Mark 8:34-38
Part 2 of the Great Shake Up. Last week we saw Jesus take a turn from a season of miracles that were meant to show the world who He was, to the final chapter in His earthly ministry in which He was telling the world what He was there to DO. The Messiah, in the minds of the disciples, was going to overthrow Rome and bring about peace, restoring Israel to a place of prominence in the world. Jesus began to teach them that He was going to suffer and be rejected, and ultimately be killed, but would then come back to life. The disciples were shocked. And if this wasn’t enough in the moment, Jesus began to teach them what would be required of anyone who wanted to commit to following Him.
Read Mark 8:34-38
Jesus gives here 3 requirements of anyone who desires to become one of His disciples. But it goes beyond just a desire. A better translation would be, “if anyone wishes or wills to come after me.” And when defined in the original language, you find a determination to constantly exercise that desire. It’s one thing to say I want to get into shape, but I don’t change anything about my habits. Instead, I would desire to get into shape, and be committed to actually doing the necessary things to make it happen. There’s a driving motivation behind it. And so Jesus is saying, if you want to come after me, you must be committed to these 3 things:
1.. Deny Yourself
1.. Just Say No!
When I decide to follow Jesus, and I become a Christian, I am committing to making Him the Lord of my life. In that moment of receiving salvation, my sin nature, my flesh, is put to death, and I am granted new life in Christ. In that moment, I make a willful decision to say no to myself, and to say yes to Jesus. I am in effect, denying myself.
Romans 6:6 - “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
So when I deny myself, I am saying no to the things that I want to do, and saying yes to the things that Jesus wants me to do. My bent towards sin is replaced with a bent towards righteousness.
Colossians 3 gives us some specifics on this:
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
You see the difference? So we make a conscious and willful decision to deny the old, and say yes to the newness in Christ.
2.. Take Up Your Cross
2.. Stand for Jesus
If we think back to what must have gone through the disciples’ minds, they would have seen so many people crucified by the Romans. It was a common punishment that thousands of their fellow Jews would have faced. So the picture of someone carrying their cross would have been a very familiar one. They would have at once thought of the pain and agony, the blood and sweat, the shame and mockery, and the road leading to death. “Wait Jesus, you want us to do what?”
But it’s so significant. In Luke’s account, he adds that Jesus said that this must be done daily! The Net Bible explains it like this: “To bear the cross means to accept the rejection of the world for turning to Jesus and following him. Discipleship involves a death that is like a crucifixion.”
We can’t think of the cross in terms of anything that is difficult in our life. The cross that we bear is not an illness. The cross that we bear is not a difficult financial season. The cross that we bear is anything that comes as a result of our faith in Jesus in a world that is opposed to Him. The cross that we commit to carrying daily is the potential rejection that we face because we choose to live differently than the world. The cross that many across the world carry is one of suffering and alienation because of their faith. The cross that many have carried has literally led them to their deaths.
And this is a daily decision that we make. Like, wake up in the morning and pray, “God, give me the strength and boldness to live differently. Give me the confidence to stand for truth. Give me the ability to defend my faith. I am ready, and I am willing.”
And sometimes, the willingness to carry our cross remains there. We don’t face anything that would be considered suffering for Jesus, and that’s ok! Jesus wants us to be willing! Sometimes though, it will be having to act on that willingness to stand up for Jesus! And then, Jesus said, then you follow me. And this is a natural result of the previous 2.
3.. Follow Me
Along the way we model our lives after the life of Jesus. Follow me. Walk the same road that I walk. The road of potential suffering and rejection. Love like Jesus. Serve like Jesus.
So Deny Yourself, Take Up Your Cross Daily, and Follow Me. And then He gives them some explanation. Read vs. 35. We have 1 of 2 choices. There are 2 “selfs” here. We either save our lives on this Earth, or we lose our lives on this Earth. What does that mean?
The first self would say, “I love this world. I want to enjoy this world and everything it has to offer.” Now I’m not talking about the physical world. Yes, we should love creation. We should enjoy God’s creation. The world I’m referring to are the values, the self-consumed philosophies, the sinful ideals that plague our society. The first self says “I love that world! And I am going to pursue everything that world has to offer.” And if this is our attitude, then Jesus says we will lose our life eternally. Place priority on the things of this world and forsake the things of God, and when eternity comes it will be too late.
The 2nd self would say, “I am willing to give up everything for Jesus. I am willing to leave all of my desires for the sake of the gospel. Jesus is better than anything this world has to offer. I am leaving it all behind!” That self, Jesus says, that self will be saved.
Notice Jesus used another “for” here. Jesus actually uses 4 “fors” in this text. Each time He uses one, He is expounding on the previous statement. So we move into verse 36. Read vs. 36.
At the end of it all, you could have amassed the greatest fortune in the history of man, but when you die, every penny will be left behind. You could run hard after everything this world has to offer, and you may get it all. But if that is your priority, then on the way you have forsaken the things that really matter, the matters of eternal significance, and as a result you have forfeited your soul. You have given up your soul. You have lost your soul. This doesn’t mean that making money and having material possessions is sinful. But if that is the goal in life, and Jesus takes a back seat or even becomes an afterthought, then you have lost your soul.
Read vs. 37.
In other words, you can’t buy your way into heaven. You can’t focus on worldly pleasures and worldly possessions and forsake the gospel, and expect to enter into heaven and say, “yea but God, look at all this stuff I have! Would you take a million dollars and let me in? A billion? A trillion?!” Depart from me, I never knew you. You may have heard the quote, “death is the great equalizer.” Because the only thing that matters in the end is the matter of your soul.
And then we reach the great warning. Read vs. 38.
Listen, Jesus isn’t calling out the people who have an opportunity to share their faith and shy away in the moment. That isn’t being ashamed of Jesus. I mean, think about Peter. He denied Jesus 3 times but yet still became one of the main figures in the early church planting movement.
Being ashamed is a heart attitude that says, “I care more about what people say about me than what Jesus says about me. I care more about the praise of people than pleasing Jesus.” Again, it’s not a 1 time thing in which we get scared in the moment, but it’s a lifestyle marked by embarrassment towards the name of Jesus.
John Piper helps us understand it better by turning it around: "What's the opposite of being ashamed of somebody? Being proud of them. Admiring them. Not being embarrassed to be seen with them. Loving to be identified with them. So Jesus is saying, "If you are embarrassed by me and the price I paid for you (and he's not referring to lapses in courage when you don't share your faith, but a settled state of your heart towards him) - if you're not proud of me and you don't cherish me and what I did for you - then that's the way I will view you when I come. I will be ashamed of you, and you will perish with the people who consider me an embarrassment."
We should be proud of Jesus. We should take pride in who we are because of Him. I mean if we’ve been truly changed by Him, then we would not be embarrassed to be associated with Him.
Application
Jesus does not call us to an easy road of following. Based on these requirements laid out in our passage this morning, we can expect to be ridiculed. We can expect to be mocked. We can expect spiritual suffering.
Matthew 7:13-14 - “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
I think what makes it so difficult is the call to die to self, to expect suffering. Like, it’s not just something you sign up for without deep consideration. You don’t just sign your life away without considering what it’s going to require of you.
Luke 14:28-30 - “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.”
And all of this begs the question, is Jesus worth it? Is He worth denying myself what this world has to offer? Is He worth potential suffering and persecution? Is He worth it? And once we are able to answer that question with a resounding, YES, then we fight every day in prayer for the willingness to carry our cross when necessary, stand up for truth in the face of persecution, and live every day looking forward to one day seeing Jesus face to face.
