If you remember nothing else from this sermon, I hope you’ll remember this: When it comes to faith, it is a my way or the high way situation. Now, let me explain what I mean. In Matthew 16:24-26, Jesus tells his disciples this, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” Jesus tells his disciples that following him means denying themselves and taking up their cross. Jesus tells his disciples that if they cling to their lives, they will lose them. If they lose their lives for his sake, they will find them. Jesus’s message is one of holding nothing back, of being willing to dive in head first, if need be.

The problem is: we often take these verses out of context. We forget what comes right before them, and we read into them whatever it is that is on our minds at the time. So, let’s go back a few verses. Jesus told Peter and the other disciples that things were not going to end the way they hoped. Jesus told them he would suffer and die. He told them he would rise again on the third day. Peter heard what Jesus was saying, and it didn’t sound like things the Messiah should say. The Messiah was supposed to overthrow Rome, not die. And so, Peter rebuked Jesus. That must have taken some chutzpah. He tells Jesus, “No. That can’t be the way things go.” And Jesus responds, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus called Peter out for thinking the way the world thinks. This is what comes right before Jesus’s words about taking up our cross and following him. This is what comes right before Jesus telling his disciples that those who want to save their lives will lose it. If we look at the Greek, this becomes even clearer. The word that is translated “life” is a word that can mean life, soul, or even our inmost desires. Peter wasn’t afraid to give up his own life. Later on, when Jesus told Peter he would deny him three times, Peter responded, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you” (emphasis mine). So, what was Jesus’s teaching about “those who want to save their lives will lose it” all about?

I think Peter was more willing to give up his life than to give up his idea of what was supposed to happen. He was ready to rush headlong at the opposing forces and fight. He was ready to defend Jesus, even if it cost him his life. But, when Jesus started talking about the need for the Son of Man to die – Peter was not okay with that. Peter was okay with his own death. But, Jesus’s death? That was not part of the plan.

In Peter, I see a call to examine my own life and my own heart. What desires do I have that I put before anything else? Where am I clinging to my own will and my own way?

For myself, I know I often want a plan. I want to know how things are going to turn out. This season and uncertainty has been pushing me – pretty much every day – to ask if I am willing to lay down my way and take up my cross and follow after Jesus. Sometimes I think I am getting a whole lot better at it. Other times, I feel like I haven’t learned a thing and I have to start all over again. When we fail, God’s mercies are made new every morning, which means we start with a clean slate and can begin again. 

Faith is a my way or the high way situation – but not highway like the road you drive on. Every day we are invited to ask ourselves again if we are seeking after the high way – God’s way. Are we clinging to our own wills, or are we offering up our wills to God so that they can be examined in God’s light? This is one of many reasons to read the Bible, and to worship as part of a community put together by Christ. As we read and study Scripture and as we walk together and follow after God’s way together, we will find many opportunities to examine our inmost desires in God’s light. We can encourage one another. We can pray for each other. We can gently correct each other. We can strive towards what is good together. And, when we miss the mark, we will find many opportunities for renewal, restoration, and reconciliation. 

We get a glimpse at God’s good way in Galatians 5: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” When we don’t know which way to go, when we aren’t sure if we are following our own way or if we are following God’s way, let’s be guided by the Spirit. The Spirit leaves a trail for us to follow – a little bread crumb path that lets us know we’re headed the right direction. Along that path we will find the fruit of the Spirit, and our hearts will reverberate within us because these fruit are exactly the stuff we were made for. 

On this path, we will be invited to share love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control everywhere we go. Doesn’t that list make you want to breathe in deeply and savor each word? We need these things in our world today, don’t we? We’ve always needed them, but it seems more important now than ever before – at least in my lifetime. What about in yours? 

Oh, how we need love and joy. Oh, how we need peace and patience. Kindness… that word shakes me. We need it desperately in our world. We need all of these things. I read this list and I wonder – where are these things in our world?

And then I remember…these things are in me. I just don’t always choose to bring them out. Too often, I choose my way instead of God’s way.

C.S. Lewis in his book The Great Divorce wrote this, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”

What will change the world today, this very minute is the choice to lay down “my way,” and to take up God’s way. We will need a whole lot of help to do it. We will fail miserably – often. May the flame of God’s Spirit burn brightly within us as we say to God, “Thy will, and not mine.”

To close today, I would like to sing you a song that was written by Jennifer Knapp. This song is called Refine Me. Let’s allow this song to guide us in prayer.