The Christ, the Cross, and the Cost | Seeing the Real Jesus in a World of Illusions | Matthew 16

INTRODUCTION

Good morning, church.

If you ask people today who Jesus is, you will receive many different answers. Some will say He was a good teacher. Others will say He was a prophet. Some will say He was a revolutionary, a moral example, or a religious leader. Others may simply say, “I am not sure.”

But the most important question is not what society says, not what culture says, not even what religious people say. The most important question is the one Jesus asked His own disciples in Matthew 16:15 “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

Matthew 16 shows us that it is possible to be very close to Jesus and still miss Him. The Pharisees and Sadducees miss Him. The disciples miss Him. Peter confesses Him rightly, and yet in the very next moment resists the way of the Cross. So this chapter teaches us that it is possible to hear Jesus, walk with Jesus, and still misunderstand Jesus.

The Christ, the Cross, and the Cost

1.  The Closed Mind

We have a story about the leaders who can’t see Jesus for who he really is because of closed-mindedness. Closemindedness is one way to miss Jesus. The closed mind resists Jesus.

See the title of Matthew 16: Jesus Rejected by the Leaders

Matthew 16:1

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

This is actually the second time they are asking for a sign. Matthew chapter 12:38, the Pharisees and some other Bible teachers come up to Jesus for a sign.

The Pharisees and Sadducees two very influential leadership groups in Israel. These two groups despised each other. The Pharisees were the conservative, strict Bible-teachers who taught in the synagogues. The Sadducees were the wealthy, liberal aristocrats who ran the temple. But today, they are united by a common threat: Jesus of Nazareth.

They come to Jesus and are demanding a sign from heaven. In the OT, there is a story where there is a showdown with a prophet to show a sign from heaven. Remember, the 450 prophets of Baal with Ahab and Elijah and prays and fire comes from heaven? Now they are asking Jesus to show a similar sign.

Is this a genuine request? No. Matthew tells us they came to test him because they thought that Jesus is a false prophet. In fact, Jesus feels that Israel’s leaders are the sham.

What is Jesus’s response to this demand to show a sign from heaven?

Matthew 16:2-4

²He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ ³and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. ⁴A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

They’re demanding a sign from heaven, and then Jesus starts telling a parable about the colour of the sky in the morning and then the evening, and then he talks about Jonah. They are a farming culture where the majority of people work the land. For people who work the land reading the signs of the sky is important for their crop. In Jesus’ time, if you’re a sailor crossing the sea of Galilee you know how to read the sky.

Jesus said, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” The Sadducees and Pharisees can read the signs in the sky but they can’t read the signs of the times. They cannot see the person and the mission of Jesus.

The phrase, “signs of the times,” comes from the book of Daniel chapters 7, 9, and 11. So Jesus sees himself and the people of Israel within a story that’s coming to a culmination point.

So Daniel was reading the signs around him. Israel had turned away from faithfulness to its God, who saved them out of slavery in Egypt. They had neglected the teachings of the Torah. They had neglected the voices of the prophets, who were calling them to repent and turn to the God of Israel. Israel started to see the nations as their enemies. And so the prophets called Israel to turn away from that vision and repent but they did not and ended up in exile in Babylon.

Now, Jesus is calling Israel of his day to repent and to turn and to embrace the way of the kingdom. Now, Israel has Rome as their enemy. They are waiting for a Messiah to deliver them from Rome, and Jesus comes and says, “No, the way of the kingdom is very different than that.”

This has been the upside-down announcement of the kingdom. Jesus is trying to expose what he sees as the real human in Matthew 16

Matthew 16:8, 17-20

⁸“‘These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

¹⁷“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? ¹⁸But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

The human heart is bent like a bent stick with violence and lack of love. And Jesus sees himself to deal with the heart problem.

Jesus calls them to repent and embrace the way of the kingdom. He says, “If you want to be the most influential person in Jesus’s kingdom, you go to the bottom. And if you want to have the most power, you become the servant of all. And if you want to save your life, you actually give up your life in self-giving love and service to other people.” And then Jesus is actually going to live out this vision of the kingdom, right, all the way to the cross. And it was not what Israel’s leaders had in mind.

Has Jesus performed any signs or wonders? Healing people, rescuing people, or feeding people. None of Jesus’s signs was some public spectacle or fantastic show of his power. Jesus has given a lots of signs already. He will not force anyone, and Jesus walks away.

However, Jesus gives them the sign of Jonah.

Jonah is an Israelite prophet who hates non-Israelites, and he hates that God wants to show his mercy to non-Israelites. So he runs away, and it ends up in his death, right? Getting swallowed by a huge fish. Jonah’s death becomes his passage into a new lease on life. And then it’s actually his rescue from death that vindicates him as a prophet, and then the Ninevites all repent, and so on.

And so Jesus says, like, “Here’s the cryptic sign of Jonah.” Nobody’s going to get it until after Jesus rises from the dead. He is pointing straight to His coming death and resurrection. The ultimate sign isn’t fire from the sky; it is the empty tomb. If the finished work of the Cross. And he walks away.

Matthew 16:5

⁵When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.

They go from: Capernaum – Across the sea of Galilee – To Caesarea Philippi (16:31). There Jesus gets rejected by the leaders of Israel a third time. And so he withdraws and he retreats for a time. And so he goes up north into predominantly non-Jewish territory again.

Finally at the end of chapter 16, He goes back to Capernaum (17:24). Now, Jesus is going to set his face to go to Jerusalem for Passover. And so for the next four chapters 17-20, it’s Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. He’s going to enter Jerusalem in the Passion Week leading up to the Passover and trial and execution. He enters Jerusalem in Matthew 21.

So this is the last event that takes place up in Galilee, Jesus’s hometown. Jesus has been at work proclaiming the kingdom for a couple years now. This is what it all culminates in: Rejection by the leaders. They missed Jesus because of a closed mind. It’s a very sad note.

Transition: Matthew 16:5

⁵When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.

They’re leaving on a journey and the disciples forgot to bring bread. Just imagine that conversation in the boat., “Oh my God, we’re going on a journey. We forgot to bring bread.”

Matthew 16:6-7

⁶“Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ⁷They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”

2. The Cluttered Mind

The cluttered mind is too distracted to hear Jesus.

This is called the scarcity mindset. When someone fixes on what is missing, and what is absent, and what they lack. And then their whole life is constantly in a place of feeling unstable, because that’s all that they pay attention to.

The disciples, they have this fundamental mindset of fear and instability based off of the lack of resources, and they’re so fixated on it that when Jesus tries to talk about anything, they cannot hear him. They can’t hear him.

Matthew 16:8-12

⁸Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? (I didn’t even mention bread. I mentioned yeast.) ⁹Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? ¹⁰Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? (He is saying: I am the God who provides. Look at my track record in your life!) ¹¹How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ¹²Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

He can see that they’re missing everything that he’s saying because of their scarcity mindset, and because they interpret everything through the lens of them lacking bread.

If you are fixated on what you lack, you will miss the Christ who is sitting right in the boat with you. But notice the grace here: Jesus walks away from the arrogant Pharisees, but when His disciples misunderstand Him, He stays in the boat. He stays committed to them.

Two ways to miss Jesus:

1. You can miss Jesus by closed-mindedness.

2. You can miss Jesus by fixing our mind on our problems, the cluttered mind.

Apparently fixating on what I do not have is the recipe for missing Jesus altogether.

3. The Illuminated Mind – You are the Messiah

The illuminated mind receives divine revelation and confesses Jesus rightly.

Peter’s Confession:

Matthew 16:13

¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

Jesus takes them to Caesarea Philippi. This city was a dark, oppressive centre of pagan worship, filled with shrines to the Greek god Pan, and a massive marble temple dedicated to Emperor Caesar, a man claiming to be the “Son of God.”

Standing in the shadow of the world’s false gods and empires, Jesus asks: “But who do you say I am?”

Matthew 16:14-16

¹⁴They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

This is the revelation of The Christ. Jesus is not just a moral philosopher. He is the invisible, immortal, eternal God clothed in the frailty of human flesh entered into his own creation. That God which no man has seen in all creation but the Son know this God and He has come to reveal Him through human flesh. Peter is getting a glimpse of it, but He does not fully understand it.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This is the core value of the church from its origin. Jesus is the one who was promised one by YAHWEH. Remember God’s covenant with David that there will be a king who will come and rule upon the throne forever and will bring peace to the world, will bring reconciliation to the people of Israel? Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah. Jesus is the answer to human existence. So one needs to come to Jesus as our Lord, surrender Jesus as the sole authority, pledge allegiance to Jesus.

Matthew 16:17-20

¹⁷Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. If someone has to understand who Jesus is, it has to be the work of God. The Spirit of God must reveal who Jesus is. The Gospel requires divine illumination, faith in Jesus itself is a gift from Jesus.

…on this rock I will build my church.. In the Greek, Jesus calls Peter Petros (a small stone), but says He will build His church on this Petra—Peter’s confession that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus does not bless Peter, but blesses the confession of Peter. It is the confession as well as the confessor, the subject of the confession. Jesus will build his church on the confession of people as well as the confessor, this makes a true church. It is not a building but upon the confessing community and the confessor, Jesus. Peter later states that we are the chosen one, a nation of priests, a royal priesthood.

and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Death will not have dominion over the church. This is no idea that we are free from pain, difficulty or death in this passage. What Jesus is saying is that because of his work on the cross, that death does not get the last word. Death, sin, wickedness was conquered on the cross, even though we see its impact now, but Jesus has won the victory over it. It is like a war that has ended, but there are areas within the territory where there is civil war. The enemy is a defeated enemy, he is a wounded enemy. That is why the kingdom of darkness is still around us but we must hold to the fact that Jesus is the victor. Confession in Jesus is not only confession in who he is but what he did.

This is the foundation of our faith. If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Roman 10. Saved into him.

So we have an illuminated mind – You are the Messiah, the Lord, the anointed one.

4. A Resisting Mind – Wanting Christ without the Cross

Peter has an opened mind in verse 16, but in verse 22 he still gets Jesus wrong. He receives the revelation of Christ, but he resists the mission of Christ. This reminds us that knowing Jesus is not a once-for-all moment of insight only; it is a continuing process of revelation, correction, and surrender.

Matthew 16:21-22

²¹From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

²²Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Peter who is the building block of the church now becomes a stumbling stone. Peter got who is Jesus, but the same Peter is now misunderstanding Jesus. Peter is challenging Jesus’ authority and challenge Jesus’ own mission, because it did not suit his idea of what the Messiah should be. Peter is not an unbeliever here. He is a disciple who has received true revelation, but he still thinks in merely human terms.

Matthew 16:23

²³Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

It is possible to be Christocentric (Christ centred) and not be cross centred. The cross was an offence in Jesus’ day and it continues to be today. The greatest offence that the church has upon culture when the church behaves as it is intended to be is when there is a gospel presented that declares, not only Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, but Jesus Christ crucified. There is no resurrection without a Cross. The Cross is a realty that God is love in essence but he hates everything that robs him of his beloved. God dying for human sin is so offensive to the modern mind. Why would God suffer? Jesus is not gentle in his words here, he rebukes Peter.

5. The Cruciform Mind

If Peter in the previous section shows us a resisting mind—wanting Christ without the Cross—then Jesus now calls His disciples to a cruciform mind: A mind shaped by the Cross itself. To confess Jesus rightly is not only to believe something true about Him; it is to follow Him in the way He walked.

Matthew 16:

²⁴Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

²⁸“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

The outcome of true confession is costly discipleship. We naturally avoid pain at all cost and the frailty of human existence. Nowhere in the gospel, we see Jesus giving us everything that we ever wanted. The only time Jesus says, ‘Whatever you ask in my name my Father will give it to you’ is at the end of his life where his life was marked with suffering and trial, on the eve of his own crucifixion.

Virtue and character comes through the furnace of trials. Faith is a gift of God but our sanctification is a responsibility, we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

But Jesus does not call us to a life shaped by self-preservation. He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. The Christian life is not built on the promise that Jesus will give us everything we want, but on the promise that He Himself is worth everything we must surrender. A cruciform mind understands that holiness is greater than comfort, obedience is greater than convenience, and eternal life is greater than worldly gain. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that we are not. To follow Him is to place our lives in His hands, to walk in self-giving love, and to trust that the way of the Cross is the way that leads to life.

When Jesus got arrested, the disciples begin to abandon him. It was getting too costly to follow him. Our confession is based on what we believe, but what we believe have a cost to pay. Our obedience to God who loves us and gave himself for us, that gives freedom, and that means that we become responsible to work it out practically in our lives.

Confession that Jesus is Lord and to say that he is Lord is to say that we are not. To say that He is King means that I am not in control. To say I will follow you wherever you want me to go Lord, is to say that my life is not my own that is yours. For us to follow Jesus is to live in self-giving love and it is only then will we be able to love each other the way that we’re called to. Amen

CONCLUSION

Matthew 16 leaves us with a solemn warning and a glorious invitation.

Some miss Jesus because their minds are closed. They demand signs, but they do not want surrender. Some miss Jesus because their minds are cluttered. They are so consumed with fear, lack, and earthly concerns that they cannot hear the voice of Christ clearly. Some, like Peter, receive true revelation about Jesus and yet still resist the Cross, because they want a Christ of glory without a Christ of suffering.

So let us ask ourselves today:

• Have I closed my mind against Jesus?
• Has my mind become cluttered by fear and earthly concerns?
• Am I confessing Christ with my lips while resisting His Cross in my life?
• Or is the Lord shaping in me a cruciform mind that is willing to follow Him at any cost?

Church, the Christ is worthy. The Cross is central. And the cost of following Him is never greater than the glory of knowing Him.

LIFE APPLICATION POINTS

1. Examine whether you are resisting Jesus in any area of life

The Pharisees and Sadducees were not neutral; they were testing Jesus (Matt. 16:1). Sometimes resistance to Christ does not look openly rebellious. It can look religious, respectable, and even intelligent. We must ask ourselves: Is there any area where I am refusing Christ’s authority because He does not fit my expectations?

Am I resisting Christ with my ambition, relationships, money, ministry recognition, or personal control. A closed mind says, “Lord, I will follow You, but only on my terms.” True discipleship begins where self-rule ends.

2. Refuse to let anxiety and scarcity drown out the voice of Christ

The disciples were so preoccupied with bread that they could not understand Jesus’ warning (Matt. 16:5–12). Fear can make spiritually serious people spiritually dull. We have pressures about work, EMIs, rent, children’s education, aging parents, health concerns, and future uncertainty, it is easy for the mind to become cluttered.

But Jesus reminds His disciples of His past provision. He will provide for your needs. The answer to fear is not denial; it is remembrance. Mature believers must learn to recall the faithfulness of God. A cluttered mind sees only what is lacking. Faith remembers who is in the boat.

3. Keep coming back to the central confession: Jesus is the Christ

Peter’s confession is the center of the chapter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). The Christian life never moves beyond this confession; it goes deeper into it. In a world of confusion, pluralism, and endless opinions, the church must remain clear that Jesus is not one option among many. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the only Savior and Lord.

This means our faith cannot rest merely on tradition, emotion, or borrowed convictions. Each believer must personally know, confess, and submit to Jesus Christ.

4. Do not seek a Christ without the Cross

Peter wanted the Christ, but not the suffering Christ (Matt. 16:22–23). That temptation remains with us. We may want blessing without surrender, victory without suffering, ministry without sacrifice, and resurrection without crucifixion.

But Jesus teaches that the Cross is not an interruption of His mission; it is the centre of it. And the Cross must also shape our understanding of the Christian life. A church that is Christ-centred must also be Cross-centred. We should expect that following Jesus will involve dying to self, enduring hardship, and obeying God even when the path is costly.

5. Embrace the cost of discipleship as the path to true life

Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). This is not a call to misery, but to true life. The one who tries to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for Christ will find it (Matt. 16:25).

This means daily discipleship must become practical. We deny ourselves when we choose obedience over convenience, purity over compromise, generosity over self-protection, truth over approval, and Christ over comfort. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we learn to say: “Lord Jesus, my life is not my own. My time, my plans, my relationships, my future, my ministry, and my ambitions belong to You.”

Finally, I want to remind you of the character of Jesus. He doesn’t abandon us. He doesn’t hop out of the boat. He stays committed to us even when we are uncommitted to him. Amen.