Why would I give up the right to do whatever I want with my life and follow Jesus?
“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. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
Who is Jesus Talking To?
The passage says that Jesus called the crowd AND His disciples, who were his followers, to hear this message - it was not just instruction for those who hadn’t decided to follow Him yet, but also for those who had already decided to follow Him and begun the journey of discipleship.
Jesus is telling them that they have more aspects of their life to surrender to Him, more aspects of the cross to understand and embrace. This message is equally for those don’t know Jesus and what it means to follow Him, as also for those who have been walking with Him as His disciple, his follower, already. Which is so cool because it means that today’s message is for all of us
...if anyone wants to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me
What does Jesus mean when he says this? Is it just me, or at a first look, does this phrase confusing, challenging, and a bit overwhelming?!
I think that’s because this message is so different from the message of our culture, our ears aren’t really used to hearing it! so it’s definitely something to get our heads around and we’re gonna look more at that later.
This message is an invitation. Jesus says ‘IF anyone wants to follow me…’ He’s not forcing this onto anyone, he’s not making the crowd conform to this way of life, but he is simply presenting them with an invitation.
Following Jesus is an invitation. A choice. A decision we have to make.
In this passage, Jesus really clearly spells out what it means to follow Him. It’s almost like:
Following Jesus = denying yourself + taking up your cross.
What is our cross?
Take up your cross...
To give you some historical context of the cross. The cross was the most shameful method of death carried out by the Romans who were the ruling dictatorship in Israel at the time.
In life, we might hear people talking of a sickness, troubling relationship, death of friend or family member, and saying ‘oh it’s my cross, I just have to carry it’. This is not what Jesus is talking about here, rather He refers to a life surrendered to God.
When Jesus speaks of the cross, we need to remember the connotations of the cross during that time - to the Jewish people listening at the time, the cross meant shame, suffering, opposition, and death.
So in essence, Jesus is saying that if you want to follow Him, these things may happen to us. We may face shame or opposition for holding beliefs and convictions that are different from those of our culture. For some Christians in countries where there is active persecution for their faith, they may face physical death for their beliefs. We may also face suffering in other ways or struggle to keep going in our faith in Jesus. Turning from old habits and sins that don’t honour God can be a real struggle. These are just a few examples of what it means to surrender our lives, to deny ourself and take up our cross. Every Christian’s journey will look different, but the invitation is the same to everyone who hears and thinks about these words of Jesus.
One aspect of following Jesus, denying ourselves and taking up our cross, is to be willing to sacrifice our own interests, hopes, ideals, and dreams.
Sacrifice our own interests, hopes, ideals and dreams.
One thing that comes to mind for me in this is the whole area of relationships and getting married. There have been points in my life where God has clearly spoken to me through his word, through other people and even through a dream, and led me away from certain relationships or situations.
Now, this isn’t to say that we don’t have God-given dreams for our lives, or that we have to throw away all our plans or hopes, but it’s a matter of whether we are willing to fully surrender them to Jesus, trusting that His way and His plans are what’s best for us, whether it works out as the life we expected or not. He knows the difference between what we want and what we actually need, and always leads us into places of life.
I’m just thinking back to Sharon’s message to us last week, which was so full of truth and so inspiring. If you were there for our discussions about the questions we might have when God doesn’t act or do things the way we expected him to then this topic might be familiar.
Working all things together for our good
God promises to work all things together for the good of those who love Him, and this includes when we surrender our hopes and dreams to Him.
Now I believe this is part of what it means to call Jesus the ‘Lord of our life’, that’s a phrase that’s used quite a lot in church and it essentially means to have Jesus in the driver's seat of our lives, to let him be the one in control. When we decide to follow Jesus, he forgives us, takes away our sin and mistakes, sets us on a new path, and gives us the gift of eternal life with Him. But here Jesus is reminding us that that initial decision to follow him is just the start of our journey with him. I’m well aware that most of you reading this are further along on your journey with him than I am!
But the truth remains that all of us choose to step out and every day learns more and more of what it means to follow Him. and we then begin to make God the LORD of every area of our lives, knowing that His way is the best way, and being willing to surrender anything necessary to follow in that way.
In September, I’m headed off to uni, and the reality of what that’s gonna look like in this slightly crazy world is uncertain. But, honestly, I’m just full of so much hope, because I know that whatever life ends up looking like, I know that God has my best interests at heart, again, whether that looks how I hoped it would or not.
In Jesus’ life, we see how He often defied people's opinions of Him and their expectations of how he should save them. Now, Sharon actually touched on this in her message last week, but one example in Jesus’ life that particularly stands out to me is that the Jewish followers that began to listen and respond to His teachings, believed that as a Messiah or saviour, Jesus should rescue their kingdom from the Roman dictatorship of the time. Therefore when Jesus began speaking of His death and sacrifice, he lost many followers, because following the Messiah began to look different to how people had imagined and hoped - they believed the Messiah would be a warrior King, and death on a cross did not fit in with this. They were disappointed.
And honestly, I feel like I can sometimes relate to this. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a time when you’ve prayed for God to do something, and we expect him to come through as a warrior king and deliver us in victory, which is in His nature. But often I’ve found that when I ask God to move, he first points me to the cross. He first points me to the long road of suffering he walked to the end destination of His victory. So in this same way, when life isn’t rosy and following Jesus looks different than we thought it would, we can sometimes wonder whether following him is worth it.
But I truly believe that it is and I want to take some time to unpack why...
WHY FOLLOW JESUS??
So, in speaking of the call to lay down our lives, interests, rights, personal hopes, and dreams before God, the question we might ask is WHY? Why would I give up the right to do whatever I want with my life, to live by my own standards, and have myself in the driver's seat of my life?
If we look at the Bible and also at the lives of others who are following Jesus, we can see a number of really important reasons why.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, he will live”
1: Jesus is Life & eternal life
This verse tells us that in him is an abundance of life, both for our life on this earth, but also eternal life after our physical bodies pass away. One question most of us will likely wrestle with at some point in our life will be ‘what happens to me when I die?’ The verses we’re looking at today tell us that if we put our faith and trust in Jesus and believe in and follow him, we will live forever with Him in a place where there will be no more pain, death, suffering, or tears.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that through the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
2: Joy hope and peace
This verse is so encouraging and shows us some incredible things that come as a result of following Jesus wholeheartedly. As we follow Jesus, denying ourselves and surrendering all to Him, he promises that his joy, peace, and hope will be so present in our life with him. This is not just fleeting happiness, temporary calm or naive optimism, but unexplainable joy, deep peace, and abounding hope even in the face of the hardest times. As followers of Jesus, these things are always available to us.
As followers of Jesus, we are also called to rest and give all our burdens to Him.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
3: Rest
This verse encourages me so much, as it shows us that despite the struggles that may come as a result of following Jesus, we don’t have to carry them on our own. Jesus specifically tells us to give to Him all our heavy burdens and exchange them for His lightness and ease. That’s not to say we won’t face challenges, trials, opposition or pain when we walk the way of the cross, we can’t be naive or oblivious to that, but God promises us that He can lift the loads and burdens that we face in this life.
“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
4: A New Creation
Here we see that following Jesus isn’t just a nice little add on in our lives. It’s not just something we do that makes us happy or keeps us sane in this crazy life, but it’s new, abundant, and genuine life! Our old life and the mess, shame, and worry that surrounded us is not part of our identity anymore. Not only is the slate wiped clean, but we get a brand new slate! Belonging to Christ is the only way we experience true life and any suffering, trials or struggles do not compare to the worth of knowing Him.
OLD VS NEW
Another thing that really stood out to me when reading these verses is this section of ‘let him deny himself’. Now just a disclaimer, for all the ladies, feel free to replace these words with ‘let her deny herself’ - the message to come applies to us as well!! I’ll be referring to this verse and saying ‘ he and him’ as this verse does, but I just thought I’d make that disclaimer before we look at this part - this part is for all of us!
So, this concept of yourself denying yourself can initially seem confusing, but when we look elsewhere in scripture, we get more insight into what Jesus is saying.
Remember the bible verse I mentioned earlier -
‘This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!’ - 2 Corinthians 5:17
For me, this is the key to help understand our passage in Mark ch 8. We have our old, sinful self, which, if we have accepted Jesus as our lord and savior, is dead and gone forever. We now have a new heavenly life in Him.
Deny yourself
When Jesus in this passage in Mark 8 tells ‘him to deny himself’, he is telling us to deny our former, sinful nature, because we have begun our new life surrendered to Jesus.
One thing I’ve realised is that my old self actually wants the opposite of the cross - if we remember that the cross represents opposition, shame, suffering, and death, our earthly selves, our old selves, often want the opposite - our human nature wants acceptance, honour, comfort and safety from this world.
Opposition -> acceptance
shame -> honour
suffering -> comfort
death -> safety
And when we follow Jesus, we instead choose to value the acceptance, honour, comfort and safety found in His arms over and above earthly, fading versions of these things. This can sometimes be so hard because we live surrounded by a world that does not value the cross, and also because our human nature often wants to reject this invitation to deny ourselves, so we can sometimes feel like we are living in a battle.
“Do not let sin control the way you live... Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body, your whole life, as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master.”
We are alive in Christ and sin is no longer our master. Because of this, we are able to give ourselves completely to God, and serve His purposes for our lives by learning how to always say yes to the new life we have in Him and the new way he tells us to live.
In the next part of this passage, Jesus tells us that ‘whoever tries to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.’
Here we see that if we want to ‘save our life’, in other words if we want true, abundant, and eternal life in Jesus, the way to get there is through surrendering or ‘losing’ our life for Jesus. And in the same way, those who choose to try and save their life by their own strength, chasing safety, comfort, honour, and acceptance from the world, will ultimately lose their life.
For some of us this teaching from Jesus, may not feel so comfortable, it might even in some ways feel a bit overwhelming. But for those of us who are disciples of Jesus, the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us. When that thing, that decision, that sacrifice just seems too hard, and the cost of following Jesus just seems too much, I want to encourage you today that all strength and power are found in Him. the power to overcome and stand firm in the face of all difficulties that we could come our way on the journey of being His disciple. And following Him is just that, it’s a journey, and thankfully the road is paved with God’s grace. We aren’t always going to get it right. We are human and it’s guaranteed that we will stumble and fall at points, but God’s grace is so much greater than any mistake we could make.
For those of us that aren’t followers of Jesus, may His words challenge you to consider following Him today. He says, ‘If any of you wants to follow me, then deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.’ He loves you and His arms are wide open.
I want to finish with this quote from John Piper, a Christian Theologian. He says this, which perfectly summarises our passage today:
Take up your cross, deny your old self, and in your new self, who loves Jesus more than life, follow Him.
— John Piper.