I'm really glad for the opportunity to preach God's Word to God's people this morning. It's incredible to think of how God uses sinners to teach his Word to his people. So we've been going through the Book of Mark for a couple of months now. Chapter 8 is the major turning point of the book. So this chapter serves to transition from Mark's first main point that he's been focused on to the next. And Mark is really trying to answer some main foundational questions for us throughout his book. Questions like, who is Jesus? What was he trying to accomplish with his life? And what does it matter for us? So if you're not sure about Christianity, this chapter captures some of the most foundational questions for you to consider. And if you are a follower of Jesus, this chapter reminds us both of what we look back to for confidence and what we set our hope in for the future that carries us through each day. So, so far, in the chapters we've looked at in Mark, Mark has been focused on that first question of who is Jesus? But by the end of this chapter, we'll see Mark begin to focus on the second question, the question that he'll focus on for the second half of the book. Why did Jesus come the first time? So let's go ahead and start reading Mark 8. In those days when, again, a crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? So notice, this is the first instance of unbelief we're gonna see in this chapter. There are different types and levels of unbelief. Unbelief can be maybe just occasional doubt, maybe you're just unconvinced and uninterested, or even antagonistic in opposing it. So we'll see the disciples and the Pharisees doubt in different ways through this chapter, and we'll see Jesus interact with that unbelief. So back in verse five, And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said, seven. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves. And having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about 4,000 people, and he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. Verse 11. The Pharisees came and began to argue with him. seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit. This is a response from Jesus we've seen elsewhere, this combination of sadness and grief, as well as jealous anger when confronted with the unbelief and opposition of the Jews. So he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. So here's the Pharisees' unbelief. The Pharisees are the religious leaders of the Jews and they are more concerned about their own authority and importance. So their unbelief is very different from the disciples. The Pharisees' question for a sign was not an honest request, it was a challenge. They were antagonistic in their unbelief. So next we'll switch back to another example from the disciples. Let's continue reading verse 13. And he left them, and got into the boat again, and went to the other side. Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they only had one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, Watch out! Beware of the leaven, or the yeast of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod. And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? Do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you take up? It's stunning and sobering to see the disciples here right after Jesus had fed 4,000 people. The disciples had just watched Jesus perform the sign that the Pharisees had asked for and they still didn't get it. They really are blind in their lack of understanding of who Jesus is. Verse 22, And they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home saying, do not even enter the village. So these five verses from 22 to 26 taken by themselves are initially confusing. It looks like Jesus messed up the first time. But looking at the chapter and what's going on around, we understand that Jesus didn't mess up, but he is illustrating the unbelief of the disciples and the Pharisees. Unbelief is blindness, blindness to reality. The partial sight and partial healing is a dramatic illustration of what is about to happen specifically with Peter. Peter is about to get one aspect of who Jesus is completely right, but then get another aspect completely wrong. Verse 27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do the 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. So here Peter nails it. So Peter recognized and believed that Jesus is the Christ, the long expected ruler who was promised throughout the Old Testament. Peter shows that he is not completely blind. He understands and believes who Jesus is. Peter has seen the signs that Jesus performed, and he now recognizes Jesus as God's chosen king. back in verse 30. 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. So this same conversation is recorded in a couple of the other gospels in Matthew and Luke. Matthew actually includes more of this conversation that Mark leaves out. Mark leaves out when Jesus responds, on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And Mark leaves that out in order to paint a starker contrast between Peter's belief and his unbelief. Peter's belief that Jesus is the Messiah and his unbelief that the Messiah is going to die. So Mark is showing us the belief and unbelief side by side to show the contrast. Peter only sees part of the picture just like the blind man who for a moment saw people, but they looked like trees walking. Mark is showing that it is essential to believe both that Jesus is God's promised king and that he would suffer and die. So then Mark's gonna end this chapter with Jesus explaining what it means to understand the full picture of who Jesus is. Verse 34, 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 in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with his holy angels. So the main point of Mark 8 is that you must give up a self-centered life to follow Jesus as God's appointed ruler. You must give up a self-centered life to follow Jesus as God's appointed ruler. So this chapter combines the two main ideas that Mark is teaching throughout the book about Jesus. The first eight chapters have been building up evidence that Jesus is God the Son, that he is authority and power from God the Father that could only belong to the long-awaited Christ. God's anointed king who is going to reign forever. So Peter's confession is the big climax that Mark has built to over eight chapters. But Mark immediately moves to the next essential aspect of why Jesus came, which will continue for the next several chapters. So Jesus didn't come the first time to reign immediately as king over every kingdom on earth. He came the first time to suffer and die for his people. At this point in Mark, no one understood that, and this is the moment where Jesus began to emphatically and clearly teach it. As we noticed through the scripture reading, this chapter has a lot of examples of unbelief. The disciples doubted Jesus could feed the 4,000, then the Pharisees asked for a sign, then the disciples were worried about their food, then the people thought Jesus was some other prophet, and then Peter questioned Jesus in his need to suffer. These are all different levels of unbelief. So we have these examples of unbelief. But what does belief look like? According to the central message of this chapter, Mark 8, to believe in Jesus is to follow him in the path that he took. And Jesus took the path of suffering and death on the cross. He gave up living for selfish pleasure now in order to gain eternal reward and he calls us to follow him on this path. The call of Mark 8 is to give up a life lived for yourself in order to follow God's chosen king in his death. It's to give up a life lived for yourself in order to follow God's chosen king in his death. So now we'll look at three points from this chapter on what it means to give up a self-centered life to follow Jesus as God's appointed ruler. And each point will have application towards the end. So the first point, to follow Jesus, you must embrace that he is God's king. To follow Jesus, you must embrace that he is God's king. And this first point is really based on Peter's confession in verses 27 through 30, his confession that Jesus is the Christ. Through the first eight chapters, Mark has built up the evidence for who Jesus is. In verse 28, Peter represents all of the disciples in his climactic confession that you are the Christ. So how did the disciples get to this point of understanding? Jesus' miracles, his healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, controlling the weather, multiplying food, all of these things, they validated his authority. They validated the claims that he's been making that we've looked at for the last couple of months. Claims to be the Son of God, Lord even of the Sabbath, the Son of God. But what is meant by the title used here, the Christ, or the Messiah? Throughout the entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, there is this constant rumble, this building anticipation. Someone is coming. Someone is coming. Someone is coming to defeat Satan, the serpent in the garden. Someone is coming from Abraham, by whom all the earth will be blessed. The Messiah, or the Christ, is the king who is coming to deliver God's people and to sit on David's throne and to judge the world perfectly. So this anticipation is built up in the whole Old Testament. For example, a couple passages from Isaiah, which was written 700 years before where we are in the book of Mark. Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it. And another one from Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 11 verses 1 through 10. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, that's King David's family, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. With righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist. Faithfulness the belt of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat. It's a worldwide peace. Now verse 9. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples, of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. So this anticipation is built through the whole Old Testament. God is going to send his chosen king to rule over all creation and all the pain and difficulty of life will be taken away. And then Jesus comes. He came. And Mark wrote to show how Jesus claimed to be that king and proved by his miracles that he is the Christ. So those prophecies are amazing. They're incredible. How do they connect to where we are now? We have problems that we have to deal with today. So we recognize that if I know something is going to happen, I will act differently. If I know I'm going to be paid at the end of the month, I'll work hard in order to be paid. So knowing what is going to happen in the future gives us hope that does change how we live. Knowing that Jesus is King and that he is going to reign and take away our problems does change how we act and live. So the disciples and the Jews in Jesus' day, they endured the Roman occupation of Israel with their hopes set on the promise that the Messiah would come and end their suffering. So for us, those of us who follow Jesus, Our hope is in Jesus too. This is our hope as well, that one day the Messiah will come and end our suffering. So while in the difficulty of right now, we can have confidence and joy knowing what we will have when Jesus comes as king. Our whole reason to not throw in the towel and walk away, not to give in to unbelief, is the fact that Jesus is King and promises to make everything right. The promise that we will enjoy Jesus' reign as King forever outweighs whatever we are experiencing right now. We don't live based on what we see, but based on what we know, what we know to be true. Jesus as King forever is certain, so we can live by faith and not by sight. Politics is such a hot button topic. No matter what you think about politics, you're told that you should be afraid and worried. And thinking of this, of Jesus as King, Christians, we do have a political hope. Not in the United States government, but in Jesus. Jesus is going to reign politically on earth, which is incredible. So instead of giving into worry and fear when you think about politics, be excited for when Jesus comes to reign. Hope in Jesus. If you don't believe that Jesus is God's chosen king, you need to know that his coming is going to bring judgment on everyone who chooses to live life their own way, refusing to honor and glorify him as God. Is that you? But also know that he will come as a good king who is eager to love and forgive and blesses people who submit to him. I urge all of us to embrace Jesus as our king. So for that first point, to follow Jesus, you must embrace him as your king. And for the second point, to follow Jesus, you must embrace that he came to suffer. To follow Jesus, you must embrace that he came to suffer. In verse 31, Mark is now pivoting his focus from showing Jesus as the Christ to showing why the Christ came. He came to suffer. So this is that transition from Mark's first main focus to now this next, of why the Christ came. He came to suffer. This is the first of three times in the next couple of chapters, from chapters 8 to 10, where Mark records Jesus predicting his death to his disciples, indicating that it's going to take time and that they do not yet understand. In one sense, it's easy for us to want a good king, because who doesn't want someone to come and take away our problems, judge those who've wronged us, get rid of Rome and the other wicked, oppressive governments of the world? And that is what the Jews and the disciples thought. They fixated on those Old Testament passages that we read earlier exclusively, and they managed to ignore others that told about the Christ's suffering. And this is alluded to and talked about throughout the Old Testament, but most clearly in the passage we read earlier, Isaiah 52 and 53. This chapter clearly is identifying the Messiah as being a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And this is not what the Jews wanted to hear. This entire chapter describes the affliction, the pain and humiliation and suffering that the Christ would bear for his people. The Jews focused on Messiah's King but ignored the Messiah suffering. Lots of people who claim to be Christians still do the same thing today. They turn following Jesus into a life of health and success and prosperity, ignoring the suffering involved in following Jesus. I know that many of us have friends who we care about, who explicitly believe this. Many of us have, at one time, believed this ourselves. And all of us are still drawn to want this. We are drawn to a life of ease instead of difficulty. What is it that makes it difficult for us to see the need for the Christ to suffer and die? In verse 33, Jesus calls this the difference between looking for the things of God and the things of man. For his response to Peter, you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Peter and the Jews wanted God's kingdom to be realized now, in front of their faces, where they could see it and experience it and have their problem solved. Here, Peter and the Jews are just like us when we expect Jesus to give us health and success and to solve our problems. We want God to work in a way that is physical and immediate. When we focus on these things, we show that like Peter, we are focused on the things of man, not on the things of God. We don't see our biggest problem like God does. Our biggest problem being our sin that has cut us off from God. The Jews shouldn't have been focused on Rome. They should have been focused on the cross that right here Jesus is telling them about. We shouldn't be focused primarily on getting sick or our finances. We should be focused on the cross. How do we solve the problem of our sin? Jesus was going to solve it on the cross. If you only want Jesus as King and you don't want his suffering on the cross, you still have your sin. The second coming of Jesus without the first coming would be judgment only. Jesus as King without Jesus as Savior to remove sin is judgment only for every one of us. Jesus came the first time, lived and died to get rid of our sin. That is the only way that the news of Jesus' second coming as king is the good news for his people. God is concerned with our health and our finances, but God is not using these things primarily to show himself. He is showing himself by building his kingdom in the hearts of his people, who he has saved from their sin. And he does that by changing what we want from the things of man, our own comfort and ease, to the things of God, loving God more than anything, including our own ease. So to follow Jesus, you must embrace him as king, you must embrace his suffering, that he came to suffer, and now for the third point. To follow Jesus, you must reject a self-centered life. To follow Jesus, you must reject a self-centered life. When Jesus came the first time, his goal or ambition was not to make his life on earth better or more enjoyable. We are consumed with making our life better or easier or more enjoyable. Jesus came to suffer, to be rejected, and to go to the cross. So to embrace and accept Jesus, to embrace his suffering is to follow him in his suffering. Follow Jesus in giving up living for yourself in this life. To choose only what makes us happy now or to be ashamed of him and the cross in this life is to choose eternal punishment. Everyone who rejects Jesus now will be rejected by Jesus. That is what these verses are saying. Verse 35, for whoever would save his life will lose it. And in verse 38, This passage is given both for consideration so that anyone who chooses to follow Jesus knows what is ahead, But also as a warning, don't get this wrong. If you make the wrong choice, it may be easy for a moment. But in the end, it will not end well for you. So there's a term that we use for the idea of giving up something now in order to get something more or better later. We call this delayed gratification. And some of you may have seen social media or elsewhere. There's a test that has been used in research settings as well as just for fun on social media to test a small child and their ability to delay gratification in order to indicate how successful this child will be. It's called the marshmallow test. So you take your young child, you sit them down, and you put a marshmallow in front of them, and you tell them, OK, if you wait 10 minutes till I come back, I'll give you a second marshmallow. And I watched a couple YouTube videos with montages of multiple kids being put through this test, and it's entertaining to see how the kids try to delay gratification. One kid doesn't even care that they were given any instructions, just eats the marshmallow. Another one child started playing with it, started licking the marshmallow, but never ate the marshmallow. And I think my favorite was this one little boy who, after a while, he had the marshmallow all the way in his mouth and then pulled it out and he had this terribly angry face. And so what this test has been used for is to indicate whether this child will be able to delay gratification in life and how successful they'll be as a result. So one blogger that I found summarized the results of research that has used this test this way. The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures. And I think we all acknowledge the value in just practical ways of delay gratification. This passage here in Mark 8 is delayed gratification on a grand scale, on an eternal scale. We aren't waiting five minutes for a marshmallow. We aren't working for two weeks for a paycheck. We aren't even tightening our budgets in order to save for a home. According to Jesus, this delayed gratification is lifelong. We are waiting for all of this life. Can we step back from the moment, take a bird's-eye view, and see where we are in the way of eternity in order to make this decision? As we look at the path that Jesus is calling us on, there's two aspects of this. One is the choice to step on the path. You have to start on the path. But then there's the constant daily decision to stay on the path, actively choosing to live for the life to come instead of the enjoyment of the moment. So if you're standing at the beginning of the path and you're looking at it thinking, That looks really hard. I don't know. So Jesus told us this so that you would consider it and weigh it out. But know that when life is over, you will regret it if you never started on the path to follow Jesus. If you do follow Jesus, yes, it will be hard, but you will not regret it. It's been said that the only thing more costly than following Jesus is not following Jesus. So what does delayed gratification look like? Denying ourselves look like day-to-day in our lives? One man that has been a good example of this for me is a man I got to know back in college a few years ago. And this is down in the Atlanta area. His name was Jim. At the time, he was in his 70s, so retirement age. And he was very involved in his church's college ministry, Atlanta's huge college population. And he was spending many hours a week meeting with young men, investing in them. And he was also working for a missions agency. So as an older man, he was giving so much of his time and energy to investing in personal discipling relationships. The world tells us, maybe especially in retirement, to focus on ourselves and relax. And at Jim's most recent birthday, now in his 80s, this is something he shared. Several years ago, I determined to go hard after mentoring the next generation. This has been one fantastic journey, but it takes tons of prayers, blood, sweat, and tears. God's discipleship design is to take next-gen guys and build them into spiritually mature godly men and equip them for a life of following Jesus. Somehow God keeps me in the game even in my advanced age. Jim is an example of rejecting self-centered life. He's an example of what it looks like to live with a mindset on the things of God, not on the things of man. I hope that no matter what stage of life we are in, each of us will reject living a self-centered life and focus our lives on living for Jesus. So this chapter, Mark 8, has reminded us of Jesus' death for us and his coming reign as our king. Let this give us confidence to reject living for this life. Follow him as king. Place your hope in his death in your place and delay gratification in this life while you long for his return.