Series

Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"

[28] They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."

[31] He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and 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 things of God, but the things of men."

[34] Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. [36] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? [37] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Who is Jesus Christ? It is so interesting to me that after 2,000 years, Jesus is still on the front cover of Time every year for some reason or another. The world says He’s dead, but He just won’t go away. He raised the question of His identity while He was still on earth.

Mark 8:27, “Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, ‘Who do people say I am?’ [28] They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ [29] ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’”

Folks, this is the question of the ages. Who do you say Jesus is? The true identity of Jesus is the central question of all time, and your answer to this question determines your eternal destiny. Many have wanted to say He is a great religious leader, the founder of one of the world’s great religions, a profound moral and spiritual teacher; some would even say a prophet of some sort. But all of those answers fall short of the truth, and short of what we need to believe in order to be saved.

Mark 8:29, “Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ.’” Matthew adds that Jesus replied, 16:17, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” Mark doesn’t record this last sentence, probably because he got his information from Peter, and Peter may have omitted it out of humility. But it is always true that whenever someone comes to the right conclusion about who Jesus is, it’s because the Father has revealed that to them. We can’t convince people of who Jesus is. That’s why we have to pray more for our friends who are as yet unconvinced. Yes, we should learn as many answers to their questions and objections as we can; yes, we should try to persuade them. But in the end, it will have to be God who reveals it to them, so we must pray much more.

So Peter correctly identifies Jesus as the Christ, which is Greek for the Hebrew word Messiah, both of which mean the Anointed one. But what did Peter and the other disciples think that meant? What were their expectations of the Messiah? They thought that the Messiah would be a strong national leader, who would lead the Jews to throw off the yoke of Roman domination, and re-establish Israel as a world power. This would be done through military might, through many violent battles that pitted the Jews against their enemies and won. He would be a greater son of David, a King in David’s mold, who would restore Israel to the greatness it had had under David a thousand years before.

So when Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, that had to be a proud and hopeful moment for all the disciples. Jesus didn’t deny it—so it must have been true! One of the disciples was named Simon the Zealot, and he must have been especially thrilled to hear this, because he had previously belonged to a movement in Israel that sought to overthrow the Roman government by force. All of them must have swelled with nationalistic pride and hope that at long last, their time had come!

But then, Mark 8:30, “Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.” That was curious. If He was the Messiah, then surely they had to tell everyone that the Lord’s Anointed King was now here, and they should begin to prepare for the day when they would fight for their freedom under His leadership. Why would He not want them to tell others?

It was because they misunderstood what kind of Messiah He was. The time would come for them to preach the gospel to all creation, but not until they got it right. Their spiritual sight was still coming in stages. So Jesus quickly went on to explain it to them.

Mark 8:31, “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”

This was just incomprehensible, especially given the disciples’ understanding of who the Messiah was to be. It’s as though you told a child who believed in Santa Claus that Santa was the fat old guy down the block who could barely walk out to his car, and who certainly could not carry sleigh-loads of toys around. It would be like telling the most ardent political supporters that their candidate was indeed destined to be president, but that he would govern from a dumpster behind the Department of Housing and Urban Development offices. He would not be the Commander in Chief of the armed forces; he would not make Supreme Court nominations; and he would not seek to impose his will on the nation. In fact, he would be killed by an assassin shortly into his time in office. Talk about letting the air out of their sails! What a let down for the disciples! What a disappointment!

So it is no surprise that Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. This can’t be, Master! This is wrong! You’ve got it wrong. If you’re the Messiah, you can’t suffer and die—that’s not the way the script goes.

William Barclay says, “It is a strange thing, and sometimes a terrible thing, that the tempter sometimes speaks to us in the voice of a well-meaning friend.”[1] You may have wrestled with a tough decision, and finally come to a conclusion about what you should do, but it involves some loss or pain and suffering for you and maybe for your family. Maybe you are going to turn down the promotion you’ve been offered, because it would mean too much time away from the family, and instead, you are going to look for another job that will pay much less, but give you more time at home. Something like that. And then along comes a “friend” who says, Oh no, you can’t do that! Think about your future! Think about how much more good you could do if you took the other job. Think about your family! What about your retirement? They seem so reasonable, and their concern is all for you. But that’s just the problem—their concern is all for you, and not for the Lord. They are looking at the situation from a human perspective, like Peter was, and not from the Lord’s perspective.

Or your child or your grandchild comes to you and tells you they think God is calling them to the mission field, and suddenly, you have a hundred reasons why that’s a bad idea: It’s dangerous; you could get sick; you’ll have to beg for money; you’ll be so far away; I’ll never see my grandchildren; you don’t love me if you do this; charity begins at home; aren’t there lost people in America you could reach?, etc. Whose voice is that? Whose values is that expressing?

So Jesus had to put Peter in his place. Mark 8:33, “‘Get behind me, Satan!’ he said. ‘You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” That’s really strong language! But Jesus means it, because the original temptation to avoid the cross came from Satan, when He was out in the wilderness at the very beginning of His ministry, and this one comes from the same source. This is a human way of looking at things, not God’s way, and Jesus flat out rejects it. It’s a verbal slap in the face, but Peter deserved it. And Jesus said it in the hearing of all the disciples so that none of them would be tempted to step in and defend Peter. They might have been thinking the same way, but they weren’t going to say so now.

God’s ways are not our ways. Period. We are always looking at life from a human perspective: what’s in it for me, how can I get ahead, how can I maximize my pleasure and comfort and wealth? what would be in my best interests? But as we keep being reminded by the Scripture, “It’s not about us!” Life is all about the One who gave it to us, and we exist for His pleasure and glory, not for ourselves. The values of the kingdom are completely opposite those of our culture, and we constantly have to fight to prevent our minds and attitudes from being conformed to a world system that is opposed to the kingdom of God.

But now turn it around and look at what Christ did from God’s point of view. His values are radically different from ours. We are inherently self-centered, self-protective; He is so full of love that He is self-sacrificing. When we ask why Jesus was a suffering Messiah, the answer is, because He suffered in our place; He took the suffering, the punishment, the separation from God that we deserved for our sin. He took it all on Himself, so that God could forgive us and not compromise His justice. Do not ever misinterpret God’s offer of grace and mercy as meaning that sin doesn’t matter. It matters so much that the Son of God had to die for it. He was our substitute at the bar of God’s justice, so that, as Paul said, Rom 3:26, God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Jesus goes on, then, to explain what the implications are for them. Mark 8:34, “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.’” Notice that there are not two kinds of Christians: those who merely believe in Jesus as their Savior, and those who also follow Him as their Lord. In the very context of explaining what kind of Messiah/Savior He is, Jesus calls us to follow Him all the way to the cross. If He is not Lord, then He is not Savior, either.

Notice that Jesus addressed the crowd here, as well as His disciples. This is Jesus’ version of an altar call, and it is radically different from the sort of thing we hear today. American culture has distorted the call of Christ so much that the early Christians wouldn’t even recognize it. Jesus makes a full disclosure; no false offers of comfort and blessing that would pander to our self-centered natures. Just a straight-up statement of what it is going to cost us. We’ve all heard the sort of thing that Jesus doesn’t say: “Just come to Jesus and all your troubles will go away.” “Believe in Jesus and He’ll give you the perfect husband/wife/job you’re looking for.” “Trust in Christ and He’ll make you healthy and wealthy.” That’s not what Jesus said! He said, come to me and you will have to suffer, too.

Garibaldi was an Italian patriot who appealed for recruits in World War II in these terms: “I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with all his heart, and not with his lips only, follow me.”[2] When Ernest Shackleton was recruiting men for his trip to Antarctica, he reportedly[3] advertised, “MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.” That’s exactly the sort of thing Jesus does here. He tells it like it is. He never lured people into following Him under false pretenses, but always told them what it would cost them.

We get a little glimpse here of what it means to follow Jesus. He often called people to follow Him, and many people today are calling themselves “followers of Jesus” rather than “Christians”, because of the negative connotations associated with the term “Christian”. I think that’s a good phrase to use for ourselves, but let’s be clear what we mean by it. If we are to follow Jesus, then He is the Leader of our lives, and we will follow His commands, His Spirit, and His example.

Jesus said some really hard things, like, “Forgive your brother who sins against you 70 x 7 times.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Deny yourself.” “Love those who hate you.” When we commit ourselves to following Him, we are buying into a life of obedience to the Master. It means that we acknowledge Him as our Lord, the one with the authority to command us, and we will obey.

Second, we are saying we will follow His Spirit. When we come to faith in Christ, He gives us His Spirit to live in us and to guide us into a life that is pleasing to Him. We need to be sensitive and obedient to His leading. I think I have experienced the leading of His Spirit most often in situations where I felt a strong nudge to go talk to someone, to say something specific to someone, and sometimes to do something that I would not otherwise have thought of. I remember a time when I was at a conference of some sort in Denver, and at a break, I got into a conversation with a woman who was also at the conference. As we spoke about her church background, she said some things that sent up a red flag in my mind, and suddenly, I had a very strong urge to point out her error to her. Now that is not something I would normally do, especially with a stranger, but I did it, and she was very receptive. I want to be so close to Jesus that I always hear the quiet whisper of His Spirit, and so obedient that I always follow what He leads me to do.

Third, and most importantly in this context, to follow Jesus is to follow His example. It is a mark of Jesus’ leadership that He never asked people to do what He was not willing to do Himself. This has always been true of all great leaders. If you aren’t willing to do what you are asking your followers to do, then you are not leading, you are driving, you are pushing them ahead of you, and it often winds up like pushing string. Have you ever tried to do that? It just doesn’t work. You can pull the string or rope behind you only if you are willing to go first. Here we see that Jesus is going to the cross, and He calls us to follow His example.

It was inconceivable to the disciples that the Messiah would suffer and die. It must have been even more challenging for them to realize that Jesus was calling them to do the same thing. Deny yourself, He says, and take up your cross. These two phrases mean roughly the same thing: say No to yourself, to your own interests, desires, rights and needs, in order to say Yes to Jesus, in order to follow Him. In so doing, you will have to die to yourself.

In Jesus’ day, a cross was not a pretty piece of jewelry, or a decoration on the wall. It was an instrument of death, a means of execution, much like a hangman’s noose, or a guillotine. It’s sort of odd that we now make beautiful jewelry out of something so morbid, but that’s what the cross was for. It was not something to carry around. We sometimes hear people speak of a difficult person in their life, like a relative, or a co-worker, or some difficult circumstance in their life as the cross they must bear, but that misses the point of the cross altogether. The cross Jesus is referring to is not a burden to carry, but a symbol of our death. Specifically, death to our selfish, sinful natures.

In this country, we never have to worry about actually losing our lives for the sake of the gospel. We don’t ever expect to have to take up our cross in that sense, as the disciples did, and as Christians in other countries do today. But there are other ways to deny ourselves that we all face every day:

· The man who denies his lustful appetite by turning away from pornography or from a woman who is immodestly dressed.

· The person who denies themselves a nice vacation, or a new car, or some other toy, because they have already committed so much of their income to the Lord that they don’t have enough left over for that selfish desire.

· The woman who gives up her long-anticipated evening with her husband to listen to a friend pour out her heart in grief over a tragedy she has recently experienced.

· The dad who refuses to accept a promotion in order to spend more time with his children.

· The brilliant student who chooses a life of anonymous toil as a Bible translator in the jungles of Irian Jaya instead of a successful career in business.

· The computer engineer who leaves a comfortable job and goes to work for a missions agency.

All these are examples of what it means to deny ourselves and take up our cross, to die to our own selfish desires in order to follow Jesus. The world says, “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” but Jesus turns it around: The one who finds, who keeps his life, who does everything to protect it, to hoard it, to save it, will lose the deepest part of himself in eternity. But the one who loses his life, who gives it away, who spends it completely on Christ and His kingdom, finds his life in the truest and deepest sense. Finders weepers, losers keepers.

Besides, Jesus says, Mark 8:36-37 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? [37] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Who do you say He is? Will you follow Him? Will you follow His commandments, His Spirit, and His example—all the way to the cross? He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. Some of you have spent your whole lives trying to “save” your life. You have been self-protective, cautious, never stepping out in faith, and it’s time to lay it all down for Jesus. Some of you have mistakenly believed that a simple profession of faith is all that’s required to be a follower of Christ, and now you realize there is much more. Are you ready to follow Christ? Do you need someone to pray with you about the hesitation in your heart? Some of you have other business to do with God today –you have deep needs and hurts that you need help to carry. Come, as the choir sings.

[1] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p.200.

[2] Barclay, p.201.

[3] https://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=51320 accessed 10/31/07. Indicates that there is no conclusive proof of this ad ever being published in any newspaper, but the story has been widely circulated.