WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.019 We have an abbreviated opportunity to look at the text today, so some of you will be 00:00:08.019 --> 00:00:13.439 thankful for that, but we'll have a bit of a homily today on Mark 8, 34 to 38. 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:16.679 This is the very end of our series on the Gospel of Mark for now. 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:21.480 We'll pick back up with it in September, and we end chapter 8, which is exactly the halfway 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:24.000 point of the Gospel of Mark. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:31.839 And last week, Derek looked at the very famous passage where Jesus asks the disciples, who 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:33.799 do people say that I am? 00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:35.000 And Peter said the right thing. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:40.480 He said, you are the Christ, which means in Greek, Savior. 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:43.320 It means Redeemer, Rescuer. 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:48.519 And then the very next thing Jesus said was answering, anticipating their question, how 00:00:48.519 --> 00:00:51.039 are you going to be the Christ for us? 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:52.879 How are you going to be the Redeemer? 00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:55.160 And he said it plainly, Mark tells us. 00:00:55.160 --> 00:01:04.079 So for the first time in all the Gospel stories, Jesus told them explicitly, I am going to 00:01:04.079 --> 00:01:06.520 go and die. 00:01:06.520 --> 00:01:09.960 He said, I'm going to go die, and in three days I'm going to rise again. 00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:15.200 And it said that he had never spoken it so plainly before, and that means that Jesus was 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:17.640 talking about, of course, the cross. 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:23.040 So Jesus was saying, I have a cross that I'm about to go and bear. 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:25.799 I'm going to take up my cross. 00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:29.960 And then the very next thing he says, our passage, is he turns back to them again. 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:34.640 He summons not only the disciples, but also others that are around. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:37.480 This is one of the rare times that Jesus does this in verse 34. 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:38.920 He summons people. 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:45.040 He says, come in close, because I've got something that you absolutely need to hear. 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:48.360 And he says, you also have a cross to bear. 00:01:48.360 --> 00:01:52.600 So in the previous passage, Jesus said, I have a cross to bear, and now in this passage 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:56.280 he says, and you have a cross to bear. 00:01:56.280 --> 00:02:01.719 And he had said, my cross will be the saving cross, the redeeming cross, but you also 00:02:01.719 --> 00:02:04.280 have to take up a cross. 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:05.600 And you see it in verse 34. 00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:10.439 He says, look, if you want to come after me, if you want to follow me, you have to follow 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:11.560 me. 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:16.479 So if you want to truly follow me, you have to follow me by also going to the cross. 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.120 That's the line that he uses. 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:22.479 He says, take up your cross, bear your cross. 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.840 Now this is not an easy saying at all. 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.039 It's a very difficult saying, but it's pivotal. 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:33.400 It might be the most meaningful command in the New Testament. 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:36.400 Take up your cross and follow me. 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:38.039 It's a call to follow Jesus. 00:02:38.039 --> 00:02:39.680 It's an invitation. 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:41.080 It's weighty. 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:42.160 It's hard. 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:44.160 It's heavy. 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:46.560 Let me just do two very brief things. 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:48.360 One, what is he saying? 00:02:48.360 --> 00:02:52.160 What does it mean when Jesus says, take up your cross? 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:56.880 And then secondly, how could that be good news for us? 00:02:56.880 --> 00:02:59.800 So first, here's the full command. 00:02:59.800 --> 00:03:06.160 Verse 34, he says, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:14.240 Now it's difficult for us to understand this phrase because we've adopted it into the English 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:17.639 language as a normal idiom that we use. 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:21.919 So most of the time we use bearing the cross as a joke. 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:27.919 So you might look to the person to your left or right today, maybe your spouse, maybe your 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:32.639 friend, and you might have said to them in the past, being your friend is the cross I 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:35.039 have to bear. 00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:40.120 Being wives always, you know, wives, never the other way around, but wives say to husbands, 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:44.479 being married to you is the cross that I've been given to bear in this life. 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:46.560 So sometimes we say it as a joke. 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:50.439 Other times we say it seriously, and when we say it seriously, we're talking about the 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:55.000 things in our life that are hard that we can't get out from under. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:59.399 So we might say, you know, this illness, this chronic pain I have is the cross that I have 00:03:59.399 --> 00:04:00.399 to bear. 00:04:00.399 --> 00:04:04.680 Or this terrible work environment that I'm in is the cross I have to bear. 00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:05.840 I can't get out of my job. 00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:07.240 I have to stay where I am. 00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:09.760 It's the cross that I've been given to bear. 00:04:09.760 --> 00:04:17.120 Now those are all legitimate uses in a way, but because we use this phrase in those ways, 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:22.199 it clouds a little bit what Jesus was actually saying. 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:28.720 And if you heard this, if you were a first century Jew, a first century person, period, 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:33.639 and you heard somebody say this, you would have known exactly what was being said. 00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:38.599 And James Edwards, one of the great commentators on this gospel, this is how he says it. 00:04:38.599 --> 00:04:42.680 He says, Jesus chose an image of extreme repugnance. 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:48.759 The cross was the instrument of cruelty, pain, dehumanization, and shame. 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:54.680 The cross symbolized hated Roman oppression and was reserved for the lowest social classes. 00:04:54.680 --> 00:05:00.120 It was the most visible and omnipresent aspect of Rome's terror apparatus. 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:04.399 It was designed to punish criminals and quash slave rebellions. 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:05.639 And then he gives us two dates. 00:05:05.639 --> 00:05:12.399 He says in 71 BC, the Roman general Crassus defeated the slave rebel Spartacus, you know 00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:19.959 the famous name Spartacus, and crucified Spartacus and 6,000 of his followers on the Appian way. 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:24.319 This was the famous moment that the cross became the most common torture instrument 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:25.879 in the ancient world. 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:29.079 6,000 were crucified after this war with Spartacus. 00:05:29.079 --> 00:05:39.120 And one century later, 71 AD, exactly Nero, would use the cross to crucify and burn thousands 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:44.959 of Christians who were falsely accused of setting fire to Rome, the city of Rome. 00:05:44.959 --> 00:05:52.120 Now, Jesus is giving an invitation to follow him using the most repugnant, cruel image, 00:05:52.120 --> 00:05:54.799 perhaps in all of human history. 00:05:54.800 --> 00:06:00.600 And that means that he's saying, you have to come with me and die. 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:01.600 That's the basic idea. 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:05.879 And the reason he uses the language take up or pick up is because everyone knew in the 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:10.920 first century that any time someone was going to be crucified, they had to bear their own 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:11.920 cross. 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:17.519 They had to carry the cross beam, just the beam, not the foundation pole. 00:06:17.519 --> 00:06:19.439 And they would carry it to the place of death. 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:21.280 It was humiliation and shame. 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:23.759 Usually a parade would follow. 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:27.360 And so when he says, take up your cross and follow me, everybody in the first century hears 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:30.319 exactly what he's saying. 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:32.199 What are you saying, Jesus? 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:35.319 He's saying, I bid thee come and die. 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:36.319 Come and die with me. 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:41.920 And so the question is, what exactly is Jesus saying is our cross, the thing that has to 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:45.319 die for us to follow him? 00:06:45.319 --> 00:06:50.519 What is the cross that you have to carry on your back if you're going to follow Jesus? 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:51.839 What is the cost of discipleship? 00:06:51.839 --> 00:06:58.479 Now, before I say it, he says it very plainly here, one thing is that just in reading this 00:06:58.479 --> 00:07:05.079 one verse helps us to see the historicity of the Gospel of Mark, the accuracy of the 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:08.519 Gospel of Mark. 00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:11.039 This is something Jesus really did say. 00:07:11.039 --> 00:07:17.639 If you are a late first century disciple like Mark and you're trying to gather people around 00:07:17.639 --> 00:07:22.759 Jesus, and you're saying, look, this is a great thing to follow, the movement of the 00:07:22.759 --> 00:07:28.800 way as it was called, the Christian way, you would absolutely never put this line in. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:33.079 This is a foolish thing to put if your goal is recruitment. 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:36.439 And the only reason that you would put it in is because what we're being told actually 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:37.439 took place. 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:42.759 It happened, that he said to his disciples, you're going to have to die with me. 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:50.120 Now he was talking for sure there about martyrdom in a way, physical death. 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:55.279 All 11 of the 12 would go and eventually lose their lives in horrific ways for the sake 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:56.279 of the Gospel. 00:07:56.279 --> 00:07:59.439 But that is not actually the fundamental thing that Jesus is talking about. 00:07:59.439 --> 00:08:03.039 What is he saying is the cross that we have to bear. 00:08:03.039 --> 00:08:04.039 Where is it that we have to die? 00:08:04.039 --> 00:08:05.360 And here it is. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:06.920 He gives it to us really plainly. 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:11.759 He says, it's your own self. 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:14.439 It's you that has to die. 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:18.719 So he says, bear your cross, take up your cross, but what's the first command? 00:08:18.719 --> 00:08:21.000 Deny yourself and take up your cross. 00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:26.519 And so he's saying, the thing that has to die is actually me. 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:27.519 It's us. 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:32.319 And he's not talking about the physical body there like he would have to undergo. 00:08:32.319 --> 00:08:35.960 He's talking first about a part of who we are. 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:39.200 He's talking about the depths of our soul. 00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:42.120 And so this is what he says, he says that there is a part of you. 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:51.080 There's a you, follow me here, there's a you that has to deny or kill you. 00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:57.520 There is a part of you that does the denying and a part of you that gets denied. 00:08:57.520 --> 00:09:02.600 And I know that sounds a bit too philosophical, but actually I think all of us know that there's 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:04.480 the truth in it. 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:10.519 One of the best illustrations for this is our own Edinburgh-born author, Robert Louis 00:09:10.519 --> 00:09:17.480 Stevenson, who wrote the very important book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:22.360 And in that book, he was trying to capture the problem that we have, that deep within 00:09:22.360 --> 00:09:25.399 every single one of us, there are two selves. 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:29.800 He captured it, there's Dr. Jekyll, the reasonable scientist, and there's Mr. Hyde, the man who 00:09:29.800 --> 00:09:32.159 is out of control. 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:34.320 And Jesus is saying that there is a part of you. 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:41.520 There's a Dr. Jekyll that has to actually deny or kill or crucify Mr. Hyde, the Mr. 00:09:41.520 --> 00:09:43.480 Hyde that's deep down within every one of us. 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:44.480 Now why? 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:51.520 Because Jesus is saying, when you come and follow me, you become a new self, a new person. 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:55.240 By the Holy Spirit, Jesus makes you brand new. 00:09:55.240 --> 00:10:00.280 And actually the idea underneath the idea in this command is that you become the true 00:10:00.280 --> 00:10:02.960 self when you follow him. 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:06.360 You become actually the real you. 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:09.879 And so whenever you follow Jesus and you become the real you, you experience the Holy Spirit's 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:15.360 power in your life, there is a self, a part of you, that has to be denied, that has to 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:18.400 be crucified ultimately. 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:21.879 That means that ultimately Jesus is saying, deep down in us, for those of us who follow 00:10:21.879 --> 00:10:24.240 Jesus, we are not consistent. 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:25.240 We're inconsistent. 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:29.040 We have a war going on in the pit of our soul. 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:30.040 And this is what he means. 00:10:30.040 --> 00:10:32.840 Paul calls it the same thing, deny yourself. 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:36.560 Paul calls this the problem of the love of self. 00:10:36.560 --> 00:10:38.160 And this is how we might describe it. 00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:43.519 It's the part of us that wants to live entirely for our own pleasures. 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:48.440 It's the part of us that says, I am not in this life to be opposed. 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:50.560 You know, I don't exist. 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:53.399 I don't exist to be anything but comfortable. 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:58.440 I don't exist to find opposition in this life by following Jesus Christ. 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:00.320 That's the part of us he's talking about. 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:05.480 It's that every one of us has a deep desire to live as our own master, according to our 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:12.240 base desires, as we call them, to pursue the fulfillment of our cravings and to be personally 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:14.200 free. 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:17.320 And these are the types of things that we seek in our freedom. 00:11:17.320 --> 00:11:23.840 We seek this through sex, ambition, power, entertainment, wealth, status, comfort, and 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:25.360 prestige. 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:29.080 And we yield these domains to our own mastery. 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:33.879 We use them to become the comfortable self that we've always wanted to be. 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:37.400 And Jesus is saying, that's what has to be crucified. 00:11:37.400 --> 00:11:38.720 That's what has to be denied. 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.960 Augustine said it like this, the great pastor of Hippo in North Africa. 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:50.200 He said that the love of self, self is a desire to only do one's own will. 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:52.560 That's what has to be crucified. 00:11:52.560 --> 00:11:56.080 Now that means that Jesus is saying, and we'll move on to the final point and be done. 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.560 I know it's warm. 00:11:58.559 --> 00:11:59.559 We'll move on. 00:11:59.559 --> 00:12:05.879 But Jesus is saying this to us, if you follow Jesus by the power of the spirit, he can make 00:12:05.879 --> 00:12:08.399 you into the true self, the true you. 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:13.319 He actually makes us authentically and fully human. 00:12:13.319 --> 00:12:20.479 He brings us to become the people we were always meant to be from the Garden of Eden. 00:12:20.479 --> 00:12:22.879 And that means there really is an authentic self. 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:26.279 People talk today about authentic self, finding your authentic self. 00:12:26.279 --> 00:12:30.039 And to do that, they say you've got to reach in, you've got to search your feelings, and 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:33.959 you've got to perform that self outward so the world can see. 00:12:33.959 --> 00:12:39.000 And Jesus is saying that is actually the self that has to be crucified. 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:44.000 And the self that you really need has to be gifted to you from the outside. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:49.799 Your true self is a gift, and it comes by the Holy Spirit through grace in following Jesus 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:51.120 Christ. 00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:52.500 And so here's the cost of discipleship. 00:12:52.500 --> 00:12:58.240 The cost is when your deep desires, that self that you were born with, says, I want to be 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:02.720 safe, secure, wealthy, comfortable at all costs, and these are my ultimate gods. 00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:06.840 Your true you, the you that Jesus gives you. 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:12.320 And the new birth has to say your days are numbered to that old self. 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:13.600 You're not going to last forever. 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:17.100 I know that these are temporary desires. 00:13:17.100 --> 00:13:18.600 You have to die. 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:19.600 That's what Jesus is saying. 00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:26.519 And secondly, finally, you might say, why in the world would I want that? 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:30.600 So why, you know, I've got Netflix. 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:32.560 I've got food aplenty. 00:13:32.560 --> 00:13:34.279 I've got a good paying job, perhaps. 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:42.920 I live in an age where I can fulfill nearly every desire that I choose, nearly. 00:13:42.920 --> 00:13:48.200 Why would I choose to die to that person and live to Christ? 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:51.160 Now, I don't have time to give you all the reasons, so I'm just going to let me just 00:13:51.160 --> 00:13:53.120 give you one. 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:58.960 This command, everyone, everyone of us knows this command stands against the most basic 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:02.600 instinct of modern humanity for 250 years. 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:08.879 We have been taught told we've appropriated the idea that we exist for the pursuit of 00:14:08.879 --> 00:14:10.759 happiness. 00:14:10.759 --> 00:14:13.800 Thomas Jefferson wrote it right into the Declaration of Independence, but he got it 00:14:13.800 --> 00:14:16.320 from an Englishman, John Locke. 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:20.320 So it was here first, and then America adopted it, but it was in France too, everywhere, 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.440 the entire West, the pursuit of happiness. 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:28.360 And happiness is a chemical reaction that happens in your brain. 00:14:28.360 --> 00:14:32.680 And sadness is a chemical reaction that happens in your brain. 00:14:32.680 --> 00:14:36.800 And winning life means to have more of the good chemical reactions and less of the bad 00:14:36.800 --> 00:14:38.640 chemical reactions. 00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:41.640 And if you can have more of the good and less of the bad, then ultimately you've done your 00:14:41.640 --> 00:14:43.040 best. 00:14:43.040 --> 00:14:45.640 You've lived your best life now. 00:14:45.639 --> 00:14:46.639 And how do you do that? 00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:51.279 You chase sex, entertainment, ambition, status, curating a novel identity, performances of 00:14:51.279 --> 00:14:57.000 all kind, and you hope that it will happen for you and it will not work. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:58.000 That's the one message here. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:14:59.319 It won't work. 00:14:59.319 --> 00:15:01.519 And here's why, and we all know this. 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:04.000 You don't even have to turn to the Bible to know this. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:11.960 Here's why it won't work, because we all have had the experience that sometimes doing good, 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:18.320 sometimes doing the most good actually brings you the most pain. 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:25.680 Sometimes doing what's absolutely best, what's truly good, is standing up and suffering the 00:15:25.680 --> 00:15:26.680 most. 00:15:26.680 --> 00:15:35.720 Meaning, you can do the most good and be incredibly sad and have joy in the midst of it. 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:40.040 You see, what people are really looking for is joy, not happiness. 00:15:40.039 --> 00:15:45.679 And sometimes joy comes, joy does come through choosing what's true, good, and beautiful 00:15:45.679 --> 00:15:49.839 instead of what makes you happy temporarily. 00:15:49.839 --> 00:15:54.799 And John Stott and our bulletin, the line in our bulletin today, deny your old self, 00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:57.079 follow Jesus, and you can become your true self. 00:15:57.079 --> 00:16:01.199 In other words, he's saying this is the only actual path to joy. 00:16:01.199 --> 00:16:04.399 You won't be satisfied if you do it any other way. 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:05.399 And some of you have done it. 00:16:05.399 --> 00:16:11.000 You've lived that life and you've found out that happiness doesn't work. 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.039 Let me close then with just two issues that Jesus brings up in a line or two and will 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:16.039 be done. 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:18.519 They're in verse 36 and 38. 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:22.759 Jesus ends this halfway point of the Gospel of Mark with the two great temptations that 00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:27.199 will always keep coming at us to live the old self. 00:16:27.199 --> 00:16:28.439 And here they are. 00:16:28.439 --> 00:16:32.879 He says in verse 36, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his 00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:33.879 soul? 00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:36.279 Now, what is he saying in their modern translation? 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:40.159 What does it profit a man or a woman or a boy or a girl to gain the whole world and lose 00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:41.159 his soul? 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:42.159 What is he saying? 00:16:42.159 --> 00:16:48.159 He's saying beware the power of the allure of possessions. 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:51.840 What does it profit you to gain all the stuff? 00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:56.679 So he's saying if you're eight years old today, a kid in art here, if you're a child here, 00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:01.000 you're eight years old, you know this allure already, this allure for stuff. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:05.319 If you're 18, you know this allure for stuff. 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:13.880 If you're 80, I bet that you're still fighting the temptation of the allure of stuff. 00:17:13.880 --> 00:17:16.279 And Jesus says it doesn't gain you anything. 00:17:16.279 --> 00:17:23.799 You've got to say to that old self, you're dead. 00:17:23.799 --> 00:17:28.000 That my heart will always be restless until it finds rest in Jesus, not in stuff. 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.720 Now, the second one he gives us in the last one, verse 38, he says in verse 38, whoever 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:38.640 is ashamed of me in my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of him, I, the Son of 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:39.799 man will be ashamed. 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:50.839 Now, translation to modern words, he's saying beware of the temptation in the power of approval. 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:54.920 He says if you're ashamed of me in this life, then the Son of man will be ashamed of you 00:17:54.920 --> 00:17:55.920 in the next. 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:02.560 And he's saying beware, whether you're eight, 18 or 80, we are always, the old self is always 00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:07.759 wanting to be driven and drawn into the power of approval. 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:11.680 The praise of people all around us in every venue. 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:17.759 And Jesus is saying this, if you want security, ultimate security, Jesus Christ is the only 00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:18.759 path. 00:18:18.759 --> 00:18:24.560 And if you want approval, in Jesus Christ, God the Father says you are my son and my 00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:29.480 daughter no matter what you've done and what you might do. 00:18:29.480 --> 00:18:36.639 And if you want happiness, Jesus says how about eternal joy? 00:18:36.639 --> 00:18:42.919 And so that means, here's the last word, Jesus says I have a cross to bear, you have a cross 00:18:42.919 --> 00:18:46.759 to bear, truly the last word. 00:18:46.759 --> 00:18:51.119 Don't think today that the message is this, if you deny yourself, if you put away those 00:18:51.119 --> 00:18:57.839 temptations and that old self, then Jesus's cross will be saving to you. 00:18:57.839 --> 00:18:59.799 And you see what came first here? 00:18:59.799 --> 00:19:04.879 Jesus said I have a cross to bear and then you have a cross to bear. 00:19:04.879 --> 00:19:10.439 And that means that you can only bear your cross, you can only deny yourself, you only 00:19:10.439 --> 00:19:18.359 have the power to do that because Jesus Christ cross has already borne you. 00:19:18.359 --> 00:19:22.719 That means, as JC Ryle put it, when you hear the command, deny yourself, it seems so hard. 00:19:22.719 --> 00:19:27.159 What seems so hard, grace has already made easy. 00:19:27.159 --> 00:19:29.719 The cross has already done the work. 00:19:29.719 --> 00:19:36.159 And so Jesus can say to you today, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. 00:19:36.159 --> 00:19:37.679 Let's pray together. 00:19:37.679 --> 00:19:44.639 Father, give us the grace to be able to deny the self that is not true, that is not good, 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:51.080 that is not beautiful, the self that chases after the goods of this world as if they are 00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:53.280 gods. 00:19:53.280 --> 00:19:59.400 So help us, O Lord, to be forever changed by the power of the cross. 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:01.680 And we ask this in Christ's name. 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:17.720 Amen.