Scripture Reading From Mark 8

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Hi, my name is Rosalie, and I'm in ninth grade. Today I'm going to be reading our passage in Mark eight thirty-one to thirty-eight. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. 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. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and 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. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thank you,

Defining Moments That Change Us

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Rosalie. You go ahead and have a seat. Good morning. My name's Ken Jensen, and it's my privilege to be able to share from God's Word this morning. I want to think, um, I I was thinking about this. I believe everybody in this room can point to at least one defining moment in your life. It might be an experience or a decision you made or an event that you went through, but it fundamentally changed the trajectory of your life. And maybe you didn't even recognize it at the time, but you look back on it and you think, boy, if I had not made that decision, or if I had not taken that path, or if that had not happened to me, my life would be in a completely different place today. Maybe it was the university that you attended, maybe it was the one that you didn't get accepted to. Um, maybe it was your wedding day, life-changing. Or maybe it was the breakup when you decided I don't want to spend the rest of my life with that person. Um, maybe it was when you first had children. That changes everything, doesn't it? I mean, I remember when our firstborn, uh Aaron was born, uh, our pastor at the time, he says, Well, welcome to your last full night of sleep for the next 18 years. Those of you who have teenagers, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe it's the career path you chose or the one you turned down. Maybe it was your decision to finally get clean and sober. But I bet everyone in this room can think of at least one defining moment, a hinge point that everything kind of shifted and changed for you.

Mark’s Hinge Question About Jesus

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And that's kind of where we're at in the book of Mark. We have been going through a study through Mark's gospel, and it's it's Mark's uh presentation of the life and the teachings of Jesus. And up until now, all the way through the first half of the book, and up until actually last week, it's been mostly, Mark has been focusing mostly on who is this Jesus? And you find it over and over again in chapter two. Um Jesus heals him paralytic, and he says to him, Your sins are forgiven. And everybody says, Who is this? Only God can forgive sin. The disciples are uh in a boat, Jesus is asleep, a storm comes up, and he and they say, Don't you care? Don't you care? And he stands up, he says, Be still. And everything stops, and they say, Who is this? That even the wind and the waves obey him. Over and over again, that question comes up in the first half of Mark's gospel. And then here, things change. And it changed with the passage we looked at last week when Jesus said, Who do people say that I am? And then he turns to the disciples, but what about you? Who do you say that I am? And that's where we left it last week, because that's really the hinge point of all of this. And every one of us has to answer that question: Who is this Jesus? Who is he to me? And of course, Peter's answer to Jesus was, You're the Messiah. You are the anointed one. And that term is very, very meaningful. It's powerful. Um, it is, it just carries everything. It's not just you are the king, you are the king over all kings. And that declaration changes everything in Mark's gospel. And so from there, Jesus begins to tell about now what's going to happen. The first half of Mark's gospel centers on who is this Jesus? The second half, from here on out, is about what is he doing? What does he come to do? And that becomes a turning point. He talks to them about his impending death and all of these things. And he ends it with these words. Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. This is a defining moment. What does that mean? What does that mean? Take up your cross and follow me. Deny myself. What does that even look like? How do we do it? What does it mean to deny myself? And that's what we're going to look at this morning. And

Denying Self Begins With The Cross

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I think it starts with this: that denying myself starts with a profound understanding of who and what Christ has done. If we can put that up there. There it is. Defining myself denying myself starts with a profound understanding of what Christ has done. Peter makes this incredible declaration: you are the Messiah, you are the anointed one, you are the king above all kings. And with that term, carried all kinds of expectations. Some people had a more religious expectation of who Messiah would be, that he was going to become and restore David's throne, that he was going to set up once again God's rule in the nation of Israel. Others had a more militaristic sense of he's going to come and throw off all of this oppression that we are suffering under the Roman rule. But both of them had this idea of power and of victory and of force. And every one of them was wrong. And Jesus needs to correct their under misunderstanding of Messiah. He goes on and it says, He began to teach them that the Son of Man, and that by the way, is one of Jesus' favorite expressions of himself, the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after that, three days, after three days, rise again. I want to highlight the word must, because that's a very important term in this sentence. In fact, he repeats it twice. Why the must part of it? And Tim Keller does a brilliant thing with it, explaining all the different dimensions to this idea of what Jesus must do.

Why Forgiveness Always Costs Someone

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And it all has to do with their understanding of who is this Messiah. There's a first aspect of it or dimension of it is in terms of justice, that the Son of Man must suffer many things. Why does he have to suffer? It has to do with the nature of forgiveness because forgiveness involves suffering. And we know this on a human level. If, for instance, let's say you loan your car to somebody and they go out and they total your car. Okay, well, you got insurance, but you got a $1,000 deductible. Now, you got a choice. You can make your friend who totaled your car pay the thousand dollars, or you pay it yourself. But see, something has happened, and something has to, there's a price that's involved with that. And that that deductible, either you make them pay or you suffer the consequences and you pay the cost. Every time there is forgiveness, there is a cost involved. Forgiveness, you don't just say, well, I forgive. Something has to be done about the totaled car. Somehow you have to replace that, or you even suffer more and you decide to go without a car for the rest of your life. But you see, anytime there is forgiveness, there is suffering involved on one side or the other. We even, if you want to take it not just on a financial level, let's say someone has harmed you deeply, maybe um ruined your reputation or besmirched your reputation, or or maybe did something that just did some deep personal harm to you. Now you have a choice. You can try to take vengeance on them and make sure that they suffer the same way that you are suffering, or you choose to forgive. And what you are saying in that is, I will absorb the suffering. See, if I choose to take vengeance, you know what that does? A couple of things. First off, it just puts this cycle of vengeance that continues. Because no matter what harm you feel, you always feel a deeper harm than what you think you are putting out on somebody else. So you take your vengeance and you think it's an eye for an eye, it's equal, it's equal. Okay, you hurt me, now I'm gonna hurt you back, and we're we're good. Except they feel the hurt that you inflicted on them more than you intended to, maybe. And so now they feel a deeper hurt, so they want to take back vengeance on you. And so there's a cycle of vengeance that goes on. Somewhere, someone has to break that cycle. And when you choose to forgive, you are saying, I will absorb all of the pain, all of the hurt, all on me. And if you don't do that, not only do you perpetuate this cycle of revenge, but you become just like the person you're taking vengeance on. So you hurt yourself in all of it. We know that on a human level. And so when Jesus is saying he must suffer many things, he's saying, I need to take on the suffering that you've inflicted, the suffering of your sin. And I don't think, I don't think any of us truly understand the depth of the pain and the suffering that we inflict when we sin. Because we all kind of think, well, we're pretty good people. Yeah, every once in a while I kind of mess up. We don't understand the depth of what our sin does, what it inflicts on our world, what it inflicts on our spirits and our souls. And Jesus saying, I must suffer. Someone has to absorb the pain for forgiveness.

Rejected Authorities And Cosmic Battle

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So it happens on this justice level, but it also happens what you might call on the on the on the cosmic level. He goes on, he says, and he must be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. Now, who are those guys? They are the religious authorities. They are the ones who are kind of in charge in terms of God's people. They are actually God's representatives to some degree for the people. So there's something that's happening here, not just on a justice level and forgiveness level, it has to do with what Paul writes about in Ephesians, about principalities and powers and authorities of this dark world and evil forces in the heavenlies. There is a cosmic battle that is going on here. These people who were there to be God's representatives, these men who were there to be the arbiters of justice, if you will, on God's behalf, they take it upon themselves in a miscarriage of justice. And instead of carrying out justice, they're showing what power does to corrupt justice. And part of what Jesus is doing when he must suffer and must be rejected by them is he is now in on the cross, he is absorbing the injustices of this world and the corruption of power in this world, not only in this world, but in the heavenlies. And so there's a second thing that he's doing here. And then there's a third aspect to it.

Unconditional Love That Builds Trust

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There's a personal aspect. There's a personal dimension. He goes on and he says, and that he must be killed. Now notice he doesn't say he must die, he must be killed. And there's a there's a great deal of importance as to how his manner what his manner of death was. And it has to do with the nature of love. You see, all of us have this deep need and desire for love. Everybody has it. Okay. And none of us can give it unconditionally. And it has to do with this. So I love somebody, but because I'm in desperate need of love, the degree that I can give love, there's always kind of a mercenary aspect to it. I love you because I get something out of it. If I love you, I get the sense of love back from you. And that's why our love is always conditional. We cannot love unconditionally because of our own need for love. There is always an aspect of it, and so we it it's it's not unconditional, it's conditional because if you don't love me back, well then I'm done with you. And there's no vulnerability to it. We always keep our options open. I love you because I get some kind of love in return. And I can't give myself completely for your benefit because there's always something, there's an aspect to it that I get something out of it. And so if I don't get that, I don't give myself completely. So it's not vulnerable. But when Jesus went to the cross, he didn't have to do any of that for anybody. It was unconditional love. He doesn't need us, but he loves us. And so this personal aspect of it has to do with the nature of love, that he must be killed. It was unconditional love. And what he is showing us in this unconditional love is this uh vulnerable, unconditional love that demonstrates that no matter what you have done, I still love you. And that gives us a great deal of confidence with this idea of denying myself and surrendering myself and taking up my own cross. Because if Jesus will go to the cross and give his life for me and go through all of that, he's not gonna play games with my life. Because I think sometimes we hold back into giving all of ourselves to him because we think, well, what? He might ask me to do something that's gonna be uncomfortable. He might call me to do something that I don't want to do. But you got to understand, this is the expression of his love for you. And he's not gonna go through all of that and unconditionally love just so he can play games with your life. So when he says deny yourself, he's saying, trust me, trust me.

When God’s Worldview Confronts Ours

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I think the second thing that happens with denying myself, it means reorienting my worldview. When we talk about worldview, every one of us has what you might call a mental map of how life ought to work. It has to do with um how we think things ought to be working out in this world. That's where we get the idea when every time we say, Well, that's not fair, how do you know it's not fair? Because my mental map tells me it's not fair. That's my worldview. And it has to do with my values, has to do with my ethics, my morals, my behaviors, my expectations, all of these things. And that's why Peter reacts so strongly, because there is a conflict of his worldview with God's. It goes on, he says that Jesus spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke them. Now, that again is another important word there. That word rebuke is the very same word that Jesus used when he rebuked the demons. And so this is a very, very harsh scolding, if you will, that Peter begins to rebuke him. Why such a strong reaction? Because his beliefs and his worldview and his expectations are contrary to God's. And whether it's his own personal concern for Jesus, or maybe his own self-preservation, or maybe it's maybe it has to do with just his vision of what Messiah was going to do. There is a conflict of his worldview. And he said to him, You are Messiah, you are the king above all kings, you are the anointed one, you are the one that we've been looking for, you're the one that we've been expecting, but on my terms. And how often do we do that? How often does my expectation conflict with God's? How many times have you been frustrated, disappointed, or even angry with God? I've had those moments. My second um ministry opportunity, ministry position, was a very, very difficult one. In fact, it would we were at a church, we were only there one year, and there's a whole lot of backstory to that whole thing that I don't have time to get into. But it came to a point after one year where I didn't have a job. And and all of a sudden it was like, God, is this the way that you treat the people that want to serve you wholeheartedly? I have given my life to serve you. I've given my everything to serve you. I don't get much pay. I don't have to deal with these kind of people. I got all these things. If this is the way that you treat the people that want to serve you, you can have it. That's that was because God's worldview conflicted with mine. And I I actually left pastoral ministry for about two and a half years. I was angry with God, I was disappointed with God. Thankfully, he can handle it. But every time we have those reactions, and by the way, he gives us the freedom to have those reactions and the patience for us to work it through. Because every time we have that, it's just a subtle reminder that my worldview, my mental map is different than God's. And it's so important that Jesus actually calls him out on it. Says, 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. What he's talking about is your mental map. This is your worldview. And your worldview is all about human concerns. You don't have the concerns of God. You don't understand what God is doing here. And he uses some very harsh words. Get behind me, Satan. Now, does he think he's become demon-possessed? No, I don't think so. But what he is saying to him, and he needs, see, this is an important thing because this changes everything for Peter in terms of his understanding of Jesus and what he thought Messiah was going to be, and what Jesus, who he really is, and what he's really going to do. And it makes it takes firm correction right here. Because if he doesn't correct this, Peter's going to be lost forever. See, more often than not, our worldview is in contrast with God's. God doesn't do things the way we want them to sometimes. Have you ever noticed that? God doesn't follow your agenda. Or am I the only one? He doesn't follow my timing. He doesn't work out things that I want to see worked out the way I want to see them happen. He doesn't do that. And I think when Jesus explains a little bit next to uh on in verse 38, he says this 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. What he's saying is, your worldview needs to change here. And if you're ashamed of my ways and you can't buy into my worldview, you are missing out on what God is going to ultimately do. You see, you can't call him Messiah and King above all kings and then try and negotiate what that means. You don't negotiate with kings. You can't say, Well, I'll obey you if I'll follow you if Jesus at this point is saying, No, if you're gonna follow me, these are the terms. You don't get to choose, these are my terms, and so often we think that we know better. But I'm gonna tell you this if your beliefs and your values and your behaviors are in conflict with God's, guess who's wrong? And sometimes we need gentle reminders, and sometimes we need some pretty harsh rebukes. What I want to notice here is that Jesus doesn't give up on Peter. I want to go back to the other scripture, but um, verse 33. If I can get that back up there. See, you gotta kind of get the picture in your mind. When first Peter, when Peter, when Jesus first tells about what's going to happen, it says that Peter took him aside. So this is kind of a side conversation. Conversation where Peter begins to rebuke Jesus. But when Jesus rebukes Peter back, it's still the private conversation. See, because he says Jesus turned and looked at his disciples. So Peter's over here with Jesus. And before Jesus is going to rebuke Peter and set him straight, he looks back and makes sure the other disciples are still over there. And I think that just speaks to God's grace and his mercy to us. Even in those harsh rebukes, he's gentle. He doesn't call Peter out in front of everybody and really embarrass him, which he could. But Peter, but Mark gives us this kind of insight. This is just kind of a side conversation. And notice, by the way, Jesus doesn't give up on Peter. He doesn't disown him. He doesn't reject him. He says, okay, you can't follow me anymore. He hangs with Peter and he corrects him, but he does it gently. And that's all part of denying myself. It's being willing to change my worldview, my mental map of things.

Losing The Old Self To Live

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And then I think the last thing is that denying myself, it actually results in embracing my true self. Verse 34. Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. What Jesus is actually doing is giving them good news. It sounds harsh, but it's really good news. In fact, it goes on, verse 35. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. Whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What he is doing is he is telling them there's a better life for you. This is good news. Yes, you must deny yourself. You got to give up the old self to get in on the new life. And the word that's used here for life is the Greek word is suche, which is where we get our word psychology or psychosis. And it has to do with who we are, our identity, our personality. And what he's saying is if you're going to find your true self, you have to let go of the old self. If you want the real life, you're going to have to let go of the old life. And all of this, I think with all of this conversation about Jesus' death and the persecution and the suffering and all of those rejection, all of those things, they have missed out on the most important part. And it comes at the very end of Mark 30, verse 31. He must suffer many things, rejected by the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law, and he must be killed, and after three days, rise again. See, I think they got so caught up in all this suffering part and the rejection part and being killed and all of those things, they didn't hear the last three words. Three days rise again. See, the only way you can be resurrected is you gotta die. Yeah. The only way you can get resurrected is you gotta die. The only way to get into this new life is the old life has to die. And it sounds harsh and it sounds difficult, but what he's really saying is this is good news. Because everything that you are building your life on right now is not your real life. Everything that you are using to define yourself now is not who you really are. There is a new life, there is a real life, there is a true self. The only way you're gonna get it is you got to give up the old one. C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity does a great job with it. He says this the more we get, the more we get what we now call ourselves out of the way and let him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. Our real selves are all waiting for us in him. The more I resist him and try to live it on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity, my own upbringing, my own surroundings and natural desires. Until you have given up yourself to him, you will not have a real life. And that's so true. Think about how you define yourself. And every culture kind of does it a little bit differently. Some of us define ourselves by our education. It's Dr. Jensen to you. I'm not a doctor. I want the titles. I'm senior pastor, I am founding pastor, Ken Jensen. That's how I define myself when I define myself. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. That's my real identity. We define ourselves by our titles, we define ourselves by our influence, our status, our wealth, our reputation, how many Facebook likes we get, or Instagram followers we have, whatever it might be, we all have ways that we try to define. Some of us even try to define ourselves religious, we're church to tenders. Every one of them is based on performance. And a performance identity is always on shaky ground. Because when you cease to be the lead pastor of Northgate Christian Fellowship, where'd my identity go? Or a marriage ends in divorce, and I was a husband and a father, and now where's my identity? Or my identity was on the title that and on the corner office and the education degree or whatever it might be, and then that gets threatened, or I lose that job, or whatever it might be, or nobody cares about my title, then I lose my identity. And what Jesus is saying here is all of these things that you that all of the identities and selves that we try to make for ourselves are not our true selves. They are always at risk. There's always a chance you're gonna lose them. There's always something you are not in control. And he says, if you're gonna find your real life, you got to let go of the old one. Because all of those old ways of defining ourselves are superficial, they are temporary, and they are all performance-based. And he says, No, what you need is my grace. What you need is an identity that I have for you. And that's why he went to the cross. And that's why this is such a pivotal point in Mark's gospel. Like Pastor Lawrence said last week, how you def how you answer the question, who do you say I am, changes everything. Changes my identity, change myself. So he goes on, he says, Whoever wants to save their life will lose it. The more you want to hang on to that old life, that old identity, you're gonna lose it eventually. But whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel, they will save it. See, it's much easier to be spiritual than to fully surrender. But the true life, the true self, only comes with surrender.

A Simple Picture Of Real Faith

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Just stand with me. No, this is not the end of the sermon, but stand with me anyway. Because I want to help you understand what Jesus is really getting at here. So everybody, come on. Audience participation, everybody stand now. On the count of three, we are all going to sit down together. But it's important we have to do this all together. All right, so you're ready. You with me? On three. We're all gonna sit down all at once. One, two, three. Wait, stop. Okay, sit down. The moment I said stop, you couldn't. Why? Because you had transferred all of your trust off of your legs onto the seat behind you. That's faith. That's what Jesus is talking about here. You can't be halfway down and stay there very long. There is a transfer of trust. And it's not just an intellectual, well, I agree with the teachings of Jesus, or I think he was a great man. No. You put your trust in him, you move from trusting yourself, your definition of yourself, all of the identity that you were trying to create for yourself, and you say, It's yours. I trust you. And that might involve suffering. It might involve rejection, like it was for Jesus. But it's the only way to find your true self. C.S. Lewis finishes this way. Until you have given up yourself to him, you will not have a real self. Nothing that you have not given away will really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself and you will find the law in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look to Christ and you will find him, and with him, everything else. So who do you say I am? Jesus asks. How you say, answer that question. It will change everything. And maybe you've been here and attending here and going to church and doing the spiritual thing for a long, long time. And maybe today it's the time to change everything. Or maybe you're here for the very first time and you've been seeking and wondering about what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. I'm going to tell you it changes everything. It is the defining moment of your life. It changes how you look at your life, changes how you look at your world, changes how you how it changes everything. And by the way, that is a slow process. But it starts with that decision.

Take The Next Step Toward Jesus

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And I would encourage you, if you haven't done this yet, to take that very first step. Or if you've been playing the church game and the spiritual game without any real commitment, take that next step. It will change everything. In fact, we we have a devotional that we give make available to everyone who wants to take that step. And if you want to learn what that even looks like, it's a 21-day devotional to take you through an understanding of what it looks like. What it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus. So let me pray for you. Lord, giving up is so hard. Because there's so much that we want to control in ourselves. May we see that you love us so completely, that you don't play with our lives. You came to give us life. That you went to the cross, not to make us religious, but to change us. That you emptied yourself of your life so that we could find our true self and our true life. And may we today be taking that next step forward in following you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.