The Invitation

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Good morning Chapel family. Welcome to the third Sunday of Lent, which means Easter is exactly four weeks from today. We are still really hoping to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus outside under the open sky—so thank you for joining me in praying for warm temperatures and melting snow—it’s working! Keep it up! I’m so looking forward to Easter!

But in the meantime, we’re using this period of Lent to focus on the life of Jesus. And here’s my sort of “thesis”— my big idea: the cross isn’t just the way Jesus died; it’s also the way that he lived—pouring out his life, letting go of his rights, sacrificing himself for the good of others. So every week during Lent, we’re looking at a scene from Jesus’ life and we’re doing two big things: first, reflect. Through the sermon, through your small group, in your own devotional time, reflect and think deeply about how Jesus demonstrated that cross-shaped approach to life. And then, in response to that reflection, repent. Remember: to repent means to turn around—to recognize that some part of your life is heading in a wrong direction, and then, by God’s grace, to turn around and head in a new direction. Okay? So Lent is about reflection and repentance.

So the first week we talked about the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; last week Pastor Ted talked about Jesus the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep. And today we’re going to see The Invitation that Jesus offers to every one of us. An invitation to approach life the way Jesus approached life. And I’m just warning you: this invitation that you’re going to hear today was deeply counter-cultural when Jesus first said it. It rocked his disciples. And if we take it seriously, it’s just as counter-cultural today. It’s so different from the way most voices in our world tell us to live. So this is one of those places where we have to decide: do I go with the voices of popular culture, or do I trust that Jesus really knows what he’s talking about?

Let’s look at today’s Scripture: Mark 8, verses 31 through 37. I invite you to hear the Word of God…

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? This is the Word of the Lord.

Let’s talk about three things today: The Example, The Objection, and The Invitation. The example, the objection, and the invitation.

So, first: The Example. Verse 31: He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. Now—that last phrase—the “rising again” part—it doesn’t seem like the disciples even heard that part. Or they heard it, but they didn’t understand it.

The thing they really registered was this terrible prediction that he was about to suffer and die. Notice, he didn’t say, “I’m going to take some risks, and there’s a chance it might not go well.” He said, “I must suffer and be killed.” And the obvious question is, “Why?” In fact, people sometimes ask me that: “Why did Jesus have to die on a cross? If God is God, couldn’t he just snap his finger, and sin would be forgiven?” It’s a great question, so let’s take a couple of minutes and think about this.

There is a principle in life, that if somebody wrongs another person, there’s a debt that’s been incurred. You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. Someone always has to suffer with the debt. So in our country, when somebody breaks a law, if it’s serious enough, they have to go to prison to pay the debt for that crime. Right? That’s our justice system. And it’s very imperfect, but in general, people agree that when you commit serious wrongs, there’s a debt to pay.

Now: we have this interesting practice in our country, that every time a president or a governor steps down from office, they have the power to…what? To pardon criminals. So President Trump issued 143 pardons. President Obama issued 212 pardons. And when the president pardons you, it’s like a “get out of jail free” card. You’re free to go! The purpose of pardons is to address cases where the legal system seems to have failed. Someone has been unjustly imprisoned, and the pardon is an attempt to make things right. But sometimes, people get pardoned for serious offenses. For example: about six years ago, Haley Barbour stepped down as governor of Mississippi, and he pardoned four murderers. One of the guys had murdered his wife while she was holding their six-week-old baby. And there was an outcry, but the State Supreme Court upheld the pardons.

How does that make you feel? That’s not fair! Right? Because we instinctively know that when there’s an offense, there’s a debt that now exists. And it has to be paid by someone. You can’t just arbitrarily erase it! And think about this: Haley Barbour issued this pardon at no cost to himself. Right? All he had to do was walk out of the Governor’s mansion and wave his hand: “You’re pardoned.”

Now: what if…what if Haley Barbour had said, “You know what? This prisoner is serving a life term, and I’ve made a big decision. I’m going to set him free, and I’m going to go to prison and serve out his sentence for him. Somebody has to pay for this crime, and I’ve decided I’m going to do it.” Wouldn’t that be shocking? Or, better yet: “This guy is on death row; but I’m going to pardon him, and take the lethal injection for him.” I mean, governors and presidents and kings don’t do that kind of thing, do they?

One does. One did. Because in the eyes of God, we are the convicts. We’re guilty of multiple counts of being self-centered, and greedy and prideful and dishonest and a million other things. The debt is real. And here’s the thing: God doesn’t just wave his hand and pardon debt. Because you can’t just do that! The universe doesn’t work like that. Somebody has to pay for it. So he entered our world, and went to the cross and paid it himself. A king who suffers in place of his people. That’s unheard of! Kings don’t do that! This king does.

So that was a long answer, but I think it’s important: that’s why Jesus said that he must be rejected, and suffer, and die. Because God so loved the world, that he wanted to pardon us, at infinite cost to himself. And guys, this is why I love the gospel message. I really believe it’s the only worldview that truly takes sin and evil seriously—it doesn’t gloss over it; it holds us accountable for our own sin, which humbles us; and then it offers a forgiveness does not come cheap, because it was paid for by God himself out of his great love for us. It is such good news!

But here’s the point for today’s message: in order for Jesus to be the person he was born to be—to live out his true calling in life—to truly find himself—he had to lose himself. His calling in life was to let go of his life. That’s what he told the disciples that day: “I have to do this; I’m willing to do this; I’m going to do this.” And the disciples were not happy to hear this. And one of them spoke up and said so.

Which brings us to point number two: The Objection. Peter was so disturbed by what he just heard, look at verse 32: He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. In Matthew’s version of this event we get a little more detail—Peter says, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” For a disciple to not just disagree with his master, but actually rebuke his master, was unheard of. I mean, Peter had audacity to do this. But he felt so right! He felt like there was no way this could be the plan, and if necessary, he would actually defend Jesus. And he probably thought Jesus would be impressed with his courage. How wrong he was.

Verse 33: But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Wow. Jesus could have said, “Peter, I appreciate your concern, and I love your heart, but you’re not seeing this clearly.” He could have even mildly insulted him, like, “Peter, you just don’t get it.” But calling him Satan?? But you know why he said that, right?

At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, right before he went public, he spent forty days fasting in the wilderness. And during that time, do you remember what happened? He was tempted by Satan. And the temptations took different forms, but the bottom line was: “Jesus, you can accomplish your mission without going through any suffering. You can have the kingdom without going to the cross.” And Jesus knew it was a lie, so he rejected the offer. So now, three years later, here’s Peter, basically repeating the same temptation, right? “You don’t need to go through all that suffering, Jesus!”

Now, let’s be fair to Peter. Did you notice that when Jesus was rebuking Peter, he was looking at all his disciples? Why? Because even though Peter was the one who spoke up, they were probably all thinking the same thing. So let’s not single out Peter too much. I think we can also say that even though Peter repeated Satan’s temptation, Peter’s motive was very different from Satan’s motive. Satan wanted to stop the mission of Jesus. Peter just misunderstood the mission of Jesus. See, Jesus had identified himself as the promised Messiah of Israel. And in the mind of a faithful Jewish person, “Messiah” meant strength…victory…crushing your enemies. So when Jesus started talking about suffering and death, Peter thought Jesus was just a little forgetful about his Messiah job description. In 1 Corinthians 1, it says the whole idea of the cross is a stumbling block to Jewish people, and Peter was stumbling over this big time. So I truly believe Peter’s comment came from pure motives. But it was still the same temptation Jesus had heard three years earlier from Satan.

The Bible commentator A.B. Bruce said this: “Jesus recognizes here his old enemy in a new and even more dangerous form. For none are more formidable instruments of temptation than well-meaning friends, who care more for our comfort than for our character.” Oh, man. I have to read that last phrase one more time: “none are more formidable instruments of temptation than well-meaning friends, who care more for our comfort than for our character.” Some of you really needed to hear that today. Because you’ve got a well-meaning friend who’s telling you to take the easy way out, and today God is reminding you that’s not the way of Jesus.

So Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan!” And then he says: You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. In other words, “Peter, you’re using human logic. You think that

if I lose my life, that means defeat. You think if I lose my life, my mission fails. That’s human logic. What you don’t realize is that the only way for my mission to be accomplished and for sin to be defeated and for love to be released in the world…is for me to lose my life.” See, Peter thought suffering and victory were totally incompatible. And Jesus says, “Can’t you see that my suffering is the only path to victory?”

So that’s the example that Jesus set. And that was hard for his disciples to accept. But what comes next is even harder.

Third and final point: The Invitation. See, this passage isn’t just about Jesus living this cross-shaped way. It’s about Jesus inviting us to live in the same kind of way. Look at verse 34: Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. What does that mean—to “take up our cross, and follow him?” In our culture, if somebody says to you, “Oh—everybody has a cross to bear,” what do they mean? Everybody has some annoying, difficult thing in their life, right? What’s your cross to bear? Oh, it’s my mother-in-law. She drives me nuts. Or, my cross to bear is this terrible WiFi in my house. Optimum Online—that’s my cross to bear. Or, it’s this arthritis—my knees are killing me. Some tough part of life.

But that’s not what Jesus is saying here. He’s saying, “Look: since I, the King, have to give up my life, if you want to follow me, you also have to give up your life.” Not just put up with an annoying thing in your otherwise unchanged life. But actually let go of your whole life! Give it up! Put it to death.” Probably not physical death—although God calls some people to die for their faith. But it’s a very real death.

So as we reflect on the life of Jesus, that leads us to repentance, right? And here’s what repentance looks like in this case: From clutching life to choosing death. That sounds pretty radical, right? But that’s what it means to take up your cross—because the cross is an instrument of death.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” So what does that actually mean? Let me give you two implications of this, and I’m building on the teaching of Tim Keller here. And let’s put these up on the cross diagram.

First, choosing death means I need to Die to My Old Identity. When Jesus says you have to “lose your life,” the word for “life” is the Greek word psyche. So he’s talking about what gives you your identity—your sense of self. Now: he’s not saying, “You need to lose your identity and become one with the universe.” That’s Zen Buddhism; that’s transcendental meditation. Jesus isn’t saying that. Jesus says, “Lose your life…” why? “…so you can find it. So you can save it!” So how do you do that?

Well, in verse 36, he says What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? In other words, stop trying to build your identity on things you can gain in this world. Because that’s what we do, right? We say, “I feel like somebody—I feel worthwhile—because I have gained… (you fill in the blank)…a good career…a big house…a beautiful wife…the approval of my family…the respect of my friends.” We instinctively form our identity based on things we can gain in this world. You know what the problem is? If anything goes wrong with my career, or my home, or my wife, or the way my family or friends feel about me…what happens? My sense of identity is threatened, and could fall apart.

And Jesus says, “You need to find a whole new way. Die to your old identity—which is not an easy thing to do!—and learn to base your identity on me and what I did for you at the cross, and who I am in your life every day.” And as you make Jesus the center of your thoughts, and your worship,

and your affections, you start to gain a new identity that’s not based on how many pounds you lost last week, or how many new customers you were able to bring in. It’s based on Christ.

Paul the Apostle talks about how this dying process worked for him. Listen to Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3: 7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. Paul had a lot of impressive credentials! But he says, “I stopped defining my identity by those things. Compared to knowing Christ, those things are garbage.”

And when you start to build your identity on Christ, you start to become the person you were created to be. I love the way C.S. Lewis describes this at the end of his book Mere Christianity. Look at this:

“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of ‘little Christs,’ all different, will still be too few to express Him fully… In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires…

It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

So…Jesus says, “Die to your old identity…and I’ll give you a new identity—the one you were always meant to have. You’ll be more fully ‘you’ than you ever were!”

There’s one more way we need to choose death—here it is: I need to Die to My Old Agenda. See, Peter had a very personal reason to rebuke Jesus: Jesus was challenging Peter’s agenda. Peter just assumed that Jesus would eventually rise up and declare himself King, and Peter’s agenda was to be connected to this rising star! And then Jesus said, “Look—the Son of Man has to suffer and be killed.” And Peter freaked out! Because if that was true, it might mean suffering for Peter! Which definitely wasn’t Peter’s agenda.

Listen: if you come to Jesus clutching onto your agenda, you’re actually intending to use him. If you come to Jesus saying, “I want to follow you, so you can get me a boyfriend,” you’re using him as a means to an end. Right? If you come to Jesus saying, “I want to follow you, so you can get me out of this financial mess,” he’s a tool to carry out your agenda.

But when you come to a King, you die to your own agenda, and you say, “I’m not coming to tell you what to do for me. I want to get on board with your agenda. I’m not here to use you; I’m here to worship you and serve you. Maybe you will bring me a boyfriend; maybe you will get me out of this financial mess. But even if you don’t…I’ll have you—and that will actually be enough.” Do you believe that? That you can truly let go of your agenda and your demands…and that’s when life will really get good?

I’m going to be really honest with you. In both of those kinds of death—dying to your old identity and dying to our old agenda—in both of those cases, very often we’re not the ones who initiate the dying process. God initiates the process, by orchestrating circumstances in our lives, and we have to decide whether to submit to what God is doing or not.

Let me use my own story as an example. Up until I was 18 years old, I had built my identity on three big things: my academic ability—I was on a pre-med track as I entered college; my athletic ability—I was a pretty good distance runner and I was on the college cross country team; and my social ability—I had always found it very easy to make friends. So Jesus talks about the things that we gain in this world, and those were some pretty important things that I had gained in the world—my academic and athletic and social success. I was feeling pretty good about myself. But I got to college, things didn’t work out as I had expected. I struggled with school—especially my science classes—the very thing I need to do well in to get into medical school. When the cross country team went out to train, I was regularly in the last pack of runners, barely keeping up with the team. And socially, I was suddenly experiencing loneliness like I’d never felt before. In other words, the places where I had always found my identity were unraveling. It was really hard.

Looking back, I can see exactly what God was doing. He was showing me how foolish it was to build my sense of self on what I had gained in this world, and inviting me to take up my cross—to die to those things—and follow him. But here’s the point: that whole thing was not my idea. I didn’t go to college and say, “You know what? I’ve gained some things in this world, but what good is it to gain the whole world and lose my soul? I’m going to start failing organic chemistry and running really slow and practicing social isolation.” It wasn’t my idea. God initiated it! That’s often the way it works! And I had to decide: am I going to rebel against what God is doing? Am I going to resist and resent God? Am I going to double down and say, “How dare you mess with my identity? I’m a future doctor, and I’m a runner, and I’m a popular guy, and I’m just going to try harder!” Or, was I going to submit to what God was doing in my life? And through some wrestling and some pain and some tears, I eventually submitted, and chose to die to that old identity. Best choice I ever made.

So here’s the question for you: is God initiating a process in your life? Is he messing with your identity or your agenda in some way? Because if he is, you have a choice to make. Do you resist him, or even rebuke him, like Peter did? “No—it’s not supposed to be like this!” Or do you take up your cross and die to your old ways, and learn to find your life in Christ? Those moments that seem so painful are amazing opportunities for spiritual growth.

And not only that, but don’t forget the little note of hope that was buried in Jesus’ words! The disciples didn’t even hear it, I don’t think. In verse 31 Jesus said he would suffer and be killed…but then he said one more thing. After three days I’m going to rise again.

Don’t ever forget that for Jesus, it ended really well. So the suffering and the dying were temporary! And for us—if we follow him—we have to take up our cross, and die to our old identity—and that’s a painful process! We have to die to our old agenda—and that can be excruciating—life might be so different than what we thought! But God says it’s going to end really, really well. Because just as Jesus rose again…so will we. And there will be a future without suffering and without death. It’s going to end incredibly well.

So in the meantime—let me finish by once more quoting CS Lewis:

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day…Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.