Disciples Unto Death

Mark’s Warning to Disciples: Deny Yourself and Take Up Your Cross

Do you remain standing while I read our short passage this morning? It is Mark 8, verses 34 through 38, and then I'm going to throw in chapter 9, verse 1. Here we go. And he summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. And Jesus was saying to them, truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God having come in power.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its depth and its riches. Oh, they are unsearchable. Lord, it is a lifetime and an eternity of study to see your attributes and to see your perfect wisdom and your perfect righteousness.

Lord, help us this morning. Help us with conviction. Help us with repentance. Help us with encouragement where it's due, Lord, that we would be a people who has counted the cost, that we would be a people who are not here for the show but are here because we are disciples.

And we know that there is nowhere else to go because you have the words of life. Lord, help us as we examine this text this morning. Help us to understand it. Help us to have the sense of it and help it to bury in deep into our hearts and produce the change that your word always does.

And we know that it will not fail because you have said that it is so. It's in your name I pray these things.

Amen.

Christ’s Kingdom, Not Earthly Status

So when we come to... You may be seated, sorry. When we come to a text like this, it's one that very often gets pulled out and used as a cudgel for people when people are doing things we don't like. It's used against a lot of people who we deem to be soft in the faith, that sort of thing.

And so passages like this are dangerous to handle because of how often they get ripped out of the context of their book. And so in order to do that, we've been going through Mark, and so we have the benefit of seeing some context.

And so before we go forward with counting the cost, I want to look back a little bit. So what we've seen over the last few weeks is the disciples do not clearly see the nature of God's kingdom. Jesus has come taking on the title that he was given in Daniel as the son of man.

He is the son of man who is the promised king, who is the stone who is cut not by human hands, who is going to become a mountain that takes up the whole vision of all the world. He is going to be the stone that crushes that beast, that crushes that statue that made up all the empires of the world.

But the disciples don't see that yet. They think of him as an earthly king. They think, and they rightly think, that he is the son of David who has come to reestablish the kingdom of Israel. The problem that they face is they don't clearly see yet who Israel is in the new covenant.

They are still bound up in their conception of racial and ethnic Israel. And so they have too small of a vision. And we saw that last week as Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that the son of man would be taken, that he would be killed by the leaders, and that he would rise again.

Peter rebuked him. Jesus said, get behind me, Satan. You consider as man does, not as God does. So Peter in particular is blind to this establishment and to the nature of Christ's kingdom. And here's where we get to the context of this verse.

The disciples, and this is going to sound very harsh, but it is undoubtedly true as we look. The disciples, in their regarding Christ as man regards, they see Jesus as a holy ticket to status. They think, and they will argue over who gets to sit at the right hand of God as he issues his judgments as the king.

Now in one sense, they see rightly, Jesus is God. In another sense, they see too small because they think of themselves as being, okay, we're in here early in the game, right? We follow Jesus when nobody knew about him, right?

He summoned us when he was just the man of Galilee and he was walking around and we were fishing and we believed and we followed him. And it's easy for the disciples, I think, even to think maybe we believed because we.

Saw it.

We were ahead of the game. And so over and over, Jesus is teaching that there is no one who sees, that faith comes from God, that it is not something that human beings conjure up in their own minds, in their own heart.

I think David preached that beautifully a couple of weeks ago, that faith is a thing that is given by God. Faith is not a thing that we come up with in our own will. And that gets confusing for us because we do truly make a decision to follow Christ.

But that decision truly was put into our hearts by the irresistible grace of God when he calls his people. And so Jesus now is going to further his rebuke of Peter and he's going to call the crowds in closer to continue this rebuke.

And what started as very harsh, get behind me, Satan, is going to be, I would almost rather be told get behind me, Satan, than to hear what he has to say next. Because this is repeated in all the gospels and it's repeated with a lot of illustration and a lot of examples in the other gospels.

Mark keeps it short here, but it is punchy. So we just read it together and what I want to do is in this sermon, I'm going to do something a little bit different. Because the temptation in this sermon is to think, that's right, we've got to be superheroes for Christ.

I will die for the faith. I will die for the faith. And we get that. That's the message of this text, right? That's what we think. But then in America, this text, because it doesn't directly apply to our situation, we hold it as just a weapon to use for ourselves to put other people down and to think, I would surely die for Christ, I doubt if that guy would.

And that's the way we use this text. And so what I want to do is we're going to have a two-parter. I want to talk about the text itself, and then I want to spend part of the time talking about the application to us in a culture that currently is not killing people or throwing them out of the town for following Christ.

Because I do make the distinction, I do think this text applies to all Christians for all.

Time.

And I think that context can be different. But let's look real quick. So first he summons the crowd. This is not an apostle-specific teaching. It's for everyone who's following Christ. And so what he's going to do, and surely in this crowd, what we have to understand is that this crowd is about to feel the full measure of Jesus' warning.

These people, remember Mark is written to Romans, and also the apostles are going to go out, and after the resurrection, they are going to proclaim the name of Christ, and all of them, except John, are going to be martyred.

So they will face the ultimate cost. They do have to count the cost for their life because they will die for their Savior. And many of the crowds who are here, remember, they're here because he's healing people.

He's casting out demons. He's teaching like they've never heard anyone teach the scripture before. And so there's a huge element of people who are following around because they want to hear the show. It's the big attraction.

And it had to have kind of been boring in backwoods Israel in this time. Like what were you doing? You fish a little bit, you cook some fish, maybe you do a little carpentry or trade skill, and then you just kind of sit around.

And then you hear about this guy who is throwing out demons and who is speaking in a way that no one's ever heard before. It kind of draws a crowd. And so we see that. Everywhere he goes, the crowds are coming in.

They won't leave him alone. And so Jesus does what every prosperity preacher of all time—no, no, no, that's not what.

He does.

Every prosperity preacher will capitalize on this popularity and say, and now you got to fund the ministry if you want the blessings. No, what Jesus does seemingly is he tries to run all of them off. What he does, if you look at John 6, which we will do in communion today, he goes into a discourse that talks about, hey, you think you're here for the miracles, you're going to have to eat my body and drink my blood or you will have no part of the kingdom of.

God.

And that makes the people angry. It even makes the apostles—it makes them grumble with each other. What is this teaching? Who can follow that? And so Jesus is really winnowing the crowd because Christianity is not about getting onlookers and drawing the biggest crowds possible so that we can amass as much worldly possession as possible, despite what we see on TBN.

That's not the way it works. The first we see, right off, the first thing he teaches in this discourse is there is a trade. There is a trade. You get Jesus or you get yourself. If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow.

Me.

The Trade Between Self and Christ

So what is self? What is self? Well, in this text, self is regarding as man. We just saw that, right? Get behind me, Satan. You are not setting your mind on God's interest, but man's. That's what Jesus told to Peter.

So regarding as man is about temporal ambitions and treasures. We can't take this out of its context. Peter sees Jesus as the earthly king who's going to come to reign in Israel. But what Jesus truly is, is he is the king of all creation who has all authority in the heavens and the earth.

Temporal ambitions are the self, okay? So one of the two things can happen. We can follow Christ and say that he is the king of everything, or we can make ourselves small kings. We can acknowledge Jesus with our mouth and yet set up our throne with our own interests and our own temporal ambitions, and we can follow after those.

And in America, how that has presented itself is the God of autonomous, libertine freedom. That is the God of America. Make no mistake. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to, and no one can tell me differently.

And if you tell me differently, you are a hater and you're against democracy. That's where we live, okay? What Jesus is saying is, that is a false God also. You have to deny self. You have to deny self.

You have to deny the clinging to your own life. It's really, in a way, counterintuitive. If you cling to your own ideas, your own schemes, your own presuppositions about how the world works, then you have no part of the kingdom of God because you are at odds with Jesus.

There is no king but Christ, and any other king besides Christ will surely be destroyed. So who are you going to place your hope in? Ultimately, are you going to pursue Christ's path, or are you going to pursue your own?

Jesus or yourself? Which way, Western man, right? As the internet memers would say, which way are you going to go? And the answer is, if you choose to go after yourself, you will surely die. You're giving up your soul for that.

It is a trade. So what does it mean to follow Jesus? It means that we carry the instrument of our own death on our backs. In a very real way, the gospel has killed us and brought us back to life. The gospel is this, right?

The gospel is that we are at odds with a holy God, that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. We deserve death from our creator, and we surely receive death because of our sin in.

Adam.

But what the gospel says is that when you repent, then that old man is buried. He is buried, and a new man is brought to life that has righteous clothes on, not the filthy garments of the natural man, but the bright white garments of a righteous person who has been saved by Christ.

We take on the righteousness of Christ because he gave it to us at the cross. So when we carry the gospel with us, and when that is our message, when our message is one of we have been saved by the grace of God, then we carry the instrument of death on our backs, and to set up a new kingdom, which is ourself, is to deny the gospel.

Now many Christians do that, but we will not be left that way because God disciplines the one whom he loves. And if we try to set up our own little kingdoms and make ourselves the own little king of these puny kingdoms, then God will discipline us.

We have to regard as God does, not as man. Did you know that we know how God regards the world? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. He will perfect the work that he began in us. That is not Christian perfectionism outside of the eschaton, but it does mean that God is sanctifying us, that faith without works is dead.

When we regard as God, then we see his law, and we love his law, that it's not a thing to suppress, and it's not a thing to run away from. It's a thing to love. It's a thing to cry out like the psalmist does in Psalm 119, that it is the light to our path, that it is the statutes and the regulations that are God's out of his wisdom that we love and that we follow, and they are guides to us.

We love God's law, we love God, and we love the brotherhood. That is what it means to follow Christ. So I ask you, does the church look like that today? And I'm not talking about the church in general, I'm talking about this church.

Is that what we look like? There's a simple measuring stick for us. Do we love God's law? Do we love God? Do we love the brothers? Or are we bitter, running away from God's law, breaking his commands, and excusing ourselves?

That's what it means to follow Jesus, is that we follow his commands because he is the king. And you can't say that you follow the king while breaking the king's commands. The king will execute his justice on those.

Losing Your Life to Save It

Next, the way that we have to live instead of dying is counterintuitive. The way that we think we have to live, right, if you want to hold on to your life, what do you do? You avoid disease in any way.

We saw it in 2020, right? If you want to live, what do you do? You stay away from everybody, you cover up your face, and you get the medicine, right? The shot. And if you don't get it, unclean, right?

That sort of thing. We try to amass all of the comforts for ourselves. We want to have all the food and that sort of stuff. We might even prep it up. We may save basements full of food in case the apocalypse comes.

That's what it looks like to hold on to your life. But the counterintuitive nature of God's kingdom is that the way you hold on to your life is by losing it.

It's gone.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. That means whoever decides to depend on his own power and his own ingenuity will surely lose his life. He will lose it here because he will not have the abundant life.

He will live a slavish devotion to sin and himself his whole life in misery, walking in the darkness under the power of the prince of the air, or you can let go of your life and follow the king and be entered into his courts and love it.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? That's a rhetorical question. What does it profit you to gain temporally and lose eternally? That's not profit. That's a loss. What will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The answer is the smart man will give nothing in exchange for his soul. There is nothing you can have that's more valuable than your soul. If you believe that we are eternal beings who will live forever, either in eternal torment or in the eternal presence of our Lord in glory without sin, then nothing that happens on the earth is worth your soul, nothing.

That's what Jesus is pointing to. So to cling to your own life is to die, but to die for the gospel's sake is to live forever. See, this trade is non-existent for those who are blind. Those who are blind are proverbially trading their life every day for a bowl of soup just like wicked Esau did.

You understand how the Bible talks about Esau, right? He's a wicked man. He's a man of perdition. Why was he so wicked? Is it because he gave away his earthly birthright? No, that is a personification.

That is an example of Esau's heart. God looks into the heart of everyone. Esau's heart despised his father and despised his lineage so much that in his hunger, in his lust to fill his belly, he gave away everything and he spit on his legacy for a bowl of soup.

So it is with the blind man who does not see the glory of God, whose minds are darkened, who spends every day suppressing God's truth in unrighteousness, he has sold away his whole life for a bowl of soup.

The answer from any clear-thinking, seeing man is that you would give up absolutely nothing in exchange for your soul, nothing. There is no trade that you would make. You would give up every dollar in your bank account.

You would give up your house. You would give up your shirt. You would give up everything to keep your soul because your soul lasts forever. And all of this other stuff, it lasts maybe, maybe 90 years, right?

There is no middle ground. That's the next thing we see in Jesus' speech here and in his teaching. There is no middle ground. For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

First of all, we have to look. We let these words slide by. What does Jesus mean when he says, in this adulterous and sinful generation? Were they specific in their adultery and their sinfulness? Well, yeah.

Jesus is talking to them because they are the people who the oracle of God came to. They had all the prophets. They had Moses. And yet, when the Son of God came to the people of Israel, they did not see him, but they rejected him.

The chief cornerstone came to his people, and the people rejected him. And so they are a peculiarly adulterous generation. And it was prophesied. Jeremiah 13, 27, as for your adulteries and your lustful neighings, like a horse, the lewdness of your prostitution on the hills and the field, I have seen your detestable things.

Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you not cleanse yourself? You see, the people of Israel, they regarded, as we've seen in past weeks, they regarded their traditions. They regarded their cleansing and their rituals.

And they looked at the Gentiles as dogs. And yet, all the while, all the while, the Son of Man had come to them, and he came specifically for them. He came to them, and they looked on him, and they hated him.

They were malicious in their hatred, and so they were profoundly guilty of their spiritual adultery. And so Jesus is calling them out because many of them will be saved. Many of the people of Israel were saved by the words of Christ because they heard, and after the resurrection, remember in Acts 2, that they are cut to the heart, understanding that they had crucified their Lord.

And they asked, what can we do? And Peter said, repent and be baptized. See, Jesus came for those who were lost. Specifically, he came for that sinful and adulterous generation who had killed the prophets before and said, oh, we love these prophets.

And then they killed the greatest one.

That's them.

There is no middle ground. If the people who Jesus is talking to are going to listen to the predominant ideas of the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire, they will die, and they will be denied by Jesus.

Forever.

Do you understand this? He's talking to this crowd. He's looking them in the eyes, and he says, if you don't follow me, if you're ashamed of me, if you're ashamed of my teachings, then I will be ashamed of you when judgment comes, and that shame will be forever.

And Jesus repeats that through the author of Hebrews, where he says that if you shrink back, my soul has no delight in you. There will be the time when every Christian, when every person who proclaims the name of Christ will be tempted and will be persuaded and will be pressured to be ashamed of Christ.

I know that you feel that in your heart, and I know that you've been there, because to walk with Christ is to have those moments where you feel ashamed. Does your soul shrink back, or do you go forth boldly?

Jesus' answer is there is no middle ground. To follow Jesus would be to take on the scorn of all of those worldly powers. It would be to be thrown out of the temple, to be thrown out of the people, to be an outcast, to even be killed in the gladiatorial arenas by the Romans later on, because they would not simply say Caesar is Lord alongside Jesus.

There is no middle way. And then we have a promise before we get into the application. It's a difficult verse, and that's why I've pushed it to today instead of next week. But here's the key. Jesus will certainly come into power.

He will certainly. So here's what he's saying. If I want to slim it down, right, what does Jesus say? You think that you're a king, or you think that these Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire are the king, but I'm the son of man.

I'm the real king. And if you don't follow me, then you will have the punishment of following the wrong.

King.

And you know, in military conquest, what happens to the people who follow the wrong king? They get subjugated and enslaved or executed. Depending on how high up in the ranks you are, you might be executed.

If you're just a run-of-the-mill follower, you're going to get enslaved. It's not good for you when your king loses. You want to be on the winning side. Every boy knows this from five years old. We'll see, you know, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we're going to have the hardcore, lifelong Chiefs fans because they happen to be good right now.

We have Patriots fans that we all have to deal with right now because they were good during a formative time for young boys. Everybody knows it's good to be on the side of the winner. I have the misfortune of being a 49ers fan because there was a guy named Joe Montana and Jerry Rice when I was a little boy, and everybody likes a winner.

It's a cross that I... It's terrible, really. It's horrible, and you can't escape it. But this is the thing, right? This is the thing. Jesus is going to win, and he tells everyone standing here, I will win.

I will win.

So who are you going to serve? This doesn't sound very hippie Jesus-like, does it? Because if you serve the wrong king, you will die. But if you serve the right king, you will never die. And Jesus is the only king who's ever ruled and ever reigned that has the authority to make that kind of promise, that you will never die.

No other king could say that. David couldn't say that. Nebuchadnezzar could not say that because all men are appointed to death, but through Jesus we never die. He will certainly come into power. He was saying to them, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God having come in power.

This is likely, remember, we've talked about Daniel several times because this is where the son of man comes from, is Daniel and Ezekiel. This is likely a fulfillment of Daniel 7, 13 through 14. Let me read it.

Daniel writes, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. And he came up to the ancient of days, and came near before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not be taken away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. Are you seeing that in Mark? Are you seeing what's going on here? That this is a fulfillment of the prophecy, and Jesus is explicitly saying, I am the son of man prophesied in Daniel 7.

You disciples, you're not seeing it yet. You're regarding this too small. Too small, Peter. I'm not the king of Israel, I'm the king of everything. I'm the king of all the nations. And so, looking back, I'm going to have to do this, but I'm going to be quick, hopefully less than two minutes.

This is a difficult passage in Mark 9, 1. Read it many times, underline it, it has several explanations. There are two that I can't make up my mind between. I'm going to go through them. Here we go. A passage with several explanations.

What does it mean when he says that many here will not taste death until they see the kingdom.

Of God?

Well, I'll tell you, the predominant explanation is that he is talking about the transfiguration that's about to happen, that some of them will not see death until they see Jesus revealed in his kingdom of glory.

There's a problem with this, and ultimately why I'm against the grain here and do not.

Accept it.

The transfiguration is happening six days after this. It would be weird to say, some of you will not taste death until you see the kingdom of God come into power, and by the way, that's going to happen on Saturday.

Right? Kind of strange. Kind of a strange use of language. Another one would be, some people say that he is speaking of the mission of the church over time. I'm just going to say that's ridiculous, because all of them died before they said that, and so Jesus would have to be wrong to say that.

This is not referring to the victory of the church over time. Similarly, some think that he is speaking of the final coming of Jesus, his parousia, his presence. That's also ridiculous, because once again, every one of them died, and Jesus would have to be wrong if he's talking about the final coming.

We know from Thessalonians, he has not finally come back to judge the living and the dead. He has not. You have not missed it. He's not come back yet. Now, two good options. He could be speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Matthew 16 says, for the son of man is going to come in the glory of his father with his angels. Sounds right. And then he will repay each one according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.

That gives us pretty good reason to believe that maybe what he's talking about here is some of you people will not see death in the next 40 years when I come and visit judgment and show my kingliness over this people forever as I smash down the temple and destroy this wicked and adulterous generation.

Sound right? That's why I could be highly convinced to believe that. Final, final possibility. Calvin and Luther believe this one, that he is speaking of the power of Jesus in the resurrection and at Pentecost.

Romans 1 .4, who was designated as the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Or 1 Corinthians 6 .14, now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power.

Whichever one you ascribe to, the one thing that I want you to see, this is a matter for further study. I do not want to jump into the eschatology deep dive right here, okay? It's possible and it looms before me.

I don't want to do that. Whichever explanation you take, the one that is clear to his disciples and the ones hearing is that he is surely going to win. So you better think about what you're doing. Do you get it?

Do you get the sober warning in this text? You better think about what you're doing. I'm going to win. And not only am I saying I'm going to win, Daniel said I was going to win. And not only did I say I was going to win, and Daniel said I was going to win, Daniel said when I'm going to win.

Did you know Daniel predicted by the year when Jesus was going to win? And the Pharisees know this. Do you understand this whole thing happening in the New Testament? There's a reason that they're a perverse, adulterous generation.

That's because they know exactly what's going on. It was all foretold. The star in the sky that led the Magi, the advent, all of it was prescribed, understood. The prophets were waiting on it. The scribes were waiting.

Everyone was waiting for the Messiah to come at this time because Daniel had prophesied it with his weeks. And they all knew it was going to happen. And then Jesus comes on the scene casting out demons and understand the level of sin to look at that at this time and say, no, not God.

He's actually a devil. You think God's going to take kindly to that?

No.

And so Jesus gets harsh here because he's going to send out his disciples to make war on the enemy. And if you want to see how that went, read Acts. As the disciples make war on the enemy. Because Christianity is a conquistorial religion.

Despite what you've heard your whole life, Scripture is much better than that. Do you think God changed his mind from the time of Moses and Joshua to when the greater prophet who was prophesied came and made war to claim all the nations?

No, he didn't change. He didn't change. He came to save what was lost. So how do we follow this? Nobody's killing us in America. Now, they are killing us around the world. Our brothers in Nigeria and in Syria and all over the world, it is dangerous.

And they do count the cost. But I'm going to tell you, the degree of persecution does not influence the sanctification of the Christian. Did you know that? You were sanctified by the Holy Spirit, not by external forces.

Now, surely God uses means. But there's a thing here. And this is what we do. We like to take the truth of this passage and use it in a way that so spiritualizes it in America that we lose its heft. The listeners were about to face all the things that Jesus said.

They were going to lose their status, their possessions, or their life. But in America, I think we can miss the keys. So here's what we do. And I want to give you a few examples of how we do not count the cost and how we must start counting the cost.

Counting the Cost in a Culture of Fear of Man

See, there was one who was listening who did not count the cost. I'm going to read that in communion. John gives us the idea that Judas is one who was going to be lost. He was given to the devil. He heard all of this.

And in his hard heartedness, he thought, no, I'm going to choose money. I'm going to choose money. He regarded it as man. So what stops us? How do we take up our cross and follow Christ? The first thing that gets in our way, the first roadblock to us counting the cost is we have a fear of man.

I put this one number one because I think it's the most important for us, is that Christians today, we value the opinions of others over what Christ has taught us. We want to keep our reputation. You've heard it cloaked with gospel coalition types saying that we have to be winsome, that we will lose our witness if we're too dogmatic about the faith.

Did the disciples share such trepidation in a culture that was much harsher than ours? No, they did not. They turned the world upside down. They were telling everybody they had to throw away their idols, that they turned the commerce upside down in every city they went to.

They were not worried about the opinions of people who are going to revile them. They were worried about the victory of the gospel. So what do we do? How do we value others' opinions over God? Well, what we do is sometimes that we are afraid to call out those most popular sins.

There are some sins that we can bag on all day long, and I see it in the reform pulpit all the time. There are certain preachers that we are, without any hesitation, going to blast by name. Joel Osteen comes to mind.

I will get no emails and no pushback about saying Joel Osteen is a loathsome heretic and that the prosperity gospel can burn in hell and be thrown in there with a sack. No one is going to get upset about that.