Some people say that everyone has their price.
It's a deeply cynical saying, means if you offer someone
enough money, they'll give up anything, compromise any value,
sell anybody out. Now, there is a grain of truth
in the saying. For example, let me tell you
about my favorite chair. It is a comfy leather reading
chair that sits in our living room.
Purchasing it was one of the best deals Kristen and I ever
got. It was over 10 years ago when we
were living in England. We were in a what they call a
charity shop, what we call a thrift store.
And Kristen spotted it and she said sit in that chair, do not
move. Do not let anyone come take it.
I'm going to go get the little slip we have to fill out so that
we claim it and then go to the front of the store.
We need that chair. And she was right.
It's a nice leather chair. It's comfy.
It's perfectly dimensioned. It was only there for 45 lbs,
which is the equivalent of like $70.00.
So I've had many a happy hour reading in that chair ever
since. If you offered me 10 times that
purchase price for the chair, I would not take it.
If you offered me 20 times the purchase price for the chair, I
would not take it. But what if that offer kept
going up? What if it went way, way up?
Not ten times, not 20 times, but like enough money to send all my
kids to college. My love for the chair would hit
its limit. I would cave in.
I would say OK, OK, give me the money.
Take the chair. Goodbye old friend, Hello kids
going to college. What you value is revealed not
only when you're offered some gain to give it up, but also
when a cost comes due. What you value is revealed when
it hurts to keep a promise. What you value is revealed when
it is painful to follow through on a commitment.
Is there anything you value so much that you wouldn't part with
it at any price? I don't mean a possession, I
mean a belief, a value, a commitment, maybe a
relationship. Is there anything you wouldn't
give up even if it cost you everything?
Our passage for this morning is Mark 8, verse 27 through Chapter
9, verse one. It's a turning point of Mark's
gospel. It's what everything in the
gospel so far has been leading up to, and it's going to set the
direction, even literally, for the whole rest of the story.
In our passage, Jesus teaches that if you want to be His
follower, you have to value Him so highly that you're willing to
give up everything in order to get him.
He teaches that you have to value Him so highly you wouldn't
part with Him for any price or any offer.
He teaches that the basic condition for becoming a
disciple, step one, square 1, the unavoidable beginning, is
that you would not give Him up even if it cost you everything.
Losing everything is a small price to pay to gain Jesus, and
if you're not willing to make that trade, you're not a
Christian. That's the basic message of
Jesus teaching in our passage. Now, how could losing everything
to gain Jesus possibly be worth it?
Our passage is going to answer that question.
Please follow along as I read Mark 8/27 to 9/1 And Jesus went
on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
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 three days rise again.
And he said this plainly, and Peter took him aside and began
to rebuke him. 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. 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.
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit
his soul? For what can a man give in
return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and
of my words, and his 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?
And he said to them, truly, I say to you, there's some
standing here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom
of God after it has come with power.
Here's the point of our passage in a nutshell.
The only way to life is through death.
That's true of how Jesus saves us, and it's true of how we
receive that salvation. Only Jesus's death can save you
from death, and only by dying to yourself can you receive that
salvation. Our passage links together 2
paradoxes, 2 seeming contradictions.
The first is that Jesus death brings us life, and the second
is that the way to eternal life is through dying to yourself.
The second is true because of the 1st because Jesus's own way
LED to and through the cross, the way of following him leads
to and through the cross. The only way to life is through
death. As we walk through the passage,
we'll consider four parts of this paradoxical equation .1 the
Christ. The Christ in verses 27 through
30. For the first time in Mark's
gospel, a human character rightly discerns and declares
that Jesus is the Messiah, ordained by God and foretold in
the Scriptures. Look with me again at first,
verses 27 and 28. And Jesus went on with his
disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
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.
Note that phrase in verse 27 on the way.
It's an important phrase both literally and symbolically.
In in this passage, Jesus is beginning the journey toward
Jerusalem where he will be crucified.
He's literally going on the way there.
They're beginning that journey. But it's also the fact that on
this way, Jesus is going to continually instruct his
disciples about the way of following him.
The way he's walking is the way they're going to have to walk
while they're on the way. Jesus instructs them about the
way. And it's no coincidence that the
early Christians called themselves the Way.
The term Christian was a term of abuse invented by enemies, but
it just stuck. What Christians 1st called
themselves was the Way, because to be a Christian is to walk the
way that Jesus walked, namely to the cross.
So in our passage, Jesus first asks his disciples to report on
popular opinion about him. Now the answers that they return
are all good faith efforts by the broader public to understand
who Jesus is. The people regard him as a
prophet, and they're right, although he's more than a
prophet. In Deuteronomy 18, the Lord
promised to send his people a prophet like Moses who would
renew them and return their hearts to him.
In Malachi 4, the Lord promised to send the prophet Elijah
before the day of the Lord. We'll see more on that in the
next bit of Mark's gospel a little while from now.
So the people think that Jesus is one of the prophetic figures
who's going to prepare for the big decisive thing that God is
doing. That's close to the truth, but
it's still missing the mark. He's not a prophet who's going
to prepare for the big thing God is doing.
He is the big thing God is doing.
So that's why Jesus asks the disciples who they say that he
is. He's preparing them to give an
account of their own belief in Him.
Verses 29 and 30. And he asked them, But who do
you say that I am? Peter answered him.
You are the Christ, and he strictly charged him to tell no
one about him. Now Peter answers, presumably on
behalf of the other disciples, and the narrative implies that
he answered rightly. When Peter says you are the
Christ, Christ represents the Greek word that's equivalent to
the Hebrew mashiach or Messiah. It means anointed.
It refers to the Son that God promised to raise up from
David's line, who'd be king over Israel.
It refers to the king that God promised to install over all the
nations in Psalm 2. It names the long hoped for
Redeemer of God's people. So Peter sees the truth about
Jesus, but as we're going to see, he doesn't see the whole
truth. That's one reason why Jesus
orders his disciples to keep quiet.
This is a big moment of revelation.
This is a big moment of truth. But they don't have a whole
story. So he doesn't want them going
around telling everybody just yet.
Kids in the congregation, who do you say Jesus is?
This is not just a question for grown-ups.
This is a question for everybody.
This is not a question you should defer until you're a
grown up. It's a question you should
answer now. I became a Christian when I was
11. I know a lot of people who
became a Christian at a lot younger age than that.
Who do you say Jesus is? Is a far more important question
than what's for lunch. It's a far more important
question than the answers to the next 20 questions on your math
homework. It is the most important
question you can be asked and answer.
Who do you say that Jesus is? Is he the Messiah, the Saviour,
the Son of God? And if you're not willing to say
that, why not? What do you still have questions
about? What evidence are you still
unsure of? The disciples had more than
enough evidence to answer this question rightly, and so do you
now. An essential part of being a
Christian is believing and confessing the core truths of
who Jesus is. In order to become a Christian,
you have to come to a clear and decided conviction that Jesus is
the Messiah. You have to come to a conviction
of who Jesus is and then declare it.
That's one of the reasons Jesus ordained the ordinance of
baptism, that it would be a means of publicly declaring that
you're owning the truth about who Jesus is.
You're saying he is the Saviour, He is the Lord, He is my
Saviour, He is my Lord. This need to confess the truth
is also why in our services we regularly declare a confession
of faith, just like we did with the Nicene Creed, or we often do
with one of the articles of our own statement of faith.
Jesus asks each of us, who do you say that I am?
And when you declare the truth out loud in public, that's one
way that you answer To be a Christian, you have to know the
truth about Jesus and own the truth about Jesus.
But it isn't enough to declare that he's the Christ.
You could say he's the Messiah but still miss the meaning of
what he came to do and how he came to save us.
What is that .2 The cross. The cross verses 31 to 33.
In these verses, Jesus teaches the disciples that God ordained
from all eternity and revealed in the Scriptures that the
Messiah would willingly give himself over to death for our
sins, and that he'd rise from the dead.
Look at verses 31 and 32. 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. And he said this plainly.
As soon as the disciples confess Him to be the Christ, He begins
teaching them about the cross. In verse 31.
When Jesus says that He's going to be rejected by the Jewish
leaders, He's deliberately echoing Isaiah 53, verse 3,
which Sam read to us earlier. He was despised and rejected by
men. A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 suffered
death for his people's sins. He was rejected not just by
humans, but by God for their sake.
He gave himself over to death to pay the penalty for them, and
then he was vindicated. That chapter, Isaiah 53, teaches
us that the suffering servant not only goes to the cross, but
his saving mission goes through the cross.
There's life out the other side. I don't know if you've ever
noticed this before in Isaiah 53.
Here again, verses 11 and 12 of that chapter.
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.
By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my Servant, make
many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their
iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a
portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was
numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and
makes intercession for the transgressors.
There's fruit and reward for the servant on the far side of
death. If you've ever wondered when
Paul says in First Corinthians 5 that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, was raised according to the
Scriptures. You went, OK, died for our sins.
Yeah, Isaiah 53. I get that.
I see how that's in the Old Testament, the sacrifices.
What about the part about the resurrection?
Where is that in the Old Testament?
Well, it's right here in the same chapter.
It's right here at the end of the chapter.
He not only dies but is vindicated.
He not only suffers but is rewarded.
What form could that reward take if he's still dead?
How could there be reward after the cross if he stays dead?
Now this is one reason why Jesus says that the Son of Man must
not only suffer, but as he says at the end of verse 31, after
three days, rise again. Ancient Jews counted days
inclusively like Friday day one, Saturday day 2, Sunday day
three. So to say after three days is
the same as saying on the third day.
There's no contradiction there. The New Testament says this all
sorts of different ways. According to Isaiah's suffering
servant prophecy, the servant would not only be rejected and
die, but he would rise again. Now why does Jesus call himself
the Son of Man here? Why does he say that the Son of
Man must be must suffer these things?
Jesus is referring to the prophecy in Daniel Chapter 7
verses 13 and 14 that says one like a Son of man, that is, a
human being will receive divine authority from God himself.
By calling himself the Son of Man here, Jesus hints at the
glory and power that will be his after his resurrection.
That's when this Son of Man prophecy will be fulfilled.
So Jesus is telling his disciples, OK guys, you've heard
of the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
You've heard of the Son of Man in Daniel Chapter 7.
I'm telling you, both of those are me.
Those figures are one, and that person is me.
First I'm going to suffer and die to pay for sins.
Then I'm going to receive power and glory from God.
First suffering, then glory. First the cross, then the crown.
He's beginning to give them the script for what's going to play
out. They don't know it, they can't
see it, but He's showing them that it was for ordained.
Both the suffering and the glory are there in the Old Testament
Scriptures. The only way to life is through
death, and your only way to receive eternal life is through
the death of another. We, as self interested,
self-righteous sinners, are so often in the business of
maximizing our virtues and minimizing our faults, it is
hard for us to reckon with the reality that our sins are
against God. God is infinitely holy.
God is infinitely righteous, and so our sins deserve death.
You might be a very moral person.
You might be a very upstanding citizen.
You might contribute to the common good in all sorts of
ways. It could be hard for you to see
through all of that and to recognize that your sins,
because they are fundamentally against God, deserve death.
But recognizing that fact about you is necessary to come into a
true spiritual understanding of where you stand before God.
It's necessary to come to an understanding of what you need
in order to be right right with God.
It's necessary in order to recognize what Jesus came to do.
He came to die because the only way to life is through death.
Jesus paid the full price. For sins, Jesus paid the full
debt of sins. He came to die so that everyone
who turns from sin and trusts in Him will be reconciled to God
instantly, perfectly, completely.
And as we've already seen, he came to rise from the dead to
enter into glory, to enter into a whole new mode of life that is
completely beyond the reach of any hint of death.
That's the promise he holds out to all who believe in Him.
If you will turn from sin and trust in Him today, you'll be
right with God and you'll enter into glory one day with Jesus
himself. Now that's good news.
That's better news than anyone on earth could invent or tell
you. How did the disciples respond to
this news that Jesus going to suffer and die for them and then
rise from the dead? Well, they didn't respond quite
like you would hope. Peter.
Again, look at the rest of verse 32, Mark 832.
He said this plainly, and Peter took him aside and began to
rebuke him. Peter expected a Messiah who
would come and bring God's Kingdom in its fullness Now,
like many Jews of his time, Peter apparently expected a
Messiah who would throw off Roman rule, restore peace and
prosperity and flourishing to Israel, and set up God's Kingdom
right now. He expected an end to pain, an
end to oppression, an end to suffering and sorrow.
Now his vision for the Messiah had no room for suffering and
rejection and death. His messianic hope had no place
for the cross. So Peter begins to rebuke Jesus.
He's discreet about it. He takes him aside privately.
He doesn't do it in front of everybody.
He thinks he's being humble. But think of the presumption
Jesus just about suffering and dying.
That's not a very Messiah ish kind of thing to do.
How about a little more coming of the Kingdom Now?
Haven't haven't you read the scriptures?
These promises of restoration? I'm not sure where all this
suffering stuff is coming from, but if we could just have a
little revision of the agenda here, that would make a lot more
sense. Notice how Jesus responds verse
33 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. Peter could not comprehend the
divine paradox of a crucified Messiah.
He was thinking in merely human terms.
But in this case, to think in merely human terms was to take
sides with Satan. What's the connection there?
How can Jesus leap to this conclusion that Peter is acting
as a mouthpiece for Satan? Because Satan opposes God's plan
of salvation, Satan wants to do whatever he can to keep Jesus
off the cross. Remember in Matthew 4 verses
8:00 and 9:00 when Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the
world if you will only fall down and worship him, What's Satan
offering Jesus? A Kingdom without the cross.
What does Peter want for Jesus? What does Peter want from Jesus?
A Kingdom without the cross? Satan and Peter want the same
thing. So Jesus rebukes Peter for
thinking and speaking like Satan, but no worry tells him to
go. He doesn't say go away.
He says, get behind me. Jesus has begun his journey
toward Jerusalem. He's teaching what it means.
Peter stops him, pauses him, stands in his way.
Peter is coming between Jesus and the cross.
So Jesus tells Peter to get out of the way.
He's got somewhere to go. And he tells Peter to take up
his rightful position behind him, the place of a disciple.
Where's Peter going? He's going to the cross too.
His place is behind Jesus, walking in the same direction.
So note both the grace and the rebuke.
This is a little mini restoration of Peter, just like
there's going to be a bigger one later.
He corrects Peter and puts him in his place.
But when Jesus puts you into your place, it's grace, it's
restoration, it's where you need to be.
God's plan of salvation is a mystery.
It's a paradox. It is beyond natural reason and
against fallen reason. So in order to accept it, you
have to crucify your reason. You cannot bring human
preconceptions to the table and say, yeah, God's plan of
salvation better make sense with those.
You have to die inwardly, die to human reasoning, in order to
accept this good news, as one commentator put it.
If you're looking for low hanging fruit in terms of how to
apply the passage, here's an easy one.
Never rebuke Jesus. What did we learn at church this
morning? It was a very complicated, high
level, advanced lesson. Never rebuke Jesus.
But the question is, in what ways are you tempted to rebuke
Jesus? In what ways are you tempted to
think you know better than Jesus?
In what ways are you tempted to think you know better how to run
your life than Jesus? In what ways are you tempted you
think you know better? What will make you happy than
Jesus? What ways are you tempted to
think you know? What are better rules and
boundaries than Jesus? The only way to life is through
death. Jesus crucifixion and
resurrection were ordained by God from all eternity.
That's why Jesus says must. The Son of man must.
It's God's eternal saving plan. It was ordained from eternity
and revealed in the Scriptures. The only way to get right with
God is to receive the crucified Messiah by faith.
But in order to do that, you must give up everything .3 the
cost .3 the cost. It's in verses 34 to 38.
Jesus teaches that in order to become his follower, you must
renounce yourself completely. Discipleship to Jesus demands
total self denial. Discipleship to Jesus requires
you to die to yourself. Look first at verse 34.
Kind of the thesis statement of the section 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. This is a message for the
disciples and the crowds, those who are already following him
and those who are thinking about it.
If you are not a follower of Jesus, but you're thinking about
it, if you're not a disciple of Jesus but you're considering it,
this message is for you. If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Three parts. Deny himself, take up his cross,
follow me. Let's walk through these in
reverse order. Follow me is relatively easy to
understand. Follow Jesus teaching.
Submit to his commands. Let him rule your life.
Easy to understand, easy to say, hard to do.
But what does Jesus mean by take up his cross?
This is one of those expressions that's been so smoothed out by
2000 years of regular use and it's hard to recover its
original shocking sense. You have a grumpy nosy neighbor,
or you have seasonal allergies and some well meaning comforter
says to you, we all have our cross to bear.
No, Jesus had a cross to bear. What was the cross in AD 30?
It was a Roman instrument, a violent shame and torturous
execution. Part of the shame in torture was
that the one who is going to be crucified often had to carry the
large, heavy beam of wood that would soon be affixed to the
vertical beam of wood so that they could be attached to it and
hang from it and die a gruesome, slow, excruciating death.
When Jesus says that in order to be his follower you have to take
up your cross, he's saying you must voluntarily die for his
sake. He's saying you have to
willingly embrace your own execution.
He's saying that the only way to follow Him is to die first.
Jesus teaching that every Christian is a martyr.
In principle, every Christian is someone who has died to
themselves and therefore is willing to die for Jesus if
they're called upon to do it. Taking up your cross does not
refer to the inconveniences or sufferings that are common to
everybody in this fallen world. Instead, it refers to
voluntarily embracing suffering for Christ's sake, willingly
adopting the extra suffering that comes because you are a
follower of Jesus. It's saying whatever this world
hated Jesus for, it can hate me for.
Whatever got Jesus killed, whatever made the world want to
kill him, they can kill me for that same thing.
That's what it means to take up your cross.
To take up your cross is to willingly suffer and die for the
one who willingly suffered and died for you, and to willingly
suffer and die for him because he willingly suffered and died
for you. This brings us back to the first
demand. Let him deny himself.
What is it to deny yourself? If someone claims that the
Chicago Bears are the greatest football team in history, you
can deny that statement by contradicting it.
You could easily provide contrary evidence to demonstrate
that it's false. If someone requests that they
sell your house and keep all the money, you could refuse that
request. That would be to deny that
request. No thank you.
I will continue living in my house and if we sell it, we'll,
you know, get the money. That's to deny a request later
in Mark's Gospel in chapter 14, it's going to use the same Greek
word for deny to describe what Peter did to Jesus.
When the servant girl asked Peter if he was one of Jesus
disciples, he responded, I do not know this man of whom you
speak. He denied Jesus in order to
become a Christian. What Peter wrongly did to Jesus,
you have to rightly do to yourself.
I do not know this man of whom you speak.
I do not know this woman of whom you speak.
You have to deny any interest in yourself.
You have to disclaim any attachment to yourself.
You have to divorce yourself. You have to deny and die to
yourself to become a follower of Jesus.
You have to treat yourself as if yourself did not exist, as if
yourself has no claim on you. You have to be willing in
principle to surrender everything, to give up
everything. You have to give up everything
and only get back what Jesus wills if and when he wills it.
What specifically do you have to deny in yourself?
You have to deny everything in you that is either opposed to
God or could come into competition with God.
Jesus is not telling you that you somehow have to hate your
physical existence. Stop eating, stop sleeping, stop
taking care of yourself. No, not at all.
The Bible assumes a baseline of self love, self preservation,
self-care. It assumes that but #1 we often
want things for ourselves that God does not want that has to
die #2 we often want things for ourselves that could be
legitimate in themselves. But they get a hold of our
heart. They take over.
They come to stand in the place of God that has to die.
And even if on top of that, following Jesus means suffering,
following Jesus means embracing pain, hardship, loss, death that
you would not normally or naturally embrace.
If that choice is forced on you, you're just trying to go about
your business, but that choice comes upon you.
Then you have to choose suffering, loss, even death when
loyalty to Christ is at stake. Jesus died physically to save
you. You must die spiritually to
receive Him. Why?
One reason is what he promises in verse 35.
Look at verse 35. For whoever would save his life
will lose it. But whoever loses his life for
my sake and the gospels will save it.
If you try to keep your life now, you will lose it eternally.
If you willingly lose your life now, you will gain it eternally.
What are you losing your life for?
Jesus says. For my sake and the Gospels.
Jesus assumes that following Jesus means bearing public
witness to Jesus. That's how you can get yourself
into the situation where you're called upon to lose your life
for his sake. And the Gospels, if you bear
public witness to Jesus, you'll become the target of others
opposition to Jesus. Jesus assumes that following him
means testifying to him, and testifying to him means becoming
the target of others irrational hatred of him.
And so any Christian can in principle be called upon to make
the decision, deny Jesus and keep living, bear witness to
Jesus and die. To be a Christian is to decide
ahead of time that that exchange is worth it, the Dutch
theologian William Abrackel, running around the year 1700,
said. If then the cause of Christ is
at stake and we must either forsake our life or forsake and
deny Christ, the person who denies self will surrender his
life, and we'll be glad that he has something precious which he
may yield to Christ. To be a Christian is to say, I
will love Jesus and obey Jesus and testify to Jesus if it costs
me everything. Notice the promise in verse 35.
Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save
it. How can you save your life by
losing it? Here's another paradox.
It's because the life Jesus promising is eternal life with
him. The hope Jesus is holding out is
resurrection life in a glorified body in the new creation.
The promise Jesus offers more than makes up for the cost of
giving your life away for His sake.
If you're not a believer in Jesus, you need to acknowledge
that you're betting your life on something.
There is no way not to gamble with your life.
If you bet against Christianity, you're betting that Jesus is a
liar, that the God of the Bible doesn't exist, that heaven and
hell aren't real. How confident are you of the
odds of that bet? How confident are you in placing
your life as that bet? Jesus is deliberately using
economic language here to make a point.
He's asking you, what's your price?
What do you think is a good deal?
Would you sell me out? Jesus asks, If the price is
right, would you give me up? And how about the deal of giving
away now? What can't last, and it'll be
gone soon anyways in order to gain what can never be taken
away. How does that deal sound to you?
Jesus is teaching that a Christian is someone who has no
price because Christ is their infinite prize.
You will only give up something you love in order to gain
something you love even more. I would only give up my reading
chair if it enabled me to do something great for my children,
who I love even more than my reading chair.
Jesus is saying that the only way to follow Him is to love Him
more than you love life itself. Jesus is worthy of that kind of
love. If you know Him, you know that's
true. If you know him, you know that
you would rather have Jesus with nothing then have everything
without Jesus. Talk to someone who's a
Christian and they'll tell you that's true.
We all know people who can spend like 13 hours researching a
purchase to save $28.00. In the end you got a deal, but
was it worth all the effort? If you start to calculate the
hourly rate of what you spend researching the deal to what you
guys like $2.20 an hour is your time worth?
110th of minimum wage. Jesus is saying that keeping
your life to yourself is a bad deal.
Keeping your life for yourself is not worth the effort.
You might think Jesus demands are too high.
You might think the cost of discipleship is too much.
You might think you can manage the investment of your life
better than Jesus can. But Jesus is saying that if you
do that, the end will not be gain, it will be loss.
Total loss, absolute loss, eternal loss.
Verse 36. What does it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
What does it mean to forfeit your soul?
It means that you will eternally suffer God's punishment in hell.
It means an eternity of unending conscious torment.
That's what Jesus means by using the phrase forfeit your soul.
It means you would lose out on infinite joy for the sake of
finite pleasures that will last at most a few measly decades.
Jesus warns about striving to gain the whole world.
What in this world do you most strive to gain?
In what ways are you most tempted to try to gain the
world? How could that striving be
setting a trap for your soul right now?
In verse 37, Jesus again asks you to put your soul into a
balance sheet. For what can a man give in
return for his soul? You can also translate that word
return as exchange or even ransom.
Here's what Jesus means. Somehow your soul is forfeit.
Your soul is subject to an unpayable debt.
You can't buy it back. You can't pay it off.
You have nothing you could give to buy your soul.
There's no way you can't buy it back.
But it's a good thing Jesus can. It's a good thing Jesus did.
All you have to do is believe in Him.
Jesus concludes this pleading for our souls in verse 38 with a
sober warning. Verse 38.
For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words and his 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? Here Jesus shifts from the
language of prophet and loss to the language of honor and shame.
And again, he makes a test of whether you're following him,
whether you're willing to stand up for him before others at cost
to yourself. Genuinely following Jesus has
never been popular. Changing political currents,
shifting winds of popular opinion.
These things might make being a Christian more or less popular
in changing seasons, but real discipleship always attracts
opposition. In this life, we'll face
constant temptations to be ashamed of Christ's teaching, to
be ashamed of his commandments, and to be ashamed of his people.
There will always be people in your life who subtly exert
pressure on you to be ashamed of Christianity's beliefs, to be
ashamed of its rules, and to be ashamed of Christians
themselves. In what ways are you tempted to
distance yourself or separate yourself from Jesus teachings or
commands or his people? Where would you like to put a
little bit of daylight between yourself and something about
Jesus? Wherever that pressure point is,
make it an object of prayer. Make it an object of repentance.
Talk to somebody about it. Get help.
Bring that struggle out into the light.
Get help from another believer to help you be bold and
accountable and open about the awkward and uncomfortable and
culturally unpopular bits of being a Christian today.
People put flags on their lawn or hang them from the front of
their homes, all sorts of flags that send all sorts of messages.
Some of those flags begin with the phrase In this house we
believe, and then they confess a secular creed.
Now, I'm not telling you to literally hang a flag out your
front door or put one on your lawn.
That is a matter of Christian liberty and prudence.
But I am saying this. To be a Christian is to fly a
flag for Jesus in how you live, what you say, and what you do.
No matter what it costs you, no matter who it alienates or
offends. No matter how it clashes with
the secular creed that someone next to you in the workplace or
next to you on your block is proclaiming.
Why should we refuse to be ashamed of Jesus now?
It's because the only alternative is to be put to
shame by Jesus. Then that's what Jesus warns.
He will come again in glory. He will come again as judge.
He will come in put to shame all those who have been ashamed of
Him. Throughout this passage, Jesus
is teaching us that the stakes of following Him or rejecting
Him could not be higher. The stakes are infinite.
The stakes are eternal, eternal life and eternal death.
The only way to enter eternal life is to die now.
The only way to gain eternity is by giving up everything.
Now, the here's the thing, though.
The motive for everything you're giving up is gain.
There's no way to kind of like make a deal, like, well, maybe
if I give up this much, I'll get that much.
You have to give up everything. There's no bargaining.
There's no bringing your own terms to the negotiating table
to see if the owner will be willing to give up this or that.
You have to give up everything. But when you give up everything,
what you gain is infinitely more.
Jesus will more than repay every sacrifice.
Jesus will more than reward every loss.
Jesus himself is a prize greater than anything in this world.
If you prize him above everything, you will have no
price. You will be free.
You can't kill someone who's already dead.
You can't buy someone who's already been bought.
There's a freedom in self denial.
You don't care what they threaten.
You don't care what they offer. You are completely indifferent
to this worldly fortune if it conflicts with what Jesus wants
for you and what Jesus wants from you.
There's freedom in having Jesus as your greatest gain because
you are untouchable. Your heart is anchored so far
beyond what anybody can do to you here.
No gain or loss could come that'll make you willing to sell
out Jesus. One day.
Every sacrifice will be rewarded.
I almost thought it was the end of the sermon, but we got one
more point .4 the crown, the crown, one more verse, one more
point. This is Chapter 9, verse one.
The crown is what Jesus promises implicitly in Chapter 9 verse
one. Our death to self will lead to
eternal life. Our suffering now will become
glory. Then Jesus's resurrection
guarantees that and his transfiguration previews it.
Look at Chapter 9 verse one. And he said to them, truly, I
say to you, there's some standing here who will not taste
death until they see the Kingdom of God after it has come with
power. Now, many people take this to be
a promise of Jesus's bodily return.
And then they notice that Jesus did not bodily return in the
lifetime of any of his disciples.
And so they take this to be a failed prophecy, and they take
Jesus to be a false prophet. Some very famous atheist like
Bertrand Russell have listed this down as a reason why I do
not believe in Jesus. Now, in response, we have to
first note, just start by observation, right?
If you come to Wednesday night Bible study, what we're always
trying to do is observe, interpret, apply.
We notice what's in the text. We try to wrestle with it, what
it means in its context, and then apply.
OK, observe. Strictly speaking, this is not a
promise of Jesus's return. He does not say, truly, I say to
you, there's some standing here who will not taste death until I
return. He doesn't say those words.
What does He say? He says they will see the
Kingdom of God after it has come in power.
What else could the Kingdom of God coming in power refer to?
The next clue is what comes immediately after this saying,
the very next verse. This is the case not only in
Mark, but also in Matthew and Luke right after this saying,
come to Jesus Transfiguration. He takes 3 disciples with him,
goes up on a mountain, and he's revealed in blazing glory, and
God the Father speaks from heaven and Moses and Elijah are
there. It's a kind of pulling back the
curtain and divine glory starts showing out.
That's what the transfiguration is.
Now the very next words in Mark are after six days.
It's very unusual in Mark's Gospel to get such a specific
time stamp. It's as if Mark is saying right
after Jesus said this very short time later, the next big thing
he did was so he says they'll see the Kingdom of God after his
coming power. And then he shows Kingdom of God
type glory and power up on the mountaintop.
Also note that in the transfiguration Jesus takes some
of his disciples, Peter, James, John.
There are some standing here who will not taste death till they
see the Kingdom of God. Now what do they see in the
transfiguration? They get a glimpse of Jesus's
divine glory and power. They get a vision of His
Majesty. It's openly manifested before
their sight, like it will be when Jesus comes back.
So Jesus transfiguration is a preview of both his resurrection
and his return. It previews the glory that he
will obtain at his resurrection and that he will reveal to all
the world at his return. When Jesus rose from the dead,
he appeared to his disciples during a period of 40 days, and
then he ascended into heaven. What was he doing?
He was taking his throne and beginning to reign.
Jesus is a king, so where is his throne?
It's in heaven. Jesus is a Kingdom.
So what's he doing? He's reigning over all things
even now, and his resurrection and ascension is when that reign
began. Jesus resurrection and ascension
were not the final and full coming of the Kingdom, but they
were a real breaking in of God's Kingdom power into this present
world order. So Jesus is transfiguration,
previews his resurrection and serves as a kind of down
payment, a kind of little mini guarantee of the glory that will
be here at his final return. Jesus went through the cross to
the crown, and one day he will come to claim his whole
dominion. Jesus passed through death into
life. Jesus endured suffering, then
received glory. And so will we.
So look to the promises that Jesus has already fulfilled in
order to strengthen your confidence that He will fulfill
all the rest. If you're struggling to do that,
fix your eyes on the promise of Christ's return.
How? One way you can do that is to
take whatever this worldly goals you're most tempted to live for
and lay them before the Lord in prayer.
Whatever is most drawing your heart toward it in this life,
into the kind of near term future, ask God, Father, grant
me not to live for graduation or promotion, but for Jesus return.
Grant me not to live for my career, but for your heavenly
Kingdom. Grant me to look forward, not
ultimate ultimately to this vacation or that reunion, but to
Jesus's return. And when you suffer, pray that
God will sanctify you through it.
Pray that the Lord will use that suffering to loosen your grip on
this life and fasten it on the next life.
Jesus Transfiguration proclaims that every cost you suffer now
will be more than compensated by the crown you will receive.
Then CS Lewis powerfully summed up the point of our passage like
this. Die before you die.
There is no chance. After and at the very end of his
classic apologetic work Mere Christianity, he beautifully
captures Jesus teaching here both the demand and the promise.
I'll close with Lewis. Give up yourself and you'll find
your real self. Lose your life and you will save
it. Submit to death, death of your
ambitions and favoured wishes every day and death of your
whole body in the end. Submit with every fibre of your
being and you will find eternal life.
Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given
away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died
will ever be raised from the dead.
Look for yourself, and you'll find in the long run only
hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay.
But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with him
everything else thrown in. Let's pray Father, we pray that
we would deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus.
We pray that we would do that in the confidence that you will
make good on what you have promised, and that'll be
infinitely better than anything we could give up for your sake.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen.