I. Becoming Like the One You Love 00:00
The reason that we ask you to give up hours of your week, every week, for your entire life, is because of this guy, Jesus. So let’s see what he has to say to us this morning, especially focusing on our Gospel message.
There’s a phenomenon in marriage, a well-documented phenomenon, psychologically, physically, biologically, that you grow over time to resemble the one whom you’ve married. Now some of you are like, “Dang, I don’t know if I’m excited about that.” Hopefully not. I know that I’m blessed by that resemblance, because, man, Haley is a wonderful wife, and she makes me a better person. But my point here is that there’s this resemblance that comes from getting to know each other intimately over the years. There’s even a physical resemblance, from adopting their mannerisms and their facial expressions over time. It just happens, whether you like it or not. So my challenge to you, as we start with that (this is just an aside): if you think your husband or your wife is miserable and doesn’t smile enough, look in the mirror, because they’re starting to resemble you. So think about it. That’s just a little giveaway that doesn’t even necessarily have to do with what we’re talking about this morning.
But I bring that up because the reason that happens is that in the sacrament of marriage the two become one flesh, and that gets lived out over the course of your life together. You begin to resemble one another. And do you know what the sacrament of marriage is a picture of? It’s Christ and his church. So what’s the point of getting to know Jesus? It’s so that we can begin to resemble Jesus. Right now, it says, we see in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see fully, as if face to face (1 Cor 13.12). And further, it says, when we see him, we will be like him (1 John 3.2). That’s a promise you can take to the bank. We are called to be transformed, to be like Jesus. So when I talk about him this morning, what I want you to take away from everything I say is this: get to know Jesus. Spend time with Jesus. Invite him into your life.
II. The Son of Man Must Suffer 02:22
I’ll make one more caveat and we’ll launch into the Gospel. I don’t mean come and sit at the church for eight hours and stare at the crucifix. What I mean is, invite him into your life, into your work. Ask yourself the cliché question, “What would Jesus do?” And in fact, don’t even just ask yourself; ask him: “Jesus, what would you do in this situation?” And as you get to know him through the Scriptures, through inviting him into your life, you will become more like him. So today, as we study this Gospel, I want you to be looking for the ways that we can be like Jesus in how he behaves in this Gospel lesson. So we’ll jump in, Mark 8:31:
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. Mark 8.31
Can you imagine how difficult it was to be Jesus? I think sometimes, even though we might hear it, we still think of Jesus as this kind of Superman, this untouchable. He was God, so of course it was fine; he just did everything perfect. In fact, sometimes we see people in our own lives who seem to have it all together, and we think, “Man, it must be easy to be them.” I want you to humanize Jesus in your minds, because he was 100 percent tempted in every way as we are (Heb 4.15). He bore our burdens, costly burdens. He didn’t just go through life like Spock from Star Trek, where nothing affected him, no emotions. I guess even Spock eventually felt emotions. But my point is, he was just like one of us.
III. A Man of Sorrows 03:34
There’s something here that we need to think about. He’s telling his best friends that he has to suffer and die at the hands of the people he loves. I can imagine Jesus studying the words of Isaiah the prophet, in Isaiah 53:
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isa 53.3
So maybe, instead of thinking of Jesus as the Superman, the untouchable, the emotionless one, you see him as the homeless man on the side of the street who you don’t want to look at, because you don’t want to see the human misery. That’s the implication: “as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” We see his sorrow plainly in Luke 13:34, where he’s on his march to the cross, and before he enters Jerusalem he’s looking out at it, and he says:
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Luke 13.34
It says in that passage he was weeping over Jerusalem. He was feeling the grief and the burden. Do you have somebody in your circle, a friend, a loved one, a family member, who has taken a path that has led them to destruction, and you know the grief of feeling that separation and that alienation? And you think over them, “Man, I wish I could gather you and bring you into the comfort and the healing of restored relationship.” Maybe you know somebody you have that same type of impulse towards. And Jesus has this towards his people, the Israelites in Jerusalem. And then he learns through his life, as he studies the Scriptures and as God opens up his destiny before him, that those people he’s been preaching the gospel to, that he’s been healing, that he has been spending every day with, will reject him and ultimately crucify him. And now he has to share it with this group of followers that he’s gathered to be a part of his mission.
Jesus’ radical love was not just on display on the cross, but every day, as he continued to preach the gospel and love those who he knew would be the death of him. The pinnacle moment of this love, of course, comes when he’s on the cross (and some will even say this is the pinnacle moment in history), when Jesus, instead of calling down the fire of God to burn up these people who have killed him, says, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23.34). Can you imagine a heart like Jesus’ heart? That’s the one he wants to grow inside of us. To be like Jesus is to love and forgive even those who betray you, even those who crucify you.
Jesus is trying to help us see what’s going to happen in his life, so that we will look back on our life and think, “How can we be like Jesus?” There’s a reason he let the disciples into his life, the reason he taught them: so that they could pass on to us an understanding of the way of the cross, the way that loves even those who are unlovable, who’ve betrayed us.
IV. Get Behind Me, Satan 06:53
In fact, he continues, and it says, “And he said this plainly.” He’s going to suffer and die and rise again. And Peter, good old Peter (man, I relate to Peter), takes him aside and begins to rebuke Jesus (Mark 8.32). Literally the story before this, Jesus is transfigured on the mountain of transfiguration, and Peter sees Jesus the Messiah, the ruling, reigning King, in all of his glory. And then Jesus starts talking about how he’s going to suffer and die, and Peter’s like, “No, no, no. Just show them what you showed me. Just do that, and then you’ll be king of the world. That’s not the plan. The plan is for you to lead us to revolution.” And how does Jesus respond? He turns, he sees his disciples and Peter, and he says, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mark 8.33).
It’s harsh words to your best friend. It’s so complex, because Peter loves Jesus, and he’s reacting out of his love and his desire to see the kingdom of God come. And yet Jesus has to nail that temptation by calling it what it is, which is the temptation of Satan. You know why he reacted that way? Because he had already faced this temptation in the wilderness. We talked about it last week. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and Satan said, “All these I will give to you. Just bow down and worship me.” And what does Jesus say? Almost the same words he says to Peter: “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matt 4.8–10).
V. The Private Temptation 09:08
The temptation was for Jesus to take the reins and accomplish the mission that God had given him in his own power and strength. We know how painful the tension of this temptation was, because we see in the garden of Gethsemane, three times, he begs God, “Is there any other way? Lord, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” What’s he talking about? He’s talking about the cross and the betrayal and the suffering that he must suffer. “Is there any other way to accomplish your will, God?” But because he’d been tempted in this, because he had already made the decision in his heart, he was able to say at the end, “Not my will, but your will be done” (Luke 22.42).
The key to understanding this is that Jesus had to conquer the private temptation in the wilderness to be able to withstand the public temptation from his best friend, Peter. Think about it: his character privately. When he just got baptized, he had no ministry, he’d done no miracles, he had no power and influence, and Satan says, “Hey, I’ll give you the world. I’ll give you everything that your heart cries out for.” And he had to resist it then, in order that when he has this meteoric rise into fame and influence, when he has this power to cast out demons and heal the sick, at that point, when he has more power and influence than any of us could imagine, he can still deny himself. Because he had already made that decision privately, he was able to walk it out publicly.
How often do we allow ourselves to entertain temptations in private and think, “Oh, that’s not a big deal”? God wants to deal with your heart. He wanted to give Jesus the power and the influence, but he had to test him in the wilderness, to grow him into the type of person who could walk the walk of Jesus that leads him all the way to the cross.
VI. Trusting God's Way 11:17
From a strategic perspective, Peter was obviously right. If God gave you two plans, one in which you allow yourself to be crucified and killed and betrayed by everyone you know and love, and one in which you conquer the world and save your people from suffering and oppression, which one would you pick? Peter was right. But he was wrong when it came to what God’s will was. Instead, Jesus chooses the way of pain and submission to God. It reminds me again of that C.S. Lewis quote from last week: “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” That’s our problem. Sometimes we know God has the best for us, but we wonder, “I don’t know if I like it, though.” But Jesus knew that he had to trust God’s way, even when he knew it would lead him through the valley of the shadow of death. To be like Jesus, we have to trust God’s way, even when we know it will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.
So how do we do that? Well, it’s written, “Let us fix our eyes only on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12.2). How do we choose God’s way, even when it’s hard? We open up our eyes to the bigger picture. God has set joy eternal before us. And so the pain of this life, it says, is nothing compared with the glory that’s been set before us (Rom 8.18).
Now, I can say those words and you can be like, “Okay, I get it. It’s a Bible verse. Fine.” It’s something abstract and out there. But what happens is, when you get to know God and you get to know the heart of God, you build up over time a history with God. You look back: “Man, he provided for me then. He saved me here. He resurrected this thing that I had to lay down there.” And once you build that relationship with him, it becomes like a husband and wife. I know that Haley wants the best for me, even if sometimes she tells it to me straight and I don’t like it and my pride’s offended. But we have a relationship, a history. We’ve built up margins with each other, so that I know she’s probably saying this for my benefit and not for her own. That’s what we do with Jesus. If you invite him into your life, you can grow that trust, so that you can go through the difficult things knowing, “Man, I trust Jesus’ heart for me, and his ability to see me through, his ability even to raise me from the dead.”
VII. Take Up Your Cross 13:25
Jesus makes all of these connections that I’ve been making explicit as he instructs his disciples and the people following him. The disciples just saw him shoot down the number one guy, Peter. He’s like the ringleader. It’s Jesus, and then Peter, and then there’s James and John. And Peter just got smacked down by Jesus, and so they’re a little rattled. They’re like, “Our King, our Lord, our Messiah, is telling us he’s going to suffer and die, and then he just smacks down our second in command, who had the thought that we all had but were too afraid to say.” They’re a little rattled. And so Jesus takes it further, and he says, “Let me explain. If any one of you,” the people who’ve been following him for three years now, “if any one of you would come after me, guess what? This is what it means”:
34 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mark 8.34–38
That’s a big chunk of Scripture. There’s a lot there. Let’s break out a couple of things that Jesus is telling us here. First of all, he’s saying, “These are the two choices before you today.” The choice is between death that leads to life and a life that leads to death. It’s your two options. Do you want to put your priorities in the kingdom of God, or in making your life what you want it to be?
Let us forever banish this image of Jesus as this weak and kindly preacher who’s soft-spoken and walks around just like, “Oh, you’re good. Yeah, you’re wonderful.” It’s not the Jesus we read about in Scripture. He’s not afraid to call us out of our sin. He will not tolerate our lukewarm, half-hearted commitments. He calls us instead to radical self-denial, sacrifice, and discipleship, saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” He will not allow us to selfishly focus on preserving our own life, but calls us to live for the bigger story, God’s redemptive plan for the entire world: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” He will not let us trade our souls for earthly pleasures and comfort, but challenges us to put the kingdom of God first and foremost in our life: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” And finally, he will not let us hide our faith behind a wall of respectability and apathy, but he challenges us to live for the coming of his kingdom and his glory: “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.”
VIII. What It Means for Us 17:27
I feel like that needs just a little bit of explanation. I want to say just a couple of things about that, because I think when we read that, sometimes we go, “But what does that mean for me? I don’t have a Roman oppressor who’s looking to crucify me for saying the name of Jesus. I don’t have the Jews who are looking to bring me before the religious leaders and persecute me for believing in the name of Jesus. So what does it mean for us, in our comfortable, mostly free land of America?” What it means is that we need to reorient our perspective. It’s really easy in our culture, easier than ever before, to make our life all about the comfort and safety that we are given almost by right of our birth. We’re born in a great country where you don’t have to worry about whether you’re able to get food every day. So we have to actively (and Lent is the perfect time to do this), we have to actively seek God: “What do you want for me today?”
In fact, I’ve been watching this show called The Chosen. I highly recommend it. It’s an interpretation of the life of Jesus. Really great. You can find it at thechosen.com, I think is what it is. But they show the difficulty that the Jews were experiencing in the oppression of the Romans. They were desperate, in a lot of cases desperately poor, just trying to eke out a living. And when the rumor came that there was somebody who could save them, a Messiah, they were hungry and desperate for it, because they knew their need. We can forget that we should be hungry and desperate for the provision of Jesus in our life, because all of our earthly needs are mostly taken care of, and then something goes wrong and we call upon him. But I’m inviting you to treat this call as a call into a deeper relationship with Jesus. It’s a call to let him determine the priorities of your life.
And I’m just speaking out of my own thoughts and temptations, but maybe it’s not the newest big screen that you need; it’s the guy down the street who needs a meal. Maybe it’s not the best job or the best car. Maybe it’s the mission of God at the church that he wants you to invest in. This is not a guilt trip. This is not, “Oh, well, I have the best job and the best car.” No, no, no. God loves that. But you have to make sure that the main thing remains the main thing, and the main thing is the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matt 6.33). To be like Jesus is to live fully for the purposes of God and the coming of his kingdom on earth.
And you know what? It’s the only thing that makes everything else worth it. If all this life is about is the nice car and the good job and the wine and the meals, it’s not worth it. There’s too much pain, there’s too much suffering, there’s too much difficulty. But if instead our life is about eternal redemption, if it’s about every pain and suffering and tragedy in our life being redeemed in the glory and goodness of God, and the whole world being transformed so that there is no more pain and suffering, that’s something worth living for. That’s something that I want to live for. And you can actually create that within your life and within your family by cooperating with God in his purpose.
IX. Three Invitations 20:57
As we continue our Lenten journey, these are my three invitations to you. Let us learn to love and forgive those around us, even those who despise or reject us. Let us learn to trust God’s way, even when it’s hard. And let us learn to live for the bigger story, for the kingdom of God on earth.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, I thank you that we get an opportunity to come before you today and to worship you and to remind ourselves that you are the orienting guide to our life. I pray that even as we go out into the world, these would not just be words that we assent to with our minds, but that we would actually integrate them into our life, Lord, that we would actually live differently, because we’ll start to think the way that Jesus thinks. We’ll start to love the way that Jesus loved. We’ll start to live the way that Jesus lived. And ultimately I pray that no matter where we’re at in our life, we would learn to trust the goodness of God and your love for us, that we would trust you to bring us into the fullness of your plan for us, the goodness of God. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.