The Cost of Discipleship - Mark 8:34-9:1
Notes
Transcript
Open you Bibles if you would to Mark chapter 8. We’ve been walking through this book chapter by chapter and verse by verse, seeking to grasp Mark’s intended meaning to his audience.
We are at the mid-way point of the book, and here we find a significant shift in Jesus’ approach to ministry.
Up until now Jesus has been focused on progressively revealing his identity and establishing His authority.
Beginning with the text we examined last week, Jesus shifts his focus from that to His mission: The Son of Man of must suffer many things, be rejected and killed, and then afterward rise again.
Peter was resistant to that idea and sought to rebuke the one he only moments before confessed to be the long-awaited Messiah. Jesus rebuked him right back and challenged him on thinking the things of man and not the things of God. Peter doesn’t quite see clearly yet.
In our text today Jesus is going to expand upon his response to Peter, and challenge him that if he really wants to be a disciple of Christ, that whole thinking the things of man thing, and not the things of God, it’s not going to go well. Peter is going to have to be willing to give that up.
This text is often given the heading or label of “the cost of discipleship” and I titled my sermon today after that tradition. It is an apt heading in many ways, though in some ways the concept is paradoxical.
Indeed, there are certain tensions that this text, in conjunction with other passages of Scripture, present to us. There are several questions that arise that we must answer.
What is the relationship of salvation to discipleship?
Are all believers disciples?
What if someone professes faith in Christ, but fails to follow Him?
We’ll get into those in due time.
In many ways, this text is a sobering text. Whatever direction we go with those questions, there is no room to shrug off the importance of discipleship. The consequences are just too significant.
What I hope we are left with at the end of the day is this:
The cost of discipleship is worth the price.
Let’s read our text for today.
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.
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.”
1 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
Let’s remember that this teaching comes on the heels of Jesus correcting rebuking Peter. He was setting his mind on the things of man, and not the things of God.
Jesus takes the opportunity, then, to call the crowd together and teach about discipleship. It’s as though Jesus said “if you keep setting your mind on these things, this is the result. Peter was expecting a political Messiah who would free Israel from Roman rule.
Jesus said, that’s thinking the things of man. If you’re going to follow me, you’ve got a hard road in front of you.
Discipleship Demands Self-Denial
Discipleship Demands Self-Denial
How does Jesus set this up? “If anyone would come after me”
If anyone. This makes it clear that Jesus is not limiting this to the twelve disciples, or just to first-century believers. These principles extend beyond to anyone who would come after Jesus. If this is what one might do, then there are three demands upon that person.
Let him deny himself
Let him take up his cross
Let him follow me.
I have to take slight issue with the way the ESV translates those phrases. The “let him” is almost a permissive idea, but the original words are imperatives. They are commands. In my view, the NASB brings this into the English well:
He must deny himself, take up his cross and follow.
For those who wish to come after Christ, these are what you must do. They are not optional. They are not things that you can take or leave. There is a reason this section is often called the cost of discipleship. You don’t get to have discipleship without these elements.
The first command: he must deny himself.
Self denial.
Peter wants to rebuke the Lord, the Jesus says, nope. You need to deny yourself. You cannot establish the terms of my Messiahship for me. You need to submit to the thoughts of God.
Self-denial is a necessity for discipleship because the very process of following someone else presumes the idea that you are no longer following yourself. Discipleship is self denial, because baked into the very idea of following Jesus is the idea that you are submitting to what He wants for your life, rather than insisting on the things you want.
When I used to work for Payne electric in downtown Louisville, we would often get apprentices who were trying to get into the field. The concept of an apprenticeship is very analogous to the concept of discipleship. There is training, and when an apprentice is trained he will be like his teacher.
Sometimes the apprentices had their own ideas of how they wanted to do things or how they thought things needed to be done. The apprentices that stuck around however, were the ones who eventually learned that it was best to do what the master electrician was instructing them to do. Perhaps they didn’t understand at first, perhaps they thought they knew a better way. But if they did what they were instructed, they eventually would come to understand why they were to do it that way. More often than not, it was not because the master was opposed to new ideas. It was because there was a right way to do the job, and many, many wrong ways. If an apprentice cannot learn to set aside his own ideas and embrace the instruction of the master, he doesn’t last. I lost count how many apprentices were terminated.
Self denial. If you would come after Christ, you have to be willing to submit your will to his.
He must take up his cross.
There is an idiom that was very common for a number of years, though I haven’t heard it in a while, I’m sure it still exists. Sometimes people speak of hardships in life as “our cross to bear” and they draw that from this text. I’ve got an aching back, but that’s just my cross to bear.
However, that isn’t the idea in this text. Jesus was not saying that disciples just have to persevere through the inconveniences of life.
This was a call to be willing to die to self, and to even die physically if the moment came to it.
The cross was an instrument of execution. We use crosses as decoration today, but the cross was a symbol of death and humiliation. Some have suggested that wearing a cross around your neck would be like wearing the electric chair around your neck, but that doesn’t do justice to the cross, because the electric chair was intended to be an instant and humane form of death, while the cross was intentionally designed to be the most painful, gruesome, and prolonged death possible.
The Romans would take people on death row, and force them to carry the cross piece of the instrument of their own death up the hill to where they would be executed. They would be nailed to the beam, and hung out to die.
The idea of taking up your cross speaks of the idea of picking up that cross piece on your way to death.
This would graphically communicate the idea that following Jesus requires a willingness to die. Are you willing to give your life for the sake of the Gospel of Christ?
The third demand:
Follow me.
There is an interesting grammatical shift with this third command. The first two commands are what are called “aorist imperatives”, which the this third command is a present tense imperative. Without getting too much into the grammatical weeds, the differences in these verb tenses likely communicate the first two commands represent decisive decisions or commitments. Deny yourself. Take up your cross.
While the third command represents an on-going idea. You must continually follow me.
If you want to come after Jesus, you must actually follow Him. We don’t get call ourselves disciples if we aren’t actually doing the things the master is instructing.
There is to be the ongoing aspect of the life of the disciple in following Jesus.
These are the demands that Jesus makes. This is a big price to pay. Is it worth it?
Jesus is going to prove two reasons why it is, and ask two rhetorical questions that demonstrate the logic of it, before considering the consequences of failure in this regard.
First two reasons that demonstrate that discipleship is wise.
Discipleship Is Wise
Discipleship Is Wise
Two Reasons
Verse 36
For, that’s a causal word, because whoever would save his life will lose it.
but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
If you try to save your own life, you will lose it. The call of discipleship is a call to self-denial and even death. But if you try to save your life own life, if you desire to avoid all that hardship of discipleship, if you insist on doing things your own way as though you believe that you’ve got this and you can do it just fine all by myself, thank you very much…you will lose your life. There is a clear play on words here. You can try to preserve your life in your own way, but you will lose it spiritually in the end.
The wages of sin is death.
But on the flip side, if you lose your life, that is, if you deny yourself, if you are willing to die for Christ’s sake, if you follow Jesus, then you will find that your life is safe in Christ.
There is a paradoxical idea here. You lose your life in trying to save it, but you save your life through a surrender of it.
When you put it that way, the demands of discipleship are a no-brainer! Why wouldn’t I submit to that!?
So often we want to cling to the things of this world, and we want to hang on to our own ideas of living life and our own way of doing things, we don’t want to think about what God wants from us or what He wants to build within us, but Jesus wants us to see that it is only through surrender that we can truly live!
It’s costly. But it’s wise.
Jesus then ask two rhetorical questions to further drive home the point in verse 36-37
Discipleship is Worth it
Discipleship is Worth it
What does it profit someone to gain the whole world, but lose their soul?
What if you were the richest person on planet earth? You could have every luxury that money could buy. Any car, any food, the company of any human. You could have any form of entertainment, travel anywhere in the world, meet with any leader or celebrity, attend any posh high life event, all of that and more is yours! Only one thing: it will cost you your soul.
Who in their right mind would take that deal, right? No, you can keep all that, I’ll take my soul, thank you very much.
There is no profit in gaining the world but losing your soul.
What about his second question in verse 37.
What can a man give in return for his soul?
You life, your very soul is up for auction. What would give for your soul? Bidding starts at your self-comfort, moves up to complete self-denial. What’s your bid?
There is an evangelists named Ray Comfort who goes out and seeks to get people to think about eternity and consider the value of their souls. He asks them, would you sell you eye for a million dollars. Most people say no, but on the off chance someone says yes, he doubles down “what about both your eyes for two million?” and no one is ever willing to give up their eyes or any amount of money. Our eye sight is previous to us. How much more is our very lives! How much more worth is your very soul!
Your soul is priceless. There is no price that you wouldn’t pay for your soul.
Jesus knows that the demands of discipleship are high. But its a high-stakes game. The cost is wise. The cost is worth it. He ends this section with a warning.
Denial of Discipleship is a Denial of Christ
Denial of Discipleship is a Denial of Christ
Whoever is ashamed of me. The idea of being ashamed of Christ is logically connected to the costs of discipleship. It is parallel in the text with seeking you save your own life, or with failing to lose your life for the sake of Christ and the Gospel. Failure to be a disciple is shame of Christ. You don’t want to be like Christ? Perhaps you are ashamed of him.
Jesus notes that this generation is adulterous and sinful. That phrase for “this generation” is used idiomatically to speak of the current age. This is not a time characterized by faithfulness and righteousness.
We are surrounded by individuals who are unfaithful. Certainly, that applies in marriage relationships, but that’s not Jesus’ primary meaning. It applies there, but it speaks of the characteristics of the age as a whole. There is unfaithfulness to one another, and there is unfaithfulness to the Lord.
It is a sinful generation. There is rampant unrighteousness all around us.
In such a time and surrounded by such things, there certainly will be pressure for you to conform to the world. For you to fit in. For you to be just like everyone else. We hear this today don’t we?
Jesus says if you are ashamed of me before this generation of people who live in this manner, and succumb to the pressures of this world, then I will be ashamed of you when I come in glory.
Jesus here predicts His second coming when he does return to rule and reign on the earth. We believe that Jesus Christ is coming back, and he will establish his earthly kingdom over which he will rule and reign over all the earth in truth, righteousness, and justice.
The Scripture teach in several places that those who belong to Christ will reign with him in that kingdom.
But Jesus says here that if you are ashamed of him, then that privilege will be denied to you.
There are some questions that naturally arise from this, but before I get to those, let’s look at one last point. Let’s look into chapter 9.
Discipleship Will Bring Clear Sight
Discipleship Will Bring Clear Sight
Jesus has been teaching his disciples about true sight. Peter wasn’t seeing clearly. You was interested in his own agenda. So Jesus challenges him. You have to deny yourself that agenda and submit to the Lord’s.
The cost is indeed high, but that cost is worth it.
And then we have this statement. Some standing here will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God after is has come with power.
There is a lot to unpack there that we will have to leave for next week. I believe that this is a reference to the transfiguration, which we will see next week, and that what Jesus was saying was that he is going to give a Kingdom preview to some of the disciples in the transfiguration, something Peter will refer to as the majesty of Christ in 2 Peter 1. More on that next week.
But for now, as this section about seeing clearly comes to a close, what does this have to do with discipleship?
I believe this is Jesus graciously giving the disciples a promise that though they see, right now it is fuzzy, but there is a day coming when, just like that blind man who didn’t see at all, and then only blurry shapes, but would eventually see clearly, they too would soon see clearly as well. As they follow Christ, he gradually helps them to see things clearly, and one day everything would all be in sharp focus.
This is what discipleship produces.