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Mark, we'll be in Mark chapter
eight today, and starting at verse 34, and we'll, Lord willing,
get halfway through this passage that is at the end of chapter
eight, and then pick it up again next week. That's the plan. Mark
eight ends with one of the most challenging passages, I think,
in the gospels. One that as I have studied this
over the last week or so have really wrestled with this text. Because of the implications of
it and the heavy weight, if you will, but in another sense, the
beautiful freedom that is offered as we look at Christ's instructions.
And so we'll be looking at the theme of follow me, the cost
of discipleship out of Mark 8, 34 through 38. Before we go any
farther, let's pray and ask God to bless our time. Father, thank
you, Lord, so much for the day. Thank you for a great worship
service today. I thank you for the blessing,
the privilege of having this opportunity to open the word
of God. I pray that you would bless our time, help us to be
encouraged, challenged, and edified Lord through your word today.
And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. I'd like to ask you some
questions that we'll just be thinking about. You don't need
to answer, but if you would please think about these questions with
me. I've been asking these questions of myself, and I'd like you to
think about them in your own life this morning. Question number
one, do you follow Jesus? Do you follow Jesus? Are you a true disciple of Jesus? And what does that word disciple
mean to you? Have you given it some thought
lately? Our passage today, again, Mark
8, 34 through 38, and in this passage, Jesus calls believers into and
teaches what it means to be a true disciple, what it means to follow
him as a true disciple. We must remember the context
that this passage is in Mark. So if we just go back a few verses,
We won't read through them, but if we go back and we kind of
scan through what's been happening, Jesus has been having a conversation
with the disciples. And he's asked them a question. He asked them, well, who do men
say that I am? And they answered, and he said,
well, who do you say that I am? And Peter answers for the group,
he makes his confession of the Messiah-ship of Jesus. He says, you are the Christ,
and Jesus blesses him for that, but then in verse 31, Jesus begins
and announces to the disciples for the first time that he would
be killed. They haven't heard this teaching
before. In fact, I don't know if we touched on it, but in verse
31 it says, he began to teach. The word began is a word of something
for the first time, a proto of something, the beginning of something.
It's the first time they're hearing this, that their Lord, their
Rabbi, their Messiah was going to be killed. And of course,
he also predicts his resurrection three days. After three days,
he will rise again. Well, Peter and the disciples,
they don't know how to handle that. And I don't think we would
have known either had we been in their place. So Peter makes,
he makes this beautiful confession, but then he blunders and he says,
he begins to rebuke Jesus for this, which brings a rebuke from
Jesus against Peter for his satanic thinking. Jesus says, get behind
me, Satan. The same thing he said to the
devil in the wilderness when the devil said, turn the stones
into bread. He said, get behind me, Satan. The reason he did that, and we
covered this more in depth in previous lessons, but Peter's
thinking was not God's thinking. And he spells it out, you are
not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Peter was not mindful of the
things of God. He was not mindful of the spiritual
truth, but he was mindful of the things of men, the natural,
physical, and even national view that Messiah was supposed to
conquer Rome and set them free. Jesus, of course, has a different
plan. And so we're coming out of that
whole dialogue when we come into verse 34. So Jesus then seizes
the moment. He seizes the moment to teach
them something very important, which is the cost of discipleship. He's saying, I want you that
believe in me, I want you to grow in your faith. Peter, I
know you believe in me, but you're not mindful of the things of
God. You're immature in your faith. And now he calls Peter,
as well as anyone else who believes in him, to this idea of what
it means to be a true disciple, and the cost that comes with
that discipleship, because there is a cost to be considered. There's
also great rewards, and I would argue those rewards far outweigh
the cost But nevertheless, the cost is there. And Jesus makes
that clear. So we have a couple points on
the outline. The first one is the desire of following. The
desire of following. It's the first part of verse
34. So look with me now at Mark 8, and starting in verse 34. When he had called the people
to himself, with his disciples also, He said to them, whoever
desires to come after me. The phrase come after me is a
key phrase to unlocking this passage. This passage here, the
passage of taking up the cross and following Jesus, has come
under different viewpoints, and there's oftentimes confusion
as to what that means. The phrase come after me is one
of the keys to unlocking the meaning. To come after Jesus
is not the same thing as to come to Jesus. We come to Jesus for
the free gift of everlasting life. We come to him for that
by putting our faith in him. We see that all through scripture. A couple key texts on this, John
4.10, Jesus is at the well of Sychar, and he's talking to the
woman at the well, and he answered and he said to her, if you knew
the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, give me a drink,
you would have asked him, and he would have given you living
water. Given, gift. You can't buy a
gift, it's no longer a gift. You can't earn a gift, and then
at that point, it's a bribe, if you will, or it's payment. Gifts are free, otherwise they're
not gifts. And we come to Jesus for the
free gift of everlasting life. Revelation 22.17 is another key
text. And the spirit and the bride
say, come, parentheses, to Jesus. That's what it's talking about.
And let him who hears say, come. And let him who thirsts come. Come where? Come to Jesus. Whoever
desires, notice the similar phrasing, but here we're talking about
salvation, Jesus' text, we're talking about discipleship. Whoever
desires, let him take of the water of life, how? Freely, no
cost. Our salvation is free, it's free
to us. It costs Jesus everything, but
it's free to us. So we come to Jesus for the gift
of everlasting life. And as we come into Mark 8, 34
and 35 and continuing down through verse 38 to the end of the chapter,
we see a different call. It's a call to come after Jesus.
in order to live the Christian life here on earth the way that
he wants us to. Jesus is calling people that
already believe in him to follow him in a discipleship relationship. So the desire of following, then,
is that of pursuing Christ at a deeper level, to grow spiritually
in the Lord, to be mindful of the things of God, not the things
of men, the thing he just rebuked Peter for, to walk in the Spirit
instead of the flesh. Galatians 5.16 is the command.
To who? Believers or unbelievers? believers. He's telling Christians, this
is part of your sanctification process, is walking in the Spirit. Here's the command, walk in the
Spirit. Be under the control of the Spirit, and you shall
not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So this verse is an example of
a discipleship verse, not a salvation verse. We don't call unbelievers
to walk in the Spirit, we call them to believe in Jesus. Christians
Now it is our great calling and our privilege to walk. in the
Spirit, and it goes right along with the text here in Mark 8
of following Jesus, this walk. Some of the verses that were
used in this morning's service, walk in Christ, talking again
to Christians. So it's a verse about our condition,
not our position. We are positionally justified
by the death of Christ, by believing in Jesus. but our condition can
change. And so this verse, and I believe
the passage that we're studying in Mark today is written to Christians,
it's calling us as believers to walk in the power of the Spirit,
to walk in Christ instead of walking in our fleshly desires. So we go back to our test. We see that it says, whoever
desires, whoever desires, he's offering a choice. So the question
I'm asking myself, the question we're asking ourselves, do we
as Christians desire to come after Christ? Do we desire to
follow him in a deeper, more intimate, more mature discipleship
relationship? So the question then comes up,
is it possible to be a believer and choose to not follow Jesus? Yes. Why else would the command
to be to Christians walk in the Spirit, or to walk in Christ,
be in the Bible. We can go from walking with and
following Christ to following the flesh and following Christ
all in the same day, all in the same hour, or even less. We have the capacity to do that,
we have the choice, it's in front of us. Believers, we as believers,
there's not a day goes by that we don't in some way sin, unfortunately. We have that sin nature, we have
the devil, we have the world all fighting against us, and
we give into that. That's why 1st John 1 8 9 is
there if we say that we have no sin We deceive ourselves,
right? We're just faking it at that
point We do sin, but God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness So then we get back on the road
again I was thinking about the Christian life if you picture
it like a highway and the highway is following Jesus the highway
the interstate if you will is Being a disciple of Christ and
following him and living holy. We were challenged this morning,
be holy for I am holy. That's the interstate. There's
an exit about every minute on that interstate that has got
a big flashing sign, and sometimes the sign says pride or lust or
anger or deceitfulness, and it really is tempting to pull off
and get on that exit ramp. Thankfully, praise God that there's
also an entrance ramp back on, right? To start living for Christ
again. Well, this is Jesus' call here
in Mark 8 to next level Christianity. It's a call to Christian maturity.
That's what we're being called to. We find this in other places
in scripture. Not exactly the same, but the
same idea. The book of Hebrews, for example, describes a group
of immature believers. that were choosing to not follow
Jesus as his disciple. They believed in him, but they
weren't following after him the way that Christ wants us to.
And we see this in Hebrews 5, 12, and 13. Notice what the writer
of Hebrews is writing to Christians. Notice what he says to them.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, You need someone
to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of
God. You, Christian, that are living
in immaturity, have come to need milk and not solid food, for
everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word
of righteousness, for he is a babe. So the writer of Hebrews is admonishing
these believers. He's saying, hey, Christians,
You ought to be growing in your faith so that you're replicating
yourself in someone else's life. You should be an influence in
someone else, and I don't know that it's specifically speaking
to those with the gift of teaching here. It's the idea that we are
living out and discipling and calling others to walk with us
on this journey and encouraging perhaps a younger or a newer
Christian to Let's pray together, let's read the word together,
let's have a relationship of discipleship together. That's
what mature believers ought to be doing. Why would the writer
of Hebrews write this to unbelievers? Would he say to an unbeliever,
hey, unbeliever that doesn't even believe in Jesus, you ought
to be a teacher by now. Never. He would never say that.
God would never say that to an unbeliever. So we know this is
written to Christians, and he's calling them. Notice how he describes
them. milk and not solid food, they
need the basics again. Because they're, because of the,
it's not that they just need a review, it's that they're not
living it out, they're refusing to follow what God has called
Christians to do. Notice the word unskilled and
the word babe. This is describing immature believers
that have not followed Jesus in a dedicated discipleship relationship. And so Jesus is calling us to
this. He's calling us to grow in Him. He's calling us to partake
of the meat of the Word, the deeper doctrines that are a little
bit harder to understand, the meat that we need to build our
faith. We come to Christ in faith, right?
Everyone awake this morning? We come to Christ in faith, right?
Right. Anything else besides faith?
Just faith, correct? That's saving faith, but it's
in its infancy. It needs to grow. It needs to
mature. That's the call here, to grow
in our faith, and as we grow and walk with Christ, our faith
grows, and we begin to walk by faith in a deeper, more meaningful,
truer way. The church at Corinth also struggled
to follow Jesus as true disciples, In several ways, if you read
1 Corinthians especially, Paul goes through those different
areas and he rebukes them and he encourages them and he tries
to get them back on track. Well, one of the areas that they
were struggling with is how to take communion, how to take the
Lord's Supper. And so they were doing it in
a way that Christ never intended it for it to be done. So in 1
Corinthians 11, 28 to 30, Notice Paul says to them, let a man
or let a woman, let a person examine himself before they take
communion. And so let him eat of the bread
and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in
an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not
discerning the Lord's body. So they were making a party out
of this, actually a drunken feast. And the rich people had the big
long table with all the food, and the poor people were over
in the corner with nothing. And they were making it a status
symbol of how to, you know, oh, this is how you take communion.
You have to be wealthy. You have to have all these material
goods and all this rich food. And they were getting drunk and
making a scene. And so this is the problem, they're
not discerning. Notice that phrase, not discerning.
An immature believer lacks discernment to make wise choices. Notice
the results, the repercussions of this. For this reason, many
are weak and sick. Many have physical problems. Oh man, I'm just so tired. Oh,
I keep getting sick over and over again, is what was happening.
notice that they're weak and sick among you and many sleep
a euphemism for death at some point God said to the
Church at Corinth, all right Christians that believe in Jesus
already, enough is enough. I'm just gonna take you home.
I'm gonna bring you home. I'm not gonna leave you on this
earth anymore because you're refusing to obey. I'm gonna take
you home. Not taking away their salvation,
we're sealed by the Spirit, right? We're seated in the heavenlies
positionally, Ephesians 1 tells us. But he was, he wanted them
to understand that God takes our sin seriously. He took it
so serious, God made this a matter of life and death. And again,
these are believers he's talking to that's so key to understanding. So when we do not desire to follow
Jesus, that we don't have the desire to follow an understanding
of it, we are choosing to remain immature and fleshly in our Christian
life. Do you, and I'm asking myself
this question, do I, do you, do we, desire to follow Jesus? Is it something you're pursuing?
So that's the desire. And there's our question, do
you desire? Mark? Do you happen to know in verse 34, the ancient language
text word for come? Do you have that here? The word
come. I don't think I do have it in my notes today, but yeah,
that's a great question. Mark was asking about the original
language word for come there, so. I can't remember if it's
later in my notes, it might be. We're gonna look at a few other
words, so it possibly is. But do you desire to follow after
Jesus? That's the desire of following.
Let's look secondly at the demands of following. The demands of
following. Jesus gave us three demands that
will lead us to come after Jesus. So okay, I get it. I'm supposed
to desire to be a true disciple. So what does that mean? What
does that look like in my life? Jesus gave three demands that
will lead us to come after Jesus. When we're doing these three
things, we are following what Jesus calls being a true disciple. So that takes place as we finish
out Mark 8, 34. When he had called the people
to himself with his disciples also, he said to them, whoever
desires to come after me, let him, number one, deny himself,
and number two, take up his cross, and number three, follow me.
deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. So we're gonna
use that as our outline. So if you're following along,
letter A, deny self, deny self. We see that right at the beginning.
That's the first thing he tells them. He says, I want you, Peter,
and disciples, and anyone else who believes in me, I want you
to be spiritually minded. I want you to be mindful of the
things of God. I want you to be my true disciple
and follow after me in a way that I desire. So first of all,
we must deny self. The word deny here is a strong
word. It means to disown, to renounce,
to disregard. It's the same word used to describe
Peter's denial of Christ. Jesus predicted that Matthew
26 34 he said to Peter Assuredly, I say to you that this night
before the rooster crows you will deny me three times If that interstate was following
Jesus Peter saw an exit that said protect yourself not deny
yourself, and he took it and three times he denied him. Think about with me about Peter's
denial. He was approached repeatedly
by the others around the fire there in the courtyard of the
home of the high priest, and as he's warming himself by the
fire, people are coming up to him and saying, hey, aren't you
one of his followers? Aren't you a follower of Jesus?
Three times this happened, and repeatedly, Peter absolutely
denied it. He denied being a follower, even
to the point of calling down curses. Go with me to Mark 14,
if you're in Mark 8, just a few pages. Mark 14, verse 66. Now as Peter was below in the
courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came.
And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked at him and
said, you also were with Jesus of Nazareth, but he denied it,
saying, I neither know nor understand what you are saying. And he went
out on the porch and a rooster crowed. And the servant girl
saw him again and began to say to those who stood by, now it's
not just one, but now she's gathered a crowd. this is one of them
but he denied it again and a little later those who stood by said
to Peter surely you are one of them for you are a Galilean and
your speech shows it and he began to curse and swear I do not know
this man of whom you speak a second time the rooster crowed then
Peter called to mind the word that Jesus had said to him before
the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times and when
he thought about it he wept Peter's denial was adamant. It was intense. No one was gonna
ever associate him with Jesus in that moment. He wanted nothing
to do with that. He completely rebuked it. Now let's take that intensity
and reverse the roles. Peter was denying Christ, and
he was allowing himself, his flesh, to rule. We need to reverse
the rules, but don't lose the intensity. Peter represents us
with the choice to deny ourselves in order to follow Jesus. Those
gathered in the courtyard represent our flesh. Our flesh is constantly
saying, hey, don't you want just to relax? Don't you just want
to take the easy road? Clamoring for our indulgence,
and we are told here, Jesus is calling us, deny yourself. We
are to repeatedly deny with that same intensity that Peter denied
Christ, we are to deny our flesh. We are to deny ourself and our
own self-interest and our self-indulgences and everything that clamors for
our worship. We must do that in order to live
as true disciples, in order to live as obedient to God, to be
a true disciple of Christ. What was Peter's result at the
end? He thought about it and he did what? He wept. Other passages say wept bitterly. That's where our little analogy
falls apart because the result of denying self and pursuing
Christ is not the bitter fruit of weeping and shame. It is the
sweet fruit of the Spirit lived out in our lives. when we deny
ourselves. No matter how many times our
flesh demands its way, we are to deny it. That same intensity
that Peter denied those that thought and accused of being
a Christ follower. I think Romans 6, 1 and 2 sums
it up as well. What shall we say then? Christians,
shall we as Christians continue in sin? Notice the pronoun we.
Who's Paul including there? Himself. He knew the weakness. He was the apostle to the Gentiles. He was the great missionary,
but he knew his propensity to give into the flesh. And he said,
what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Certainly not. God forbid. How
shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? calling us
to discipleship, to deny ourselves. So we must deny self. Secondly,
he says, take up your cross. Whoever desires to come after
me, back in Mark 8.34, let him deny himself and take up his
cross. So when the Romans had a condemned
criminal, and they had condemned him to death by crucifixion,
the criminal would carry the horizontal piece. We often see
images of Jesus with the whole cross. It was probably just the
horizontal piece of the cross on which they would be crucified,
and they would carry that up to the place of the crucifixion. And so Jesus had just predicted,
going back to our text, His appending death, if you remember back in
verse 31, he began to teach them, the son of man must be killed.
But he didn't tell them the method yet. And now when he gets into
verse 34, he kind of gives them a clue. Jesus would literally carry his
cross, literally, not long after this. John 19.17. says that he,
Jesus, bearing his cross, went out to a place called the place
of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. And as we read
the parallel text, eventually he became too weak to carry that,
so a man was told, ordered to come out of the crowd and carry
it for him, but Jesus did bear his cross. He says here in our text, take
up your cross. Deny yourself and take up your
cross. Jesus wants us as believers to
count the cost of following him. One other passage, not parallel
to this, but where he reiterates this statement Whoever does not
bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Notice
again, come after, not come to. For which of you, intending to
build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether
he has enough to finish it? And just to be clear, are we
ever asked to count the cost that we have to pay for eternal
life? No. We're never asked to count
the cost for our eternal life. We're shown the cost. It's Jesus'
death, burial, and resurrection. That's the cost that was paid,
specifically the death on the cross. But do we pay for our
sins when we put our faith in him? No. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. He paid everything. He was the propitiation. He was the satisfaction. I pay
nothing for my eternal life. I'm so thankful, because I have
nothing to offer. None of us do. So we're never
asked to count the cost before you put your faith in Jesus,
count the cost of what it's gonna cost you. We're never asked to
do that. Eternal life is a gift, again,
from God. If it was something that cost
us something, would it still be a gift? No. It did cost Jesus everything.
so that it would cost us nothing, that's why. Eternal life is a
gift from God. It's predicated only on our faith
in Jesus, not our works. I believe any other explanation
of these texts promotes works-based salvation. We cannot mix the
two. And I believe that understanding
this part is gonna help us understand the next section of the text
that we're gonna get into, Lord willing, next week. because we're
gonna look at the dilemma of following, Lord willing, in next
week's lesson. We also need to understand what
carrying one's cross is not, and I'm gonna get to what it
is in a minute, but let's understand what carrying a cross is not,
because that phrase gets used a lot, and I think it gives confusion. Many people use that phrase,
even in the unbelieving world. You've heard this phrase, right?
Well, this is the cross I have to bear, right? and they're talking
about some kind of burden of life that they have. Some use
this cross to bear to refer to some kind of suffering on earth.
Well, this sickness is my cross to bear, or this relationship
problem is my cross, or this financial difficulty. Maybe I'm
caring for a needy child or an adult child caring for a needy
parent, and many of you are in or have been in both of those
places. or any other hardship, and they,
well, this is just my cross to bear. Can I just kindly say none
of those things are what Jesus had in mind when he said, pick
up your cross and follow me? These point to a practice that
was going on back in the first century and still goes on today
called asceticism. Well, I've just got to suffer,
and that means I'm a disciple of Jesus if I'm going through
this suffering, if I'm carrying this cross. Asceticism is a voluntary abstention
from the satisfaction of bodily social needs, including food,
drink, sexual activity, sleep, clothes, wealth, social interaction.
And the issue isn't that they're like going on a sabbatical or
they're taking a break from something so that they can get closer to
God. in a sense of, well, I'm going to use that time to study
the word and to pray and things. It's that because I'm doing these
things, I'm pleasing God and I'm earning my salvation. That's
the idea. It's this voluntary pain. And many religious groups
have adapted asceticism in order to gain God's favor and achieve
eternal life. Some of the reformers came out
of these denominational churches because they saw the futility
of whipping oneself or crawling on one's knees up upstairs and
say, well, this is my cross to bear, and literally putting weights
on it and different things to harm their bodies. Why would
Jesus call us to this? And by the way, if those other
things I mentioned, like sickness and hardship and things, if I
don't have those, does that mean I'm not carrying my cross? Going
through a physical hardship is carrying the cross. Does that
mean I have to physically harm myself in order to carry the
cross? I hope not. I don't believe that's true.
In fact, I know it's not true. Does that mean I have to go and
put myself in a vulnerable position that causes pain on purpose so
I can say, now I'm carrying my cross? Is that why Jesus commanded,
pick up your cross and follow me, carry your cross, go find
a problem? or make a problem in your life
so that you can say that you're carrying the cross? Why would
he do that? That is the idea of asceticism.
In fact, the Bible expressly forbids that thinking, Colossians
2, 20 through 23. Therefore, if you died with Christ
from the basic principles of the world, why, Christians, as
the living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations?
Here's the legalism, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.
which all concern things which perish with the using, according
to the commandments and doctrines of men." These things, indeed,
have an appearance of wisdom. Oh, it kind of makes sense that
this hardship I'm putting myself through is carrying my cross,
because the cross represents pain and things, and I'm going
through pain. That's an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion. False humility, neglect of the
body, but notice, but are of no value against the indulgence
of the flesh. Asceticism is not carrying one's
cross. The trials that you're going
through in life are not carrying your cross. So Brad was pointing out how
if we're basing our salvation on this specifically, This idea
of that carrying the cross is equal to getting eternal life,
it puts all of our eternal security at risk, so to speak, at least
in our minds. Because now it's like, well,
I've gotta keep carrying this cross in order to stay saved
or to prove that I am saved. God gives us eternal security
because we are sealed by the Spirit. We don't need to doubt
it. And that is because of Christ,
not us. So how do we take up our cross? In the minutes that
are left, we'll focus on that. Three things I have on the outline.
Take up our cross. Number one, death. Death. The cross is a symbol of death. Jesus summons to carry one's
cross. It was meant to shock his listeners
right now. He was doing this on purpose,
and even to horrify them a bit, to get their attention, what?
You know, we have, and I don't mean we as in us in this room,
but our culture has kind of romanticized the cross. And I love that we
have a cross up here in our auditorium because it's empty, right? And
it reminds us of why we even meet together. I mean, if that
didn't happen, none of this matters. So I'm thankful for the cross
and the symbolism of it. And we look at the cross with
joy, don't we? Because of what Jesus did there
for us. But remember, they're hearing this for the first time,
and sometimes we need to hear it for the first time again,
if I can say it that way. We need to be reminded of the
absolute horror of the cross. It was a, device of execution. And so when we think about the
idea of death and how the cross symbolizes death, to carry one's
cross then must be to live with the constant willingness to die
for the cause of Christ. I'm going to follow, this is
what we need to be thinking, I am going to follow Christ in
such a way that I am completely denying everything
I want to do, everything my flesh wants, and I am going to be willing
to lay my life down for Him, all the way to death, and everything
in between. Our flesh is constantly fighting
against the Spirit, and it rears its ugly head. the idea of selfishness,
pride, self-righteousness, anger, lust, we must learn to crucify
that flesh. That's why the cross, that symbol
of death, says I'm gonna put to death the things that are
calling me and pulling me away from Christ, and I'm going to
be willing to lay my life down for him, and to do whatever he
asks me to do. That's why Paul said in Galatians
2.20, I have been crucified with Christ, It is no longer I who
live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. The cross, to take up our cross
is to be mindful of death. Jot down in your notes, if you're
taking them, 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 12. We're not gonna
read it for sake of time, but 2 Corinthians 4, 7 through 12
speaks to this as well. Where Paul talks about how we're
persecuted and not forsaken, we're hard pressed but not crushed.
Verse 10, I'll just read that. Always carrying about in the
body the dying of the Lord Jesus. That the life of Jesus also may
be manifested in our body. I don't know a better verse to
Parallel with take up your cross, carry your cross and follow me.
What did Paul say? Carrying about in the body the
dying of the Lord Jesus. Focusing on that death aspect
of dying to self and being willing to die for Christ. Secondly,
taking up your cross is a daily discipline. It's a daily discipline.
The parallel passage to this one in Luke's gospel Luke 9 23
says then he said to them all if anyone desires to come after
me Let him deny himself and take up his cross how often? daily
and Follow me carrying one's cross is a daily discipline We
wake up in the morning We figuratively shoulder that cross, if you will.
That mindset, it all happens up here. It all happens inside
the mind. This daily discipline, dying
to self daily, sometimes many times a day. It's a high calling. This isn't a, oh, I gotta carry
my cross and mope around and look all sad. This is a high
calling. It is a privilege. to carry the
cross of death to self each and every day. It's really a blessing. It's that sacrificially living
our daily lives. It's an expression of worship
when we do this. Because we're expressing the
thankfulness for what Christ has done. We're reminding ourselves
of the cross to go back to the cross every day and remember
what Jesus did there. and then allow that to motivate
us as an expression of worship to him. To carry the cross is
an ongoing progressive attitude of the mind that leads one to
actions of the body that refuse the flesh and glorify God. Also, that word daily is yet another
indication that this entire passage is a teaching on discipleship
not salvation for eternal life. If taking up my cross and following
Christ in this context means gaining eternal life, are we
saying that we have to get saved every day? No, we better not
say that. Once saved, always saved. So Luke adds a little bit more
context. for us, to help us understand
that we're talking to Christians to help them, to encourage them.
Jesus is talking to us as Christians to help us grow in our faith,
not calling us to believe on Jesus. This is after we put our
faith in him. As we conclude in these last
couple of minutes, the last thing, and there's, by the way, there's
much more that could be said about taking up our cross, okay,
than these three points, but these are, Three main things,
so much more can be said. This is not exhaustive study
of this topic. I would encourage, if you're
interested in digging more, dig deeper, because there's a lot
more there. But the last thing I see is delight. The last thing
I see for today, I should say, is delight. And I went to Hebrews
12, verse two, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the, what? The joy that was set before him,
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. The joy, that's his motivation. You remember the Garden of Gethsemane
and the anguish, right? But then what did he say? Not my will, but thine be done,
or yours be done. And from that point on, when
Jesus stands up from that prayer and Judas comes and kisses him
with a kiss of betrayal and he's arrested and tried multiple times,
Jesus is in complete control of everything that entire time.
It's as if that moment in Gethsemane hardened and crystallized his
mind and his thinking, not that it needed it because he was God,
but on the human side, he was ready to go to the cross and
nothing was gonna stop that from happening. He would not let anything
deter him from the cross. It was his one focus and he made
sure that that's what happened. The last thing is follow me.
We'll pick this up next week because we're out of time this
morning. But the challenge is here. Are we willing to be true
disciples? As Christians, I'm speaking to
Christians because I believe this passage is for believers
based on all the things we've talked about and all the context,
cross-references. Are we willing as Christians
to go to the next level in our faith, to look to see how God
would have us deny ourself, to take up our cross, to have that
mindset of death? and then to follow him. And again,
we'll pick this up next week. Father, thank you, Lord, so much
for your word. I thank you so much for the implications, Lord. Oh, Lord, this is a heavy passage
for us as Christians. It is a high calling. It is a
demanding calling. It is a costly calling. But Father,
Your son did this for the joy. Father, I pray that you give
us that joy. Set that joy before us, Lord, knowing that, yes,
in this life, this is going to be difficult, and there's going
to be trials, and carrying our cross, Lord, there is pain involved. But Lord, the blessings far outweigh
any pain that we experience. So help us to have that joy as
we go into this next week, and we pray this in Jesus' name,
amen. Thank you guys so much for being here. Have a great
day.
The Gospel of Mark Part 40
Series The Gospel of Mark
Theme: The Cost of Discipleship Part - What does it mean to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus? We will explore this important passage together.
| Sermon ID | 429241912407310 |
| Duration | 47:49 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Mark 8:34-38 |
| Language | English |
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