title="English

He Gives and Takes Away

Mark 8:27-38

About a year ago, I returned with my Dad to my boyhood home in Bluefield, WV for a visit. We drove by my high school and the place where my Jr. High School had been torn down. As is usual, I engaged in all the reminiscing of what I’d done there as a kid. One man who came to mind was my ninth grade basketball coach, an ex-marine and an "unforgettable character". When I met him at the first basketball practice, he had just returned from Viet Nam and was probably in his mid-50s. I think his primary goal was to make sure this younger generation got into shape. So, after each rigorous basketball practice, he would call us together for what he would call "wind training." This involved wind sprints in the gym followed by running all over the school up and down stairs.

On the first day of practice, he promised he would always run ahead of us. He said he was doing this to show us that this training couldn't be so hard because he was an "old man". "Surely," he would say, "you teenagers in the prime of life couldn't be run into the ground by an old teacher, could you?" But yes, we could and we were. Following him was one of the toughest things physically I've ever had to do.

This little episode came to mind when I read the last part of Mark 8. In Mark’s account of Jesus' life, this was the time when Jesus turned his face toward Jerusalem and began to walk down what has been called the Via Dolorosa, Jesus’ street of anguish, toward the death that he knew would await him there. Notice the little phrase “on the way” in v. 27. That phrase will be used 9 times in the next few chapters. Jesus was signaling that he was going to head relentlessly toward Jerusalem where he would not set up a political kingdom by force, but he would begin an eternal kingdom accomplished through his death and resurrection.

In vv. 34-35, this is what we read: Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

In our generation, in which people generally only talk about the health and wealth assured for all people of faith, these words of Jesus' may be troublesome. Jesus calls us to follow him and he tells what following him will cost. But he also tells us what we will find when we stay close to him.

 

I. What is Lost (8:34-35)

As we look at this text, we shouldn’t be able to miss the point that Jesus expected all of us who follow him to experience a thoroughgoing transformation in our lives. That’s why I called this series, Jesus Christ: Life-changer. The phrase that Jesus used when he called people to faith was quite simply, "Follow me." This particular call came just after Jesus said that the destination of his own journey would be death. We shouldn’t be surprised to discover that those closest to him were shocked by this. In my home, I’ve sometimes shouted out, “I’m headed out. Anyone want to go with me?” Almost always, the family has yelled back, “Maybe. Where are you going?” What would they say if I answered, “I’m going to be killed and if you go, the same might happen to you.” They might go because they love their Dad. But, they would think about it carefully. That’s for sure.

It's very important that we understand Jesus' words in v.34 properly. Look at them again: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Jesus calls all who will follow him – yes, all – to two things: selfdenial and crossbearing. What did he mean by this?

• Selfdenial – Notice that Jesus doesn’t tell us to deny things to ourselves – but to deny ourselves. The way the Apostle Paul put it in 2 Cor. 5 is this: “I no longer live for myself but for him who died and rose again.” Some people start saying they’re Christians hoping to get God to give us things we want. But, Jesus turns that self-focused thinking on end. He calls us to surrender what we want to seek whatever God wants. Jesus says that Christians have a complete reversal of the normal way people talk about how we can enjoy life, which is, “You’ve got to do things for yourself.” The one who denies self prays every day, “Not my will but yours be done.”
• Cross-bearing -- When I hear people use this phrase, I usually hear them talking about their arthritis or their mother in law or their irritating boss or something like that. “That’s the cross I just have to bear,” they say. Remember that Jesus spoke these words before he went to the cross so “take up your own cross” must have sounded strange to his disciples. Public executions were common in Jesus’ day. The most painful form of execution was crucifixion. A cross was reserved only for the most hated of criminals – those the government wanted to humiliate publicly. So, when Jesus said we must take up a cross, he was telling us that, if we follow him, we have to give up our pride and desire for prestige. David Garland writes, “”Unlike some contemporary peddlers of the gospel, Jesus does not offer his disciples varieties of self-fulfillment or intoxicating experiences... He offers a cross. He does not invite us to try the cross on for size to see if we like it… Disciples must do more than survey the wondrous cross, glory in the cross, and love the old rugged cross... We must follow Jesus and live the cross.”

So, what Jesus is demanding in his call to follow is a complete surrender of all we are to all he is. When any of us follow him, we must be open to anything and ready to go anywhere. All of us! We should not be surprised if we experience the same kind of persecution as he experienced.

Note this too: This self-denial and cross-bearing Jesus speaks of are not just metaphors. Look at v. 35: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it…” Jesus knew that the suffering he would endure would often be replicated in the experience of many who would follow him. And he knew that if the good news salvation through faith in him was to be passed on after his crucifixion, Jesus had to have disciples who would be ready for the possibility of the loss of anything – even our physical lives.

Be clear about this: Jesus insists that the call to follow he made is also for us today. Did you notice the universality of Jesus' words in vv. 34-38? The words that are repeated are -- whoever, whoever, anyone, anyone and anyone. No true followers are left out. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

As I read history and look around the world at the church in our day, I’m convinced that the nature of the challenges and difficulties of following Jesus have always differed -- but the reality of it hasn't. So, I must tell you this: If you want to be a follower of Jesus, you dare not minimize the cost that decision may bring with it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is leading you down the garden path; not the Via Dolorosa.

It's so important that we understand this. We talk and sing so easily about loving Jesus in church circles. What does that really mean to us? Does it just mean a warm fuzzy glow while we sing the same line of a chorus over and over again? Does it simply mean some overwhelming emotion as we listen to a powerful sermon on the radio or online? Listen to me and think clearly: What did loving Jesus mean to these disciples when Jesus called them to follow him as he turned his face toward his death in Jerusalem?

You know what it meant to them: It meant the potential loss of things that matter to many people in this world. It meant the potential loss of their wealth and the loss of their worldly security. For them, it meant the loss of their reputation in the Jewish community. For some of them, eventually it meant the loss of their very lives. Will you love Jesus like that?

Loving Jesus for many in communist countries in my lifetime has meant years of solitary confinement. Loving Jesus for those who choose to turn to Jesus from other religions has often meant being cut off from family and friends..

But the question Jesus forces us to ask is this, "What could it cost for me to follow Jesus?" Could truly following Jesus mean a loss of reputation for you? Would those colleagues or those old drinking buddies still speak well of you if it was clear to them that you were living for Christ? Could following Jesus mean a loss of relationships for you? If you were living consistently for Jesus in your school, would you be scoffed at by some of the people you want to be with? Could loving Jesus mean loss in the workplace? Would you lose the opportunity for a promotion because you're considered too religious – or could you lose income because you insist on being ethical and to pay just wages? Or could your love of Jesus cause a loss ofperceived pleasure? Are there certain places you wouldn't go to and events you wouldn’t attend because you are closely following Jesus? Most of us like to be a bit religious as long as there is little or no cost.

These are, however, the prctical questions that Jesus puts to us in a passage like this. Following Jesus is not safe for our comfort zones. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."

In the early 1990s when I traveled to the Czech Republic after the fall of the Soviet Union., I met with the head of the Czech Brethren Church, the Cirkev Bratrska, a man named Pavel Cerny. He told me that he and his church people had often been imprisoned for their faith in the midst of communism. He said, “We have had no Christian schools in our country. But we had schools that taught us faith in God. The prisons were our schools. We learned how to trust God there… We followed Jesus and discovered that he truly is near us even in the prisons. Our richest experiences of God were often gained in the midst of loss. We learned how to live for God in difficult times. You will have to teach us how to follow Jesus in good times.”

In the light of Jesus’ call to follow him anywhere, any rational person would have to ask, “Why would any of us commit ourselves to such a call?” There is much in terms of what most people in our world value that might be lost if you become a fully committed Jesus-follower. Jesus never pretended otherwise. But there is much to gain. Indeed, Jesus says we gain everything that really matters. Specifically, Jesus speaks about three things to gain:

 

II.What is to be gained (8:35-38)

In these four remarkable verses, Jesus speaks of the three great gains that people who have come to Jesus and stuck with their faith have always discovered. Yes, we live counter-cultural lives – and sometimes face huge challenges in this world. Ask if they are true of you:

 

1.We discover who must be at the center of our lives.Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it (v. 35).

This is a paradox, of course. And yet, isn't it true? Life isn't worth living unless you have something worth living for. And, ironically, you can't be sure you've found something worth living for, until you have something worth dying for. And Jesus is Someone worth living and dying for. What Jesus is saying is that when we surrender our lives to him, we find what we’ve always sensed as human beings, i.e., we were made for him. We have been made to live in relationship to God. When God is our God, then the rest of life begins to come into place.

The word that Jesus uses for “”life” here is “psyche” – the word we get psychology from. It has to do with our inner being or our soul. If we put any temporary thing at the center of our souls, they will let us down. They will not last. If we seek to hold onto temporary things, they will pass away. I tell you that what you will find that in the very act of giving your whole life to Jesus is that you have not lost your life at all. To the contrary, every believer I have ever met gives testimony to the fact that when we follow Jesus and seek to serve him, we find what life is really all about.

 

2. We discover who we are.What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul (vv.36-37)?

Do you really believe Jesus’ words here? So many people feel that if they could only win the lotterie, then they would find their lives. Or, if only my team could win the national championship, then I would find a life. Still, Jesus’ logic, unpopular as it may be in a consumerist world like ours, is true. People whose only interest is in the enjoyment of things in this world end up empty people, superficial people. You know that. We have countless stories of this here in Southern California. People finish up rootless, isolated, alienated because they've think their identity has to be, “The biggest partier – the most successful business person – the one who always looks young…”. Like Dr. Faustus in Goethe’s play, we are all so tempted to sell our souls for something that cannot last. When we do, as Jesus puts it here, we forfeit our very selves.

When we follow Jesus as the Lord of our lives – seeking to represent him well in the world, being willing to sacrifice for others as he did -- we discover what it really means to be a person in God's universe. We gain a new identity. Who are you? When you trust Jesus, you become a child of God. You become one who knows you are made in God's image. You will always know that you are eternally loved by an eternal God.

 

3.We discover where we’re going. If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, (I) will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (v.38).

To comprehend these words, remember that Jesus is calling us to follow him. He’s saying that when we follow him, we will always be close to him – and that means eternally. We will not be ashamed of him when we keep our eyes on him and follow. Jesus promises that we who follow him will be with him forever. That’s what’s going on here. Jesus is promising that those who walk close to him and do not deny him will have an eternal destiny with him. Note this: Yes, Jesus calls us to follow him in taking up a cross but, each time he calls us to that, he tells us the cross will not be the eend. He will defeat death. That is our hope.

Occasionally, I have heard people say that there is something wrong with making promises of future rewards for those who follow Jesus. Do you feel like that? I will say this: Faith in Jesus shouldn't be thought of as some bargain agreed upon because of the expected profit margin. What Jesus calls for is an unconditional surrender to his lordship. But, he does promise that the life we gain will be eternal life.

Let me just ask you this: What possible incentive is there to deny self and experience suffering for our faith if our lives are going to end in the grave and if our world someday will just end in cosmic dust? Jesus says there is a life beyond this life – a world in which we will see the justice and goodness of God. It will be a world in which we will see that he makes everything right. Evil will be punished and faith will be rewarded. We will understand why evil people sometimes seemed to have flourished and why children sometimes have died in infancy. God’s Word declares that God will ultimately punish evil and vindicate goodness. That truth is absolutely vital to the message that God is just. He will make all things right.

If there were no reward to be gained, then the cross of Jesus would make no sense, would it? The whole point of Jesus’ suffering is that, by means of it, he opened the door to eternal life with God for us. We join Jesus in declaring that everyone can find everlasting life through him who loves us so much.

Jesus tells us quite plainly that upon our opinion of him rests his opinion of us and upon His opinion of us rests our eternal destiny. See v.38 again.

Who knows? The day of Jesus coming in glory may be nearer than we think. Perhaps there are some here among us who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God. Is that thought important to you? You have your eternal life at stake in how you respond to Jesus. You have a soul to gain or lose. You have an eternal destiny to gain or lose. No matter what advantage anyone may think there is in remaining an unbeliever, Jesus insists that at the end of the day you will know you've paid too much and gained nothing that lasts if you reject him. For what good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose himself.

One of my favorite parts of Shakespeare is a scene in the Merchant of Venice where Portia interrogates her would be suitors. Three caskets are offered to them and the one who chooses the casket containing Portia's portrait would be able to have her hand in marriage. The first suitor chooses the silver casket bearing the inscription, "He who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves." There was a fool's head inside that one. The next suitor chose the golden casket with the inscription, "He who chooseth me shall get what many men desire." There was a skull inside that one. Only good old Bassanio, the successful suitor, chose the right casket, the lead one inscribed with the words, "He who chooseth me must give and hazard all he has."

That's Jesus' invitation to us today. "If anyone will follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross" -- we must give and hazard all we are and have.

Does it sound like a gamble? Jesus would say instead that it is a cost. How much is it worth to follow a person who suffered and died out of love for you – but also defeated sin and death through a resurrection. If you follow him, you may face times of suffering – but you will also experience resurrection.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose." (Jim Elliot)

 

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor