As you're being seated, please turn with me in your Bibles to, once again, Mark's Gospel. This time, the 8th chapter, we'll be considering verses 34 through 38. Mark 8, 34 through 38. We'll be reading from the New International Version, and in order to get the context, we'll actually read verses 27 through 38. So starting in Mark chapter 8 in verse 27. And Peter 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. And he 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. Get behind me, Satan, he said. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. 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. 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? 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. Well, remember this morning as we spent time in the fifth chapter of Mark's Gospel, that the Gospels are testimonials about the work and person of Jesus of Nazareth. And though each gospel writer, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, has his own particular way of narrating the person and work of Christ, there's a general approach of all the gospel writers that needs to be in our mind. And that is that the gospel narratives all have the exact same conclusion. They're telling us a story about Jesus of Nazareth that all ends with a conclusion that Jesus is the Christ of God. And with that in our mind, to our text now, consider, first of all, that in these words that we're reading this evening, Mark makes a particular point about them. And the particular point he makes is that when Jesus says to everybody that they must deny themselves in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, Mark is the only, out of the other three gospel writers that record this incident, he's the only one that notes that he calls both the crowds together with the apostles. Luke, for example, simply says he calls all together, but Mark here makes clear that by all he means everybody, including the crowds. And this morning we learned something about the crowds. We learned, first of all, that we are actually to see ourselves in the crowd, viewing the incidences of the miracles and even these words of Christ. And remember, again, before we consider these particular words, what we learned about the crowds concerning their religious character. That is that the religious character of the crowds are portrayed by all four gospel writers in a way that John, for instance, in John chapter 6 we saw, portrays them. And that is that the crowds primarily sought Jesus and listened to him primarily for what they could get from him. And again, if you remember, John in chapter 6 said, So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, that is, in the place that they were seeking for him, nor his disciples, they themselves got into boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? And at that juncture, again, remember, Christ answers them and says, Truly, truly, I tell you, you are seeking me not because you saw the signs and believed, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. With that in our mind, then, and after reading this narrative where Christ here calls us all to self-denial, understand that here we have a man, Jesus of Nazareth, being followed by large crowds because he is performing miracles. When he is concerned to call everyone together to hear these climactic words, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. And Luke adds, daily, and follow me. Now, occasionally, Jesus would do this. He was going along in the course of his miracles and teachings and so forth, and he would stop and say perplexing things. Again, in John's Gospel, if you'd remember, in that same incident in chapter 6, he stopped and he says, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. And if you remember, the crowd at that juncture was so offended that many of them went away from him. And John tells us, walk with him no more. And then there's another incident in the third chapter of John when a ruler of the Pharisees goes to Jesus by night, Nicodemus. And he says, good teacher, we know that you're a man sent from heaven because nobody can do the works that you're doing unless God is with him. And how does our Lord reply? Something to us is not very perplexing, but in that time was very perplexing. He says, unless a person is born again, he can't even see the kingdom of God. And of course, Nicodemus is very perplexed. He says, how can a man be born when he is old and so forth? So this is one of those occasions when Jesus is concerned to call everyone together and say things that was very puzzling and hard. to them at that time. Well, the question we want to ask this evening is how are we to understand these words? If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself. Well, Christ is obviously announcing that true discipleship involves self-denial of some sort. But notice, first of all, that there are actually two crosses in this section of sacred scripture. In verse 31, if you will look, where he says, 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 that be raised. Well, there He's talking about a literal cross, isn't He? But in verse 34, where He calls the crowds and the disciples to self-denial, He's obviously speaking of a figurative cross. So He's speaking of a figurative cross that represents a way of life. And again, to remove all doubt from this, Luke adds the word daily. If anyone wants to follow me, let him pick up his cross and follow me daily. You see, the cross that Jesus dies on is literal, made of real wood and steel. The second cross in our scripture here this evening is a figurative cross, which represents a way of life. Meaning a roadway or a pathway that Jesus says leads to God's kingdom. So in this text, Jesus calls his disciples in the crowd, and remember, we're in the crowds, to follow behind him bearing a figurative cross in the way of self-denial. And even though the crowds at that time did not understand the significance of Jesus' literal cross yet, they could understand this figurative cross. They knew what it was when a man went off from one end of their village to the other end with a little band of Roman soldiers. He was on a one-way journey and he would not be back. Therefore, in this text, the road to eternal life is by implication called the way of the cross. Well, before we look at specifically exactly what Jesus means by this word, these words, five things that he's not talking about. Number one, the way of the cross is not merely confessing one's sins. Notice that Jesus doesn't say, if anyone would follow after me, let him simply confess his or her sins. What Jesus is calling us to hear is much more difficult than mere confession. Is it possible that a man, a woman, or a boy, or a girl confesses their sins and yet still not deny him or herself? Yes. We can go to church, confess our sins, and still essentially live to ourselves. And if you remember, this was Israel's problem. At one point, if you remember, Christ turns to Israel and He says, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, saying, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Now, as you heard this morning, I'm a third-year seminary student at Westminster Seminary. And I learned in my first year that one of your members here, also the president of the seminary and the teacher of my ancient church class my first year, I learned that Dr. Godfrey likes to ask trick questions. And perhaps because I'm a little older than most of my older fellow students, I learned after one or two episodes of Dr. Godfrey's questions just simply not to answer because the answer that you're thinking is hardly ever the answer to the question. Well, on one occasion, Dr. Godfrey asked us, what is the largest religion in the world? And as some of my perhaps more gullible classmates began to answer, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and so forth, Dr. Godfrey walks to the blackboard and he writes, formalism. And that's true, isn't it? Most men and women, boys and girls, regardless of what religion they're involved in, go through the motions merely, right? See, a formalist is a person that sees religion as just another thing that they add to their life. A formalist is a person who goes through the motions, but is still fundamentally committed to his or her own life. See, the formalist thinks that we were created for God to give us what we want and then leave us alone so we can basically still live to ourselves. Oh sure, I'll still go to church, the formalist thinks. As long as I can still just essentially live to myself, I'll go to church so I can just believe the right thing so that I can go to heaven after I die. As if life was meant to be just one unending corona commercial before we die. But Jesus' notice doesn't say, whoever wants to follow me, Make sure that you're confessing your sins. Secondly, it's not bearing the burdens of life. In a fallen world, everyone suffers under the effects of original sin. But Jesus doesn't say, whoever wants to follow me, let him or her bear up under the burdens and trials of life. In fact, many times, non-Christians are very much better at this than Christians. I know many of my unchristian friends that are very good at bearing up much better than I am under the trials of life. But Jesus doesn't say, whoever wants to follow me, let him just bear up under the difficulties of life. Neither, thirdly, does He say, whoever wants to follow me, let him or her just be a less selfish person in general. Jesus doesn't say, let him or her be more loving to his family or to his friends and give more money to feed the poor. Now, this is the vogue, isn't it, in American religion today. Our celebrities get rich and wealthy and then they give back to the community. Now, these things, understand, are very good in and of themselves. We need to be confessing our sins. And we should bear up under the burdens of life and especially help those by bearing with them under the burdens of life. And we should be less selfish. But that's not what Christ is talking about in our text. And also, He's not talking about penance. He's not telling us, if anyone wants to follow me, let him or her suffer for his own sins. He doesn't say, whoever wants to follow me, let him or her suffer for his own sins. But he says, let him deny himself. And this is not what Peter is talking about when he says, he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. He's not talking about penance as neither is Christ calling us to penance as far as suffering for our own sins. That's what Jesus does on his literal cross. And finally, in a word, What Christ is not calling us to is merely adding another thing to our life. So Christ is not calling us here to merely confessing our sins. He's not calling us to simply bear unto the burdens of life. He's not calling us to simply be a less selfish person in general. He's not calling us to suffer for our own sins. And He's not, in a word, simply calling us to add just another thing to our lives. This is the most popular view of Christianity in our culture. Kids, when you're friends that you maybe go to school with or associate with that aren't Christians and they see you go into church, most of them think that's absolutely fine, that's good for you. Because your average person in our culture views life as something that belongs to them. And if it's good for you and it adds something to your life that you want to go to church, that's fine. But Jesus doesn't say, let us just add something to our life. And again, these things that we've discussed are not bad in themselves, they're good, but they simply fall short of Jesus' call to true discipleship. Jesus is here announcing the eternal truth that His only true followers, who at the last will enter into His eternal kingdom, are only those who have died to their very beings in order to pursue the cause of Jesus Christ. If we really understood these words, we'd ask the question that the disciples on another occasion asked and said, if this is the case, who then can be saved? It sounds impossible and it is with men. In order for a man or woman to enter into life, he or she must become a different being. A man can therefore sooner deny himself than he can enter a second time into his mother's womb and be reborn. With men, this is simply impossible. And this is because we learn by later revelation that everyone born after Adam, born by ordinary physical generation, is by nature a fundamentally selfish person. Not because he or she is not religious, but because he or she follows his or her own purposes and is by nature an idolater. Paul says as much to the Ephesians when he reminds them that we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. You see, the way of the cross has to do more with the motives of the heart, why we live, and for what purpose, what drives and motivates us. Not if I go to church, but why. John Calvin puts it like this, Thus, the true self-denial which the Lord demands from His followers does not consist so much in outward conduct as it does in the affections. And the Apostle Paul, again, to the Corinthians. Remember the church at Corinth? Always fighting, always wondering who is the greatest and whether Paul was even an apostle and so forth. One occasion Paul exhorts them, he says, Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts. And then each man's praise will come to him from God. The motives of the heart. That's what we're dealing with in our text. But if it has more to do with the very motives of the hearts, how can we perform what is required? For who can change the motives of his or her heart? See, brothers and sisters, in order to really understand these words before us, we have to first ask some fundamental questions. Jesus calls us to self-denial in order to enter the kingdom of God. What is the self? What is human life? What is the kingdom of God? What is the universe and reality all about for that matter? We have to ask these fundamental questions before we can answer any particular question. And so, we have to, again, go back to the beginning as we did this morning. You see, in scriptures there are two creations, old and new. The old creation is fallen and ruled by sin. The new creation is recreated in Christ and ruled by grace. Christ is here proclaiming that in order to enter his kingdom, One must repent of his or her solidarity, meaning their association with Adam, their selfish self in Adam. As Paul says, as in Adam all die, even so all in Christ will be made alive. The old must be overcome by the new. This is really another way of saying that in order to enter the kingdom of God, one must be born again. Thus, to deny ourselves means to deny ourselves in Adam, to put off the old man and to put on the new. You see, again, as we saw this morning, the New Testament did not simply just drop out of the sky. In the Gospels, we're in the middle of the story. And we need to go back to the beginning, to all the way back. Because Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3 sets the stage for everything that follows. So we have to have that picture in our mind before we go on. Have you ever entered into a room where people are watching a movie and it's halfway through? What's the first thing you ask? You ask them to, you know, what's happening? And after they tell you to be quiet and they give you a real quick synopsis of what has happened already, so now you can really understand the rest of the show. It's the same thing being the Gospels. We don't start with the Gospels. We start in Genesis and in the rest of the Old Testament and that's the background that we have. So we go all the way back. In the original creation narrative, it starts from the lower to the higher. It ascends from the lower to the greater until man. The creation narrative told by Moses says this, Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. See, here what's happening is God is making everything in the space of six days. But He's crowning all creation with man. And you and I in Adam intended to rule over creation, being part of God's chief and crown glory of creation. But God makes Adam a promise, doesn't He? At the judgment tree. You see, there, at the judgment tree, God is promising Adam something that he had never experienced before. He is promising that the earthly creation would be consummated into a new creation. You see, heaven is promised way back there in the garden. Adam wasn't in heaven yet. But the garden that Adam was in was not the final goal. But man, because he's the image of God, was made to hope for something greater. Your dog and your cat, they don't sit around and worry about the perfect life. They don't worry about their jobs and their relationships and things like that. And they don't get depressed and see psychiatrists and psychologists and so forth. Why? Because they're not the image of God. Man is the image of God. And inside of the heart of man is something that makes him hope for heaven. Moses goes on. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in that day that you eat, you shall surely die. At this judgment tree, God is calling Adam to deny himself, pick up a figurative cross by passing a sentence of condemnation on his selfish desires and on his own ideas of right and wrong, thereby choosing to live by faith in the promises of God instead of believing the lies of the devil. If Adam would have obeyed, He, including all of us, would have been graduated to the finalized or consummated kingdom of God then and there. Eternal life promised there. A state of perfect blessedness where heaven and earth would have been won. But you know the story, don't you? Adam failed and was not graduated to heaven. In fact, he was barred from the garden of God after he failed. And now, he and all of his children and the people Jesus is speaking to in the Gospel narrative we're reading this evening can only dream of heaven. Moses goes on, Therefore the Lord God sent Adam out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man at the east of the Garden of Eden and placed the cherubim and a flaming sword and turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Our first father thus plunged our entire race into a state of utter ruin. Every cemetery is a constant reminder that all man's hopes and dreams are forever lost as the creation that man was to rule over feeds on his decaying flesh. Man, the image of God, outside the garden and away from the presence of his Father. This is the background of the story. This is the background to the words we just read in Mark. This is the background to your story. Paul summarizes it to the Romans when he says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. And Paul assumes when he says, Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh that we are all idolaters and all included in Adam's fall, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind as we read earlier and are by nature children of wrath. So now man is a sinner after Adam born by ordinary generation but still with the image of God and with heaven stamped on our hearts. See, we're made for heaven as Solomon, for instance, in Ecclesiastes surveys all of human life calling it out of all the vanities in the universe he says vanity of vanities all is vanity and grasping after the wind yet God has set eternity in their hearts we still hope for heaven even though we're still sinful man made to hope for heaven so now we're outside of the garden with heaven stamped on our hearts as sinners so what we do is we absolutize our own goals and desires for living by turning them into our own kingdom on earth see little Johnny born outside of the garden as a sinner as he grows up and he desires to get that one job that one thing with his name on it it's no longer just a job it's now who he is and he can turn it into his own utopia his own kingdom and fight for it with all of his might it's not just a job and little Sally born outside of the garden outside of the presence of God she sits around and dreams about the day that she's married and thinks about the color of her wedding dress and so forth. And she idealizes her life because she's made in the image of God. And it's not just a wedding. It's now her life or very being. But what we do as sinners who are preoccupied with heaven is we turn our own hopes and desires into idols, don't we? You remember the French sculptor Rodin, the thinker? The question we have to ask is, what is he thinking about? And Rodin himself said, he's thinking about hell. And certainly men and women in our conscience we think about the judgment of God but that's not all we think about. We also think about heaven and we think about glorious things in the ideal life, don't we? And we become unhappy when our kingdom is not realized in the actual world. In fact, this is what James is getting at in chapter 4 when he says what causes fights and quarrels among you? Do they not come from your desires that battle within you? And sadly, some people, out of desire to make sure that their own kingdom is done on earth, even take their own lives when their wills are not done on earth as it is in the kingdom of their own imagination. Moses goes on, he says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was very great in the earth, and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. Why? Why only evil continually? Is that because every man and woman at that time in history necessarily woke up every morning and said, you know, I think I'm going to go over and kill my neighbor this morning. Or I'm going to steal his donkey. No. It's because men and women, boys and girls, are exactly like you and I. We live for ourselves, don't we? Isaiah puts it like this. All we like sheep have gone astray. How, Isaiah? And why have we gone astray? We have turned, he says, everyone to his own way. Our own way. This is the essence of idolatry. We were not made originally to live for ourselves. There's a group down here that found some success, a Christian rock group originated in Encinitas. And a couple of years ago, they wrote a song that did very well. The name of the song was meant to live. And this song captures very much the essence of this point. The lyric says, Maybe we're living with our eyes half open. Maybe we're bent and broken. We were meant to live for so much more. Have we lost ourselves? While everything inside screams for second life. And that great father of the faith, St. Augustine, about 2,000 years ago, put it like this. Great are Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no end. Man, being a part of Thy creation, desires to praise Thee. Man, who bears about with him his own mortality, the witness that Thou resistest the proud. Yet, man, this part of Thy creation desires to praise Thee. Thou movest us to praise Thee. For Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. Man outside of the garden, an idolater, helpless to save himself. This is the canvas on which Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John paint their gospel portraits. Who then can be saved? Who then can deny himself or herself to such an extent that they're able at the last to enter into life? The answer is, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. For from the beginning, God has been creating a new people who He would make willing to follow Him. Men and women, boys and girls who are part of a new creation, who are beginning to live by faith in God's promises and are learning to pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This morning we read about Abraham, that he was renamed and rewritten into a new history like all of God's people. Well, Abraham is an example of someone who went the way of the cross. Again, the narrative in Genesis. Moses tells us, Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land I will show you. I'm sure Abraham had some comforts and attachments in Ur of the Chaldeans. Surely he had friends and job and positions and things that his heart was attached to. It's not without importance, therefore, that God tells us that he calls Abraham to get out of his country. Why? Because he's calling him to follow on the way of the cross, to deny himself. The writer of the Hebrews tells us, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. See, in the New Testament we can look back through the lens of the New Testament and at the patriarchs and understand that they were following Christ. Yes, that's what Moses tells us about... The writer of the Hebrews, rather, tells us about Moses. When he tells us, by faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. And listen to what the writer to the narrator says. He says, he chose, he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. The reproach of Christ in the Old Testament? Absolutely. For he was looking for the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured a seeing him who is invisible. Moses denied himself, pick up a figurative cross and live for the unseen promises of God. And this evening, you and I are called on the same road. And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and he said, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels, Mark alone adds, will save it. How can we do this? Again, the answer lies in God. This evening I have very, very good news in light of these words that we have heard. You cannot deny yourself like Christ denied Himself utterly. That's the good news. For those who believe, it's good news because Christ has denied Himself perfectly and utterly for His people as the second Adam, the second one that represents people before God. You see, brothers and sisters, our baptism signifies that those of us who have believed in Christ are united to Him and therefore, His self-denial is your self-denial as far as you're standing before God. Paul says as much to the Romans in chapter 6, Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus as were baptized into His death, therefore we are buried with Him through baptism into the death, That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life. Exactly what Christ is calling us to here. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, Peter himself, because of the fact that we are united to Christ, says, For this you have been called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in His steps. Because Christ suffered for you. And again, Paul to the Galatians, he says something true of all Christians. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. But far from it, Paul goes on, to say that I should boast except in the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. You see, as Paul says to the Galatians also, Cross, literal cross, is the surety for our figurative cross. As Paul says, that those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Therefore, Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. So, Jesus' physical cross is the surety for your figurative cross. Because it is then God who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. To those of us this evening that are outside of Christ and are still basically living to themselves, we would ask you to repent of your selfish self and believe the Gospel. The good news in conclusion this evening is that Christ's actual cross is the exclusive motivator for denying ourselves. We aren't to say, well, I just need to be just like Jesus so that I can enter into heaven. No. We realize and understand in our minds that Jesus' literal cross has done everything to make us right and have peace before God. But as now reconciled sinners to God that now have peace with God, it's that motivation, that mindset that He had and His work that is to be the exclusive motivator to follow Christ and deny himself and take up our own cross and live for Christ. So we are all called this evening to deny ourselves and follow Christ, not to earn our own righteous standing before God, but to show our gratitude. And as Paul says to the Ephesians, we are called to show our gratitude, for instance, for what Christ has done as husbands. Husbands, the Apostle exhorts us. That we are to deny ourselves and love our wives as Christ loved the church. Not because we can get something from it, but because Christ loved us and died for us. And wives, you are called upon to deny yourself and love and submit to your husbands. Not because it makes things go better at home, but because Jesus himself loved you and because he died for you. Recently, I was reading in a Christian publication, an incident where a husband came home and asked his wife, and he said, Sweetheart, why do you love me? And she said, Because you're my husband. I thought, that's exactly right. It's not because I wake up after one year, five years, 20 years, 50 years, and every single morning, I can't wait to see what new way you've dreamed of to show me your variegated love. No, it's because Jesus loved me and He died for me and Jesus asks me to love and submit to my husband and you're my husband. A young man and women, when it's time for you to choose a spouse, don't make sad your parents and your elders by going outside of the body of Christ. Be patient and wait for a Christian woman or a Christian man. And little children, You are to deny yourself and pick up your cross and submit to your mom and your dad. Not because they're perfect and they don't make errors all the time, but because Jesus, your Savior, who put His name on you in your baptism and owns you. But because His literal cross signifies the motivator for you to pick up your cross and follow Christ. Finally, brethren, whatever you do, the Apostle tells us in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Amen.