I am Convinced that Sacrifice is Required

Mark 8:27-38

Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent, and we are continuing our series: Convinced. My clergy cluster group (Tim Reeves, Blaine Keene, Becky Piatt, Wendy Lybarger, Rob Turner, and Ryan Bash) decided to look at spiritual warfare through the book of Mark with the reminder that God wins; we don’t have to get all worried about how strong the devil is, because as Christians, we have God Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, living within us, and God gives us victory. And I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus! Isn’t that a comforting thought? No matter what you’re going through, no matter where you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’re up against, you can count on God’s love. Today we see, however, that sacrifice is required.

The setting itself in today’s scripture is important. Caesarea Philippi was a city famous for its pagan god worship. A cave near the city is supposed to be where Greek god Pan was born, you know, the half goat, half man. Here were a temple to Pan, some fourteen temples for Baal worship, and a temple to Caesar, built by Herod the Great. You know, the one who tried to slaughter Jesus when he was born. Herod’s son, Philip the Tetrarch built the city and named it after… himself. And Caesar, of course.

It is in this setting where Jesus gathers his disciples together. He asks them an important question: who do people say I am?

His question is very important, as is the setting in which he asks it. This is where Syrians had worshiped Baal. This is where Greeks worshiped Pan. This is where Herod paid tribute to Caesar and where Philip worshiped himself.  And here Jesus is, sitting in the center of idol worship, asking who people say he is. It’s an important question today, as well, as is our location.

We are in a center of idol worship as well. We live in a materialistic society. We worship beauty. We worship youth. We worship athletics. The biggest worship center in our state is called “the Shoe.” We worship self. And Jesus asks us who we think He is.

How would you answer His question? Who is Jesus? The disciples echoed the sentiments they’d heard; people say he’s John the Baptist, Moses, or one of the prophets. And in today’s culture, Jesus is often reduced to a good teacher or just someone who we can learn from or, even worse, a metaphor. So who do you say Jesus is?

Peter stepped in and set the record straight. Jesus is none other than the promised Messiah, the One whose advent had been prophesied and awaited by the Jewish faithful. We pastors always get a little sentimental and pretty excited when we read Peter’s statement, because he finally gets it! Everyone else has a wrong picture of who Jesus is, but Peter gets it right! Let me stop for a moment and affirm this: Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, the One prophesied from ancient times, the Son of God, the second Person in the Trinity, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the only Savior of humanity.

At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

So it’s really odd that Jesus tells his disciples to keep it to themselves.

I think the reason Jesus tells them to keep quiet is the same reason that he started explaining things to them. He wasn’t the kind of Messiah the disciples were expecting. They were expecting a King in the line of David, a conquering King who would overthrow Rome and make things right. But Jesus explained his mission differently.

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.

“Wait a minute! This isn’t who we signed up to follow!” Conquering Kings don’t suffer! They aren’t rejected! And they most certainly aren’t killed! This went completely against everything the Jews thought about the coming Messiah. So we read that [Jesus] spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter.

Peter lost sight of Jesus’ mission. He had his own ideas of what a Messiah should do, none of which included his own sacrificial death. So he rebuked Jesus, and Jesus rebuked him right back. Jesus calls out one of his closest friends. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

One of Peter’s problems was that he had in mind what Jesus should be doing in order to fulfill his own (Peter’s, that is) preconceived notions of what a Messiah should do. These didn’t actually match up with Jesus’ actual mission. If your picture of Jesus isn’t a picture completely shaped by the Bible, then you might have a wrong picture of Him. Don’t just take my word for who Jesus is and what he did and does – read it for yourself in your Bible.

Jesus is not some invisible cosmic Santa Claus, just waiting for your wish list. He’s not a weak sissy who hangs out with sheep. I get pretty tired of hearing Jesus described as a push-over whose mission is to simply make us feel better about ourselves. Revelation 19 describes Jesus as having eyes like blazing fire and a tattoo on his thigh and a sword to strike down the nations. This is not the little wimpy guy with soft blonde hair who I grew up seeing pictures of.

Unfortunately some of us have a sad misconception of who Jesus is and what his mission is. If the mission of our church isn’t the same as Jesus’ mission, then we’ve lost our way. Do you want Jesus to have to say to us, “Get behind me, Satan!  You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

What will Jesus say about our church? What do we have in mind? Are we following Jesus wholeheartedly, with everything we are, or are we inviting Jesus to come along and after-the-fact bless what we’ve decided we want to do? There’s a huge difference. Left to our own devices, most of us will choose what’s most comfortable to us; we choose the things we enjoy. We choose familiarity. We choose the easy road. But Jesus was pretty clear about what it takes to follow him.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Following Jesus is not an easy road. When I was a little kid, we used to sing a song in children’s church that drove me nuts. Of course it had motions, but the words were, “I’m in-right, out-right, upright, downright happy all the time… since Jesus Christ came in and cleansed my heart from sin, I’m in-right, out-right, upright, downright happy all the time.” Guess what. Even as a child I knew that was a lie. Being a Christ follower isn’t about being happy all the time. Full of a joy beyond all expectation? Yes. Steadfast and sure, even in times of trouble? Yes. Marked by the Holy Spirit and set apart for salvation? Absolutely! But that doesn’t translate to “I’ve got an easy life and things always go my way.”  Jesus actually says something quite different. He says if you want to follow him, you’ve got to deny yourself. What does that look like?

It might mean that you give up some of your time to serve someone else. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have vibrant ministries reaching out to the community, but here’s what happens: something gets started and people start getting territorial. There’s nothing new about this; when Jesus came on the scene, who was it who got bent out of shape? It wasn’t Rome. It was the chief priests and scribes; the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders. Jesus was changing things. Jesus was challenging their traditions. And it’s the same here; when our traditions are challenged, we get riled up. There are some who say, “I already put in my time, so it’s time for someone else to serve.”

I’ve met quite a few Christians who simply want things their way. I’ve been over this before, but it bears repeating. Our way is the path to the grave. We cannot save ourselves; otherwise Jesus wouldn’t have even come to earth. When we’re so concerned with getting our own way, with doing everything we want, Jesus is asking: What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? There are people in this community who are bullies. If something doesn’t go their way, they’ll strong-arm their way into getting their way. They’ll tell all kinds of lies to whoever will listen, and they know just the ears to bend. So you’ve gotten your way – is your way so important that people’s souls don’t matter anymore?  

And for the rest of us; we can have a lot of fun, live life comfortably, and have things the way we want them, but ultimately we will be held accountable for how we stewarded Jesus’ message. Did we share it with our community, or did we hide it? And are our eternal souls worth earthly comfort?

A couple of weeks ago, we had a great preschool Sunday, where our kids came and sang and presented their artwork. I love what Chanie and Brenda and Heather are doing for these little ones – these little children are sharing Jesus with their families. Plenty of the parents and grandparents who came to worship with us have their own church homes elsewhere, but others don’t, and several people thanked me for creating a time and place where their loved ones at least got to experience Jesus once.

I overheard someone talking about how great it was to have a full sanctuary and how they loved having all the children here, and don’t you wish it was that way every week? OK, if we want to have regular ministry like that, we’re going to have to have regular, intentional ministry to children. Not just expecting “someone else” to do it; it’s not just Chanie, Brenda, and Heather’s job to minister to children. It’s not enough to just have VBS and a Night in Bethlehem. It’s our job, church, to have a regular ministry to children, and we’ve fallen asleep on the job. I know everyone has their ideas about what ministry we “should” be doing, and some of you are already doing too much, so if you’re already doing something here every night of the week, you don’t need to add one more thing. That said, there are plenty of us who are doing nothing for the Kingdom of God. What was it Jesus said about denying self and taking up a cross?

We are in a society that is busier and busier all the time. We all have organizations we are involved in and meaningful activities that take up our time. It’s time to evaluate the activities we’re involved in, as individuals and as the church. Are we bringing Jesus glory? Are we making Him known?

Jesus continued by saying: If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.

Are you proud to follow Jesus? Then say so! Does everyone around you know that you love Jesus? If so, how do they know? If not, why not? Are you ashamed of him?

Our church has a serious reputation problem in the community. We have carried a reputation of being a country club church, one that doesn’t require much of its membership, one that suggests that socializing and being seen are the top reasons for showing up. I realize that there are some young Christians who first came to church because of who was here; you were invited by a friend or family member, and you found friendly people who welcomed you. But that’s not the end goal of the church. That’s not our full purpose. We, the church, are the bride of Jesus Christ! Our goal, our purpose, is Him! We are the bride, on the way down the aisle to meet our Beloved, for whom we would do anything. And He calls us to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him.

I want you to notice something critical. After Jesus and Peter had their little run-in, before Jesus says the “deny yourself” part, there’s an important phrase at the beginning of verse 34: Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples. Jesus wasn’t just telling the disciples that they had to deny themselves. He was telling everyone who would follow him. This has significant meaning in today’s church: this is not about clergy being the only ones who are supposed to do this. We all are called to the same thing.

I hear two different things all the time, and frankly, both of them make me sick. First is: “the pastor needs to…” Yes, everyone has their expectations of what I should be doing. Implicit in a lot of those expectations is that the rest of you couldn’t do it because only a pastor can… Jesus tells all of us to shoulder the burden of ministry.

The other thing I hear is this: “We should just have volunteers do…” (and then fill in whatever ministry we’re not currently doing). I have heard this a lot since Rudy announced that he’s leaving. And you’re right; we should have volunteers volunteering. But those “volunteers” aren’t named “someone else” and they’re not named “some other person who is already ministering.” Jesus calls each one of us to do ministry.

All of this is great as long as we can leave it on a theoretical level, but Jesus’ instructions aren’t theoretical. There are people who believe he only metaphorically rose from the dead, and I suppose that they would at least be intellectually honest if they then left his instructions on a theoretical level. But Jesus, denying himself, really, physically took up his cross. And he calls us to do something about our faith. His brother, James, says: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.(James 2:14-17)

If you’ve got faith, do something about it. I will give you a couple of concrete ways you can exercise your faith. You all know about the food pantry; you can sign up to serve there.

Additionally, we need to be thinking about various ways we can serve our community. Your job is to come up with ways to do just that, not how other people can serve, but how you can, and how you can invite other people, groups of four or five, to serve alongside you.

I mentioned children’s ministry earlier, and if we are going to serve our community, it’s going to start by ministering to children. Right now we have one awesome Sunday School class for children, but nothing else. We need leaders and volunteers. We need people who will pray for children’s ministry and for the children of our community. If we aren’t willing to minister to children, we have to accept that our church will die off. That is our choice.

We need to have in place a true children’s ministry at latest by the beginning of Fall. Will you be a part of it?

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