So now we are continuing in our series in the Gospel of Mark this morning. We come to Mark chapter 8 verse 22 through chapter 9 verse 1. So I ask you to please turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 8. Mark 8, beginning in verse 22. Hear now the eternal living word of God. 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 hand on his eyes again and he opened his eyes. His sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home saying, do not even enter the village. And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist. And others say, Elijah. And others, one of the prophets. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are the Christ. And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And after three days, rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. and calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake in 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 my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will a son of man also be ashamed when he comes into the glory of his father with the holy angels. And he said to them, truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power. This is the word of the Lord. Have you ever had the experience when you're learning something and you feel that you sort of understand it? But then as you continue to learn it, you eventually fully, clearly understand it. And this is something that happens quite often, especially if you're learning something complex. I remember this happening, learning the original languages, Greek and Hebrew in seminary. It's something that happens a lot with my calculus students, where there's a basic understanding, but it's kind of a fog. It's not all that clear. But over time, the fog clears, and you have a much fuller, deeper understanding. Because you don't go from complete ignorance to complete mastery in one step. There are stages to mastery. There are stages to gaining a full understanding of something. Throughout the gospel of Mark, Jesus has been revealing himself and his power. And in doing so, he's been revealing the kingdom of God. But there have been many different responses to him. And the question that has puzzled almost everyone is who is this man? Who is this man who cast out demons by his command? Who is this man who makes the crippled walk and the deaf hear and the blind see, who raises the dead? Who is this man that even the wind and the sea obey him? But for the disciples, even after watching Jesus feed thousands of people with only a few loaves of bread and a few fifths, they still didn't know who he was. And he warned them. He rebuked them for not understanding who he was yet. But Jesus is going to give his disciples the gift of sight. They will be given the eyes to see who he is. But their understanding of who he is won't be fully developed right away. It will take time for them to understand, not only that Jesus is the Christ, that he is the Messiah, but as the Messiah, he must suffer and die in order to accomplish his mission. Because Jesus is the suffering Messiah who calls on his disciples to suffer in following him. Jesus calls anyone who would believe and follow him, he calls you to deny yourself and suffer in following him. The passage this morning begins with Jesus and his disciples traveling to Bethsaida. And this was on the north shore of Galilee, another fishing village. And when they arrived, some people brought a blind man to Jesus, and they begged him to touch him, which is pretty typical of the healing stories we've seen so far. But Jesus once again takes this man out of the village privately. He doesn't want the crowd to see what he's about to do, but there's something different this time. Jesus spit on the man's eyes and laid hands on him. And then he asks him, do you see anything? And the man looked up and could see, but not fully. Jesus has touched and healed him fully right away. He said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. And so Jesus lays hands on him again. And this time the man opened his eyes and he could see clearly. And so what is going on here? Why did it take Jesus laying hands on the man twice in order for him to gain Full sight. It's not that anything was wrong with Jesus or that he was lacking power in any way. This was intentional. He was using this two-stage healing of the blind man to illustrate a point about his disciples. In the previous passage, Jesus blasted his disciples for their lack of sight about who he was. They had been with him for all of his miracles, including the two miraculous feedings of thousands of people. Yet when they get into the bow with him, they were upset about how much bread they brought. They completely failed to understand who Jesus was. At that moment in time, they didn't have eyes to see. But Jesus doesn't leave them completely blind. He's going to give them eyes to see, but he's not going to do it all at once. Their full understanding of Jesus and his mission will come in stages. And so this begins in verse 27, when Jesus and his disciples head towards Caesarea Philippi. So Caesarea Philippi is about 25 miles north of Bethsaida, where they currently are. Now they're going deep into Gentile territory, and therefore they would be in an area with mostly Gentiles. This city was famous for its sanctuary to the pagan god Pan. And so Jesus and his disciples are heading into the outer regions of paganism, into a place where there would have been hostility towards Judaism. And the language Mark uses is on the way. On the way there, Jesus asks his disciples, first, who do people say that I am? This question of the identity of Jesus has been a building tension through Mark's Gospel and is coming to a crucial point here on this journey to see Sariah Philippi. that Jesus starts here by examining what are the popular opinions about him? And they respond with the answers we've already heard. Some say he is John the Baptist. Others say he is Elijah. Others say that he is one of the prophets. And as I talked about before, All of these are positive opinions about the identity of Jesus, but they're ultimately unbelief. These ideas about Jesus are failing to see who he truly is. Thinking that Jesus is a great prophet, or as you often hear today, a great moral teacher, or the greatest moral example, means that you don't see him as the Savior. It's ultimately to reject him. It's not to believe in the real Jesus, the true Jesus. And so then Jesus asks his disciples directly, but who do you say that I am? And as far as the disciples are concerned, it doesn't matter what other people think about Jesus. He had just warned them about the unbelief of Pharisees and Herod and how their lack of understanding about who he is was ultimately unbelief and that it led to their hardness of heart. And Jesus rebuked the disciples for their own lack of understanding. But now we see that they're beginning to understand. Peter responds to Jesus's question, you are the Christ. So the word Christ just comes from the Greek word for Messiah, Christos. It means Peter is saying you are the Messiah, which is the anointed one. Peter is acknowledging that Jesus is the anointed king sent by God to save his people. He is the promised one that Israel has been waiting for, for centuries. This is a pivotal moment in Mark's gospel. So far, God the Father has acknowledged that Jesus is his son in his baptism. The demons recognize who Jesus was, the Son of God, the Holy One of God. But no human has recognized up to this point. They've all had different theories. This is what Jesus drew out of the disciples when he asked them, who do people say that I am? He had the disciples think through all the different theories people had about him. But he asked them, to reveal who they think he is, because now he's giving them sight. Just as he did on the first touch with the blind man, they could see now who he was, at least somewhat. They knew that he was not simply a prophet like John the Baptist or Elijah or any other prophet. They know now more that he is more than that. He is the Christ. He is the Messiah. And after Peter reveals it, Jesus strictly charges them to tell no one. Jesus is not ready to reveal to the masses that he is the Christ because no one understands the true nature of the Messiah. The popular opinion of that day is that the Messiah would be a king of God's people who conquers their political oppressors. And so they assumed he would do so through military might. They assumed that the Messiah, who was promised to be a descendant of David, would sit on the throne of David forever, that he would be just like David, in that he would lead an army of Israelites to defeat their enemies, specifically the Roman oppressors. And Jesus didn't want people to know that he was the Messiah yet, because they had no idea what that really meant. And this includes his disciples. Jesus had given them sight to see who he truly was, the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior that God has sent to free his people. But they don't fully understand what that means yet. Jesus is revealing himself in stages. And this is the way faith works. For you and I, it's in a different sense. You know that Jesus did not come to free his people from political oppression. But when you first come to faith, You don't understand all that Jesus is. Your eyes are open that he is your savior, but you don't know all the implications that is for your life. Faith is a journey, and you will follow this journey the whole of your life. There is never a day, this side of heaven, where you will know all there is to know about Christ and the kingdom of God and what this means for your life. You will always be learning and growing in your faith. This is your sanctification, your daily growth into the image of Christ, which includes your understanding of him. If you're to grow in Christ, this means you will grow in your understanding of him. And Jesus will reveal this to you. He will give you the eyes to see, and he does so through the church often, through Bible studies, through Sunday school classes, through sermons, and through your own study of his word. And for the 12 disciples, Jesus continues to show them who he is because although now they see who he is, now they're no longer completely blind. They still don't fully understand who he is or what that means for them as his disciples. They don't fully understand his mission. So in verse 31, you see Jesus begins to teach them more about what it means that he is the Christ. It says that 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. Jesus again here refers to him as the title he likes for himself the most, the son of man. And this is a figure from Daniel chapter seven. This is a glorious figure. The son of man in Daniel comes in on the clouds and he's given an eternal kingdom. And you can see how this is connected to the Messiah, who was promised to King David that he would reign on the throne forever. Well, Jesus is teaching his disciples and everyone there that he is a suffering Messiah. He's teaching them that in order for the Messiah, the Son of Man, to be given His domain, first some things must happen. He must suffer many things. This isn't going to be your typical triumph. This isn't going to be anything like what people were expecting. He is going to suffer and be humiliated. Jesus is not freeing them from their oppression from the Romans, but he's freeing his people from their captivity to Satan, from their oppression under sin and death. And in order to do so, he must suffer many things. This is not optional. This is what was predicted of him. In Isaiah 53, the suffering servant was predicted to die for the transgressions of his people. This is what must happen. And this suffering won't come at the hands of just anyone. It won't even come by their enemies directly. It will come through the rejection of the leaders of Israel. The elders and the chief priests and the scribes, they are the ones who turn him over to be killed. It is their desire for him to be killed that makes it happen. It's from their rejection of their own Messiah. The Jewish leaders are the ones who make this happen. But Jesus not only predicts his suffering death, but also that after three days he would rise again. Jesus is teaching all of what it means for him to be the Christ. It doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means, including his disciples. He's not going to lead an army to overthrow the Romans or any of their oppressors. He's not going to be like David in that sense. Instead of a glorious military victory, the victory of Jesus will come through his suffering, death, and resurrection. And these things must happen. This is the plan of God that he has determined before the foundation of the world. This is the plan of redemption, that the son would take on a human body and a rational mind and live and teach among the people, and he would live a sinless, righteous life, then suffer and be rejected and killed, all to redeem his people from God's holy and righteous wrath against their sins. And this is something that was completely missed by the rabbis, by the Jewish scholars, all before Jesus' time. The texts that predicted this, like Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, were predicting the suffering death of the Messiah. They thought this was just talking about Israel, but it was teaching us that the Messiah would die for the atonement of the sins of his people. And so when Jesus was teaching this to his disciples, it was shocking. They had no idea that this would happen. And when Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, he had a completely different idea of what that meant than what Jesus was teaching in this moment. For the disciples, Jesus being the Christ certainly didn't mean that he would suffer and be rejected and die a humiliating death of a criminal. And so, When Jesus was teaching this, he said them plainly. He was being very clear. It's not that they misunderstood what he was saying. And so then Peter's response to this clear teaching of what was going to happen to Jesus is to take Jesus aside and rebuke him. This is really an amazing passage. Peter has just recognized Jesus as the Christ, as the coming Messiah, as God's promised king that his people have been waiting for for a thousand years, and the king that was promised to have an everlasting reign. So Peter acknowledges this, but then when Jesus, as this king, starts to tell him what this means, he not only disagrees, but he rebukes him for it. Because Peter, at least somewhat, understands what the implications of this are. Peter doesn't like what Jesus being a suffering Messiah means, not only for Jesus, but for Peter himself. The disciples thought that Jesus being a conquering Messiah through military strength meant their lives would be glorious after this happens. This was their guide. They had left everything to follow him. If he's the one to lead, the Jewish people to conquer the Romans, they would be royalty. They thought their lives would be great after this happened because they were with the Christ. They were with the one who would lead God's people to defeat the Romans. But now Jesus is saying something entirely different, shockingly different. He's saying that the Jewish leaders were going to reject him and that he was going to suffer and die. So Peter didn't like this idea at all. He didn't like that Jesus was going to suffer this fate, and he didn't like what it meant for him and their people. And we see this in Jesus's response to Peter. He says, get behind me Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Jesus rebukes Peter and he calls him Satan, because Satan is behind what Peter is saying. Peter is presenting the same offer as Satan did. when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness. In Matthew's account of the temptation of Jesus, Satan took Jesus on the top of a mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Satan's telling Jesus if he would just bow down and worship, Satan just once. Simply bend the knee to honor Satan, he could avoid all this suffering and rejection and a humiliating death and the kingdom could come to him a different way. So Jesus sees the work of Satan with this same promise through Peter. But Jesus has already told him, these things must happen. This is the plan of salvation and it requires Jesus to die as a sacrifice in our place, to give his flesh for our flesh. He takes our sins and the punishment they demand, and he gives us his righteousness. His suffering, his rejection, and his death are the only way. This is God's way. Peter was seeing things from a human perspective. He was seeing that the Messiah must conquer through military might because they don't see their true problem. The biggest problem for God's people wasn't Roman oppression. The biggest problem for every person everywhere in every period of history, including today, is the sin in our hearts. Your biggest problem is not financial, it's not relational, it has nothing to do with the circumstances of your life. Your biggest problem is the sin in your heart. And the suffering, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only solution to that problem. And so these things must happen because salvation depends on it. The redemption of God's people depends on it. Your reconciliation with God depends on it. And so Jesus doesn't stop with rebuking Peter. He's teaching them that He is going to suffer and die and rise again from the dead isn't the end of it. He goes on to teach them what this means for them. He teaches them and all of his disciples, he's teaching you and I what it means to be a disciple of the suffering Christ. He says, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. The disciples of Christ will come into glory with him. This is part of what the disciples understood. They knew this part, that there will be glory by being with the Christ. They even argued and will argue soon about who will be the greatest among them, among the apostles. Everyone understood that the conquering aspect of the Messiah. And they understood that if they were with the Messiah, if they were one of his peoples, they will be glorified with him. But what no one seemed to understand is what Jesus is teaching right now, that the Christ must suffer and die and then he will be raised in glory and his disciples will do the same. Everyone wants glory, but God's way is letting go of seeking your own glory Seeking it the way you want, you have to deny your own glory, deny your own way of seeking things for yourself and submit to God's way. You have to choose the way of sacrifice, dying to yourself. This means dying to doing things your way in an attempt to seek your own glory. You can do it your way or you can do it God's way. You can't be doing both of them at the same time. And God's way is about sacrificing your own glory and submission to him. Jesus says in verse 35, for whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save him. And he doesn't mean here losing your physical life. He means your way of life. Whoever holds on to their natural sinful way of life, seeking their own glory and doing it in the manner in which they please, disregarding what God wants from them. When they say to God, this is what I want, ignore what God may want from them. When someone is more concerned with what pleases them instead of what pleases God, they've ignored God and they've clung to themselves. This person will lose their life. But whoever gives up this natural way of a sinner, this is whoever gives up seeking their own glory in their own way and follow God's way, submit to him with their life, will gain eternal life from God. And Jesus explains this further with two rhetorical questions. 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? All of the self-seeking self-glorification is worthless in the end. It doesn't matter who you are, Taylor Swift, Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos, or whatever person you think has it all. You have someone you could think of right now that seems like they have it all. They've reached the pinnacle of success in all the glory that this world has to offer. And Jesus is saying that If they don't have him, then they actually have nothing. The things that this world have to offer are worthless in eternity. And eternity is what's at stake here. If you are to deny yourself and follow Christ, you'll have an eternity with him in glory. But if you seek your own glory now, then you'll have an eternity without him in suffering. If you reject the suffering that comes with following Christ and seek your own glory, then He will reject you when you need Him the most on the day of judgment. Jesus is the suffering Messiah who calls you to deny yourself and follow Him because He suffered and died in your place and so that you may have eternal life. And He sends His Spirit to dwell within you, that you can have the strength to do this, to sacrifice, to follow Him. He doesn't leave you to muster up enough strength to die to yourself and deny yourself. But the Holy Spirit dwelling within you gives you the power to do this. The way you die to yourself is to seek Christ, to draw near to him, abide in him, and he will bring you to deny yourself. It's through Christ working in you that you deny yourself, that you stop seeking your own glory and seek his glory instead. This is why Jesus closes his teaching to them in chapter nine, verse one, by stating, truly, I say to you, There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power. He's now telling them what this, that some of them will still be alive when the kingdom comes with power. Now, there's much discussion about exactly what Jesus is referring to here. Some say it's the transfiguration of Jesus, which makes some sense, because that's actually the next passage. And this is where Jesus is transformed into radiating the glory of God in front of three of his disciples. Some say it's the resurrection, which displays the power of God to resurrect the dead. And some say it's the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit will indwell believers. I believe it's all three. All three of these things are displays of power of the kingdom of God. All three of these things happen during the lifetime of his disciples. But I think the main emphasis is on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes upon his disciples, and now they have a new power of the Spirit from that moment on. Everything changes from that moment, because the kingdom of God is in the hearts of believers. when you submit to the will of God, when you give up seeking your own glory and instead seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And this comes with the power of God indwelling in you. The only way someone can submit to God and sacrifice their own glory is through the Holy Spirit indwelling in you. Jesus is the suffering Messiah who calls you to deny yourself and follow him. And he gives you the power to do so. And the only real response is to praise God for all that he has done in Christ and to seek him in your life, to seek Jesus Christ, to draw near to him and let go of your desire to be in control. And in doing so, God is glorified. Because it's only in Jesus Christ that any of this is possible. You would gain everything the world has to offer. You could gain this, but without Jesus Christ, your soul would perish. It would be all for nothing. So praise God for all he has done, for all he continues to do and will do through Jesus Christ. Because in Jesus Christ, you have everything. Without him, You have nothing. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you as sinners, knowing that we desperately need your grace. We needed your grace on the day you saved us and called us to you. But we need your grace every day. We need your grace to strengthen us, that we can continue to deny ourselves and follow you. We need your grace that we can put you and your son and your kingdom first in our lives, that we don't seek control, that we don't seek our own way, but we willingly submit to your way. We need your grace to bring us closer to you, that we would draw near to your son and you would conform us into his image. that we would be more and more each day like him, dying to ourselves and growing in righteousness, and that we would exhibit the love of Christ in our lives, in the church, in our communities, in our workplace, and in all that we do. And it's in the glorious name of Jesus we pray, amen.