Matthew 16:1-25 •The Mission of the King
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Sermon Notes
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I'm going to ask that you open your Bibles and keep them open for our time of study, Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16.
We won't read all of that here at the beginning, but I will cover a lot of the chapter as we go, but with a different perspective than some. In our own local paper here recently, an article came out with a question.
How will we protect the tribal peoples that are discovered by drones as the Amazon jungle disappears?
The question, we know that discovery of these tribes will lead to contact with disease,
the evils of an industrialized society, and the dangers of conversion.
Has everything in the name of religion always been good?
No.
But what does it mean for the nations to come to an understanding of Jesus Christ and what would be different if that mission had not gone forward?
Just a clarifying example, the nation of Korea, that you in generosity have allowed me to minister to in your name. Two weeks ago I was in Korea, and if you were to see where I went, a place like this, it might fit your stereotype of what Korea looks like. You must know that when you see buildings like this, my host, Chung Min, and his wife Il would actually look at this like you would look at a Conestoga wagon in a pioneer park. This is not modern Korea.
What you would actually see is something that looks far more like this, huge cities, Seoul, Korea, population of 12 million people. The smog is not from Korea, it's from China, and it overwhelms the people of Korea.
The cities are modern with technology far beyond our own, available to the average Korean. Remember most of Korea, South Korea as we know it, built since the Korean War. It is modern, it is attractive, it is wonderful to be part of what happens there. You can even see shopping malls, some of them larger than our own, and if you are over 50, you will be a minority because this is a young, young nation, and it is being transformed by a younger generation as much of the majority world is. There are other realities, the modern cities, but still the DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone, that looks across to North Korea.
This is real danger.
While I was there in North Korea, Kim Jong-un, while I was there in South Korea, Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, launched his 13th missile of the year to say to the West, "You need to give concessions to me." So while I was in that park, as you saw right at the beginning, the air raid sirens go off and the people acknowledge that another missile has happened. Here you have a bombed out bridge across the DMZ with bullet holes that you may or may not be able to see that go back to the Korean War, but there are other matters that are very present in the day and age. If you could look through that mountain gap that I am looking through, you would recognize that those mountains that you see are in South Korea and they are heavily forested. But if you could see through the gap that I'm looking, you would recognize through the lens that the mountains of North Korea are totally deforested.
And the reason is because they have used those trees for firewood in a nation that is starving.
The reason that Kim Jong-un fires the missiles is to have some leverage on the West to get concessions for his people. He has nothing else really to offer them than pressure upon the West. They are still people who understand the nature of the gospel. It's a more Christian nation than the United States. And even as you look across the barbed wire into the demilitarized zone, you recognize that each of those ribbons has been placed by a South Korean Christian in prayer for brothers and sisters in North Korea. There is a real desire for the nations to be united by the work of Jesus Christ.
Some of this is overcoming historic antipathies and bitternesses. Korean women will come and sit beside the statue of a young woman who represents the comfort women that the Japanese abused during the Japanese occupation of Korea. And women of each generation will come and sit next to the statue representing the comfort women in solidarity with the women who were used and abused during the Japanese occupation. And the hatreds are strong still, but Christians pray differently, as you will see.
You recognize that in Korea for good and bad reasons there are huge churches. This is the largest Presbyterian church of Korea. It has a small membership of about 80,000 people. This is the Onyuri church. I was doing a pastors conference there and roughly 1,500 pastors gathering. And the reason they are is to understand how they can share the gospel to the next generation.
You would go to another church. This is Calvary Presbyterian Church. This is smaller. This only has about 40,000 members. And the reason that this is so crucial is because if you were to actually be able to see those members, you would recognize that whether you're in Onyuri or Calvary, the members are between 70 and 80 years old or more. They are facing the same demographic cliff this church was facing six or eight years ago. As we said, we have to face the realities of becoming a church for the next generation. And that reality is what the Koreans are facing as well. And one of the ways they do that is not by saying to young people, "Come to our glossy, wonderful big churches." I will tell you the young people of Korea want nothing to do with that.
What they will pay attention to is what that memorial that rises above the trees of Korea, Korea's soul represent. That rising above the heads of the trees is the memorial to the Western missionaries who were beheaded for bringing Christianity to Korea.
What actually does speak to young people are ones who would give up their children. These are the graves of the infants of the missionaries who came to Korea.
If you look at the people who now gather before the headstones of the martyred missionaries, can you see the age of these young people?
They are at least paying attention to those who would give of themselves, surrender all, live for Christ, and they recognize a genuineness and a power in that beyond, of course, the glossy and large churches. The young people are being brought by an understanding of sacrifice for the sake of something greater than themselves. And that mission becomes most expressed in the grave to an unmarked missionary who gave up everything for Christ, even the ability to be known by the next generation. His name itself gone, Christ alone knows what was done. All of that is background from Matthew, chapter 16.
As you read verse 13, read what Jesus is calling his people to remember.
Verse 13 of Matthew 16, "When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is?
And they said, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Giono, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock," remember the name Peter means rock, "and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ."
Well, what sense does that make to tell no one that he was the Christ, the man God on a mission? Tell no one.
I read a story just recently about a young woman who was a very proficient violinist. Her teacher began to recognize her potential, but recognized a little discipline was going to be needed to reach the highest level, there's excellence. So the teacher said to the student, you need to provide yourself.
Every music student is going to hate this.
The slave driver of every music student. You need to get a metronome.
Remember the one that sets the rhythm that you have to learn to go by. The student was desiring such excellence that she didn't just buy one of the mechanical wind-up metronomes, but got one of the new digital metronomes where you could change the volume, change the rhythm, and it would fit inside of her violin case. She improved so much that she qualified for a scholarship competition in New York City.
Depending on the plane for the scholarship competition, there were no rooms in the overhead for her violin case. And so a very kind flight attendant said, "I will put it in the cloak closet behind the pilots."
Great.
Everybody got on the plane. They're going down the runway, and suddenly the pilot says, "Everybody off!"
When the plane grinds to a stop, they open the doors, the escape chutes are opened, and everybody gets off the plane as fast as they can. The rumor begins to circulate. Everybody knows it might very well be true. There must be a bomb on board.
Why did the pilot think there was a bomb?
Because behind his seat there was a tick-tock, tick-tock.
Of course the first responders came, discovered it was just the violin case and the digital metronome. After hours, everybody begins to get back on. But the young woman is terrified that, of course, she will be found out and punished.
As she is getting on the plane with the other passengers, she meets eye to eye with the flight attendant who had told her that she could take her violin case and put it in the pilot's cloak closet. And the flight attendant looked her in the eye and said, "Don't you tell."
If you expect to make it to the competition, don't you tell.
It's just a reminder that sometimes in order to complete your mission, you shouldn't tell anybody.
And Christ is on a mission.
The nature of that mission we begin to discern in the opening words of this chapter. His mission he is making clear is that he is not playing games.
And the first game he will not play is he will not play the fame game. Verse 1, "The Pharisees and the Sadducees came and to test him, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven." Hey, we'll believe you, we'll follow you, we're on you, just show us a sign.
Now, it doesn't sound like such an unreasonable request. At times we ourselves feel, you know, if Jesus would just show me a sign, make the birds fly that way, move the toothpaste on the sink so that I recognize you're here and you're present and give me a sign.
So we are not prepared for verse 4, where Jesus actually says to those who are seeking a sign, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah." So he left them and departed. What's so wrong with asking for a sign? Jesus, just give us a little miracle.
Now, some of you in the room, I understand, are fans of a team that's called the Cubs.
And just a couple of years ago, there was a miracle.
After a century of denial, the Cubs not only make it to the World Series, they win the World Series.
And the manager who led them to that great miracle was fired just a few weeks ago.
Now, listen, every season that he coached except one, they made the playoffs. And just two years ago, they go to and win the World Series. And two years later, he is fired. Why? There is no better example than the human heart that says, "What have you done for me lately?"
And now these people are saying to Jesus, "Give us a sign." Now, just in the preceding chapter, he healed a man born blind in their own temple.
He has fed 5,000 with a few loaves and fishes. He's fed 4,000 with seven loaves. He's stilled the storm. He's driven out of the legion of devils.
"Well, just show us a sign and we'll believe." He's kind of going, "What else do you need? What else do you want?"
And of course the answer is they don't want a sign.
They want God on a leash. Give us a little performance.
You're a dancing bear on a chain. Just do what we want. Just show us, show us again that you're in charge. And Jesus is saying, "No sign will be given except the one we ourselves have, the sign of Jonah."
What is that?
Already Jesus had said, a few chapters earlier in Matthew 12, "No sign will be given to this generation but the sign of Jonah." What is that? "Even as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be."
He's going to be as it were, hidden, dead, and then come to life again. It is verse 21 of this same chapter. 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 on the third day, he would rise.
Jesus is saying, "You're asking for a sign. You've had all this evidence of I can provide what you cannot provide, but still you want to put God on a leash."
And it's what the Pharisees and Sadducees are in essence saying, "Just show us a sign and we'll follow you. Turn for us and then we'll know that you are God."
And Jesus in words that are striking says to them, verse 2, "When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red." And verse 3, "In the morning it will be stormy today for the sky is red and threatening." You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailors delight. We know the phrase, but Jesus is saying, "The sky is already red with the flames of hell itself being red." And you want corn dogs and dancing bears.
Read the signs.
You cannot by what you do make your way to God. You truly need provision from one because you cannot provide for yourself. You are not your Redeemer and you cannot put God on a string. And you must know that it is the message he is making playing. I am not playing the fame game.
You must recognize you need a Redeemer and not a dancing clown.
Even the disciples do not get that message. Verse 5, "When the disciples reached the other side of the sea, they had forgotten to bring any bread."
Well, I thought you brought the bread. Well, I thought you were going to bring the bread.
No problem.
We got Jesus.
We've seen what he can do to make bread. But verse 6, "Jesus said to them, watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." Now, the next verses are going to be this kind of debate among the disciples. What does he mean, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees?" Leaven is what? It's like yeast in dough, right? So he's saying, "Beware of the yeast that spreads its effect into all the good that God could do, the loaves, the feeding, the bread of God. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees." What is that?
It's putting God on the leash. It's this teaching that we'll do enough, we'll conduct enough, we'll be righteous enough that we can make God dance to our tune. And here are the disciples doing the same thing. "Oh, we forgot to bring the bread." We'll get Jesus to make a little more.
And Jesus has to even say to them, "That is not why I'm here. I'm not going to play the fame game, and I'm not going to play the genie in the bottle game either. I am not just here for your sake." The conclusion is in verse 12, after Jesus has again explained what the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, verse 12, "Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, that God is here for your pleasure."
You know, right now making a lot of press in our culture are the Sunday services of Kanye West.
He's a pop star with a lot of notoriety, and we should cheer and pray for a man who in this culture is saying, "I'm going to play Sunday services for the glory of Jesus." I mean, that's a good and right thing.
But we should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. So that when Kanye West, who I think genuinely is finding his way toward who God is and who Jesus is, say, "Here's one of the things I've discovered about how good Jesus is. My wife and I received a $63 million tax return. Jesus is so good."
And I kind of want...
When we talk about who Jesus is and what He is declaring, He's not just saying, "Oh, you want a little more lunch? You want to fill up your belly? You want to feel satisfaction? A little more cheese? A little more gravy? What's going to be for you?"
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees that just has God dance to your tune. What would it mean actually to say, "My goal is that Jesus would be known as the one who rules over all because my training was in journalism. I think of Ernest Bethel, the Christian journalist who went to Korea to make known the cruelties of Japanese colonialism.
And as he began to publish articles in Korea about the cruelties of the Japanese, he was imprisoned and tortured to make him stop.
But what he did when he was in prison is he wrote stories and then secretly got them to Korean agents who would then publish the stories for him for which he was martyred.
Jesus is not just here to fill our bellies and dance to our tune, and He is making clear He has another mission. He's not playing the genie game. He is not playing the fame game.
He is going to war.
The war that He has in mind may not be the one that we think of as He is establishing it. Verse 13, "Remember, now Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi." And because that's unfamiliar language to us, we just want to keep going, but it should just be a full stop.
"Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi." This greater David, the one who has said, "My Father David, as much as I share His lineage, I am the Good Shepherd who does not rule as He did." And so Jesus, just weeks before going to the cross, begins a journey where He begins to claim again all the land of Israel going from north to south of David's kingdom. As it were, putting a stake in the ground, every place He goes to say, "This is mine, and this is mine, and this is mine, but it is not ruled by selfishness and terror. I am the Prince of Peace, and I am the one who will overcome evil, and He even goes to Caesarea Philippi." No Jewish holy man would go there. That is the Roman central of paganism, where the amusement park of the time celebrated bestiality and sexual slavery and prostitution, all approved by the pagan Roman religions.
And now Jesus, a Jewish holy man who should get nowhere close to this, goes to it to have a conversation with his own disciples.
The end of verse 13, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
Verse 14, they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others say Jeremiah, one of the prophets.
You know, Jesus, you're a nice prophet. You have good things to say, "Say the people."
Verse 15, "But Jesus said to His disciples, "But who do you say I am?"
It is ultimately the question every person in this room has to answer before God.
Who do you say Jesus is?
See the dancing clown? See the genie in the bottle?
Or is He the one who died for your sin to save you from hell?
That you could not by your goodness, by your righteousness, by anything in you make your way to God.
And so this Jesus had to come and He came at the will of the Father to perform an act of extreme sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin so that we are made right with God, not by our deeds, not by our performance, but by faith in what He has accomplished in our behalf. It is that conversation that is not understood so that when Jesus continues the conversation after verse 15, "Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You're the Christ." That's the anointed one. The Son of the living God. That's who I believe you are. Verse 17, "Jesus answered, "Blessed are you Simon, Son of Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven."
What is Jesus saying to all the people who would say, "Who made you king?"
Jesus says, "God."
And when He says that, He is saying amazing things to you and to me. I mean, so what? Jesus went to Caesarea Philippi. What are your takeaways from that?
I hope one of your takeaways is that this Son of God is willing to get in the mud for you.
Caesarea, Philippi.
There's not been greater filth in the history of the world sexually, morally than what was happening at Caesarea Philippi. And here is Jesus willing to get His hands dirty, get His feet dirty, to come into the mud and the filth of our lives and say, "I am here to establish my kingdom."
World War I, those who were in the trenches.
World War II, those who were in the winter campaigns. Vietnam War, those who came in the mires of the jungles. Know what it means to fight in the mud. But here is the Son of God saying, "I am going to get in the mud for my people." We would say, "There's no way that Jesus can or should love me. So much wrong, so much difficulty. Things that have been done to me. Things that I have done. Things that I can't even confess openly in the church. There's no way Jesus would get near to me."
And Jesus says, "I'm willing to get in the mud for you."
That's what He did when He went to Caesarea Philippi.
And He didn't just say by these words, "I am willing to get in the mud." He's saying, "Your hell will not stop me from seeking to save you."
Verse 17, "Yes, flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, what has been revealed?" Verse 18, "I tell you, you're Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." On this 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's collapse, we should know what this means.
Evil and the power of men having established a barrier of such evil intent that it seemed impossible that resulted in the life lost of thousands of people and the incarceration or oppression of millions of people.
How could it be overcome?
But ultimately you know in 1989 the wall was breached.
And now Jesus is saying something for our times to remember, the gates of hell that we perceive as controlling us, oppressing us, that we can't get out of, this situation our lives may be in, Jesus is saying, "My kingdom is advancing, and the gates of hell are not going to stop me from coming into your life or overcoming these." Is it an abuser? Is it a molester?
Is it somebody who controls your pension or controls your money or controls your life or your thought? And there's no way that I'm going to get out of this, that I have any power. Listen, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." Christ is promising not an absence of difficulty, no not that, but an ultimate victory that he will maintain for his people. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the purposes of God. And the people who believe that, it changes the way they see the world and what they're willing to do. I think of Amy Carmichael, the great missionary whose mission was to rescue children from temple prostitution in India. And she did not just fight the Indian political and religious authority, she had to fight the church in England because it was too impolite a subject. You can't bring that up.
That's coarse and crude and dirty and we can't talk about that. And Amy Carmichael said, "This is the mission of Christ to actually go against the gates of hell." I think of the young women that I love so much at Covenant Seminary who were being trained to go into the brothels of Bangkok or the streets of Vancouver to rescue people who by their addictions or by their slavery were being denied anything but homelessness for governments and others who were looking away and saying, "We will go for them. The gates of hell will not prevail against our efforts." I think of the young people of this congregation over and over again who commit themselves to the mission field or mission work. And their parents and peers all know that by that commitment they will never have the income, the prestige, the acknowledgement, the ease of life of their peers. And yet they say, "Because we are in a war and we are in a war for the souls that last eternally and for that reason we advance the kingdom of God. We may be persecuted. Our lives may be lost. Our bodies may be hurt. But the gates of hell shall not prevail against the kingdom of God." And for that reason we are on that mission for Christ our Savior. It is not an easy mission, but Christ declares it in such a way that it cannot be avoided. Verse 18, "I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church." Now a lot of you know this huge discussion in the history of the church. What does that mean? Is the church being built on Peter or on his confession? He has just said, "Jesus, you are the Son of God who is willing to come into the mud
and not be afraid of hell, but die on the cross and rise again on the third day. You have acknowledged who you are and I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Remember that the very thing Jesus is having his disciples understand is they are not to be dissuaded by the teaching of the Pharisees. He's saying it's this teaching of Peter that I'm going to build my church on. But that means it's a mission for the church. This is something we are being called to understand. This church that will prevail against the gates of hell. So much so that Jesus can say in verse 19, "I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed on heaven." If you speak of me in such a way, if you witness of me in such a way, even by the loss of your life that people are heart bound to the reality that Christ is the Son of the living God, that he came to die for people in their filth and in their hell in such a way that they could be saved eternally. If that's what you believe, if that's what you think, Christ is saying, "What you bind on earth will be forever bound in heaven." Your testimony, your witness, when they are a heart committed to that, then what has happened here on earth has heavenly realities for eternity, which makes it hard for us to read verse 20. "Then he strictly charged his disciples to tell no one." Wait, there's so much at stake.
Why tell no one?
You know, when our children were younger and at some point we were going crazy with the whining and the tattling and the accusations that we came up with a rule. Now I'm not saying this is right for every family, but this was the rule in our family.
If one kid cries, everybody gets spanked.
Now it put a great end to the tattling and the whining almost immediately. And we would sometimes, you know, hear a child start to cry, and then the other would say, "Don't cry!
Don't tell! You can hit me!"
Now listen, that don't tell message was meant to prevent greater punishment.
Jesus' don't tell message was meant to provide greater punishment that would fall upon Him
in the timing and the purpose of God.
If at this point, before He was prepared, before He made the mission plane, not only claiming north and south of Israel, but re-entering Jerusalem through Jericho, the same way that Joshua came in when he was given the mission of dominating the nation with the message of a God who provided for people who were totally undeserving.
Jesus recognizing the failure of Joshua not only becomes the greater David, he becomes the greater Joshua.
And He's not ready yet. He's not declared who He is in such a way that people will understand. So He says, "Don't say too much too soon until the mission is complete."
Sometimes you don't tell, so the mission can be completed, but there is a time to tell.
Because Jesus is not just going to war. He is declaring to His people He is willing to fight to the death.
Verse 21, "The chief priests and scribes will kill Him, and on the third day He will be raised." Knowing it, He set His face like a flint toward Jerusalem. I will not be disturbed. I will not be dissuaded. I will not be distracted. I am going to die. I will fight to the death for my people. He knew what He was saying, and He knew that any who would stand in His way had to be rejected,
even His friends, even His disciples, if they would try to stand in His way. Verse 22, "After Jesus said He would be killed," verse 22, "Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you."
"But he that is Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan.
You are a hindrance to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."
We hate reading it. I mean, if you really understand, this is Peter who's been with Him for three years through thick and thin, who has gone through the deprivations, gone through the difficulties. Yes, impulsive at times, but nonetheless stayed with Him.
And Jesus says even to Peter, "The very one He has just said, I'm going to build my church on your confession." He says, "Peter, if you're going to change your confession, you're going to line up on the side of Satan, and I must put you behind me."
It's a great reminder and difficult one for us that we are called to understand our mission too.
Who do you say Jesus is?
And who do you tell people Jesus is? He is the one who came to die, to overcome Satan's evil in your own heart, sin. And you do not avoid hell without Him.
And for that reason, Christ must be made known.
And that means people have to keep telling who He is. And so Jesus says, verse 24, "He told His disciples, if anyone would come after Me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Forever would save his life, we'll lose it. But ever loses his life for My sake, we'll find it." It's not just Jesus who's going to die.
He is looking for an army who is willing to say, "I'll fight to the death too. If I must put aside my prestige, my career, my life, my approval of others, if my own body must be battered for the service of Christ, I will lie on the cross with Him if need be."
That Christ would be known. What does it mean to have an army of cross bearers? You know, from the time that I was a teen, one of the stories that used to just hold my attention was the story of the two Margaret's in Scotland. There came a time when James VII said, "He was the head of the church."
And the faithful churches said, "No, you're not. Jesus is the head of the church."
And for that reason, men and women were imprisoned and some killed by the troops of the king. There were two Margaret's who were made an example of to intimidate others. One was an older woman. The other a very young woman.
A teenager.
The older Margaret, they staked in the tide further out than the younger Margaret that they staked in the surf near shore.
The reason so that the younger Margaret could watch her mother in the faith die in the rising tide.
As the rising tide was overwhelming, the older Margaret, one of the troops went to the younger Margaret and said, trying to dissuade her, make her recant her faith, said, "What do you see there?"
And she looked at her mother in the faith dying in the surf and said, "What do I see there but Christ struggling for the souls of His people?"
It may just be an old story.
But I show you the pictures of the missionaries to Korea who gave up everything.
Their lives, their fortunes. One, the last, even giving up His name. Nobody knows. But Christ alone.
But it is not just an old story.
There are those who still know what it means to take up their cross.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the United States Special Forces announced that they had found
and killed the head of ISIS who had done so much terror and damage to others across the world.
Known to few was the name of the operation and to whom it was dedicated.
Kayla Euler, college student, Prescott, Arizona, who went to Syria to visit Doctors Without Borders and see how she might give of her life. Instead, she was captured and imprisoned by ISIS.
In that imprisonment, she had little contact with the outside world. But at some point, as some prisoners were released, they took a message to her parents. She wrote this, "I have come to the place in experience where I understand all you really have in the end is God.
In every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to the Creator because there is nothing else for me."
They think, "Well, wait, wait, wait.
She's held by ISIS." Of course, she has to surrender. She's got no choice but to surrender her life. Wrong.
There came a moment in her imprisonment with other young Syrian girls that there was a chance to escape.
They all began out of the cell.
Kayla stayed behind. One of the Syrian girls said, "Come on." She said, "No.
I'm the American. If I go with you, ISIS will spare no effort to get you.
You go.
I stay."
Giving of her life to save others.
When she did not leave, one of the guards who was a servant of Jihadi John, do you remember that name? The American who actually became the one who beheaded more Westerners than any other people for ISIS?
The guard said, "The reason she stayed is because she has converted to Islam."
She said, "My Savior is Jesus Christ, and I've converted to no one else."
The other girl said, "No one else had the guts to say that. The price was too high." It was a huge price.
The very man who was just caught in the tunnel two weeks ago by America's special forces who put his own children in front of him as a human shield took Kayla and abused and tortured her as an example to others and to get compliance from them.
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Not just for yourself. The message is that this sacrifice on this mission of the death of self for the sake of Christ is part of the heavenly mission. That we have read the signs, and because we know eternity, we speak for the sake of the souls of others and live for them. I don't know what that means for each one of you here. I'm saying it means for some of you that you stand up against the pressures of a friend for sacrificing your ethics or sacrificing your purity. It means some of you refusing to give in to bitterness because of a family member, the way they're treating you, the way you're treating your children, to refuse to give in to somebody who controls your salary and your pension and your career and your position. Why?
Because we are warriors of the king. We are on a mission for eternity. And we confess everything that we have to do. Yes, we will be afflicted but not crushed, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed in our bodies, carrying the death of Jesus Christ, that the life of Jesus Christ might be known. We are the army of God and He is calling us into His mission. This is our purpose. Onward Christian soldiers. The battle will not last forever but we shall sing the victor song. And for that reason, young or old, I call you to the mission. I call you to the war. I call you to bear the cross.
Onward Christian soldiers. The battle is ours and Christ is the victory. Go for Him. In Jesus' name, amen. Father, so work your word that we trust you beyond the good of our own bodies or careers, beyond our bank accounts, beyond what people look at and would call ridiculous. We live for, there's too much at stake to do anything else.
He has been shown to us and we are now living for the Savior who holds the gates of hell before us. Help us to know He shall prevail so that we, whatever our calling, whatever our challenge, would stand for Him. Make us here again, onward Christian soldiers. The cross before us, the Spirit filling us, the Father with us, take us forward, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.