Sermon for Sunday, June 28th, 2026 at First Presbyterian Church at Unionville, NY (BPC)
Old Testament Reading:
[Job 27:1-8 ESV] 1 And Job again took up his discourse, and said: 2 “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, 3 as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils, 4 my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit. 5 Far be it from me to say that you are right; till I die I will not put away my integrity from me. 6 I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days. 7 “Let my enemy be as the wicked, and let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous. 8 For what is the hope of the godless when God cuts him off, when God takes away his life?
New Testament Reading:
[Acts 20:17-24 ESV] 17 Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. 18 And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 22 And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Gospel Reading:
[Matthew 10:34-39 ESV] 34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Sermon Text:
[Matthew 16:24-28 ESV] 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Introduction:
“Following Christ into His Kingdom”
We just heard about the Keys of the Kingdom; the authority given to the leaders of the church to preach the Gospel that men might come to faith, and the authority to conduct church discipline so as to acknowledge one’s membership in or excommunication from the church of Jesus Christ.
Those were the keys to the Kingdom.
Now, we see Christ coming into his kingdom.
And WE want to follow.
We SHOULD want to follow.
The path is not without its challenges.
But the rewards are great.
So let us indeed “Follow Christ into His Kingdom.”
There are two sections to this passage.
First Section: Verses 24-26 speak about giving up your life and receiving a greater life.
Second Section: And verses 27-28 speak about Christ coming in glory in his kingdom.
And they are connected by that word “for.” Give up your life and receive a better one … FOR Christ is coming. Indeed Christ is coming soon.
I. Give Up Your Life and Receive a Greater Life (v. 24-26)
First, let’s look at that first point: “giving up your life and receiving a greater life.”
Jesus says: “If anyone would come after me …”
If anyone would follow Jesus.
If anyone would take up his teachings.
If anyone would trust in the Lord completely for their salvation.
THEN… TAKE UP YOUR CROSS. [REPEAT: Take up your cross]
Jesus had not been crucified yet on the Roman cross, but he uses the term “cross” possibility even foreshadowing his death. And the people knew about crosses; about crucifixion. They hadn’t yet seen Jesus die on the cross, nor had they yet seen the Fall of Jerusalem where many 1,000s were crucified, but the Romans had used the practice of crucifixion for centuries. Included in that use was the Roman Governor killing of 2,000 men in Judea who had rebelled around the time of Jesus’s birth. So the people of Israel knew about the cross, and they knew what “taking up a cross” meant.” They knew that whoever was carrying a cross was heading for their death.
So to “take up your cross” meant to HEAD TOWARDS CERTAIN DEATH. A man who took up his cross (on the way Roman crucifixion) was a man going to his death.
The New Testament uses this idea repeatedly that we must take up our cross:
[Matthew 10:38 ESV] 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
[Luke 14:27 ESV] 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
[Mark 8:34 ESV] 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
The idea is to give up yourself, EVEN UNTO DEATH, as if you are carrying a cross to your crucifixion. Being willing to even die for the sake of our faith in Christ.
Indeed, to “take up your cross” means suffering, but more particularly it is “suffering for the sake of Christ.” It is “being willing to give up EVERYTHING for the truth; and following Christ.”
The phrase “take up your cross” has often been misused in our culture; it has been watered-down.
John MacArthur has a good explanation of this:
“Taking up one’s cross is not some mystical level of selfless ‘deeper spiritual life’ that only the religious elite can hope to achieve. Nor is it the common trials and hardships that all persons experience sometime in life. A cross is not having an unsaved husband, nagging wife, or domineering mother-in-law. Nor is it having a physical handicap or suffering from an incurable disease. To take up one’s cross is simply to be willing to pay any price for Christ’s sake. It is the willingness to endure shame, embarrassment, reproach, rejection, persecution, and even martyrdom for His sake.”
Indeed, we are even to “lose our life.”
But that LOSS will lead to our ETERNAL GAIN.
That is what Jesus says next:
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
That helps us to understand what “taking up a cross” means. It means even losing your life.
This also is a frequent Scriptural idea:
Jesus says:
[Matthew 10:39 ESV] 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
And again:
[Mark 8:35 ESV] 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Then we see this worked out in the life of Paul:
[Acts 20:24 ESV] 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
WE MUST BE WILLING EVEN TO LOSE OUR LIVES. That is commitment. That is following Christ into His Kingdom, at all cost.
Look then at the argument Jesus uses:
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Indeed, here we see the ultimate value of the soul. No amount of money, no possessions or power in THIS WOLRD matters if to gain it, you lose your very soul.
There is a turn here in Jesus’s speech.
We are to be (1) willing to die (physically) but (2) not willing to lose our soul.
We have to be careful here; Jesus is not (like the neoplatonist Greek philosophers) saying that the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. He is using “life” and “soul” as metaphors for “THIS LIFE” and “THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME.”
It’s not that we are throwing away this life either, or disparaging it. It is merely a recognition that the truth of Jesus Christ and the eternal life promises in Him is greater than anything of this world. So we ought to follow Christ into His Kingdom.
We hear of that Kingdom coming in the final two verses of this passage.
II. Christ is Coming in His Kingdom (v. 27-28)
27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Whew, this is a challenging couple verses.
In verse 27 we have of Christ’s coming in glory and “repaying each person according to what he has done.” This sounds like (and I believe is) in reference to Judgment Day at the end of the world.
But then in verse 28 it says that “there are SOME standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” This, I BELIEVE, is NOT referring to Judgment Day.
So these are challenging verses, because the TIME in which each occurs is not the same. That is important for us to figure out how to understand them.
It is verses like these that have cause some to even deny the faith.
A similar verse is
[Matthew 24:34 ESV] 34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
The reason people have denied the faith is that when they hear “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” then they conclude either (1) that Jesus was supposed to return in the 1st century BUT DIDN’T, or (2) Jesus returned, AND WE MISSED IT.
1. False prophet?
Those who say that Jesus was supposed to return in the 1st century but didn’t, then conclude that he was a false prophet. (They should actually consider whether they have misunderstood the text!)
2. We missed it?
Then, there are those who say Jesus returned and we missed it. This is the error of Hymenaeus and Philetus.
[2 Timothy 2:16-18 ESV] 16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.
This is irreverent babble because when Christ comes EVERYONE WILL SEE IT. He comes with trumpets! (By the way, this is how we know there isn’t a “secret rapture”) Christ’s return is visible to all. WE DIDN’T MISS IT!!
What then is actually going on here in our passage?
“some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
This is NOT referring to the return of Christ at the end of the world, but to the Transfiguration, that beginning of his coming IN GLORY that takes places in the very next passage in Matthew’s Gospel. Context is key.
The “SOME standing here” are Peter, James, and John who see the Transfiguration of Jesus where “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light” and where God said “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
THAT is what SOME did see.
Peter in fact confirms this in his 2nd Epistle:
[2 Peter 1:16-18 ESV] 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
THIS is the beginning of Christ’s Kingdom, which will come IN THE FULL at the second coming, at that last day, that Judgment day, when he comes with his angels and ALL will see him.
So that is how I understand these verses 27 and 28. The first is about Judgement Day, the second is about the Transfiguration, and they are connected in that they are both about the glory of God in His Kingdom. And I have good company with John Calvin and Martin Luther and various others holding this same view.
Not all Christians hold this view though. Some believe these verses are referring to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and Christ’s coming in wrath upon the unbelieving Jews who rejected the messiah. I don’t agree with this “preterist” view, but it does also solve the issue of those who contend that Jesus was a false prophet. It solves the problem by saying that Jesus did fulfill his promise of returning; that he did so in the destruction of Jerusalem. But again, I think the connection is to the Transfiguration (on the one hand) and the Second Coming at the end of the world (on the other).
III. Follow Christ into His Kingdom
Let’s look then at the CONNECTION in the whole passage.
Take up your cross, and follow Christ into His Kingdom, because HE IS COMING in glory, and you don’t want to miss out.
Are you following Christ?
Are you willing to follow Him even if it requires giving up everything else? Even your own life?
Know that IT IS WORTH IT.
For two reasons.
Those who are not in the Lord will be condemned.
And those who are in the Lord will see His glory, eternally.
So we have “The coming of the son of man in his kingdom.”
And we are to follow Him into that kingdom.
He (Jesus) calls us in.
Our response indeed is to follow him.
And also to praise him.
The lyrics of one of our beloved hymns say: “Praise Him! Praise Him!” – Christ is coming, over the world victorious; pow’r and glory unto the Lord belong!”
Christ is coming! Follow Him!
Application: Jesus warns us that the road will be hard, but the reward will be great.
Jesus warns us that the Christian life is not the easy road, but the hard road.
And Jesus warns us that the road will be hard, but the reward will be great.
Christ calls us to follow, but also PREPARES us to know that IT WILL BE HARD.
He says “Come after me.” This is “not to raise a hand or sign a card, although such things may sometimes play a part. To come to Jesus is to come to the end of self and sin and to become so desirous for Christ and his righteousness that we would make any sacrifice only to be with him.
It is indeed difficult. But our gracious God warns us of that fact, AND He gives us the Holy Spirit to see us through; to give us faith that survives even the harshest attacks of the enemy.
So we are ultimately to be encouraged. It is hard, but we will not forfeit our soul; and we shall see His glory. Praise be to God.