Save It To Lose It

A Little About Me

Frame It Up

Bring up Colby or Noah

The Text

The Illustration

The Final Point

The Foreshadowing

A Little About Me

Well, good morning CCA, how are we doing this fine Monday morning? I said, how are we doing?

I am so excited to be here, and quite honestly I just want to jump into the book of Mark and get going, but I figured I should introduce myself:

As Mr. Thompson said, my name is Derek Wheeler, and I have the extreme privilege of serving Jesus at Cornerstone as their youth and college age pastor.

I’ve been there two years, but the journey that took me there started right where you guys are sitting this morning…and I’m going to talk a little about that here in a minute

I am married to my beautiful wife Savannah, and let’s be honest, without her by my side, I wouldn’t be anywhere close to the person I am today. God knows what He’s doing, trust me.

I’ve got three kids: Jaxton who is 9, Cheyenne who is 7, and Karington Rae, who is four.

Some of you may remember my dad, Geoff Wheeler…who was a teacher, soccer coach, bowling coach, athletic director, and administrator here at CCA for several years.

Which means, I grew up here. I spent all 13 years at Calvary…anyone else been here their entire schooling lives? But that’s why I’m so excited to be here.

But let’s be real…I also remember sitting in chapels being bored out of my mind....so I’ve put a whole lot of pressure on myself to not bore you

And I don’t think I will…because we’re gonna look directly into God’s Word, and I’m 100% convinced that if we see what He wants us to see this morning....and if you try to do it, it will absolutely be bore-free.

Deal? Stick with me. If it’s boring at the end, tell me…and I’ll come with a list of jokes next week.

One thing I hate to do is not give this book it’s proper due, so let’s jump into it in Mark chapter 8, specifically looking at verse 34-38

But as you’re turning there, I wanted to frame up the story for you so you know what’s going on

Frame It Up

I have such good memories of Calvary, too many to list and not enough time.

Jesus and his disciples are travelling from Bethsaida to Caesarea Philippi

My closest friends to this day are friendships I made here.

And as they’re traveling, Jesus asks them this question: “Who do people say that I am?”

And the disciples respond: “John the Baptist, Elijah, a prophet, etc”

And then Jesus asks them such an awesome question. He then says, “Who do you say that I am?”

As I picture it in my head, the disciples probably stop like a deer in the headlights, but then Peter, you all know Peter, the leader, the rash one yells, “You are the Christ!”

And Jesus for the first time reveals without any doubt to the disciples that He is Jesus, He is the Messiah

So if you were one of the disciples, this was the guy you’ve been waiting for. The one who, they thought, was going to wipe out the oppressors of Israel and set up an earthly kingdom! This. Was. Everything.

Okay? You with me?

And immediately after he has blown the minds of the disciples, and as their minds are processing the news and as they are looking forward to Jesus finally wiping out the Romans and making Israel the top dog…Jesus says this:

“I’m going to be killed, murdered, and I’m going to rise again.”

Still picturing it with me? Wait....the Messiah is going to die? How does that make any sense at all.

And here comes Peter again....and the text says that He rebuked Jesus!

Can you imagine the arrogance of someone to rebuke whom they just claimed was God himself?

And Jesus responds to Peter saying, “Get behind me Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Whoa. So that’s where we are in the narrative. Jesus is Messiah, the Savior. Jesus claims He is going to die. Jesus tells Peter to quit focusing on the things of man, but focus on God.

All right....you guys ready?

The Text

Read :

This is Jesus preaching okay?

English Standard Version Chapter 8

34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

What we just read is absolutely 100% of the most important texts to Christianity, and to the discipleship of believers, which is what we are doing right now.

You know how people sometimes say, “I just wish God would tell me what He wanted me to do.”

Well, here’s the answer....like it’s not that hard, yet at the same time, to do what is written is the hardest thing in the world

Jesus says “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”

If you want to follow Jesus, Jesus says deny yourself and take up your cross

Deny yourself

Stop focusing on yourself.

Like he said to Peter, quit focusing on the things of this world

Take your mind off of what you want and put it on what God wants

Alright then, that’s not super easy is it? This is so contrary to what the world teaches, this is so contrary to the very apps you have on your phones, this is just not normal. It’s all about me, me, me!

Take up your cross

Then Jesus says take up your cross

Today, the cross is often no more to us than something we wear on a necklace, or get a tattoo of, or put on top of a building

But to the disciples, in Jesus’ day, they knew all too well what Jesus meant by this.

They may not have known Jesus was going to die on a cross yet, but they knew that to this point in time around 30,000 Jews had.

The Romans had invented and perfected crucifixion, and were all too eager to practice on those who they deemed worthy

30,000 Jews. Let that sink in.

So they knew what Jesus was saying

Which is why verse 35 follows verse 34, and this is the verse I want to hone in on with you guys:

English Standard Version Chapter 8

35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Jesus says to them, who are panicking at this point…a confusing statement:

If you try to save your life you’ll lose it

But if you lose your life you’ll save it

That doesn’t even make sense, does it?

That’s like instead of saying lost and found, you call it the found and lost

Or your in a huddle before a game and your coach says to you, “Now go out there and lose so we can win”

But what Jesus is really saying is this:

If you want to keep your earthly life, if you’re so concerned about your wants, your desires, your comforts, your reputation, your lifestyle, if that’s your priority, in the end, you’re going to lose it all.

BUT

If you are willing to lose it all, let go of it all, let all of it fall to the wayside, again, deny it all, then, and only then, will you find it.

Essentially what Jesus is saying is either you are all in with me, or you’re against me.

The Illustration

(Bring a student up)

You know as I was thinking about today and coming back here, as our minds do, I was just reminiscing. And, not by chance, I thought about a book I read while in school here (the only book I remember reading, take of that what you will)

Where the Red Fern Grows. It’s a book about a kid and his two hound dogs and hunting raccoons. If you know anything about me, I have zero interest in any of those things, so why I liked the book, I’m not entirely sure

But the kid needed to catch a raccoon first in order to train his dogs to hunt raccoons.

And he can’t catch one, until his grandfather tells him what he should do

He tells him to take a log, I have a rubbermaid container, make a small hole in the top just big enough for a raccoon to put his hand through, and then put some shiny object inside of it

And what the raccoon will do, he said, was, put his hand in and grab the object, and in doing so, make a fist.

And by making the fist, he can no longer get his hand out of the hole

And so logically, I took logic class here by the way, and I still think about things using some of the methods taught in that class, but logically, all the raccoon has to do to be set free is what?

That’s right, let go of the object

The Final Point

What I want you all to think about, to seriously consider is this question:

What have I denied myself in order to follow Christ, and if the answer is nothing, I’m not saying you aren’t a believer, Jesus is.

It’s right there in the text. Now, what it’s not saying is if I waiver and don’t share my faith one time than I’m not a believer. Not at all

What it is saying is that if we want to follow Jesus, if we want to be believers, if we want to spend eternity with Him, then we are called to a life of sacrifice

We are called to lay our earthly lives, including our adulterous and sinful wants and desires, and take up our cross and follow Him

I remember sitting where you guys are sitting, I remember Final Point after Final Point from speaker after speaking telling me the same thing.

What I’m telling you is nothing new. It’s not some revelation that just was discovered.

And do you know what I did with it those years in high school? Absolutely nothing.

And do you know what I would sit there and think, “Well, that speaker just told me that he didn’t live this way when he was younger, but now look, he’s a pastor, I’ve got time. I can do what I want now, and then later on in life decide to go all in.”

And, well, here I am, look at me…so yeah, sure it’s possible

But as we close, let me say this to you

There was a man once who had pursued his own wants and desires. And he had achieved a lot. He was wealthy, he had plenty, and in fact, he had so much he didn’t know what to do with it all. The places he was keeping everything were too small. So he tore them down and built bigger places. And he sat down and was finally able to say, I’m good. I’m golden. Look at all this. I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve. And that very night he lost his life

That was a story Jesus told in . And he also says, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

And I think we can paraphrase there, so is the one who is so focused on themselves and not on God

So are some of you, and you know who you are. Trust me, I’ve sat where you sit. you feel it, you know it, you can’t deny the feeling you are having that you’re trying to live life with a foot in both worlds.

And you can leave here and head to lunch and shake it off and move on

And maybe by God’s grace you’ll come around one day. For me it took ten years.

And do you know the first thing I thought of when I finally fully surrendered and went all in?

I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted it!

Let go of the shiny object guys. Don’t hold onto it any longer. Whatever it is that is keeping you from fully surrendering to Jesus, let it go. It’s not worth it

Let’s pray