Christian Photographers Community

Mark 8:27-38
Discipleship Is Costly

The scripture before us moves me to ask you a rather strange question.  It's this: Is there anyone or anything for which you would be willing to die! Another way of approaching this is to ask whether there's anyone or anything for which you'd be willing to give up all your hard-earned money, all your property, all your family, all your goods – everything? To get right to the point, I have to ask you whether eternity with Jesus is more important to you than anything, including life itself.

It's a reality we have to face. If we love Jesus Christ as we need to love Him, if He means more to us than anything else - then everything else will be expendable. But is it? We need to think about our answers to that question as we look today at Mark 8:27-38.

In the incident before us, Jesus had to deal with a delicate issue. It was delicate because what He had to tell His disciples was absolutely NOT what they wanted to hear. They did NOT want to hear about crucifixion, death, and burial. Peter didn't like it at all, and He said so - he took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him! But because Jesus is the Master of psychology just as He is of everything else, He had already prepared His disciples for these unwelcome subjects by emphasizing Who He was. He prepared them by making them contrast the general opinions of the world with their own opinions. Their own convictions, of course, were made emphatic by the contrast. Then, when He had to tell them things they didn't want to hear about His death, they'd believe that, after all, the Messiah - the Son of the living God - must know what He was doing.

Of course He knew that His disciples believed Him to be the promised One, the Christ, the One their ancient Hebrew language called Messiah. He had spent lots of time and labor teaching them that. But He also knew that their idea of Who and What Messiah should be was still somewhat molded after the common misconception.

That common view saw Him as One Who would come into the world as a mighty religious and political leader, One Who would bring the power of God to bear to free Israel from Roman domination.  They thought He should be One Who would actually make them, the Jews, the supreme world power. From a religious standpoint, it was thought that His rule would embody the most rigorous possible keeping of the law and of the traditions of the elders, and that people everywhere would convert to that system of belief and practice.

But the disciples had seen enough of Jesus, day in and day out, to realize that He was much more than that. Even by the time of the incident before us, they deeply believed that He was much more than a mere politico-religious leader with power from God.

Over and over again they saw His gentle goodness in dealing with the sick and disabled. They heard the wonderful wisdom with which He advised and taught people. They themselves often experienced His lovingly patient reaction to their own misunderstanding and foolishness. They knew that He spent many a night praying and many a day fasting. They saw in Him such a wonderful, such a holy Person that they were convinced that He was more than a mere Man.

But even with all that at least some of their old ideas about Messiah were still present. That's why He wanted them to reconfirm in their own minds what He had so carefully taught them by way of contrast with the common opinions.

Not that the common opinions were low opinions - they weren't. There had been many miracles. There had been wonderful and profound teaching. There had been fiery denunciation of hypocrisy. Nearly everyone thought that this Jesus was very unusual. He was so much like Elijah in His fearless approach that some concluded He indeed was Elijah returned from the dead. His concern for holy righteousness was so great that others thought perhaps He might be John the Baptist returned from the dead. Others thought He must at least be one of the great prophets of the past. Many held Him in high esteem. But most still didn't believe He was Who He said He was!

Not that He hadn't told them. He had told the people everywhere that the Kingdom of Heaven was "at hand" (Matt. 4:17), and the Greek for "at hand" means "right at hand" - "upon you!" What He meant was that the Kingdom of Heaven was already here - because He was here. He was, in other words, the King from Heaven - the Messiah.

But the people definitely preferred to think of Him in miraculous terms as being some great personage returned from the dead.

And things haven't changed. Many people are still willing to accept miracles. Sometimes people even assume there have been miracles when there haven't. People like to think that miracles prove that there's a supernatural, a "something beyond." They then associate what they think they've experienced with their own particular religion. It makes them feel special.

Many are also perfectly willing to listen for awhile to any great orator who speaks with a little wisdom and with a philosophy that "sounds right." They're even willing to accept fiery orations against the sins of the day - as long as it's so general that they themselves aren't made to feel too guilty.

But though people want the supernatural, they still won't believe that Jesus is the Christ from God, that He came in the flesh, died for their sins, and rose again. They want miracles and the supernatural, or they want wonderful ideas, but they don't want Jesus Christ!

We need to see how all this applies to ourselves. Obviously, the only way we can do that is to ask ourselves whether we know Him as GOD, whether we see in Him the holy love, the infinite knowledge, the unimaginable power of the ALMIGHTY. Are we convinced by what we know of Jesus that He MUST be God? I have to ask each of you: does knowing Him move you to repent of sin? Does it move you to love and adoration, to worship and service? Or does Christianity merely tickle your curiosity about the unknown and move you to seek the excitement of modern-day miracles? Jesus is still asking the question He asked the disciples.  He asks, "Whom do you say that I am?"

Jesus accomplished His purpose: He got His disciples to express the contrast between the common opinions and their own. In Matthew's account we find Peter speaking for them all and saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" They may have had misconceptions, but they knew He was from God. They had the beginnings of true faith. Jesus knew that expressing it as they did would clarify and confirm it in their own minds.

But He knew that their enthusiasm could lead them astray very quickly. He knew they still had much to learn before they could be His apostles. So He very strictly charged them not to go out and speak to others about Him. They would have been ready to go into the streets to tell everybody that Jesus was the Christ. But if they had, crowds would have been moved to come and take Him by force to make Him the political revolutionary they thought He should be. But they would basically still have been unbelievers.

His next words identified what the disciples still needed. They apply to us as well. They were – and are – things that had nothing to do with revolutions and Romans. They had to do with humiliation, crucifixion, and resurrection.

Peter - the same Peter who had just expressed the disciples' wonderful belief - didn't want to hear these next words. He wanted to hear about exaltation and victory, not persecution and death! He had learned enough about his Lord to know that He was worthy to be King, and he didn't want to hear about rejection. Not yet quite convinced that Jesus was much more than mere man, Peter began to rebuke Him like any other mistaken man. What Jesus had said sounded to Peter like defeat, so he thought he, Jesus' lieutenant, should correct his Captain!

And we aren't so different. Are we ready for the ridicule - and even the persecution - that comes if we express a lively faith? Are we ready for our own government to completely misunderstand us? Are we ready to be rejected entirely - to be treated unfairly by the law, to have our "religious freedoms" taken away? Are we ready to be blamed for all the ills brought upon the world by its own sinful schemes? Are we ready to fail in our efforts to have our constitutional freedoms upheld? And, finally, are we ready to die? In fact, not only are we ready, but are we willing in the performance of true service to our King to have these things happen to us?

That's what our Lord asked of His disciples.  He said to them, "Whoever wishes to follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and let him follow Me!" We need to realize that true service to our Lord often requires true dying to our own desires, our own purposes, our own posessions, pleasures, and comfort. If we minister in His Name, it might mean frustration, pain, and even death.

And our death probably won't even be glamorous - we'll be hated for doing it!  Just as with Peter, that isn't what we want to hear. What we want to hear about is victory and triumph, joy and comfort. But true discipleship may demand much more.

But remember this dear ones: when our Lord calls us to give ourselves up, we will be following Him. He'll be there with us, walking the thorny path ahead of us, encouraging us and blessing us inwardly even while the pain intensifies outwardly!  As Peter put it, "for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you!" (2 Peter 1:11)

And then there's a wonderful promise, too. Our Lord rebuked Peter - who had been rebuking Him! Then He called to Himself the crowd along with His own disciples (including Peter), and He told them exactly what He had meant. He said, "For whoever desires to save his (own) life shall lose it, but whoever shall lose his own life for My sake and for the sake of the Gospel - that one shall save himself."

It just means that if you try to save your own ways, possessions, and even life itself, if you try to avoid any and all  pain and persecution, if you insist on joy and comfort in all your Christian life, you'll only end up losing it anyway. But if you turn your back on the necessity of all those things while you're serving your Lord out of love to Him and joy in His good news, you'll end up eternally happy! You won't lose!

Our Lord's next questions, then, makes a lot of sense for us.  He says, "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The old saying is true: "You can't take it with you." To "forfeit the soul," here, just means to forfeit eternal joy in the presence of our Lord. We have to choose whom we will serve.

If we do choose to follow Him, even through pain and persecution, then oh how wonderful it will be finally to hear our Lord say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" Oh to be approved by Him in that day! We need to be found even now willing to be fanatics - to give up things, pleasures, and the esteem of others in favor of selfless service! Of course no one can say that we'll have to give everything up, but we need to be honestly willing.

To gain such an attitude, we need to fall in love with Jesus Christ every day. He needs to be more important to us than any earthly gain. We need to be on fire for Him, putting Him first in every thought and action - even when the people around us don't like it.

Amen Bro!
Maybe like the disciples at that time some of us see the jesus that we want to see!
I wonder also, was Peter just trying to encourage Jesus?
Maybe he was saying " Lord this will never happen to you, for we your disciples will protect and defend you!
Ah, he meant well enough probably like we all do sometimes, but only because we don't know  nor see the whole picture! 
May our eyes be fixed on Him, and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

Amen, Brother & Sister.  I fear we all at times want our own kind of Jesus.  May He open our eyes.