Sunday Sermon | The Gospel of Mark: What Does it Mean to Follow Jesus?

This is the gospel of Mark.

Well, good morning.

It's good to see you guys.

If I haven't had the privilege to meet you before, my name is Daniel.

I am the discipleship pastor here at FBC Bernie.

And it is a joy today to get to continue in our study of Mark's Gospel with you.

So if you've got a Bible, uh go ahead and have it open to the end of Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, use the one that is in the seat back there in front of you.

And not only use it, take that as a gift from us to you.

We would love for you to have a copy of God's word so that you can begin to read it and understand it and apply it to your life.

Here in just a moment, we're going to pick up in verse 34 of Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Last week, Pastor Jason led us through this story that takes place, this narrative that begins in Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus asks a very important question.

Who do you say that I am?

Who do the people say I am?

And then he follows it up with who do you say that I am?

And Peter gets the answer right.

He answers the question correctly.

You are the Christ.

And Jesus says, you are absolutely right.

But there's something interesting here that we saw last week.

We can have the right answers.

Right?

We can know the right facts about Jesus.

But they never make it from here to here.

We don't apply them to our lives.

We can misunderstand what it means to follow him.

And that's where we're going to be today, understanding that.

Because when Peter makes the right statement, he makes the right declaration, Jesus then follows it up by telling Peter what's going to happen to him.

That he's going to suffer, that he's going to die, he's going to be betrayed, and then that he will rise again.

And Peter rebukes Jesus.

He says, no, no, no.

Peter wanted a Messiah without crucifixion.

And Jesus says, there's no such Savior.

Today we are going to understand the next thing that Jesus basically says to Peter in our text this morning.

Not only is there no Christ, no Messiah without crucifixion, Jesus says to Peter, not only can you not have me without a cross, you can't follow me without picking up your own.

And so today I invite you to turn with us here in Mark's gospel and let's read our text this morning as we begin to see what it is the Lord would have to say to us in these verses.

Mark chapter 8, beginning in verse 34.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

It says, And Jesus, in calling the crowd to him with his disciples, said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

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

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

Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for your word.

God, thank you that you breathed it out through your spirit.

God, that it is infallible, it is authoritative.

God, help us today to understand that you are speaking to us through your word.

So help us to listen with intentionality.

God, help us to be quick to hear and to obey the truths that are contained in these pages in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So if last week's question really helped us understand who is Jesus, today Jesus helps us understand the next unavoidable question.

If he really is the Christ, what does it mean to follow him?

And that's what our text today helps us understand.

In these five verses, Jesus is going to confront the things that we cling to for authority over our own lives.

In these verses, we're going to see Jesus put his finger on this issue of control.

Who's running your life?

Who's running my life?

He's going to put his finger on what the word gain means.

How do we define gain?

Right?

What are the things we're looking to to build our lives?

And then finally, where are we looking for approval in our lives?

Is it to others to validate our lives?

When it comes to following Jesus, these are the things that many times we in our own nature, in our human sinful nature, we want to cling to these things.

And these are the things that Jesus addresses in these verses this morning.

And so the first one we're going to look at control.

Look at what he says.

It says he talks to the crowd and the disciples, and he says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

This fundamental question of control really could be stated this way: Who gets to be Lord of your life?

I mean, Jesus has just told Peter to get behind me, Satan.

Why is that?

Because Peter didn't want to follow Jesus unless Jesus was willing to go where Peter wanted him to go.

Peter had no desire to walk toward death, to walk toward suffering, to walk toward arrest and betrayal.

He says, no, no, no, Jesus, I'm willing to follow you as long as you'll go where I want to go.

And that's our instinct as well, is it not?

To do that very same thing.

Jesus, I will follow you.

I love you.

You're the Christ.

I will follow you.

But here's where we're going.

So if you could just get on board with the agenda that I've carefully crafted and prepared, I'm happy to follow along after you.

But here's the deal: Jesus will never in the life of a believer accept the role of a consultant.

That is not who he is.

And that is not what it means to follow him, is to say, Jesus, you're my consultant through life.

And when I get myself in a mess, I'm gonna run to you and you're gonna give me a few great little nuggets of wisdom and coaching, and I'll get back on track and I'll see you the next time I make a mess of things.

That is not Jesus.

And that is not what it means to follow him.

To be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus.

It begins when we stop trying to lead Jesus and we take our place behind him, following him where he goes.

The Christian life can be summed up in those two words of Jesus.

Follow me.

That is what it means to walk with him.

And then he moves on and he starts to talk about what this looks like.

And the first thing he says is difficult, deny yourself.

Well, that's not fun.

Is it?

I thought I'd get a little more response than that.

I heard one, one honest person said, like, yeah, that's right.

No, it's not fun.

But but what does he mean by deny yourself?

Is he talking about just giving up something?

Like, oh, well, deny myself.

I'll give up chocolate.

That's not the issue.

That's not what he's talking about.

This language is much stronger in the original language.

It means uh to disown.

Deny means to resist these things in our lives that would lead us away from him.

But here's what it's not: it is not self-hatred.

When we talk about denying ourselves, it is not that we would hate ourselves, it's that we would dethrone ourselves.

Because you and I, let's just be honest here together.

We're among family.

We love to sit on the throne, don't we?

We love to be in charge.

You're like, well, I'm not an in-charge person.

Well, you are of your own life.

We all are.

That is our nature.

And so let's just own it and understand part of what it means to follow Jesus is to get off that throne.

I think if we're honest and if we allow the Lord to work in us in this area, we will find that when we get off the throne, there is so much freedom.

We find that the exhaustion we feel of trying to control everything, we start to find freedom in the one who is in control, who is sovereign, who is Lord of all.

And so many times we resist his lordship.

And we wouldn't, we want to sit on a throne that we were never designed to sit on.

But Jesus doesn't stop there, does he?

He goes on and he says the next phrase here to take up your cross.

Now, to the first hearers, this is not, this is this is so much uh more repulsive and shocking than it would be to you and I, because they had seen a cross, they had seen crucifixion, they saw how grotesque and how brutal it was.

It's not jewelry to them, it's not architecture to them when they hear this.

This was a Roman instrument of public shame and execution.

And so when Jesus says, deny yourself and take up your cross, he's not talking about minor inconveniences.

Like I didn't get the parking spot I wanted today, or when I went downtown, I guess that's just my cross to bear.

Or, God, I am a Tennessee volunteer fan in the midst of all these Aggies and Longhorns.

That's just my cross to bear.

It's a lot closer.

No, I'm just kidding, it's not a lot closer to what he means.

But do you understand?

When he talks about denying yourself and taking up your cross, what is the what is the taking up your cross?

What is he talking about?

It is the cost of allegiance to Jesus.

This is not a sermon to win friends and influence people.

I'm just gonna tell you that as I read these words, right?

So to stand here today and tell you if you are gonna follow Jesus, there's a cost associated with it.

Devotion to Jesus in this life comes with a cost.

Jesus says, if you're gonna follow after me, deny yourself.

Take up your cross.

And follow me.

This follow me, though.

I want you to understand this is not a statement, this is not a request, this is not an instruction to follow some abstract thing.

No, it is to follow a person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where is that person going?

He was going toward rejection, he was going toward suffering, he was going to the cross.

And as we're gonna see when we get to the end of the text, he's also going toward resurrection and toward glory.

So for you and I in this life, following after Jesus, it is important for us to understand the reality of what it means.

We are following a Savior who was headed to a cross, who endured God's wrath so that we could be forgiven.

In this life, we must understand that following Jesus will be counter-cultural.

It will require from us at times sacrifice.

There'll be cost associated with it.

But the one who calls us to that is the one who is leading the way.

He is willing to take on suffering and shame himself.

So I want to ask us a couple of questions before we move on.

For those in the room today who we claim to be followers of Jesus, where are you still asking Jesus to follow after your plans and bless them rather than taking your place behind him?

What areas of your life have you quietly declared off limits to his lordship?

Where are you still trying to sit on the throne of your own life?

Let the Lord show you those things this morning.

And for those in the room today who aren't walking with Jesus, who have never repented of your sin and placed your faith in Jesus, you are not a follower of Jesus.

As plainly as I can, I just want to share with you this morning that Christianity, being a follower of Jesus, is not just adding Jesus to a life that you have already created for yourself and that you are intending to run.

Jesus is calling you to something so much better, so much more freeing, where there is so much more life, and that is surrender to him, to let him lead you.

So the question today for you is not, do I admire him?

Do I know some facts about him?

But it is, will I entrust my life to him?

Will I follow after him?

The second thing we see in this text, the second area where we desperately try to hold on to authority in our life is in this idea of gain.

The fact that we want to build a life that gives us what we think that we need.

And Jesus confronts it head on in this text, in verses 35 through 37.

Jesus exposes a paradox, an incredible paradox for us here.

We instinctively believe that surrender equals loss.

Do we not?

When we hear the word surrender, we think of giving something up.

But Jesus says, no, surrender equates to life.

That is where true life is found.

Jesus reverses the equation.

Surrender doesn't equal loss, and control doesn't equal gain.

In God's economy, surrender to Jesus equals life and gain.

See, we believe this lie that we can preserve our own lives by holding on to them, by trying to achieve and and and accumulate.

And he says, No.

When we do that, we lose.

A word that runs through this text here, when we see the word life and we see the word self and we see the word soul, it's the same Greek word.

It's the word psyche.

And so what is Jesus saying in these verses when he says, whoever will save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospels will save it.

What is he talking about here when he says in gaining?

Jesus is talking about everything that pertains to us.

It's not just a part of us, it is all of us.

Jesus is asking a question: what will it profit you to gain everything that is outside of yourself?

Where will that lead you?

And he takes it to its absolute limit, does he not, in these verses?

I mean, if if we were writing this today, we would say, let's just do an experiment here.

Suppose you got the promotion, all the money.

The offer you put in on the dream house was accepted.

That relationship that you were doing everything in the world to have, you got it.

You've been working toward retirement to get that 401k just right.

Finally, you think you're there.

Your children obey every day.

Right?

They'll do everything you say with the best attitude in the world.

And they turn out exactly like you want them to.

That was good.

I like that.

Amen.

All right.

And every dream that you have comes true.

And Jesus says, but let's not stop there.

Right?

Even if you said, well, that's a great place to stop, that would be amazing.

But Jesus says, let's not even stop there.

Let's say you gained, you could put in the gain column everything.

The entire world.

Everything goes in that column.

And the only thing that goes in the loss column is you.

Have you gained?

Jesus says no.

See, you can win everything the world tells you matters and still lose the only thing that you cannot afford to lose.

And that is the joy, that is the freedom, that is the life that is found in following Jesus and surrendering gain to him rather than you defining gain, letting him define gain.

And he defines gain by surrender.

It is countercultural.

It does go against our human knowledge.

But the wisdom of Scripture, the truth of the gospel, is that in surrendering our life, we gain.

And it is the only way that we gain.

I was thinking as I was reading this text, my mind went to a book that I read as a kid.

And no, it's not Narnia.

It's Pilgrim's Progress.

It was written by John Bunyan in the mid-1600s.

And in Pilgrim's Progress, there's a main character by the name of Christian.

And when we first meet him in the book, he is carrying this enormous weight and burden on his back.

And he knows that the city he's living in, it's called the city of destruction.

So he understands where that city is headed.

And so he leaves that city.

He leaves everything familiar and he begins a journey that he hopes will lead toward life.

And the journey's not easy.

Along the way, he's confronted with voices and temptations and detours and these apparent shortcuts to maybe get where he thinks he needs to go, ways that seem safe and easy and simple.

Rather than just staying on the path that God has set before him.

And what makes this story so powerful for us today and what we're looking at today is that the reality is that our the main character, Christian, cannot remain where he is in the city of destruction and be saved.

He has to entrust himself to the road that God has put before him that will lead him to life.

He doesn't get to chart the course.

He follows the course that God has set before him.

And that that is the same thing for us in a much deeper way in this text today that I want you to understand.

We can spend our entire lives trying to preserve our life, protect it, control it, accumulate all the things, and miss it.

Jesus says that when we cling to this life above all other things, it is what we ultimately lose.

But the life that we surrender to Him is the one that we save.

You know, in this passage, I think it's important to stop here and think for a minute.

Jesus is not saying that there's there's two paths, right?

That that one path, right, um, you know, is is is where we die, and the other path is we never experience loss.

We never we never die.

That's that's not what he's saying because in a fallen world, when we talk about physical death, physical loss sometimes, that that is a Reality, it is unavoidable in this life, right?

None of us get out alive.

That's just the reality.

So the question we're wrestling with in our text today, it's a spiritual question, not a physical question.

And it's a question, it's all about timing.

Are you willing to die to self now?

Entrust your life to a crucified and risen Savior now.

Or is your intent to spend this life now trying to save yourself and refuse to surrender?

See, Jesus is not asking whether you will lose your life physically.

He's asking where do you want the death to occur?

This is a spiritual question.

Where do you want the death to occur?

Are you willing to die to self now?

Are you willing to surrender control and gain and approval now to experience abundant eternal life with him?

Or are you going to refuse surrender and live for today?

Live to gain it all yourself and ultimately, for all of eternity, be separated from the one who gave his life for you.

See, that's the question.

Where do you want the death to occur?

As a follower of Jesus, we must answer that question each and every day as we live life.

Lord, am I willing today to consider myself crucified with you?

Not I who lives, but you who live through me.

Or today, am I going to seek a throne rather than a cross?

But we if we stop here, we're missing the truth of this passage, are we not?

Because this idea of self-denial, right?

If you say, if you think that's what this sermon is, is it's a it's a message about, oh, just just self-denial, right?

Just go and you know and just you know live, live life like, you know, and just just avoid all the trappings.

Go be, right, go live out in the desert and not have any of the conveniences of life.

And if you do that, if you just deny yourself all the comforts of life, that somehow that is what's going to secure for you eternal life.

No, this is not a sermon that highlights and spotlights and elevates legalism that somehow in self-denial you can earn eternal life.

That is not what Jesus says.

That is not what he says.

Self-denial does not lead to life.

Christ's death, his atonement, his sacrificial death on the cross for you is what leads to life.

Denying ourselves, taking up our cross, following him is what those who have received life do out of obedience to the one who gave his life for them.

We take up our cross because we belong to the one who took up his and went to the cross for us.

We follow after him.

See, there's nothing that we can do to earn life.

That's exactly what he says in verse 37.

What can a man give in return for his soul?

We could put lots of things in that blank.

Could we not?

Money, achievement, good deeds, church attendance, baptism, being a good person.

Like we can just fill that question.

What could a man give in return for his soul?

And there is no adequate thing we could put in that blank.

Mark 8, verse 37, when Jesus makes this question, state this statement and asks this question, what can a man give in return for his soul?

Mark 8:37

The answer demands a price that you and I are incapable of paying.

We can't pay this price.

But in just a couple of chapters, in Mark chapter 10, in verse 45, Jesus is going to remind us that he paid that price where he says, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as what?

Mark 10 · chapter mention

A ransom for many.

What can you give in exchange for your life in return for your soul?

Nothing.

You can't pay the price that makes you right with God.

Jesus didn't just pay it for you, He gave Himself for you to pay it.

He was the price, and He was willing to pay it.

He gave Himself.

He is the only one who could pay the price, and He paid it.

There's nothing we can do to earn it.

So what are you trying to do, believer?

What are you trying to do?

What am I trying to do in this life to pursue gain?

Like what are the things I'm holding on to that I think will build the life that I desperately long for that will satisfy me?

Is it career aspirations or success or an experience or influence?

What are the things that we we want to say?

This equates to life and gain.

Even those things, and they can be good things.

They can be very good things, but even those things become a very cruel master when they become the thing that we are looking to to save us.

Because none of those things can save, only Jesus can save.

Believer, we need to be reminded of that.

Unbeliever, hear that.

Hear that.

Whatever you are seeking today, whatever you're trying to accumulate and get, you will never get enough of it to earn life.

There will always be an emptiness.

There will always be a void until you are willing to stop trying to save your life and gain your life and achieve your life and instead are willing to come to Jesus and surrender your life and follow after him.

The third thing that Jesus puts his finger on to say, if you're going to follow me as a follower of me, as my disciple, we must redefine this idea of approval.

Verse 38 Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed.

This idea of approval really just means whose verdict matters most in your life.

This one stepped all over my toes as I was reading this passage because just full confession, I am a people pleaser to my core.

I want people to like me.

Right?

I want to make, I am very prone to making decisions that I think will make people happy.

That's my go-to, is to think that way.

And God has to continually correct me, and I have to continually die to self in that area and say, God, it is not the approval of man that I need.

It is yours.

I need to seek to glorify you, to honor you.

I cannot make the approval of this world my highest goal and faithfully follow Jesus.

Those two things are incompatible.

I cannot do that because what do we know about this world?

This world has rejected Jesus.

So how in the world can I seek the approval of this world and think that I can follow Jesus at the same time?

We have to pick one.

You know, if we need the approval of this world to validate our life, then we will eventually be tempted to hide the parts of Jesus that this world rejects.

Right?

There are certain things about Jesus we can we can we can celebrate, right?

And it still kind of fits in our culture.

Um Chad and I were in Boston this week exploring some opportunities for mission partnerships and and walking through the town on the fronts of these old historic churches where all these signs about about love and about inclusion and about all these buzzwords of culture that we would say fly in the face of scripture, right?

All these things are just are so contrary to scripture.

But as I read those, as we read those, we were thinking on one level, right, we would we would agree with some of what this is communicating, that God loves.

That God loves the sinner, that he wants to welcome them to himself, right?

But these signs stop so far short of what that means to come to Jesus, right?

But we can so what I'm saying is there is the ability for you and I to say, well, I can follow Jesus and and seek the approval and fit in with my culture around me, because I can just focus on, oh, he's a God of love, or Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors.

So so I can I can do this, I can live with one foot in both worlds.

But here's the deal when we're faithful to the Word of God and when we are following Jesus and we're not asking Jesus to get in line with our lives, there are going to come moments where the truth of the gospel just stands in opposition to what our world values and what our world says is right and what our world says is wrong.

So in when those times come, what are you gonna do?

It will depend in large part of whose approval you're seeking.

I love how this passage ends.

It's the reversal.

We see at the beginning of this text the suffering son of man, the one who went to the cross, who endured rejection, who was going to be crucified and die.

But then we see in verse 38 the glorious Son of God who returns in the glory of the Father.

What does that say to you and I right now?

Hey, right now in this life, faithfulness to Jesus, following after Jesus can look foolish and costly.

Let's just acknowledge it.

But let's also, as we read this text, stand on the foundation that this world does not get to issue the final verdict on Jesus.

He is going to return.

He is going to return in glory.

He is going to return and take us to himself where we will experience life forever with him.

And so while, yes, following Jesus in this life may come with a cost at times, make no mistake.

Jesus gets the final word.

He gets the final say, whatever it costs you in this life, no, it will be worth it.

The great missionary Jim Elliott said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose.

Church, that is us.

That is true for you and I.

So let's not make approval of man the final verdict of our life.

Let's not build our lives on what the world says, but instead let's follow after Jesus.

As we close our time together today, I want to bring us back to a question that we really that we started with today.

Where do you want the death to occur?

There is no Christianity without a cross.

There's no following a crucified Savior while insisting to stay on the throne of our own lives.

So are you willing as a follower of Jesus to die to self in this area of control, of trying to run your life?

Are you willing to take up your cross and follow him and die to self in this area of gain, building your life around what you think will satisfy rather than trusting what he says will satisfy?

And are you willing to die to yourself in this area of approval, of seeking the validation of others or this world, and instead seek to glorify the one who gave his life for you?

Following Jesus does mean dying to self.

But the reason is because it in dying to self is where we find life.

This call to die to self is the most loving call that our Heavenly Father could give us.

This is not him being harsh or cruel or placing a burden on us.

No, it is him inviting us into relationship that says, come to me.

Die to all these things that will never satisfy, so that you can have the one thing that will.

So today, as our worship team comes, I want us to spend a few moments just asking the Lord to speak to us in this regard.

Believer, will you acknowledge today your tendencies to still jump up on that throne and cling to life and try to control it and and and and and striving after things that will never satisfy, but we get caught up in it.

Will you repent of that today?

And will you come back to this place of saying, no, I'm a follower of Jesus.

That's who I am.

He's put his spirit in me.

And so I have the ability every day to die to self and allow him to fill me and allow him to guide me.

If you're in the room today and you don't know Jesus, will you use this time to say, God, I need to repent and I need to believe.

I need to follow after you because the lie of this world is that I never, you know, wanting you to control and gain and approval will all give you the life that you that you want to understand.

Maybe for the first time today, those things will never satisfy, but Jesus will.

Today, will you repent of a wrong belief and repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus?

Come to him.

He is the only one who will satisfy.

And in dying to yourself, you will find life in him.

This is a moment for you and I, believer, to just be reminded of what it means to follow Jesus.

Over and over, we've seen who he is in the pages of Mark.

Today, there's a question for us.

Are we willing to follow him?

In his definition of following him.

Would you stand with me?

Father, would you take your word and will you use it this morning?

Speak to our hearts.

Jesus' name.

I want to invite you to respond during this time.

We'll have ministers down front who would love to pray with you if you want to pray with someone, or you may just want to use these steps as an altar, a place of surrender.

Or you may want to do that right there in your seat, but we're going to sing together.

And it is your opportunity to respond to His Spirit as He moves.