So, turn with me to Mark chapter 16, and we're finishing off in verse 21 to 28.
Let me explain what I mean. How we understand Jesus, and what it means to follow Jesus, will affect what it means to follow Jesus.
There's lots of different views out there as to who Jesus is. There's the inclusive Christ. He's the one that affirms everyone and everything.
And if we follow an inclusive Christ, we'll never have to stop doing anything. Anything that other Christians might say is wrong.
Because we're following an inclusive Christ. Then there's the therapeutic Christ. And the therapeutic Christ is about me and my needs.
And if we're following the therapeutic Christ, we'll basically hop from church to church until we find a church that massages my needs.
Then there's the prosperity Christ. And the prosperity Christ wants all his followers to live like kings and queens.
And if we follow a prosperity Christ, well there won't be room for any suffering in the Christian life.
And we'll use that Christ as a means to the end of prosperity. That's health or wealth.
A kind of genie in a bottle. So that he can produce what I want.
Maybe that's a husband, what I want. Maybe it's a new job or happiness.
What kind of Christ will we have shapes what kind of Christian we will be.
And there are many views of Christ out there.
But which is the real one?
And that's why this passage is so very helpful.
You'll remember last week that in chapter 16 and verse 16, Peter finally gets who Jesus is.
Look what it says. Look at verse 16.
Who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
But then as now, there were lots of different ideas about what kind of Christ this Jesus is.
And that's why in verse 20, Jesus strictly charges the disciples.
He says, don't tell anyone that he was a Christ.
Is that a surprise?
You would expect him, we would expect Jesus to do the exact opposite.
Tell everyone about him.
It's brilliant, Peter, you've worked it out.
Now go and tell who I am.
Not at all, says Jesus.
Jesus says, you need to be clear.
You need to be clear who I am and what it means for me to be the Christ.
Before you start telling anyone.
And so four times in Matthew, Jesus spells out what it means for him to be the Christ.
And what will happen to him as the Christ.
And this is the second time.
16, 21, 23.
And he makes it clear that he will be a crucified Christ.
So my first point is this.
You've got to notice that the Christ must die and then live.
That's the first point.
Christ must die and then live.
That's 21 to 23.
Look down at verse 21.
And notice how Jesus begins to fill that out for his disciples.
What kind of Christ he will be.
And just look how detailed it is.
He's predicting what will happen to him.
And maybe you're here this morning and you're not yet convinced of who Jesus is.
Well it's an extraordinary thing isn't it?
How precise he is in his predictions.
Verse 21, he will go to Jerusalem.
And there in that city he will suffer many things.
And he will suffer many things on the hands of the authorities.
And he will suffer so much that he will be killed.
But after three days he will be raised to life.
And not only will he be raised to life.
But he will be glorified.
Go on to verse 27.
And you will see that Jesus one day will return in glory.
In the glory of his father.
So Jesus couldn't be clearer, could he?
He's saying that he must die and then live.
And the order is crucially important.
Death leads to life and glory.
But without death.
There would be no life and no glory.
Put it another way.
No pain, no palm.
No thorns, no throne.
No gall, no glory.
No cross, no crown.
You see, Jesus is not primarily an inclusive Christ.
Or a therapeutic Christ.
Or a prosperity Christ.
Although when he's understood correctly.
There are elements of truth in those three things.
But he's primarily a crucified Christ.
But Peter, he won't accept that, will he?
Look what he tells in verse 22.
Peter took him aside.
And began to rebuke him.
Saying, far be it from you, Lord.
Never, Lord.
See the contradiction in those terms?
Never, Lord.
You can't say that, can you?
If you're calling him Lord.
You can't say never to him.
Because for Peter, the Christ was to be a success.
Not a sufferer.
For Peter, the Christ was to be a king in control.
Not a criminal on a cross.
So for Jesus to say that he would be killed in Jerusalem.
That's totally off message.
And that's not what people want to hear, Jesus.
But before Peter can go any further, Jesus turns on Peter.
Look at verse 23.
But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan.
You are a hindrance.
You are a stumbling block to me, initially.
For you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.
I don't know if you've been rebuked recently.
But as rebukes go, as telling-offs go, this is right up there, isn't it?
It's one of the harshest.
I mean, isn't it a little bit over the top?
For Jesus to call his friend, his best friend, Peter, Satan.
Well, in this case, not at all, because Jesus has heard this voice before.
The voice that has come to him and said,
Jesus, you can have the crown without the cross.
You can have the palm without the pain.
You can have the glory without the gall.
Do you remember back in chapter 4 of Matthew?
Where's this voice that Jesus is here before?
It's the voice of the devil.
And do you remember how Satan had tempted Jesus,
and his whole plan was you can bypass the cross.
You don't need to go that route.
You don't need to be the crucified Christ.
You can get the glory without that.
And it's the same temptation, and it comes this time out of the lips of Peter.
And so Peter has gone from being a rock, verse 18,
to being verse 23.
Well, the ESV calls it a hindrance, but it's a stumbling block.
He goes from being a rock to a stumbling block.
There's a play on the words.
And you see what causes Peter to resist the idea of a crucified Christ.
It's there at the end of chapter 23.
Why is Peter so adamant this can't be?
It's because he sets his mind, not on the things of God,
but on the things of man, the things of human beings.
You see, thinking about glory and honour and myself and success,
that comes very naturally to me.
Success I crave.
Suffering I hate.
And as long as we set our minds and hearts on the things of men,
a crucified Christ will make no sense to us.
But when we see it from God's perspective, it makes complete sense.
So let's pause for a moment.
Let's think about and try and consider it from God's perspective,
that Christ must suffer and die.
It's not because God is some kind of cosmic masochist
who derives pleasure from pain.
It's not because God is into cosmic child abuse,
as is sometimes blasphemously said.
No, it is because God takes sin,
our rebellion,
our iniquity,
the bent that's within us towards wrong,
our transgression,
where we blatantly say to him,
I don't want you running my life,
I'm going to run my life my own way.
God takes that very seriously indeed.
And God says that my sin is so serious
that it deserves death,
but in his great kindness,
God the Father,
and God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit,
make a plan in love.
That God the Son would
come to earth
and take on humanity.
And he would be called Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins,
and he will be the Christ.
Jesus, the Christ.
And as we sang and as we confessed,
this morning,
Jesus, the Son of God,
in his humanity,
did suffer,
and was killed,
not for his own sin,
but for the sin of all who would trust him.
And he died,
and yet three days later,
the grave could not hold him.
And he is raised by the Father
to vindicate all that he has done on the cross.
The resurrection is the receipt
that the price has been paid.
And 40 days later,
he ascends to glory
where he remains today.
And so what about us?
How do you look at Jesus,
the Christ,
from man's perspective,
or from God's?
You see,
if we look at him from man's perspective,
his death is, well,
at best confusing,
and at worst,
totally irrelevant.
And maybe you're here this morning,
and Jesus seems very,
well,
little,
and insignificant to you.
And that's because you are looking at him
from a human perspective,
and your mind is set on the things of man.
And so let me plead with you
to change your mindset,
to set your mind on the things of God.
And when we do that,
what we discover is we love nothing more than Christ.
And we're not embarrassed by a crucified Saviour.
No,
we delight in it,
we glory in the fact
that God made man
died in our place.
And we love the fact
that even today,
as we gather to worship,
Jesus stands in glory,
and he has on his hands
and on his feet
scars.
Scars of the crucifixion.
And we'll see that this pattern
of death and then life
is one that
his followers have to follow.
And that brings us
to the second point.
Christians must die
and then live.
Christians must die
and then live
is verses 24-28.
And so Jesus has just
made very clear
what will happen to him
and now he makes
equally clear
what will happen
to all those
that follow him.
One of the many wonderful things
that I love about Jesus
is that he doesn't bury
the small print.
You know how advertisers
give the big sound
to you
and then on the bottom
there's the clauses
and sub-clauses
and the get-up clauses
particularly on radio,
isn't it?
You know when you listen
to an advert on the radio?
And then it's, you know,
mortgage your host
home could be repossessed.
It's said very, very quickly.
But Jesus doesn't do that.
He's wonderfully clear to you.
He's totally straight with you.
He says to you this morning,
this is what it means
to follow me.
And what does it mean
to be a Christian?
Verse 24 is a great summary.
Verse 24.
If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself
and take up his cross
and follow me.
Here's the deal.
You want to follow Christ?
You follow a Christ who died
and that means we too have to die.
That's what Jesus means
by taking up our cross.
We've tended to trivialise that,
haven't we?
We were saying in our culture
where we've all got our crosses to bear.
That may be a bad knee.
It may be an ingrown toenail.
It may be an arch
kind of coming to stay.
But put it this way.
If we were in the first century,
Palestine,
and I met you tomorrow
and you were carrying a cross,
I wouldn't see you again.
You wouldn't be carrying
that cross on Tuesday.
You'd be dead.
Because a man carrying his cross
was on a one-way journey to death.
A one-way ticket.
And that's the journey, isn't it,
that the Lord Jesus
took for my sake
and for yours.
And that is the journey
that you and I must take
if we want to follow Jesus.
Jesus.
For some people,
that has meant,
and it will mean,
a literal physical death.
There are brothers and sisters
of ours across the world
who this week,
this is what it's meant for them,
it's meant that they faced
physical death.
We know, don't we,
that more Christians
were martyred in the 20th century
than in the previous
19th centuries
combined before.
But even if it's not
physical death,
and it probably won't be for us,
it must be a daily
spiritual death.
That's what Jesus means.
He says that we must
deny ourselves.
Taking up our cross means
that we will put ourselves
to death.
So the one thing
that Jesus really hates,
the one thing Jesus really hates
is he hates people
living for themselves.
That's what sin is.
Sin is living to myself.
And Jesus came to die
for sin.
And he longs for us
not to live for self,
but to live for him
and for others.
He longs for us
to die daily
to self-interest,
to selfishness
and to safety.
510 years ago
this year,
one of the finest pastors
that this world
has ever seen
was born in northern France
in a little town
called Maillard.
His name was John,
John Calvin.
He's a pastor
who had a remarkable ministry.
He wrote many books,
didn't he?
His most famous is
The Institute of Christian Religions.
It's about 2,000 pages long.
It's one of the finest
Christian books ever written.
One of the finest books ever written.
And right in the middle
of that book
is
one sentence
that begins like this.
The sum of the Christian life
is
one of the finest
Christian pastors
who's written
some of the best books
ever written
telling us
that the sum of the Christian life
is something.
So I think it's a good idea
for you to listen.
Here's how the sentence goes.
I wonder what you'd say.
The sum of the Christian life
is
self-denial.
Self-denial.
That's exactly what Jesus means here
when he says
we are to take up our cross
and to follow him.
Sin is love of myself
and my opinions
and my time
and my pleasure
and my rights
and my career
and my money
and my feelings
and myself.
Do you think
the spirit of our age
is captured brilliantly
isn't it
by our obsession
with taking selfies
of ourselves
on an iPhone.
Selfies
on an iPhone.
I don't take selfies
but I do have an iPhone.
But I'm still
very very selfish.
Selfish.
And following Jesus
means denying myself.
Denying
my self-interest.
So let me ask you
this morning
have you done that?
Have you denied yourself
and taken up your cross
and committed to following Jesus?
And can I say
if you've never done that
Jesus would say
to you this morning
you are not yet a Christian.
You're not yet a Christian.
Don't shoot me.
I am not saying
that you're not yet a Christian.
Jesus is saying
you are not a Christian.
And if you haven't done that
you're not a Christian.
And today would be
a wonderful day
wouldn't it?
A great day
to start doing verse 24.
But I guess
many of us
most of us
the vast majority of us
here have done that wonderfully
and we need to ask
this question
we need to ask
am I doing that?
Because this command
of verse 24
is not just a one-off decision
it's not just a decision
I made at camp
20 odd years ago
or a decision I made
at university.
No, this is the pattern
of daily discipleship
of daily following.
And for different people
it's going to apply
differently isn't it
this morning?
for some people
it's going to mean
making a stand
where you've not
made a stand.
For some people
it's going to mean
not getting drunk.
For others
it's going to mean
not entering
into a relationship
or breaking off
a relationship
with someone
who is not a Christian.
who's that boyfriend
and girlfriend?
So maybe for some
it's going to mean
radical action
about what you look at
on your computer.
For others
it's going to mean
stopping being
over-sensitive
to what other people
think of me.
So I'm living
in a state
of wounded pride
I think this probably
is where it kicks in
for me.
Always wanting to know
what other people
think
what is other
people's opinion
of me
but it doesn't
matter.
It really does
not matter.
For others
it's going to mean
forgiving someone
who has hurt us
very differently.
For some of us
it's going to be
very deliberately
humbling ourselves
before God
and saying
I haven't got it
all together
when I'm desperate
to show everyone
I have.
The sum of the
Christian life
is self-denial.
Maybe you think
it's really
hardcore
it's pretty
gloomy
it's pretty
negative
and it's
certainly not
what psychologists
tell you to do
and yet this is
the way to life
because just as
death led to
life to Christ
so too death
leads to life
for Christians.
So let me show you
the 7th verse
of 25, 26 and 27
and they all
begin with the
same word
or at least
they should.
They all begin
with the word
for
and Jesus
is giving us
three reasons
why it makes
sense for you
this morning
to die yourself
and follow him.
So the first
reason is in
verse 25
where it says
for whoever
would save his
life will lose it
but whoever
loses his life
for my sake
will find it.
And so you
know how to
catch a monkey
don't you?
How do people
catch a monkey?
Hunters, they
hollow out a
coconut and they
put peanuts
inside the
coconut.
And the monkey
comes along
and he puts
his hand
into the
coconut shell.
And as he
does that
he makes a
fist to grab
hold of the
peanuts.
And at that
point the
monkey is
trapped.
Because he
loves the
peanuts so much
that he will
not let go
of them.
And the
hunter at the
other end
can pull the
monkey in.
just like that
with our
lives.
As long as
you grab
hold of
life,
you're
trapped.
We're so
excited,
aren't we,
by peanuts,
by the
things of
this world,
by repetition,
by money,
by all sorts
of things.
We're so
trapped by
them.
We're so
glad we've
got them,
we just
will not
let them
go.
But it's
when we
do let
go,
then we're
free.
We find
our lives
by giving
them away.
Here's the
paradox.
If we try
to save our
lives,
we'll lose
it.
But if we
lose our
lives for
Jesus and
for others,
if we die
to ourselves,
then we
find them.
Find them.
you see,
pouring out
our lives
for others
is what
we were
made for.
We weren't
made to
live for
ourselves,
we were
made to
live for
God and
for others.
Our lives
are not
for holding
on to,
they're
for giving
away.
And when we
do that,
yes, it will
be painful,
I know that,
and it may
involve suffering
and sacrifice,
but it will
come back to
us a hundred
forward.
And what
if it's not
just peanuts
that are
on offer?
What if it
is serious
money?
What if it
is fantastic
sex?
What if it
is worldwide
fame?
What if it
is what
you dream
of?
Well, look
at the
second reason
Jesus gives
in verse
26.
For what
will it
profit a
man or
a woman
or a boy
or a girl
if you
gain the
whole world
and you
forfeit,
you lose
your own
soul?
Or what
shall a
man or
a woman
or a boy
or a girl
give in
return?
For their
soul.
So Jesus
says to
this morning,
he says,
get the
wane scales
out,
you know,
the old
wane scales,
and put
on one
side of
the wane
scales,
put the
whole world
on the
wane scales,
clearly in
exaggeration.
Not even
the richest
men,
not even
the Simon
Cowell's
or the
Sultan
of Brunei's,
not even
them have
got the
whole world,
have they?
They've
got a lot,
but they
haven't
got the
whole
world.
Let's
just say
you've
got the
whole
world,
and you
put it
on one
side of
the wane
scales,
and then
on the
other
side,
you put
your soul,
your never
dying soul,
your life.
life.
And Jesus
says your
soul is
that
valuable.
Your
soul,
your life
is so
precious,
so vulnerable,
but whatever
you gain,
if the
price is
your soul,
then it's
too high.
I want
you to
realise this
morning your
value.
Some of you
don't think
you're very
valuable at
all, do
you?
But realise
your value.
and realise
that the
way for
you to
live,
really live,
is by
forfeiting
the world,
not by
forfeiting
your soul.
Grasp
with me
just how
valuable
is one
human
soul,
your
soul,
your
children's
soul,
the souls
of the
people that
you're at
school with
tomorrow,
the souls
of the
people you
are at
work with
tomorrow.
And so
the way
to live
now is
to die
now.
And that
life which
starts now
goes on
forever,
and we
see that in
the third
reason that
Jesus gives
the following
him in
verse 27.
Verse 27,
the son of
man is
going to
come with
all his
angels in
the glory of
his father,
and then he
will repay
each person
according to
what he's
done.
If that
wasn't the
case, if that
wasn't true,
it wouldn't
really matter
what we
decide to
do with
Jesus.
First
school makes
very little
sense with
exams, but
it would
make no
sense without
exams,
would it?
If there's
no assessment
at the end
of it.
But there
will be an
exam at
the end.
And deep
down we
know that,
don't we?
You know
that.
One day
the Christ
who died
and was
raised will
come back,
and this
time he
will not
come again
in humility
as a baby
that no one
knows about.
The shepherds
have to hunt
for,
and wise
men have
to hunt
for.
No, when
he comes he
will come
as a king
in glory.
And when
he does he
will repay
each person
according to
what they've
done.
Now don't
miss the
encouragement.
Don't miss
the encouragement
for those of
you who are
seeking to
die to
self, and
I know
some of
you are,
to follow
Jesus
now.
You can
look back
in your
life and
you can
see decisions
that have
been costly
for you.
Maybe it's a
relationship that
you didn't
go down
because you
knew to
follow Christ
you had to
go another
way.
Well, Jesus
knows that.
He knows the
decisions you've
made.
He knows the
hard decisions
you're making.
Jesus knows the
money that you
are giving away
sacrificially.
Jesus knows the
way that you
are serving
sometimes when
you really wish
you didn't have
to.
And maybe this
is why you're
feeling weary
or be
encouraged.
Look what it
says.
Then at 27,
one day he
will repay
you for
those things.
The greeting
wrote,
Sunday morning,
I just need
another half
an hour in
bed.
You drag
yourself into
the shell
and you get
out of the
house and
you get
here and
you greet
people with
a broad
smile.
Well, Jesus
knows that
because he
rewards that.
the missionary
martyr, Jim
Elliot, he
put it so
well that it
turns out he
actually stole
it from Matthew
Henry.
But the
famous line,
he is no
fool to
give up what
you cannot
keep, to
gain what
you cannot
lose.
He is no
fool to
give up what
you cannot
keep, to
gain what
you cannot
lose.
Do you get
it?
And the
world will
call you a
fool, won't
they?
They will
call you
a fool.
Some of
them think
you are
a fool.
But on
that day
when Jesus
comes back,
it will be
clear that
you have
not been
foolish to
follow him.
And you have
not been
foolish to
give your
life away
for others.
But for
those who
have not
followed him,
and that
may be some
of you,
the regret,
the reality
will be very
different.
There will
only be
regret and
anguish.
As people
realise in
their thousands
the foolish
bargain that
they made,
trying to
save their
lives only
on that
day to
lose them
totally.
Trying to
gain the
world or
at least a
tiny part
of it,
only to
forfeit
their own
never dying
soul.
What kind
of Christ
we have
will shape
what kind
of Christian
we will
be.
And only
when we
have a
crucified
Christ
will we
live
crucified
lives.
But please,
please don't
forget
what that
death led
to for
Jesus.
And what
that death
will lead
to for us.
Led to
life.
Life now,
life forever.
let's pray.