road he himself walked. It’s a tough road at times, but a joyful road, and one that ultimately leads to glory.



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Josiah has served the Oakridge Bible Chapel family as one of its elders and one of its pastoral staff members since September 2018, before which he ministered as an associate pastor to a local congregation in the Canadian prairies. Josiah's desire is to be used by God to help equip the church for ministry, both while gathered (edification) and while scattered (evangelization). He is married to Patricia, and together they have five children—Jonah, Henry, Nathaniel, Josephine, and Benjamin.

Josiah Boyd

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