Most of us here this morning would agree that Jesus Christ is good. He’s good for our lives. He’s good for our village. He’s good for our nation. He’s worth doing things for. He’s worth giving things up for. He’s somebody really very precious indeed.
The question is: How good is he? We would do things for him, but how much would we do? How far would we go? We would give things up for him, but how much would we give up? As the saying used to go: Would we give him our last Rolo? Or our last 20 pence piece? Or our last dose of washing detergent? Just how much would we give to him? How much would we give up for him? Amongst all the demands on our lives, we have chosen to include the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. But where does he rank amongst those demands?
The answers to those questions boil down, I think, to who he is. There are three things we need to be clear on. Firstly, how much does he have the right to ask of us? If he asked to be number one, would he be above his station? Second, how much do we want to give him? What place are we willing for him to take? And third, how much does he, in fact, ask of us?
The end of Mark chapter 8 will answer those questions for us. How much does he have the right to ask of us? We’ll discover that he is entitled to ask for everything. How much do we want to give him? When we truly grasp what he’s given to us, we will want to give him everything. And how much does he, in fact, ask of us? We’ll discover that he asks us for everything; he demands that we hold nothing back. And the good news of this passage is that giving him everything in this fashion is not a suicidal move – it’s the path to life itself!
Let’s look at this passage under 3 headings and see where Jesus says all of that:
Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives.
First, then, Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives. Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives.
It may not be obvious to us, hitting Mark 8:27 out of the blue, but we have reached a bit of a climax in Mark’s gospel. We’re at the half-way point. Mark has recorded various miracles Jesus has performed, and some of his teaching. We’ve watched a growing band of disciples try to work out what to make of him, and we’ve watched the religious leaders feeling increasingly threatened by him.
And then we reach this discussion, where Jesus asks his disciples, first what the word on the street is – who do people say he is – and then, more personally, who do they say he is. The rumours doing the rounds are that Jesus is a prophet, a figure like one of the Old Testament prophets, possibly even one of those Old Testament prophets come back to life. The Old Testament contains a long line of prophets, spokespersons for God, who brought God’s word to God’s people.
Those are the rumours. You can picture the headlines in the tabloids of the day: “400 year silence broken”, “God speaks at last”, “The return of Elijah!”, “Jesus: A prophet of old today”. But then, Jesus turns to his disciples, and the answer they give is very different. “You are the Christ”, Peter said.
The word, “Christ”, just means anointed one. In Old Testament times, they anointed their kings. The Old Testament contained the promise that one day, God would send a king who would be his appointed ruler over every nation in our world. And Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ, the promised king, the one who will rule our world.
And Jesus reply to Peter indicates that he agrees entirely. Peter has got the answer right. Jesus is not just one voice in a long line of spokespeople. Jesus is the one God has chosen to be king over this world, king over every nation, king over every man, woman and child. Nothing less.
That is no small claim. When Jesus said these words, he was making a huge claim, and it’s a radical thing today as well. Islam teaches that Jesus is a prophet; he may be a great prophet, but he certainly is not the greatest; even less is he the Son of God and the king we must all obey.
Many people today would say that Jesus was a good person who was a great teacher who has a good many things to teach us. But they would quickly follow that up by saying that the person who has to make the decisions for me is… me. I make up my own mind what to think. So I’ll listen to Jesus, and then I must decide when I agree with him.
Jesus, however, says that he is the Christ. He is the king God wants to rule this world. And that means he has the right to ask everything of us.
Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives.
Jesus gave up everything to save us, so now he’s alive forevermore.
Second, Jesus gave up everything to save us, so now he’s alive forevermore. Jesus gave up everything to save us, so now he’s alive forevermore.
We’ve reached a climax in Mark’s gospel. The question that was on everybody’s lips has been solved. “Who is this man?” He is the Christ. But this is the half-way point of the gospel, not the end. As important as the question, “Who is he?” may be, it’s not the only question we need to ask of Jesus.
We need to ask both, “Who is he?” and, “Why did he come?” Because if we misunderstand why Jesus came, we actually haven’t understood who he is either. That’s why there are 8 more chapters in Mark’s gospel. And that’s why, as soon as Peter has had his inspiration and correctly identified Jesus, Jesus replies by saying, “Stop right there!”
“Stop right there! Before we go any further, you will not understand what it means for me to be the Christ until you understand why I came.”
And why did he come? “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.” He came to die.
I once heard an Englishman tell the story of his first trip to Australia. He was a little unsettled when he got into a taxi at the airport, and the taxi driver asked him, “Did you come here to die?” The Gentleman was a little puzzled; he had heard of the direct way in which the Aussies speak, but wasn’t quite prepared for that question. So he said, “Excuse me?”. The cabbie elaborated, “Did you come here to die, or yester-die?”
If that cabbie had asked Jesus, “Excuse me: Did you come here to die?”, Jesus would have said, “Yes, I did!”
Jesus predicts his death three times in Mark’s gospel; we’ll meet the others in the coming weeks. He explains that his death was not a futile loss of life, but a wonderful, willing sacrifice. He describes his death as a “ransom for many.” As we thought at the all-age service last week, every one of us is a sinner, deciding that we want to rule the world in God’s place. God’s penalty for that is death, but Jesus died as a ransom, paying that penalty for all who trust him.
His death was not the end, of course. He must “be killed, and after three days rise again.” He didn’t stay in the grave, but came alive again as the victor over sin and death. He’s no less a king, no less in charge, for his death. But he used his authority, his power, and his right to rule, to give up everything. To lay down his own life to save us from our sin.
That is extraordinary. To think that he gave up that much to save us! If he gave up that much for us, how much would you be willing to give up for him? Surely, the answer is: “Everything!”
Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives. Jesus gave up everything to save us, so now he’s alive forevermore.
Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow him, so we might save everything.
And third, Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow him, so we might save everything. Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow him, so we might save everything.
Who is he? He’s the Christ. Why did he come? He came to die, to save us from our sins. There is a third question that runs throughout Mark, and it is especially prominent from this point on: What does it mean to follow him? What does it mean to follow Jesus?
And this passage tells us, in a nutshell, that following Jesus is about following in his steps. It means treading the path he trod.
Verse 34 if is our key verse here: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
“Deny himself”. Not deny things to ourselves, but deny ourselves. This is not about withholding life’s pleasures from ourselves, but about renouncing our claim over ourselves. We have no right to rule our own lives. We are not in charge.
“Take up his cross.” It’s easy to sentimentalize that. We are used to speaking of the hardships in life that are peculiarly ours as “our crosses”. In the days of the Roman empire, to ask someone to take up their cross meant one thing and one thing only – it meant they were going to their death. So Jesus asks us to die. Some of his followers do indeed die a martyr’s death; they give up everything, including their lives. All of us have to give up everything in principal: our lives are no longer ours.
Which raises the question of who or what will fill the vacuum. If we renounce our claim on ourselves, who does have the right to rule our lives? If we take up our cross, and surrender everything we are and have, to whom do we surrender it? Well Jesus tells us, doesn’t he? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow … me.”
We deny ourselves. We no longer run our own lives, but Jesus does. We take up our cross, and surrender all we are and all we have, and we give it to him. Jesus now owns our time, our possessions, our money, our family and even our life.
That is what he asks of us. That is what it means to follow him.
He asks us to give him… everything!
So is this suicide? The remaining verses tell us that this is everything but. The reason this is not suicide is that Jesus is God’s chosen king. He rules this world. What he says goes. Nothing matters more than his estimation of us. It is never a mistake to put all your eggs in the basket that is Jesus Christ. It is always a mistake to hold some eggs back. It is always a mistake to hedge your bets.
Conclusion
Let’s draw the threads together. Jesus is God’s chosen king, so he’s in charge of our lives. Jesus gave up everything to save us, so now he’s alive forevermore. Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow him, so we might save everything.
To go back to where we began: How much does he have the right to ask of us? He is entitled to ask for everything. How much do we want to give him? When we truly grasp what he’s given to us, we will want to give him everything. And how much does he, in fact, ask of us? He asks us for everything; he demands that we hold nothing back. And the good news of this passage is that giving him everything in this fashion is not a suicidal move – it’s the path to life itself!
What this means is that Christianity is not a hobby. Jesus is lord over everything, not just over the religious parts of our lives. As they say, is Jesus is not lord of all, he’s not lord at all. If there are any eggs still not in that basket, now is the time to put them in, and to make Jesus number one and our top priority.
The fact is that none of us consistently treats Jesus in this fashion. But that’s where this passage is such good news. It’s not here to make us feel guilty. It’s here to tell us that Jesus, the Christ, used his rule over this world to come and die so as to save us from that sin. The question is: Will we now give up everything to follow him?