The Call of the Savior and the Saved, Pt. 2
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“Following” someone these days doesn’t cost us much. We can simply tap a button on social media and become a “follower”. No commitment, no risk, and we can undo it in a second. But Pastor Nick Gatzke explains what Jesus said it really takes to follow him.
The king had come, and God’s plan for his chosen king was to pay the penalty that others deserved. The king would be crushed for the sake of others. He would offer forgiveness of sins, but he would only do so by enduring the judgment of those sins. He would be a victorious king, no doubt about it, but he would be a suffering king. And by his suffering, by his wounds, all of those who would follow him would be healed. And Peter didn’t see that clearly yet. But Jesus made it very clear. A Christ without a cross isn’t the true Christ.
Jesus gives some more strong words, but not just about his role as the savior. He gives some strong words to those that he saves. Their salvation will not just be a salvation of short-term temporary benefit. It will be one of long-term benefit, but of short-term difficulty. Look at what he says in verse 34. “Calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, 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 will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him, the son of man, will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angles.” This is what full sight of the Savior and full vision of the saved looks like. A Christ without a cross isn’t the true Christ. And a disciple who doesn’t follow in suffering isn’t a true disciple.
That’s a sobering word for the disciples. who heard it. It’s also a sobering word for us. You see, Jesus indicates that following him is more than just a verbal recognition of who he is as the Savior. Peter proclaimed it rightly, you are the Christ. But when suffering was presented, for this Christ, his proclamation was shown to be inadequate. Belief that Jesus is the Christ is met with action that is following. And that action in turn proves that belief to be true. I want to say that again because it’s so important that you get it.
It’s not enough for you to proclaim Jesus is the Christ. Yes, you are saved through your belief in him, but that belief is associated with action, with a life. And the life proves whether or not the belief is real. And Jesus indicates that following him, it’s not just proclaiming him. The recognition that he is the Christ actually has two specific actions with it, he says. Following Jesus includes denying yourself. Now to deny yourself means that you’re willing to give up things that you might have the right to have.
Something you desire, something that’s of value to you and you reach the crossroads and you say, I have the right to do this or to have this. I have the desire to do this. I want it. But I know that in having it, it actually constitutes sin against my savior. And so I deny myself. If I choose it, I deny Christ. If I choose Christ, I deny myself the thing that I want. It’s not just denying yourself for the sake of denying yourself. It’s denying yourself when the very real things that are rightfully yours come in direct contradiction to the things of God.
That’s part of what it means to follow Christ. And it’s self-denial. It’s self-imposed. Secondly, Jesus indicates that Following him means taking up your cross. That is to say that the disciple of Jesus is willing to follow on the road of suffering, that he walks, that he or she is willing to suffer public scorn, public humiliation, physical pain in some cases, and maybe even in some extreme cases, death. Taking up your cross is not simply enduring any hardship that comes your way.
To take up your cross and follow Jesus is talking about the hardships that come when you’re actively following him with your life, the hardships that come at work, when you stand up as a Christian, the hardships that come in your active sharing the gospel with other people, the hardships that come when you resist sexual advances from others, the hardships that come when you live in a manner that reflects that you are one of his disciples. Soren Kierkegaard, the famous Danish philosopher, says it this way.
He says, “if you have any knowledge of human nature at all, you know that those who only admire the truth will, when danger appears, become traitors. The admirer is infatuated with a false security of greatness. But if there’s any inconvenience or trouble, he pulls back, admiring the truth instead of following it. is just as dubious a fire as the fire of erotic love, which at the turn of a hand can change into exactly the opposite, to hate, to jealousy, to revenge.” Christ, however, never asks for admirers, worshipers, or adherents.
He consistently spoke of followers and disciples. And so what about you? Do you just proclaim Jesus to be the Christ? Or do you follow him as the Christ? Oh, we’re meddling now. Because when this moves from distant teaching to personal reality, the challenge comes very quickly. And there are a lot of diagnostic questions that you could ask of yourself to help you know the answer if you don’t know already. If we’re too scared or too apathetic to tell others about the king who saves sinners, then there’s a pretty good chance that we’re not gonna take up our cross and follow that king when suffering is presented to us.
If we aren’t willing to stand for what’s right in our limited spheres of influence, then how will we be able to stand for this king when the nations line up against him? If we aren’t willing to use our money, in a godly way and give generously to God when things are good, then what do you think you’re gonna do when things are really tough? If we seek our own comfort above many things in this life, then how will we deny ourselves to follow him as he tells us to do? This is a particularly challenging word.
to middle-class Western culture. Through history, and even around the world today, the diagnostic questions might be different. At the Nicene Council in the fourth century AD, historians reckon that of the 318 Christian leaders, the delegates that were attending, fewer than 12 of them had not lost an eye or lost a hand or did not limp on a leg that was lamed by torture for their Christian faith. A Christ without a cross isn’t the true Christ. A disciple who doesn’t suffer or isn’t willing to suffer isn’t a true disciple.
And a Christianity without suffering is satanic. And so how far are you willing to go? You see, a willingness to follow a suffering Messiah sounds very simply to be a negative and depressing obligation. Sure glad I came to church today. Pastor told me life’s gonna be really bad from here on out. But that’s the farthest thing from the truth. It’s anything but, because as Jesus concludes in his he actually points that there is great gain, in fact, the greatest gain, the greatest value when you are willing to give your life away in order to follow him.
And Jesus says this, he says, for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. Let’s be clear about what he means and what he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to save your life if you’re sick or injured or in physical difficulty. What he is saying is if you will live for yourself, whoever tries to save his own life, whoever lives for him or herself to your very best life now, then… will lose it eternally with God because the true followers of Christ don’t live that way.
Conversely, whoever loses their life, whoever gives their life away, whoever spends down their days and their resources in following and in service of this great king, for the sake of his gospel, that life will be saved. And he places… highest values on these things. What can a man possibly give in return for his soul? How much is your soul worth? It’s worth everything. There’s no amount of money. There’s no amount of experiences. There’s no amount of pleasures that you would exchange for your soul.
You might say it this way. Following the true Christ. gives us a vision beyond ourselves and a life beyond this one. That’s the benefit of following the suffering Savior. You have a vision beyond yourself and a life beyond this one. I wonder, friends, if you have been peephole driving through life. Partial vision? leads to partial recognition of Christ and a vision that never makes it beyond yourself. And here’s the thing, if you never look beyond yourself, if you go through your days driving with your face pressed up against the windshield because it’s all you can do to see, you have absolutely no idea where you’re gonna end up.
But following the true Christ gives us a vision beyond ourselves and a life beyond. This one. And so the questions that only you can answer for yourself are, what are you spending your life on? What is the thing that drives you and motivates you? What vision do you have for the short number of days that you have on this planet? You can have a comprehensive vision of life, but to do so, you need a framework and a driving goal. And the driving goal that Jesus says, Right here in Mark chapter eight, the driving goal for your life is that you will follow the Christ at any cost.
At the cost of my reputation, I will follow him. At the cost of my comfort, I will follow him. At the cost of some of my relationships, I will follow him. At the cost of my money, I will follow him. And even if it costs me my whole physical life, I will follow him. That’s the vision for life. And when that life is spent all the way down to zero, there is great gain for the one who has spent it. Or, you could keep people driving. And as the culture around us grows in hostility toward Christ, we need to be reminded of what it means to follow him, to not just proclaim that he is the Christ, but to follow him as the Christ.
And you know what, friends? Christian history is replete with examples. to encourage us. You know, early Christians chose a symbol. There were a number of symbols, but there was one that emerged among all else as a form of self-identification. And it’s a symbol that Christians have used and followed for centuries. It’s the symbol of the cross. Why would early Christians choose a symbol of the cross? Why do you? Some of you have crosses in your homes. You have cross necklaces that you might wear.
Maybe you put a cross on the back of your car. Some of you have even tattooed crosses on parts of your body. Why did early Christians choose a cross? The cross was a symbol of suffering, sacrifice, of hurt, of pain, of humiliation, and of rejection. And the symbol of the cross for Christians doesn’t just point us to Jesus and his work on the cross, though it does, but it also points us to each other because his rejection is our rejection. His humiliation is our humiliation. And as he loses his life only to…
raised up again. When you lose your life, you actually gain it. C.S. Lewis, in his famous book, Mere Christianity, writes it this way. “He says, Christ says, give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch over there. I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth or to crown it or to stop it, but to have it out.
Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think are innocent as well as the ones you think are wicked, the whole outfit, and I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself, my own shall become yours.” Following the true Christ gives us a vision beyond ourselves and a life beyond this one. And as John and Betty Stamm, early missionaries to China who had a vision beyond themselves, were being led away to certain execution. by their communist captors. Someone asks them, where are you going?
And with all of the confidence of someone who doesn’t just proclaim Jesus to be the Christ, but follows him as the Christ. Someone who doesn’t just live for themselves, but who has a vision beyond themselves. Someone who knows that this life being spent down to nothing points to a greater life that is ahead. John Stamm replied that he didn’t know where the guards were going, but we’re going to heaven. Following the true Christ gives you a vision beyond yourself, gives you confidence in the days ahead.
It helps you to understand that you have a life beyond this one. And so the questions for you are, do you proclaim him to be the Christ or do you follow him? as the Christ. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that the plan of suffering and glory did not happen to your son against his will, but that it was the plan all along. We thank you that we are the beneficiaries of it, that because he is the Christ and was pierced for our transgressions, we can have peace. For any of my friends here today who have yet to put their faith in him, I pray that today is the hour that they will make their proclamation and be forgiven and have peace.
For all of us, we thank you for the reminder, for the confrontation of what it means to look beyond ourselves and to follow him. I pray that you would help us to do this. that you would give us courage in the midst of suffering, that you’d give us hope and joy as we’re privileged to see our Savior for who he is and that we would live accordingly. We need your help in this, we pray. In the mighty name of the King, King Jesus, amen.
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This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
