Good morning everyone. It's a real privilege for me to be with you and to open the Word of God with you.
I'd invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me. To Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8, our assembly in Dubuque has been going through the gospel of Mark this past year and this passage in Market really stood out to me and thought I would share it with you this morning.
We want to, really focus in on Mark chapter 8 versus 34 through chapter 9 verse one, but I want to begin reading.
At verse 27 to set the context for us. Mark chapter 8 and beginning in verse 27.
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Cesarea, Philippe. And on the way, he asked his disciples.
Who do people say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist and others say Elijah and others one of the prophets.
And he asked them. But who do you say that I am? Peter answered him. You are the Christ.
And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. 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 3 days, rise again. And he said this plainly. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But turning and seeing his disciples, he reviewed 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. 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. For whoever would save his life will lose it.
But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
Or what can a man give in return for his soul? For who ever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels.
And he said to them, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.
Let's just pause and ask the Lord's blessing on his word. Father, we're so thankful to be able to open.
The Word of God and to hear the Lord Jesus. Speak to us and these are important words so we asked that you would give us ears to hear these words.
And hearts to receive them. And to obey them. We ask your blessing in Jesus name. Amen.
When my wife Tania and I were first married, one of the wedding gifts we received was a subscription to a marriage magazine.
When the first issue arrived, I knew that I had lots to learn. So I began to read. But as I read, I soon discovered the magazine had more to do with self-esteem than than marriage.
In fact, One article was entitled Quick Tips to Boost Your Self-esteem.
These are some of the tips. Number one. Think 3 positive thoughts about yourself before falling asleep at night.
And before getting out of bed each morning. Number 2. See your imperfections as part of your human perfection.
26 years later, I'm still trying to figure that one out. Number 3, work in harmony with the world by finding it within yourself first.
And number 4, maybe my favorite. Subscribe to uplifting magazines that give you tips for feeling good about yourself.
Well, at that point, I was pretty much ready to dismiss the magazine as a lot of psycho babble.
But I decided to read on because you can usually find some sermon illustrations in that kind of material and here we are.
A second, second article entitled, if I don't take care of myself. Who will emphasize the importance of not putting the needs of your family before yourself.
The author wrote this. I know a woman who is one of the most self nurturing people I have ever met and she stands as a model in my life.
Once for several weeks ahead of her birthday, she selected gifts that she really wanted for herself. She wrapped each one beautifully.
And when she woke up, when she woke up on her birthday, she opened up all her presence.
Then comes the council. Find a model in your life of someone who knows how to take care of themselves and start taking lessons.
The last page of the magazine included a statement articulating the purpose of the publication. And there I found the following conviction.
We believe in the necessity of individuality. And a solid sense of self. A solid sense of cell.
Our world is driven by the pursuit of a solid sense of self. Our culture is committed to the celebration of self and self-interest and self-expression and self ambition.
The reality is that our fallen hearts think that true fulfillment will come. Only through gratifying our self desires.
Number of years ago actress Shirley Mclean said this the most pleasurable journey you take is through yourself.
The only sustaining love involvement is with yourself. When you look back at your life and try to figure out where you've been and where you're going, when you look at your work, your love affairs, your marriages, your children, your pain, your happiness.
What you really find out is that the only person you really go to bed with is yourself. The only thing you have is working for the consummation of your own identity.
And that's what I've been trying to do all my life.
Here those words the message the assumption of our world is follow self and it will lead you to life.
But our text this morning has a radically different perspective. In essence, what Jesus says is this, we must die to self.
And follow Christ. In order to find true life. And that's the cost and reward of discipleship.
Now in the context of our passage, Peter has just made his great confession in verse 29. Jesus is the Christ.
He is the Messiah. And that was a profound Step a recognition of who Jesus was, but really that was only the first step in addition to knowing the person of Jesus the disciples needed to understand.
His purpose, his work. And so starting in verse 31. Jesus began to teach them what he must do as the Christ as the Messiah.
For their salvation and he was very open. He must endure suffering and rejection and death. Before rising from the dead.
3 days later. It was absolutely necessary for Jesus to do these things precisely because he was the Christ. This is why he had come into the world.
This is what the Old Testament scriptures had predicted. He had come to be their Savior, to take their sin and judgment on Himself.
So that they could have forgiveness and eternal life in him. This was Messiah's work.
Now, they didn't understand any of this. Peter, if you noticed in in our reading Peter even rebuked Jesus because this was not what they had expected of Messiah.
They expected Messiah to overthrow their enemies to to restore glory to Israel and to give them as the disciples prime positions in the kingdom of God.
And so Jesus needed to correct their thinking about the Messiah. And so since they had a wrong view of Messiah ship, it's not surprising they had a wrong view of discipleship as well.
And that's what Jesus is addressing in our passage.
First of all, in verse 34, Jesus gives his terms of discipleship. Look again at verse 34.
Calling to the crowd 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. Although the previous conversation seems to have been a private one with his disciples, notice here in verse 34, Jesus calls the people, he calls the crowd to himself along with the disciples.
He and he declares if anyone If anyone desires. To come after me. So these terms that Jesus is outlaying, the call to die to self and follow him isn't.
Isn't for an elite group of privileged disciples. It's not just for the teachers.
And leaders of the church, it's for whoever. Would follow Christ. As Jesus sets the terms of discipleship.
He gives 3 imperatives or 3 commands. The translation I'm using, the ESV, has inverse 34.
Let him. But actually it's stronger than that. These are commands. He must is maybe a better way to translate.
He must. What, what must he or she? Notice 3 things deny. Take up and follow.
First of all, he must deny himself. Now, what is self-denial? We hear that term perhaps we think of the great trial of skipping dessert.
Or foregoing chocolate in a heroic effort to shed a few pounds. Believe me, I know the struggle is real.
But Jesus means far more than that. Commentator Charles Cranfield writes this. He says to deny oneself.
Is to disown not just one sins, but oneself. To turn away from the idolatry of self-centeredness.
See, it's not, it's not about giving up chocolate, but giving up our selves as lords.
And submitting to the one who is truly Lord.
It's often easy to see self-centeredness in others. But do we see it in ourselves?
As Christians, our desire should be that that self-centeredness is increasingly replaced by Christ centeredness.
As we submit to him. As Lord. Now, Peter and the disciples expectations of both Messiah ship and discipleship were all wrong.
In many ways, their hopes were centered on personal and national glory, but it wasn't about them.
They had to learn to deny themselves and let Jesus set the agenda. His agenda was much better. Another commentator puts it this way, when Simon and Andrew accepted Jesus call and left their nets, remember they were fishermen, left their nets to follow him.
They accepted Jesus complete authority over their lives. They abandoned their identity as fishermen on the Sea of Galilee and joined Jesus confident in the conviction that to be with Jesus was more important than anything else.
To be with Jesus was more important. Than anything else. Now, if you think about that in the context of our culture today.
There's a major emphasis on people finding their identity and being true to themselves. We're being pressured.
As you well know. To locate the center of personhood and identity in things like sexuality and gender.
And in order to be true to ourselves, to be able to live authentic meaningful lives. We're being told we must be free to express these things in whatever manner we desire.
That's the spirit of our age.
But it's tragic when you compare the spirit of the age to the Word of God. It's tragic to see how does how self-deceived we have become because This is not freedom.
This is not freedom to use the imagery of Roman 6. It's actually slavery.
It does not, it will not, it cannot bring the piece. That we so long for as fallen humans.
No, our identity in an ultimate sense is to be found in the fact that we are creatures who are made in the image of God.
Created and designed to have our deepest joy and sense of meaning and purpose in following our Maker, our Creator.
You see sin and pride and idolatry exchange. God! For the supremacy and exaltation of Me.
That's a poor exchange. We elevate ourselves and our desires to first place. The place that God is designed to have in our lives.
And then we wonder why we are so troubled and so angry. And depressed. And there's a lack of peace.
And fulfillment in our lives. But you see, Jesus came to deliver us from that.
We're going to be delivered, however. We need to listen to his terms. We need to face the reality that we must deny self.
Actually, Jesus goes further in the second 1, s condition. He must take up his cross.
Must take up his cross. What a shocking statement that would have been. For those who were listening to Jesus.
What does it mean to take up your cross? For us, the cross is a very familiar common symbol.
We see the cross on church buildings, we see it on jewelry. But is James Edwards points out how vastly different was the symbol of the cross in the first century?
An image of extreme repugnance, the cross was an instrument of cruelty, pain, dehumanization.
And Shane. It was the image of crucifixion.
Cruel, a vicious manner of execution reserved for slaves and and criminals. Take up your cross.
You can imagine. The disciples hearing those words, take up your cross. Jesus, what are you talking about?
But burying your cross speaks of death.
John Stott in his book The Cross of Christ writes this. To take up our cross and follow Jesus is to put oneself in the position of a condemned man on his way to execution.
4 if we are if we are following Jesus with a cross on our shoulder there is only one place to which we are going.
The place of crucifixion.
Dietrich Bonhofer was a German Christian who openly criticized Hitler in the Nazis and as a result he was put in a Nazi concentration camp.
Hitler ordered his execution April ninth, 1945. Bonhofer reflected much on what he called the cost of discipleship and in a book with that title he wrote these now famous words when Christ calls a man
He bids him. Come and die.
See, there's a lot of misunderstanding about it, what it means to take up our cross and follow Christ.
We often hear something like, well, we all have our crosses to bear. And what that's supposed to mean is that your crooked teeth or your bad back or irritating boss or complicated family situation is one of the individual burdens that you have to bear in this life.
But of course, unbelievers face those same kind of trials. No. The point is that all Christians bear the same cross.
What is that cross? It's death to self.
Yes, to sell. Now, we should clarify that denying ourselves and taking up our cross doesn't mean an unhealthy self loathing or loss of personality or taking on a martyr complex.
No, it's about surrender and death to self-determination, self-reliance.
So that we put away our sinful independence of the Lord. In order to pledge our ultimate allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And submit to him. That's what actually frees us. It frees us to follow Christ.
Wholeheartedly. And that brings us to the third imperative. He must. Follow me, Jesus says.
To be a disciple. Is to deny ourselves. Take up the cross and follow Jesus. Will the disciples who just objected so strongly to Jesus suffering and rejection and death continue to follow him.
To the end. Or will they be like those in John 6, the crowd? You remember when the teaching got hard and the handouts dried up?
They. They abandon him.
See, it's worth noting that the command here follow me is in the present tense emphasizing the continuous or the ongoing nature of the action.
We don't follow Christ as long as everything's going smoothly and lined with my agenda and my expectations.
But if it gets hard.
Well, I tried that. I'm moving on.
No, if I'm denying myself, if I'm dying to self with a cross beam on my back, I'm gonna keep following Christ.
Come with me.
I wonder is that our mindset?
Is that our? Fundamental outlook on life in this self-indulgent age that that teaches us to to look out for number one.
Is this our view of the Christian life that I'm going to die to self? I'm gonna die to my independence and I am going to follow Jesus Christ the Lord.
Why follow Christ in this radical way? Denying self, dying to self. Ideas that run so contrary to our instincts.
At to certainly the prevailing approach we see all around us. Why would we? Do that. You might be inclined to say, well, Jesus brings meaning to my life.
Well, that's that's good and true. But your neighbor might say. Yoga brings meaning to my life.
Work money brings meaning to my life. Your Muslim neighbor might say, Allah brings meaning to my life.
Well, we might push back and say. The experience, our experience of Christ brings more meaning and and more peace than these other things.
But at the end of the day, our experience as crucial as that is. It's not the ultimate factor.
Why we ought to die to self and follow Christ. The ultimate factor, the final reason we follow Christ with absolute allegiance Must be because only he is truly Lord.
Yoga, work, money. Any other religious figure is not. Lord. Jesus is Lord.
And he has been demonstrating that and proving that through the past 8 chapters in the Gospel of Mark.
Here, let me just highlight a few ways that this gospel demonstrates Jesus supremacy and thus brings us to this point in, Mark chapter 8 where we can say yes.
I will follow him as Lord.
He has demonstrated his lordship in so many ways the demons for example even a legion of demons fell before him in submission and and and he commanded them to come out of people.
And they did. Demonstrating that he is lured over the supernatural realm. He demonstrated his authority to forgive sins.
By healing a paralyzed man. In fact, he healed many, a man with a withered hand, a woman who had a disease for 12 years, no doctor could help her, she was out of money.
He healed a deaf man, a blind man. He even raised a girl from the dead. Demonstrating that he is lured over the physical round.
Including death itself.
Twice in this gospel, we were told he fed thousands of people, thousands of people with just a few loaves and fish and with plenty of leftovers.
He walked on water. He even spoke. Just a few words and a raging storm was immediately calmed.
Demonstrating that he is lured over the natural round.
You see, he's been demonstrating that he is none other than the creator, the the son of God who is Lord overall.
That's why we die to self and follow him.
When the Psalm is declared in in Psalm, 95. 96 verse 5 for all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols But the Lord made the heavens.
He was talking about the Lord Christ. Money can't compete with that. And we're foolish, we're deceived if we think it can.
But lest we get the wrong impression, we need to clarify. That Christ is not a cruel despot.
He is a loving. Master. In this very context, he's already declared that that he's going to suffer and die for his disciples.
This is the kind of Lord. That we are called to follow. One who literally laid down his life for us.
So that we might have eternal life and peace and joy in him. You see, he holds out this promise that if we lose our life for his sake, we actually save it and and find it and discover it because because Christ is Lord following him is what every single one of us was made for.
And when we trust him, when we submit to him, when we lay down our own selfish agendas at his feet and follow him, we find what we were looking for in all those other things.
We live for self. We will die. We surrender to Christ and we enter into true. Life.
That's what we find next. Notice the reward of discipleship in versus 35 through 37.
For whoever would save his life. We'll lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels.
We'll save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world? And forfeit his soul.
What can a man give in return? For his soul.
We all want to save our lives. We have an instinctive self-preservation mechanism. But like Shirley Mclain, we think that the way to do that is through elevating ourselves.
We think the key to life. Is found through following our hearts, pursuing our own agendas, cultivating that solid sense of self.
That the peace and the life that we're looking for just lies at the other side of our latest pursuit.
Carl Truman is a Christian historian who's done a lot of work trying to understand our contemporary culture and how we got to where we are today.
And in his very insightful book entitled Strange New World, He speaks of the modern self. And expressive.
And here's how he describes it. The modern self assumes the authority of inner feelings. The authority of inner feelings.
And authenticity is achieved by acting outwardly in accordance with one's feelings. He goes on to add.
If we are above all what we think what we feel, what we desire. Than anything that interferes or obstructs those thoughts, feelings, or desires inhibits us as people and prevents us from being the self that we are convinced.
That we are. Now what's the biblical assessment of that particular very popular mindset?
We'd have to say that it's nothing short of demonic deception.
Self is the path of life. In her feelings are the ultimate authority. But again, Jesus Christ has come into this world to deliver us from that.
Deception, that folly.
He calls.
He calls us instead to follow him. And this is a radical. Call because he's really exposing the lie for what it is.
If you live for for The idolatry of self You will destroy your life. That's what Jesus is telling us.
If you see the self as ultimate and try to hold on to it at all costs and promote it.
You will lose your life.
But Jesus says, if you died to self, if you lose your life for the sake of Christ, the Lord.
Following him, you will actually save your life. You'll experience in that. Following of Christ. The fullness of the life.
That are creator design for us. You see it's entrusting in Jesus Christ and His work, not ourselves, not our work.
That we receive that we enjoy eternal life. Trying to find our lives, our meaning in our own desires, our own pursuits never brings us what we are ultimately looking for.
Unfortunately, as fallen humans, we're very slow to learn that.
Only in losing our lives for Christ and His sake. Do we actually find life? That's the great paradox.
Of the Christian faith. Now versus 36 and 37 put things into eternal perspective which is a perspective that we are often sadly lacking.
And these verses raise the question, what are we living for? Who are you living for?
Are we living for everything that we might gain here? Here and now with very little if any thought for eternity.
Jesus reminds us in very memorable words that we can gain the whole world. We might win the lottery and have more money than what we know what to do with.
And yet lose our soul.
Think of the parable that Jesus tells in Luke chapter . 12 You remember the man had so much he decided to tear down his barns and build bigger barns to store up all his goods.
And Luke 1219 has the man saying and I will say to my soul soul you have ample goods laid up for many years.
Eat, drink. And B. Mary. The American Dream.
First 20 says. But God said to him, fool. This night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared.
Who will they be?
Most of us are very familiar with the missionary martyr, Jim Elliot. And his 4 friends who were martyred.
You remember the story, they were seeking to take the gospel to the tribesmen, the alca, and they were killed.
What motivated them? What enabled those 5 men to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to a jungle tribe where death was not only a possibility but became a reality.
It was the profound conviction. Jim, it articulated when he wrote these words, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep.
To gain what he cannot. Who gives what he cannot keep. To gain what he cannot lose.
Jesus says that we must die to self and follow him in order to find true life.
Where are you this morning?
Can you sing that him? I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.
Well that brings us finally to the warning and destiny of discipleship. Look at 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
Of course, we all realize it's not popular to identify with the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word.
In fact, it's increasingly unpopular. But Jesus, let's be clear, never promised that it would be a popular choice.
What he did promise is that if we follow him, which includes a willingness to publicly identify with him publicly confess him not only Will we find life?
But when we stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, as every one of us will one day, We will not be ashamed.
More importantly, he will not be ashamed of us.
But if we choose to follow. Self. If we want the affirmation of the world and we reject the way of Christ, then this passage tells us, warns us.
We will not have the affirmation. Of the Lord Christ. When he returns in his glory, if we have been ashamed to follow him in this life, he will be ashamed of us.
And that raises the question for us. Who will we stand with? Who will we follow the world? Which notice in verse 38, Jesus very bluntly calls an adulterous and sinful generation.
Or will we stand with the one before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Will we stand with the one who loved us so much that he laid down his life to rescue us? From our SIN.
It seems that much of what we might call popular Christianity isn't really serious about discipleship. This call, of Jesus here to.to deny self to die to self to follow him.
Is left out of the message. It's replaced with a kind of watered down gospel that that promotes prosperity.
Follow Jesus and and you'll enjoy health and wealth.
It's replaced with. Emotional wellness as the goal. The concept again of of denying yourself?
Of taking up your cross is no part of the picture but if we want to forego the cost of disciple shift We also forfeit its reward.
We will not carry the cross. We shall never wear the crown.
What is that crown? We get a hint of it. In chapter 9 verse one. And he said to them, truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it is come with power.
There is some debate about what Jesus is referring to here, but it seems that he is referring to his transfiguration, which is the next part of Mark chapter 9.
When Peter, James, and John were privileged to see a powerful Preview, if you will. Of Christ coming in glory to establish his kingdom.
They saw the glory of Christ unveiled on that mountain.
That's the ultimate destiny of every believer in Jesus Christ to be with him and to see His glory.
And, and do you realize that that is the deepest longing of our hearts? And that will be our joy forever.
Well, as we close this morning, the message of our passage has been very clear. We must die to self and follow Christ in order to find true life.
Let's be honest, that's a challenging message.
Because of that, we ought to consider Jesus words very carefully.
What are the things in my life where I'm elevating self? Over Christ. You see the cost denying self taking up our cross to follow Jesus seems incredibly high.
We don't want to really think about it.
This call goes against our intuition against the convictions of our secular culture. But let me remind you one more time, this call comes from Jesus Christ, the one who came at great cost to himself.
To save us from our sinful selves, to save us from our twisted world. And how did he come to save us?
He came. By going. To across and suffering.
In our place. Taking the judgment that we deserve. In our place so that we would never have to experience that.
You see, he has demonstrated time and time again that he is not just another religious guru or teacher.
He is the Lord from heaven. And his words we can count on. Are true and they are liberating, liberating and they are precisely what we need in this.
Sinful and adulterous generation.
His call also comes with the offer of reward. Precisely what our hearts long for. True life. And the glory of God in the kingdom of God.
Forever.
So it comes down to this, will you deny yourself? Will you take up your cross? Will you?
Trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. And spend your life following him.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep. To gain. What he cannot lose. Let's pray.
Father, how grateful we are for such a savior. For a savior who came and demonstrated that he is truly Lord time and time again.
For a savior who came and spoke the truth to us. The truth that may be uncomfortable to us but cuts through our deception and is exactly what we need.
And a savior who came to lay down his life for us that we might be saved. And heavy eternal life in him.
Help us Lord. To not elevate ourselves. But to learn day by day to die to self.
And follow him and experience the fullness of life that he came to bring to us. We thank you and crazy for him and his own name.
Amen