Cross Training-Mark 8:34-38
Notes
Transcript
Handout
As we begin this morning, go ahead and turn in your copies of God’s Word to Mark 8:34-38, we will read these verse shortly. For those who are taking notes, we will not likely get through the entire outline this morning, so you may want to keep your notes in your Bibles for next week.
In our past 2 Worship Services, in parts 1 & 2 of the message entitled THE Most Important Question, we reached the pivotable point of the Gospel of Mark, the Continental Divide of the Gospel. From this point forward the river of the ministry of Jesus changes course. The first half of the Gospel revolved around the majestic authority of Jesus in creation, over demons, over sin, over decease, over sickness, over death....over all of creation. Now, with close to 6 months left before the crucifixion, He begins to prepare His disciples more succinctly for what the future held for them, but first, as we saw last week, for what lay ahead for Himself : Next Slide
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
This was a very hard pill to swallow for His disciples, who mistakenly felt His future was to be the immediate conquering King, Who would overthrow their enemies and establish an eternal kingdom, with them standing beside Him, leading and reigning. It was such a hard pill to swallow that Peter took Jesus aside to set Him straight on the real plans of God the Father. Scripture points out clearly in Luke’s account of this event, that Jesus spent time in prayer, seeking the face of God before He administered this final exam for the Disciples, but we don’t see anything about Peter seeking the face of God before “setting Jesus straight” about what the future held for Him as “the Christ, the Son of the living God”.
The last verse from Mark we looked at last week was;
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33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Perhaps as you looked at what Jesus said, you were taken aback a bit, it was pretty harsh, especially aimed at one whom moments earlier had been declared to be speaking words given him by God the Father. We see in this verse that Peter had set his mind of things of Man, his mind and tongue were no longer yielded to God but to the enemy. To get a better picture of the dangers of what Peter was doing here, and how he went from speaking for God to speaking for satan, let’s briefly look at 2 verses together from the time of Jesus temptation in the wilderness. Luke 4:13 & then Matthew 4:10. First, in Luke 4:13 we read: Next Slide
13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Notice the last phrase of the verse; “he departed from Him until an opportune time.” In other words, satan’s temptation of Jesus was not finished, he just put it on pause until “an opportune time”. I do not know how many opportune times this may refer to, but I am pretty sure this was one of them. If you think back to the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, the overall tone of the temptations was to get Jesus to bypass the plan of the Father to be the suffering Servant. Satan was trying to get Jesus to move directly to His rule and bypass the cross, which was where Jesus would, once and for all, pay the price for our sin in His death. This is exactly what Peter, and the rest of the disciples, were attempting to get Jesus to do when Peter rebuked Jesus, to get him to move directly to the throne and bypass the cross. Peter here wasn’t just speaking for himself and the disciples, he was also speaking for satan, as a result, Jesus speaks to Peter in, almost the exact way He spoke to satan at the end of the temptation in the wilderness. Look at Matthew 4:10: Next Slide
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”
This phrase here, in Jesus rebuke of satan, was very similar to His rebuke of Peter in Mark 8:33. You see, Peter’s mind was not on the things of God but on the things of man, and anytime our minds are on the things of man, we tread the path of the enemy. To drive this thought home, we see in this morning’s passage, Jesus continue this new focus of His teaching, this time inviting the nearby crowd to listen in with His disciples. Let’s look at these verses together. Would you please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word?
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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.”
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word. Please be seated.
In these verses we see The Challenge, a 3-Fold Command, a 2-Fold Paradigm Shift and The Consequences of Disobedience. As we look through these verses this morning, let’s not forget to personalize them, remembering that these verses are directed as much to us as they were to those that were present that day. To begin with, let’s look at:
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The Challenge. Vs. 34
The disciples have now moved from the exuberance of Peter’s confession, which was most likely their corporate acknowledgment that Jesus was both the Son of the living God as well as the Messiah, Whom the nation of Israel had been waiting for since the days of Abraham, to the astonishing realization from the lips of Jesus Himself, that this “Christ, the Son of the Living God” was not going to be setting up His kingdom then and there, but instead suffer many things, experience rejection and even death. They were devastated and heartbroken. I would imagine that they probably wanted some alone time at that point, but Jesus had other plans. I wonder if Jesus wasn’t delivering, yet another, lesson here to The 12? That lesson, this life is not about you. It’s about surrendering your life completely to Jesus, that He might reach the lost and dying, it’s about putting your own wants and desires on the back burner to reach others. As a result, instead of allowing The 12 to escape to solitude, He calls the crowd over for an opportunity to deliver a life changing, and at the same time eye-opening challenge. Envision yourself as a part of the crowd that day, because this message is for us as well. That challenge: Next Slide
Come After Me.
For the 12, there may have been some deep thinking going on. You see, before Jesus even finished this whole lesson, they already knew that to continue to follow Him could mean their death. In those days, frequently when a leader was put to death, His followers were as well.
To the crowd, well most in the crowd followed Him, not so much because they believed in Him, but more because of the Wow factor, the miracles. We have already seen many of “the crowd” turn and leave when His message didn’t resonate with what they wanted to hear. Well this challenge, and what followed, would likely drive many more away, many who would be unwilling to pay the price to become true disciples. The 12 had already dropped everything to “Follow Him”, now He was asking the same of the crowd. But before they had a chance to give Him an answer, He let them know all that following Him entailed as He now moved to: Next Slide
The 3-Fold Command. Vs. 34
Reading the last part of verse 34, we see this 3-Fold Command unfold; “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”
In Lukes account of this event, he adds one key word, the word “daily”. He writes; Next Slide
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
In other words, this 3-fold command was not a one-time event, it was to be a lifestyle change, a daily commitment.
The first command for those who “would come after Me”, was and is to; Next Slide
Command 1: Deny Yourself.
The question is, what is Jesus talking about when He calls us to “deny” ourselves?
Close to the beginning of 2020, I stepped on the bathroom scales and as I did, my heart sunk a little. I kinda knew it was coming, because my pants had seemingly shrunk, but when I stepped on the scales, it became clear that it wasn’t the pants that shrunk, it was my waist that had grown. Well my oldest brother Paul had recently lost over 60 lbs by Intermittent Fasting. The easiest way to explain intermittent fasting is, you go 16 hours each day without eating anything. For me, that meant I denied myself breakfast, or more accurately, I denied myself a morning meal. Well this is not what Jesus is talking about here, He is not challenging us to deny something for ourselves, He is saying we are to “deny ourselves”. In other words, we must surrender ourselves completely to Him. To deny meant:
“ ‘to have no association with’ or ‘to disown completely.’ The same word is used to describe Peter’s denial of Jesus (Mark 14:30–31, 72) and Christ’s denial in heaven of those who deny Him before men (Luke 12:9). The Lord’s point was that those who wished to follow Him must be willing to disown themselves and give up everything for His sake (cf. Matt. 13:44–46). They must abandon both their self-righteousness and their sin, submitting all their ambitions and agendas to Him.” MacArthur, J. (2015). Mark 1–8 (p. 425). Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
We are far quicker to look to Jesus as our Savior, to get from Him our eternal fire insurance policy. Jesus here is saying that it’s not enough to come to Him as our Savior, He wants to be our Lord, in fact as we continue this morning, He makes it pretty clear that anything else is unacceptable.
This brings us to: Next Slide
Command 2: Cross Bearing.
In our day and age, we have a tendency to look at cross bearing as what Mike Lindell does. Are you all familiar with Mike Lindell? Mike Lindell is the Mypillow guy. Long before he was known as an avid Trump supporter, he was known for showing up in mypillow commercials, big smile, blue shirt with a cross always visible. To us, cross bearing means were not afraid to proudly wear a cross. Or, perhaps we look at cross bearing as some hardship we have to live with, like a bad neighbor, co-worker or boss we don’t care for…or maybe an in-law. We say things like; “The way my boss treats me, well he is the cross I have to bear.”
That was not the picture Jesus followers got when Jesus told them they needed to be willing to “take up their cross”. There was nothing sentimental about the Roman cross. To them, the cross meant public execution, but not like the lethal injection we are familiar with today. The lethal injection is meant to be a quick, somewhat painless death. In fact, the few times in recent history that the lethal injection hasn’t been painless, have been followed by lawsuits and attempts to make it illegal. The cross wasn’t just meant to end someone’s life, it was meant to humiliate and to prolong the inevitable death, to inflict as much pain as possible before the cross bearer died. It is estimated that as many as 30,000 people were crucified during Jesus lifetime. When Jesus told His listeners they needed to be willing to “take up their cross”, they knew exactly what He meant, and it was anything but sentimental. Keep in mind that Jesus had not yet let them know that He Himself would carry a cross. His disciples knew He would be delivered unto death, but they didn’t know it would be on a cross, not yet at least, and the crowd knew even less.
In these first 2 commands, Jesus is telling them that, to begin with, they need to be willing to disown themselves completely, in other words, if they are going to come after Him, they have to place Him higher than they place themselves, similar to what Paul writes in Romans 12:1 “I urge you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice”, a daily giving of yourself for the benefit of Jesus. But Jesus says in today’s passage, that they need to be willing to die for Him also, and that death may very well be excruciating. Thankfully for the vast majority today, who “come after Jesus”, death is not something we have to face, for us, this 2nd command of Jesus is highly unlikely, but it must be something we are willing to do if we call upon Jesus as our Savior and Lord.
The last command Jesus gives in today’s passage is:
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Command 3: Loyal Obedience.
For about 4 straight years in Kansas City, we averaged somewhere between 30-48 inches of snow per year. Most of the snows there, were wet heavy snows and usually when it snowed, Pam and I would shovel at least 4 nice size driveways. Well after about 4 of these winters in a row, I took advantage of an end of the winter snow blower sale at Home Depot. I bought a beautiful self-propelled 24’ snow blower! The following year we got a total of 14.2 inches…over the entire winter, the next year a total of 5.9 and our last winter in Kansas City-4.9 inches! I’m guessing that our first 2 winters here we averaged maybe 10 inches of snow annually! Needless to say, my “brand new” 6 year old snow blower is still a thing of beauty, still looks flawless…outside of a few cobwebs and dust! That is until this past week! Finally I got to put it to the test! And once I got it started, it worked fabulously!
Now, maybe you’re wondering what my new snow blower has to do with this third command of Jesus, the command of Loyal Obedience. Truthfully, it has nothing to do with the command, but at least I got to use it!
I will say, the command of Loyal Obedience comes from Jesus Word’s that close out verse 34 to “follow Me”. Actually, the reason I told the story of the snow blower is, often times after large snows like what we experienced this past week, you see pictures of young children traipsing through the snow behind their father’s, doing their very best to walk in their father’s footsteps. That is a good picture of what Jesus is commanding His followers in verse 34. He is saying to them, “Do you want to come after Me? Then walk behind me, step where I step, do what I do, love like I love, serve like I serve, sacrifice like I sacrifice, speak like I speak, let My Words be your words. Don’t turn away to the left or the right, lest you miss My steps and get off track. My path is a narrow path, not a broad path. It is a hard path not an easy path. There will be times that you’re going to want to take a different path, but stay the course, follow in My footsteps!”
By the way, Jesus, Himself, had moments He wanted to take a different path. In fact, let me show you one of those times. Turn with me for a moment to chapter 14 of Mark’s Gospel. This event takes place shortly after the Last Supper. Jesus and His disciples are now in the Garden Of Gethsemane. Starting in verse 35 we read; “And going a little farther, He fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. 36 And He said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will.’”
The tragically beautiful picture we see here, is that in Jesus calling His followers to Loyal Obedience, He is not calling them to do anything He Himself wasn’t willing to do. He had already denied Himself when He left the splendor of heaven to come to earth, not to be born in a palace and raised as the son of a king, but to be born in a barn and raised as a lowly carpenter's son. He had already denied Himself. He is instructing His followers that to deny themselves is to follow in His footsteps.
In instructing His followers to “take up their cross”, once again Jesus is asking them to step into His tracks, walk where He was walking. Close to 6 months from this event, He would have a cross laid on His back to carry it to His own execution. Jesus had already patterned Loyal Obedience to His followers.
From 3-Fold Command, Jesus moves to challenge the crowd to a: Next Slide
2-Fold Paradigm Shift. Vs. 35-37
In this 2-Fold Paradigm Shift, Jesus is challenging the crowd to put on lenses that are counter culture, counter to how they had been raised. For the past few Sundays I have been using these lenses as an example. While these lenses can be effective in most cases, they wouldn’t be nearly as effective for what Jesus is challenging the crowds to do in the verses we are looking at this morning. (Hold up rifle scope) Can anyone tell me what this is? Correct, it is a rifle scope and this is the type of lens we need for what Jesus is calling us to do. You see this is designed to focus on one thing and one thing only. The Paradigm Shift Jesus is calling for, is so counter to anything we have experienced, that we are going to need lenses that are so focused on one thing that we can’t even see anything else. He was challenging us to do the unthinkable.
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Paradigm Shift 1: Losers Are Keepers. Vs. 35
In verse 35 Jesus says; “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospels will save it.”
The first Sunday of this month, the greatest annual sporting event in our country took place. Anyone here know the name of the event? Yep, the SuperBowl. For the vast majority in our Nation, most didn’t get to watch their favorite team. One of the most interesting things about the Superbowl is that people rarely take bathroom breaks or snack breaks during the commercials. We do those things during the game so we won’t miss the commercials. In fact there are now whole shows that revolve around Superbowl commercials. A 30 second ad in this years Superbowl ran $5.5 million. Just about every ad was designed to give you the impression that there was some sort of product out there that you just can’t live without. Commercials are designed to get me to focus on.......well on me!
Well Jesus does the opposite, in these verses He is challenging the crowd to completely ignore their own personal needs and focus instead on the needs of others. That’s what He is saying when He says “but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospels will save it.” Focusing on the cause of Christ is to focus on Him and others and not yourself. The challenge is so paradoxical to anything they had ever experienced that He telling them that if they would willingly lay down there temporal lives, they will gain for an eternity. To give up a little bit now, that they would reap benefits that will last for all eternity. Losers become Keepers! Next Slide
Paradigm Shift 2: Profit Is Loss. Vs. 36-37
Before coming to Liberty Chapel, I spent 19 years working in the investment community, and I can tell you this is a major Paradigm Shift! Similar to the 1st Paradigm Shift, Jesus is challenging His listeners to have an eternal perspective. To take their focus off of the Red part of the rope (their life’s on earth) and picture in their minds what they couldn’t actually see, the white part of the rope (their life’s in eternity). To willingly sacrifice the here and now for what lay ahead.
This is why we need to have a rifle-scope like focus. You see if my mind is constantly on the here and now, on life in the red part of the rope, when I am faced with denying myself, with cross-bearing, when living my life for Christ results in rejection, suffering, pain…well forget that! I don’t like rejection, suffering and pain. My focus has to be on Christ and eternity. The profit I am to focus on is not on the here and now but on eternity. Which means I may move from the profit column to the loss column in this life, but in eternity I am moving from the loss column to the profit column. That is what Jesus is saying in verse 36; “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul.”
From the 2 Paradigm Shifts, Jesus then moves to open the eyes of the listeners to: Next Slide
The Consequences of Disobedience. Vs. 38
Look at what He says in verse 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.” Jesus is making it very clear to His followers, those who are ashamed of Him and His Words, will one day stand in the presence of divine judgement. Picture standing in the presence of God the Father’s throne of Judgement. God seated there, gavel in Hand. Jesus is the defence attorney. The jury has delivered the verdict of guilty, which brings with it an eternal death penalty. For those, who on earth have had their scope, their focus on eternity, who when faced with the rejection, suffering and pain that often times comes as a result of standing strong in your faith in Jesus, as God the Father, gavel in Hand, begins to deliver His judgement, Jesus interrupts, letting the Father know that He Himself has paid the price. Their debt has been paid in full. God the Father smiles lovingly as He looks at His Son. His gavel forcefully hits the strike plate as His word’s echo the last Words of Christ on the cross; “It is finished.....your debt has been paid! Enter into My eternal kingdom.”
But for those who have focused on the here and now, who have been more concerned with living for themselves, living for the approval of the world, for the acceptance of man, refusing to abandon their sin. Jesus stands in silence as God the Father delivers His judgement. Their shame of Him on earth brought about His silence at their time of judgment. The gavel of God the Father forcefully hits the strike plate as God brings forth His judgement. “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The Consequence for those who are disobedient, who are ashamed of Christ, is severe and eternal.
The question each of us needs prepare for is: Next Slide
What will God the Father say to us as His gavel hits the strike plate, when we face Him in judgement?
Let’s close in prayer.