“Winding Down”

We are arriving at a point where the public ministry of Jesus is beginning to wind down. His emphasis will move from the multitudes to the chosen few as He seeks to prepare His followers for the next, and final, chapter in his life here on earth. We will see a gradual decrease in Jesus interacting with crowds and an increase of His teaching those who will carry on the work when He ascends to the Father. His teaching to the Twelve is also aimed at those of us who have become believers because of the testimony of the Twelve (the Gospels).

A local church is like an inverted triangle. At the top, the widest part of the triangle is THE CROWD which includes everyone who shows up on a given Sunday. The next, and smaller, level is THE COMMUNITY which is comprised of those who are members of the church. Then comes THE COMMITTED, those among the Community who are investing their gifts, talents and time in the function of the church, and finally there are THE CALLED, those who are leaders in the church. While it is possible to address all of these at the same time, it is difficult to connect in a life-changing manner with each group at once. Jesus knew that the last two groups, the COMMITTED and the CALLED would be the ones who would take seriously the Great Commission, and He began to focus on getting them prepared for the future.

Explanation: (Why?)

1. Progressive Healing (vv 22-26)

In the last message we saw Jesus taking the deaf/mute man away from the crowd in order to heal him. At the beginning of this passage we again find Him healing a man “outside the village”. This healing is unlike any other during Jesus’s ministry. Rather than being instantaneous, it is progressive. “They came to Bethsaida. They brought Him a blind man and begged Him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village. Spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people---they look like trees walking.’ Again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes. The man looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Then He sent him home, saying ‘Don’t even go into the village.’”

Prior to this Jesus had healed the deaf/mute man in the region of the Decapolis, and then had fed the 4,000. He then encountered the Pharisees again asking for a “sign” that He was who He said He was. He warned the disciples not to fall into the trap of thinking as the Pharisees did (which it seemed they were doing.) We left Jesus in the last message asking the disciples, “Don’t you understand yet?”

Once they got to Bethsaida, Mark records another healing, that we have just read. Again the pattern, miracle, teaching, miracle. What we must realize is that the miracles themselves were part of the teaching of Jesus for His disciples. That is the reason that Jesus healed the two men away from the crowd. It was for the disciples’ eyes only, because He wanted to drive home a point. Jesus wasn’t losing His touch when the blind man did not immediately regain 20-20 vision. He deliberately took a 2 step approach to show His disciples that the progression of the gospel would not always be a smooth transition from point A to point B. There would be bumps in the road.

Our perception of who Jesus is and how He works shapes our theology. To the Jews, Messiah would be a warrior king. Even the disciples bought into this mind-set. Today there are those who believe that Jesus came to give them health and wealth. When that doesn’t happen, they are ready to jettison their faith. That will eventually lead to the apostasy that Paul mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. As to the forms of apostasy, there are two main types: (1) a falling away from key and true doctrines of the Bible into heretical teachings that claim to be “the real” Christian doctrine, and (2) a complete renunciation of the Christian faith, which results in a full abandonment of Christ. Jude, the half brother of Jesus wrote more extensively about Apostasy in vv 5-19 (READ) When people are not discipled and grounded in their faith, they can be easily led astray. Jesus wanted to make sure that His disciples understood what was going to happen and would not leave their faith in disappointment when the going got tough.

2. Look Who’s Talking (vv 27-33)

In the span of 5 verses, Peter first acknowledged that Jesus is Messiah and then rebuked Jesus for telling what would happen to Him as Messiah.

“Jesus sent out with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the road He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ He asked them, ‘who do you say that I am? Peter answered Him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And He strictly warned them to tell no one about Him.” (vv 27-30)

Some commentators believe that the first question was a set-up for the second. Jesus was primarily interested in what the disciples thought. They had been with Him during miracles of healing and deliverance and had heard Him teach the multitudes. By now they should have formed an opinion as to who Jesus really was. Peter spoke up for the group. In Matthew’s account of this event, in Mt.16:17-19 we find, “Jesus responded, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven.’” Mark did not include this “pat on the back” probably because Peter, who was narrating the story for Mark to write down, did not include it perhaps because he was being modest. Although his answer was correct, it is somewhat doubtful that he, nor the other disciples understood all that Messiah entailed. The disciples did not yet understand the imperative of the cross, therefore Jesus did not want them to go about telling an incomplete story so the “strictly warned them to tell no one about Him.” They were about to find out, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story” although it is evident that they still didn’t grasp it completely.

“Then He began to teach them that it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke openly about this. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. but turning around and looking at His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.” (vv 31-33)

Peter had gone from God speaking through him to Satan speaking through him in a short time frame. In vv 32-33 we see dueling rebukes. First Peter rebuked Jesus, essentially saying, “None of that is going to happen on my watch.” Then Jesus rebuked Peter by turning His back to him and then addressing him as Satan. This should be a wake-up call to those of us who call ourselves Christians. It is possible to to speak “Christianese” and at the same time not really understand what it means to be a Christian. One commentary notes that, “To accept Jesus as LORD is to accept not only His glory, but also His suffering, rejection, and death.”

Paul nailed it in Philippians 3:10 when he wrote “My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.”

We must examine what we say to determine if it comes from God or from Satan. It is easy to be one way one moment, and another the next. Be sure you know who is talking when you open your mouth.

3. It’s Not An Easy Road (vv 34-38)

If you have in your head that being a follower of Christ is easy, you are gravely misled. As Peter Lord used to say, “Christianity is not about living in the sweet bye-and-bye, but it is about living in the nasty now-and-now.” This is not just for the inner circle of Jesus’s followers, it is for everyone who truly surrenders to Him. Notice the beginning of v 34; “Call the crowd along with His disciples, He said to them...” What Jesus was about to say is the core of the gospel. It applies to everyone who would dare to follow Jesus. Listen to His message. “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” Let’s pause there and examine the requirements for following Jesus. A person who desires to follow Jesus must,

deny yourself; put your wants and needs on the back burner and focus on what God wants. You can’t just show up when you feel like it. You must be available when God says, “Come!”

take up his cross; In Jesus’s day the cross was Roman capital punishment. It resulted in death every time. For a person to “take up their cross” they must willingly die to self and sin. In Romans 6:10-11 Paul wrote, “For the death He died, He died to sin, once for all time; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” When temptation comes knocking, if you are a follower of Jesus your stock answer should be, “I’m dead to that!”

follow Me (Jesus). To follow Jesus means to go where He goes, when He goes and experience what He experiences along the way. If you go to Jerusalem today you will find a road called the Via Dolorosa. This is the roughly 1/2 mile trek from the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem to Golgotha that Jesus was forced to walk on the way to His crucifixion. Along the way there are what are called the 14 stations of the cross that depict the events that happened on the way to the cross.

If you are to follow Jesus, you will traverse your own Via Dolorosa. Jesus explained it in vv 35-37 “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me and the gospel will save it. For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? what can anyone give in exchange for his life?” Again we look to the Apostle Paul for his interpretation of this. In Phil. 3:18-20 “For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the LORD Jesus Christ.”

For those who are not willing to go where Jesus went, do what Jesus did and experience what He experienced, He has this to say, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (v 38)

Application: (How should I apply this to my life?)

Just as Jesus began winding down His ministry to the multitudes and focusing on his death, burial and resurrection, we have reached a point where we too must wind down our earthly lives and focus on the coming of the LORD. Where do your stand today? Are you one who talks the talk but are not walking the walk? Are you trying to save your life instead of laying down your life for Jesus? Are you willing to walk the Via Dolorosa, bearing your own cross? Are you willing to die to self and sin? Can you say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

I beg you not to leave here today without knowing for certain that you have a home in heaven. Surrender your life to Christ right now. If you have done that but have wandered away from following the footsteps of Jesus, right now confess your sin and let Him cleanse you and restore you.

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