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This is a pivotal and key moment in Jesus’ ministry. Last week we heard Peter biblically and correctly confess Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God! What joy! Jesus blessed Peter. And rightly so!

Now Jesus categorically teaches what it means for Him to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. It means that He will suffer immensely. He will be murdered in cold blood by crucifixion. And then, on the third day be raised from the grave. Jesus preaches His Holy Week Suffering, His Good Friday Death and His Easter Morning Resurrection.

Peter, however, would dare to tell Jesus: “Are you crazy Jesus? That will never happen to you! I’ll see to it! I’ll personally do all I can to stop you from such nonsense! If you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God just like I’ve confessed, YOU CAN’T, YOU WON’T SUFFER, DIE OR RISE AGAIN! You need to start flexing your messianic muscles! Christs don’t suffer. They end suffering. The Son of the Living God cannot die! People can’t kill God! That’s just bat &^%$ crazy Jesus! We’ve left everything to follow you. Everything! Our jobs, our homes and our families and friends. Not one more word about all this suffering, death and resurrection!”* Would you agree with Peter? Well, would you?

Really? Well, then you’d better hear what Jesus has to say about Peter’s ramblings. “Get behind me Satan!” Wow! Peter the blessed confessor now is Peter the mouthpiece of Satan. Peter, and anyone who agrees with him, at this point is – antichrist! Against Christ! Peter forbids Jesus the Christ from going to the cross and rising from the grave. Peter hinders Jesus from shedding His divine blood on the cross to atone for the sin of the world. Peter prevents Jesus from being the Savior of sinners through His innocent suffering and death. “Get behind me, Satan!” Satan. That’s right. Satan was talking through the apostle Peter. Satan was tempting Jesus again as he once did three times in the wilderness. Jesus will have none of it. “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

When you don’t see things as God sees them but only as man sees them, then you’ve fallen into Satan’s hands. Satan would have you trust your eyes rather than your ears, to trust your reason rather than God’s Word, to trust your senses and sensibilities rather than Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God who came to save you!

So, today, see things the way God sees them. Listen. Jesus sent me here to tell you. What Jesus did on the cross He did FOR YOU! He rose from the dead on the third day FOR YOU! For your salvation! He did what it took to save you. From all your sin and it’s gargantuan, hellacious damnation. You are forgiven! Jesus answered for all your sin through His Good Friday Blood. And because He rose from the dead as the Firstfruits, you, who believe in Him, will rise bodily from the grave on the Last Day.

Jesus predicted His suffering, death and resurrection for you and for your salvation. His GIFT for you! Jesus, however, isn’t done preaching and teaching. He also teaches about what it means to be a faith-er, a hanger-on, or one of His disciples. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” “Follow me,” Jesus says. Follow Him. That doesn’t mean follow His rules It means follow Him through suffering and death and resurrection to eternal life.

It bears repeating. A baptized Matthew 28 disciple is a follower. Isaac Scott is now a disciple of Jesus through holy baptism today. The word “disciple” literally means – one who follows another. Usually, it meant one who adhered to the teachings of another. But that only scratches the surface when it comes to disciples of Jesus.

Discipleship is about suffering, dying and rising. A Jesus-disciple denies the self, dies to self, dies to sin in order to confess Jesus as Lord and to live sacrificially in serve to others. Discipleship is about losing your life in order to win it, dying to lordship of self in order to live in faith toward Jesus and love for others. It’s about holding everything in this life with the open, dead hand of faith, to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

Now you begin to see how radical Christianity and being a disciple of Jesus is. In Adam, we are all born living only for self. Deny yourself nothing! Indulge the self 24-7-365. Jesus, says just the opposite. “Deny yourself.” “Take up your cross and follow me.” Jesus denied Himself in order to serve up a heaping portion of salvation from His cruciform death. His denial of Himself for your salvation is also the pattern for you, His disciples’ lives.

Now, just in case your mind was wandering or you began to nod off (that’s pretty common during sermons) — to make it very clear — to be a disciple of Jesus is to be baptized. Matthew 28:19. And when you’re baptized in Jesus’ Name you’re baptized into Jesus’ death and life (Romans 6). In holy baptism you are given the salvific benefits of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. Your suffering and death can’t save you. They are the just wages of sin. But Jesus’ suffering and death lead to resurrection and life. And baptized into His suffering and death you come into a life you can’t have on your own.

We had the joy of Isaac Scott’s baptism today. He as well as all who are baptized are given to daily live in and from our baptism. And that’s daily being repented, faith-ed and led in holy living. That is why the sign of the holy cross was traced on Isaac Scott’s head and heart. After all, in holy baptism he was joined to Jesus’ suffering. His wounds are now his wounds for his healing. In baptism you were joined to Jesus’ death. His death alone atones for all sin.

So, when Jesus exhorts all of us, His baptized disciples to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him, He means that we are to daily fight against our sinful desires, the temptations of the world and the devil and to daily die to our sins so that the new creation spelled: F-A-I-T-H may live before God wearing Jesus and His righteousness.

It’s really the only way to live.

In the Name of Jesus.