Mark 8:31-38

05 Jan 2025

Mark 8:31-38

Passage Mark 8:31-38

Speaker Ben Tanner

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Passage: Mark 8:31-38

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

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The reading is taken from Mark chapter 8, beginning at verse 31. That's on page 1012 in the Pew Bibles. Jesus predicts his death. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days, rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. Get behind me, Satan, he said. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

But whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels. And he said to them, truly, I tell you so.

Some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.

Thanks so much, Steve. Let's keep that open. Mark 8 in those Bibles and let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to be together as your church family. I pray that now, as we look at your word, whether here in the building or online and at home, I pray that we would meet your son.

I pray that as we do so, that you by your spirit would draw us to adore the person he is, not the person who we want him to be. And so, Father, I pray that even as we spend time in this. This text that we might leave it as people who look more like your son. Amen. Well, Happy New Year.

I wonder if you have got New Year's resolutions. Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's scrolling less or learning more. Maybe it's being a fitter person. Maybe it's resting more and working less. Maybe it's being more thought through with your actions.

I don't know. I wonder what kind of person you will be in 2025. We're, as I said earlier in Mark's Gospel again, and we were in Mark's gospel last year and basically up till this point in Mark's Gospel, we've been asking the question, who is Jesus? And then what we're going to do now and through until about Lent is we're going to see what does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah? Because actually that's where we ended up last time.

You see, we were teaching up to a point where Jesus disciples were asked a really important question. It's there. Verse 27. Who do people say that I am? They replied.

Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others, one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked, who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, you are the. What does it say?

Messiah. You're the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. The one who throughout the Old Testament is this promised king who's going to come and rescue his people. But what we're going to see is that Peter, when he looks at Jesus, he gets the right answer, you're the Messiah. But actually he hasn't fully got it.

In fact, he's a bit like the blind man. Slightly further up. You see, the blind man in verse 24 kind of has this picture of healing, but he could kind of see, but not fully see. And what we see is that Peter had has got that. He sees that Jesus is the Christ.

But over the next few chapters, we're going to see that he doesn't understand what that means. What kind of person is the Christ? Jesus is actually going to teach us three times the same lesson. In 8:31, in 9:31, and in 10:33, Jesus three times says, what does it look like to be the Christ? It looks like suffering, dying and rising from the dead.

Anyone who says that Jesus doesn't know where he is headed, just take them. 8:31, 9, 31, 10, verse 33. Really easy. In Mark, Jesus three times says, look, this is what it's going to look like. And then his disciples three times will kind of get it slightly wrong.

And then Jesus three times will teach them what that actually means. You see, what we're going to see is that the Messiah looks slightly different to what Peter thinks. Let's have a look. Let's dive in. Verse 31, he began to teach them the Son of Man.

That's Jesus name for himself. It comes from again from the Old Testament. But we won't worry about that too much at the moment. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this up to this point he's been doing lots of parables, but this is, he's speaking really clearly.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. That word rebuke means tell off harshly. It's kind of, in fact it is the word that Jesus uses that is used of Jesus telling off the evil spirits. In other words, Peter treats Jesus like Jesus treats the demons. He rebukes him.

He says, you are not that kind of Messiah. You see Jesus, what he's doing is he's taking the promises from the Old Testament of the Messiah, the kingly figure who's going to rescue his people. And he's taking the promises of places like the suffering servant in Isaiah and he's saying those two are one and the same. The Messiah is going to be somebody who suffers and who dies and is rejected. But Peter doesn't like that.

Peter's idea of the Messiah is the Donald Trump esque Messiah, the Israel first. He is going to restore Israel. It's going to be absolutely fine. He's going to make Israel great again, powerful here and now it's that kind of military figure who's going to toss out the Romans and he's going to be glorious and everyone associated with him is going to be glorious. That's the Messiah that Peter wants.

And when Jesus seems to be a different kind of Messiah, well it must be Jesus who's got to change, not Peter. Peter's got a very clear understanding of what kind of desire Messiah he wants. Do you know my kids used to have those books. I don't know if you've got them. You know, that's not my, that's not my tractor.

Its wheels are too shiny. That's not my tractor. Its roof is too scratchy. Peter says, that's not my Messiah. His life is too sacrificey.

It's not my Messiah. His life is too weak and embarrassing. That's not my Messiah. His life looks too costly. Jesus looks at his disciples, verse 33.

He knows how dangerous this is. And then he rebukes Peter. Remember that strong term. He tells him off, get behind me Satan. He says, you don't have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.

Jesus speaks to Peter like he speaks to the demons. Only in fact he does one more. He calls him Satan. Now that seems kind of harsh, doesn't it? Is it just that Jesus is having a bad day?

You know, speaking of his death and resurrection can't be pleasant. Has he got short story? Well no, that's not the Jesus that we know. Is it? And yet what Jesus recognises is there's something in the argument that Peter is using that sounds awfully like what Satan tempts Jesus with.

I don't know if you've read Matthew's Gospel. There we see Jesus being tempted by Satan. It's in Mark, but it's expounded in Matthew. And what we see is that Satan three times basically offers Jesus, look, you can have all of the glory, you just don't need the cross, have all of the glory, none of the cross. I'll give you whatever you want, just so long as you don't go to the cross.

It's got to be tempting, hasn't it? And yet what did Jesus say? The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed. See, Jesus says, I've got to go to the cross. I must go to the cross.

Why? Well, because if I don't go to the cross, then as good as I might be for Israel here and now, I'm not dealing with the biggest problem. I'm not dealing with the sin that separates you from God. If I don't go to the cross, however lovely I might be, however wonderful as a ruler I might be, the problem that separates you from God is not dealt with. I've got to go to the cross.

And you see any minimising or sidelining of the cross, or worst of all, writing off of the cross, Jesus identifies as, that is not dealing with the reason the Messiah came. And that's quite challenging, isn't it? Because so often that's what we can do. See, we can be like Peter, we like our Messiah without a cross. Just think actually that the kind of common, the common understanding of Jesus throughout the world is that the cross was, if anything, a slightly unfortunate incident at the end of the his life.

Jesus was a good man. We see. Jesus is a wonderful teacher. And of course he was a wonderful man and a wonderful teacher. But if that's all he is, then the cross is an incident at the end of his life.

That's unfortunate. If he is just Mahatma Gandhi on spiritual steroids, then the cross is just an unfortunate twist at the end. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, the Messiah must suffer, must die.

But maybe actually even as Christians, we can sometimes do what Peter does. That's not my Messiah, his life is too crossy. How might we do that? It might be that all this kind of talk of sin, you know, like when Jesus kind of pulls out and talks of sin. It makes us feel uncomfortable.

And we kind of think, oh, I'm glad I haven't brought my friend to this service where it's talking about sin, because actually that's uncomfortable. And yet that's exactly that takes us to the cross, isn't it? And we can love those bits of the Scriptures where we fall in love with Jesus, and rightly so. And we say he's loving and he's kind, and rightly so. But we miss that, the fact that the place where he is most loving and most kind, where we see that that most clearly, is where he says, I will sacrifice myself for you.

I will deal with your sin. One of the lessons I've often found it hardest to learn is that sometimes loving people most is challenging them. It's calling out that which isn't right.

But I wonder whether the other reason why sometimes we don't like the idea of a Messiah with a cross is that it actually challenges us. You see, Jesus goes straight on in verse 34, doesn't he? He called the crowd to him and along with his disciples, he said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. If you want to be my disciple, then you need to deny yourself. You see, a messiah who takes sin as seriously as to go to the cross is a messiah who calls us to deny ourselves.

And that's not just denying ourselves, chocolate or dry January, it's denying ourselves full stop. Doesn't mean that we never have any fun as Christians. He's not saying that. But what he's saying is there will be times when, as Christians, we will say, I want to live like that. I want to do that.

Be that, or, I want my life to look that way, or I want to respond to this situation in that way. That's my natural response. That's who I want to be. And yet I will come to this word. And Jesus at times will challenge me and I'll go, I want to do that.

And yet actually, I'm going to need to deny myself that. That juicy bit of gossip I'm just not going to enter.

Jesus says, to follow me will mean denying yourself. A God who takes sin seriously enough to say there is nothing but the blood of the eternal Son of God that can cleanse you from your sin is a God who says, I take sin seriously. And so therefore you'll need to deny yourself. He says, you'll need to deny yourself. You'll need to take up your cross.

And that was shocking. Nowadays we sort of talk about it, don't we? Do you know, I've got this ailment in my body, in my leg, it's my cross to bear. Or I've got that tense relationship, it's my cross to bear. And please, I'm not in any way saying that difficult relationships or bodily ailments aren't really tricky.

Of course they are. They can be really hard. But in these days, that would have elicited a gasp. You see, the cross was the archetypal thing that you avoided. It was designed like that.

It was designed by the Romans to be the thing that you don't go there under any circumstances if you can avoid it. It was horrific as somebody who was condemned to the cross would carry their cross piece up to the place where they would be crucified. They would be nailed. All dignity and clothing would have been taken from them. They would have been by the road, laughed at, jeered at, as the effects of time and weight meant that slowly their energy died and they couldn't hold themselves up and they would be asphyxiated and animals would eat their bodies sometimes whilst they were still alive.

And it was horrific, and it was designed to be horrific because the idea was that nobody messed with the Romans. You don't want to be crucified, Nobody wants to be crucified. And Jesus says, follow me, and he's taking up your cross. Now, again, Jesus isn't saying that all Christians are going to be crucified, all Christians are going to be killed for their faith, but he is saying that some will around the world, there are all sorts of folks even today who live in genuine threat of their lives being taken from them because they know Jesus.

But I think it was Abraham Lincoln spoke about how he could find hundreds of men who would give their last drop of blood for the revolution. The problem was he couldn't find many who would give their first drop of blood. And so often it could be like that for us as Christians. Oh, yeah, if God demands my life, yeah, I've been martyred for him. Yes, of course.

But actually I'm not willing to sacrifice for him day by day. I'm not willing to have a God who's so serious about sin that nothing but the eternal blood, the blood of the eternal Son of God will cleanse it.

I'm not willing to stand up and say I take sin as seriously as that. I'm not willing to risk my reputation or the relationships I have around me. I'm not willing to stand in work and say, yeah, I believe that. I believe what Jesus says.

A few years ago I was a youth minister and I remember one day one of the girls in our youth group turned up at our door and she was in floods of tears. And Rachel and I invited her in and we sat down with her and she said, my parents have kicked me out. They can't believe that they have a child who honestly believes these words of what Jesus has to say about life. They think I'm outdated, they think I'm brainwashed and I don't know what to do. She knew something about what it meant to take up her cross.

I wonder, would I be that brave? Would you be that brave? Jesus says, deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. Because he says, look, whoever wants to save their life now will lose it if you like. Jesus says, look, the temptation that Satan has for me, that temptation of I'll give you whatever you want, just don't go to the cross.

I'll give you everything that you want here and now. Just whatever you do, don't go to the cross. It's a temptation that he holds out to each and every one of us. He says, look, I can give you whatever you want, comfort in this life time. I can give you so much right now.

Just don't think about the future. Don't think about a God whose son would go to the cross for you. Don't take sin that seriously. That's what Satan says to us again and again and again.

You want a conscience that doesn't prick you anymore, Just carry on sinning. He says, play it down and sooner or later it will no longer hurt. When you're ignoring what God has to say, just do that. I can make you comfortable. He says, just forget about sin, forget about the cross.

You don't need a messiah who's gone to the cross. Just take a messiah. Just cherry pick the nice verses that you like, not the ones where he calls out sin and the need for forgiveness. But Jesus says, look, if you live that way, whoever wants to save their life now will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

He says, look, let's go with this thought experiment. Let's imagine that you accept what the devil says. You take everything that this life will give you. You gain the whole wide world, but in doing so, you lose your soul. Jesus says, what have you then got?

You've got all the riches of this world. You live in a beautiful house, you drive a wonderful car, you go to the best retirement home. You have the Most elaborate funeral and you're laid in the ground like everybody else that I put in the ground. And what have you got to exchange your soul for?

Jesus says, this is serious.

A Messiah without a cross, A Christianity without a cross leaves us empty. Says, if anyone's ashamed of me and my words, now if you live your life and you continue to be ashamed of him and his words, and you continue to say, do you know what? I'm not having any of this. I'm going to just cherry pick the bits I like. I'm not going going to listen to the bits that I don't like.

I'm not going to need a God who would go to the cross for me. That's embarrassing. Jesus says, if you're ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you.

And then we end up with this slightly odd verse 9, verse 1.

And I think 9:1 is there because Jesus is saying, look, this is not theoretical. We don't just come to church on some snowy first Sunday and start of term and sort of think about theory and go home. He says, no, no, this is intensely practical. He says, there are some who are standing before me who will not taste death before the kingdom of God has come with power, saying, look, there are some people who are living for the here and now and not for the future, who are embarrassed of my generosity to the poor, who are embarrassed of the fact that I'm going to go to the cross, who frankly would rather see me on the cross than live with me as their Saviour. He's talking of Judas, isn't he?

And he says, this is very real because there is Judas who is forfeiting his soul for the sake of comfort here and now.

Jesus is being really honest. He's saying, look, if we say that's not my Messiah, his life is too crossy. His life is too serious about sin. His life is too sacrificial. He says, there is a warning here.

I wonder what your New Year's resolutions are for 20, 25. What kind of a person will you be?

One of my resolutions, having spent time in the scripture here is I want to be one who's serious, serious about sin and serious about forgiveness. Because I have a Messiah who's serious about sin and serious about forgiveness. I want to be somebody who's listening to him more. Please cheque in with me how I'm doing throughout the year.

And that's going to look sacrificial at times, and I imagine it'll look sacrificial for me. And I know it will look sacrificial for us at church and for you if you do it.

But a few years ago, there was a guy called Jim Elliot. Some of you will know him. He was a missionary and he went to South America where he was told, if you go there, you're throwing away your career and you're possibly throwing away your life. And he said this. He said, call no man a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Following Jesus is costly. But call no man a fool who gives up what he cannot keep, the things of this world and gains what he cannot lose. Life with Christ forever. Let me pray as I do. I'm just going to leave a moment of quiet.

Jesus says if anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.

Where is it that the Lord might be calling you to deny yourself, to say no to something that you would long to do or be or think or respond in a certain way to?

Jesus says they must take up their cross. Where is it that we are avoiding the pain of following Jesus? Maybe it's hiding him for our reputation or avoiding what he says because of how it might look at work or in the family.

Heavenly Father, we're aware. We're aware that we have a Saviour who went to the cross. We're so thankful that in doing so he died in order to forgive us. Forgive us even those things that we were just thinking about. Thank you so much.

That he didn't take the glory, the easy route out the Messiah without a cross. We're sorry for times when we think we wish he did.

Help us to be those who delight in the cross of Christ. I pray. Amen.

We're going to sing again.