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CROSS PURPOSES MARK 8:31-38 Pastor Stephen Muncherian December 13, 2009 |
Today
is the third Sunday of
Advent. Advent being a
time - which as
early as the 5th century - Christians were setting
aside to prepare
themselves to celebrate Jesus’ birth.
Jesus
has come. What does that
mean for us in
the way we’re living our lives? Advent
-
getting ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth - Advent is a
time to think
about our lives - to be open to what God may show us
about how we’re
living as followers of Jesus Christ.
Whether
we’re living naughty or nice. “Are you
ready for Windows 7?” “Maybe. Will
it run my DOS programs any faster?” Some
of us are back on Windows
3.1. This
morning - as we’re getting
ready - thinking about our lives and what God may show
us - how we’re
living as followers of Jesus Christ - I’d like to have
us look together
at Mark 8 - starting at verse 31 - where Jesus is
teaching His
disciples about what it means to follow Him. In
the Bible under the chair in
front of you you’ll find Mark 8 on page 34. As
you’re turning let me bring us up to speed on what’s
going on with
these verses. If
we were to back up a bit from
Mark 8:31 - to what’s been going on previously - a
large crowd of
people - 4,000 plus - had been following Jesus around
for 3 days
without being fed. Jesus
takes 7 loaves of
bread and some small fish and feeds this huge crowd to
the point where
they’re satisfied and there’s 7 baskets of bread left
over. Which was a pretty
impressive miracle. Yes? A
short while - the disciples
are sailing across the Sea of Galilee - they got
hungry and realized
that they’d forgotten to bring bread.
So
that stressed them out. And
Jesus reminds
them, “When I broke the
five loaves for the 5,000 how many
baskets of bread were left over?”
12.
“When I
broke the 7 loaves for the 4,000 how many baskets were
left over?” 7. “So do you
get it? I’m here. You
don’t need anything else. I
got it covered. Trust
Me.” When
they got to Bethsaida a
blind man was brought to Jesus and people were begging
Jesus to touch
the blind man to heal him. Jesus
takes the
blind man by the hand - takes him out of town - and
spits on his eyes -
yuk - lays hands on his eyes - and the blind man sees. We
know this - there’s this
crowd of people that was enthralled with Jesus because
of the miracles
- because of what they could get from Jesus. They got the
miracles. But
they didn’t get Jesus. They
didn’t get the “I’ve got it
covered. Trust
Me with your life.”
part. Its like getting
Christmas - all the
stuff we get - the presents - Jesus has come for us. But not getting Jesus. The
implications of His presence with us. In
Mark 8:27 - in response to
the attitude of the crowd - Jesus starts this dialogue
with the
disciples. He asks them,
“Who do
people say that I am?” The disciples
give Jesus the
standard answers that were floating around in the
crowd: John the Baptist,
Elijah, one of the prophets. “But who do
you say that I am?” Peter
says, “You are the
Christ.” “You’re the
Messiah. The Anointed
Holy One of God. The
One we’ve all been waiting for.”
Talk about nailing the answer to
a test question. Peter
hits this one out
of the park. Mark
8 - join me at verse 31: And He - Jesus - began to
teach them - the
disciples - that the Son of Man
-
that title “Son of Man” meaning Jesus born in the
flesh
- fully man - Christmas - and also meaning the One who
- in the end
times - will bring God’s kingdom to earth. It’s
a title that covers a lot of territory in the hopes of
God’s people. Jesus 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 was stating the matter plainly - meaning there
was no way to misunderstand what Jesus
was saying. He’s going to
be rejected by
men - because of the spiritual nature of His work -
because it is
within God’s will and purposes - Jesus is going to be
killed. And then 3 days
later - live. And Peter
took Him - Jesus - aside and
began to rebuke Him. Literally the
idea is that Peter
tried to shut Jesus up. “Jesus are
you nuts? What is this
suffering business? This
being killed thing? This
nutso talk about coming back from death?
The
Messiah is a symbol of strength - not weakness. Shut
up about all that.” Peter
had gotten the right
answer. Knocked it out of
the park. He gotten
Christmas. He
just didn’t get Christ. Verse
33 - Jesus’ rebuke.
Let’s say that together: “Jesus’
rebuke.” But turning
around and seeing His disciples - who probably
were agreeing with Peter - He rebuked
Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not
setting your
mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Is
Peter Satan? No. But Peter’s rebuke - “Jesus
You’re the Messiah. You
don’t have to go
to the cross.” -
mirrors the same opposition coming from Satan. Would
Satan have loved for Jesus
to be a popular Messiah? Maybe
even get
set-up as king of Israel? Living
out His
days leading God’s people in righteousness? Sure. Big
time. Satan
even promised Jesus that - and more.
Remember
the temptations in Matthew 4? “All the
kingdoms of the world are mine and I’ll give them to
you. Just do things my
way.” “Peter what
you’re focused on - what you’ve set your mind and
heart on - what
you’re hanging on to - is Satan’s agenda not God’s. You’re at cross purposes
with God. You’re
like the crowd following for the miracles and missing
the message.” That’s
a danger we face - even
as those who believe in Jesus as the Christ - because
we know the right
answers we can do church on autopilot.
We
can serve in the church - participate in ministries -
come to Sunday
services - when its convenient - for what benefits us
- what satisfies
our wants. We can be so
focused on God’s
love for us - Jesus being born for us - that we forget
that all this is
about God and what He wills - not us.
We
can be so focused on ourselves that we will miss the
opportunities God
gives us to be blessed and to participate in the
awesomeness of what
He’s doing. Its
why Advent is so important. To
open ourselves up to see what God wants to
show us about living with Him - following Jesus - not
just living by
our assumptions about what it means that Jesus has
come. But making sure
that we’re following God’s purposes for
our lives not our own. In
verse 34 Jesus focuses on
what it really means to follow Him.
Let’s
try this together: What it means to
follow Jesus. “What it
means to follow Jesus.” Verse
34: And He - Jesus - summoned the
crowd with His disciples - meaning that
this teaching isn’t just for the Twelve -
but for all Christians - the Jesus groupies tagging
along - for us - and - Jesus - said to
them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny
himself, and
take up his cross and follow Me.” First: To
follow Jesus means that we must Deny Self.
Try that with me, “Deny Self.” Think
about Peter in the
courtyard - the night Jesus was betrayed. “Jesus? I
never knew the man!” That’s
denial. To “deny” is a
Greek word that
means swearing on a stack Bibles that we have no
connection with
someone. To deny
ourselves is to reject
any association with our former selves - who we were
apart from Jesus. Whatever
we were addicted to. Whatever
controlled us. Whatever
we were devoted to or focused on or captivated by. Whatever associations. Whatever
attitudes. Whatever was
not of God - we no
longer have any association with. And,
its if we never did. We
don’t go back to dwell on what once was.
To rehearse old relationships and habits and
hang-ups. For the
follower of Jesus they
don’t exist. What does
exist is our
relationship with Jesus. Once
- when Jesus was heading to
Jerusalem He was confronted by three men. The
first man tells Jesus, “I’ll follow
You wherever you go.” Jesus tells him
that to follow
means never having a home.
“I’ll follow
you anywhere.” “Well,
you’re going to be
homeless.” Let’s
be honest - many of us
would qualify our following: “I’ll follow
you as long as it doesn’t too severely impact my
lifestyle.” The
next two men put conditions
on following Jesus. “First, I
need to go bury my father.” “First,
I need
to say goodbye to my family.” Have
you heard this? “We couldn’t
make it for church because we had family from out of
town and they
don’t go to church.” “We
had a family
gathering.” “We had to go
camping.” “We had a
bar-mitzvah.” Let’s
be honest - many
Christians would qualify their following: “I’ll follow
you but my family comes first.”
Or something else - name it
- qualifies our following. Jesus
said, “No one,
after putting his hand to the plow and looking back,
is fit for the
kingdom of God.” (Luke
9:57-62) Ever
try driving forward using
only the rearview mirror? Try that
sometime. But not in our
neighborhood. To
deny ourselves is stop
looking back and to choose to look forward - to our
relationship with
Jesus. To deny to
associate with any part
of our lives that isn’t of Jesus.
To give
Jesus complete control of our lives.
His
will for us. Not ours. Second: To
follow Jesus means that we must Take Up Our Cross.
Try that with me, “Take up our
cross.” The cross -
for Jesus - stood for shame -
humiliation - degradation. He
was hung on
a criminal’s cross. On
the cross Jesus was
demeaned and debased. The cross we
carry isn’t just inconvenience
or hardship - something we have to “endure” because
we’re Christians -
its not a difficulty or a trial.
“We tithed
instead of buying a plasma TV. We’re
suffering
for Jesus.” The cross is
symbolic of what reduces us to
humility - offends our pride - shames us - exposing the sin in our lives - until
we’re totally surrendered to
God. Paul describes this in
Galatians 2:20. He
writes, “I’ve been
crucified with
Christ; its no longer I who live, but Christ lives in
me; and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who
loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Hear
this: “Carrying our
cross” is the
day-to-day living of the Christian life as God allows
us to live it for
Him
- a painful
process of daily living - before
others - in deepening openness to God. In
Luke 14 - Jesus gives two
illustrations about what it meant to “take up our
cross” and follow
Jesus. First,
Jesus said - Luke 14:28: “For which of
you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first
sit down and
calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete
it? Otherwise, when he
has laid a foundation and is not able
to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
saying, “This man
began to build and was not able to finish.” (Luke 14:28-30) Many
people look at these verses
and think about what? Building
projects
and budgets and giving estimates.
A wise
builder should calculate the financial
cost of his project before he begins to build - to
make sure he has the
resources necessary to complete the project. But,
the point here is not about
“cost” - the financial bottom line.
The
point here is about commitment - carrying our cross. Jesus’ point can be
expressed in a question, “Are you
committed to finishing what you start - to see the
commitment you make
through to the end?” The
person carrying the cross is
already condemned. His
life is already
forfeit. He’s required to
carry the cross
to the place of execution.
To take
up our cross is a commitment of our whole lives to God
- even death if
required. Are we that
committed?
“Or what
King, when he sets out to meet another king in battle,
will not first
sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with
ten thousand men
to encounter the one coming against him with twenty
thousand? Or else, while
the other is still far away, he
sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.” (Luke 14:31,32) A king is confronted with
a battle - the enemy
is marching towards him. He’s
outnumbered. Defeat is
certain. The wise king seeks council - how to approach
the battle. He asks the
questions, “What am I up against? Can I win?” When
the Godly king sees that He
can’t win He waves the white flag and gives up -
surrenders. So as
Christians - when we realize what we’re
up against - Jesus is teaching us that we should just
give up. Wait. That
can’t be right. Against
Goliath - the battle
hardened Giant - scourge of Israel - God sends the boy
David and a
slingshot. Against the
Midianites and
Amalekites - their armies as numerous as locusts - God
pares down
Gideon’s 32,000 men to a group of 300 guys armed with
water pitchers
and torches. God takes a
handful of
relatively uneducated fishermen - a tax collector -
and a prostitute
and commissions them to share the Gospel with the
world. Same God who calls
us to follow.
Paul
writes, “Our
struggle is not against - what? - flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world
forces of - what? - darkness,
against the spiritual forces of - what? - wickedness
in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians
5:12) The Bible describes our enemy - Satan - as
a roaring lion - constantly seeking someone to devour.
(1 Peter 5:8) The Apostle
John writes, “Do not be surprised if
the people of the world hate you.”
(1 John 3:13) Jesus said,
“If the world hates you,
you know that it has hated Me before you.” (John 15:18)
To follow Jesus means being a target - for Satan - who’s going
to use everything at his disposal in this
world against us.
Remember
the disciples? How they
died? Imprisoned
- they were bound and dragged through the streets -
tortured - beaten -
run through with swords and spears - shot with arrows
- stoned - flayed
alive - crucified - beheaded. John after being
dropped in
a caldron of boiling oil - miraculously escaped death
and was exiled to
Patmos. The only
one to die of natural causes.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer - in his
book, The Cost of Discipleship - writes about “cheap
grace” and “costly
grace.” “Cheap grace
is the grace we bestow on ourselves… the preaching of
forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church
discipline,
communion without confession…grace without the cross,
grace without
Jesus Christ, living and incarnate…
Costly
grace is the gospel which must be sought again and
again, the gift
which must be asked for, the door at which a man must
knock. Such grace is
costly because it calls us to
follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow
Jesus Christ. It is
costly because it costs a man his life,
and it is grace because it gives a man the only true
life.” (1) Our
greatest possession? Ourselves. Jesus says, think about what
you’re getting
yourself into. Do you
really want to follow Me? To follow
Me costs you
everything so that all that’s left is the visible life of Jesus
lived out in us
and through us to God’s glory. Ray
Stedman - in his sermon “The
Way of the Cross” shares this perspective… “Imagine the
scene when the Apostle Paul appeared before Nero, the
Roman emperor, to
give answer to the charges against him...imagine the
emperor, in his
royal robes, seated upon a throne.
His
name was known throughout the empire.
But
few knew of Paul. Here
was this obscure
little Jew, bald-headed, big-nosed, bandy-legged,
totally unimpressive
in his physical appearance - he says so himself in his
letters. And he was a
leader of an obscure, heretical
little sect that was known only as troublemakers. Few
had heard of Paul, while everybody had heard of Nero. But the interesting thing is
that now, two thousand years
later, we name our sons Paul, and our dogs Nero.” (2)
In
verses 35-38 Jesus touches on
what we struggle with in following Him - what holds us
back from
denying ourselves and taking up our cross. What we fear.
Let’s say that together, “What we
fear.” See if
these relate to how you feel. Verse
35: “For whoever
wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for My
sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Fear
Number One: Loss of Life. Remember
Scarlett O’Hara? Gone
With The Wind? She
spent years fawning over who? Ashley. “Oh Ashley,
Ashley. Say that you love
me Ashley. Kiss me Ashley
and I shall carry it with me
forever.” At the end she
realized that it
was Rhett who she really wanted.
But it
was too late. In the end
she’d lost
everything. Holding on to
what we think is
life isn’t worth it. The
desire to save our own life
is the desire to preserve our version of what we think
our lives should
be like - our goals - our dreams - our plans. We
think that if we can hang on to how we think our lives
should lived
we’re actually preserving our lives. But
deep down we know we can’t
achieve the fulfillment of our desires.
Life
- people and circumstances - always get in the way. We’re trying to live freely
the way we want and all we end
up with is fear - fear of loss - fear of failure -
fear of inadequacy. And
yet we’re afraid to let go. What
will happen? What
will God require of us? But
the more we
cling on to our cherished version of life the more we
choke it to death. To
lose our lives - for the sake
of Jesus and the gospel - is to give up our right to
define our lives -
to give that right to Jesus - to align ourselves with
Him - to follow
Him wherever He leads - even if it means a cross. It
means trusting God because God alone is trustworthy. Verse
36: “For what
does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and
forfeit his soul? For
what will a man exchange for His soul?” Fear
Number Two: Loss Of
Control. We
have so much stuff. The
amount of stuff we have is directly
proportional to the amount of space we have for stuff. Right?
If we clean out the
garage what happens? It
fills up with more
stuff. The
reason we have so much stuff
is pretty simple. We like
having stuff. Otherwise
we’d get rid of all our stuff and it
wouldn’t matter to us. But
it does. Stuff
could be stocks - a bank
account - a house - knick knacks around the house - a
car - being able
to eat out or take trips - a upward mobile life style
- a nest egg for
the future. For many
people stuff makes us
feel secure. Comfort
foods. Comfort stuff. If we have
familiar things around us we’re okay.
Like
we have some kind of control over the destiny of our
lives. When
it comes to following Jesus
we hesitate. What stuff
will He want? What if
following Jesus means being poor?
Or driving a Yugo? Or
moving
to Firebaugh? He might
want me to
sell everything and give the money to the Creekside. Which would be a
great idea. But
that’s another subject. If
I follow Jesus
I’ve got to give up control. Do you
remember these words of Jesus? “Do not fear
those who kill the body but are unable to kill the
soul; but rather
fear Him - God - who is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew
10:28) We
usually reverse this. We
fear what kills the body and miss the value
of the soul - the value of Who - God - Who secures our
entrance into
eternity. John
3:16 - say it with me: For God so
loved the world -
that’s us - that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever - that’s us - believes in
Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
That’s
a promise. The
one who dies with the most
toys is still dead. Jesus
said, “When you
check out what stuff is going to be valuable enough to
exchange for an
entrance ticket to heaven? Even
if you
have all the stuff in the whole world it isn’t going
to be enough.” Is
our security in stuff or
Jesus? The
third fear comes in verse 38: “For whoever
is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and
sinful generation - a generation that is far
removed from God - pursuing anything but God - which
has set itself up
as God - with their own perverse immorality - the Son of
Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the
glory of His
Father with the holy angels.” Fear
Number Three Is The Loss of Reputation. What
will others around us - our
neighbors or family or co-workers - or people we go to
school with -
what will they think? What
will it mean? If I follow
Jesus. One
major reason the church in
America today is in serious trouble is because the
church in America is
focused on itself and not God. We
have
replaced serving Jesus with serving ourselves. Commitment
is convenient. Worship is
optional. Sacrifice is
subjective. Attendance
is an alternative. Study
is selective. Prayer is
not a priority. And if it
is, its about us not God. What
is true of the church is
true of those claiming to be a part of the church. Those claiming to be
followers of Jesus. Which
sounds harsh. But
consider the evidence around us. The
church doesn’t run counter
culture - it follows culture. Rather
than
infecting culture, the church is infested by culture. In many ways the church in
America has marginalized itself
because it is not following Jesus. As
the culture of this
adulterous and sinful generation moves farther from
God if we really
follow Jesus - with all that that means - we’re going
to stick out like
sore thumbs. We’re going
to run
counter-culture. We will
be ostracized. We’ll be
misunderstood and ridiculed. Public
opinion will be against us. Legislation
will be leveled against us We’ll
be thrown in jail. We
will be persecuted. And
like Jesus it may
mean even mean martyrdom. There
was this crowd of people
that were enthralled with Jesus because of the
miracles - because of
what they could get from Jesus. Peter
was
impressed with the Messiah - a child born in a manger
- who is the Holy
One of God - the Christ. They
got Christmas - Jesus has
come for us - the presents. But
not
implications of His presence with us.
The “I’ve got it
covered. Trust Me with
your life.” part. God
didn’t call us to emptiness
and uselessness and a life of following after
worthless trivial
pursuits. He called us to
know Him more
deeply - to serve Him - to lose ourselves in Him - to
allow Him to mold
us and move us and use us - to do what is beyond what
is in our wildest
imaginations. To bring
glory to the King
of Kings - the God of all creation.
All
that begins when choose to follow Jesus - to deny
ourselves - to take
up our cross - and to follow. On
this third Sunday of getting
ready - preparation - how open is your heart to what
God may desire to
do in you and through you. As
you follow Jesus - what needs to be denied and what
needs to be taken
up? _____________________ 1.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of
Discipleship 2.
Ray Stedman, from the sermon “The Way Of
The Cross” Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. |