The Basic Christian Life (Mark 10.23-31)

I’m going to start by saying something a lot of you know already, but it’s particularly important for this text.

There is a particular brand of so-called Christianity that has been going around for several decades now; it’s come to be known as the “prosperity gospel.” I could try explaining it to you, but I think it would be more effective to simply give you some quotes from some very famous (and very rich) pastors who teach this.

Joel Osteen: “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.”

Kenneth Copeland: “Let’s receive our offering this evening, and give you a chance to raise your income.”

Benny Hinn: “There will no sickness for the saint of God… If your body belongs to God, it does not and cannot belong to sickness.”

And here’s Benny Hinn again: “God will begin to prosper you, for money always follows righteousness.”

So you see the essence of this teaching: if you come to God, he will give you riches. He will give you health. He will give you that job promotion you’ve been wanting. He will give you the wife or husband you’ve been wanting.

We can all understand why such a message would be so appealing—because we all have something we want. We all have something we dream of. So if someone seems to give us a way to get exactly what we’ve always wanted, it’s pretty hard to resist.

This teaching is a horrendous twisting of the actual gospel message. The last man I quoted, Benny Hinn, is an interesting case. He is the one I’m most familiar with, because he was always on the television at my grandmother’s house—he’s always been one of the most exuberant proponents of this so-called prosperity gospel. He’s old now, and he’s reaching the end of his ministry, and apparently starting to re-examine some things. He asked forgiveness for his years of giving this particular teaching, and promised to never again ask for money from his listeners.

If he holds to that, he’s absolutely right, because this teaching is not the gospel. The message of the gospel is that we have all rebelled against God—that’s what sin is—and deserve his just wrath against our sin. But because he loved us, God sent his Son Jesus Christ to live the life we should have lived, suffer the death that we deserve, in our place, in order that we might be freed from our sin and reconciled to him.

And now he calls us all to turn from our sin, to trust in him alone for our salvation, and to follow him. But following him requires a radical reorientation of our priorities, as we’ve seen these past few weeks. At the end of Mark chapter 8, Jesus says this:

“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.

So the gospel is not just the means by which we escape hell; it is the means by which the focus of our entire life changes. Everything we wanted, everything we desired before, now takes a back seat to what he calls us to do.

And the difficult thing about this is that very often, it doesn’t seem to be worth it. We are short-sighted people, and few things seem less immediate to us than the idea of heaven, because that’s something that happens a long time from now—or at least, something that happens after we die. And it’s hard to imagine what it will be like (it’s actually not that hard: the Bible gives us an awful lot of information about heaven—we just don’t know it). So it can be easy to feel like Jesus is asking us to give up an awful lot—a lot of very tangible, immediate things—for something that feels less tangible, less immediate.

We see a really good example of this in the text that we saw last week.

Let’s re-read the story of the rich young man, because that is the context in which today’s text really plays out. V. 17:

17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

So Jesus calls this rich young man to go further than simply obeying the commandments God has already given. He tells him to go sell all of his possessions, to give the money to the poor, and then to come and follow him. And what does he get in return? “Treasure in heaven,” or eternal life, as the young man said it in v. 17…and then who knows how many years of following Jesus.

And for the young man, it just doesn’t seem worth it. He’s very sad about this, because he wants to follow Jesus…but the exchange just doesn’t seem worthwhile, at least not at this point.

So here is the real question of today’s text: Is this exchange really worthwhile? Letting go of everything to follow Christ…is it worth it, not one day in heaven, but today? Does Jesus really promise us nothing but a life of difficulty if we follow him, and then—once we’re dead—eternal life?

That’s the question this text answers for us.

Riches and the Kingdom of God (v. 23-27)

Let’s keep reading in v. 23—this is immediately after the rich young man has walked away disheartened.

23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Wealth is just an illustration of what Jesus is talking about…but it’s a very good one.

Few things reveal our hearts better than our bank accounts. Our bank accounts give an in-depth picture of what is important to us. Of course, a lot of our expenses go toward necessities. I’m not talking about true necessities: food, housing, things like that. I’m talking about everything else. How much money do we spend on leisure activities? On vacation? On clothes (that go beyond the merely functional)? On fancy restaurants (that go beyond the simple need to eat)? I’m not saying these things are necessarily bad; they’re not. I’m just stating a fact—we spend money on things that are important to us.

The danger is when these extraneous things, that aren’t really necessary for us to live, become necessities in our minds. When we no longer think of these things as something we could do, but as something we need to do.

That’s why Jesus says it’s difficult for those who have wealth to enter into the kingdom of God. Wealth is not a bad thing in itself—but if you’re not careful, it’s easy to get used to certain things that are nice, but that you don’t really need, and to get used to them to the point where living without those things becomes unthinkable. That was the problem with the rich young man—it’s not that he really couldn’t live without all of his possessions, but that he was so used to having them that life without them was something he couldn’t conceive of.

Now the disciples, surprisingly, show a good bit of intelligence after Jesus says this. You can see they’re thinking about it—v. 26:

And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”

That’s a very good question. Even though most of the disciples weren’t rich before, they are able to recognize that everyone has something that is important to them—everyone has something that constitutes their “wealth”. Something they desire, something they hold dear, something they can’t imagine living without. And if Jesus asked them to give that away… Would they respond the same way the rich young man did? Most people probably would. Their question shows that they understand Jesus is talking about something more than just material wealth—he’s talking about what is closest to our hearts.

And Jesus agrees. V. 27:

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

He puts it very bluntly: With man it is impossible. The disciples are right.  If what Jesus really requires is that we put everything in second place—all of our dreams, all of our priorities, all of our desires—in order to give him the first place… That’s a very hard sell. In fact, it’s an impossible sell. No one has ever seen a camel go through the eye of a needle. It’s impossible.

But not with God. All things are possible with God. God can take the hardest heart and change it so that he, God, actually is more important than all the other things we hold dear.

We see him do it over and over again in the Bible. The apostle Paul is a great example—the apostle Paul was a very well-educated man, a Pharisee who prided himself on his knowledge and strict application of the law of Moses. But in one encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, everything changed. Everything that used to be important for him took second place—to the point where Paul called it all “rubbish” (Philippians 3.7-11). After he met Christ, Paul lived the hard life of a nomad, a life filled with persecution and suffering and hunger and thirst and imprisonment, and eventually, even death.

And he’s far from the only one.

So here is the question this text is pushing us toward: For those who “give everything” to follow Christ, letting all their former dreams and priorities take second place… Are they getting the short end of the stick? Are they the losers in that exchange?

The Promise of the Kingdom of God (v. 28-31)

Let’s keep reading. The disciples recognize how hard this is, and Jesus says it’s impossible for man but possible for God.

And then Peter gets an idea.

We know Peter. He’s the hothead, the industrious one—the one who not so long ago, on the mount of the Transfiguration, actually said to Jesus, “It’s a good thing we’re here, so we can build tents for you and Elijah and Moses!” (Mark 9.5). For everything he’s learned, clearly he’s not quite grasped everything yet. V. 28:

28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.”

This is only partially true. It’s true that Peter left his job as a fisherman to follow Jesus, and he’s travelling with him for long periods of time. But we also know that Peter was married, and had a mother-in-law, and after one of their trips the disciples come and eat at Peter’s house, with his mother-in-law. So while he did leave a lot to follow Jesus, he didn’t literally “leave everything”—he didn’t abandon his family; he didn’t divorce his wife; he didn’t break ties with those who were close to him.

So why does Peter say this? It’s possible that he’s just trying to check that they really have left enough to “inherit eternal life,” as the rich young man said. But that kind of self-doubt isn’t really in keeping with his character. It’s more likely (especially given Jesus’s response) that he wants Jesus to see that he and the disciples aren’t like that rich young man. That man wouldn’t sell everything he had and give it to the poor, but they have “left everything” to follow him.

I went with elders went to a conference a couple weeks ago, and there was a talk on the parallel text to this one, in Luke 18, by Joël Favre. He helpfully put it this way: Peter and the rich young man are two very different men, with two very different paths…and they both fall into the same trap. By pointing out his own sacrifices, Peter shows that he is just as self-centered as the rich young man. By insisting on everything he sacrificed, he shows that he still hasn’t let go of the need to be recognized for having done it.

Peter gave up a lot to follow Jesus, yes. But he hadn’t yet given up the need to be seen as sacrificial.

To this, Jesus gives a very interesting response. He doesn’t argue with Peter—doesn’t say, “No you haven’t, you still have your wife!”—but he does push back a little, in a very encouraging way. V. 29:

29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Jesus says a lot in these three verses.

First, he talks about what someone might give up for him—and just as the disciples had seen before, he goes far beyond material wealth. He talks about those who give up “house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands”. Two of those are material, and the rest is family. Nothing hits closer to the heart than family.

Second, he makes two promises to those who would “leave” their house or family or land. The second thing he promises is what we would expect: “in the age to come, eternal life.” That is not surprising—it’s what the rich young man asked about, and it tends to be what we think of when we think of “the kingdom of God.” We usually put most of our eggs in the “eternity” basket, because that is where we’ll spend the vast majority of our time.

But the first thing Jesus promises might take us off guard. He says that those who leave all of these things for his sake and for the gospel will receive “a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands”.

That sounds suspiciously like what those prosperity preachers said, doesn’t it? Those guys regularly say things like, “Give a hundred dollars to our ministry today, and God will return it to you tenfold.” And they often use these verses as a reference point to defend that teaching.

It’s a little disconcerting. Jesus doesn’t just make a promise for the future, in heaven, after we die—he makes a promise for now, in this time. And that promise doesn’t seem to be purely spiritual, but quite real and tangible—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands—the same things these people will have given up.

Now, I don’t believe Jesus is saying that every believer will be like Job, who lost all of his possessions and whose children died, but then who later had more kids and became even richer than before. There are plenty of believers—like the disciples, like the apostle Paul—who gave up almost everything to follow Christ, and who didn’t literally receive all this. (And the prosperity preachers conveniently ignore what Jesus adds on to the list of promises in v. 30: “with persecution.” He never promises that all our troubles will go away.)

We need to remember that a lot of what Jesus says is not meant to be taken in the most purely literal sense: he often uses images or exaggeration to make a point.

So when Jesus talks like this, what exactly is he doing? He’s expanding the way the disciples think about what is important to them.

Think about the promises of family—brothers and sisters and mothers and children, multiplied by a hundred. We have a lot of missionaries in the church, who haven’t broken all ties with their families in their home countries, but who have accepted to “leave” them—leave their homes, leave the regular contact with their families—and move to another country to serve the gospel.

Go around and ask these missionaries if, in accepting to leave their homes to serve the gospel in a foreign country, they feel like they’ve lost family, or gained family. Through their “loss,” they have met brothers and sisters in Christ they never knew they had. They have met spiritual mothers and spiritual fathers. They have been welcomed into new homes, new countries, new cultures. Those who leave their homes for the gospel—if they have really left them for the gospel—invariably find their worlds expanded rather than reduced. Their families grow, they don’t shrink. They gain far more than they sacrifice.

Now when you’re a missionary, it’s easy to see that, because the contrast between your life in your home country and your life in your new country is so extreme. But all of us who follow Christ undergo the same expansion of our worlds. We all have families—some of us are close to our families, and some of us are not. Some of us have families who celebrate our faith, and others of us have families with whom our faith has created hostility.

Jesus has not called us to cut off all ties to our families, to abandon our wives, to abandon our children. But he does call us to see that the world he has given us, the “kingdom of God” he has brought us into, is far bigger than that. Look around you. If you have faith in Christ, then you now have dozens, hundreds, countless brothers and sisters you didn’t know before. You have new fathers and new mothers. You have a new family. And this new family will last far longer than your family at home. Your family at home will last for as long as you’re alive—this new family will last forever.

And you have it, now. Not tomorrow, not in heaven—now. Jesus has made good on his promise.

At the conference Joël Favre told the story of the famous Welsh pastor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones; it’s too good not to share. Lloyd-Jones began a brilliant career in medicine. Very quickly, when he was young, he became the chief clinical assistant for the king’s personal physician—a position that he likely would have taken upon his boss’s retirement. He was well-known in his field, known to the press. He had an incredible career ahead of him as the private physician to the royal family. But in his early twenties, the gospel took a particular hold on him, and he found that he was no longer able to refuse the pull of the gospel on his life. So he gave up his medical career to become a pastor.

His first pastorate was in Aberavon, in South Wales. His was an impoverished church in an impoverished town, populated mainly by sailors and miners. The press in London finally got wind of his move to the pastorate, and came out to see what was happening. When they arrived in town, they came to him and asked how he could have given up this brilliant career to come here, of all places, to live in relative poverty preaching to sailors and miners.

Lloyd-Jones’s response was simple and succinct: “I’ve left nothing; I’ve received everything.”

What Do You Want?

This text, perhaps more than any other in the New Testament, shows us exactly what changes in our lives if we give our lives to Christ. It is not a change meant for the elite, the “pros” of Christianity. This isn’t apostle-level faith; this isn’t “heroes of the faith” level Christianity. This is the first step. This is the foundation.

What changes in us when we meet Christ? The simplest response to that question is, our priorities. We follow after Christ instead of after ourselves. But do we do it gritting our teeth, because we’re afraid of what we’ll happen if we don’t?

No. There are many warnings of eternal punishment in hell if we reject Christ, yes. And sometimes those warnings are necessary, just like when we tell our little kids that if they disobey us, there will be consequences. But those warnings alone don’t produce lasting, heartfelt obedience; they don’t produce love.

There is a very famous quote from C.S. Lewis that many of you have heard before, but I’m going to read it again here, because it is perhaps the best summary I’ve ever heard of what Jesus is saying here:

“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire… Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

So here is the challenge of this text: What do you want? Where is your treasure? I won’t even give examples, because it could be literally anything for any of us: people or habits or things or activities or even sins. What is most important to you? What do you want?

It’s really important that we know the answer to that question, because when you seek your treasure in one place, it’s very hard to let yourself find it in another. But we absolutely must find it elsewhere, because every treasure that is not Jesus Christ will ultimately fail us. Nothing that is not for him will last.

Following Jesus requires sacrifice, absolutely: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” Jesus said. Why do we accept this call?

We accept this call because of God’s past grace to us—because he sent his Son to live our life and die our death, in order that we might be saved.

We accept this call because of God’s present grace to us—because for everything he calls us to give up, he promises infinitely more in return.

We accept this call because of God’s future grace to us—an eternity in heaven with Christ, freed from suffering and sin, perfectly reconciled to God the Father in Christ.

It is indeed difficult for us to let go of what we have for Christ…but it pales in comparison to what we receive from Christ.

Do you believe that?

You have to know, because that is the test. Whether or not you believe that we receive far more than we sacrifice will determine whether or not we will persevere as Christians. If anyone would follow Christ, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ. There is no other way to follow him. That’s not professional-level Christianity; that’s not apostle-level Christianity; it is the basic Christian life.

The stakes could not be bigger. But neither could the reward. Don’t settle for less.

For Whom Is the Kingdom of God? (Mark 10.1-22)

We all know how frustrating it can be when we have a discussion, and the person in front of us constantly changes the subject. It usually happens when the discussion is a little uncomfortable—maybe you’re talking to a member of your family about a conflict—and they keep interrupting, trying to flip the blame back on to you, or on to something else. You get distracted for a second—because you want to take into account what they’re saying—and then you say, “Please don’t change the subject. We can talk about that after if you want, but right now I’m talking about this.” And then they do it again. So you say, “Please don’t change the subject.” And again.

We’ve all had discussions like that, and we know how frustrating it can be.

Christians are experts at changing the subject. When we read the Bible, one thing jumps out at us, and we get stuck on that thing. It’s not that that thing is unimportant, but it’s not the point. And while we start going down rabbit holes in our thinking, God is yelling down at us: “Don’t change the subject!”

Of course there are reasons for this. Sometimes, we see something we don’t understand, or that hits a particularly sensitive nerve in us. And sometimes we do this just because we enjoy it—we like trying to figure things out. It can be like intellectual candy.

But we need to pay attention to God when he says, “Don’t change the subject.”

I say that because the text we just read contains two verses that will immediately want to make us change the subject.

What Jesus says in this text is wildly countercultural. I even had to take a minute to talk to the elders, to ask them what they thought about why they think this text is structured the way it is, and that discussion was incredibly helpful for me. It’s a difficult text. So it’s natural to want to get sidetracked by the very intense things Jesus says here.

But he says both things to teach a greater truth—and it’s that greater truth that we want to keep in our sights today.

There is one central truth undergirding the three main sections of our text today. I’m sure you already noticed these sections when we read the text. We have the discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees in v. 1-12; we have Jesus’s teaching about being like children in v. 13-16; and we have Jesus’s discussion with the rich young man in v. 17-22.

This text is structured like a sandwich—the biblical authors often do this, it was a common way of making a point. You have one part that says one thing (A), another part that says something else (B), and then a final part that says the same thing as the first (A)—so it’s A-B-A, like a sandwich.

Because in our day we’re more used to linear thinking and this sandwich structure can be a bit confusing for us, I’m going to make it a little easier for us and talk about the bread of the sandwich first: the first part and the last part. Both of these parts show Jesus dismantling a false idea that someone brings to him. Then we’ll get to the meat (or the soy steak, if you’re a vegetarian), by talking about the second part—where Jesus establishes the true idea that goes against those two false ideas. And hopefully we’ll be able to see what Jesus is getting at, because it’s really important.

So let’s start with the first piece of bread, in v. 1.

The kingdom of God doesn’t belong to those who know the commandments (v. 1-12).

And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them.
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

So we need to ask, why are the Pharisees asking Jesus this question? The Pharisees made a point of studying the law in the minutest detail—they know perfectly well what the law of Moses says. So even if they’re not trying to trap him, at the very least, they want to test either Jesus’s knowledge of the law, or his faithfulness to the law.

Of course Jesus knows this, so he does what he does so well and answers their question with another question. V. 3:

3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”

This is only partly true. The law allows that such a thing might happen, but rather addresses the question of remarriage after a wife has married a second husband (if her second husband dies, for example). If you read the law as it is given in Deuteronomy 24, there is no suggestion that this is a good thing to do. It just allows that such a situation might come up, and tells how it should be handled.

But, of course that’s how these things go: we read the Bible, and we see it say, “This might happen,” and because we see the words written down on paper, we assume that if it could happen, it must be okay. (Look at how they say it: “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce.” It’s a subtle twisting of what the law actually says.)

What’s interesting is that Jesus doesn’t pick apart the way they answer his question. Instead, he goes to the heart of the matter. V. 5:

5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

Before we go further, we need to address this. A lot of people have a lot of issues with this idea, that God might make allowances for people in some situations, allowances that aren’t ideal.

But we all understand this. Little Alice (Tom & Silvia’s little girl) is a baby; she’s just learned to walk not too long ago. If she’s on one side of the room, and Tom calls to her and says, “Alice, come here,” and Alice starts to come, she’s not super steady on her feet yet. She’s just learned to walk. So she’s going to wobble, and she might fall. So Tom will say again, “Alice come here,” and she’ll totter again, and maybe fall again, maybe get distracted by a ball she sees on the ground (she’s a baby, after all). Getting a toddler to come to you is not easy.

But what is Tom not going to do? He’s not going to punish Alice for getting distracted. He’s not going to yell at her for being so slow and not listening to him—“Why is your heart so hard towards me, your father?” He’s going to make allowances for her, keeping in mind that she’s a baby, and that he can’t expect from her the same kind of reaction he’ll be able to expect when she’s thirteen.

This is, essentially, where the people of Israel are in the desert when God gives the law to Moses. They’ve just come out of centuries of slavery. They know nothing about God’s character or God’s holiness. They’re babies in the faith. God gives them his law in order to structure their society and teach them what he is like, but he knows they won’t be able to take in everything all at once. He makes allowances for their hardness of heart.

But these allowances God makes—just like the allowances we make for our kids—are not meant to last. Our intention is not that our kids keep on not listening to us when they’re teenagers. Our intention is that they listen to us, and learn to obey us.

So what is God’s intention for his people on this subject? V. 6:

6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

So to put it succinctly: God’s intention for his people is that they form societies around families, and that these families be composed of one husband and one wife, who remain united in a faithful and monogamous relationship as long as they are both alive. Why? If you’ve ever been to a wedding here at Connexion, you know why: because the marriage of a man and a woman under God is meant to symbolize the relationship between Christ and his church. Christ remains faithful to his church, and the church is called to remain faithful to Christ. So our marriages should follow the same pattern.

That’s God’s intention, and he means us to take it incredibly seriously. Marriage is meant to reflect the union between Christ and his church—it is no light matter.

Now what does that mean? Several of us here have families that have been formed following a divorce, either ourselves or our parents. Does that mean those families are not legitimate, because they came from divorce? Of course not. Even if those families were formed in less-than-ideal circumstances, there is always grace, and God can always restore what was broken.

But Jesus’s point here is not to talk about divorce. His point is to show the holes in the Pharisees’ thinking.

The Pharisees know the law of Moses inside and out. They know the ins and outs of every commandment. But knowing the commandments isn’t enough.

That’s Jesus’s point. That’s what he shows here so brilliantly. The Pharisees know the commandments better than anyone…but they still can’t get to the heart of the matter—which, in this case, is that just because you lawfully can do something doesn’t mean it’s what God intends for you.

Do you see what he’s doing? He’s pulling apart the Pharisees’ source of confidence, which is their knowledge of the law. They have adopted the false idea that the kingdom of God belongs to those who know the commandments. But Jesus shows that knowing the commandments doesn’t get them any closer to understanding what God’s intention is.

I know we love to think that we’d not be on the wrong side of this conversation, but this is something I’ve seen again and again over the years, and it’s something I saw a lot in myself when I was a young Christian. In our church circles we love to study the Bible. We love to learn doctrine. We love to be able to argue and debate and point out the reasoning behind obscure and difficult points of theology.

This is a good thing. Knowing the Bible as thoroughly as possible is our job as Christians; if we are followers of Christ, we need to know what he tells us.

But it’s not enough.

I know a good number of people who have made an absolute shipwreck of their faith—and many of them know the Bible incredibly well. They have a very firm grasp of Christian doctrine, and can explain that doctrine very well.

But the kingdom of heaven does not belong to those who know the Bible. All of our study, all of our knowledge, our ability to clearly articulate the ins and outs of the Bible’s teaching is not enough. Knowing the Bible is not enough.

So that’s the first false idea that Jesus dismantles here: that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who know the commandments. It doesn’t

Here’s the second false idea—the second piece of bread on our sandwich.

The kingdom of God doesn’t belong to those who follow the commandments (v. 17-22).

What Jesus says here probably won’t shock us as much as the first point—but it should actually shock us more.

V. 17:

17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Quick side note—this verse often confuses people. Jesus isn’t saying he’s not good; he’s saying that it doesn’t make sense for the young man to call Jesus “good teacher” unless Jesus is God, because “no one is good except God alone.” He’s reframing the young man’s thinking.

19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”

So this young man knows the commandments too. He may not know the details of the law of Moses as well as the Pharisees do, but he knows the ten commandments at least, as every young man born in Israel would have at the time. So Jesus gives him some examples from the ten commandments—don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, etc.

The young man, probably feeling good about himself, can say in all good conscience: “I’ve kept all of these since my youth.” Most of us here could probably say the same, or close to it. There’s nothing in the text to suggest that this young man is full of pride, or that he’s got bad intentions. He’s simply stating a fact: he’s obeyed the precepts of the law since his youth.

Now he was surely expecting Jesus to stop there—he’s asked the question, “What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”, and Jesus responds the same way he responded to the Pharisees: “What does the law say? You’ve done that? Good.” That should be the end of the story, you would think.

But no. V. 21:

21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Why does Jesus say this? He didn’t ask the other disciples to sell everything they had and give it to the poor. He didn’t tell the crowds to sell everything they had and give it to the poor. So why did he say it to this young man?

Because Jesus knew that this was the one thing—perhaps the only thing—that would give this young man trouble.

You see, he’s not trying to trap this young man, but to show him what’s really going on in his own heart. This young man came asking how to be saved—that’s a good question. It’s a right question.

And Jesus responds by saying, “You’ve followed the law, yes—that is good. But where is your heart? Here’s a test for you: sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and lay up treasure in heaven. Then come, and follow me.”

And the young man couldn’t do it. Because although he had followed the commandments, the commandments couldn’t change his heart. His heart was in his wealth. That’s where his security was; that’s where his identity was.

Knowing the commandments cannot save you; even following the commandments can’t save you.

And that’s really interesting, isn’t it? We tend to think of the law of Moses as the way the people of Israel could be saved—follow the commandments, and you’ll be saved, right? Wrong. The law of Moses served two purposes. It served as a guide for the people to follow, and it served as proof that even following the guide wouldn’t be enough to save them. It was enough to form a basis for society in Israel, and it was enough teach them what they needed to know about worshiping God. But it would never be enough to save them.

Jesus tells the Pharisees, and this young man, that they know the commandments, and they follow the commandments, but that despite this, they still don’t know everything. The commandments are not an end in themselves; on their own, they’re not enough.

So the question is, what can save us? The kingdom of heaven doesn’t belong to those who know the commandments, and it doesn’t belong to those who follow the commandments.

So to whom does the kingdom of heaven belong?

The kingdom of God belongs to those who depend on God for their salvation (v. 13-16).

So we have the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees on one side; the conversation between Jesus and the rich young man on the other side. In between those two conversations, we see something vastly different, but that actually highlights what Jesus is saying in both of them.

V. 13:

13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

So here, Jesus says it clearly. To whom belongs the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God belongs to those who are like little children.

Of course you can understand that to mean several different things. Some people have suggested that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are humble like children, to those who are innocent like children. That simply can’t be right, because kids are great, but they are not humble, and they are not innocent. Sin shows itself in children very early.

So what characteristic in children do we want to see in ourselves?

Jesus actually tells us in v. 15. He says, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Children work for nothing. I love my kids more than I love myself, and Jack’s a little older now, so it’s slightly less true of him—but everything our kids have, they’ve received. They don’t earn any money. They don’t buy any groceries. They don’t pay for electricity or water. They are completely dependent on us for everything they need.

And that’s normal; they’re kids. They’re supposed to be dependent on their parents.

That is the characteristic of children that Jesus is highlighting here. Children are not humble, and they’re not innocent. But they are dependent. On their own, they will die. They need their parents to keep them alive.

The only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is to receive it, the way a little child receives what he needs to live. It’s what the Pharisees and the rich young ruler didn’t understand. It’s not by working hard to know the commandments and keep the commandments that we are saved, but by depending on God alone for the salvation we receive.

I know I’m saying nothing new for most of you; we say this all the time. It’s three of the five “solas”: Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Christus—we are saved through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone.

But as often as we repeat this to ourselves, functionally we still operate as if we play a part. There is a toy you can get for children’s car seats, which is essentially a plastic steering wheel with a little horn that you can clip on to the front of the car seat, and the kid can turn the wheel and feel like they’re driving. We say that we’re saved through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone…and we still sit in the backseat, trying to “drive” with our plastic steering wheel.

Or maybe this is a better illustration. Trying to earn or deserve our salvation through our obedience is like buying a plane before you get your pilot’s license. I mean, you can do that, and you’ll have a plane, and that’s great. But you can’t fly it. And if you try to fly it anyway, you might be able to keep it in the air for a while, but chances are, it will kill you.

Obeying God’s commandments to earn our salvation will always lead to either pride, depression, or disillusionment. Pride when you feel like you’re managing it; depression and disillusionment when your obedience doesn’t seem to give you what you thought it would.

The only way to salvation is to receive it, like a little child who is entirely dependent on his parents for his needs. A child will reach out his hand and take a piece of bread offered to him, but he didn’t make the bread, he didn’t buy the bread, he didn’t earn the bread. We do need to reach out our hand and take the salvation offered to us, trusting Christ for his forgiveness and grace, but we don’t earn it, and we didn’t make it happen.

We are wholly dependent on God for our salvation, and the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who receive it in just that way.

Conclusion

So if that is true, why do we obey? Think again of what Jesus says to the Pharisees and the rich young man. Jesus applies an even stricter rule than the law of Moses on the subject of divorce; and Jesus gives a commandment to the rich young man that is far more comprehensive than anything the ten commandments say.

Jesus never says that obedience isn’t important, quite the contrary. Following Jesus requires a lot of work. It’s just not what saves us. Our work, our obedience, is profoundly important, just not the way the rich young man thinks it is, or the way we often think it is.

What do we see in this text?

We see commandments from Jesus, which essentially become tests of the heart. The rich young man’s obedience is good up to a certain point—but when Jesus tells him to sell everything, give it all to the poor, and follow him… That’s the step too far for him, the step where his heart can’t go.

Jesus’s commandment reveals that for all of this young man’s good discipline, for all of his good behavior, his heart is still not changed. Perhaps it’s only partial—I don’t want to be too hard on this young man, because he did at least ask Jesus a question—“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”—that shows that he’s sensitive to Christ’s teaching. Then Jesus asks him a very hard thing, and we don’t know what happened to the young man after. But at least at this point, there is a barrier between him and Jesus that he’s not willing to take down.

So how do I know that I am still receiving the kingdom like a little child? Ask yourself: What am I still not willing to do for God? What commands am I not willing to obey? At what point will we consider that God is taking it too far?

This is a profoundly important question to have in our minds, because all of us will reach a point where we see a commandment that we don’t want to follow. I had to have a really difficult conversation with a brother in Christ, a pastor friend, this week. I absolutely did not want to have it. I was dreading it all week long. But it was clear that, because of what the Bible tells us, that conversation needed to happen. So even though I really did lose sleep over it this week, I asked him to talk, and we talked.

Why did I do that? I did it because God has saved me, and because I am entirely dependent on him for everything—including the final result of that difficult conversation. And because God is good, I could trust him with that, and do the hard thing. And God was faithful—it wasn’t an easy conversation, but it was good, I’m closer to that brother today because of it.

The kingdom of God belongs to those who depend on him entirely—for our salvation, and for our obedience.

Why did God send Christ? Why did he save us? Because we couldn’t save ourselves.

We jumped out of the plane, we didn’t have a parachute, and he jumped out, grabbed on to us, and opened his chute.

So what do we do now? We hold on to him for dear life, we hang on with everything we have, because he is all that’s keeping us from falling. Every act of obedience, every practice of discipline, every prayer we pray, every conversation we have to help a brother or sister in the faith, is an act in which we grip even tighter to our Savior, knowing that his parachute is good, and he really will keep us from falling.

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.”