These are the Sermon Notes for July 12, 2020. We are now meeting at the church with limited seating and specific procedures and protocols that need to be followed. Read our Returning to Worship plan here. You can still watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.
Mark 8:34-38 Take up Your Cross
Good morning! We are going to be studying Mark 8:34-38 this morning, page 844 in the pew Bibles.
This passage that we are going to look at today is one of the greatest proofs that Christianity is NOT a man-made religion, it’s not a product of some guy’s imagination. If it were, it would not include statements like we are going to look at this morning.
You’ll remember from last week that we looked at the disciples’ confession of Jesus as the Christ, God’s Anointed One, as well as Jesus’ rebuke of Peter for attempting to thwart God’s program and directives for Jesus. They were happy with Jesus’ work as Prophet and held Him up as King but they didn’t understand His work was also the work of the Priest, serving as the sacrifice for the sin of mankind, to sprinkle His own blood in the Holy of Holies in the heavenly Temple.
But there was more to the program for those who would follow Jesus, a way of suffering, of self-denial, and submission. So let’s look at our text together, Mark 8:34-38.
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 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.”
Let’s pray.
Can you see just from a quick reading of the text why I would say that Christianity couldn’t possibly have been invented in the minds of men? What person would hold self-denial up as a central principle of their made up religion? Every false religion ever invented puts man in the center of it, turning pleasure into an act of worship of one’s self.
Jesus demands exactly the opposite.
In verse 34 Jesus lays down this central principle in what it means to follow Him and then gives us four “for’s” to flesh it out.
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
This is a great example of the importance of considering the original audience in Bible study. Listen to Jesus’ statement: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
When Jesus mentions, taking up one’s cross, what do you think of? Jesus’ cross, right? Jesus’ death on the cross is THE central event in all of human history. But we are not the first ones to hear those words, the disciples and the crowd that was there that day near Caesarea Philippi. What do you think they thought of when Jesus mentions taking up one’s cross and following Him? He had yet to take up a cross, in Mark’s Gospel at least He hadn’t even mentioned a cross, He spoke about His death but nothing about a cross. So what did the statement mean to those who first heard Him say it?
Don’t misunderstand me, the people living there in Israel under Roman rule knew all too well what a cross was. It was an instrument of humiliation, torture, and death, invented by the Romans. Those who were crucified were crucified publically, for all to see as a warning for those who would dare to rebel against the iron fist of the Roman Empire.
So why would Jesus tell His followers to take up their own cross and follow Him? He wasn’t foreshadowing His own death as we might see it from our historical side of the cross. So what did He really mean?
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
Jesus is talking about shifting allegiances. From the beginning Mankind has been acting in our own self-interest, treating ourselves as if we are the kings and queens of our own little kingdoms. But here Jesus suggests a different way, a better way, the ONLY way, the way of denying oneself, taking up our cross, and following Him.
There’s so much going on in this short statement!
First of all, I’m sure you have heard the expression, “We all have our crosses to bear.” The meaning of that expression is that “our cross” is some difficulty or challenge that we each face, or some inconvenience. This expression is based on this statement of Jesus but it’s so far from what Jesus intended and so cheapens the thought He was expressing.
As far as the Romans were concerned, Jesus’ crucifixion was pretty typical for the most part until it came to His actual death. It was common practice for the Romans to force the condemned to carry their own cross to the site of their crucifixion just like Jesus did. It was an act of forced submission to the authority that the condemned had once rebelled against. This was obviously not the case with Jesus as He had committed no crime, but it was for everybody else.
So when Jesus says to take up your cross, it goes hand in hand with the command to deny oneself. Instead of a forced submission it is a voluntary one, voluntarily demonstrating submission to Jesus as the ultimate authority in one’s life instead of oneself.
If anyone would shift their allegiance from themselves to Jesus, let them continually deny themselves, that’s the tense in the Greek, a continuous action, let them continually take up their cross, and follow Him.
Of course those of us on this side of the cross historically know that Jesus would eventually carry His own cross too, but not in submission to the Romans but in submission to Father God. Jesus’ self-denial would grant forgiveness of sin for all who would believe in Him and call on Him as Lord.
And calling on Jesus as Lord, following Him is what this passage is all about, and Jesus breaks it down further in His four “for’s.”
35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Paul wrote about this in Philippians 3:7-11,
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Paul had it all as far as the world was concerned, money, power, position, respect, but he gave it all up to follow Jesus, he denied himself, took up his cross, and followed Jesus, even though it cost him all of those things of worldly value. Though he lost his “life” he gained so much more!
36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
Jesus met a man like this in Luke 18:18-25,
18 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 21 And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24 Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
There’s no crime in being rich by the world’s standards but when wealth and power and privilege come before devotion to Christ we are in danger of forfeiting our very souls.
37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?
JP Lange wrote, “The earthly-minded person gives his soul as a ransom price for the world, after laying down such a price, what does he have for a ransom price to buy his soul back? He who lays down his soul for the world will lose his soul AND the world; he who gains his soul gains the world as well.”
These two questions from Jesus are rhetorical, everyone who heard Him knew the answers.
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? NOTHING
What can a man give in return for his soul? NOTHING
JP Lange also wrote, “You must not watch Christ, but follow Him; you must not boast about Him but act like Him.”
38 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.
What a horrible fate. And how many of us are guilty of this? When we compromise to fit in, when we keep silent to be accepted or to avoid conflict, when we hide our faith because someone might be looking or think we’re strange or dumb, this is exactly what we are doing.
So what is Jesus after, what was He calling the disciples and the crowd and us to do?
To submit to the Father like he did, to obey God’s will as revealed in His Word, like He did, to accept the consequences without reservation for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the gospel. To humbly and continuously, throughout the course of our lives, say no to ourselves and say yes to the Father.
World gained, nothing gained. Soul lost, all lost.
Amen
