Part 1: The Good Life (through Death)
Victory Life Church — Sunday, April 12, 2026
Link to a downloadable PDF:
2026-04-12 – Follow Me, Part 1 (Full Notes)
Scripture Reading (Key Text)
Matthew 16:21–27 (NIV)21 From 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. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus 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.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What 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? 27 For 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.
Introduction
We exist to see people transformed by Jesus.
What is your vision of “the good life”? (Where did that vision come from?)
“To be human is to be on a quest. To live is to be embarked on a kind of unconscious journey toward a destination of your dreams…You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for.” ~ James K.A. Smith
We are always already living toward some vision of the good life. Our cultural systems (liturgies) — social media, consumer advertising, career culture, entertainment — are constantly forming that vision, below the level of conscious choice—comfort, security, control, reputation, self-determination. Are these “the good life”? Are these things bad in and of themselves? As we will see later in this message, these things are not evil in themselves — they are “images of goodness.” How does Jesus’ invitation reconcile them? Jesus’ image of “the good life”? A cross.
Matthew 16:24 (NIV) 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
The central question for today is not ‘Are you willing to suffer for Jesus?’ It is something more fundamental: What are you living for? What is the vision of the good life that currently shapes your decisions, organizes your time, and orients your deepest longings? Jesus does not attack those longings — he reorders them. The cross is not the end of desire. It is the doorway to properly ordered desire. The problem is that we have let images become the source, and desire has become craving.
To understand Jesus’ invitation properly, we need to consider it within the broader Biblical context. What does the Bible say about the human condition and our desire for the good life? And how do we see Jesus’ invitation within that wider story?
Desiring the Good
When you read through and study the first pages of the Bible, there is a word that keeps being repeated over and over: “Good” (tov). God defines what is good and what is not good, a pattern clearly outlined in Genesis 1 and 2; “good” is repeated SEVEN times. Reflecting on the early pages of Genesis, the Psalmist declares of YHWH:
Psalm 119:68 (NIV)68 You are good, and what you do is good…
God’s very nature is goodness. “Good” is not a standard external of God that He meets; His essence is goodness. Because God is good, what He does is good, what He says is good, and what He determines is good is what it is: good.
Humans, made in God’s image, from the dust of the ground with the breath of life.
Genesis 2:9 (NIV)9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This is the first use of tov outside the seven-day narrative, and it’s applied to every tree — not just the special ones. The two descriptors work like a poetic parallel:
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- Desirable for seeing — the experience of encountering something tov
- Good for eating — the sustenance that tov provides
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The pairing reveals something important:
Desire is the natural response of a frail, mortal creature to genuine goodness.
When we encounter something that is truly tov, we want it — because we are creatures made of the dust, who cannot sustain ourselves and instinctively reach toward what can sustain us.
This is not a flaw.
Desire is introduced here as a structural feature of what it means to be human:
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- We are fragile and mortal.
- We encounter things in creation that are tov.
- Those tov things are images of God’s own goodness.
- We desire them because they can sustain our existence — at least for a time.
The question is whether we can tell the difference between an image of tov and the source of tov from which that image came.
Good and God’s Word
Genesis 2:15–17 (NIV)15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
God’s first command in the Eden story: Eat freely from every tree! All are tov; enjoy them. But, do not eat from the tree of knowing tov and rah. If you do, you will die. The tree looks exactly like every other tree. By design!
Though “the tree of the knowledge of tov and rah” looks like every other tree, the real issue is whether humans will trust the word of God over what they see and what they desire.
Humans are frail mortals who consistently mistake images of tov for tov itself. We become inappropriately attached to things that are genuinely good, and in doing so, turn them into something that leads toward death rather than life.
Humans do not live by fruit alone, but by God’s word.
The real knowledge of tov and rah is not gained by eating fruit. The path to genuine discernment, and therefore tov, runs through:
The path to genuine discernment:
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- Trusting what God says over what we see
- Developing a healthy skepticism toward our own desires
- Waiting on God’s wisdom rather than grasping at what appears good
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The withholding is not arbitrary. It is the teaching method. Look at the next verse.
Genesis 2:18 (NIV)18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
God himself identifies something that is “not tov” for the human — something the human may not have even recognized as a lack. And God lovingly provides it. This passage gives us, the reader, a clear understanding of God. We might wonder whether God is arbitrarily withholding tov, but the text pivots to show that God is the one who knows the difference between tov and rah. He will withhold what appears tov when it would actually do harm. And he will provide what is tov even when the human doesn’t yet know they need it.
Both withholding and providing flow from the same source: God’s own infinite tov.
How do humans do in this sweet setup of God’s goodness and delight? Not good.
Disordered Desire
A talking snake shows up, deceptively trying to manipulate the humans. After twisting God’s words, it directly counters them.
Genesis 3:4–5 (NIV)4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Two claims are made here, both false:
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- You will not die — directly contradicting God’s clear warning.
- God is withholding something good from you — casting God as a rival who fears human potential rather than a generous father guiding his children toward true wisdom.
This is the deepest misrepresentation: it inverts the essential character of God established throughout the creation narratives — a God of infinite tov, of overflowing generosity, who brings creatures into being and lavishes goodness upon them.
Genesis 3:6 (NIV)6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Original Description (trees, Genesis 2:9), in this order: (1) Desirable for seeing (kamad — desire); (2) Good for eating (tov). The sequence matters: first, you encounter something that stirs desire, then you face the choice of whether to take and consume it.
Inverted Description (Genesis 3:6) — “The woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and it was an object of longing for the eyes, and the tree was desirable for making wise.”
- The order is reversed. In Genesis 2, desire leads to an awareness of goodness. Here, the perception of usefulness for consumption comes first — the tree is evaluated as something to be taken, not simply appreciated.
- A new word for desire is introduced. Two Hebrew words for desire are now in play:
Kamad — Desire (neutral) — Gen. 2; also appears in the Ten Commandments as “covet”
Tava — Longing/craving — A more intense, visceral form of kamad — desire ratcheted up
- A third element is added: wisdom. The tree is also kamad “to make wise.” The snake has just told her that this wisdom is something God is withholding.
The biblical authors are carefully mapping the levels of intensity that desire can reach, inviting the reader into what the early church fathers and mothers called the discernment of spirits: learning to notice and name what is being activated within us when we encounter something genuinely tov.
A desire for something good, combined with an intense craving, plus the belief that taking it is the path to wisdom — this is the Biblical structure of disordered desire.
Summary
In Genesis 2, the trees are described as ‘desirable for seeing, and good for eating’ — desire first, then goodness. In Genesis 3:6, the order reverses: the tree is evaluated first as useful for consumption, then as an object of craving. The woman sees rightly that the tree is genuinely tov. The problem is not that she desires a good thing. The problem is that she grasps it on her own terms, outside God’s guidance.
Whether this moment is called “the fall,” or most accurately the great folly (they sought wisdom and became fools), it represents the foundational diagnosis of the human condition:
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- Desire is good. It is a structural feature of being a mortal creature who needs what is outside themselves.
- The world is genuinely full of tov. God is tov, and everything He makes reflects that.
- The problem: humans are deeply unreliable judges of tov and rah.
Therefore, our desires may point to what is good, but because of sin in us, they are not trustworthy to determine what is good. They can easily lead us into further sin, doing damage to our souls and our lives.
Three recurring patterns of misdirected desire emerge in the Biblical story:
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- We mistake an image of God’s goodness for the source of it — and become inappropriately dependent on it.
- We encounter something tov that is genuinely good but not good for us to take — and we take it anyway.
- We form excessive habits around something genuinely tov until the good thing itself becomes destructive.
Conversely, there are things that are truly tov for us that we don’t know we’re missing — and God, in His generous mercy, provides them before we even know to ask (as with the gift of the woman in Genesis 2:18).
Jesus, the New Human
Matthew’s Gospel is intentional in showing Jesus rewriting the human story. The entire biblical story moves toward one resolution: Jesus is the truly and fully human person whose desire is perfectly aligned with the Father’s.
Matthew 1:1 opens with: “The scroll of the Genesis of Jesus Messiah.” This is a direct quote of Genesis 5:1 — with Jesus’s name placed where Adam’s name stood. In his opening line, Matthew announces that the whole crisis set off by Adam is being replayed — but this time with a different outcome.
Jesus’ wilderness testing in Matthew 4 is a retelling of humanity’s test in Eden. The first test is about food — the same category as the tree. After 40 days of fasting, Jesus is deeply hungry. The tester calls his identity into question: if you’re really God’s son, why are you starving? Make the stones bread.
Matthew 4:4 (NIV)4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
“It has been written: not by bread alone does humanity live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3)
Food keeps us alive. But no amount of food ultimately keeps us alive — eventually, we all die. There is living, and then there is life. Ultimate life comes not from bread, but from the word of God. This is what the tree of knowing tov and rah was meant to teach. Jesus faces his moment at the tree and trusts the word of God over what his body demands. He is not just the Savior who rescues us from the fall; he is the new human who demonstrates what restored humanity looks like, and who invites us into his pattern.
Think through the prayer Jesus taught us. The word desire (thelema in Greek) appears two times in the Sermon on the Mount. The second time is at the center of the Lord’s Prayer: “May your kingdom come, and may your desire / will be done on earth as in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
Matthew 6:10 (NIV)10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
The goal is not the elimination of desire, but the alignment of human desire with God’s desire.
Jesus, as the new human, is the one whose will is so united with the Father’s that what he desires is what God desires. The Sermon on the Mount then becomes a training manual — a portrait of what human life looks like when desire has been reordered around the character and will of God. Jesus, as the true Human, lived this to the fullest.
Matthew 26:39 (NIV)39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus’ Discipleship Invitation
Matthew 16:24 (NIV)24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
Jesus is not compelling anyone to do anything. He makes this invitation open to all, “whoever wants to be my disciple…” He is trying to tap into our deepest desires. Do we WANT to be His disciple? For those who choose this, He is very clear about what it means. Deny self, take up your cross, and follow Him.
Jesus’ call to ‘deny yourself’ is the correction of the oldest human malfunction: the tendency to grasp at images of goodness rather than receive them as a gift, to trust our own eyes and cravings over the word of God, and to make self-determination the organizing center of life.
Self-denial is not self-destruction, nor submission to human domination, nor the erasure of the self. Self-denial is not so much giving up something as it is giving up on ourselves as lords; specifically, the renunciation of one’s highest convictions, one’s vision of the good life, when they conflict with Jesus. It is the decision to let another Lord rule one’s life. It is the replacement of “self-lordship” with “Jesus-lordship.” Self-denial is not primarily about giving things up. It is about giving up on yourself as lord. Jesus does not call us to hate or devalue our lives. He calls us to stop being obsessed with securing and protecting them. Jesus’ call to deny self is targeted at the “self-as-final-authority” — the deepest assumption that I am the best judge of what is good for me.
Jesus invites us to another tree, His cross, and instead of taking what we desire, we deny ourselves and consider ourselves no longer the masters of our lives. His invitation is not a call to misery or self-punishment. It is a call to the death of the old self — the self that insists on its own agenda, its own security, its own definition of the good life.
“To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ…The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This is the invitation of Jesus: come and die. To follow Jesus is to surrender our lives to the one who gave his life for us. The Apostle Paul would later state it like this:
Galatians 2:20 (ESV)20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Jesus then invites us to “follow him.” The personal presence of Jesus is what makes discipleship both possible and desirable. It is not an ethical demand issued from a distance but an invitation into companionship. In the discipleship of following him, our desires are retrained to align with his.
Matthew 16:25 (NIV)25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
Self-centeredness is actually more deadly than self-sacrifice.
That’s the irony of discipleship: self-centeredness is more deadly than self-sacrifice. The desperate attempt to find yourself will inevitably lead to losing yourself. But surrendering to Jesus as his disciple, denying self, considering your life dead to self, is actually what enables you to find your true self.
One must decide whether one ‘wishes’ to come after Jesus (v. 24) or ‘wishes’ — the identical Greek term — to save one’s life (v. 25). One cannot have it both ways. Yet the only way to preserve one’s life is to relinquish it in faith — a claim that reverses every natural human instinct.
“Centering life in the insatiable demands of the ego is the sure path to doom.” ~ Eugene Peterson
Matthew 16:25 (MSG)25 Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.
The paradox of the cross is complete only in the resurrection. We want the resurrection life — we are right to want it. Jesus does not deny that desire. He redirects it: the resurrection life is real and available, but it cannot be seized directly. It must be received through the doorway of the cross.
Conclusion
“You can’t not bet your life on something. You can’t not be headed somewhere. We live leaning forward, bent on arriving at the place we long for.” ~ James K.A. Smith
Our most compelling vision of “the good life” operates below the level of conscious choice, shaped by the habits and practices we participate in daily. The question is never whether you have a vision of the good life — you always already do. The question is whose vision has formed you.
Bonus Extra
Matthew 16:26 (NIV)26 What 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?
In Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the greatest cost is actually not the cost of discipleship. It’s the cost of non-discipleship.
“But the cost of non-discipleship is far greater—even when this life alone is considered—than the price paid to walk with Jesus, constantly learning from him…Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, non-discipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is, after all, an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul.” ~ Dallas Willard