There has probably been at least one time in your life when you thought, “How could God possibly be good and let this happen?” You’ve experienced something so painful and so heart wrenching that it couldn’t possibly fit in God’s design. It can’t be right. It can’t be fair. It shouldn’t be like this. Why would God allow such a thing to occur?

My guess is these are the exact thoughts Jesus’ disciples had at the time of his crucifixion. Surely, none of this makes sense and it ought not be this way. Why would God allow this perfect man to suffer so unjustly? Their eyes were so focused on what was happening in front of them that they had forgotten some of the plain things Jesus had told them earlier. They didn’t remember until he resurrected and he later ascended to heaven in glory. Jesus had told them, he would go down before he would go up.

This pattern of going down before going up is what he called his twelve disciples to follow and to this day it’s what he has called every disciple to follow.

Main Point – Follow Christ in humiliation before exaltation

Prayer

Last week we spent time talking about having a full picture of who Jesus is and not merely seeing him partially. We mentioned how that portion of Mark is the hinge on which the two major halves of the book swing. In the first half of the book, Jesus reveals to the disciples that he has authority over all things. In the second half of the book, Jesus is going to reveal how he will suffer and die. Up to this point, the disciples only understand half of who Jesus is, but as we’ll see they do not yet understand the other half. They do not know really who it is they are following, they do not know really how to follow him, and they do not know really why they are following him. Our passage will answer these 3 questions, not just for the disciples but for us today as well.

Point #1 – Who do we follow? (vs. 31-33)

READ VS 31-32a

Jesus had formerly been speaking to them in parables. He said things in such a way that no one understood what he meant until he explained it to them. But now, when it comes to the most important aspect of his ministry, he speaks plainly. Very clearly he declares that he must suffer, he must be rejected, and he must be killed.

Do you see that important word there? Must? This isn’t merely some unfortunate thing that’s going to happen. This is something that must happen. There is no other way forward. This has been the plan all along. Up to this point it seems that Jesus was building strength, building support, and building a movement that would overthrow the oppressive rulers of the day. And the disciples were certainly looking forward to seeing that happen. Jesus would become their king and he would crush anyone who opposed him.

But Jesus now states, that’s not how it’s going to happen at all. He MUST suffer and be killed instead. This is as confusing to us as it was to the disciples. Why does it have to be this way? Can’t he just skip the pain and death and go straight to being king? Let me briefly give you 5 reasons why Jesus must suffer and be killed. And hopefully we’ll be able to understand what Peter missed.

Jesus had to die…

1. Because Scripture promised it - Ever since sin first appeared on the scene God promised that he would defeat it. And the promise was always that he would defeat it through the death of his Messiah. Isaiah 53:5 states it the most plainly for us

But he was pierced for our transgressions;  he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5

Jesus had to die because this was God’s plan all along and God always keeps his word.

2. Because shed blood is necessary to forgive sins - Jesus came to save people from sin and to offer forgiveness. It is clear that those who sin against God deserve to die. But the good news we read in the Old Testament is that God will allow a substitute to die in our place. If and only if the substitute dies, our sins can be forgiven. Look at Hebrews.

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. - Hebrews 9:22

3. To be tested to the uttermost - Jesus was sinless. He was a perfect sacrifice. And to demonstrate this to us he endured the worst suffering this world could give so that we would see his ability to withstand every possible temptation. Much like how to test an athlete’s strength we run them through the most difficult challenges conceivable. They are shown to be strong through trials. This is what suffering did for Christ.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering - Hebrews 2:10

4. To share in our sufferings - Jesus isn’t a God that saves from a distance. He gets right in the middle of our pain and he endures it with us. Jesus must suffer. Jesus must be rejected. Jesus must die, so that he can share in your sufferings and help you.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. - Hebrews 2:18

5. So he could defeat death - The way to defeat death is to demonstrate you have the power of resurrection and you are stronger than death. There can be no resurrection without first dying. Jesus died so that he could raise from the dead and so that he could raise each of us from the dead.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. - 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

So you see Peter, Jesus must suffer, he must be rejected, and he must die. It’s always been the plan and it is the only way for him to fulfill his role as the Messiah. But of course Peter doesn’t get it and he rebukes Jesus.

READ VS 32b-33

We’ve talked about this a lot in Mark so I won’t go into it again, but all the disciples are only ever able to see the physical and the immediate. They are not able to see the big picture. That’s why Jesus tells Peter, you’re only thinking of the things of man and not thinking of the things of God.

We’re not unlike Peter here. We tend to think of pain as accomplishing nothing. We think of suffering as accomplishing nothing. We think of death always in terms of defeat. But Jesus turns all of that on its head and says these things, far from being defeat, are precisely the means of victory. Suffering and death will lead to salvation. It’s a claim so outrageous and preposterous that we would never believe it unless we saw it first.

So in answering our question of who do we follow, Jesus tells us that we’re not following someone who starts at the bottom and slowly works his way up towards power until he is king over all things. We follow someone who goes the opposite direction, who humbles himself all the way to the bottom, who suffers, and who dies, but then rises again in victory. First there is humiliation then there is exaltation.

Jesus tells the disciples who he is as a setup for telling them how they ought to follow him. Who you think the Messiah is is the defining factor in what you think it means to be his disciple. So this next verse is perhaps the most significant verse on discipleship in the whole New Testament.

Point #2 – How do we follow? (vs. 34)

READ VS 34

The word translated as “would come” in this verse is the same word as “follow” at the end of this verse. They’re both the word follow. So it could be translated, “If anyone would follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” It’s a peculiar call. If you would follow me… then follow me. I think Jesus uses this word “follow” as a kind of book end for the beginning and the end of his statement, so that the real instructions he gives us are in between them. A similar example might be something like “If anyone wants to get in shape, then go to the gym, grab some weights, and get in shape.” The real instructions are simply - go to the gym and grab some weights. In Jesus’ phrase then, the real instructions are - deny yourself and take up your cross.

Let’s start with taking up our cross. This is more than just a figure of speech. Many of us have heard this command referred to when someone says, “I guess that’s just my cross to bear”. Oftentimes we use it ironically or humorously as in, “My boss is making us go all the way to the Bahamas for our annual meeting. I guess that’s just my cross to bear.” But sometimes it’s used to mean something more substantial like, “Diabetes runs in our family. We all get it. I guess that’s just my cross to bear.” But however we use it, it’s a figure of speech that we’re familiar with because our culture is familiar with Jesus and this passage.

There was no such figure of speech in Jesus’ day. When he said take up your cross, everyone understood him to mean it exactly as he said it, very literally. Jesus says, “I’m going to go suffer and die. If you want to be my disciple, then you can come with me to suffer and die.” There is no honor here. There is no prestige here. There is no dignity here. If you were to pick a different man to follow someone with a good reputation then maybe you would gain a good reputation by following him. But Jesus says no, following me leads to the exact opposite.

Perhaps when you were a child, you had a favorite athlete that you followed. You wanted to be like them and you tried to imitate them. I remember when I was in middle school I played basketball and Vince Carter was winning the NBA dunk contest. We had these little 8 foot basketball rims at my school and we were all trying to imitate his dunks. Vince was the greatest and if we could imitate him well enough we’d gain a little of that reputation.

This type of imitation is easy to see when people imitate someone who is famously attractive. They wear their clothes, they style their hair in the same way. We hope that we gain some of that same attractiveness. On most social media platforms there’s a literal button that says follow where we’ll watch someone bake something or build something and we’re hoping that by imitating them we’ll succeed in some similar fashion.

But in each of these cases we’ve forgotten what kind of Messiah we’re following. We like to see Jesus with power and authority. We like to see him silencing his critics and baffling his accusers. Peter liked that too. But Jesus says, if you really want to follow me, then suffer, be rejected, and die. This is not a plan that will cause you to gain any sort of positive reputation. It simply leads to your humiliation.

How is it possible to do this? How are we as disciples supposed to obey such a difficult command to take up our cross? The other half of Jesus’ command in following him is to deny ourselves. “If anyone would follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Denying means to disassociate with. The only other time this word is used in Mark’s gospel is where Peter denies Jesus. Peter will later say, “I don’t know that man. I have no connections with that man. Do not associate me with that man.” Peter was very frightened of the fate that awaited Jesus and he did not want to receive any of it. So he denied Jesus. And here Jesus tells us to treat ourselves this way, to deny ourselves.

In denying ourselves, we are to abandon our old identity and embrace a new one that is centered on our connection to Jesus. “Hey aren’t you Shane?” “No. I don’t know that man. I have no connections with that man. Do not associate me with that man. My only identity is follower of Jesus.”

And your old self will constantly be trying to make demands of you. It will say things like, “Don’t act like a Christian too much, people will think you’re weird. Don’t speak about your faith to others, it might make them uncomfortable and they’ll dislike you. Don’t give too much money to others, you won’t have any left for yourself. Don’t attempt to lead or teach Christians who are younger than you, maybe they’ll ask you something you don’t know and you’ll look silly.” In each of these instances, our old self is attempting to maintain dignity, to maintain honor and respect, and to maintain comforts.

But Jesus says, “Every time you hear that voice come up in your mind, deny it. Say no to it.” I assure you this isn’t a one time occurrence. It happens every single time a conflict arises. You argue with your spouse, are you going to take the path of fighting for what you’re owed and proving that you’re right? Or are you going to follow the suffering Messiah in being willing to suffer indignity. When you’ve sinned against someone, are you going to avoid shame at all costs and refuse to apologize? Or will you humble yourself and confess you were wrong?

You see our old self thinks we should never ever feel shame and we should never ever be undignified. But we don’t follow that voice. We follow a suffering Messiah. And the only way to take up your cross and follow Jesus through suffering and rejection all the way to death is if you deny yourself.

Wow. That’s quite a pitch right? Do you want to be a Christian? It means pain, humiliation, suffering, and death. Don’t you want to sign up now? Why would anyone do this? What’s the reasoning here?

Point #3 – Why do we follow? (vs.35-1)

In the following verses Jesus is going to give us multiple reasons why we would do something outrageous like humbling ourselves to death. And there’s a pattern we’ll see emerging in his reasoning. There are two worlds so to speak that we see here. On the one hand, there’s this adulterous and sinful generation. On the other hand there is the kingdom of God. And what you’ll notice is that whatever happens in one, it seems like the opposite thing happens in the other. So first we get this generation and some things happen here then later when the kingdom of God arrives the opposite things happen there. So let’s look at these reasons and see if they can give us motivation to follow a humiliated Savior.

READ VS 35

Ok. So you see our first opposite. If you save your life in this generation, you will lose your life in the kingdom of God, but if you lose your life in this generation then you will save your life in the kingdom of God. You see how the opposites are at play. Pretty simply Jesus states that if you try to avoid suffering and rejection, if you make it your goal to avoid death as long as possible, if you are trying to save your life, then in the future you will lose your life.

An important note for these verses, the word that’s translated life a couple times and soul a couple other times is the same word. Really only the context will tell you if it’s talking about your physical life or your eternal soul. And the way Jesus uses it in this passage is that the thing you possess in this generation is your physical life, but the thing you possess when the kingdom of God arrives will be your soul. One of these is a temporary condition, one of them is permanent.

If you seek to hold on to these temporary pleasures as long as you can, if you try to hold on to comfort and safety and the approval of others as long as you, then you’re going to be disappointed. One day all of those will be lost. If your goal is to avoid taking up a cross and never denying yourself, then you’re in for a rude awakening. All the things that you can see are passing away. Jesus has really been hammering this into his disciples in the last few chapters. Don’t only look at the physical. If you have eyes to see and ears to hear then recognize what else is going on in this world. If you try to save your life, this physical life that you see today, it will inevitably slip through your fingers like sand. Not a single human in history has been able to hold it.

But, when you recognize there’s something else happening around you in this world. Jesus is the king of a new world and that world is slowly breaking into this one. Let go of what you have here and you will gain all of it and more when his kingdom arrives. That’s a reason to endure humiliation and suffering and death. The next reason comes in verse 36 and 37. We’ll read them together.

READ VS 36-37

Remember, Jesus is contrasting this generation with the coming kingdom and showing us that they will be opposites. Now most of us aren’t so greedy that we are trying to take over the whole world. Most of us aren’t fooled by thinking if I had a billion dollars I’d have no problems and my life would be easy. But most of us would fall into the category of saying, God I’d like my circumstances to be just a little bit lighter than they are. I want to serve you, I want to be obedient to you, but how can I when things are the way that they are. But Jesus tells us that ease in this life is worth nothing. It absolutely will not deliver what you think it will. It is in fact a zero sum game. That is to say that every time your affections for this world increase, your affections for the next world decrease. So that if you had everything in this life, you would have nothing in the next.

Jesus asks the question, “What can a man give in return for his soul?” He’s not suggesting that we’re bartering with God here as if to say, God I will give you one million dollars if you will give me my soul. He’s saying what possible value could you gain in this world that will equal the worth of a forfeited soul in the next? For instance if you had to give up your season tickets, so that you could put food on the table for your children, you’d probably think to yourself when you’re stuck watching the game on TV, “It’s ok, it was worth it.” But Jesus is asking, if you enjoyed every good thing this world has to offer then you met Jesus at the gates of heaven to hear him say, “Depart from me I never knew you.” Would you find yourself saying, “It’s ok, it was worth it”? No.

So if Jesus’ first reason to follow him in humiliation was, “You cannot take any of this with you, it will all perish,” his second reason is that nothing you enjoy in this generation will matter to you, even the smallest amount in the coming kingdom. Let’s keep moving to his third reason.

READ VS 38

If you seek the approval of man in this life, you will gain the shame of Jesus in the next. If you treat Jesus and his commands with disinterest because you’re so busy chasing the world, then when Jesus returns (and he tells us right here that he will come with angels and glory) then he will be disinterested in you. Do you see how trying to avoid rejection, suffering, and death is actually a way of being ashamed of Jesus and his words? It’s because every time that God call us to humble ourselves but we fight him and say, “No,” what we are saying is, “I do not want to be like my Messiah. I do not want to follow what he did. I do not want to love others at great personal cost to me. Even though my Jesus made himself a servant to all, I’m too good for that.” If we refuse to lower ourselves, it can only be because we’re ashamed of the one we should be imitating who lowered himself.

So Jesus’ third reason for why we would follow him in suffering and death is because it’s how we tell him he’s worth it. We value him. We aren’t embarrassed by a God who descended to death. Our last reason comes from verse 1 of chapter 9.

READ VS 1

The first thing that everyone talks about when they read this verse is, what does it mean that some of the people here wouldn’t taste death until God’s kingdom comes with power? Is Jesus suggesting that his second coming will be so soon that some of the disciples will live to see it? Is he referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit? What could possibly have happened during their lifetime that counts as not tasting death until they see the kingdom? Indeed the commentaries I read were just about exclusively attempting to answer this question. Personally, I think the events that we’ll read about next week will help us.

But by focusing on that question, we miss the enormous thing Jesus is saying here. He’s telling us that the kingdom of God is coming with power and it’s coming soon. That’s his fourth and final reason for why we should humble ourselves. Friends, it’s almost here. The time when God is going to flip everything to its opposite and turn all of our efforts on their head is almost here. If you haven’t yet given your life to Jesus, then he has one message for you, “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

But for those of us who have turned to Jesus and do call him our Savior, the reason he’s telling us to continue enduring suffering and enduring rejection is because it’s almost done! It’s almost over. Jesus didn’t keep suffering and dying on the cross forever. No, there was a determined amount of time that he was beaten and was mocked and was spit on and was suffering and was in pain, but then he said, “It is finished!” and he died. It ended! The next thing that happened was his resurrection in power.

And church if we follow Jesus into humiliation this will be our story too. It’s almost over. The physical pain you're enduring with a thankful heart to Jesus. It’s almost done. The sleepless nights that you cry through because of your concern for your family, this suffering will be completed soon. The absolute mental and physical exhaustion you put yourself through by working at your job and still getting up to come to church where you can bless your fellow members, you won’t have to do it much longer. The kingdom is almost here. Jesus suffered to the very bottom, but in the kingdom he is exalted above every name. If you continue to endure rejection, suffering, and death and if you continue to be humiliated because you’re imitating Christ, hold on. Just as Jesus endured the cross and was exalted, the day comes when you will be as well. If we follow our Messiah in his humiliation to the very end, we will follow him in exaltation in the coming day. And Jesus says, “Behold, I am coming soon.”