He is Better. Breakaway Ministries video podcast.
He Is Better
Mark 8:27-9:1
-We’ve come to the “defining the relationship” moment with Jesus.
-In this section were going to get his Identity and his Activity (who he is and what he came to do) and what that means for our destiny.
-Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, the furthest place away from Jerusalem while still being in Jewish territory. He separates them from everyone and this is where he has a conversation with them about himself.
-He asks them, “Who do the people here think I am?” They told them some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the prophets. They’re saying that he’s the ‘highest prophet’.
-And that’s still the predominant answer we get today. People say he was just a very powerful teacher, a very powerful man. Jesus is a really neat guy. Go check out the bestsellers in the Christian section at Barnes and Noble, all those authors say the same thing.
-In verse 29, Jesus asks them, “who do you say that I am?” Peter speaks up, “You are the Christ”
-Jesus strictly charges them to tell no one about him. He does this because at this moment, his disciples have the right word (Christ), but the wrong content. The wrong definition of what the Messiah is about.
-His activity (What the Christ is here to do.) verse 31
-It says Jesus began to teach them…
-Meaning he has never talked to them about this before. This is the first they are hearing about what he’s here to do. Why now? Because greater commitment becomes greater intimacy.
-He says to them, “the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected, and be killed…”
-Peter violently rejects this and he basically starts giving Jesus and pep talk. ‘Now you need to stop talking like that, its not going to happen….’
-Jesus uses the term ‘Son of Man’ which confuses a lot of people because that was the term used for prophets because they literally were a son of a man, but when Jesus uses it here, he is referring back to Daniel 7: far off in the future I see God raising up a man who steps before him and gives him everything to rule over for all time. The Messiah.
-’The Son of Man must suffer’ was not something they were prepared to hear. ‘Son of Man’ and ‘suffer’ aren’t supposed to go together.
-God has ordained that his Messiah MUST die.
-Why? Naturally as humans, when someone wrongs us or takes something from us, the first thought is either they pay or I do. The other option is to forgive them. Forgiveness is so difficult because when we forgive we absorb the payment. God looks at all the horrible things we have done. The hurtful things we have said to other people with the mouth he gave us, the way we use the hands he gave us to pursue selfishness instead of helping those in pain, and he looks at how much we have hurt each other as an incurring of debt. You look at the dignity of a Holy God that we have dismissed and you see all this debt in the universe and a Holy God has to say ‘someone will pay’. Justice demands it. Someone has to pay, God says you don’t have to, my son will. It is necessary that he die for you. Jesus says I’m going to be killed in the most horrendous way because in the shedding of my blood is the forgiveness of sins. And God’s solution of our sins is a suffering Savior.
-All this is new to the disciples. He’s never been this plain with them before. He’s told this them in analogies like ’the bridegroom will be cut off’ or ’the bread must be broken’. Now he looks at them and tells them he’s going to be killed and be buried and not stay dead.
-When Peter starts to freak out and rebuke Jesus, Jesus says to him “ Get behind me, Satan!” Any conception of the plan of God without suffering is satanic.
-Jesus then calls the crowds to come. (Verse 34) “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me…”
-Denying yourself means denying that part of you that pursues whatever you want whenever you want it and whatever makes you happy. That part of you that makes decisions about what would be good for you. Kill it. Taking up your cross isn’t a metaphor for difficulty, a cross was a place where you die! It wasn’t just a place of murder it was a place of shame. The Romans would make you carry the cross beam through the busiest streets in town where people will mock you and shame you. He says if you wanna go with me then you can’t do whatever you wanna do anymore. You will you lose friends and influence and it will be hard.
-Not the greatest evangelism is it? Walk with Christ and lose everything and suffer? Why do that for him?
-The benefits outweigh the cost.
-Worldly things won’t fill your soul.
-Turn your back on the world you will lose everything, but you will gain.
-The Gospel will give you the peace you can’t find anywhere else. It will satisfy your soul.
-There are no victims in the Kingdom.
- “Truly I say to you there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and the Gospels sake but that he will not receive a hundred times a much now in the present age houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life.”
-When you choose to follow Christ your social circle wont come with you, but there are brothers and sisters waiting for you. He’s better.
-Verse 38. “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” People don’t like that verse. But guys, that verse isn’t unfair. When you get married and your at the alter and the “for better or for worse” part come up do you say, whoa, hold on, im not into you that much?
-If you choose this path you will find yourself alone, but in the end, God is worth it.
There are 3 responses to a message like this.
1. I think Jesus is just a man, just a spiritual guy. If you think that you need to know your wrong, and he doesn’t want to be thought of that way. He says im the Son of Man coming of the clouds with the angels. That’s how he presented himself. Good teachers don’t talk like that. He’s not like Muhammad or Gandhi. People who talk like that are either crazy, or they mean it. So you need to go on a journey to figure out who this guy is.
2. I believe he’s the Christ, I believe he’s the Son of God. If that’s you, there will be a path of suffering for you and you need to know that and don’t feel like a victim when it comes. You will lose friends. You may have to say no to a job because if will compromise your morals. You may have to leverage your finances for the Kingdom. You may have this picture of success, God says that picture is not on my road. You need to be willing to let it go. Walk with him. When it hurts you trust him, and whatever you give up for him you will get back a hundred fold. He promises you that. Cling to him.
3. I don’t know. I really don’t know. This conversation he has with the disciples isn’t date one. He’s not asking them to marry him on date one. Jesus isn’t asking you to sell everything and suffer with him on date one. But if your sitting here saying I don’t know, he wants you to go on a journey with him. He took the disciples on a journey with him so they could see and know him. Don’t say you have questions then not seek answers. Go find someone to answer your questions, find a church, or someone who knows what they’re talking about. Go on a journey because this guy is important. Heaven and hell are in the balance. \
There are 3 responses but only 2 camps.
-Yes, No, and maybe. But a maybe almost always defaults to a no. If you say maybe, go on a journey and get your answers. If you don’t, when its all over a maybe is a no. And I don’t want that for you.
The Son of Man came to take your debt for you, and when you walk with him you don’t lose your life, you find him.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun: not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else”-CS Lewis.
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