If You Want To Be My Disciple, Turn From Your Ways, Pick Up Your Cross And Follow Me ( Mark 8:31-38) - A Sermon By Elise Beatrice

TRANSCRIPT 

If You Want To Be My Disciple, Turn From Your Ways, Pick Up Your Cross And Follow Me ( Mark 8:31-38)

Mark 8:31–38

A Sermon By Elise Beatrice - Friday 6 June 2025

Mark 8:31-38,

Mark 8:31–38

Holy Lord Jesus, thank You so much for this. 

Only You, who spoke this truth, know the truth, Lord. Only You, who are the Truth, can truly teach us what the truth is. So, Lord, I’m blessing You in advance and thanking You for what You’ll give us, for teaching us this passage, and helping us to understand it as You want us to understand it. 

Thank You for Your Holy Spirit, who will guide me in this and remind me of that truth You spoke. Lord, I’m thanking You for Your inspiration, for this sermon. My Lord, I can never know what You’ll bring; this is a very beautiful passage, and it is full of deep meaning only You can bring. So Lord, bring that hidden meaning that lies within Your words. 

Thank You, Lord God. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Please, Lord, deliver us from any intrusion, anything that may prevent us from listening to You and from understanding what You’re teaching us. 

So, we love You, God, and we bless You. Please hear my prayer in Your Holy Name, Lord Jesus. Amen. 

Mark 8:31-38,

Mark 8:31–38

"31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later He would rise from the dead. 32 As He talked about this openly with His disciples, Peter took Him aside and began to reprimand Him for saying such things.

33 Jesus turned around and looked at His disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from Me, Satan!” He said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”

34 Then, calling the crowd to join His disciples, He said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of Me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when He returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” 

Wow! These words are spoken by the Lord Himself. The Lord is presenting to us here, clearly, the world we're living in. He is standing here with His disciples, pleading with them about the saddest things He will go through, how He will be rejected by His own people, the elders, the leaders, who are supposed to believe in God, to have read the Torah, and to have understood that Father God Himself had prophesied His Son, the Messiah to come, and Father God had also told those people, 'Do not make the same mistakes that your ancestors made by not listening to Moses. But at least, listen to this One I will send to you.' He was speaking about His Son, Jesus, pointing to us how important it is that we listen to Him.  

 “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” He said that in Matthew 17:5.

Matthew 17:5

But now, He was right there in front of them, and they did not recognise Him; He would be rejected by the elders and the leading priests. 

They're supposed to be the people of God here, people who are supposed to be bringing others to God, to know what is from God, knowing how to discern, yet before them was the Saviour, was the Son of God, was God Himself, the Lord Jesus. And they could not recognise Him, and they could not even discern from His teachings and understand that they were from God. But He's now pleading with His disciples, who have accepted Him, who have received Him, and they were His followers, His Apostles. 

He's now explaining to them He would be rejected by those same very people who are called His, and He would be crucified, He would be killed, but He would rise again in three days. So, this is obviously the will of God, the will of Father God that His Son, Jesus, should die on the Cross. Him and His Son knew it was the only solution to save humanity from darkness, from sin. And who is the cause of that sin all over the world? satan. Satan was among them, right here. 

The Lord is exposing satan and demons right here in this passage. So, Peter is taking the Lord aside to rebuke the Lord for speaking in such a way. Of course, Peter does not know, does he? He's a human. And in that moment, he did not even have the Lord's Holy Spirit yet. So Peter was there so that we can see ourselves in him. So, we can see Peter like he is representing, at that moment, every single human who, though some may love God, some don't have the Lord's Holy Spirit in them to discern the matters that are above human comprehension. Many can't tell what is from God and what is not from God, unless God intervenes. 

So, here was Simon Peter; he did not understand that kind of language Christ was speaking; he did not want to hear that kind of language, because, to them, they had their Messiah, and they were planning to be with their Messiah forever face to face. All they knew was that they were supposed to be with the Messiah forever; the Messiah was coming to stay, and to rescue Israel from all the ruthless thugs, from all the injustice, but they did not know in what way God planned to do that. So, from the human's perspective, they just thought of their own ways and said, "Yes, the Messiah would come, and He would use violence to free us from all our oppressors. Yes, in their minds, they knew, 'We have the Messiah, who will use violence to free us from all the violent beings who have been tormenting, oppressing and fighting us over the years and have been conquering us. 

But Christ was not there to respond to violence with violence. He was there to teach us another way of fighting the evil spirits, of fighting in the spiritual war. What is the reason why humans fight? 

When humans are fighting, demons are the ones using them to fight. When they're going there fighting and doing evil and being mean, and oppressing people, and tormenting people, deceiving people, and corrupting people, these are the works of demons in humans. And Christ came to teach us that we are in the battle between good and evil, so that we can know how to fight, fight with the Scripture, with the Word, with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 

Christ is the Word of God; in Him we fight the right fight and defeat demons and satan. He died on the Cross for all humanity to make that happen. By His blood we are covered, and by His blood we overcome the world. 

Without obedience to Him and His Father, we are powerless. However, when He declares us innocent, when we listen to Him and no longer practice sin, He fights our battles for us, giving us victory over our oppressors. His great presence in our lives means His great peace with us, His protection and divine blessings. 

But most humans did not know that then. Even His Apostles did not know that until they received the Lord Jesus' Holy Spirit, who reveals all mysteries. Without the One true God to reveal the truth, humans only know one way: what is physical. Humans always fight with violence, punches, insults, knives, guns, sticks, and more. And that's the way they knew. So they were expecting that the Messiah who was to come would also use those same ways to fight. Instead, He came to teach us how to love and how not to repay evil with evil, and to show us who the right enemies are, satan and demons, so that we can fight them with the Lord Jesus, instead of fighting each other all the time. 

1 Peter 3:9-12 says,

1 Peter 3:9–12

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For the Scriptures say, “If you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. 11 Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace, and work to maintain it. 12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and His ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns His face against those who do evil.” 

Humans’ ways are not God’s ways. Violence and punches cannot defeat satan. God has His ways. That is why the Sword of the Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ are the only weapons for the spiritual battle, and Simon Peter didn’t know all that at the time. So he is there, taking the Lord aside, really pleading out of love. But we must learn from this that just because we may plead out of love does not mean that what we’re saying is correct, because Simon Peter is rebuking our Lord for sounding that way. Did he think in that moment that Christ was saying things that were not true just to hurt them? No. But satan, who was present, wanted them to believe that;  that Christ was just saying things that were not true, because He, the Messiah, came to stay with them forever.  

And Simon Peter did not know that; he was pleading out of love. Most of the time, we are pleading out of love, though, while pleading out of love, we may be using the things that came from demons, and we don't even know it; many don't know it. That is why we need to listen to God and learn to know God, learn to know Christ, who He is, and what He does, and what He won't do, what He teaches and what He won't teach, the kind of talks He talks about, and the kind of talks He won't speak about. Because not every talk belongs to God. Some talks are from demons, and Jesus does not speak the language of evil spirits. 

So now, Simon Peter, in this moment, was speaking the talks of demons, but he did not know that either. And satan himself was there, putting these thoughts in his head, and he did not know that. So Christ had to say, "Get away from Me, satan!" to bring Peter to realise that at that moment, Peter was not listening to God, that in that moment Peter was communicating the thoughts from satan.  

Of course, Simon Peter was the Lord's disciple; he was His Apostle. He was not satan. So, Jesus had to call him satan to bring him to reason. He did not ask the Lord, "Lord, what do you mean by that?" He just took the Lord aside and reprimanded the Lord. 

So obviously, we can see that the Lord Jesus is saying, "I will be rejected by the elders,'' which is the truth. "I will be rejected by the high priests,' which is the truth. "I will be killed," which is the truth, "but I will rise in three days," which is the truth. And that's God's will, isn't it? 

That is God's will. God sent the Lord Jesus as a beautiful sacrificial love to die on the Cross for humankind to save us from our sins. So, that is Father God's will. And Christ said, "My food is to do the will of my Father." And He’s doing the will of His Father, because He understands and knows that the will of His Father is good, the will of His Father is love, because He is there to save people, to save us, who are lost forever without salvation. But that was God’s will, and God’s will is good. But satan's will was that Christ doesn’t die on the Cross, that Christ is not killed, and that Christ does not become that sacrificial love, that Christ does not do the will of God. And since he cannot go through Christ directly, he had to use Peter; he had to hide behind Peter to reprimand Christ. So, indeed, it was satan reprimanding Christ, using Peter, and Peter was being played. Just as we are all being played today. If you’re not listening to God, you are being played. There is not a single human today, even among the Christians, who has not been played and continues to be played by satan and demons; he does that all the time. That's why the Lord continually reminds us to be alert, to watch out and to not speak in a certain way.  

And so, the Lord continues by saying to him, 

“You’re seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's.”

So, what does that tell us about the human point of view?

People are surprised when I tell them, in 2012, I went to Him and said to God, "Please take my life and do whatever You want to do with it." I had to let go of my own ways; my opinion stopped counting, and from that moment, I no longer made decisions based on my own opinion or my own ways. So, when I truly said to the Lord to take my life and do whatever He wanted with it, in order for me to succeed in that, I had to turn from my own ways. Because our own ways are the obstacles preventing us from growing closer to God. Our own ways are the obstacles, preventing us from loving God's ways, from being with God indeed, from living for Christ, from really being the disciples of Christ. And so, the Lord is pointing out here the humans' ways; the humans' point of view. This is teaching us that humans' point of view is continuously poisoned by demons. Humans' point of view is not just humans' point of view; they are, most of the time, from demons and satan himself. Because if you are in the Lord and you are a godly person, and you have God's Holy Spirit in you, and the Holy Spirit's gift of discernment of spirits, you have the ability to discern, to tell what is from God and what is not from God. So, once the Holy Spirit came to live in Peter, he could now discern and truly know the difference between what is from God and what is not from God, thanks to the Lord's Holy Spirit of truth from within him. 

Many people fight for their point of view. Humans fight nowadays, all the time, for their point of view. But they are not seeing that their point of view doesn't really come from themselves, but someone put it in their heads. If the views that we have did not come from God, they're coming from demons, from satan. Many love their own opinion more than God's ways. They want to do their own will and are all dependent on their opinion and worldly views, and don't realise that those worldly views are polluted by the teachings of demons. 

Christ is saying here, "You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's."

Just because we have our point of view, even as believers, because Simon Peter really loved Christ, but at that moment, his point of view was the thoughts put in his mind by satan.  

I mean, this was satan right here in front of Christ, using humans who are weak, using Peter as a stumbling block, intending to target the Lord. Can Christ sin? Never. So, he was just trying his luck. But it didn't work because you cannot corrupt the incorruptible, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Satan was there to cause not only Peter to sin, but to also cause all the other disciples to sin. Satan was inserting in him something that would create doubts among them. Because if Peter is speaking like this, the other disciples would agree and say, 'Yeah, You came here to stay, You cannot speak like that, Lord, You cannot speak like that.' And as a result, they would be doubting the Lord, disobeying and obstructing Him from doing the will of His Father, He came here to do for our sake. 

At least, those were satan's evil intention, but they didn't know that. That is why satan continually uses humans, even some humans who love Christ, to do things against the Lord.  

So, Christ had to wake Peter up by saying, "Get behind Me, satan! You are a hindrance to Me!" Christ had to use the name 'satan' for Peter to quickly realise, and since Peter listened to God, he listened to Christ. Satan was defeated right then because Peter listened. But satan did the same thing with Judas Iscariot. From the very beginning, he has polluted his mind with lies, and that prevented Judas from listening to Christ. Judas had this stubbornness and would not listen to the Lord, and on many occasions, the Lord tried to correct him, just as He did with Peter, but Judas did not listen. And this shows us that if we don't listen to the Lord, we will all be deceived. That is why Christ continuously repeats, "If you love Me, obey My Commandments." Because obeying Christ is indeed for our own good. By obeying Christ, we are not obeying satan. By obeying Christ, satan stays away from us, or when he strikes, and we are quick to listen to the Lord Jesus when He alerts us, he is defeated; the Lord rebukes him. But by not obeying Christ, satan comes closer and possesses us. So, obedience to God is our protection against possession by demons. The fastest way for demons to possess people is when people begin to rebel against the Lord God, and as a result, they never listen to anyone who talks to them, even to what the Lord says. 

Until that spirit is cast out, they will always be rebellious. And that spirit cannot be cast out, unless the people who are possessed acknowledge it is the case, renounce evil, and seek help from the Lord. 

Obeying the Lord Jesus is true love for God and love for our neighbour. It means God's protection and His Holy Spirit within us, even when we're oppressed.

So calling the crowd, He joined His disciples and said, "If any of you want to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways and take up your cross and follow Me."

Denying ourselves is replacing our own ways with the Lord's selfless ways. 

Our own ways are all selfish, and selfishness is sin. And sin is a deed of darkness; evil. And the master of darkness, evil, is satan and demons. 

And to be a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we must let go of everything that is sin, that opposes God and His righteous ways and do the Lord's will, not ours.

Many are believers, but they still live in sin, because they refuse indeed to let go of their own ways, to turn from their selfish ways and follow Christ. They don't see that they have to live for Christ. 

Humans' points of view that oppose the One True God are always based on a lot of selfishness because those views are coming from satan. If you can't discern, chances are you'll be continuously welcoming demonic thoughts, demonic ideas, demonic songs, demonic stories, believing you are the one being the creative one in the midst of it when you are just receiving, because you have looked for them and they were brought into your mind. And if it is not God giving us inspiration, it is the enemy giving us his demonic inspirations. So we have to watch out. 

In Matthew 16:23, the Lord turned to Peter and said,

Matthew 16:23

“Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

So, the things of man are dangerous, because they oppose God and His righteous ways. They oppose the will of the Lord God.

“Get away from Me, satan, you are a stumbling block to Me!” 

So, if we look at it again, we’ll see that the Lord Jesus was speaking to two beings: the human being, His Apostle Simon Peter, telling him not to let satan infiltrate his thoughts. And at the same time, He rebuked the evil spiritual being, satan, to get away from Him. It does not mean that satan was inside Peter. No. It doesn’t imply either that Simon Peter was evil. No. Humans may hear and obey the wrong voice without realising it, although some truly are faithful to the Lord.  

Although Simon Peter could not see satan, the Lord Jesus, who could see satan, said, ‘satan’ instead of ‘Peter’ so that Peter would understand he was communicating satan’s thoughts, not God’s. Since the Lord knew that Peter had no idea, He brought the truth to his attention, and then, Peter stopped immediately, because he was indeed a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, a real child of God who recognises the truth when they hear it and act on it.

Yes, and if we must truly be the followers of Christ, also disciples, we must turn from our selfish ways, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him. 

When people say, 'This is my life, oh, my life, oh, my life, no, I can't serve God; I cannot live for God, first, I want to live my life, oh, my life, oh no, my way, I want to just do something for myself, oh, oh, this, oh this; all that.' Yes. 

That's because they're refusing to turn from their ways, and they're holding on tight to their life. And because they're doing that, they will lose their life, because by holding on to your life, to your ways, that life that you live, if you're not living for Christ, then you're living for yourself. But the life that you live for yourself is not without satan in it, for it is indeed the life that we live for Christ that is free from demons and satan. Of course, they will still oppress us when we're devoted to the Lord, but that does not mean that we're living for demons. 

Living for yourself is a life that has satan ruling it. But living for Christ is a life that has Christ guiding us and ruling that life. And it is good that Christ rules our lives, because it is good; it is safe. He is the One who saves us from the darkness, who keeps us safe.

The Lord Jesus said, 

"But if you give up your life for my sake, and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it." 

And because you're obeying Him, He gives you His Holy Spirit of Truth, and once that Holy Spirit of Truth comes and lives in you, no sin goes unnoticed before your very eyes. 

The Lord Jesus said, 

"And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" 

So, trying to live our lives for ourselves is useless. But living the life that Christ gives us, living for Christ, is the life that saves our souls. We must deny ourselves, we must let go of our opinion, let go of our own ways, let go of everything we hold on to, thinking that it is our lives. If we're serious with Christ, then we turn from those ways and let His ways replace our ways. I had to do that. 

I was always somebody who hated sin, but even though you hate sin, you can still fall into something that you did not think it was sin. And the devil would still use that very thing you did not think it was sin to still try to suck you in. 

You cannot say you live for Christ if you're still holding on to your ways. You must let go of your ways in order to live for Christ. Or if it is hard for you, at least show Christ that you want to live for Him, and begin that journey with Him, striving to listen to Him, and do what He says, and before you know it, He will be helping you to realise that Your ways are wrong. And once you understand that those ways are wrong, if you truly love God and those around you, who are often hurt because of your wrongdoings, and you love your soul, then you quickly turn from those ways. Would you go to the darkness if you knew that was the darkness that would burn you? 

When Christ is asking this question, "Is anything worth more than your soul?" He is obviously saying that nothing is worth more than our souls. And we should not let the devil take that soul, because it will perish. But if we let the Lord take our soul and live for Him, for Him to take care of our soul, that soul will live forever in Heaven.  

2 Peter 3:9 says,

2 Peter 3:9

"The Lord isn’t really being slow about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent." 

The Lord Jesus said,

"If anyone is ashamed of Me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when He returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." 

We must note that 'adulterous' here does not mean the husband who cheats on his wife and a wife who cheats on her husband. 'Adulterous' here means: In these days, as we can see around us, the world is filled with adulterers, even among the believers; they claim to believe in God, but they're cheating on God by taking things from satan. That is the kind of adultery that God is speaking about here. 

Most churches have become places of demons; they did not let the Lord Jesus, who is the Head of the Church, bless their church, because they have stopped listening to Him, but listen instead to demons. By doing that, they have cheated on the Lord, they have committed adultery against the Lord, welcoming demons into their church. Many believers also claim that Christ is their Lord and Saviour, yet they've let demons pollute their bodies, and they're still living for themselves; they've committed adultery against God. And yes, in these days, it is full of adultery. And as the Scriptures warn us, it will become just like in the days of Noah, when every human intention became evil and corrupted continuously. And we are approaching that time. 

When we look around us today, we are already seeing that happening.   

The Scripture says in 1 Timothy 4:1, 

1 Timothy 4:1

"Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons." 

2 Timothy 4:3-4,

2 Timothy 4:3–4

"For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths."

2 Timothy 3:1-2,

2 Timothy 3:1–2

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from such people!"

That is what is happening today. And this is what Christ is referring to by 'These adulterous and sinful days.' 

So, let's not cheat on God. Let's not cheat on the Lord Jesus. Let's remain faithful to Him. 

If you're serving the Lord and also serving satan, you have two masters still; you have not yet made up your mind. And it is time you do, for it is not good for you to live with two masters; you are not being honest. Those who live like this don't find Christ enough; they're ashamed of the Lord. 

Holding on to our ways is proof that we are still ashamed of the Lord. 

He's your eternal salvation; it's because of Him we are saved at all. So, if you're ashamed of the Lord, He Himself will be ashamed of you when He comes in His glory with His angels. 

So I pray that you won't be ashamed of the Lord. I pray that you would really look into this and let go of your ways. 

I pray you'll listen to this.

So, thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your grace and Your mercy, and Your love and Your peace. Thank You for this powerful passage, Lord. Oh, Lord, I thank You for Your servant, Simon Peter, who listened to You. If He did not listen to You, He would have been deceived also, like Judas was. 

And I pray that people would learn from this and understand today that only by listening to You that we remain safe and in Your love, and people should turn from their ways and listen to You. 

Lord, I thank You so much for Your Joy and Eternal Life. Thank You came to die for us. Lord, You are amazing, and we thank You forever. 

Thank You for every soul that You save, thank You for everyone who listens. Thank You for everyone who will hear this and leave the darkness in a rush to seek You, the perfect Light. Oh, Lord, I thank You for the great work that You do all over this earth; You have been doing this for generation and generation, and You will always do. You are there to help us, and I pray that people will see that and come to You and receive that help that You have for them, and receive that love and forgiveness and eternal life that You have for them. 

So, thank You, Lord, for Your grace and for Your Love. Thank You for hearing my prayer, in Your holy Name, Lord Jesus, I pray. Amen.