Please open your Bibles to Mark 9 this evening. It's good to be in the house of the Lord with God's people around God's Word tonight. Mark 9. Our text this evening is verses 30 through 32, but I'm gonna read from verse 28 down through verse 37 just to give us some context. So Mark chapter nine, and we'll begin reading at verse 28 this evening. When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And they're referring to the demon in the young boy that Jesus cast out after the disciples were unable. And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise. But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him. And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house, he asked them, what were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve, and he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. Well, from what we just read in the context there, we can see that the disciples have just had an epic failure. They failed to cast out a demon. They failed to help someone in spiritual need. And not only that, in the passage immediately following our text for this evening, we find that the disciples will have another epic failure. As they're walking along, Jesus asked a piercing question, what were you discussing? And they were so embarrassed that they didn't even answer him because they were arguing about who was going to be the greatest. These disciples, these men that Jesus has called to himself, has called to follow him, they've left everything to follow him. They've been successful in some ministry endeavors, yet here we find them again in epic faith failures. They failed in prayer. They failed in faith. The corresponding passage about the demon-possessed boy in Matthew, Jesus says the reason they could not cast out the demon was because they had little faith. They had little faith, they had little dependence on God, and repeatedly in Mark, to this point, We've seen that they have little understanding, they're slow to understand, and they're hard of heart, and they're incapable of perceiving what Jesus is telling them. And again, what we'll find right after is that they will continue to fail. These are weak men who are following Jesus. These are imperfect men who are following Jesus. These are men that Jesus said when he called them, I will make you to become fishers of men. And the to become is really important because what we're seeing as the gospel unfolds is they had a lot yet to become. in order to carry out their mission that Christ was preparing them for. Weak men, men who failed often in believing what Jesus said and grasping the significance of what Jesus said and taking hold of the spiritual realities that Jesus taught and bringing them down to apply to their lives and to live out according to what Jesus had said. So how does Jesus deal with people of such weak faith? How does Jesus deal with people who, after clear teaching, still don't get what he says? How does Jesus deal with people who are so proud that in the very presence of the one that they confess to be the Son of God, they're arguing who is going to be the greatest? Well, what we find in this passage particularly is that Jesus does not abandon people like that. Those whom he calls, those who are his true followers, he does not abandon them. He does not give up on these men. He doesn't say, well, you know, I taught them about the cross of Christ. They didn't get it. I need to go find new disciples. Isaiah tells us that our Lord is gentle. He doesn't extinguish the last sparks of a failing wick. He tends the broken reeds. He leads. He teaches. He leads the disciples in this passage, as we'll find, he leads the disciples to recognize what the root of their unbelief is. He deals with them spiritually that they might continue to grow, and he does that, he does that by bringing them to his cross again. At the end of chapter eight, immediately after Peter confessed Christ, Jesus began to teach about the cross. And you remember, Peter immediately rebuked him. And in between, they've had this massive, epic failure of faith. They're going to continue to struggle with pride, and what does Jesus do? Well, he taught his disciples. Again, verse 31, he was teaching the disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and when he is killed, after three days, he will rise. A failure in faith like the disciples have had, A failure in faith exposes the need for growth. It exposes the need for sanctification, exposes the need for becoming more like Christ, for having the mind of Christ developed more and more in those who follow Christ. And so this evening, we're going to look at how the teaching of the cross from Christ before he goes to the cross, but how that teaching contributes to the sanctification of these disciples. The theme that we'll unpack this evening is that the cross, and using the cross as just a summary for all that Christ did at the cross, the cross exposes your need for growth. for growth in Christ, the cross exposes your need for growth. It exposes our need for continued sanctification. Well, what is sanctification? What are we talking about when we're talking about sanctification? Well, sanctification, when we see it in Scripture, it's a term that describes what is taking place in the lives of the believers, and there's three basic senses that sanctification carries with it in Scripture. There's a positional aspect of sanctification, in the sense that when we're converted, when we're justified, when we're declared not guilty, we're also, in a distinctive way, but we're also set apart to the Lord, we're sanctified. And the positional aspect of that is captured in statements like Ephesians 2, where Paul says that we're seated with Christ in heavenly places. That's our position. We're set apart in Christ. We're seated with Him in heavenly places. We are sanctified. One of the most Fundamental passages in understanding this is in 1 Corinthians 1. Go ahead and turn over there real quick, 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul is writing to a very dysfunctional church, as the rest of the epistle makes clear. But in 1 Corinthians 1, as he addresses this dysfunctional Corinthian church, He says in verse two, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. And when you read then the rest of the epistle, you think, how could he say they were sanctified? In fact, if you look over to chapter three, as he begins or continues to deal with some of the problems in the church, problems that really are similar to what the disciples dealt with in the subsequent passage that we're looking at, arguing about who's the greatest, But in verse one of chapter three, Paul writes, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. All right, so he says you're sanctified, you have this position of being set apart in Christ, and yet, still in the way you're living, you're very fleshly, you're living according to the thinking of the world. There's a lot of transformation that still needs to happen as you follow Christ. And that's the second sense of sanctification. There's a positional aspect that when we're justified, when we're declared not guilty, we are also sanctified in that we are set apart for God's use. We belong to Him. But that sanctification has a progressive element to it, unlike justification. Justification is a one-time statement, you are not guilty. Christ has paid the penalty. There's nothing left for you to do. The guilt is gone. But sanctification has a progressive element to it. where we're constantly being changed to become more like Jesus Christ. And there are many passages that deal with this. Romans 12, one and two, for instance, tells us, don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 2 Corinthians 3 verse 18, that we're changed from one degree of glory to another even as by the Spirit of the Lord as we grow in Christ and as we read the Word of God and as our minds are shaped to reflect more and more the mind of Christ. But ultimately, we look forward to the day when our sanctification is complete or permanent or perfect. And that day is not a day that will come here, while we're on this earth. That is what we look forward to when we are with the Lord in glory, when we're glorified, when we're completely free from the very presence of sin. As believers in Christ, As followers of Christ, the power of sin is defeated, and so we can grow to become more and more like Jesus Christ, but we won't be free from that struggle. We won't be free from the presence of sin until we are with the Lord forever. And that will be the ultimate fulfillment of our sanctification. And so with that brief synopsis of what it is to be sanctified, let's come back here to Mark 9. The disciples, they are following Christ, but they fail. They fail in their faith. They fail to believe what Jesus has taught them. They're going to fail epically as they display the pride that is still in their hearts in the next couple of passages. But in God's design, as he works in us, sanctification humbles a believer. It humbles true followers of Christ with a deepening sense of his or her sin and sinfulness and casts that believer to fresh dependence on the cross of Christ. And so as we grow in Christ, As we become more and more like Christ, instead of any kind of growing self-satisfaction with a sense of spiritual attainment, sanctification instead produces greater dependence on Christ. In fact, you'll probably hear some people say, you know, the more that I'm walking with Christ, the more sinful I feel. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Because to walk with Christ is to walk in the light. And the closer you get to the light, the more you see. And the more we see of ourselves, the more sinfulness we see in ourselves, the more corruption we see in ourselves. And one of the most encouraging things for a believer, when we come to understand this, is to recognize the growing sense of sinfulness as part of the fruit of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is precisely where the disciples failed. You know, they had been sent out back in chapter six on a mission, and they had cast out demons. They had healed people. They were following the Messiah, and they were following the Messiah on their terms. And they were becoming independent instead of dependent on Christ. And when it came to that epic failure with the demon-possessed boy, Their lack of prayer, their little faith exposed their lack of dependence on Christ. They were happy to have Christ according to their terms, but Christ was teaching them Christ according to the scriptures. He was refining their faith. And as Jesus teaches the disciples about the cross, about the reason that he came, about what it means to follow him, we find that what he is teaching is humanly incomprehensible. Look at their response or look at what happens in verse 32. They did not understand the saying and they were afraid to ask him. following Christ according to his terms is humanly incomprehensible and ultimately exposes our pride. And so again, as we prepare to dive in the passage, sanctification is a process that exposes pride and drives true believers to the cross. Sanctification happens at the foot of the cross and not by making a self-proclaimed commitment to live better. That only contributes to our pride. If I can put it in another, in a little bit different form, sanctification is not defined by an experience, by an elevated spiritual experience. There are some that teach that you come to Christ and you're saved, and then sometime after, you have this second experience of being sanctified, of giving yourself wholly to God, or being filled with the Spirit, and even in some more extreme cases, becoming perfect or sinless. And all of that is tragic deception. It's a lie. That is not how sanctification takes place. It's that kind of teaching grows from a false understanding of the gospel. If you think that coming to Christ was your decision, then it only follows that you think becoming more like Christ depends on you as well. I was actually, I grew up in a church where that was taught. And this is rather embarrassing, but it might be helpful. I remember as a teenager standing out in said church with one of my relatives that also attended that church. We were both teenagers. And we had a conversation that went something like this. You've been baptized? Yep. How about you? Yep. Great. You've been sanctified? Yep. How about you? Yep. Great. It was kind of just like, you know, you've been farming lately. But if you'd watched us, you'd say there was no way they were sanctified. Right? That's that's the ridiculousness of that kind of false teaching that your sanctification depends on some kind of experience at a revival that is given so many days for people to get right with the Lord or to surrender or whatever. And so when we're talking about biblical sanctification, it's not something that is some kind of an experience like that. It is experiential. You are changed, but you're changed as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is God who works in you to will and to do according to his good pleasure. Also, sanctification is not something that is defined by externals, right? It's not defined by the entertainment you do or not do. It's not defined by the places you go or don't go. It's not defined by the clothes you wear or don't wear. Those externals do not define sanctification. Now again, certainly we make choices that reflect what God is doing in us. But we have to understand that I can't say, well, because I don't do this or because I do do this, therefore I am more like Christ. Folks, there are some really, really conservative people who do very conservative things who are on their way to hell because it's all external. We understand that the externals do not define sanctification. Sanctification is a process that exposes pride. It works from the inside out and it drives true believers not to a sense of having attained spiritually a certain level of spirituality and piety, but it works in them a deep humility and a deep dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. and any attempts toward sanctification that set aside the centrality of the cross create confusion and ultimately promote a self-righteousness. Sanctification leads to the obliteration of self and not the elevation of self through quote conquering certain sins. Praise God when we have victory over sin, but the reality is we're still sinful. And we still need Christ. And it's the cross, the cross, as the cross is taught and held up, and as we see the person of Christ in relation to the cross, the cross exposes your need for continued growth in Christ. And we'll see that from this passage. So with that long introduction, Again, the cross exposes your need for growth. And first we're going to see from this passage this evening that the cross displays the humility of Christ. The cross displays the humility of Christ. Let's look at our passage again here in Mark 9. They're transitioning through Galilee, heading toward Jerusalem. And in verse 31 again, Jesus is teaching the disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and when He is killed, after three days He will rise. But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask Him. The cross displays the humility of Christ. How do we see that in this passage? Well, again, in verse 31, He's teaching His disciples. The important thing about that is when you look back in chapter eight, verse 31, it tells us that 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. So this is the second time that Jesus is teaching his disciples the same thing. And so we see the humility of Christ and just a very practical element here of his patience with his disciples. Here is the God-man, the Son of Man, the King of Kings and the Lord of the Lords, the one who held eternal glory with the Father and who voluntarily set aside that glory, not His deity, but the visible glory of His position and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He's the perfect, sinless Son of God. And he's with these disciples who are slow to learn, and instead of dismissing them and writing them off, what does he do? He teaches them the exact same thing again. The humility of the Lord. They'd already forgotten. They'd already set aside what Jesus taught them, but he teaches them again. And not the exact words, but very close to the exact words. And you know what's gonna happen in the next chapter? He's gonna teach them again. And you know what? They're still not gonna get it because in John 20 9, when Peter and John run to the tomb after Jesus has been raised from the dead, it says they still didn't understand the scriptures. But Jesus, in his humility, was patient as he repeatedly taught the disciples. slowness to learn, their slowness to understand, in no way derailed Jesus from carrying out the Father's plan. Here he was to accomplish redemption according to the Father's will. Here he was to accomplish perfect righteousness, to pay the price of redemption that none other could pay, to establish the foundation for his church that would continue on for millennia after millennia until he returned and he patiently taught his disciples. and it was part of fulfilling righteousness. When we think about what patience is, a working definition can be that it is a settled pursuit of righteousness growing out of contentment in God's timing for all things. Patience, in other words, is not doing nothing, but it's a settled pursuit of doing what's right, a settled pursuit of righteousness. And it grows out of contentment and God's timing for all things. Think about what it is that undoes your patience and what that looks like. Right, when we're struggling with patience, it's usually because someone has frustrated our plans, and then out of frustration, we veer off the course of pursuing righteousness and respond in frustration. because someone has unsettled our plans. Jesus is patient. Yes, the disciples are slow to learn, and yet He is content to carry out His Father's will, even with those who are so slow to learn, even with those who are so slow to exercise a high degree of faith. He carries out His Father's will. Their lack of responsiveness didn't change the truth of what He came to do. He was undeterred in what He came to do, despite the men that He was working with. And so we see Jesus' humility in His patience. Another aspect of the humility of Christ in this passage is in His passion, meaning in what He says about His coming death, the passion of Christ. The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. Jesus, the Son of Man, was delivered by God. See the word there? It's passive. The Son of Man will be delivered. He will be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill Him. The Son of Man will be delivered by God into the hands of evil men to be killed. And just think about what it is to be delivered into the hands of men, wicked men. Men do wicked things. Men who are undeterred by any conscience, who are fully given into their own fleshliness, they do wicked things. And here was the son of man being delivered into, saying, I'm going to be delivered into the hands of such men, hands that would ultimately slay him. Jesus, in predicting His passion and prophesying about His passion, about His death, He was displaying a committed and absolute obedience to the Father. The Son of Man will be delivered. Who's going to deliver Him? The Father. Your will be done. His humility was a humility of perfect obedience to the Father, of doing God's will to lay down his life for his people to save them from their sins. So often when we hear the statement, what does it look like to do God's will, we're thinking optimistically about what we want to do. and oftentimes slap God's will on that as some kind of like divine endorsement that then nobody can argue with because I've determined that it's God's will. But when we look at scripture and what it looks like to do God's will in the perfect man, Jesus Christ, what did it look like for him to do God's will? It looked like the cross. that look like laying down His life for His people. Those who follow Christ understand, we grow in our understanding that to follow Christ, to do God's will, is to be committed in our obedience to the Father, no matter what comes as a result of that. Doing God's will is submitting to God's revealed will in his word, not self-determining what I want to do and then slapping on a pietistic statement of supposed divine endorsement. Jesus did the will of God, and it was the epitome of his humility to submit to God all the way to the cross. In Isaiah chapter 50, in one of the servant songs, go ahead and turn there actually, Isaiah 50. In verse four, We have a prophecy of Christ speaking, and he's testifying that the Lord God has given him the tongue of those who are taught so that he might know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. It says, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. He has opened my ear, and here's the testimony, verse five. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. So what did that look like? Verse six, I gave my back to those who strike in my cheeks, to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Then he goes on to testify how the Lord God helps him in the midst of that. But the point is that Christ came to do the Father's will, and as he submitted in perfect obedience to the Father's will, he was led to the cross to lay down his life. The cross displays the humility of Christ and His perfect obedience to the will of the Father, and also as the object of abuse at the hands of sinful men. The Son of Man will be handed over, will be delivered over to, into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. The term son of man comes from Daniel chapter 7 and verses 13 and following where the son of man appears in glory as the ruler of all the earth. And so this title, Son of Man, is a title of power and of authority. It's a title that refers to the deity and the authority of Christ. And we understand from Hebrews that Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power. And so when you begin to think about what is taking place and what Jesus says will take place at the crucifixion, here is the Son of Man, the man before whom all will stand, the man before whom all will one day bow and confess. And even as he is delivered into the hands of evil men, he's the sustainer of those evil men. He's the life giver of those evil men, those men who are putting Him to death. He gives them life. The cross displays the humility of Christ. Humility in His passion as He obeyed the Father, as He declared His committed obedience to the Father. And as He declared that He would be the object of abuse at the hands of sinful men, of lethal abuse at the hands of sinful men. And so when we examine the humility of Christ through His ministry at the cross, what happens? Why is it that we say that the cross exposes our need for growth? Well, when we look at Christ through His ministry and at the cross, our pride is exposed. The cross displays the humility of Christ in terms and in a depth that we can hardly comprehend in His perfect submission, His patience even with His disciples on the way to the cross. allowing himself to be the object of abuse to accomplish redemption. What does it take? What does it take for us to react in pride? And here is Jesus at the cross being delivered into the hands of evil men. Our pride is exposed. Jesus humbled himself to the point of death. He obeyed the will of the Father to receive incalculable abuse and the place of those he came to save. And it's interesting, is it not, that in the next passage when the disciples are arguing, Jesus is saying, the way that I'm going is down. And what's their response? They're trying to argue up who's the greatest. As Jesus teaches about the cross, their pride, it's almost like this involuntary reflex to the cross, their pride is exposed. Jesus is the epitome of humility as he gives himself on the cross and they react to that with an expression of pride, who's gonna be the greatest? The cross exposes our pride. It exposes our need for growth. The cross displays the humility of Christ. But secondly, the cross also displays the preeminence of Christ. The preeminence of Christ. Let me just comment that in these first two points, the word displays is intentional. The cross doesn't make Christ humble. It didn't make him preeminent. He is inherently humble. He is inherently preeminent in his position. But when you see Christ in connection to the cross, there's a unique display of his humility, and there's a unique display of his preeminence. The cross displays the preeminence of Christ. We see, first of all, His preeminence as a prophet. When Jesus was teaching His disciples, He said that the Son of Man would be delivered in the hands of men and they will kill Him, and when He is killed, after three days, He will rise. Jesus knew what would happen to him, and he prophesied as God. He prophesied in specifics. He was the fulfillment of the perfect prophet, declaring the words of God. Look over at Matthew 26, where you have as Matthew's description of the passion begins to unfold. You have a remarkable statement at the beginning of those events. Matthew 26, Look at verse one, and we're just simply filling out how Jesus is demonstrating his preeminence as a prophet. He's saying things that will happen with specifics before they happen. And so in Matthew 26, verse one, it says, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, you know, that after two days, the Passover is coming and the son of man will be delivered up to be crucified. Okay, so he makes the statement, it's going to happen in connection with the Passover. Now look at verse three. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. So what you have in that passage, you have two scenes. You have Jesus with his disciples saying, this is what's going to happen. This is when it's going to happen. It's going to happen during the Passover. And the chief priests, the perpetrators, the ones who will put Jesus to death, they say, we want to put him to death, but we want to do it after the feast. And so at the beginning of that passion narrative in Matthew, you actually have this tension, who's gonna be right? When is Jesus going to die? Is he gonna die when he said he was gonna die? Or is he gonna die on the timetable of the chief priest? Who is right? Well, put it this way, God is always right. In fact, in Isaiah, one of the themes in Isaiah as God tells his people, trust in me, don't trust in those other nations, don't trust in those other so-called gods, I am the God of Israel, I am the only true God. And one of the ways that he repeatedly displays that is by making specific prophecies about what will happen in the future. And then he says, I'm telling you this so that when it happens, you'll know that I'm God, including naming Cyrus, the ruler of an empire that doesn't even exist hundreds of years before he exists. And so when Jesus makes these statements about what will happen. We see his preeminence as a prophet, as the God-man, the one who came to exposit God, the one who is God, the one who knows all things. And he tells his disciples exactly what will happen. And even in a more broad sense, As Jesus came and as He fulfilled the role of the preeminent prophet in fully being the full exposition of God, like John tells us in 1 John 1.18, as He proclaims the coming crucifixion, He's not just proclaiming the events because embedded in the crucifixion, embedded in that sacrifice that He would offer of Himself, Christ is proclaiming the righteousness, the justice, the kindness, and the love of God all wrapped up in the cross. He's proclaiming that sin must be paid for and it must be paid for by a perfect sacrifice. And he's proclaiming what Paul will tell us of the love of God in Romans 5. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and that was the expression of his love, or what John tells us in 1 John, that we love him because he first loved us. All of this is wrapped up in Christ's proclamation of the cross. He is the preeminent prophet, but Christ is also preeminent as priest. He is preeminent as priest. He is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him. He is going to be the offerer and the offering of the final sacrifice for sin. The death of Christ will be the ultimate, final sacrifice that totally fulfills and satiates the wrath of God for those that Christ came to save. Turn over to Hebrews 7. Hebrews 7, and look at verse 22. Hebrews 7, beginning at verse 22, as the writer of Hebrews sets the finished work of Christ up in contrast to the work of the priests, the Old Testament priests that pointed to Christ, he says, this makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests. but the word of the oath which came later than the law appoints a son who has been made perfect or complete forever. The son of man will be delivered over to the hands of men to be killed, and in doing that, he fulfilled the role as the preeminent priest, the final sacrifice, the ultimate intercessor for his people. But we also see within this passage, within this condensed summary of Christ's sacrifice, Jesus' preeminence as the conqueror or the king. Look at the last statement Jesus makes there in verse 31. And when he is killed, after three days he will what? He will rise. He will rise. Jesus is preeminent as prophet, he's preeminent as priest, and he is preeminent as the conquering king. Jesus would conquer death through the resurrection. The humble son of God is the preeminent king of kings. In a summary passage, one more passage to turn here to in Colossians chapter one, it's probably, I hope, a familiar passage to you. Colossians 1, where Paul fills out the significance of Jesus' sacrifice and His preeminence over all things and the ultimate reconciliation that He will accomplish based on His finished work. Look at verse 18. Colossians 1, verse 18, Paul writes, he is the head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. His resurrection exalted him to that place of preeminence. And just think about it for a moment. Every king is ruling in a way to protect his people. He's trying to protect his people. Every ruler, a good ruler, that's their goal. But what's the ultimate protection? Well, how about defeating death? Christ conquered death, he's the conquering king, and so he is preeminent in all things. Going on in verse 19. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. All will be reconciled in Christ. All will be made right in Christ. He is preeminent. He is the King of Kings. And when He comes and establishes His rule, all wrong will be dealt with. All those who are His will be received into His eternal kingdom. He is preeminent. And so when we look at the cross, We see the display of the humility of Christ and we see the display of the preeminence of Christ. And the cross again confronts the pride of your heart through the unmatched humility and authority of Christ and that's how sanctification takes place. Our root of unbelief is exposed to be connected to our root of pride, and our pride is confronted when we see the humility of the perfect God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our pride is confronted when we realize that He is preeminent, that He is King of Kings, that He conquered death. And so what have I to say to that? What have I to offer? I have nothing. And again, it becomes quite ridiculous where the disciples then the next thing they do is start to argue about who's gonna be the greatest. The cross displays who Christ is in his humility and in his preeminence. And so then thirdly tonight, the cross reveals your need of Christ. The cross reveals your need of Christ. Verse 32, this is the second time Jesus has very plainly said, the Son of Man is going to be delivered and He is going to die and He is going to rise again. And how did the disciples respond? They did not understand the same. And not only that, they were afraid to ask Him. There's a blindness still in their hearts. And when you come to the end of the gospels, you find that the only way that blindness was taken away was when Christ opened their eyes to understand the scriptures. Why is that? Well, the cross is entirely counterintuitive. the Son of Man delivered into the hands of men? The cross undoes us in thinking about the implications. Think about the disciples at this point. They're following Christ. They've left everything to follow Christ. And now Jesus is telling them that the one that they are following is going to be crucified? What's the implication for his followers? Well, Jesus already told them back in chapter eight, if anyone is to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. The implication of Christ dying is that followers of Christ follow him in like manner. Followers of Christ relinquish all claim on their lives and bow in absolute humility and absolute surrender and absolute submission to Christ, to God. They have nothing, they have no claim on their lives. And so with just the counterintuitive nature of the cross, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 that it's foolishness. It's foolishness to the wise of the world. And with the implications for those who follow Christ, they don't understand and they're afraid. They're afraid to fully grasp the significance of what Jesus is saying. They need Christ. They're no saints. They're not perfect. They need Christ's shed blood to redeem them, to pay for their sin, to pay for their slowness, to pay for their resistance to the teaching of the Son of Man. And so the cross reveals your need of Christ in that it shows you that you are proud and need Christ's righteousness. You know, when we think about the humility of Christ and how the cross displays that, and then when we think about our pride, right, I mean, really, just think about the last day and ask yourself what Jesus asked his disciples. What were you discussing? and apply that to your words over the last day. Did what you were discussing in any conversation reveal pride? I would assume so, would for me. Well, what do we need? We need Christ perfect accomplishment of righteousness in our stead. And so when we come to the cross and we see the humility of Christ, what we find is that what Christ did in his perfect humility, in his perfect obedience to the Father, that belongs to me as one who believes in Christ. I have no foot to stand on based on my righteousness. I have no humility of my own My standing depends entirely on what Christ accomplished in his perfection. We find we're proud and we need Christ's righteousness. We find that we're powerless and we need Christ's redemption. Only Christ could be the perfect sacrifice. Only Christ could satisfy the righteous demands of God for sinless blood to be shed for the payment of sins. And I need His redemption. There's nothing I can do on my own. I find I'm proud and I need Christ's righteousness. I'm powerless and need Christ's redemption. And I find that I'm stubborn and I need Christ's constant revelation. Through the Word of God, through the work of the Spirit of God. The disciples, they didn't understand and they were afraid to understand. Right? how easy it is to come to the word of God and, you know, maybe early in the morning when you have some time with the Lord and read the scripture and check it off. All right, I've done that and really have no interest to understand and probably deep down have a fear of really understanding. What are the implications of what I just read? We're slow to believe, we're stubborn, and we need the revelation that comes from the Spirit of God opening the Word of God to help us grasp the fullness of the Son of God. Christ reveals, the cross reveals your need of Christ. And so when we come to the foot of the cross, whether it's in a simple statement like this where Jesus is teaching his disciples or the extended narratives of the passion and the gospels or the statements of explanation in the epistles, when we come to the cross and think about the implications of what what it means in the fullness of what Christ did. It empties you of pride, and in a spiritual sense, it does the same thing that happened when Paul was thrown down by the glory of Christ on the road to Damascus. The only right response to looking at the cross of Christ is to spiritually fall down on our faces before the glory of Christ. and abject humility and desperation and dependence. Christ died before we existed. He died for our sin, knowing how sinful we were, knowing how sinful we are, knowing how sinful we're going to be, knowing how sinful we are more than we even know how sinful we are. He died. for us, for those He came to save. And so sanctification, our growth in Christ, comes only through looking at the fullness of Christ and grasping the greatness of His work on the cross. If we try to go about sanctification any other way, by some ethereal spiritual experiences or self-discipline alone to conquer this or that, we're actually going right against the spirit of the cross. No, we come to the foot of Christ, we recognize our dependence on Christ, and with heartfelt cries we pray, Lord, work in me to do and to will according to your good pleasure. The Holy Spirit works in us simply to exalt Christ and magnify Christ in the life of a believer. John 16, 14, Jesus says that when the Spirit comes, what will he do? He'll glorify me. So how do we know that the Spirit of God is working in our lives? It's because Christ becomes more and more precious to us. We pursue sanctification in connection with our salvation, in connection with the cross. Growth and sanctification causes the cross work of Christ to become more and more precious, not less and less central. All right, maybe some of you, have come from backgrounds where the idea was, you know, you get saved and then now you start to mature in Christ. But it's like two different things. That's not the case. Yes, we come to Christ and in the same dependence that we came to Christ, it's that same dependence that we continue to grow in Christ. and the cross becomes more central, more precious. When we're confronted by the glory of Christ, we're changed from one degree of glory to another, and that is the essence of sanctification. So when is it that we really begin to see the fruits of sanctification in our lives? Well, Paul makes a gripping statement in Galatians 6, verse 14. Think about this, what is he doing? He's addressing the Galatians because they've departed from the gospel. They've tried to gain spirituality apart from the centrality of the cross. And as Paul comes to the close of that epistle, his cry, is what every believer longs for. He says, but far be it from me to boast, except, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. That's the cry of a person being conformed more into the image of Christ. I have no boast, I have no attainments, I have nothing except in the cross, except in Christ, in Him alone. So again, to summarize, as Jesus is dealing with the failure of his disciples, which I assume in one degree or another is something that we can relate to, he's gentle, he's patient, And their failure does expose their need for growth, but He holds up the cross, the cross that displays the humility of Christ, the cross that displays the preeminence of Christ, and the cross that reveals your need for Christ. May the Lord give us grace to glory in the cross. Father, we thank you tonight for the time in your word. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming to earth to save your people from their sins. And we rest tonight in your finished work. We pray, Lord, that you would multiply your grace to us so that we would conquer pride by looking to you alone. We pray that you would deliver us from self-reliant attempts to subdue our sin You saved us, and it's through Your power alone that our sanctification, our growth, also takes place. Lord, we also pray for those who might hear tonight who do not know You, who have not turned to You for salvation. May You be merciful to them, Lord. We pray that You would draw them to Yourself in the power of Your Spirit. We love you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.