Marks of a True Disciple (Mark 9.30-50)

I’m going to start by saying something, and I don’t want anyone to take it badly. What I’m going to say is true, but I’m not saying it to beat anyone down, but rather to illustrate what kind of text we’re seeing today.

One of the most difficult things for me as a pastor is to be up here, preaching from the Bible week in and week out, and to hear people say over and over again, “That was really encouraging,” or “That was really interesting”…only to leave these doors and continue their lives exactly the same as they were before. I know that I can’t change anyone’s heart—that’s God’s job, not mine, and he knows what he’s doing—but sometimes you just want to grab people by the shoulders, bring them in front of a mirror and say, “Do you see what you’re doing? Do you see that the life you’re living is so far from the life Christ calls you to live? Do you see?”

Of course I can’t do that.

Fortunately, the Bible does it for us.

This is one of those texts that serve as a mirror—a text that forces us to take a long, hard look at ourselves, and to realize that what God desires for us, and the way we’re living, are often very far apart.

Two weeks ago, in Mark 8.34-35, Jesus said:

“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.

Everything we see in chapter 9 is an application of that. What does it look like to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Christ? What does it look like to “lose our lives” for his sake and the gospel’s, in order to save our lives?

Well, we saw the first few things last week. If I am denying myself and taking up my cross and following Christ, there are a few qualities I will see in myself.

The first is a continual dependence on God, which shows itself in continual prayer. We know we can’t do it alone, that we need help, and so we turn to the God who can do it, and ask for help.

In turn, prayer builds our faith—it reminds us that Jesus Christ, the Messiah who was transfigured on the mountain, who lived and died and was raised for us, really does have what we need to follow him, and really can give it to us. So if we’re denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Christ, we will see an ever increasing faith in ourselves—an ever-increasing confidence that our Savior really is the glorious, powerful Savior who was transfigured on the mountain.

These are spiritual qualities. Dependence on Christ, prayer, faith, a clear vision of who Christ is… These are things that most people won’t be able to see, because—with the exception of prayer, sometimes—they are things that happen inside of us.

In today’s text, Jesus gives us several practical qualities—qualities that everyone can see, qualities that display our faith and our dependence on Christ to the rest of the world. They have their roots in the spiritual—they won’t work without faith in Christ, at least not in the way that Jesus intends—but they will work themselves out in the practical.

To put it another way, if we are truly and totally dependent on God, these are things we will see. The marks of a disciple of Christ that we see in this text are not exhaustive, but they’re not optional either.

The first is something that we’ve already seen, and that is:

A Ready Acceptance of Suffering for the Gospel (v. 30-31)

30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

So once again, the disciples hear Jesus say he’s going to be killed, and then rise again, and once again, the disciples are unable to understand what he’s talking about. It’s just inconceivable to them that such a thing might happen to their Master.

And yet, just a few verses earlier, in Mark 8, he told them that something similar may well happen to them. If anyone would follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. It’s possible that the disciples didn’t think he was speaking literally here, but if it’s not clear yet, it would very soon be. Jesus doesn’t ask anyone to do something he didn’t first do himself. If he suffered for the kingdom of God, we should be willing to do the same.

Now, will that mean suffering to the point of death for everyone? Of course not. But all of us will suffer for our faith in one way or another.

Some will suffer because the gospel calls them to renounce certain sins which they actually enjoy. Some will suffer because they have become involved in a relationship—a friendship, or a romantic relationship—that the Bible calls them to reject. Some will suffer because they face ridicule from unbelieving friends or family who don’t understand their choices. And some will suffer in the ways the early church did: they will go to other nations to preach the gospel, and will face persecution, violence or even death for their faith.

The ways in which we suffer will differ; but if we are faithful disciples of Christ, there will be suffering. It’s inevitable when we are called to live against the grain of the world.

Our lives will be filled with choices that bring suffering—some of them even harder, some of them much smallerin which we will be called to do the difficult thing in order to follow Christ faithfully. But every time we do, we know that Christ did it first: the Son of Man was delivered into the hands of men, and killed by them, in order to save us all.

If we are dependent on God, we will be ready to accept suffering for the gospel.

Humility: Service and Unity (v. 33-41)

Secondly—if we are truly dependent on God, we will see humility, which will show itself in many different ways. V. 33:

33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

This whole discussion between the disciples of who is the greatest might seem silly to us today, but it made a lot of sense back then. The political and religious leaders in Israel at the time were oppressive in their sense of self-worth: they spent much of their time pointing out the flaws in everyone else and tracing lines in the sand to distinguish the truly faithful from the not-so-faithful. So this kind of thinking was almost second nature to the disciples.

And it’s actually second nature to all of us, although we may hide it better. We’re always comparing ourselves with one another, and we always want to feel like we’re on top.

The only real difference between us and the disciples is that they’re speaking about it openly, while we hide it and prefer to put on a mask.

But dependence on Christ removes that option from us. Jesus flips our idea of what it means to be “great” on its head. If you want to be first, you need to be last. True greatness, he says, is seen in service—especially in the way we serve the weak and the small.

The disciples would stumble over themselves to serve Jesus, or to serve an important person visiting Jesus, or to serve someone in full view of a crowd, like they served the crowds the food that Jesus multiplied. But would they be so quick to serve someone who could do nothing for them?

The example Jesus gives is so refreshing for me, as a parent. He takes a child in his arms and says, if you serve a child like this, you’re serving me.

The reason this is refreshing is because parents know all too well how easy it is for adults to simply not see their kids when they come to church, and how good it feels to see an adult treating their kids like human beings. I feel really blessed in this church, because at least in my experience, many of you pay a lot more attention to our kids than in a lot of other churches.

But the same thing applies to those people in the church who may not be so rewarding. People who are shy or alone. People who are handicapped. People who need us, and who may not be able to give much to us in return. Every time we, for the sake of Christ, engage in service to those who can’t give to us in return, we need to remember Jesus’s words: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” When we serve the weak, we’re serving him.

This humble service to the weak and the needy is exactly what Christ has been highlighting for the disciples, every time he has told them that the Son of Man will soon be delivered over to men and be put to death. The suffering and death of Jesus Christ is the supreme act of humble service—he took our sin on himself, and was punished for our sin, in order that we might live. The disciples didn’t understand that yet, but they would very soon.

Next we see an interaction that highlights another aspect of the humility that dependence on Christ brings—and it’s a bit trickier, because it’s harder to notice. V. 38:

38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

It’s ironic, isn’t it? The disciples try to stop someone from doing something they weren’t able to do not so long ago. And why are they trying to stop this man? Because “he was not following us.” Let’s be clear; they’re not calling into question the idea that this man believed in Jesus; rather, they try to stop him because he wasn’t part of their group.

To this, Jesus rebukes the disciples instead. And he does it by saying something that’s easily misunderstood. V. 39:

39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.

Now, we need to see here that Jesus is using hyperbole—that is, he’s exaggerating to make a point, which he does often. Jesus isn’t saying that literally everyone who is not against us is “for us”—plenty of people are tolerant of Christians without being Christians, and plenty of people say they’re Christians when they’re not.

Rather, he’s telling the disciples not to rashly consider someone an enemy. Attempting to disqualify someone because they’re not “one of us” is always motivated by pride. And Jesus is humble enough to not be threatened by this man, but actually to applaud him. This man is doing what his own disciples couldn’t do—if we take Jesus seriously when he said in last week’s text that the disciples lacked faith, and that they couldn’t cast out the demon because they needed to pray, it would appear that this man has more faith in Jesus than Jesus’s own disciples!

He’s showing the disciples that they need to be careful not to divide believers for non-essential reasons, but to recognize the unity of believers in Christ unless we have a very good reason to do so.

We see this all the time in denominations. There are a lot of denominations—other types of Christian churches—with which I have a lot of issues, with whom I disagree on a lot of subjects. But much of the time, the subjects in question are not at the center of the gospel message—even if they’re saying things I disagree with on a number of secondary matters, they’re still preaching Christ crucified, and people are still coming to know Christ.

What Jesus says here is similar to what Paul said in his letter to the Philippians. People had told him that some were preaching Christ in order to hurt Paul, in order to steal some of his glory, so to speak. Paul’s response to this is both humble and brilliant—he says that it doesn’t matter why they’re preaching Christ; if they’re preaching Christ, then people are hearing the gospel, and he’s happy about that.

So we mustn’t rashly call people enemies simply because they’re not a part of our group, just because they don’t do things like us, just because they don’t have the same convictions we do on secondary issues. Do we really think God isn’t strong enough to work through their mistakes? Is he not strong enough to work through ours? God does his work far better than we do, and he does it even through people with whom we have disagreements.

The disciples have a specific task in front of them, and that is to follow Jesus. They can be humble, trust God to do his work well, and not be threatened by someone who isn’t a part of “their group”.

The last thing we see in this text is maybe the hardest for us to accept—and that is, if we are truly dependent on Christ, we will be radically committed to holiness.

A Radical Commitment to Holiness (v. 42-50)

42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

V. 42 is actually a sort of transition verse, and I hesitated whether to put it in the previous section or in this one, because in reality it belongs to both. Jesus says we should be radically committed to protecting our brothers and sisters from sin. Notice, he doesn’t say anything here about pointing out sins we see in our brothers and sisters (though that does have a place); Jesus puts the accent on causing someone else to sin. He says if anyone causes another Christian to sin, “it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” Now of course he’s using hyperbole once again—there is redemption available for all—but he’s showing us the seriousness of causing someone else to sin.

There are a multitude of ways in which this happens. Some influential people still harbor sinful attitudes in their own lives, and because they are influential, the people around them, who are maybe younger in their faith, will imitate these sinful attitudes because they see it in someone they trust. Some people, wishing to do well, will advise a brother or sister in the faith to not have such a sensitive conscience, and cause them to go against their conscience. In more serious cases, some people will be actively seeking to sin, and will deceive other Christians into giving them what they want, convincing them to sin with them.

Whatever the situation may be, Jesus calls us to pay close attention to the kind of behavior we encourage in other people. Which means, of course, paying close attention to the behavior we nurture in ourselves.

V. 43:

43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

I don’t think I need to say that Jesus is once again using hyperbole—he’s not expecting us to literally cut off our hands or feet or eyes; he’s using an extreme image to show us how serious it is.

His point is simple. Being holy is the single most important consideration in our lives, once we come to know Christ. Being holy is more important than being right. Being holy is more important than feeling well. Being holy is more important than being fulfilled. Being holy is more important than not suffering.

Why? Because a lack of holiness—that is, a refusal to do everything we can to put sin to death in our lives—is why we deserve hell.

People may be upset with the idea of hell, but you simply cannot read the Bible and not confront this subject. Hell is real, and it is a place of eternal torment under God’s condemnation. Hell is what we all deserve.

And hell is what Christ died to save us from. Let’s be clear: we don’t pursue holiness in order to be saved. We don’t pursue holiness in order to get out of hell.

We pursue holiness because if we have been saved, if we are dependent on Christ, then holiness is now the road he has put us on; sin—that is, disobedience to God’s commands—is simply no longer compatible with who we are.

If Jesus died in order to free us from hell, how can we possibly continue to nurture the sin which, by all rights, should have sent us there?

A dependence on Christ means recognizing why he came—why he lived, why he died, why he was raised—and knowing that it is only by trusting in his finished work on the cross that we are rescued from condemnation. If that truth is the central truth in our lives, then we will be willing to do anything to not pursue the sin Jesus took on himself.

What does this look like practically? It looks like doing whatever we have to do—taking whatever measures we need to take—to not let sin get a foothold. It may mean severing certain relationships that are dangerous for us. It may mean giving up certain habits that make sin easier. It may mean being extremely strict with ourselves, with the time we spend, who we spend it with, what we watch, what we listen to, with whom we allow ourselves to be alone.

We will grow in this area for the rest of our lives, because the holier become, the more we’ll realize how unholy we actually are. The more like Christ we become, the more we’ll start to notice areas of our lives which still have sin lurking in the corners. But when we notice those areas—when we see sin in our lives—we get to work putting it to death. We do whatever it takes.

It’s better to suffer for holiness and see our faith proved in practice than to maintain an easy life and realize one day that we never had faith to begin with.

Conclusion: "Have Salt In Yourselves” (v. 49-50)

I know all of this sounds like a lot of weight to put on people. I wouldn’t let myself say it if that weight wasn’t first put on me. But I would rather be too strict than not strict enough. I’d rather lose an eye or a hand or a foot than go to hell with all my members.

What Jesus says here is serious, and it is heavy.

Jesus is aware of that, which is why he concludes this section the way he does. He reminds us of the seriousness of the situation, and encourages us that it will be worth it. V. 49:

49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

V. 49—in which Jesus says “everyone will be salted with fire”—is a tricky verse, and there are a lot of different interpretations about what Jesus means. But there is one interpretation that seems to stand out as the best.

God commanded that salt be used in Old Testament sacrifices, because salt has a purifying quality that symbolizes what these sacrifices were meant to do: to make the person who offered the sacrifice pure before God. So what is the “fire” in this verse? If we take the verse in the context of the whole passage, it seems as if the “fire” in question is the fire of suffering and hardship for the gospel—the willingness to do everything we need to do in order to follow Christ.

For those who refuse to accept this life of difficulty to follow Christ, they will be “salted with fire” in hell. For those who do accept it, they will be “purified”—that is, they will be made to be more like Christ.

Then he changes the image a bit and talks about another positive quality of salt, which is to add taste to food.

The true disciple of Christ, the disciple who is wholly dependent on Christ and focused on him for his salvation and progress, will have a certain “flavor”. Through his willingness to accept hardship for Christ, he will show the courage of Christ. Through his willingness to serve those who are weak and needy, he will show the humility of Christ. Through his willingness to do whatever it takes to put sin to death in his life, he will show the holiness of Christ.

Everything the true disciple of Christ does will show Christ to the rest of the world.

So in conclusion, Jesus asks us a simple question: Have we “lost our saltiness”? Will people see Christ when they look at us? Or will they see people who look like everyone else, only who go to church on Sundays?

Be true disciples, he says. Do everything you must to follow after me—even if it’s hard, even if it’s humiliating, even if it feels like it’s never-ending. Have salt in yourselves.

Small Faith and a Big God (Mark 9.2-29)

Last week Joe did a wonderful job showing us what kind of Master Jesus is, and what situation we are in. He reminded us that we will all lose our life at some point: it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.” Either we “lose our lives” now—that is, either we will give ourselves fully over to Christ and the gospel now—or we will lose our lives forever when he returns to reign. If we lose our lives now, we’ll save them forever; if we save our lives now, we’ll lose them forever.

It’s really important to keep that in the back of our minds when we read today’s text, because if I’m honest, trusting the promise that “if you lose your life now, you’ll save it later” is actually quite difficult. It’s a big ask—lose your life now, I promise you that it’ll be worth it. Great, Jesus. But what if you’re wrong? What if you can’t make good on that promise? Like the apostle Paul said later (I’m paraphrasing), if we Christians are wrong about all this, and Jesus is just a man, then we are the most pitiful lot in the world.

What we see today shows us two things: 1) why we can trust that Jesus can make good on his promise; and 2) why trying to live without him is ultimately futile.

So that being said, let’s start reading at v. 2. The message of this first section is abundantly clear, and very simple:

Jesus Is God… (v. 2-13)

2 And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

If we’ve read this text many times, it’s easy to sort of breeze over the enormity of what happens here. Jesus takes Peter, James and John—the disciples with whom he has the closest relationships, and who will have the greatest responsibilities—up to a mountain, just the four of them.

And there, Jesus is changed.

We can think of a lot of parallels in popular stories. The scene at the end of Beauty and the Beast when the beast is transformed from a beast into a man, with light filling him up and shooting out the ends of his fingers and toes. The wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, who appears to the fellowship after what we thought was his death—no longer Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White: radiant, healthy, and powerful.

But none of our parallels can do justice to what happens here—or rather, every other parallel is just trying to get close to what we see here, whether we realize it or not. It’s a hint of what will come at Jesus’s resurrection. He is physically changed: his clothes become “radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” The light and whiteness that is suggested here is reminiscent of the way Moses glowed when he came down from the mountain after having been with God—it is the glory of God, made visible for the disciples to see.

In addition, we have two dead saints who appear there with Jesus: the prophet Elijah and Moses—these two figures who represent the whole of the Old Testament, which are often referred to as “the Law and the Prophets”. And Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus. I would give anything to know what they were talking about, and I hope to ask them one day.

I don’t know how the disciples watching knew who these men were, but they apparently do. However, they don’t quite know what to do with what they’re seeing. There’s a very funny exchange that we see after, in v. 5:

5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

This is one of the most purely human interactions in all the gospels, because it’s exactly what a go-getter would do. All this amazingness is going on around them, and Peter’s like, “Good thing we’re here! We can make tents!” Why would they need tents? No idea, and Peter didn’t know either. It’s a stupid thing to say, and Mark tells us that the only reason Peter said it is that he didn’t know what to say; he was terrified, and some people, when they’re terrified, can’t keep quiet.

And almost as if to cut Peter off from this silliness, perhaps the most amazing thing so far happens. V. 7:

7 And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” 8 And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

There we have it: that’s the point of this whole event. Jesus is transfigured before their eyes, surrounded by the saints, with the vocal approbation of God, to give these men unquestionable confirmation that Jesus is God, the Messiah, the glorious Son of Man of whom Daniel was referring. If they had doubts before, they must doubt no longer.

This man Jesus Christ whom the disciples have been following is both fully God and fully man—never one more than the other, never one to the detriment of the other. So at various times, we can see aspects of his divine nature surfacing, and aspects of his human nature surfacing, sometimes both at the same time.

Jesus is God. Jesus is divine. That is what we see here.

And then, just like that, it’s over. The window into heaven is closed, and now when the disciples look, they see nothing but a mountaintop at night, and Jesus standing there as he was before.

So Jesus, Peter, James and John start coming down off the mountain, and Jesus starts talking to them—and what he says (not for the first time) seems to be at odds with everything they’ve just seen. V. 9:

9 And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

To be clear: the “Son of Man” is Jesus himself. After everything they’ve just seen, Jesus says once again that death is coming for him. He’ll rise, but he’ll have to die first.

This is just incomprehensible—seriously, after what just happened? You’re still talking about death? We see the disciples’ incomprehension in v. 10:

10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

It seems like they’re thinking about the chronology of these things. They’ve just seen Jesus transfigured, and Moses and Elijah standing there with him, and now he’s talking about rising from the dead… And that brings up another question. V. 11:

11 And they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”

This question can seem to come out of left field, but it’s not really random. They’ve just seen Elijah on the mountain. So naturally these men, who are Jews and who grew up being taught the Old Testament, will recall the prophecy that the scribes have repeated to them since their youth. It comes from Malachi chapter 4, verses 5-6. Through Malachi, God says:

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

That is, God promises that before this “day of the Lord”, before the coming of the kingdom, Elijah will come, and he will unite what was once broken, restore what was once lost—he will unite father and son, mother and daughter, with a singular goal: that of seeing the day of the Lord, seeing the kingdom of God.

For the disciples, that hasn’t happened yet…so if the coming of the kingdom will take place through Christ’s death and resurrection, how could it happen, if Elijah hasn’t come yet, if this prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled?

Jesus’s answer is simple, but all the same it can be confusing. His answer is this: Elijah has come; this prophecy has been fulfilled. V. 12:

12 And he said to them, “Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? 13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.”

So what is he talking about here? Clearly it’s not the appearance of Elijah that just took place on the mountain, because he says in v. 13 that at his appearing “they did to him whatever they pleased,” and no one did anything to Elijah or Moses as they appeared on the mountain. So if that’s not it, what is it?

It’s a little unclear in this text, but if you look at the parallel texts in Matthew 17 and Luke 1, it is very clear that the “Elijah” that Jesus is talking about here is actually John the Baptist, who came (as the angel tells John’s father in Luke 1) “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” to fulfill the prophecy of Malachi 4. So Jesus’s answer is simple: the prophecy in Malachi 4 wasn’t literal, but was promising the coming of someone who would fulfill the same function as Elijah. And this person was John the Baptist. He came to “restore all things”—that is, to get things back on track, to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah.

So you see, Jesus answers their question quite carefully. Their question was, how could Christ’s death and resurrection take place if Elijah hasn’t come yet? The answer is: he has come: John came, he prepared the people for the coming of the Lord…and look what happened to him. Herod cut his head off. So is it any surprise that the Son of Man, the Messiah, should have to “suffer many things and be treated with contempt”? Of course not—this is exactly the way the prophet Isaiah said it would be in Isaiah 53. It’s no surprise that the promised Elijah figure, come in the person of John the Baptist, was persecuted and killed, because that is what was promised would happen to the Messiah whose way he was preparing.

The whole point of what we see here is that Jesus will have to die, and his death in no way undermines the fact that he is God; in fact, it is through his death (and his resurrection) that his power as God will be fully manifested.

Towards the end of chapter 8, if you remember, Peter made the claim that Jesus is “the Christ”, the promised Savior. Now, he and James and John know that it is true—they’ve seen it.

The question is then, why do we need to know that? What’s the goal Jesus is pulling us into?

He told us in the text we saw last week: whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it. Some people will conveniently overlook the reason for losing our lives. Our goal is not simply to give up everything, but to give up everything for him, for the gospel, for the advancement of the kingdom of God, as we’ve seen since the beginning of this book.

So we know whom we’re following, and we know what our goal is—let’s get to work!

Not so fast.

Often when people—particularly young people, as these disciples are “young” in their faith—become enamored with a lofty goal, they want to get out and do it. They want to get to work, get it done, change the world!

But we can’t. It doesn’t work like that. Because even if Jesus is God…

…We Are Not (v. 14-29)

And that is the point of the second half of our text today. Let’s begin reading at v. 14:

14 And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. 15 And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. 16 And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”

Put yourselves in the disciples’ shoes for a moment. Think back to chapter 6—Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, and “gave them authority over the unclean spirits” (v. 7). They would travel around, proclaiming that people should repent, healing people and casting out demons. It was something they had at least some experience with. Jesus sent them out with his authority, and they were able to do some of the things he was able to do.

But now, it’s not working. This boy has a demon in him (and Jesus confirms later on that it is a demon and not just an illness like epilepsy), and the disciples can’t cast it out.

We’ll get to the question why that’s the case a little later. For now, it’s important to see what Mark is trying to show us. He’s just described the transfiguration—this incredible account of Jesus’s divinity being made visible for Peter, James and John. In the meantime, he’s not with the other disciples. And the disciples can no longer do what they were able to do before.

They’ve grown in some ways, we can see throughout this gospel. But they haven’t grown past their need for Jesus.

That’s the point (and Daniel Akin’s commentary on this passage is really helpful). What Mark is trying to show us here is that this is always the case: we never grow past our need for Jesus. The father brought his son to Jesus; Jesus isn’t there, so the disciples try to do what they’ve done before—and it doesn’t work.

No matter what they’ve done in the past, no matter what they’ve learned, they still need Jesus. We never grow past our need for Jesus.

The next thing we see is that we never grow past our need for faith. The father has just told Jesus that the disciples weren’t able to cast the demon out of his son. This is how Jesus responds (v. 19):

19 And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?”

It’s kind of surprising to hear Jesus frustrated. And we might find him a bit harsh. But as William Lane says, these “rhetorical questions…express the loneliness and the anguish of the one authentic believer in a world which expresses only unbelief.” It’s Jesus’s human response to human incredulity.

He’s very clear why he’s frustrated. He’s frustrated because the disciples are “faithless”—they lack faith. We might find it surprising that the disciples lack faith, after all they’ve experienced, but isn’t that the way it often goes? No matter what we’ve experienced, how many times we’ve seen God’s faithfulness proven in our lives, when another situation comes along that only he can bring us through, we’re frightened. We wonder if he’ll really be there. We wonder if we can really do what he’s called us to do.

Now compare that to what we see next. V. 20:

20 And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. 21 And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. 22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”

There it is again—the problem is unbelief. All things are possible for one who believes, Jesus says.

The father of the child responds in the most lucid way possible:

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

The father knows that he believes, at least in a way—he did bring his son to Jesus, after all. But he also sees himself clearly enough to know that his faith isn’t perfect. That it is lacking. That it’s not strong enough.

So what does he do? He professes the faith in Christ that he has—little though it may be—and then he asks for Jesus to help him regarding the faith he still lacks.

That is the right response. That is a real response. It’s a response that sees oneself clearly, and that sees Jesus clearly. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” So what does Jesus do? V. 25:

25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

Just as we will never grow beyond our need for Jesus, we will also never grow beyond our need for faith. We will never have “enough” faith. As long as we are limited human beings living in this sinful world, our faith will always be lacking. This man sees that; he sees himself clearly—and asks for help.

Which brings us to the last thing Mark shows us here. We never grow beyond our need for Jesus; we never grow beyond our need for faith; and we never grow beyond our need for prayer. V. 28:

28 And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

To put it really simply, when the disciples came to cast the demon out of this boy, they did it without realizing their faith was lacking; they did it thinking they had everything they needed in themselves.

Now I think it’s important to dispel a very common misconception about what Jesus says here. Some people have read “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer,” and taken upon themselves to drum up a theology of demons and their exorcism that the Bible never teaches. We can’t know exactly what Jesus means by “this kind” of demon, because he doesn’t say. The only thing we know about this demon is what it causes—the physical effects on the child. We’re given nothing else, and we’re given nothing else precisely because Mark’s goal isn’t to help us develop a theology of demons.

He’s trying to help us build a theology of prayer.

Think about this passage from the bottom up. Even the disciples, who have been given Jesus’s authority (as we saw in chapter 6), need to pray. They need to continually ask God for his help to do what he’s called them to do.

And what happens when we pray? We are reminded, every time we pray, that God has what we are lacking; that he is listening to us; that he actually can answer our prayers. To put it another way, prayer builds our faith. It helps us to be more certain of God’s constant presence, and more dependent on his help. (Even the father’s statement—“I believe; help my unbelief!”—is a prayer.) Prayer builds our faith.

And what happens when we have faith? Our minds and hearts are directed to the object of our faith, Jesus Christ. He is the one we need—the Savior who is God made man, transcended before the eyes of the disciples on the mountain, the Messiah promised by the prophets.

Prayer builds faith, and faith brings us to Jesus, who is the God we can never be.

Dependence After the Transfiguration

Now when we think about how to respond to this text, I think it’s important to keep three people in particular in mind—and that would be Peter, James and John.

Think about what they went through that day. They went up on the mountain with Jesus, they saw this incredible vision of his divinity, and could leave with no other conclusion than that Jesus really is the Son of God, the Messiah of whom Isaiah prophesied, the Savior who would usher in the day of the Lord and the kingdom of God.

Then they come down from the mountain, and they see the “failure” of the other disciples to cast out the demon. They see Jesus’s frustration, and his criticism: “O faithless generation!” They hear Jesus say to the father of the boy that all things are possible to one who believes, and they hear the father’s admirable response: “I believe; help my unbelief!” And then they hear Jesus say, “This kind can only be driven out by prayer.”

Given everything they saw before coming down off the mountain, how do you think they must have heard this? When Jesus directs everyone’s attention towards faith and prayer—that the disciples’ problem wasn’t that it was impossible to cast out the demon, but that they lacked faith—Peter, James and John had a clear direction for the future: to do anything for the kingdom of God, you must feed your faith, by continual dependence on God.

But now, this God on whom they must be dependent has a face. It is a face they know well, a face they’ve been looking at for a very long time. This God on whom they must be dependent has the face of Christ, the transfigured Messiah on the mountain, the Son of God to whom God told them to listen.

That is the message of this text: we can do nothing on our own, but if we constantly submit ourselves to dependence on Christ, he can work through us.

The trap into which the other disciples fall is one of the most common. We see what God has given us in the past—talent, or experience, or knowledge—and we come to depend on those things rather than on him. And before too long we realize that our past experience isn’t replicated in the present: what worked before doesn’t work anymore.

So what does it look like to totally depend on God?

It looks like prayer. It looks like the acknowledgement, even before the most mundane spiritual tasks, that we don’t have what we need in ourselves, and that we need God’s help to do anything. Every time we speak to someone about Christ, every time we try to serve others, every time we try to resist temptation, we need to ask for his help. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

But this prayer isn’t the kind of desperate, doubtful prayer we so often pray. At least once a week, Jack comes to me and asks if he can play a video game. And I can see on his face that he knows perfectly well I’m going to say no, because he hasn’t done his homework, or it’s time for bed, or whatever. But he asks anyway, and it’s clear in his voice that he’s not expecting me to say yes.

I don’t mind when Jack does that—but that’s not the kind of prayer we’re called to pray. Every time I preach, this is what happens. During the week, every time I sit down for sermon prep, I pray—I confess my own limitations and I ask God to give me his Spirit, to help me see in the text what he wants me to see and say. And all during the week, I pray. I ask God to prepare my heart, to prepare my mind. And before I come up here, I stand in the back of the room and I pray. I admit to God that I can’t do this: no matter how much I’ve prepared, I’m still ill-equipped, I haven’t thought of everything, I won’t be able to say everything I need to.

So I need his help. I need his help, not in the words I’m going to say, but on the effect it’s going to have on all of you. It’s crazy, the number of times I’ve gotten up here feeling weak and exhausted and scattered, and preached horribly (in my opinion)—and then had people come up to me after saying how they were helped. It’s incredible, because it clearly wasn’t me: that sermon was bad. But God did something between the speaking and the hearing, to do his work in people’s hearts despite my pitiful sermon.

That’s why I pray, and that’s how I pray: I pray knowing that he is God, and that he will do what I can’t. God expects us to be expectant: to come to him knowing that we’re praying to the transfigured Christ on the mountain, the Christ who died to free us from sin and declare us righteous, the Christ who was raised in glory and who now reigns from heaven, the Christ who has all power in heaven and on earth at his disposal! He expects us to come to him with confidence, knowing that even if we can’t do anything on our own, he can do all things.

Brothers and sisters, we are not God…but he is. He is the glorious God who became a man in order to save us and use us for his kingdom and his glory. We can do nothing on our own—but all things are possible to those who believe.

So our prayer should always be the prayer of this boy’s father: Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!

And he will.

When Will You Lose Your Life? (Mark 8.10-30)

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton is said to have placed an advertisement in a newspaper that read:

Seeking men for uncertain journey, low pay, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, uncertain return. Honour and recognition in the event of success.

This was no exaggeration. His ship the Endurance was stuck in the ice for 9 months. When the ice began to melt, the ship sank. The crew then spent several months camping on the ice floes before sending a small group in a lifeboat, through wind and tide, to seek help at a whaling station more than 1,000 kilometres away.

The least we can say is that the crew had been warned. They knew what they were signing up for by following this man.

Here’s our question this morning: do we know what we have signed up to by choosing to follow Jesus?

Not everyone will remember a specific moment when they made this choice.

For many of us, the choice came gradually. You heard yesterday how Christophe, Claire, Marthe and Mikael came to want to follow Jesus.

The same question applies to everyone: when we chose to follow Jesus Christ, what did we sign up to? What did we say yes to? Perhaps you're here because you have questions and want to know what commitment Jesus is asking of you.

I'm delighted that you want to think about these issues.

I don't think I'm getting ahead of myself if I say that it's better to present the commitment honestly, à la Shackleton, than to have a tempting advertisement that spells out the conditions only in the small print.

The same question arises if you have already chosen to follow Jesus.

What have we signed up for?

If you're like me, it's so easy to lose sight of him. Work, leisure and worries cloud our vision.

What have we signed up for?

To understand the answer, we need to understand what kind of king Jesus is. That's what we're going to look at this morning.

When we read Mark's Gospel, one of the four accounts of Jesus' life, we saw how difficult it was for his disciples to understand who he was.

They are so blind that they need a miracle to open their eyes.

That's what we saw last week.

Jesus asks, "Who do you think I am?”

Peter finally replied, "You are the Christ.”

A miracle. He sees at last. Jesus has opened his eyes.

You can imagine the disciples about to uncork the champagne.

We've got it! We've found the king! He's going to march on Jerusalem, take power, maybe use his miraculous powers to beat up the enemies and since we're his closest friends - jackpot - he's going to install us in the places of honour!

Jesus, we're following you!

In last week's passage, there were signs that the disciples did not yet understand everything.

This blind man, brought to Jesus, touches him but at first sees only partially. He sees as 'trees that walk'.

Mark recounts this miracle to illustrate what happened to Peter. Jesus opened his eyes to understand who he was.

But why this two-stage healing? What if it meant that Peter, too, could only see partially for the time being?

Another surprise. Verse 30.

Peter has just acknowledged that Jesus is the Christ but: "Jesus sternly warned them not to tell anyone."

Why is that? Isn't this news you should be shouting from the rooftops?

What if it was because they only had part of the truth for the moment?

This morning's passage confirms that there is more to understand.

It contains two shocking statements that are hard to digest, but which we must digest if we are to understand what we are signing up for with Jesus.

The first ...

Christ must lose his life

Mark first shows that Jesus is a king whose mission ... is to die.

Mark 8 verse 31

"31 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."

If you grew up going to church, you probably take Jesus' death for granted.

Not the disciples. For them it was just the opposite.

They were under Roman occupation.

Many Jews expected a king who would drive out the invaders and who would be stained with the blood of victory, not with the blood of his own death, still less at the hands of his own people!

This expectation was not unfounded. Jesus introduces himself in this text under the somewhat enigmatic title of "Son of Man".

This title comes from the Old Testament book of Daniel, where the "Son of Man" is a figure who receives absolute and eternal authority over the whole earth from God.

So if Jesus is God's chosen king, the son of man, the Christ, it was almost incomprehensible that he should have to be killed by the people he was supposed to save.

It's as if it's the evening of a presidential election and the results have just been announced.

The winner gets into a car.

Driver, let's go. We're off! Off to Fresnes prison!

His assistants laugh. He is in a good mood. On your way to the press conference, please.

No, no, we're going to prison!

They ask themselves: “Who is this man we're following?”

Let's ask ourselves the same question.

Which Jesus are we following?

A king who chooses the cross before the crown, shame before honour and losing his life before regaining his life ... or another Jesus?

What other Jesus could we follow?

Maybe a Jesus life coach ... who helps us realise our projects.

Or a philosopher Jesus ... who just wants to help us think more deeply about life.

We have a Jesus life insurance policy. We sign, we don't have to worry about death, and then we go on with our lives.

“Which Jesus are you?” Some of us are still looking for the answer to this question.

Great if you're still thinking about it. It really is the most important question in the world.

Our understanding of Jesus' next shock statement depends on it, and the stakes are literally vital.

First shocking statement - Christ must lose his life

Second shocking statement ...

Following Christ means losing your life

Mark 8 verse 34

"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.”

The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, killed for resisting the Nazis during the 2nd World War, said, "When Christ calls a man, he says to him: come and die!"

Waiting for Jesus to say this, the disciples understood.

Come and die!

Let's not forget that when Jesus invited us to take up his cross, it was not yet a religious symbol.

It's just a method of execution.

It's a bit like Jesus saying: you want to be my disciple? Dig your own grave!

Or even: get your electric chair ready!

We must be wary of watering down these words too quickly

Most of his disciples were killed for their faith.

It wasn't a metaphor for them.

In the same way, when Jesus invites us to "give up ourselves", it is not an invitation to give up things for him - to eat chocolate during Lent, to sleep in on Sundays or to give up part of our income to give it away.

It's about giving up on yourself.

To give up your life. To lose it. To write it off.

It makes sense. If we recognise as king someone who is knowingly walking towards his death, if we swear allegiance to him and commit ourselves to following him, of course that also means losing our lives.

Like king, like subject.

By committing myself to follow Jesus, I'm saying to him: I'm no longer the king, you are, and I'll follow you wherever that leads me.

We're like Ernest Shackleton's crew, only they knew they were risking their lives.

The disciple of Jesus must lose his life.

I wonder if we are aware that we have made this choice.

To have said to Jesus - ok, my life is over.

You're the king, a dying king, I'm following you.

Jesus is not talking here about what you have to do to be a good disciple.

This is not the premium level of Christian commitment.

He simply talks about what you have to do to become his disciple, pure and simple.

Look again at verse 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.”

Jesus talks about what we have to do to be saved.

Losing your life is the first step, not the second or third.

Christ must lose his life ... following Christ means losing my life.

The question is why? Why do we have to lose our lives?

Jesus and us.

The message is radical. We won't accept it unless we understand the reasons behind it.

Why do you have to lose your life?

Why can't we just let Jesus die for us, enjoy the benefits and then get on with our little lives?

Why can't yesterday's baptized just say thank you Jesus for forgiving me? Now I'm carrying on as before.

Next item

Why you should lose your life

It is striking that Jesus does not say in this passage that he must die to pay for the sins of the world. He is going to say it. We'll see in a few weeks.

He doesn't mention it here yet.

No, if we dig deeper into this passage, we find two reasons why Jesus and we who follow him must lose our lives.

Here they are:

The hostility of the present world towards King Jesus ...

... and the priority of the next world for King Jesus

First and foremost

• the hostility of the present world towards King Jesus

Verse 31 again:

“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.”

We have just marked 80 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe.

Last year was the 80th anniversary of the landings, and as a Connexion couple were getting married in Normandy, my family and I took the opportunity to visit the beaches.

I'm no historian, but it seems that once the Allied armies had set foot on French soil, victory was almost certain.

This is also where the enemies fought most fiercely.

The arrival of King Jesus in our world is like the Normandy landings.

The beginning of the end for the forces of evil ... but also what provokes their most hostile reaction.

If you choose to side with him, you expose yourself to the same hostility as he does.

From the beginning of Mark's Gospel, the authority of King Jesus is contested.

Religious leaders are the most openly hostile.

They are plotting his execution.

But, and this is crucial to understand, hostility is not limited to a few bad guys.

It's in all of us.

Look at verse 38.

Jesus speaks of an "adulterous and sinful generation". He's talking about Israel, but what can be said about Israel can all the more be said about the pagan nations, including us.

What does adultery and sin mean?

Adultery means unfaithfulness. I was created for a relationship with God, I give my first love to something other than him.

Sinful means rebellious. I live in independence from my creator.

What do these two words have in common? Well, it's 'me'. Living for me.

I have in my bones the desire to live for myself first...and so by default I'm on the side of the army fighting against King Jesus.

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, we've all been like that. "You shall be as gods," says the devil.

As long as we're on that side, there's nothing to risk from this world. We go with the flow! We go with the flow.

But King Jesus is coming to liberate this world, and he's inviting us to change sides. If we do, we'll be on the side that wins in the end ...

... but before that... we confront with him the hostility of the present world and the resistance that still exists within ourselves.

Losing one's life means leaving the ranks of the army opposed to King Jesus and siding with him, accepting the cost.

For some, the cost will be hostility from those around them.

A family that opposes our faith.  A sister with a Muslim background who is harassed by those close to her. A brother called intolerant because of his beliefs.

Elsewhere the Bible says that all those who want to live godly lives in Jesus Christ will be persecuted.

If we never want to have problems with others, never want to lose face or lose a relationship, let's not follow Jesus Christ.

For all of us, this means recognising that the hostility of the present world is not just outside, but that it begins within "me", within us, with our desire for independence.

This desire can take blatant forms, just as it can take innocent, bourgeois forms.

The desire to follow our body's desires.

The desire to do everything we can to enjoy well-being and comfort above all else.

Doing everything to be praised and admired by others.

Doing everything we can to make our personal dreams come true.

The forms are diverse. The centre is me.

Jesus says renounce yourself.

Give up being king.

You're not cut out for it and it's not going to give you what you think it will.

I am the king. Follow me.

Why do you have to lose your life?

Firstly, because of the hostility of the present world towards King Jesus. Secondly, because of the priority of the next world for King Jesus.

• The priority of the next world for King Jesus

Let's get back to Ernest Shackleton.

Why did his crew agree to join him?

They weren't masochists. They were convinced that the future promise - honour and recognition if they succeeded - outweighed the cost beforehand.

It's the same with Jesus. He lost his life and we must lose our lives because we understand that the next world takes precedence over the present.

In my group this week, we used a diagram to illustrate this passage.

The two boxes on the left correspond to the choices we make here and now. Save our life, keep it for ourselves, or lose our life for Jesus.

The two boxes on the right are the future consequences.

If we save our lives today, we will lose them one day. If we lose it today, we'll save it tomorrow.

At one point, someone took a napkin and covered the right side, saying that if this is all you have, of course you choose to save your own life. Carpe diem, as they say!

If you take off the towel and look at the right-hand column, it changes everything.

Why is this?

Jesus explains why in verse 36:

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?

A former pastor of mine often told the story of a businessman who had made a fortune, sold his company, retired at the age of 40 and moved into a luxury villa in Portugal next to a golf course. What a dream!

No sooner had he settled in than he died of a heart attack in his kitchen.

What's the point of winning the whole world if you lose your soul?

Someone will reply: "But why is it a question of losing your soul?"

Verse 38

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.”

Jesus is coming back.

He will return to judge the world.

It will judge him according to what has been done to him and what he has said.

Were we ashamed to follow him, or did we follow him despite the price we had to pay?

And just in case some people are thinking: the return of Jesus, the final judgement, the end of the world, it all seems too far away to influence my choices today ...

... we have to recognise that this ultimate deadline is no further away from our point of view than our own death.

So Jesus is calling us to be clear-headed.

How long do we spend in the present world? 80 years, 90 if we're lucky.

How long will the next world last? It will never end.

Let's be clear.

Of course the next world takes precedence over the present. Of course it's better to lose your life now than later.

And that's not all.

We must also waste our lives in the present world by pursuing the priorities that flow from the next world.

I don't know if you noticed that in verse 35.

Jesus talks about "whoever loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the good news".

Some people here are thinking about the question of mission. Proclaiming the good news of Jesus in parts of the world where he is not known.

Why accept the sacrifices and discomfort involved?

Because the next world takes precedence over the present.

Some people here go out into the neighbourhood to try and talk to passers-by about Jesus. Why if we risk being insulted?

Because the next world takes precedence over the present.

Why waste your money, your time, your energy, your life promoting the proclamation of the good news, starting with the ministry of your local church?

Because the next world takes precedence over the present.

Does that mean we can't enjoy ourselves in life?

Of course He does! God gives us great freedom and he showers us with good things to be thankful for ...

But ... losing one's life means that all our choices, all our projects, must be subject to, oriented, shaped by the priority of the next world.

All this forces us to ask ourselves a question: what is our reason for living today?

Talking about renunciation and loss has always hurt people's ears. In our culture, it really hurts the ears.

These days, giving up on our desires, our dreams and our heart is seen as almost abusive.

The worst kind of violence.

If you're like me, we're hard-wired to live for the present and for our own little selves.

Going against that can feel like missing out on your life.

And it is ... if our only horizon is our little navel and our little life here and now.

The reality is that there's a lot more to life than getting the best education, the best job, the best salary, the best house, the best pension, dying in the best hospital, being buried in the best cemetery, with the best grave and the best daisies growing next to it.

But to understand that life is much more than that, we have to understand that King Jesus and the kingdom of King Jesus are so much better that they deserve every sacrifice.

Is that too much?

Giving up, losing your life, isn't that overzealous? Isn't that a bit extreme?

I'm fine with my little life, maybe with a bit of Jesus as long as he doesn't take up too much space.

But the question Jesus is asking us is not: are you going to lose your life?

When will it be?

That's the end of the story.

Dear friends ...

When will we lose our lives?

Verse 35 one last time:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

There are just two options.

Either we lose it in this world, or we lose it in the next.

Everyone has to lose their life at some point.

The question is when.

In this passage, Jesus wants us to be clear about the cost of following him.

The cost is real. Giving up our independence, joining the king's ranks, suffering the same resistance as he does and giving everything for his good news.

The cost is real.

But Jesus also wants us to be clear about the cost of choosing not to follow him.

What good is it for a man to win the whole world if he loses his soul?

When are you going to lose your life?

It's not if. It's when.

A few footnotes before I finish.

What Jesus is asking here is not just difficult. It's impossible ... without his help.

In the coming weeks, we'll see just how many of the disciples are out on the streets. Far from the call to lose their lives.

It will take a miracle for them to be able to do that ... just as it took a miracle for them to see that Jesus is the Christ.

There's plenty to reassure us. If Jesus can open our eyes to see who he is, he can also open our eyes to see how to follow him.

Other footnote.

By asking us to lose our lives for him, Jesus is not asking us to do something that he has not done for us.

He's not a sadistic king.

By dying on the cross for us, Jesus shows that everything he asks us to accept as a cost, he asks because he loves us.

In fact, he dies to pay for all the times we have failed to obey his call.

Where are we at with all this?

Maybe you're here because you're wondering about the Christian faith.

Jesus doesn't advertise falsely! There's no trap written in the small print!

He says it straight. Here's the invitation, here's the cost, here's the only two options. You decide!

Or maybe you've been coming here for a while, you've learnt all about Jesus but you're afraid to commit yourself.

You're reluctant to follow Jesus.

If that's you, my dear friend, I have to ask: when are you going to lose your life?

It will have to be done. The only question is when.

Take the time you need to think.

But the deadline for making a commitment is not infinite.

Many of us have already chosen to follow Jesus.

But if you're like me, it's so easy to forget what you've signed up for.

Help me with my life, Jesus!

'OK, but first lose it!'

Could it be, dear Connexion church, that we need to take some time out this week to reflect on what our lives are really about?

Could it be that we need to spend some time on our knees in repentance?

This call from Jesus affects everything.

I think about what this means for our children. There are a lot of new parents here.

What should we wish for our children's lives?

That they succeed in their studies, that they find a good job, that they get married?

I don't see why not.

But what I really should wish for Lucie, Emma and Charlotte is that they lose their lives for Jesus.

Because losing their lives is the way to real life.

In case you find all this a bit heavy-handed, I like this quote from Jim Elliot.

Jim Elliot was a missionary who went to preach the good news in Ecuador in the 1950s.

It was dangerous. The tribe he had been preparing to reach for 4 years was notorious for attacking those who came close.

Only a few days after arriving, Elliot was killed.

But before he left, knowing the cost he might have to pay, he left this note in his diary.

"He is not so foolish who loses what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose".

“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 gospel’s will save it.”

The Miracle We Need (2) (Mark 8.10-30)

Loanne recently read an article that she’s brought up multiple times over the past few weeks. She keeps bringing it up because it’s so pertinent to so many different situations.

The article was based on a study on how people make decisions. We think we know how we do this: we think we examine the facts, the data, the possibilities, and then that we make a decision based on the information we’ve gathered. But what this study found is that the vast majority of people don’t make decisions like this at all. In reality, we know what we want—so we’ve already made the decision, even if that decision is to not make a decision—and then we examine the facts in order to justify the decision we’ve made.

This study actually supports a truth about humanity that we see all throughout the Bible: that human beings are not mainly guided by our minds, but by our hearts. Our hearts want one thing, and our minds follow. We desire what we desire, and because that’s what we desire we trick our minds into finding all sorts of reasons why what we want is more important than what God tells us.

I’ve mentioned what James K.A. Smith said multiple times over the years, but it’s been a while, so I’ll say it again. Smith follows this biblical line of thinking and puts it like this: in our society we’ve so intellectualized our anthropology that we often think that in order to really know someone, we need to find out what they believe; what they know; what their opinions are. But that’s not how it works. If I want to get to the bottom of who you are as a person, what really makes you “you”, then the question I should ask you is not, “What do you believe?” or “What do you know?” If I really want to know you at the core of your being, the question I need to ask is, “What do you want? What do you desire? What do you long for?”

Last week we saw Jesus performing three different miracles in Gentile territory, and the middle of these three miracles required more than just a word or a touch—a deaf-mute came to Jesus and Jesus healed him in several steps: first he placed his fingers in his ears, then he spit and took some of his own saliva and touched the man’s tongue with it. Then he said, “Be opened,” and the man could hear and talk. It was a particular sort of miracle, a miracle of perception.

The point: in order to see why Jesus came, we need a miracle of perception—we need him to open our ears to hear his voice.

I said that last week’s sermon was the first part of a two-part sermon. Today we see the same basic thing, but the context is different, and so what we see here goes even deeper.

Seeking a Sign (v. 10-21)

So let’s get started. Jesus has just multiplied food for the crowd in Gentile territory, and now he and his disciples get back in their boat and head back to Jewish territory.

And when they arrive, the Pharisees come to him, and the old arguments begin all over again.

V. 10:

10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. 11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 13 And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

So the Pharisees—these hyper-religious leaders who were threatened by Jesus—come to him and “seek from him a sign from heaven to test him”. I have a friend named Eric who, when he was younger, worked for a while as a professional magician. The moment anyone learns about this, it kind of seems like they no longer care about Eric as a person—all they want is for Eric to do a magic trick for them. He’s an indulgent fellow, so he usually does it, but it does depersonalize him a bit. He’s no longer this distinct individual named Eric, he’s “the guy who can do magic.”

That’s sort of how the Pharisees come to him now: “Do a trick. Prove you’re the magic man everyone says you are.”

Mark tells us that Jesus “sighed deeply in his spirit”—you can feel his exasperation—and he asks them why they’re looking for a sign, then tells them he won’t play: no sign will be given to this generation.

What does he mean by this? It’s a bit confusing, because the Pharisees have already seen loads of “signs”. They’ve seen Jesus heal a paralytic in chapter 2, they’ve seen him teach with authority, they saw him heal a man with a withered hand in chapter 3, they saw him feed the five thousand in chapter 6 (they’re not specifically mentioned, but in a crowd that big, there’s no way they weren’t there).

They have signs. And they’re asking him now to do something at their insistance, like a performing monkey.

And Jesus won’t do it. He says no sign will be given “to this generation”. Here’s what I think he means by that. I don’t think he’s talking about age—in a literally “generational” sense—and I don’t think he’s contradicting himself either, in the sense that he’s already given them signs. I think he’s saying that to this “generation”—that is, to the people who want to see signs “to test” Jesus, like the Pharisees do—no sign will be given to them that will ever actually convince them. They’ve seen all they need to see, they’ve heard all they need to hear, and they’re still hard-hearted.

They don’t want to be convinced, they want to test Jesus. They want to see how far they can bend him until he breaks.

So let them stay there. Let them remain unconvinced. Their test won’t work.

Now after this, Jesus and his disciples get in their boat again and go away to the other side of the sea—still in Jewish territory, but further away. And there is a really interesting exchange that takes place between them. V. 14:

14 Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.

Let’s be honest for a minute: I hope I’m not the only one who finds Jesus’s warning a bit confusing. The disciples have forgotten to bring bread—so you know that’s on all of their minds. They’re in a boat, and they’re getting hungry, and they’ve got nothing to eat. Who’s going to take the responsibility for this?

Instead of addressing the actual problem, Jesus uses an image connected to bread to speak about something completely different. It’s no surprise the disciples have a hard time connecting the dots. We give them a hard time about v. 16, but I guarantee I’d have probably said something just as dumb.

The funny thing is, Jesus responds to what they’re saying in a fairly strong way. V. 17:

17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?

We need to remember that Jesus is always very aware of both to whom he is speaking and of what they need. He’s not losing his patience here, and he isn’t being cruel. He asks them these frank and difficult  questions to make sure they’re all paying very close attention to what he’s about to say, because it’s important. He wants to make sure they all see that they’re not seeing yet. That when he speaks to them, he’s aiming deeper than the surface, deeper than “What are are we going to eat tonight?”

So what does he want them to see? End of v. 18:

And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

So you see what he’s doing: he’s taking them back to the baskets of food left over, after he multiplied the bread and fish. When he did it in Jewish territory, how many baskets were left over? Twelve—twelve tribes of Israel. And when he did it in Gentile territory, how many baskets were left over? Seven. And what does seven represent in the Bible? Completeness. He’s saying, I’ve come to the Jews, and I’m feeding the Jews, but this grace will extend to the Gentiles as well.

In other words, “I am changing everything. Everything about what you thought it meant to be God’s people.”

Of course they still don’t understand this—not quite yet—but he’s slowly and patiently nudging them there.

So why did he warn the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod?

Leaven, in the Bible, is often used as a picture of an influence that spreads. When you put leaven, or yeast, in a lump of dough, that yeast spreads throughout the whole lump, causing it to rise. The influence of the Pharisees, and the influence of Herod, will spread all through you if you’re not careful.

So what is their “leaven”? What characterizes them in this story?

We see that the Pharisees are hard-hearted, and stay hard-hearted, in order to maintain their grip on their own religious power. And we see that Herod was hard-hearted, and stayed hard-hearted, in order to maintain his reputation and his hedonistic lifestyle.

Remember the question from the beginning of this sermon, the most important question we can ever ask about a person? What do you want? For the Pharisees and for Herod, we know that the answer is clearly not Jesus.

They have no interest in Jesus at all, other than as a threat to the way of life they’ve built up for themselves. When they look at him, they only see what they stand to lose. Don’t be like them; don’t look at Jesus the way they do. Don’t look for the same things they’re looking for.

Eyes to See (v. 22-30)

Now on that note, Jesus and the disciples come to Bethsaida, and once again, we see something similar to what we saw at the end of chapter 7—a miracle in several steps. V. 22:

22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

So this is just like the deaf-mute in chapter 7: it’s a progressive miracle, not an instantaneous one. Jesus leads him out of the village—he wants privacy for this—and spits on his eyes, touches him. “Do you see anything?”

Sort of… He can see shapes and colors now, but nothing really distinct.

Jesus does it again. And this time, his sight is restored completely.

As I said last week, this miracle and the healing of the deaf-mute in chapter 7 are the only two miracles recorded in Mark’s gospel that seem to require a bit of effort on Jesus’s part. The question is why. I don’t think, as some have suggested, that this miracle was more difficult for Jesus than all the others. I don’t think that’s why he takes more than one pass to heal this man. I think he does it for the same reason he did it with the deaf-mute: to show that this is a different kind of miracle. He’s using this man as a living parable that displays something deeper.

When the blind man said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking,” I wonder if the disciples, standing by, heard Jesus’s voice in their heads saying, “Having eyes, do you not see?” I wonder if they thought back to the deaf-mute and remembered Jesus saying, “Having ears, do you not hear?”

I wonder if, when this blind man was only partially healed, they realized that they were only partially healed too.

I wonder if, when the blind man could finally see clearly, they were a little envious of him.

The reason I wonder all this is because of the harsh questions Jesus asked before, and because of what comes immediately after—if the disciples weren’t actually thinking all these things, at least we know it was definitely on Mark’s mind as he wrote his gospel. Because the story of this blind man’s healing is immediately followed by one of the most amazing passages in this book.

V. 27:

27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

So think back over the passages we’ve seen recently:

Jesus in Gentile territory, extending his healing and provision to them.

Jesus healing a deaf-mute in stages, giving him “ears to hear.”

Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for their hard-heartedness and warning the disciples not to be like them.

Jesus reminding them of his miracles, and the deeper sense behind them.

And finally, Jesus healing this blind man in stages: partially healed for a moment, fully healed at the end.

What has only been suggested up to now is spoken plainly, for the first time since chapter 1, verse 1. “You are the Christ.”

“The Christ” is the Messiah, the Savior God had promised to save his people. And the interesting thing is that the first person to say it here isn’t Jesus himself, or John the Baptist (who definitely knew more about Jesus than most other people), but Peter. Other people say Jesus is John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets. But who do you say that I am?

You are the Christ.

It’s the first time anyone has expressed it this clearly and openly.

But how did Peter know? He’s an uneducated man—a laborer, a fisherman. He was not trained as a rabbi, is not used to making complex theological arguments. And Jesus has never outright said that he is the Christ.

So how did Peter know?

Because he was given eyes to see. Ears to hear.

It wasn’t perfect (as we’ll see in next week’s passage)—Peter’s still at the point, like the blind man, where he’s starting to be able to see the shape of things to come, but not yet grasp the clear picture. But what he sees is enough. Enough for him to affirm that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Christ.

Finally—someone sees Jesus for who he is.

What Are We Looking For?

Friends, this is where everything in this gospel has been leading us. All these miracles, all this teaching, point in one direction: to the acknowledgement that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It’s what Mark declared in the very first sentence of this book—and finally, someone within the narrative has seen it.

So it’s impossible for us to read this text seriously without hearing Jesus ask us the same questions he asked the disciples: Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?

What you’re seeing depends on two things. First, it depends on God, who performs the miracle in our hearts to give us eyes to see: we need a miracle of perception, like the blind man, and he’s the only one who can give it.

But if that’s all we think about, what will we do? We’ll sit around, like the blind man, waiting for Jesus to come across our paths. We’ll spend our time waiting for God to come down in a bolt of lightning or a voice from heaven and shake us up.

That’s not the way Jesus reveals himself, most of the time. It’s not the way he revealed himself to the disciples. Instead, he warned them. He pushed them. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod,” he said. Because he knows that our instinct will be to think just like them: to come to Jesus to test him, rather than to know him.

So here is the question we need to ask, and it’s quite simple: What are we looking for?

Are we looking for proof, or are we looking for Jesus?

The Pharisees want a sign. They want proof. They want to test Jesus, to see how he stands up under intense scrutiny.

So often we do this too. We stand back around the periphery and we wait to see what will happen. We think, Maybe if I had proof, I’d fully embrace the Christian life. But that’s just not true. The Pharisees already have all the proof they need—and they’re still resisting. Not because they don’t see what Jesus is doing, but because they don’t want to lose what they have.

The Pharisees want a sign.

But Peter, for all of his faults, isn’t looking for a sign. He’s looking for Jesus.

He doesn’t understand everything, his knowledge is still very sub-par. But what little he knows is enough to convince him that Jesus is worth following.

So what does he do? He doesn’t wait to understand everything. He doesn’t wait to be more convinced. He’s looking for Jesus, so he follows Jesus. And when he sees Jesus do what he does and say what he says—the same things the Pharisees saw—he is finally able to connect the dots.

Not because he’s more intelligent than the Pharisees, not because he’s got more training. But because unlike them, he wants to know Jesus for who he is, even if who Jesus is turns out to be hard to wrap his mind around.

And that desire to know Jesus is the miracle Peter needed. That desire to know Jesus is another way God gives us eyes to see.

That is the prayer we should all be praying: “Lord, help us want to know Jesus. Give us eyes to see.” And the prayer that should come on the heels of the first one is: “Lord, help me to stand on what I already have seen.”

We might look at the little we have grasped, the few things we have seen and understood, and think it’s not enough.

But it is.

Last week I told the story of the first time I felt God open my ears to hear him—it was really simple, a mere thought that said, “I can no longer say I don’t believe.”

It took a couple years before I became a Christian.

And I didn’t become a Christian because of a massive revelation. I couldn’t say that I had all the elements I felt I needed. With the help of some brothers and sisters in Christ who were patient with me and loved me well, I simply came to the realization that I had enough. What little I knew and understood was enough to convince me that Jesus was worth following. I realized that I could stand on what little I knew, and trust him for all the rest that I didn’t know.

And oddly, it was that decision—the decision to stand on what I did know, and to trust God for everything I didn’t—that helped me to see more and more as the years went on. If I’d kept waiting, I’d still be waiting today.

But I came to the point where I wasn’t looking for proof anymore; I was looking for Jesus. And because I was looking for him, he gave me eyes to see.

My eyes are not perfect—they’re still cloudy, and quite myopic.

What I don’t want is to be willfully myopic—to refuse to look closely at who Christ is, and what he demands of me, because looking closely means I’ll have to act. If I’m looking for Jesus, that is one thing that I can no longer allow myself—that is off the table.

But if seek him, then every day I spend with him is another day when he places his hands on my eyes, and takes them away, and I see a little more clearly.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian or not—the questions are the same.  What are you waiting for? What are you looking for? Are you looking for proof, or are you looking for Jesus? Are you looking for security, or are you looking for Jesus? Are you looking for acceptance, or are you looking for Jesus? Are you looking for love, or are you looking for Jesus?

None of those other things are bad; but Jesus comes first. Will you stand on what you have seen of him, and follow him, rather than these other things you think you need?

If you really want to know what makes you “you”, at the core of your being, the question you need to ask is not, “What do you believe?” but “What do you want?”

Our prayer should be, “Lord, help me want to see Jesus. Help me look for Jesus. And give me eyes to see.”

The Miracle We Need (1) (Mark 7.24-8.9)

We all know what it’s like to get sucked down a YouTube rabbit hole.

One of my favorite rabbit holes to get sucked into is videos of people seeing or hearing in a new way, for the first time: videos of babies getting fitted with their first pair of glasses, of people getting cochlear implants and hearing their loved ones’ voices for the first time, or color blind people receiving those glasses that finally allow them to see colors. I could watch them for hours.

We become blasé to these miracles of perception that exist all around us, “miracles” made possible through science, but the older I get, the more I become convinced that miracles of perception—real miracles of perception—are the most impressive kinds.

I believe this because I know people who have benefitted from other types of “miracles”, of recoveries from injuries or illness that shouldn’t have been possible, without really being changed by them. It happens all the time—people who have heard the gospel, who receive blessings that can only be explained by God’s hand at work, but who remain indifferent to God after they’ve received it.

A physical miracle can do someone temporary good, but in the end doesn’t change much. But a miracle of perception—a miracle that changes the way you see the world around you—is durable.

I’m saying this because we see three miracles in this text; they’re all different sorts of miracles, which we’ll get into. But I believe that in the end, when you take them together, everything we see in today’s passage is about perception: it’s about Christ changing our way of seeing ourselves and of seeing him.

All three miracles send their own separate message, but taken together give us a bigger message of where Christ is taking us.

We’ll start with the individual messages of the individual miracles.

1. The Grace of Christ is Not Normal. (7.24-30)

If you remember last week, the entire passage was about purity—the Pharisees asking a question about handwashing, Jesus responding that they’re hypocrites because they tweak the Law of Moses to fit their own purposes, and then telling his disciples that it’s not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out of their hearts.

Mark gave a very brief commentary on Jesus’s teaching at the end of v. 19: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

This was a massive departure from Jewish thought, as we saw last week, and the disciples would take years to understand it. But this is precisely the direction that Jesus goes now in v. 24. We read:

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

Tyre and Sidon were firmly in Gentile territory. While it wasn’t at all unheard of for Jews to live in the same cities as Gentiles, there was still absolutely a barrier between them that came all the way from the Law of Moses. The people of God were commanded to stay separate from the other nations (in their marriages, in their daily lives) because these other nations were idolatrous nations, and if the Jews mingled with them they would be tempted to follow their false gods. (Which, if you’ve read the Old Testament, you know is exactly what happened on multiple occasions.)

So already this departure from Jewish territory into Gentile territory is a bit surprising: why is he going there?

Let’s keep reading. V. 24:

And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

So we can see the situation is complex. Jesus is a Jewish teacher, ministering to the Jews. But now here he is in Gentile territory. His reputation has preceded him, so this Syrophoenician woman comes to him saying her daughter is possessed by a demon, and she begs him to cast the demon out.

Notice right away that she adopts a posture of humility—she came and “fell down at his feet.” She knows perfectly well that she has no reason to expect him to answer her request.

But she’s desperate. This is her little girl, being tormented by a demon. We don’t have the details in this case, but we saw what a demon did to the man in chapter 5: he would cry out, cut himself with stones, had taken to living among the tombs, and no one could bind him or keep him from hurting himself.

It’s difficult to understand the intensity of this torment. When Zadie was two she began having night terrors. Night terrors are absolutely horrifying if you don’t know what’s happening. It’s a form of sleepwalking, except it’s violent. She was screaming in her bed, thrashing around, knocking into the bed and into the wall. Her eyes were open, she was saying things, but she wasn’t awake. When a kid has night terrors you can’t wake them up. All you can do is be there to keep them from hurting themselves until they finally calm down again.

Night terrors are quite common with little kids, and they go away on their own most of the time. But the first time it happened, we had no idea what was going on. It was terrifying; all we could do was pray that it would stop. (Thankfully, it did; it lasted a few months and now she sleeps great.)

That was only night terrors, and I felt so incredibly helpless. With a demon possession, it doesn’t go away after a few minutes. It’s constant, it’s brutal, and as a parent, this woman could do nothing to help.

That’s what drove her to Jesus. She had no idea he was the Messiah, probably didn’t even know what the Messiah was. All she knew was what she had heard about him, that he was able to heal people. And she was desperate enough to go to this Jewish healer and ask for help. Despair, hopelessness, hitting rock bottom, can be a great catalyst for a miracle, because you literally have no other recourse—you’ll take absolutely anything you can get.

Now, watch how Jesus responds:

27 And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Some have suggested that when Jesus said “dogs”, he’s using an almost cute term—that’s why the Segond 21 translates it as “little dogs”. They’re trying to make it sound less offensive to modern ears, the way we call kids “ma puce”. This translation is possible, but it changes nothing: it’s still a derogatory term. This is the way Jews referred to Gentiles: as dogs.

It’s a shocking thing to hear Jesus say—but why are we shocked? We were speaking about this while preparing it for our community group Bible studies, and Mariya suggested it’s because we have a sense of entitlement. I think she’s right. We’re shocked that Jesus would say this because we couldn’t imagine Jesus saying this to anyone.

But he’s saying it for a reason. Jesus is laying out the harsh truth of the situation up to this point. Or rather, he’s laying out the perception they all had of the situation. This is just the way it was: the Jews and the Gentiles did not mix. Jesus is the Messiah promised by God to the Jews, to “the children,” as he puts it. So it’s not normal that the Jewish Messiah would stoop to help a Gentile—someone who didn’t believe in the Jewish God.

In our study group, Joe asked this very good question: “How would you react if someone shared the good news of the gospel, and then said, ‘But it’s not for you’?”

That’s essentially what all Gentiles should be hearing. If we are not Jewish, then ordinarily at least, Jesus isn’t our Messiah—he’s theirs. It’s not normal for him to save us; it’s not normal for him to help us.

Now most Gentiles would probably take what he says as an insult, as a rejection. And maybe the woman does too; maybe she hears the word “dog” and recognizes it for the derogatory term it is.

But she’s desperate. So she makes a bold statement—a final, last-gasp attempt to save her daughter. She says (v. 28):

28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Desperation and hopelessness drive us to humility. Rather than being offended, she agrees with him. “No,” she’s saying, “it’s not normal that you should do anything for me. But you can. And I’m asking you to do whatever you will.”

Whether this woman knew it or not, she touched on a great biblical truth, that is spread throughout the entire Bible: God made a promise to Abraham, thousands of years earlier, that he would make his descendants into a great nation, and that this nation would bless all the peoples of the earth. God would come to Abraham’s descendants, the Jews, first, and he would give them to feast; but the rest of the world would also benefit from this family.

And here we see exactly that: the Messiah of the Jews, descended from Abraham, extending that blessing to the nations.

V. 29:

29 And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

Of course, Jesus had every intention of healing this woman’s daughter from the beginning. He said what he said to make it clear to whoever was around to hear that his grace to this woman is not normal…but that he would give it anyway.

And that is the first lesson here. The grace of Christ is not normal, no matter who we are. We have sinned against our Creator; we have rejected him and desired to be our own gods. And yet, he came to save us from ourselves.

This woman understood that Jesus’s help was not normal—and yet she came. She asked. And she received his grace.

That’s the message of the first miracle. The message of the second miracle is just as interesting.

2. A Miracle of Perception Is a Different Kind of Miracle. (7.31-37)

V. 31:

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.

So he’s traveled from Tyre and Sidon to another region, the Decapolis, which was still out of Jewish territory—it was a more mixed region, but its population was not comprised of mainly Jews. V. 32:

32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

This miracle is really interesting. It’s the first miracle of only two we see in the gospel of Mark that require any kind of effort on Jesus’s part. Normally, he just says a word or touches someone, and they’re healed. This time, he does more than that.

He puts his fingers in the deaf man’s ears, then spits, takes some of his saliva, and touches the man’s tongue with it. And then he speaks: “Be opened,” he says, and the man can hear, and his speech impediment is healed.

I’ve heard a lot of people read into the different things Jesus does here—I once even saw a pastor spit on a person who was sick, believing that there was some kind of power in saliva. (It didn’t work.)

I think it’s actually far simpler than that. I think Jesus goes through extra steps here (and later on, in chapter 8, when he heals a blind man) simply to show that this is a different kind of miracle. He’s not healing a cripple, or a skin disease, or a blood infection. I think Jesus was perfectly capable of simply saying a word and healing this man. But he’s setting this, and the healing of the blind man in chapter 8, apart.

Why? Because these are miracles of perception. Hearing, seeing, speaking.

Essentially, he’s using these miracles as living parables. Think of how many times in the gospels we see Jesus teaching, and then he ends his teaching by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”. His point is that not everyone does have ears to hear. Not everyone does have eyes to see. We need something more for that to happen.

We need a miracle of perception.

And here we see Mark paying particular attention to the reaction of the people who see this miracle. Jesus tells everyone not to talk about it, but (v. 36): the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

Mark has mentioned multiple times that when Jesus performed miracles, people would often respond with amazement or surprise. They’d look at one another and say “Who is this man, who can command demons and heal diseases and calm the storm?”

But this is the very first time that Mark reports a reaction that more closely resembles worship.

V. 37:

And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

That may not be the first time anyone has said this about Jesus, but it’s the first time Mark mentions it, and I think he mentions it because he wants us to see that this kind of miracle, besides just being amazing, is good. We see Jesus performing this miracle in a different way than the others, and people responding to him by saying, “He has done all things well!”

We’ll come back to this in a few minutes—I think this miracle is sort of the hinge on which this passage turns—but before we do, let’s look at the next one.

3. The Grace of Christ Is Extended to All. (8.1-9)

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3 And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4 And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” 5 And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6 And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. 7 And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8 And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

This particular miracle is really interesting, because it’s been done before. The events of the beginning of chapter 8 are almost identical to the events in chapter 6, verses 30 to 44, when Jesus feeds the crowds there. Lots of people gathered in a desolate place, they’re hungry, and Jesus has compassion on the crowd (it’s mentioned in both texts). He takes a few loaves of bread and a few fish and multiplies them to feed the entire crowd, with food left over. The same thing as we see here.

There are, however, a few significant differences between the two events.

First is the location—in chapter 6, Jesus and the disciples were still on the other side of the sea of Galilee, firmly in Jewish territory. Now they’re in the Decapolis, and this crowd is filled with Gentiles.

Second is the disciples’ reaction to the need. In chapter 6, when Jesus mentions that the crowds are hungry, the disciples start brainstorming where to go buy food. This time, that doesn’t happen. Jesus mentions their need, and they respond by asking in v. 4, “How is this possible? How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”

At first glance, you’d think it’s sort of a dumb question, because Jesus just multiplied food for the crowd in Galilee not long before—they know perfectly well how it’s possible. So why would they ask the question?

Mark doesn’t tell us, but I would be willing to bet that they’re asking the question, not because they can’t conceive of how Jesus could feed the crowd, but rather because they couldn’t imagine Jesus doing it here. It’s one thing to feed thousands of Jews, but Jews don’t eat with Gentiles; Jews don’t serve Gentiles food; it’s not just a miracle that’s required, but a rewiring of the disciples’ entire way of seeing these people.

The final difference is quantity—especially quantity of leftovers. In both passages, we start with a small amount of food, Jesus multiplies the food to feed thousands of people, and there is a lot of food left over.

I know we saw this a few weeks ago in chapter 6, but it’s significant, so I’m going to say it again. In chapter 6, there were twelve baskets of food left over. What does the number twelve remind you of? Of course, if you know the story of Exodus, it will remind you of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Here in chapter 8, there are seven baskets of food left over. Seven, in the Bible, is the number of completeness, of wholeness. 

Seven baskets here, twelve baskets there. And there’s a reason: God knew exactly what he was doing when he planned out how much food there would be left over. Again—he’s making a living parable.

In the first miracle, as we’ve seen, Jesus is in Jewish territory—he’s preaching to Jews, and he’s feeding Jews. Twelve baskets, twelve tribes of Israel. In this second miracle, Jesus is in Gentile territory—he’s preaching to non-Jews, and he’s feeding non-Jews. And this time, seven baskets are left: completeness.

First he comes to Israel, and feeds his people. Then he goes out into the rest of the world, and feeds them in the same exact way. Jesus didn’t come just to save the Jews; he came to save all his people. People from all nations, all tribes and tongues.

Think back to what the Syrophenician woman said earlier. Jesus said,

“Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

And Jesus approves.

Here we see him extending that approval to this entire crowd—he fed the Jews first, multiplying their bread and filling them up, and now he does it for the Gentiles. But it’s not “crumbs” he gives them; just like with the Jews, he gives them an abundant feast. The same feast as the Jews got—everyone filled to bursting, with plenty left over.

The message is simple: the grace that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, came to give to the Jews, isn’t just for the Jews—it is for all peoples, all nations, all tribes. No one is excluded on the basis of who they are or where they come from.

The Miracle We Need

So we’ve seen these three miracles now; each is unique, and each has its own particular message they communicate. You could preach one sermon on each of these miracles, and you’d come out with three different messages.

But Mark tells his story with intentionality; he puts them together for a reason. So what is that reason? What do we see here?

We see, first, that the grace of Christ is not normal—it’s not normal that God would show his grace to those who were not his people (like us), it’s not normal that God would show his grace to his own people who reject him. His grace is not normal.

And yet, his grace is abundantly offered—not just to the Jews, but to all peoples.

What does his grace consist of? It consists, of course, of everything Christ came to do: to be punished for our sin in our place, to give us his perfect life, to forgive us for our sin, to declare us righteous, to give us eternal life. He came to save us from our sin, and that is his grace.

But for us to access any of that—for us to realize our need for a Savior, and turn to him—he needs to give us another grace, and it is this grace that is highlighted in this text.

This grace, offered to all peoples, is a miracle of perception. This grace, offered to all peoples, is not material blessing, but changed eyes, changed ears, changed hearts. The ability to desire God’s presence, to see God’s glory, to hear God’s voice, to proclaim God’s kingdom.

That’s what we see here. He gives the grace to see ourselves differently—to know that we, like the Syrophoenician woman, are undeserving of his grace. He gives us the grace to see him differently—to know that, despite how undeserving we are, he gives us grace, and he gives it abundantly.

I remember one of the first times this ever happened to me. I had grown up in church, so I’d heard the gospel and stories from the Bible all my life; I’d heard thousands of sermons. But I didn’t care; I was disinterested. I did a very good job pretending, but I didn’t actually believe any of it.

Then when I was nineteen I got a job at a local printing company. My particular job was printing things on t-shirts: company t-shirts, event t-shirts, and so on. The company was small, so the owner had set up the t-shirt printing material in his father’s barn, in the middle of the forest about ten miles out of town. And that’s where I’d spend my workdays—all by myself in this barn, in the woods.

I had a little CD player out there so I could listen to things, and one beautiful summer day I put on the only thing I had in my car. It was a Christian musician I kind of liked, so I put it on and it played on a loop all day. And I don’t quite know how it happened, but during one particular song that put particular emphasis on the gospel, this thought came unbidden: You can’t say you don’t believe this is true. You can try, but it’d be a lie. You believe this. You know you do.

I kept trying to work for a while, but I couldn’t: I had to take a break and go outside. I looked up at the trees, at the sky, at the sun shining, and I knew it was true. I couldn’t say for sure exactly what I believed, but I couldn’t truthfully say I didn’t believe God had sent his Son.

It took a couple years to bring me to a full conviction of the truth of the gospel, but on that day, Jesus started the process. He opened my ears, made it so that when he spoke to me through the gospel, I heard him. I had no more choice in the matter than the deaf man after Jesus healed him; he couldn’t choose to be deaf again, and of course, who would want to?

This is what God does—sometimes all at once, sometimes incrementally. He opens our ears to hear his voice, he opens our eyes to see him. And what do we hear him say?

We hear him say, “You don’t deserve my grace. You have sinned against me, and deserve condemnation. But I came anyway. I died anyway. Yes, even for you.”

So what do we do with that? Very often, we feel like we need to wait for this monumental event. But we can learn so much from the Syrophoenician woman. She never had a revelation from heaven—she didn’t hear God telling her to come to Jesus. She saw her need, and she had nowhere else to go.

And that was enough. That was a miracle.

Some of us, whether we’re Christians or not, need to come to the realization that nothing in this world will satisfy our deepest need. This will happen over and over in our Christian lives, because we need a constant reminder of who we are and of who he is. We need to feel the weight of our sin, the weight of our need. We need to fall at his feet and beg him to give us eyes to see, ears to hear. And we need to realize that when we do, he is waiting—not with crumbs, but with a feast.