Stonebrook Church, Ames, Iowa, Sermons

Follow Jesus The Messiah

Here at the pinnacle of Mark’s gospel, we are taken up to a mountain top where we get a “behind the curtain” look at King Jesus, the Messiah, in his heavenly Glory. God himself speaks and tells us what we should do in light of the revelation that Jesus is the divine Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man: “Listen to Him.” We will explore four obstacles to listening to Jesus that Mark has presented to us so far, as well as God’s merciful provision to help us overcome those obstacles.

Duration:: 33m
Broadcast on:: 08 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

In the 19th century, church historian Philip Schaff said this about Jesus. He said, "Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Muhammad, and Napoleon. Without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined. Without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet. Without writing a single line, he set more pens in motion and furnished themes for more sermons, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times. We are in the middle of a sermon series looking at one of the four historical accounts of the most influential, fascinating, powerful, amazing people, person ever to live, the most fascinating, influential person. His name is Jesus. And you may turn to the gospel of Mark, chapter 8, or in the middle of that chapter. And this morning, we will read among other things the profound confession of Peter, later to be called the apostle, he's the key disciple of Jesus. And yet even in Peter's confession, we will find that Peter didn't really understand all that he was saying. Understood part of it, but not all of it, not completely, not yet anyway. We'll also read Jesus' own words that point us to life, real life, eternal life, and a life that calls us to give ourselves back to Christ fully, not halfway, not occasionally, but with our all. So let's begin in prayer. Father in heaven, you have revealed yourself to us through your Son, the unparalleled, magnificent Jesus. Would you open our eyes this morning to understand you more clearly in our hearts? Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. It's because of your Son, we pray to you, amen. Okay, open up to Mark, chapter 8, we'll start in verse 22. "They that Jesus in his disciples came to Bethsaida, they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village. Spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" He looked up and said, "I see people, they look like trees walking." Again, Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes. The man looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him home saying, "Don't even go into the village." So Jesus and his disciples are now at Bethsaida, it's a village, a town on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. And then named Bethsaida means "the house of fishing." So I'll let you decide what you think the main industry of that city was, probably fishing, being on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And this beautiful story, and one that we read two weeks ago, earlier, or at the end of chapter 7, about the healing of a death man, they sound strangely familiar. In fact, if you pick one up, you think, "Wait, am I reading the wrong story here?" Both stories have men that were brought to Jesus by others. Both stories talk about those that brought him begged Jesus. Emphasis on beg, they begged Jesus to heal. Jesus took both men away to a private place. He spit and touched both men to heal them. And he told those whom he healed and brought them, "Don't go the normal way. Don't tell anyone." So here, in this story of the blind man, Jesus displays one more time. We've already seen many stories of him displaying both his remarkable kindness and mercy and his extraordinary power and authority to simply command and people are healed. However our preconceptions are about Jesus at a minimum. At a minimum, we ought to think Jesus is far different. He's far better. He's far kinder and more authoritative than I ever imagined. And if we've ever had any skepticism about Jesus before, it ought to be fading away as we read this gospel. There's never been anyone like him. And now let's get to this specific story and a question that maybe we've had that I've had is the obvious question is why does Jesus heal in what seems, I'll call them two stages? It takes a moment for the man to be fully healed. Well, I'm going to say this, the one answer is it's obvious that Jesus, he doesn't knows how to heal. He's not making a mistake. He's not a healer in training. When Jesus speaks, things happen unmistakably throughout Mark, we see Jesus absolute power and authority over creation. He speaks a word and demons flee, storms stop, deaf ears are open. People simply touch his clothing and they're healed. He knows what he's doing here. So there's no mistake here. There's a reason, and it's up to us to try to guess up, really, because we're not told the reason why the man isn't healed instantly at the first touch. I'll offer a speculation and it's just speculation. I think it's a lesson for the disciples. If we could go back two weeks ago in the passage right before this, before this scene, it would be after Jesus miraculously feeds the 4,000 people, he's with his twelve disciples in the boat, and they simply didn't understand still who he was and what was going on. Their hearts were hardened. They were walking at least at some level of unbelief. And Jesus asked them, do you have eyes quoting Jeremiah? He said, do you have eyes but don't see? Do you have ears but don't hear? And so now, immediately following after that, perhaps the same day or a few days later, we're in this scene with a blind man. And I think Jesus is trying to tell him, you know, you're a little bit like this blind man. You see partially, but you don't see fully, not yet. But for whatever reason, Jesus once more shows love and power, proving who he is, restoring broken bodies, bodies broken by the curse that came upon this world all the way back in Genesis 3. Then Mark takes us to another scene, verse 27, Jesus went out with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. That's just north, a little bit north of Bethsaida. And on the road, on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? You know, it's like asking, what's the word on the street about me? And they answered him, John the Baptist, others, they say you're Elijah, still others, one of the prophets. But you, he asked him, who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are the Messiah. And he strictly warned them to tell no one about him. Then he began to teach them that it was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, those are the religious leaders in Israel, that he be killed and rise after three days. He spoke openly, plainly, frankly about this. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning around and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking about God's concerns but human concerns. Here the disciples, when Jesus asked them, what are the crowds saying, what's the mood on the street, who do people think I am? They answered exactly what was said back in chapter 6. The people are persuaded, he's from heaven, he's some prophet, they just don't know how to explain him. And Jesus is and was a prophet but he's so much more than that. So then he asked the twelve, okay, the people say that I'm a prophet, John or Elijah, but who do you say I am? And as usual, Peter's the first one to speak up and his answer really is beautiful. He gets it. You are the Messiah. That's the Hebrew word, the same as the Greek word Christ or anointed one. Old Testament prophecies are speaking of this coming one. And Peter and the twelve realize he's now here, this long-awaited one. So Peter gets it, at least in part, it's a profound and beautiful moment. But here's a question we have to ask right now at this point. What kind of Messiah do Peter and the disciples think Jesus is? Jesus knows they don't get it fully, so in verse 31 he speaks very plainly. He tells them why he, the Messiah, is on the earth, what his mission is and his purpose, his mission is to suffer, to die and to rise from the dead. If you want a simple summary of the gospel message, there it is. Jesus tells us. And based on many prophecies from the Scriptures, everyone, including the twelve disciples, believe that this Messiah was going to come as a conquering king. He was going to establish a physical, literal kingdom on earth and they thought, "This is now, this is the time, and this thought of a suffering Messiah just was so far beyond them." But in Jesus' prophetic words here, he says, "I'm not going to conquer like that, not yet. No, I'm coming this time to suffer, to die, and to rise." Rather than wearing the conqueror's crown, Jesus will wear the servant's towel, the towel that washes the feet of the saints, the towel that the servant that gets beneath everyone and dies on their behalf. And so Peter's concept of the Christ, this Messiah, is too narrow and it's laden with selfish human fantasies or desires. And the Lord says, "You've got your mindset on human concerns, not on gods." For Peter, a suffering Messiah is just inconceivable. But the prophets of old spoke of this day, spoke of this suffering Messiah. One of the clearest and most startling is from Isaiah, Isaiah 53, the entire chapter. I'll just read one verse, verse 5. It says, "But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities, punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds." Jesus here in Mark 8 is prophesying that though he has all power and authority, power and authority that he's demonstrated multiple times already in this gospel, that he's going to set that aside in what we could say is the greatest moment of weakness. In a position of power, he becomes weak and willingly submits himself to the Father's will to die for the evil of the world. And this really is a moment, it's a change, it might be the hinge in Mark. There's a change here, Jesus begins to speak more plainly. In fact, this is the first of three prophecies by Jesus himself of the outcome of his life and the purpose of his life. One here in chapter 8, one in chapter 9, one in chapter 10, three witnesses to the true mission of the Messiah. And what's interesting after each one of these three prophecies of his impending death and resurrection, the disciples each time show that they're still somewhat clueless, half-hearted and unbelieving. So here in our passage this morning, Peter thinking only of the conquering Messiah is convinced Jesus is wrong. So stupidly, he pulls his Lord and Creator aside and tells him how wrong he is. He rebukes his Lord. And he just says, "Lord, you're just so wrong. You can't die, you're not going to die, surely you're the conqueror. You're going to crush the Romans who are oppressing us. You have to display your power, not your weakness. You're talking nonsense, Jesus." Peter's words are the height of arrogance and folly. He's really being influenced by Satan. He's a mere mortal talking down to his Creator and, honestly, sometimes we do the same thing. Often in our suffering, we think, "Pfft, God, you don't know what you're doing. Actually, we don't say it to God typically, we just say it to ourselves. We just say, "God is stupid. He doesn't know what He's doing, He's making mistakes. We know better." But Jesus knows what is true and good. So in front of the other 11 disciples, in a necessary moment, he rebukes Peter who spoke so foolishly. And he will not be thwarted from his father's eternal plan to save this world from sin and the judgment that we deserve. Peter, along with the other, really with every other Jew alive, as far as we know, he didn't get the Isaiah 53 prophecy. He didn't get the suffering Messiah. In fact, no one did until after the resurrection. So if the 12 didn't understand what kind of Messiah Jesus was, the crowd certainly didn't understand. I mean, the other crowds, in addition to thinking, "Wow, a conquering king, this is going to be great. We're going to have someone in authority and life's going to be good and easy, no more oppressive Romans. Plus we get all the free food." I mean, man, we were just with the 4,000, that's amazing. We get all these amazing miracles, all the human needs that Jesus graciously met. What did they want to call him, Lord, that they want to submit to a Messiah who is going to place himself in a position of extreme weakness, even death? So Jesus now gathers the crowd together in our next passage, along with the 12. And he has some startling words for them all. Verse 34. Following the crowd, along with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it. For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? What can anyone give in exchange for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the Holy Angels." Then he said to them, "Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power." The key word here is follow, follow. But Jesus is telling us you're not following a religious code or a set of some moral system, even though there is morality in following him. But we're following a person, he says, "Follow me," and it's intriguing. The rest of the culture thinks he's a prophet, but a prophet of God would never say such a thing. He would say, "Follow the Lord." He wouldn't say, "Follow me." John the Baptist wouldn't, he didn't say, "Follow me." John even said, "Follow the one who's coming after me." And so if Jesus were merely a prophet, he wouldn't be saying such things, but he calls them to follow him, the Messiah doesn't use that word, the Son of Man as he calls himself here, the Son of God as he's described in Mark's gospel. We follow a person. And so what does that mean to follow him? In part following Jesus includes confessing that he's the Messiah, that we're admitting with our words, that he is from heaven, that he is the anointed one of God, as Peter did so beautifully, not understanding fully, but he confessed the Lord. So it begins with a verbal confession, yet it's much more than mere words, because anyone can say they believe in Jesus, anyone can enjoy the stunning miracles we've seen, anyone can benefit from the free and miraculous food, like the feeding of the five thousand and then the four thousand, but such things don't make someone a disciple of Jesus. So here he calls them to walk with him, and in the path he calls them to, because we don't merely examine Jesus, we don't put him with some biological specimen underneath a microscope and look at him and think, well, that's really fascinating. Jesus won't let us stay neutral, so he tells us what following him looks like. His description in verse 34 is startling, there's three things. First is deny yourself. In other words, say no to yourself and say yes to him. Just saying yes to ourselves, that's easy, that's natural, that's why we're in the trouble we're in. That's what sin is, it's saying yes to self, no to God. He says, let's flip that around. If you want to follow me, you need to say no to yourself and yes to God. In a way Jesus is saying, when he said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, it's sort of the same thing. Because to follow Jesus, to deny ourselves and to say yes to him is to love him even above ourselves. And this is not about self-righteousness, it's not about trying to get ourselves clean. Jesus says, no, you come to me, you say yes to me. He does the cleansing work and then he says, take up our cross. The cross was well known in their culture as a brutal inhumane torture and punishment. And not only was it the most intense suffering, it was horrifyingly shameful to be put on display before the world and to be mocked in your last hours on earth. And so Jesus is calling us to be willing to suffer for his namesake. Now we don't go out looking for suffering. The goal is not to suffer, the goal is to follow him and yet be willing as we follow him to endure suffering for the sake of his name and for the sake of others. And then third he says, just follow me. Get behind me. It's like if someone is walking, you think in a literal sense of following, if someone's walking and they want you to follow them, you're just going to get right behind him. You're going to go where they go. If he goes left, you're going to go left, right? You're going to go right. You're following in his footsteps. You're walking behind him. You're doing what he says. Why do we follow Jesus? Why does he want us to? What is it all about? We follow him because he loves us. We follow him because he's our Creator. We follow him because he's the Lord of all. We follow because he is life and has life. So of course we're to follow him. Of course we say no to self and yes to him. He's the Lord, he's Creator. Of course we take up our cross and suffer for his sake. What other life is there? John 6 at the end of that chapter. Jesus asked, do you want to leave? Everyone else was leaving, abandoning him and he asked the 12. Do you want to leave too? And Peter said, where else can we go? You have words of life. What other hope is there besides Christ? Who else loves us like he does? You follow him because he has life and found in no one else. And most of you in this room, you are following him. You do love him. You do understand these core truths that he's both the coming, conquering king, but he's also the suffering servant. You understand these things. You're saying no generally to your fleshly desires. You're walking behind him. You're carrying your cross for the sake of Christ, suffering for the sake of this world that they might find him. Are you doing it perfectly? No. None of us are. That's why we need him. Do you desire to be more consistent in your obedience to him? Of course we all do. Have you had moments where you've been afraid like he talked about in verse 38 of being ashamed? Have you been even ashamed of him from time to time? Sadly, yes, we all have been that way. But for you so many of us in this room, the overall pattern of your life is to follow him. You do love him. You are putting him first. You are denying self saying yes to him. And you really do believe that he's come to suffer, die, and rise from the dead for your sins. And you do believe that he's coming again soon as the conquering king to establish a kingdom finally, someday soon on earth. But there are others of us here this morning and I'm not sure who you are, but I'm sure in a group this large there are others of us here this morning, we might even say we're following him. That would be the words. We would be like Peter, maybe like the people in those days. But the general pattern of our lives would say otherwise. The primary pattern of our lives is not to deny self, it's to deny Jesus. We say yes to self, to fleshly, worldly desires. The primary pattern of our lives is to keep Jesus at a distance because his call to follow, this call of obedience and trusting in him, that's just too much. We seek comfort and ease and pleasure more than his will. And we might enjoy the cool things that Jesus does. I mean, all these amazing miracles, it's really fun to read about him in this book. He does all these nice things, he surrounds us with all these loving people in this room. I mean, there's a lot of benefits to hanging around. But fundamentally, we might have our own agenda, our own goals and we find ways to fit Jesus into our lives, into the fringes of our time and thoughts. And instead of making Jesus Lord, we make him our servant to do what we want. If that is you to you, the warning in verse 36 is startling. He says, "What benefit is it to you to gain the world yet forfeit your life?" You can have all that the world offers. But if you lose your soul, what good is it? So what can we take from this passage? How can we connect it to our lives, into how we think and how we live? As I mentioned, some of you, you have not believed in Christ, you might say some of the right words, but in your core, you simply don't believe. You don't want him to be Lord. You might be curious, you might be seeking, you're interested to know more. I hope you're on that journey. That's a good path. But to you, Jesus speaks by his own prophetic word that he's come for a mission and it's a mission to give you life and that is his mission is to suffer, to die and to rise from the dead. In essence, he calls you to himself, to follow him, to make him Lord and Savior define forgiveness. So do you, I would just have one question, what is keeping you from Christ? What is keeping you from him? Are there things in this world that you are pursuing that you love more than him? Is there sin that you love more than him? Are you ashamed to be associated with his name? Jesus offers this warning, nothing else matters if you lose your soul. No one else can give you that life, not even yourself, not your own good works, not fame in this world, not fortune or meaning or significance or love, anything else that's found apart from him, you need Christ. So even this morning, I would urge you to bow your heart before him, beg him to forgive you and to give you life forever and call him Lord. To the rest of you in this room who do believe in Christ, I offer you two things. One is simply worship God. This salvation that God has given to us is just, it's beyond words, it's remarkable, it's stunning, it's exhilarating. We have been given through the death and resurrection of Christ. We have been given a life that will literally never end. It's astonishing and the kindness and patience of God towards us is, it's beyond words. And so we ought to worship him, sing to him, thank him, live for him. And we can know this, the day we die, which may be soon for some of us, but the day we die will be the best day of our lives because we'll finally be with him face to face. All because of his amazing grace and may the knowledge of that salvation sustain us day after day, even in the midst of our heavy trials. So worship God for the work of his son. And second, deny self by serving others. I think it's a practical way to think, what does it mean to deny self? I think it means to serve others like Christ did. Not to gain righteousness, but to bring righteousness to the world. We serve, we show love to give evidence to the world of the Lord for the life that they need. We do this, we show love for Christ. I think the most challenging place to do this typically is in the home. As with our families, roommates, that's going to be the hardest place, the biggest test for us, go home and die to yourself. This has been a challenge to me this week, because I've thought about this with for me to love my wife like Christ, to deny myself, to deny my own desires, which I don't do nearly as well as I'd like. And then we go out into the neighborhood, to the workplace, to extended family. We take up our cross willingly, joyfully, to bring life to the world. So just think, what's one way, even today or this week, that I can deny self, serve others to bring the love of Christ to them? Let me conclude with this, in our passage today, Jesus clearly reveals that the gospel is good news, but it's not a good news of governmental or physical power. It's news of brokenness and weakness, ending with power, the power of the resurrection. And it is for all of us, it leads to life. Jesus not only has a plan for life in this world and in the world beyond, He is the plan. He is the plan. He is our Lord, our Savior, the Messiah, the Creator, the Son of God and the Son of Man. Just pray together. Father in Heaven, the passages we just read, they're shocking. The glorious Son of God lowered Himself beneath any other human, obeying you to the point of death, submitting Himself to you to do your will and to bring life to us. And while His death is the greatest tragedy the world has ever seen, it gives us hope, real hope, because of the resurrection. Would you help us to believe these truths more firmly, to love you more truly? May you lift our eyes heavenward to see you and love you as you have loved us. In the name of the Son we pray, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]