“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If someone promised you that you could have everything in your life suited exactly to your desires, would you be interested in what they had to say? Not only that, but they promised that if your desires changed, the state of your situation would change with them. You wouldn’t have to go anywhere you didn’t want to go or do anything you didn’t want to do. I don’t know about you, but that strikes me as likely to be a pretty tempting offer. Well, there is a voice in our world today that makes this kind of an offer to us. This past Wednesday night at Bible study as we were starting to explore Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah we chased a rabbit trail for a few minutes that found us talking about this very offer and how it squares with a life spent in pursuit of Jesus. Let’s talk for a few minutes today about convenience and following Jesus.

Context is king when understanding the Scriptures. If a particular interpretation of a verse is not consistent with its literary context, that interpretation is incorrect. Where a particular verse falls always impact how we should understand what the author meant in writing it; what the author’s intentions for us to come away thinking or believing or doing in light of what he wrote.

In Matthew 16:24 here, Jesus famously tells His disciples that if they want to follow Him, they need to be prepared to tell themselves no and to be ready to lay even their own lives down in their efforts to go where He goes and do what He does. He goes on to explain that this is absolutely worth doing because in following Him, they would gain the prize of life. Whoever loses his life because of me, Jesus says, will find it. In following Jesus, there is only life to be found even in death. What He offers us is eternal life that persists long after our current bodies give out, not merely more years of existence in this world.

This is one of Jesus’ more well known teachings in any of the Gospels. It’s a high and dramatic calling. It underscores just how serious Jesus was about the importance of following Him. It is an antidote to the message of easy-believism that too many churches have preached over the years, but especially in the last couple of generations with the rise of the Prosperity Gospel movement. Jesus will make your life better, and He will make you better at life, but nowhere does He promise that following Him will be easy. In fact, He guarantees exactly the opposite.

But what prompted Jesus to say this? That’s not a question we ask quite as often. Thankfully, given the context of Matthew 16, it’s not all that hard of a question to answer. This bit of teaching from Jesus follows on the heels of His chastising Peter for thinking only in human terms after the outspoken apostle insisted to Him that His talk of suffering and dying at the hands of the Jewish authorities was out of line. The reason Peter said this is because he had just confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, and in the minds of all of the disciples, Jesus’ being the Messiah meant that He wasn’t going to die. He was going to win. Well, they were right in that, but they were wrong in what it meant.

Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah came in response to Jesus’ asking the disciples who they understood Him to be. This episode unfolded about halfway through His ministry. The disciples had been with Jesus almost non-stop for several months at this point, and they had witnessed His doing some incredible things. They had seen Him heal all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. They had witnessed His power and authority over demons. They had seen Him miraculously multiply a small amount of food to feed a crowd of thousands. Twice. They had seen Him stop a storm with a word and walk on water. They had, in other words, seen Him do a whole lot of things that only God could do. He wanted to know if they were understanding what they had seen.

Theologian A.W. Tozer once wrote that “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Jesus wanted to know what came into His disciples minds when they thought about Him. Did they grasp just how great His power really was?

As we were talking about all of this on Wednesday, it occurred to me that this is a pretty important question for us to answer too. Do we grasp just how great His power really is? The apostle John would later write about Jesus’ power to encourage believers to remain steadfast in their faith that the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. His point was that Jesus’ power in us is greater than any power in the world around us. This is because Jesus’ power is greater than any other power. But do we really believe that? And before you fire off a quick answer to that question, consider this. If we really believe that His power is greater than any power of this world, then we will unhesitatingly do what He commands in every single instance without fear or failure.

The uncomfortable truth is that most of us spend a lot of time hedging our bets. We really do want to do what Jesus has said, but we also want to make sure we are covered just in case things go sideways on us. We want to leave ourselves the ability to grab hold of the reins of control just in case we feel like Jesus isn’t holding them tightly enough for us. We trust Him, but not entirely. We think His power is great, but we wonder a bit whether it is the greatest.

Now, there are a number of reasons for this, but can I suggest just one for today? One of the gods our culture worships more than just about any other is the god Convenience. We love our convenience. We love for our situations to be perfectly suited to our desires, whatever they happen to be in a moment. If we don’t like something, we’ll change it. Or we’ll complain about it. Either way, our first priority is very often convenience. And our culture caters to and encourages this mindset. One company, Burger King, even made it their slogan: Have it your way. There are a million and one products that promise to give us the ability to have life work just the way we want. We worship Convenience.

And it makes a lot of sense that we would do this too. After all, the promises Convenience makes to his worshipers are pretty attractive. You don’t ever have to feel pain or discomfort or anxiety or even be bothered by things you don’t like. You can have whatever you want, however you want it, whenever you want it, as often as you want it. And when you don’t want it anymore, it’ll go away, and you won’t have to think about it again. Who wouldn’t want that?

I’ll tell you who: Someone who wants to aim higher than their own desires. Someone who wants to live their life for something bigger than themselves. Someone who wants to pursue an end that actually gives their lives substance and meaning and purpose.

Of all the things following Jesus is, one of the things following Jesus very often is not is convenient. We want vengeance when we are hurt. Jesus tells us to wait because God will sort all of that out justly in the end. We want something now. Jesus tells us we should deny ourselves. We want to hate a person who wronged us. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. We want to protect our lives now and in the future. Jesus tells us we shouldn’t value anything higher than His kingdom and command. We want to relax. Jesus tells us to get to work. We want to hide. Jesus tells us to live as people of the light. Everything about following Jesus is geared toward seeking His kingdom and His righteousness first, not ours.

This doesn’t mean it will all be hard and painful. It won’t. But there will be some of those times. And if Convenience is our first love, we’re not going to ever really follow Jesus. We’ll just keep dabbling at the edges, hoping for some scraps along the way. Life will be okay, but not ever really and truly good. Eating scraps like that may keep you alive, but it won’t ever really satisfy you. Jesus doesn’t invite us into a way of merely existing like this. He invites us to deny ourselves, taking up our crosses, and follow Him into the life that is truly life. If you want to live – really live – and not just play at life, following Jesus is the way you will find that. It won’t be convenient. You’ll have to turn your back on that particular god. But when you worship the God of life, real life is what you’ll find.