Jesus the King!

Introduction:

Have you ever watched a movie, and when the twist came, you literally gasped?

When you thought that the movie or story was going one way, and then it quickly changed and surprised you?

There are only two movies I can think of that completely took my breath away… When the twist came, I was so surprised and confused that it took me some time to recover…

The first one was in the Empire Strikes Back, when we find out that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father… For two movies we hate Darth Vader because we thought he killed Luke’s father… And then at the very end of the movie, we learn the truth…

I think I was maybe 8 or 9 the first time I saw The Empire Strikes Back, and for the next week I watched it over and over and over again… And it was the craziest twist, that took my breath away…

The next movie that took my breath away was The Prestige, by Christopher Nolan… And this movie is full of twists and turns, so I don’t feel bad about spoiling one, especially since you’ve had 15 years to watch the movie… But the movie is about these stage magicians who attempt to outdo each other and solve each others tricks… And towards the end of the movie, we learn that Alfred Borden, one of the magicians is actually not one person, but two identical twins…

And when the truth is revealed it makes so much sense! Because the character has had two different personalities the entire story…

When I saw that movie for the first time, it took my breath away… It was such a twist in the story…

The twist in the story, often makes the story memorable… Well today, we see the twist in Mark… The hinge point for the entire story… The turn of the plot… And all of Scripture in fact rests on the surprise that we get from the biggest question in Mark: Who is this Jesus?

But before we talk about that, will you pray with me?

Prayer:

Father in Heaven may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight. May your word, anointed by your spirit and spoken by your servant, breathe life into us today…

Setting Up the Text:

Open up your Bibles with me to the Book of Mark 8:27-9:1.  If you are a guest with us this morning, we are reading the Bible together this year, in our Bible reading plan called Abide… We have copies in the hallway if you would like one… And the goal of this year is to continually abide in Christ, and to be formed together by His word…

Hopefully this is a year where we can see renewed life, renewed vision, and renewed dedication to the teachings of Jesus...

However, while we do have a lot to learn about ourselves in the Book of Mark, the true message of the book is about Jesus, and who He is… Mark was written to Gentile believers in Rome... Believers who were not all that familiar with the Old Testament. Gentile believers who needed to understand what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah… And believers who were beginning to see persecution by the Roman Empire…

And we see that there are 3 offices of Jesus in the Book of Mark, and these offices will come up time and time again... And these three offices are:

Jesus is King

Jesus is Rabbi

Jesus is Lord

And all of these offices add up to something that neither Jews nor Gentiles expected from the Messiah... Instead of being a mighty, militarily minded King, Jesus instead came as the Suffering Servant...

As I’m sure many of you have noticed in reading this week, the disciples are not painted in a very good light in Mark… So in Mark 8, Jesus tells them plainly the Truth… And this truth is so hard to hear and understand that the disciples reject it, and Peter even rebukes Jesus… But we see that the Truth that Jesus tells the disciples is the most important truth that they will ever hear… In fact, it is the greatest news in the history of humanity…

Let’s go to our passage today, and see this confrontation with the disciples.

Scripture 1: Mark 8:27-30

Explanation:

The time has come for Jesus to give them the full truth about who He is… Up until this point, we’ve had what’s know as the Markan secret… The full truth that Mark just couldn’t contain in Ch. 1… That Jesus is the Messiah! But we see that Jesus is curious first… He knows that people have been talking about him, and so he asks his disciples, “what do people say about me? who do people say that I am?”

It has been pretty clear to everyone who have heard Jesus up to this point that He is some type of prophet, but what type? They know He is a prophet, but they don’t exactly know what that entails.

And the disciples say, some people think John the Baptist, a prophet… Some say Elijah, a different prophet… And some just have no idea, so they say “one of the prophets.”

And up to this point, it probably wasn’t just the crowds that were talking about Jesus. His own disciples were probably trying to figure out what type of prophet Jesus was throughout his whole ministry up to this point…

Numerous times they asked themselves, “who is this Jesus?” when he would do something amazing…

And now Jesus puts the disciples on the spot… And he asks them, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter is the one who answered… And he says, “You are the Messiah.”

This is supposed to be the crazy turn in the story… This is the moment that the entire book of Mark hinges on… Jesus isn’t just a prophet… He is the long awaited, Promised Messiah!

And then once again, Jesus instructs the disciples to stay quiet about who He is… Jesus doesn’t want the Messianic secret to get out just yet… Jesus has wanted to keep His identity a secret… But why?

Now, that we know the end of the story, we know that Jesus wanted to model for Himself what the Messiah would look like…

If the secret was let out of the bag, the crowds would have different expectations of Jesus… And instead of being amazed, they would be angry, because Jesus is very different than what they expected from the Messiah…

But yet, here we are… With the first point from our text today:

Point 1: Jesus wasn’t just a prophet, but the Promised Messiah

Application:

The prophet of all prophets… The Son of Man, who was also the Son of God…

But we also cannot miss the miracle that happens in this passage… One of the disciples got something right! Peter actually figured out after watching and hearing Jesus, that this man was the Messiah… Finally, he was not spiritually blind anymore, but he could actually see!

Although, we will quickly learn, that he still doesn’t know very much…

But I think that the question that Jesus asks the disciples here, is a very important question… And it’s a question I want to turn to you and ask…

Who do you say that Jesus is?

All of us know the right answer… He is the Messiah, but sometimes we miss what actually means… Sometimes, people make up for themselves what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah…

And the unfortunately truth is, that without guidance from Jesus Himself, the world will never understand Jesus’s purpose and mission as Messiah…

The world will make up it’s own mind about who Jesus is… People will interpret through their own lens who Jesus is… Some say that Jesus is

Just a great teacher

Jesus is a great Life Insurance policy… I’ll go to Heaven, and that’s all I care about.

Jesus is just a prophet, and nothing more.

Mikhail Gorbachev said that Jesus was “the first socialist.” We can all very easily turn Jesus into our own interpretation…

Who do you say that Jesus is? And a follow up question, does your life match your answer?

And I think this is an important question as we move onto the next section of our passage… Because if Jesus is your Messiah, then what now? What does that mean? How are we supposed to respond?

Let’s go back to our passage and find out.

Scripture 2: Mark 8:31-33

Explanation:

Now that Jesus has told the disciples that He is the Messiah, now is His opportunity to tell them what the Messiah will actually do… And what it means for Him to be the Messiah…

And Jesus is very careful to mention that He is the Son of Man in this passage… This is a call back to the prophecy in the Book of Daniel, where we see a vision about the Son of Man… And we see this:

Daniel 7:13-14

That makes sense to the disciples! They know the Messiah has all authority and will bring an everlasting dominion! That’s great news! Until Jesus tells them how He will accomplish this:

The Messiah must suffer.

The Messiah must be rejected.

The Messiah must be killed.

Can you imagine the disciples’ confusion? That’s not what Daniel is referring to! That’s not what was prophesied! But Jesus spoke very clearly to them, and just told them the truth, even when it is difficult to hear…

And Peter, who just made the biggest claim in human history, now takes Jesus aside and rebukes him… We saw this same word for rebuke when Jesus “rebuked” the storm… This is not a passive word, but a strong word! An angry word! Peter strongly tells Jesus that He’s wrong!

No Jesus, Daniel says that your dominion will last forever… How are you going to suffer and die? You will have sovereign power over all nations, how are you going to be rejected? You are the King of creation, how will you suffer?

But Peter once again misses the greatest point of all… He misses the part where Jesus says that He will rise again! That yes, He will die, but He will be raised again! And because of this, Jesus will not just come once… But there will be a second coming… And because of Jesus’s first coming, the second coming can happen…

Theologian Grant Osborne says it this way:

“The Messiah as conquering King and national liberator would take place at his second coming; his mission now was to be a Suffering Servant and to provide atonement for sin.”

And this leads directly to our second point:

Point 2: Jesus is a Suffering Servant on earth, and a Conquering King in eternity

Peter rebukes Jesus because he doesn’t understand that Jesus must be a suffering servant before he can be a conquering king… And because he doesn’t understand that Jesus is a suffering servant on earth, Jesus rebukes him back… And not only tells Peter that he’s wrong, but Jesus calls says “Get behind me Satan!”

The strongest rebuke that I can imagine…

Now, Jesus isn’t calling Peter Satan Himself, but that Peter is being a tool for Satan with his false understanding of the Gospel…

And in having worldly concerns instead of Heavenly concerns, Peter is completely missing the point…

And the same is true for those of us who have worldly perspectives instead of heavenly perspectives…

Worldly minded people will always fail to recognize Jesus; to them he is a great teacher and a charismatic leader, but they cannot understand him as the suffering Messiah and saving Lord because darkness cannot do anything but hate the light…

Jesus as Messiah, must be the Suffering Servant first, before He can be Conquering King… And his followers should follow in His example…. But what does that mean??? How do we do this? Let’s go to our last passage to find out:

Scripture 3: Mark 8:34-9:1

Explanation:

We see that the first thing that Jesus does is to call the crowd to Him… He doesn’t just want the disciples to hear it, but He wants everyone to hear what it takes to follow Jesus…

And He says that to be a disciple, you must “follow” Jesus… It doesn’t say worship Jesus, or simply believe, or pray a prayer at VBS when you’re 7 years old… Instead, disciples of Jesus follow Him… This is in the present tense, so it doesn’t mean that we followed Him when we were children, or last week, but we follow Him currently…

And Jesus gives us three steps of discipleship, which show that we are following Him… And these three steps of discipleship aren’t easy:

Deny yourself

Take up your cross

Follow Him

What do these three things mean? How are we meant to follow these three steps of discipleship? Well, let’s take them one by one and see what they mean:

First Deny yourself…

Easy to understand, but difficult to do… Because denying yourself goes against everything in our human nature…

But denying yourself isn’t about abstaining for worldly things… It’s about a rejection of selfishness… Where we refuse to allow self-interests to guide one’s life…

Denying yourself goes against all worldly standards and worldly wisdom…

The world teaches us to look out for ourselves, where God tells us to look out for our neighbor.

The world teaches that having materially more is success, where Godly success is blessing others by giving things away.

The world tells us that it’s survival of the fittest, but God says where we are weak, He will be made strong…

But to be a disciple of Jesus, we must first deny ourselves…

Take up your cross.

There’s a double meaning here with “take up your cross.” Jesus knew what was coming, but the disciples did not… So while yes, taking up your cross for the disciples at that moment meant denying yourselves, it also meant to join Jesus on His way to the cross…

To imitate Christ in a world that rejects Christ.

To seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God in a broken world that despises justice, mercy, and humility….

Essentially, to take up your cross means that the world will hate you because of Jesus… The world will call you outdated and bigoted… And the world will seek to silence you…

Lastly, we are to follow Jesus.

Which means that we are not our own.

Jesus will lead us and the Holy Spirit will guide us, and for us to follow Jesus, we need to have soft and willing hearts to listen to Jesus. God want us to be involved in His work in the world, so may we have willing hearts to follow Jesus.

Point 3: Worldly wisdom is to gain the world. Godly wisdom is following Jesus when it is costly.

Application:

Even though worldly wisdom will tell you to gain the world, science actually tells us that money cannot buy happiness like so many people believe…

In a 2010 study by two researches, they sought out to study and see if money can in-fact affect the happiness of a person… And i think what they found was fascinating…

Money did affect happiness, up to a point…

If a person was given more and more money, they would gain more happiness until they reached the peak of $75,000 a year… And then after $75,000 a year, the more money a person has, the more stressed, the more emotionally unstable, and the less happiness they have…

I was told in pre-marriage counseling that money is the cause of most divorces… However, when you look at divorce rates, divorce rates are higher among those who are wealthy, than those who are not…

Money cannot buy happiness, and gaining the world cannot help us keep our souls… Money does not last… But what is lasting is following Jesus… Denying yourself, picking up your cross, and following Jesus costs us worldly things, and it makes no sense to a broken world… But I can promise you that walking with Jesus is worth it!

Take Home:

So what’s the point of all this? Why is Jesus telling the crowds this message? Why is Jesus being such a downer? Church, Jesus wants us to know what we are signing up for… Jesus wants you to know that following him in this world is not easy… Following Him is costly…

But He also says that there is a day coming, where the Kingdom of God will be realized! There will be a day when Jesus returns again! And on this day, if you have followed Jesus, you will see that it was absolutely worth it!

But in truth, this passage is one of the scariest passages we see in all of Scripture… And it is scary, because Jesus is very clear about the way of the cross… And that in order to be His disciple, we need to follow Him, not just believe… We need to not just worship Him, but follow Him, and that leads to our Take Home today which is this:

Take Home: Knowing about Jesus without following Jesus is denying Jesus

The message today isn’t an easy lesson… But it’s an important one… And it’s important to know that the way of the cross isn’t always easy… That following Jesus will be difficult… But I can promise you that it’ll be worth it…

So, who do you say that Jesus is?

Is he a good teacher? A moral standard? An easy way to get to Heaven? He is just a tradition that your family follows? Or is He the Lord of your life? Is He your king, rabbi, and lord?

Follow up question, if He is your Lord, does your life show it? Do you follow Him when it is difficult or costly?

If you are here today, and you’ve never chosen to follow Jesus as your Savior, I hope that today will be the day!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Bow with me.