Lose Your Life to Save It

It's great to be with all of you this morning.

If you have a Bible, let's open up to Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Let me pray for us.

Father, hear the prayers of your people collectively, inviting you.

Lord, you don't wait on us to invite you, and yet you encourage us, Lord, to be open-hearted, open-minded to you, to your word.

Again, I pray, Father, protect us from the evil one where there are calluses on our heart that prevent us from hearing you.

Rip them off, Father.

Give us soft, tender hearts and consciousnesses towards the Holy Spirit.

Fill me full of the Holy Spirit to preach.

Fill all of us, myself included, full of the Holy Spirit, to hear, to submit, to repent, to believe, to obey by grace.

Christ's name.

Amen.

What's the one main thing that you want in life?

And just talk to yourself.

I'm not going to ask you to turn to a neighbor and share so you can be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

Don't give yourself the Sunday school answer.

What is it right now that's heaviest on your heart that you're most passionate about?

If you got one wish from the genie in the bottle, so to speak, you're like, this is what I really want.

It's what I really care about.

Or maybe what's the one thing in your life that you already have that you fear the most losing?

That if it was taken away from your life, it would be the most crushing, depressing, overwhelming.

A spouse, a kid, health, money, reputation, job, security.

We're in the middle of Mark's gospel, and we're really, we're literally at the exact middle.

We're at the turning point.

So if you're if you're visiting for the first time today, met a few of you, yes, they're coming in a really good time.

You can watch the other sermons on live stream, but you don't have to.

It's kind of like part one is closing, part two is taking off of Mark's gospel.

It's the way he wrote it.

Okay?

And we're coming off of Jesus has just done a miracle, killed a blind man, but it's a little bit strange if you were here last week because it was a two-part miracle.

Jesus prays, and the guy instantly can see, but not very clearly.

It's like he has terrible nearsightedness, and Jesus had to pray a second time.

And part of what it seems like is going on is Mark is saying, that happened physically once, and it's about to happen in a spiritual sense with Peter.

We're about to see that happen.

And the 12.

So, Mark chapter 8, we're going to start in verse 27.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.

And on the way he asked his disciples, Who do you say that I am?

Excuse me, 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're the Christ.

And he tricked 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 priest 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 he called to him, the crowds with his disciples, and 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 life?

For what can a man give in return for his life?

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

So he's walking with the disciples.

And in a sense, he asked them a warm-up question.

It's a little bit more surface level, because it's not personal.

Hey, what are you guys hearing?

What do the crowds tend to say about me?

You're one of the prophets resurrected.

John the Baptist, we know that Herod thought that.

Maybe Elijah, Malachi, had prophesied that Elijah would come before the Messiah.

So a devout Jew had a reason to think.

Maybe some of the other gospels, I think, mention Jeremiah.

But then Jesus says, well, let's make it more personal.

Who do you guys really believe that I am?

What are you guys saying about me?

Side note, this is a great way to do evangelism.

You ever talking to somebody?

Start with more of a surface-level generic question.

Hey, what do you think most people today think about Jesus Christ, church, Bible?

That's a softball, right?

And then you can say, what do you think personally?

Jesus says, Yeah, okay, you're right.

Peter steps forward.

He's the leader, he's the representative.

Probably he was the oldest.

He was definitely the mouthiest, the quickest to speak.

You're the Christ.

You're the guy we grew up reading about in the Old Testament.

The second David, the prophesied one, God's special one, God's savior of his people, the anointed one, the one who will have God's hand on him in a special way.

And Jesus says, You're right.

Totally right.

But don't tell anybody, which he's been telling people, because you still don't fully understand what kind of Messiah I am, what kind of king I am.

You're not ready to preach this message yet.

So keep it quiet for now.

Because here's what's going to happen I'm going to be rejected by and large by all the Jewish elites and the religious establishment.

I'm going to be killed.

I'm going to die a violent death.

But then I'll rise three days again.

He told them very plainly, no metaphors.

He's speaking very literally, very clearly, very directly.

Peter gets it, but he does not like it.

Because Peter might have been a fisherman, but he's not stupid.

And he's like, listen, Jesus, if you're like King of the Jews, and I'm like your right-hand man, I don't know, you know, what do we call that back then, prime minister or something?

But if you're saying you're going to get rejected and killed violently, I know how that goes for me too, and I do not like this plan.

And let's let's give Peter a little bit of grace, so to speak.

As he had read and understood the Old Testament, that's not what he expected.

He expected the Messiah to be very much like David, who came around and was very godly and devout, but he was also a warrior king.

And the evil oppressors like the Philistines, David was an expert in chopping their heads off and running them away.

And they were, hey, hey, they had the Philistines, we got the Romans.

They're bigger, they're worse.

So we need a bigger, better David to run these oppressors out of our land and reestablish the golden age of Israel.

What's all this business about?

You getting killed, man.

But Peter's a nice disciple, he's a friendly disciple.

You know, he doesn't want to embarrass Jesus.

Listen.

No mere man is perfect, right?

Jesus has made one little mistake.

Let me pull you over here to the side, Jesus.

I don't want to embarrass you in front of the other 11 guys.

Just gonna give you a little small rebuke.

Think maybe you missed one thing.

A little bit too much negative self-talk.

Maybe this is some false humility or modesty.

I don't know.

Just side note, okay?

Anytime you try to rebuke Jesus, it's not gonna work out well for you.

He's the master rebuker.

And Jesus turns to look at Peter and sees the other eleven behind him that probably are agreeing with Peter's thoughts.

And so Jesus loudly rebukes Peter, where the eleven can hear it.

And you may think you have given somebody a harsh rebuke before in your life.

You may think you've received a harsh rebuke.

Has anybody ever called you Satan before?

I mean, this is pretty tough.

Peter, you're acting like Satan.

You don't realize you are.

You think you're being my friend right now, but you're actually being a pawn of the evil one.

You're not thinking like a spiritual person.

You're not thinking like a true believer in the one God.

You're thinking like a person who's still dead in their sins and dominated by the prince of the power of the air.

Shut your mouth.

Get back in line.

Get behind me where you belong.

I'm the leader, you're the follower.

That's the way this thing works.

Then Jesus calls the 12, all of them, and the crowd.

And he says, Listen, you want to be a true follower of me?

You got to get over yourself.

You got to ignore yourself.

I mean, you got to take up the horizontal crossbeam of the cross that the Romans use to kill the worst kind of criminals, and you got to get in line and you got to follow me.

That's where I'm headed.

If you try to save your own life as it is now, if you try to preserve your own life as it is now, you're going to lose it in the long run.

But if you're willing to lay down your life and die for me and my message, long run, you're going to save your life.

And then he says, let me kind of propose a little question here to you.

What if somehow you do hang on to your life?

What if you do win the game of life?

You win the next 80 years.

And you die and you lose your soul for all eternity.

You think that's a good trade?

Is that the game you want to play?

If anything, again, this is Jesus speaking.

If anything about my life and my message and my way is embarrassing to you, and you turn away and you're ashamed and you don't want to live that way and talk that way, when I come back in all my glory with angels, I'll be ashamed of you.

I'll be embarrassed of you.

He calls them an adulterous generation.

Did you notice that?

Because listen, it's like this.

Just like you can be married to another human being, and you can go through all the outward forms of love and loyalty and be committing adultery in secret.

You can do that in the Christian life spiritually.

Go through the outward forms of love and loyalty to Jesus, but really your heart can be far from him and given to some other lover or God.

So, such an important passage, a lot that we can take from it.

The first is this what you believe about Jesus Christ is the most important thing about you.

There are thousands of decisions in this life that we have to make.

And listen, I hope this lands on you with a lot of encouragement, because this is the way I mean it.

You can make a thousand wrong decisions in your life.

And you might cause some pain and hardship in your life if you make some stupid decisions about your health and about your finances and about your dating relationships and all that.

But here's the thing: if you get the right answer to who is Jesus and your personal relationship with him, you can screw up almost everything else in your life.

And in the long run, you're gonna be fine.

You're gonna be fine.

Whereas if you get all those other decisions right and you mess that one up, you're a goner.

Does that mean you shouldn't be thinking about all those decisions?

No.

It just means you better put most of the emphasis on this one and make sure you get this one right.

Every human being on planet earth, this is the most important question.

Do you know Jesus is the Christ?

Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is the only Savior.

Acts 4.12.

There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

There's not one deal for Americans and another deal for people born in North Africa.

You can say, I don't like that, it's not fair, and I love you.

It doesn't matter what you think.

That's just the way God set the universe up.

Second point.

You must also understand the gospel to be right with God.

Right?

I mean, even if you're crystal clear on who Jesus is, but we mess up his message, his words, his gospel, his good news announcement, you can perish.

I mean, unfortunately, there are many so-called religions, denominations, who are, they get their doctrine about Jesus Christ absolutely right.

But they really fumble the doctrine of what must a person do to be saved?

What did Jesus come to do for me?

Is salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, or salvation by grace plus works, or something like that?

Listen, part of what Jesus is doing here, guys, it's kind of like he's been with the disciples at this point, some of them for about two years.

I mean he's deep into this thing.

And it's like, hey, you guys are slow, but you finally got lesson one.

I'm the Christ.

Took us this long, you got it.

You still can't tell anybody because now we got to go to lesson two.

And lesson two is the Christ came to die.

And that totally blew their circuits.

This poor carpenter they were falling around was the Christ.

That was pretty overwhelming, but then he's got to die.

That that they didn't get that.

And in some sense, what he is doing simultaneously, he is heightening their view of who the Messiah came to be, what he came to do.

You're gonna come back in glory, angels, glory to the Father.

What?

But he's also lowering.

It's a path through death, it's a path through suffering, it's a path through humiliation.

Now, listen, I think most of us living in Birmingham, Alabama, we're like, hey, Olin, thank you for preaching the Bible, but we got the this is 101.

Move on.

Third point.

You must also obey the gospel to be right with God.

And you, if you're like, oh, that sounds like a work.

It's just the phrase is in the Bible.

What does it mean to obey the gospel?

And let me give an illustration that probably a lot of us have heard, but is such an effective illustration.

Look at one of these chairs up here that the band members sit in.

There's really three parts to saving faith.

Okay?

There's knowledge, there's assent, and there's trust.

And I'll explain what I mean.

Imagine I was an alien, I've never been to planet Earth, and you're introducing me to planet Earth as a human, and you say, Mr.

Alien, this is what we call a chair.

Oh, what's a chair supposed to do?

A chair can hold your weight up.

If you sit in that chair, right, put your bottom in the chair, take your feet up the right, the chair can hold you up.

I've got knowledge.

If I say, I understand what you're saying, I've got knowledge.

And then if you say, Well, do you believe that that chair can hold all of your weight, Mr.

Alien?

If I say, I really do, I believe, I've got assent, I've assented.

Make sense?

To the truth, to the knowledge.

But speaking salvation, I'm still not saved.

I'm not saved until I go and I sit down on the chair and I put all of my weight on the chair, and that's trust.

So you can know the facts about Jesus.

Jesus is God, Jesus is man, Jesus died on the cross for my sins.

You can know the facts.

You can say, and I believe the facts.

Jesus is God, Jesus is man, Jesus died on the cross for my sins, Jesus rose again.

But until you put personal faith, personal trust in him, I'm putting all my eggs in his basket.

You haven't genuinely been saved.

And why am I bringing this up?

Because, guys, God's ways are not our ways, and oftentimes we have preconceived notions of the way that our life should go.

And this is part of what was going on with Peter.

We have to trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord.

I'm all in with him, and so whatever he calls me to in my life, no, Lord, I rebuke you, Lord, is anathema.

It's something we should never say.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Guys, God has been so merciful and kind in so many ways to America and Birmingham, Alabama in the 21st century, that for the most part, you can live a very devoted Christian life and still be blessed in your relationships, in your business, and your finances, and your in so many other ways.

That's not the way it is in a lot of parts of the world.

And even for us, there are still times where I may have my preconceived notion of this is the way that I thought and wanted and hoped that my Christian life would go.

And then God likes to throw curveballs, does He not?

If you're like, well, I've never experienced one of those, it's probably because you're eight years old and you just haven't lived long enough.

Just wait.

It's coming.

And if your whole theology and experience of God is, you know, I write a Bible verse on my tape and I win all my football games for the glory of Jesus, but by golly, I win.

And I don't get hurt.

And I date the girl I want to date, and I get the girl I want because we're godly and I do all, and I get the job I want, and I get that, and it just all and I have the help I want.

There's so many times where God says, No, no, no, to really follow me, there will be suffering, there will be pain, there will be loss, and our attitude has to be, whatever you call me to, Lord, I will happily embrace it and follow you no matter what.

Guys, please notice this, guys.

Peter didn't say, Jesus, I've got this plan and I wanted to kind of run a bar, or we're gonna just get people crazy drunk every night, and we're gonna cheat them on the prices, we're gonna be thieves, and we're gonna run prostitutes out of the back.

And Jesus said, That's a terrible idea, Peter.

You're like, this is a weird illustration on where are you going?

Here's my point.

You don't have to be in scandalous sin to miss God's calling for your life.

Peter was just saying, Hey, I'm reading the Old Testament, God, Jesus, and what I expected is we were gonna be your loyal followers, we were gonna go out there and fight, we were gonna conquer the Romans, we were gonna get a throne, it was all gonna be glorious.

You were gonna win, and we get to win with you.

And Jesus said, No, there's gonna be suffering, death, torture, embarrassment, all that first.

And Peter's like, Yeah, that's not the plan I want to sign up for.

And that's often the attitude in my heart and yours, is it not?

I want the win all the time plan, Jesus.

So, fourth point, we must be ready and willing to lose all in this life for Christ.

Listen, there are lots of religions and worldviews that talk about self-denial.

And self-denial is the attitude that self is sitting on the throne and denying certain things.

Well, I'll deny myself some sleep so I can work hard and make more money.

I'll deny myself some food so that I can be thinner and more attractive.

That's not what Jesus is calling us to.

There's a place for self-denial.

I'm not against self-denial, but notice what Jesus said.

Look back in verse 34.

Let him deny himself.

This is not self-denial, this is the deny self.

This is kick self off of the throne.

And the Lord Jesus Christ sits on the throne of our heart and tells us to do whatever he wants us to, and we say, Yes, sir.

Yes, Master, you're Lord, I follow you.

I mean, we're 2,000 years removed, and the cross has become a symbol of Christian faithfulness, and so that's not bad.

People get a tattoo of a cross or they have a cross necklace, and I'm that's one fine, wonderful.

If you're gonna have a tattoo, that might as well be the tattoo you get, right?

But when Jesus first said that, that's not the way they thought.

It would have been a scandalous thing to say.

It would be a little bit like if I said, hey, you want to come after me?

Go ahead and put the noose around your neck and get it real tight.

You want to follow me?

Strap yourself into the electric chair.

Go ahead and stick the lethal injection needle into your vein.

That's the language that he's using.

Guys, the the Romans had taken crucifixion and perfected it as a way to kill criminals and rebels.

When it first started out, they would only use it on slaves.

They wouldn't use it on Roman citizens.

Roman citizens were Wouldn't even mention it at a nice dinner party because it was so horrific.

It wasn't just about killing somebody, it was about stripping them of all of their pride and all of their reputation.

Utter humiliation.

And Jesus is like, if you're all in with me, it means you got to be willing to embrace that if I ever call it to you.

To follow me.

Die to this life, die to your reputation, die to your comfort.

And you're like, well, what does this really mean?

Let me let me give you a practical example.

True story.

I knew a man, Christian man, had a family, and he had a child that at one point, older, but had wholeheartedly embraced a worldview that was antithetical to the Bible, right?

This wasn't like little, some little small gray issue that they had a small disagreement about politically or something like that.

It was like wholesale rejection of the Bible, atheistic, materialistic, and not just a worldview that he liked to, he was embracing the whole lifestyle and everything that went along with that.

Right?

You imagine what I'm talking about?

And the father obviously did not approve of the son's worldview and lifestyle.

The son was pretty intelligent.

And so at one point he said to his dad, you know, well, father, aren't there certain, you know, people that would call themselves Christians, but they're kind of a lot more loosey-goosey with what the Bible actually teaches, and they just kind of, you know, let it all hang out and embrace everybody, a lot more accepting and affirming.

And the father said, Well, yeah, there are people that call themselves Christians that live that way.

And the son said, Well, Dad, what why couldn't you just be that kind of Christian?

Because that way you could still be a Christian and you could love me and you could accept me and you could affirm me and all that I believe.

And the father said, Hey, listen, son, I love you so much.

Love you massively.

But I love Jesus Christ more.

My ultimate loyalty is to him, no matter what relationship it may cost me on planet Earth.

Could you say that?

Would we?

Following Christ in this life, even in Birmingham, Alabama, sometimes might feel like it's costing you your very life.

The thing or the person or the issue in life that you care more passionately about.

There can be no higher loyalty for the Christian other than Jesus Christ as Lord.

Wherever he leads, I'll go.

Fifth point.

Our eternal destiny rides on how we respond to this Christ in this life.

I mean, some of you may be listening right now saying, Oh, and I was with you up to that point.

That is too far, man.

You know, I can give up drugs and something scandalous like that for Jesus, but give up your family.

Guys, just read the Bible.

There's a place in Luke where Jesus says, listen, if you don't hate mother, father, sister, brother, even your own life for my sake, you can't even be my disciple.

You can't follow me.

It has to be all in.

Now, we often say, and not just Christians, lots of people say, you know, when you die, you can't take anything with you, right?

You we've heard this, and that's a true statement.

But I want you to just do a little thought experiment with me that I think comes out of this text.

Imagine if you could take it all with you.

Imagine if when you died, all the money, all the wealth, all the reputation, all the friends, all the family, all the relationships, all the accolades, whatever.

You can take it with you.

But then imagine you get to the judgment seat of Christ, and he looks down at you and he says, I never knew you to part into hell for all eternity.

Pretty terrifying.

But then he said, Yeah, on second thought, I'm gonna give you a second chance.

I'll give you a chance to buy your eternal soul out of hell into heaven.

How much you'd be willing to spend?

Like, take it all, Jesus, right?

Just listen to what Psalm chapter 49 says.

Psalms 49 · chapter mention

You can go look at it later if you want to.

Jot this down, Psalm 49.

I'm gonna read verses 7 through 9.

But just listen to Psalm 49, what the Old Testament would say about this.

Truly, no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice that he should live on forever and never see the pit.

And then listen to what Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27 and 27, 88 say.

Hebrews 9:27

And just as it appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.

So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Guys, there is nothing, all the wealth in the world.

Jeff Bezos, whoever it is, you can't purchase one soul out of hell.

But the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man, who went to the cross and drank the wrath of God against all of his people for all their sins, his blood, his life is so precious, is so unique that it is powerful enough, expensive enough, worthy enough to purchase out of hell all of our souls, all the ones that would ever trust in him.

Hallelujah, what a savior.

Guys, listen, we oftentimes, we're we're an adulterous people, oftentimes.

We oftentimes prioritize God's good gifts that he wants us to enjoy.

Friends and families and loved ones and work and these are not bad, these are good things.

He wants us to enjoy them.

But when you enjoy them, enjoy them with an open hand so that if he ever says, I need to take that away for a season, you don't clutch on to it.

Jesus Christ went to the cross and wasn't just willing to, he literally lost everything.

Why?

So that we could gain everything in him.

He took the ultimate cross.

He made the ultimate sacrifice so that in him we can take up our smaller crosses, our smaller burdens, we can make smaller sacrifices because he's already paid the price for our sins and he's already bought the grace to help us live faithfully to him in this life.

Listen, he is not just a crucified, dead, and buried Savior.

He is a risen, victorious, glorious, coming-again Savior.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your words.

Thank you for the gospel truth.

Thank you for your life.

Thank you for your death.

Lord, for every person that's hearing this, whether there's somebody here that is far from you, or somebody here, Lord, that has been walking with you for six decades, I pray as we think about your glorious words, hard but true and good words, I pray that our hearts will be soft towards you.

We will trust you.

We will love you.

We will adore you.

We will prioritize you.

We will prize you above all things.

And by your grace, we'd be gladly willing to lay down whatever you call us to to follow you, to be faithful.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.