 Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me." In Video 10, when we looked at the unrepentant cities, we saw consistently in both Matthew and Luke that this was in reference to John the Baptist, Jesus and the disciples preaching the gospel to various cities and multitudes, and whoever was sent to them, they rejected the gospel of the kingdom. So when Jesus upgraded the cities for not repenting, it's because they rejected the gospel, and that's irrespective of whether John came and preached it to them and they said that, you know, he had a devil, whether Jesus came to them and they said he was a glutton and a wine bibber, or the disciples preached it to them. And we saw just by reading those passages that it had absolutely nothing to do with repenting of sins. Turning from sins of the flesh, no such context was given in those passages. And although we did look at quite a lot of the passages in that video, including Luke 9 and 10, there was something interesting that we didn't cover, okay, that people will use this against me and rebuke me to teach repenting of sins for salvation. It's said in Luke 9, and he said onto them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. This is a strong contender for one of the most widely abused, widely misused and widely misunderstood verses in the whole Bible. There are many, many Christians who quote this verse as if it means something completely different than what Jesus is actually talking about. This video will be a little bit longer than others in the series, simply because this is so widely misunderstood. So the first thing to address is, is this passage valid proof that you have to repent of your sins to be saved? Well, first of all it doesn't say repent, and it doesn't say of sins, or any word that is synonymous with sin, such as iniquity. Such word does not appear in this verse. So it doesn't say repent, and it doesn't say of sins. So I guess it doesn't say repent of your sins. Well that was a short video, wasn't it? This is no nonsense Christianity reminding you that nowhere in the Bible does it say repent of your sins to be saved. I'm joking, I will expound on the passage, but the bottom line is it doesn't say repent of your sins. That's just how spiritually dead people are choosing to read it and understand it, but it doesn't say that. We need to actually study it properly to show ourselves approved, instead of just quote-mining it, as if, you know, like when the devil quote-mined versus at Jesus to tempt him in the wilderness. OK, we need to understand what it actually says and means. Now this saying appears in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 16, this dialogue happens several chapters after Jesus sent his disciples out to preach and upbraided the unrepentant cities. In Mark's Gospel, in Chapter 8, this dialogue happens after Jesus has done various miracles and two chapters after Jesus sends out the twelve. In Luke's Gospel, Chapter 9, this dialogue is sandwiched in with the account of Jesus sending his disciples out and sending seventy more out and he upbraids the cities in the following chapter. Now this is important, in all three Gospels this dialogue is immediately before the account of the Transfiguration and immediately after Simon Peter's confession that Jesus is the Christ, for which he is commended. There is also some overlap with John's Gospel in Chapter 6 because of the shared accounts of the feeding of the five thousand. So Luke's grouping of this dialogue with the account of Jesus sending his disciples out and upbraiding the cities could perhaps be a red herring, but we do see a strong connection between this statement and the Transfiguration and the Confession of Peter. Luke's Gospel account throws us off even more because it says take up his cross daily, whereas Matthew and Mark do not say daily. If the meaning of this statement is a one-time thing, such as believing the Gospel, then the word daily is very confusing to be added here. But if this is about a daily thing, we may be confused as to what Jesus is actually talking about considering the context of the conversation. Now Matthew's Gospel gives us more detail about the dialogue Jesus has with Peter beforehand. So in Matthew 16 in verse 13, Jesus asks his disciples, who do men say that I am? So as we keep seeing in these repentance in a nutshell videos, this is not about you and your self-sacrifice and changed lifestyle. It's about Jesus and who he is. Now his disciples give him various examples of who other people say that he is, whether that be John the Baptist or Elias or Jeremiah, for example. But Jesus presses his disciples for their own answer and it's Simon Peter that answers with the correct answer, that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now the next few verses are unique to Matthew. Jesus then commends Peter for such an answer and reveals that the Father in heaven revealed this answer. So it's the correct answer. It's not a colonel answer. Peter didn't come up with this answer because he's such a smart guy or an obedient guy or because of something good about Peter. He is spiritually blessed by the Father that gave him this answer. And of course, Jesus builds on this point, gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, explains that Peter's doings on earth have effect in heaven. Now expanding on this idea and what it means is outside of the scope of this video, obviously I would interpret this very different to how the Catholics would interpret it, but it's quite outside the scope of what we're going to be talking about. Now in verse 20, Jesus gives a specific and unusual instruction. He charges his disciples not to say that he is the Christ. This has a lot of potential for confusion. It almost seems like a contradiction, not so much from Matthew and Mark's account, but from Luke's Gospel because as I mentioned earlier, the dialogue in chapter nine is after Jesus already sent his disciples out to preach the kingdom. So why after having already told them to preach the kingdom, which includes pointing everybody to the Christ, is he now then telling him not to tell everybody that he's the Christ? And in chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel, he sends out 70 more to tell people about the Gospel and tell people that he is the Christ, essentially. So obviously it seems like Luke's Gospel is all over the place here. I can't give you a perfect exacting answer. We can only speculate, but we can piece together a rough chronology from across the three synoptic Gospels. Firstly, the 12 disciples have already preached and returned. So in both Matthew and Mark, the disciples were sent out to preach several chapters before Jesus withheld them to tell us that he is the Christ. In Luke's account, it happens not so long before in the same chapter, but in verse 10 Luke explains that the apostles or the 12 disciples had returned and told Jesus what they had done. And this is before Jesus feeds the 5,000. We can deduct from this then that Jesus sent his disciples out to preach for a while, but from henceforth would tell them not to continue preaching that he is the Christ. Secondly, the feeding of the 5,000 actually coincides with John's Gospel. It's the only miracle other than the resurrection to appear in all four Gospel accounts. Then in John's Gospel chapter 6, there were some disciples that abandoned Jesus, not the 12, and Peter said something very similar in verse 49 that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. This likely coincides with what Peter said in Matthew, Mark and Luke because of the uncanny resemblance of what Peter said, but John focuses on a different aspect of the story. If we borrow context from John 6, then we see that although the 12 minus Judas were Jesus' loyal disciples, there were many other disciples who would remain for a season but then would abandon Jesus. Thirdly, Jesus sends out the 70 disciples afterward in Luke 10. These are probably not the same disciples who abandoned Jesus in John 6 because Jesus confirmed their names are written in heaven in verse 20, which is, most Christians would probably agree, synonymous with having everlasting life, and Luke does not document anything negative about the 70. In verse 1, they went about various cities and they would later return to him, whereas in the previous chapter, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, later confirmed in chapter 13, verse 22. Matthew 20, 17 and Mark 10, 32 confirm that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, but as in Luke, they do pass several places on the way. Fourthly, Jesus is going to Jerusalem to be betrayed, so Jesus does pass by several towns and villages on the way, which is why the Gospel accounts continue for so many more chapters before his betrayal, but that is ultimately Jesus' purpose for going to Jerusalem is that he must be betrayed. So he is probably telling his disciples not to preach that he is the Christ because in order to fulfill scripture correctly, the timing of Jesus' betrayal must be specifically calculated. Certain people cannot know that Jesus is the Christ, so as to not interfere with the fulfillment of scripture. So because Jesus is ultimately going to Jerusalem, so has to be killed and betrayed, has solidified in Matthew 16, 21 and again in 20, 17 to 19, this is important because this is exactly what Jesus is about to tell his disciples as we return back to the context of Matthew 16, Mark chapter 8 and Luke chapter 9. We must understand that Jesus is telling us about his betrayal onto death. That is the context of deny self, take up your cross, etc. So given that context then, returning to what Jesus is saying to his disciples in Matthew 16, 20, he's telling his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ. This must be compatible with deny self and take up the cross. Now the reason I bring this up is because I've, you know, a lot of people with a workspace salvation, usually the street screaming types, will say things like Jesus said deny self, take up your cross, so if you're not prepared to obey the call to go out in the streets preaching about Jesus and enjoy the affliction, then you're not saved. So basically, you know, if you're not willing to get up and preach the gospel, quote unquote, and be prepared to put on the cross itself, you know, carrying yourself through those streets, you're not denying yourself. Well that's ridiculous because Jesus is specifically telling his disciples not to tell people that he's the Christ. So how can you associate denying self and taking up the cross with screaming and bullhorning and preaching in the streets? You can't. That doesn't make any sense. That's not what denying self and taking up the cross means. It's just it can't mean that by definition. But you know, this is the absurdity and the ridiculousness that we have to deal with. So in verse 21, this is where Jesus is foretelling his disciples about going to his own death. And as I said just a few slides ago, it's very important that you understand this. Now, if you're familiar with the passage, you'll know that Peter took him and rebuked him saying, Far be it from you, Lord. This shall not be done unto you. But then Jesus turns to him and rebukes him back saying, Get behind me, Satan. You are an offence unto me, for you savor not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. This is a very puzzling verse that baffles a lot of people's minds when trying to grasp what's going on here. We've just seen Peter be commended by Jesus with probably one of the best compliments Jesus ever gave any of the disciples or anybody. But then just a few verses later rebukes him with one of the worst things that Jesus could have said to his disciples. And he seems to be more direct with Peter here than he is even with Judas when he says that Judas is of the devil in John 6 and various other places. So people will wonder, is Peter being taken over by the devil or whether Jesus is using strong language to make a point. It might have been very embarrassing for Peter when Jesus rebuked him in front of the other disciples. There's not enough information in the passage to suggest that Peter was somehow demon possessed or being taken over by Satan, at least not in the way that Judas was certainly. But the satanic thing here was in Peter's mindset in a way that you didn't make Peter an evil, terrible person, but he was failing to grasp more important heavenly things because he was perhaps more concerned with selfish or earthly things. Through the carnal fallen world that we live in, we've all been tainted by satanic thought to think like the devil things. We shape the way that we think. So naturally, you know, we have a way of thinking that's all for the world and not of God. So we're more concerned with the cares of this world than we are with the cares of God. And it takes many years of training and counsel or, you know, studying the Bible to sort of overcome that and undo that mindset. So the Father revealed things to Peter and Satan has also revealed things to Peter, but perhaps he hasn't yet learned to discern between these two things. Jesus must go to his death to fulfill the will of the Father and bring salvation to men. If Jesus doesn't go to his death, he cannot bring about the eternal salvation of every Old Testament Saint before him and every New Testament Saint after him. In heavenly places and for the sake of Peter's own salvation, Jesus must go through with this. Peter is a close disciple of Jesus. He thought very highly of Jesus as confirmed by what he was just commended for. He probably really liked the company of Jesus as you can understand he would and not considering the importance of the heavenly things that Jesus must go and do and achieve. He was perhaps more concerned with preserving his friendship with Jesus and didn't want to lose him, not wanting him to die. Although outside the scope of this video, we can see from various passages that the disciples failed to fully grasp the fact that Jesus will rise again. So how was Peter being carnaly minded? He didn't, you know, it's not that he didn't want to give up the drink or, you know, he couldn't stop going out with the prostitutes or, you know, he wouldn't repent of his kleptomaniac or whatever. That's ridiculous. Okay. There's nothing in this passage indicating that Peter was full of sins and needed to repent of them and give them up. Okay. That's not the issue. And that's not the definition of denying self and taking up the cross here. There is nothing in this passage that suggested that Peter was even too scared of persecution to go out and preach because before this, Jesus has already sent Peter out to preach with the Twelve and he already warned them about the persecution, but they still went out to preach. So again, that's not really entirely the definition of denying self. Peter's friendship and wanting to be with Jesus was not in itself a bad thing. In a way, he wanted something good, but he was more concerned with something he wanted, which was carnal and temporary because he wouldn't be best his forever with Jesus in the flesh in any case. And so he didn't want Jesus to go through with something that has an eternal purpose because of his wants of a temporary purpose. His carnal concerns were not fleshly sin concerns per se, such as caring about money or wine more than Jesus, but his concerns were with a personal friendship with Jesus, which was a unique privilege to the disciples rather than Jesus' eternal purpose. You and I don't get the same privileges as Peter to have been personal friends with Jesus in the flesh, but we do need Jesus to go through with his death for our salvation, for our sake and for Peter's own sake. He must not prevent Jesus from going to die, yet he is trying to. So look, please don't miss this. This is important. This is why people don't understand this passage and they get their definition of deny self and taking up the cross so screwed up and wrong. The context leading up to deny self, take up your cross, is being more concerned with the carnal and the temporary, in this case perhaps Peter's personal friendship with Jesus in the flesh, than the eternal, Jesus bringing salvation to men. Peter was more concerned with his own temporal friendship with Jesus than the eternal life of everyone who is waiting for the Messiah to do what he purpose to do. His relationship with Jesus wasn't sinful. This is not about sins, but it is about being focused on the temporary and not the eternal or rather vice versa. We will see how this is consistent with other uses of the phrase take up the cross from other passages. So we have the crucial verse in question and I've chosen Luke's account for this because of this extra daily that's in there. Okay. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. So when it says come after me, people will interpret this in many wild and wonderful ways. Many people, whether of grace or of work salvation, will tell you that this is about discipleship or this is about truly following Jesus. So according to the works framework, you can't just be an ordinary believer. You have to be a fully fledged full on disciple of Christ in order to be saved. This is a salvation passage. According to the grace framework, this is about service and discipleship and not a salvation passage. So they will say it's not about salvation or people might say that it is more literally about following Jesus to death on the cross itself. And according to the works framework, you must be enduring persecution and risking death. And if you don't do this, you're not saved. According to the grace framework, you may be called an expected to follow Jesus to the death, but it's not for salvation. So even failing, they'll say that you can still be saved. Under the works framework, this is a salvation passage. So they may interpret this passage in many other ways. For example, this is about obedience and turning from sins. You must be walking in hole in us, etc. And if you don't do these things, you're not really saved. Under the grace framework, these interpretations are probably dismissed, or they may just say it's about obedience, but it's not for salvation. Talk about confusion. I mean, we're all over the place with these verses. So there are two things that we need to understand about this passage that many people will fail to understand. Number one, the context of come after me. In what way are we coming after Jesus? Is this about full on discipleship? Or is it more specifically going to death on the cross? Is it about obedience or turning from a sinful lifestyle and living holy? What does this mean? And then secondly, is it about salvation? And assuming that we establish what it means, is this something we have to do for salvation? If it is something that we have to do for salvation, how is this consistent with everything else the Bible says? Particularly if we interpret this verse through the lens of the works framework. Now, I believe that what Jesus is saying here actually has a double meaning. Jesus is kind of saying two different things at once. And I will explain later how I justify that. But what you need to consider is that we have something that the disciples didn't. We have hindsight and we can see what happened after this event. So we understand what actually happened at Jesus death in his burial and resurrection. The disciples didn't have the foresight to know that yet. So don't just quote mind versus as if, you know, we don't know what happens later because we do know what happens later. Okay. So in verse 21, this is where Jesus is foretelling his disciples about going to his own death. And as I said just a few slides ago, it's very important that you understand this. So Jesus has already told us where he must go. This is the literal application of come after me. So the contextual meaning of if any man come after me is following Jesus to his death on the cross, not coming after him figuratively, not following him as a disciple. It is any man, whether he be a disciple or not, following Jesus to death on the cross because that is where he is going. So is it a salvation first then? Well, Jesus does go on to say, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and shall lose his soul? Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul? Now, this is where it starts to get complicated and people are getting a bit worried. At first, it seems as if this passage is about going to death on the cross with Jesus. But then Jesus elevates it to be a salvific instruction, it seems. But then if we have to follow Jesus to his death and this is for salvation, what are the implications of Christians who are not put to death? So when Jesus says, whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it, it would be very difficult to decouple this statement from salvation, especially because it is very similar to John 12, 25, which is definitely talking about life eternal because it says, he that loves his life shall lose it and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it on to life eternal. So it says love his life rather than save his life, but there is an uncanny resemblance, isn't there? And if verse 25 didn't do it for you, verse 26 will probably do it when it says that you can lose your soul. Again, it would be very difficult to decouple this statement from salvation. So we're in quite an awkward situation. Jesus says, if any man come after me, referring to his death on the cross, let him deny himself and take up his cross, etc. But then follows this up with a statement about not loving this life and so as to keep it on to life eternal and a man could lose his soul. So this presents us with quite a conundrum, doesn't it? Because it pretty much sounds like Jesus is saying, you must be put to death in quite a literal sense or you won't be saved. So how do we handle this? Now I do believe that if you were in some kind of situation, you know, God does expect us not to deny him verbally. You know, even if it means death, if it really did come to that obviously. But is this something that we really have to do to be saved though? And if it's by faith in Christ and it's by Christ that we're saved and there's nothing good that we've done, how does that even work? What about people who did all the works necessary to bring about persecution but they weren't put to death for their faith? What do we do with that? To say that we have to be crucified or killed for the cause of Christ to validate our salvation is problematic. In order to be able to proclaim such doctrine, you have not been crucified yourself. So everybody who preaches this by definition is a hypocrite because they are still alive. Talk is cheap. It's very easy to say that you would go to death for Christ when you've never had to face that situation anyway. In most countries of the Western world and many elsewhere, you may face some persecution for the cause of Christ but you probably won't be killed for the cause of Christ. And persecution is something that is done to us. It's not something that we can just conjure up ourselves. So if nobody does kill us for the cause of Christ, how does that work with this passage? And in countries where they may very well kill somebody for being a Christian, for example, North Korea, they don't care if you are a Catholic or a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or if you even believe in the right Gospel or not. They will kill you irrespective of your doctrinal positions. So he's being killed for the cause of Christ an automatic ticket into heaven if you believe in another Jesus. Of course not. Furthermore, the idea that virtually all the apostles were martyred is church tradition or rather Catholic hearsay. There, martyrdom is not evidenced in the Bible. You would think that the Bible would document it if it was so important for salvation. And on the contrary, Paul, who had been on the verge of death several times but survived, knew that the time of his departing was at hand in 2 Timothy 4.6. So he was probably getting elderly at this time. Peter was promised by Jesus that he would live to an old age despite the fact that Peter had denied Jesus out of fear of death. And there were plenty of good characters in the Bible who lived to be a ripe old age and had a peaceful cause of death. And lastly, even though we have already seen in this video that preaching the Gospel is not directly the context of taking up the cross, Jesus did tell his disciples when they get persecuted for preaching the Gospel to flee to another city. Yes, Jesus warns us about persecution. Yes, the Bible commands us to endure persecution but it doesn't command us to just stand there, take it like a man on to death and do nothing to at least try to escape or avert it. The Bible does make allowances for us to escape persecution too. So of course, you know, if you were in a situation where some crazy gunman came in to do a school shooting or some Muslim terrorist forces you with a gun to confess or deny Christ, God does warns us and expects us to confess Christ not for salvation but because we already have the hope of eternal life and we have the hope that those who endure to the end shall be saved. That's not a commandment to maintain salvation. It's a hope that because we shall be saved that's why we should endure because we already have that hope. We don't need to worry about this life. But naturally, just like the disciples because we do fear these things, Jesus did say, if they persecute you in this city flee to another city. But you see, the enemies of grace, they only like half truth. So, you know, they like to quote mind these verses about deny self and just like to ignore all the other things that are going on around it. So then how do we answer this passage? What do we do with it? Christians may answer the points I have made by stating that, well, okay, you don't literally have to go to death for Christ. You just have to be willing to go to death for Christ. But Jesus did not say, be willing to deny yourself, be willing to take up your cross, be willing to follow me. He said, deny, take, follow. There is no willingness. There is no try. There is do or there is do not. Now, maybe some of you are getting worried or I've lost you at this point. Well, don't worry because we're getting into the real meat here and you will see that there is a dual meaning as I alluded to earlier. Remember that we have the totality of Scripture. So not only do we know that Jesus said, come after me as he goes to his death on the cross. We also know how his death on the cross actually panned out. The biggest problem with literally following Jesus to death on the cross as a salvific requirement is that nobody followed through with this. Jesus went to death on the cross by himself, excluding the two malefactors. All of his disciples for suck him and fled. That's in Matthew 26, 56 and Mark 14, 50. Jesus foretold Peter that he could not follow Jesus to where Jesus is going, but that Peter would follow him afterwards in John 13, 36. Peter even offered to lay his life down for Jesus, but Jesus knew that he would betray him in John 13, 37, 38. Jesus did not rebuke him after the resurrection. He did not say, I told you to deny yourself, Peter. Why didn't you do it? It would be nonsensical of the Jesus to command Peter to do something already for knowing that he's not going to do it anyway. And even though Peter would follow him afterwards, we already saw how Jesus promised that Peter would reach an old age. He was not martyred in the events of the book of Acts. So ultimately we see Jesus saying to his disciples, if any man, whoever he is will come after me as I go to my death on the cross, let him take up his cross, deny self, et cetera. But nobody did this. Nobody did come after him. He went to the cross alone. So once again, you just see how work salvation idiots use this passage like this. And the Rich Young Ruler is another example where they suggest this weird idea that Jesus is teaching work salvation. When really Jesus is showing us how he actually falls short really, because only he fulfilled what he's talking about here. So that's the first meaning. What about the second meaning? And this is perhaps the more practical side of deny yourself and take up the cross as it alludes to loving not this life so that we shall have it onto life eternal. Because Jesus did definitely elevate this to be about saving your soul. So we can't just ignore the eternal life connotations about this passage. So we need to understand what does it mean to deny yourself? What does it mean to take up your cross? What does it mean to love not this life or lose it? How does this tie in with the self and the benefit connotations of this passage? The word deny is the antonym, or opposite if you like, of the word confess. The Bible says confess Jesus, his death, his resurrection, that he is the Son of God, come in the flesh, etc. Jesus does the works necessary to bring about our salvation. So when someone uses deny yourself to teach work salvation, while they're not denying themselves, they are confessing themselves by definition. They should be denying self and confessing Christ. Instead, they are denying Christ and confessing self. Although the word deny does appear occasionally in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, the idiom deny self does not appear outside of this dialogue, obviously in three places, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Other verses referencing denial may be about denying Christ or denying God, denying him in a negative context, obviously, but not denying self. For this reason, we cannot really compare the use of this idiom with any other passage in the Bible. We can, however, compare the use of taking up the cross and save or love not this life with other passages in the Bible. The word cross is obviously used several times in the New Testament, so people will compare taking up the cross either with carrying his cross or bearing his cross or on the cross. This could throw us off trail into passages about crucifying the flesh or helping Jesus to carry his own cross. Are such comparisons relevant, though? Following the first interpretation, when Jesus goes to death on the cross, this is obviously final. Once you go to death on the cross, typically, you're not coming back. Luke's Gospel completely throws us off with the word daily, though. How can you daily do something that is final and wants some for all? It's because of what Luke says in this passage that people link it with like what Paul says about dying daily or putting to death the deeds of the body. But personally, I do think that's conflicting two slightly different things. First of all, when Paul says die daily, that's a particular passage in 1 Corinthians 15. It's about Jesus' resurrection and denying it or not denying it. It's not really about fleshly things. When Paul talks about putting to death the deeds of the body in Romans 8, he did talk about sins and he also talked about not being kindly minded, which is to do with how you think rather than what you do. But then he does go on to talk about present sufferings. He doesn't really use the term daily, but that's something that's understandably inferred. So you can understand why people make that comparison. But when we go back to the deny yourself passage, it's not really talking about sins. Peter wasn't being a sinful, fleshly person that just loved wickedness. But he was being kindly minded in his approach to trying to prevent Jesus from going to his death on the cross. He was more worried about perhaps his earthly relationship with Jesus that he didn't want Jesus to die because he didn't fully understand the resurrection. So he tried to prevent Jesus from carrying out the purpose which he must carry out. So there is some overlap with what Paul talks about not being kindly minded, which is death, but not specifically because of sin though, i.e. not for the same reasons. Peter's earthly friendship with Jesus was not sinful but it was earthly and temporary. Jesus' death on the cross was eternal, necessary to bring about salvation. In the next verse in Luke's account, Jesus talks about losing one's life for my sake. But in Mark's account, he also says and the gospel's sake. So we see an overlap between losing your life for Jesus and for the gospel. Now pay attention to this because this is what we will reference on the next slide that relates to this. Back in Matthew 10, when Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the gospel, he told them that they would meet two types of people. There's those that will confess me, there's those that will deny me in verses 32 to 33. There will be those that are worthy and will receive you and those who will not receive you verses 13 to 14, etc, etc. And he also warned that those who reject the disciples would also persecute them. Additionally, between verses 35 to 37, Jesus explained that a man's foes shall be of his own household and family members will be set up variants with each other through the preaching of the disciples. There will be some that love their family members more than Jesus and will not risk being put at variants against their family members for his sake. And then in Matthew 10 in 38 to 39, Jesus uses this very similar statement that he said to his disciples about going to his death. He that takes not his cross and follows after me is not worthy of me. He that finds his life shall lose it and he that loses his life for my sake or you could say for the gospel's sake, if you like, shall find it. The context of it here in Matthew are the recipients of the disciples preaching. Some who will be set up variants against their family members and others who will love their family members more than Jesus. So it says he who loves his life rather than saves it, but there is an uncanny resemblance again, isn't there? So the context of Matthew 10 is that there will be people who are too afraid of the persecution or too afraid of being set up variants against their family members and consequently, will not receive the gospel from the disciples. Such people are not worthy of Jesus. The gospel is the power of God onto salvation, which is to eternal life. Our life in this world and any suffering in it is temporary. People would be more worried about the temporary than the eternal, which is why they need to receive the gospel even if it means losing their earthly life, which is not important. Now someone after hearing this might say, well, wait a minute. You told us earlier in the video that denying self and taking up the cross is not about preaching the gospel and enduring the persecution to be saved. Now you're relating it to a passage that is about preaching the gospel and enduring the persecution for salvation. Have you not just contradicted yourself? Well, please allow me to clarify. The disciples don't need to believe the gospel. They already believe the gospel. They're already Jesus' own disciples. They've confessed that he is the Christ and they have preached it in previous chapters like Matthew 10. But Peter was still trying to put off the eternal for the sake of something temporary, which the Jews would also do if they reject the preaching of the disciples because they're afraid of the persecution or being set at variance. Under the work salvation framework, denying self and taking up the cross and loving not this life is taken to mean do the works and suffer for doing the works, preach the gospel and if you endure to the end, you shall be saved. But rather when we piece these things together, it's not referring to the preaching of the gospel itself and any persecution that comes with that because the disciples were told not to preach. It's not some works that you are doing to maintain or validate your salvation. Under the great salvation framework, denying self, taking up the cross and loving not this life actually means to receive the gospel and don't let persecution and fear stop you from receiving the gospel. So when we piece these things together, it's actually referring to the receiving of the gospel itself even if that means persecution. It's actually that you are not afraid of the temporary because you understand the greater importance of the eternal. You don't endure to the end so that you can be saved, which is works. You have faith in the promise and the hope of being saved, which is faith. So you have a good and valid reason to endure. Now in our cozy Western world, it's hard for us to relate to this because you probably won't be killed or even persecuted in any strong meaningful way for accepting the gospel. But at the time of Christ and of the apostles and even in certain parts of the world in history up until now, this has been a genuine concern. The Jews would persecute followers of Christ and would kill them not because of their mighty works or because of their screaming and bull honing in the street but just for acknowledging and confessing the Christ. This was a genuine concern in John 7.13 and was well documented in Acts. Even today, suppose you knock on a Muslim woman's door and try to present the gospel to her. She could genuinely be in danger from her husband or community and may shut the door on you not because she doesn't want to hear you but because she is genuinely afraid of what will happen to her if she talks to you. North Korea consistently ranks as one of the worst countries to be a Christian or indeed other religions as well. Many people will not consider the gospel because they're too afraid of what will happen in their temporary life. And essentially, we see this explained at the conclusion of deny self passages in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus explained that some of his disciples presumably excluding Judas would not taste death. Jesus explained that there would be people who are ashamed of him and his words and Matthew 10 gives us a good indication of why that would be. So that's the message of deny self and take up the cross. Don't let fear in this life which will perish anyway prevent you from receiving the gospel and getting saved. And then in Peter's case, don't let your earthly love of Jesus in the flesh cause you to prevent him from going to death on the cross because he has to do that to bring your own salvation let alone the salvation of everybody else and you'll get to be friends with Jesus in eternity anyway if you let him go through with this. So that's kind of a carnal illustration of the spiritual thing that's going on. Now on the flip side to this, you know, what about those of us in cozy North America or cushy Europe where we don't have this problem? Why are we still surrounded by unsaved people everywhere when we don't have this same hang up? What gives? Well, in our cozy little land of milk and honey, we actually have a very different problem but one that interestingly still comes under the category of take up your cross. I am referring to the story of the rich young ruler. This story appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke and Mark's Gospel provides the most important statements for the point I am making. So the rich young ruler approaches Jesus asking in Mark 1017 what he must do for eternal life. Now this is where all the work salvation legalists will salivate at the mouth the excitement because Jesus goes on to give the rich young ruler a bunch of commandments to do. So Jesus says don't kill, don't steal, don't bear false witness, no mention of believing on him, in other words he gives in works or commandments to do. Also as well back in the deny yourself passage in Matthew's account Jesus also explains that he will reward every man according to his works. So you know they'll all say we'll see right there bright do the work bright turn from sins. But in the immediate verse before Jesus tells him to do the works in commandments he explicitly stated that only God is good. Nobody else is good and despite this the rich young ruler still claimed in verse 20 to have observed all these commandments since his youth. I mean that is impressive isn't it? If only God is good and yet you still somehow managed to keep the commandment since your youth and is also rich which means he got rich by can be completely honest all of his life all while God is the only one who's good I mean this guy is an absolute machine isn't he? In the next verse Jesus explains that there is one thing he lacks he tells him to give away his earthly treasures which are going to perish anyway. They are carnal they are temporary and have treasures in heaven which is eternal and Jesus says this same statement again take up the cross and follow me. So don't be caught up in the temporary don't let the temporary stop you from getting life eternal. As we know he goes away sad for he had many great possessions Jesus said to his disciples how hardly they that have riches enter the kingdom of God and of course this is where the legalists say that you know he had to give his money to be saved to get the treasures in heaven and enter into the kingdom he had to do the works to be saved but Mark's Gospel explains to us at least in the Textus Receptus anyway that it's those who trust in riches this was the rich man's problem he trusted in his riches it wasn't just having the riches he trusted them all while claiming to keep the commandments as well I mean he was a busy guy wasn't he and herein lies the problem with most Christians in comfortable America or comfortable Europe or comfortable Australia or comfortable wherever they have everything that they need in this life so they don't need God and even the repent of your sins surrender your life messengers who give lip service to this kind of thing they still live comfortable lives themselves most of them and they claim to obey all of the commandments since they're youth like the rich young ruler even though there's none good but God but they somehow managed to do it so the people that love to quote deny yourself and take up your cross and repent of your sins they act as if they're the only righteous remnant that obey it but they're still dead in their sins because they haven't denied themselves they haven't taken up their cross there's one thing that they're still lacking they need to let go of their works for salvation they need to let go of their riches you know you have these multimillionaire preachers and popular preachers like John MacArthur and all that telling you to deny yourself and surrender everything when they live in multimillion dollar mansions or whatever and then you have these repent of your sins street screaming bozos who tell you to get on the streets as well screaming at everybody and enjoy the persecution but they still have a comfortable house to go to when they go home the persecution that they receive isn't actually that bad and even if I as a faith alone person went and screamed in the streets I would still rattle people up Muslims screaming in the streets can still rattle people their persecution has got nothing to do with confessing Christ it's just because they're winding people up in the streets and you know when it comes to repenting of sins they all have several skeletons in their closets don't they but to finish off with this study what about the verse in Matthew about works and rewards isn't that a part of denying self because it's in the same passage well it quite clearly says reward but eternal life is explicitly stated in the Bible to be a gift not a reward and it's without works whereas the reward is for works the only real context that we have about works in this immediate passage is following Jesus to death on the cross which nobody did and if we tie that in with Matthew 10 and the potential to be killed for confessing Christ there are Bible passages that talk about reward or at least some kind of special commendation for the brethren who were slain for the cause of Christ like Revelation 12 11 for example so although sometimes some of the stuff that the Bible says about reward isn't very clear there could well be greater reward perhaps for people who have been slain for the cause of Christ versus those who haven't obviously that's kind of conjecture and it's far outside the scope of this video the rich man could have built for himself treasures in heaven by giving away his money treasures that would last into life eternal but that's not to get eternal life he must trust in Christ instead of his riches for eternal life but if he gets eternal life he can also build treasures in heaven so giving away his treasures wouldn't make him saved but it was certainly preventing him from being saved and the parallel in Mark 8 quite clearly explains that a man cannot give anything in exchange for his soul works on not a currency that are exchangeable for your soul now people might then wonder well why mention works in Matthew's Gospel and isn't that a red herring or is Jesus just trying to confuse us or is this entire video that I'm doing wrong well remember in our study we have seen this theme of not worrying or caring for the things in this life at the expense of life eternal okay don't be afraid of those who can kill the body but you know can't kill the soul you know don't fear the persecution or the death you know if that's going to prevent you from receiving the gospel and getting saved receive the gospel and get saved even if that means persecution and death and don't let riches or commandment keeping stop you from trusting in Christ as well so you see there's both sides of the same coin whether you're someone in a comfortable situation or whether you're someone in an uncomfortable situation so the salvific understanding is not to let fears or cares about this life stop you from getting saved that doesn't mean that we don't care for anything in this life but that's outside the scope of this study but realize that eternal life is first and foremost the fundamentally most important thing and this is what Christians fail to understand if you go door to door soul winning you would actually be amazed at how many Christians are hostile to evangelists or if they're not so hostile you ask them do you know how to get to heavenly absolutely sure well I don't know I'm not really sure maybe maybe not but then you say like well have you got 10 minutes can I show you and it's always oh no I can't right now I'm busy oh I've got to feed the baby we always seem to arrive at the door and they've got to feed the baby for some reason and they don't want to hear how to be saved and it's like well surely as a Christian this is Christianity 101 if you're not sure that's the first thing that you want to know isn't it but this is how blind people are spiritually but there is an application to works as well now some of you I'm sure enjoy maybe video games or sport or the great outdoors or whatever it is and maybe some of you that you even have certain accolades or achievements that are important to you but those achievements have no lasting value okay you're not going to get eternal commendation for getting the high score in a video game or getting first prize in a race those things have no eternal value and everything that you enjoy is going to be destroyed but works for the kingdom like getting people saved or you know studying your Bible and praying for the needs of the saints those things have eternal value because you know what we bind on earth that God binds in heaven and these have a lasting effect you know if you get somebody saved you have to do work to get somebody saved you have to go out and preach to them but you've just added somebody to the eternal life family okay that somebody's now got everlasting life because of that one work that you just did so these are not works that you do to get saved but you can still apply the same principle to these works that we can apply to the gospel is that we have a tendency to care more about the things in this life whether that be politics or whatever's going on in the world and care less about the things in the kingdom of God you know because we can't have that reward right here and now another question people might wonder is you know if it's perhaps about the gospel in that context and that's a one-time thing why would Luke say daily deny himself daily and again this is something that's perhaps hard for us to appreciate because we don't enjoy most of us anyway don't enjoy the persecution that the disciples and people around the time of acts would have endured that there were times in the epistles where the apostles warned people about falling away not continuing in the faith or being in some way discouraged by the persecution and the suffering that they were going through so you know that is kind of a daily thing is to keep them on track and not lose the hope that they once had now there is one last thing which I haven't really talked about and we've kind of run out of time and that's the transfiguration it doesn't really need to have its own video because people obviously don't use that passage to talk about repenting of sins but if all three gospel accounts are pairing the transfiguration of Jesus with deny yourself take up your cross it just further emphasises that this is about Jesus and not about you so I'm sorry this was much longer than most of the videos I do in this series you know I try to keep these short because it's supposed to be in a nutshell but obviously because this is such a widely misunderstood passage and it branches off into so many areas we did need to spend longer on it but I hope now you've realised it doesn't say repent of your sins to be saved