Last week we began a new sermon series where we started to examine what God requires of us, and we saw that the answer is found in some of the very first words of Jesus recorded in Mark’s Gospel. What God requires of us is that we follow Jesus, or in other words, be His disciples. Everything else that is required will flow from a life that is truly following Jesus. This idea seems simple enough, but just as Jesus’ first 12 disciples found out, it’s easier said than done. So this morning we are going to look at the first steps Jesus calls all of His followers to, as we begin to truly follow Him.
Mark 8:34
Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.
Jesus begins His statement with a call to the entire crowd that had shadowed Him during this season of His ministry. This call was not to just a select few, or just for those whom He had called to be His inner circle, but it was an open call to anyone to come and to truly follow Him. But as we saw last week, we do not get to follow Jesus on our own terms. We must follow Him on His terms alone. Jesus sets the terms of following Him with three foundational commands; give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow consistently. Jesus gave these partly because He knew who was around Him and not all of those people were truly wanting to follow Him. Some were there because they had seen Jesus feed the multitudes and they were wanting more. They were in it for what they could get out of it. Others were there because they had been entertained by the miracles of Jesus. The blind had seen, the deaf had heard, and they were just wanting to be entertained by the Master. Some were there just to criticize, however Jesus wasn’t concerned with those. He was calling out those who truly wished to follow Him as a disciple. This call to follow was not a call to sample and see if Jesus is right for you. It was a radical call to follow Him with reckless abandon. It is still the same radical call to those who trust in Him by faith and follow after Him even today.
Denying Yourself
The first thing that Jesus says is required of one of His followers is to give up their own ways or to deny themselves. This step is the first one mentioned because of a conversation that Jesus had just had with Peter. If you start reading in verse 27 of chapter 8, you will see a question that Jesus asks his inner circle of disciples, “Who are these people saying that I am?” The disciples answer Him saying that some people say He is John the Baptist, while others say He must be Elijah or another prophet. Then Jesus asked them a very important question — a question that all of us must answer as well. He asked them, “But who do YOU say that I am?”. This is an important question because it’s how we answer this personally that matters — it’s the difference between salvation and damnation. You cannot experience salvation by grace through the faith of someone else. You cannot experience salvation because of what the crowds say about Jesus. You cannot experience salvation because of what your grandparents said about Jesus, what your parents said about Jesus, or what your spouse says about Jesus. You can only experience salvation based upon your personal faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is what will usher you into His grace and that starts with how you answer the question, “Who do YOU say that Jesus is?” However there is more to this than just saying your answer for your faith in Jesus actually has to be shown by your actions. In Romans 10:9 we are told that “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” This word “confess” means that it is something that must be true in your life, just like a confession in court. We use it to describe when the truth comes out. When you are declaring by faith in Jesus that He is not just Lord of all, He is now your personal Lord and Savior. That means you are saying it is true in your life and He is in complete charge of it. If this confession is true it will start showing in your actions because as we are told in James, faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Peter had a problem with this. Yes, he had just confessed with his mouth that Jesus was the Messiah and he might have even had an intellectual understanding that Jesus is the Christ. However, his faith had not begun to show in how he lived and followed Jesus. We see this because right after Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question, Jesus begins to tell them about what was going to happen to Him in the near future. He told how He would suffer and be rejected by the religious leaders and of how He would be killed. He also told them that three days later He would rise from the dead. That’s when Peter did the unthinkable as the follower of Jesus and showed us that he was struggling to live out his confession of faith. Peter told Jesus, NO! He told Him no because that was not Peter's plan for Jesus. His kingdom was supposed to start now to free them from Roman captivity. Peter had the same idea about Jesus that many had in that day (Luke 19:11). Jesus rebuked Peter because of this. He even calls Peter “Satan” because he was only seeing things from his own point of view and not from God’s. That’s when we get to verse 34 where Jesus addresses a problem that not only Peter had, but many of us still struggle with today as we follow Jesus. When we follow Jesus it cannot be on our own terms, with our own thoughts, with our own beliefs or with our own ideas. We cannot add to or take away from what Jesus has called us to as followers. We must be all about Him and not about ourselves. That is the first step in being a follower of Jesus — we must deny ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we deny ourselves something physical, such as giving up food for a period of time or maybe giving up some type of entertainment that might be a distraction and focus on prayer and our intimacy with God instead. While those things are good and necessary in the life of a believer from time to time, that is not what Jesus is saying here. However, what He is saying is akin to Romans 10:9, because when Jesus is your Lord, life is now all about Him and not about us. This call is to stop making your own self the focus of your life and your actions. This is a call to stop making your children, friends or spouse the center of your life and your actions. Denying oneself is a fundamental reorientation of your entire life. To make your life centered on God is the first step Jesus calls us to as a follower. To have a wrong view and practice of the Lordship of Jesus in your life will lead to the wrong view and practice of discipleship. When Jesus is truly Lord and you have denied yourself to follow Him, you will no longer be guided by your own wants and desires, your own preferences, your own previous identity. You will realize that your identity is now in Christ and that changes everything. Paul understood this and shared this with the church at Philippi. “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-8).” Paul understood that you have to deny yourself to follow Jesus. He had once tried to follow God on his own terms thinking that persecuting the early Christians is what God required, but when he had an encounter with the risen Savior everything changed. It wasn’t about what he thought God wanted. It was what God said He wanted. We are to remember we are following Jesus, not Paul, not a Pastor, not a teacher, but Jesus. Jesus would never ask us to do anything that He didn’t do first. In Philippians, Paul speaks about this as well. Previous to the verses we had just read. Philippians 2:6-8 tells us that, “Though he was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up his divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Last week I said when we see something in Scripture during this sermon series there are two questions we must ask of ourselves. So let’s ask those now. First, how are you doing when it comes to denying yourself and following Jesus? Second, how are you pouring into the life of another to help them to deny themselves as they follow Jesus? Both are important as we follow Jesus. However, as difficult as denying oneself is remember this is through the help of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we will be like Peter at times and mess it all up. When we come and confess our sins to Jesus, He is faithful and just to forgive us of all our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Taking up your Cross
Jesus’ first statement about what is required of a true follower should have made those who had gathered around Jesus start to think about their motivations and level of commitment, but if it didn’t His second statement surely would have. If we think about this command to take up our cross outside of the context it would have been understood when Jesus originally said it, we might think Jesus is speaking of something like a burden we have to carry or even a persistent annoyance. Like when someone says, “Well this is just my cross to carry”. Or maybe we think about the sanitized version of the cross that we see all around our culture even in the jewelry we wear. I’m not saying that is a problem or wrong. I’m just saying these are images that might come to mind when we hear Jesus say this. For those present to hear Him that day, there would have been a very different image of what Jesus was calling His true followers to do. The cross was a horrific torture device in first century Roman culture. It was the way to inflict the most pain, the most suffering, and the most fear to both the one being killed and those who were watching. When Jesus called them to take up their cross they knew what this truly meant — it meant there was no going back. When someone took up their cross it wasn’t just to scare them straight and then be threatened and let go. They knew there was no turning back. The road only led to one place and that was death. They would have known it was a path sometimes walked alone with no other friends to encourage you. They would have also known those who carried a cross would have been mocked and scoffed at till they died. These would have been the images those who heard Jesus that day would have thought about and are all very true when it comes to following Jesus. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die”. That isn’t something very popular to preach any more, but it’s what Jesus has called all of His followers to do. Jesus says in John 15:20-21, “Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you.” This isn’t the only time suffering is mentioned in Scripture in the context of following Jesus. It was something the early church understood and looked forward to identifying with Christ through. Now while following Jesus might not lead us to death, following Jesus the way Jesus calls us to in Scripture will bring about persecution in one form or another. Sometimes that is even from those whom you thought were followers as well. Even if we do not experience a literal death because of our faith and following Jesus, we will all experience a metaphorical one because we all must die to self as we spoke about before. This must happen because without it we cannot produce the good fruit that Jesus desires for us in our lives. John 12:24-26, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me.” Following Jesus involves all sorts of risks — of our safety, our security, our satisfaction in this world. However, what He promises as a reward is nothing this world can ever offer us.
The Reason to Follow - Mark 8:35-37
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. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?
Jesus’ last command is one that is an ongoing demand that must be done daily. You deny yourself and realize this world doesn’t revolve around you, but revolves around Him. You take up your cross and follow Jesus no matter what happens — even if it means death. You then are going to have to follow Jesus each day by walking each step in the footprints of Jesus. This is not normal or natural, but it is necessary to be Christ’s disciples. There is a price to pay for true discipleship, but Jesus speaks of the wonderful payoff of this difficult following ― Salvation. It’s not that these actions bring Salvation because we know that we are saved by grace through faith and not of our works (Ephesians 2:8-9). These are fruits of a life where Jesus is truly Lord. Everything else we do is really just us trying to save ourselves, to gather pleasure, to gather relationships, to gather power, to gather money. All of it is an attempt to save ourselves and gain the world. However, without Jesus you might gain everything this world has to offer, but in the end and for all eternity, you will lose your soul. There is nothing worth more than one's eternal soul, so the idea is how are you going to invest it? If it’s in the things of this world, ultimately you will lose your soul, but if you give it up for Jesus and the Gospel’s sake you will save it. Notice how the love for the Gospel is mentioned coupled with the love for Jesus? It is because as Jesus said in Mark 12:30-31, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and then as equally as important we are to love our neighbor as ourself. This is the same idea Jesus is saying here because when we love the Gospel and give everything for it, we will love our neighbors, and share that same good news with them that saved us. No one can save themselves although many try. Only faith in Jesus Christ can save anyone. It does not matter who you are, what culture you come from, or what your beliefs are. EVERYONE must come through the cross in order to be saved. Yes, sure this world will offer and promise you some great things if you will only follow your heart or their ideas, but what will that matter one second into eternity? Life is like a dollar. You can spend it any way you want, but you can only spend it once. Jesus is telling those who have gathered — don’t waste your life, follow me.
In these verses Jesus is revealing that the Kingdom of God is made up of a crucified King who has crucified followers. They don’t look anything like the world, but they do look like their Master. They have invested their lives in ways that at the end of the day are not wasted in the eyes of God. They have been invested in the things that matter most. So this morning are you ready to truly follow Jesus? Yes, I asked this question last week as we started to see what it meant, but this week a yes is much harder. It is the first step on an amazing journey and the first step is always the hardest. Are you ready to take those first steps of discipleship for yourself and those you are pouring into as well? Are you ready to surrender yourselves completely to Him? Are you ready to identify with Him in suffering and death? Are you ready to immediately follow Him obediently wherever He leads? If so, then you are ready to obey Jesus' command to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him.
