(No livestream today)
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 16:21-28
August 30, 2026
Matthew’s Gospel for today from chapter 16, well there’s a few different ways to approach this text, but only one way is the right way – the way our Lord intends. And I think what makes this text a little more difficult is that it starts with the Gospel and then switches to the Law. And the question we must ask is, “what law?”
So, you know that, as Lutherans, we talk about the three uses of the law. You learned about the three uses in Confirmation, I hope, that Scripture employes the Law in three different ways and that part of the task of reading Scripture is rightly dividing, not only law and gospel, but also the three uses of the law.
And as good Lutherans, you know that the first use is the Curb use, the “keep people on the straight and narrow use”; the second use is the Mirror use, the “show people their sin” use; and the third and final use is the Guide use, the “show Christians how to live the godly life” use.
Now, the Gospel in the text might seem like old news – at least for we who have heard it a million times. Jesus is going to be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, be judged a criminal, beaten and battered at the order of Rome, and finally be crucified. And then, on the 3rd day He will rise from the dead. We’ve heard this in one way, shape, or form every Sunday since we were wee pups, freshly baptized and sitting in church with our parents.
It’s sort of like the love we might have for a particular television sitcom or for a movie we’ve seen 100 times. We know the words by heart and in some respects, we find ourselves relating to the characters. Same with the Gospel. We’ve heard it countless times and we relate to it in some way, and none of us in this room have said of late that we wish Jesus didn’t die for our sins.
We’re good with the Gospel or we wouldn’t be here.
But if we were one of the 12 disciples from the 1st century, today would have been the first time we’ve heard Jesus speak of His crucifixion. Our concept and understanding of our rabbi named Jesus would have been based on His miracles – raising people from the dead and healing the sick and the lame, giving hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind. We would know Jesus as a preacher who preached about living holy lives and loving God and serving the neighbor, how to properly keep the commandments. And on occasion, we might even refer to Him as the Christ, the Son of God.
But the moment Jesus starts talking about His suffering and death, we’d be much like Peter. We would not want to hear THAT. And then to tag on the whole, “rise again on the third day” stuff is crazy talk. We might even get a sense of His crucifixion talk as a sacrificial thing because when He says the words “handed over,” we hear sacrificial language; the lambs being handed over to the priest for sacrificial atonement. This particular passage doesn’t use the phrase “handed over,” but it does show up elsewhere.
Regardless, if this was the first time we heard Jesus talk about His crucifixion, it would unnerve us, and like Peter, we might pull Jesus aside and try to correct His misguided ideas. And like Peter, we would need a firm rebuking from our Lord because the very devil himself is in the way.
But then Jesus turns back to the 12, and it is in the remainder of His words in today’s text where we must deal with the law.
And first, second, or third use is the question we must ask. Is Jesus trying to curb the disciples’ behavior to keep them on the straight and narrow? Is Jesus pointing out their sins and evoking repentance? Is Jesus simply using the law to guide His disciples to holy living?
I think Jesus is employing all three uses of the law in His words.
The curb use is certainly there though not forcefully. Jesus says, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?” This is certainly a sort of curb use as it draws us to following the narrow path rather than the broad path of the world. There’s even a slight threat to the words: you will suffer eternal death if you don’t follow me.
But the curb use is not the real force of this text. Jesus is not going out of His way to threaten the 12. Subtly it’s there, but it’s not really Jesus’ point.
The second use is certainly predominant in His words, but we will come back to that. Let’s first consider the third use of the law, which is clearly in this text as well.
If you recall last week’s Gospel reading, it was that famous interaction between Jesus and the 12 where He asks, “who do YOU say that I am” to which Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” And then Jesus says to them, “Upon this rock I shall build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Based upon that interaction, it is quite fair to say that the disciples, for the most part, were believers; the Spirit of God was working in them, planting and growing faith and the whole nine yards. But as I said earlier, they didn’t have the whole story yet; Jesus had not yet told them that He was going to be crucified. I mean, Jesus’ crucifixion was everywhere in their Scripture or what we call the Old Testament, but they had not made the connections, and those connections would not be fully developed in their minds until after His death and resurrection and even ascension.
So, after Jesus explains what’s about to happen, and after Peter rebukes Him for saying it, Jesus has to speak to them and guide them, so they start to think differently about this path they’ve been chosen to walk with Jesus.
And Jesus makes clear to them that the road He walks, which ultimately leads to His death, will be a road that will lead to their suffering and death. To, “deny yourself” means that they are not to worry about their lives, their needs, their career paths, if you will, but that they must instead take up whatever suffering that will come to them and follow Jesus. He even gives a bit of comfort to them, and hope, when He tells them that He and His angels will return and repay them for following, even if their following means suffering and death.
Jesus is laying out a clear roadmap for them and explaining to them that their lives will not be easy, peazy, lemon squeezy, that as He is about to be handed over to suffering and crucifixion, they will be handed over to the same, but that in the end, they will prevail, just as Jesus prevails in His resurrection.
You see, this text is very much a third use text, the guide use for believers. And, inasmuch as Jesus deployed the guide use for the 12, He deploys it for us.
We are God’s children, and therefore the law becomes for us a guide, and Jesus says that we are to deny ourselves. In other words, it’s time we grow up. It’s time we see our Lord’s suffering and death for what it is. Yes, it may very well be a repeat we’ve seen on TV a hundred times; His suffering, death, and resurrection might be old news to us and might even be a little boring to have to hear again, and again, and again. But Jesus’ crucifixion and His resurrection is at the core of who we are, of what, in our baptisms, we have been recreated to be. We should never grow tired of hearing the Gospel because without Christ and His cross, we’d be in a whole lot of trouble.
Even so, we must learn that the Christian faith is not easy, peazy, lemon squeezy, and that denying ourselves is not a call to a part-time, 1-hour per week at most faith. Jesus did not say, “deny yourselves on Sundays, and then live your life as you please the rest of the week,” no. Jesus doesn’t say this about repentance, and He doesn’t say this about self-denial.
I get the sense that, in today’s world, self-denial is a part-time, minimal time endeavor, that, when there’s no work, or sports, or vacations or bills to pay or shopping to do only THEN might there be a little time for self-denial.
But what is self-denial? Self-denial is saying “NO” to the very things that keep us from carrying our crosses, right? Deny yourself, stop living your life and using the little time the Lord gives you for all worldly pursuits, deny yourself of these things and of your own sinful passions, take up your cross, and follow. Deny yourself of this life of doubt which insists you must fend for yourself and fight to have all your needs met by your own methods, and instead follow Christ, trust Him, abide in Him.
This is all third-use, right? There is no question of who you are in Christ; the question is now, “What shall you do; how do you live your life?”
The guide use, the 3rd use gives us clarity and a path to follow. But the third use also seems to bring us back to the 2nd use, doesn’t it? The third use, when we really stop to think, forces us to look back into that mirror of God’s Law so that we acknowledge that what we are called to be by the third use is not something we do well.
As children of the heavenly Father, we know what we ought to do because Jesus has clearly told us in such places as the Sermon on the Mount or here in Matthew 16, or even through His apostles like St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John and the rest, and yet we do not do as well as we ought but like the disciples, we seem to stumble back into our old vices and bad habits, our obsession with money and wealth, and our often stubborn inability to readily deny ourselves of the pleasures and concerns of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Second use of the Law shows us that, even though we know the path, we know who to follow and when to follow (all the time, and not just when there’s time), we do not follow and sometimes we don’t even care that we don’t follow, and thus we must repent.
This is why Jesus spoke these words to the disciples. See, Jesus had to die. It was the only way to save the world from sin, death, and the devil, and the disciples needed to know this. They needed to know that His suffering and death had purpose, that His crucifixion would be earth-shaking because it would change the entire world (snap) just like that. The sins of the whole world; past, present, future, until the Day of the Lord when He comes with His angels in the glory of the Father, would be paid for in full, and His disciples needed that atonement.
Yes, Peter and the 12 should have denied themselves; yes, they should have taken up their crosses. Yes, you should deny yourself; yes, you should take up your cross and follow and forsake everything you hold more important than God in your life, yes. All the things you think are so important in this world, that you hold in such high esteem that you’ll abandon God, break His commandments and teach your children to do the same, yes, you should deny them all and no matter the suffering it might bring you, you take up that cross and you follow your Lord to Golgotha without looking back.
But you don’t, and I don’t, and that’s why Jesus had to suffer and die. Satan would have you thinking that your salvation is in your changing your life and being a good, moral person. Satan would have you thinking that you’re such a sinner that not even God can save you. In both ways, the Lord stands and rebukes the devil for his lies and then turns to you and reminds you of your need and dependency on Him. You need Jesus; you need His suffering and death and His resurrection, and you need Him to return again with His holy angels, and you need His righteousness to cover you fully, so you are not judged and condemned.
Yes, we are called to deny ourselves and take up our crosses. Yes, Paul gives clear 3rd use instructions to us throughout chapters 12 and 13 of Romans. And as God’s children, we are certainly called to strive and struggle to do the good works afforded us by the third use of the law.
But our salvation, our hope is not there. Our salvation and hope is in Christ and Him alone, whose blood was shed for us to atone for our sins, that through daily repentance, acknowledging our need for His loving mercy, we will, on His glorious day, be judged according to His work for us, so that our works, empowered by the Holy Spirit, might be judged righteous. Amen.
