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I was thinking over the past week just about how much this church has meant to me personally.
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I came here last August and to be honest I came during a really rough season of my life and I was really questioning the calling that God had placed on my life and I kind of lost faith in church for a little while.
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And little did I know that God led me to harvest to restore my faith and what he had called me to do.
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And I just want to take a few minutes just to honor Pastor Jeff and the blessing he's been in my life.
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He's been a big brother in the ministry to me and he's been such an encouragement.
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We have such an awesome pastor, don't we?
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Don't we?
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Let's give him a round of applause.
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(congregation applauding)
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This man loves this church so much, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I desire to be like him and to imitate his love for you.
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So I just want all of us to honor Pastor Jeff and just to thank him so much for all he's done for us.
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So I have to admit to you, I've been kind of a nerd my whole life.
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I've never been the most confident person I'm a cool person.
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I've always loved to learn new things.
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I've always had my nose in the book.
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I've always loved learning new stories.
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And it probably comes as no surprise to you that I used to love Sunday school.
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I used to love hearing Bible stories.
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And I was probably, that kid used to annoy you whenever the Sunday school teacher asked a question, my hand always went up, "Oh, I know, I know, I know." And everyone just hated me.
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So I was always the know-it-all in class.
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But I used to always love when my Sunday school teacher would bust out the felt board and teach us Sunday school stories.
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Who remembers the felt board?
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Felt, okay, pretty much everyone.
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Well, for those of you who didn't grow up in church, you never experienced the joy that is the felt board, you will experience it today.
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Yeah.
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We're allowed to have fun in church, right?
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Yeah.
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So if you don't know what a felt board is, it is used to tell different Bible stories.
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I guess you can tell other stories if you want, but I've only seen it told as Bible stories.
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And you get little felt figures and you can pretty much do any story you want.
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Hopefully this works.
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There we go.
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You get these little figures, very colorful.
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And you can pretty much act out any story you want.
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The thing about the felt board is it's pretty limited in its storytelling capacity.
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It turns the feeding of the 5,000 into the feeding of the 3.
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And the battles of the Old Testament look something more like a 2 on 2 basketball tournament or something, but it really is very useful.
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But as I was thinking over the past couple of weeks, I think it's very easy to turn the Bible into some simple moral story, something that's very cutesy.
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You watch different TV movies, different cartoons, look at different paintings, and they fail to capture what the Bible really says and who Jesus Christ really is.
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'Cause I don't know if you realize, but Jesus probably didn't look like this.
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I don't think he wore a sash, personally, but that's just my own opinion.
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But I think without realizing it, we've domesticated Jesus and we've made him safe and more like us 'cause we don't really want to know what he calls us to do.
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We don't really wanna submit to him.
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Without realizing it, we fail to realize who Jesus Christ really is and what he calls us to.
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And by making him this overly feminine, meek and mild, sash wearing, blonde hair, blue eyed Jesus, we've failed to realize who he really is.
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So over the course of the next several weeks, we're gonna go into several well-known passages that you probably haven't seen acted out on the felt board.
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And we're gonna talk about who Jesus Christ really is.
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We're gonna try to break Jesus out of the box that we put him in so much.
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And we're going to try to get beyond the felt board, the felt board Jesus who requires nothing of us.
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Because the Jesus of the Bible is tough and loving at the same time.
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And he calls us to great sacrifice and devotion.
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So over the next several weeks, I see three distinct calls from the gospel that we're gonna talk about.
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First, the call to submit to who Jesus Christ is.
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Second, a call to follow him wherever he goes.
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And thirdly, a call to be his witnesses wherever we go.
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So in this series, we're gonna dive into three well-known passages, as I said, And these will unpack each of these important calls from our Lord and Savior.
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I'm hoping that through this series, that God would show us that the call of Jesus costs us more than we ever expected, but it's filled with more joy and life than we ever thought possible.
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I hope you understand, I'm not trying to make fun of Jesus at all in this message, but I am trying to expose different false views of Jesus that we have.
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So if I make jokes or have fun, I am not making fun of the real Jesus.
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I hope you understand.
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making fun of these false notions we have of Jesus.
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That's when I don't want to, the gospel is offensive enough, I don't want to offend you unnecessarily.
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That's when I say that at the out front.
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And I really pray this message would not just stay in this room, that it would stay with you forever, that it would impact your heart and your lives.
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'Cause how many times have I sat in a room like this and heard a message and it didn't leave the room with me?
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It didn't impact me.
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So today we're going to talk about what it looks like to submit to Jesus and his calling on our lives.
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And to do this we're going to look at Mark 8, 27 through 38.
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So let's turn there real quick.
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As I read this story, I want all of us to look at it and to hear it like it's the first time we ever heard it.
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In Mark 8, 27, Mark writes, "And Jesus went on with his disciples to the village of Caesarea Philippi.
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And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" And they told him, "John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, and others one of the prophets." And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
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And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed after three days, rise again.
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And he said this plainly.
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And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
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But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan, for you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
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For whoever would save his life will lose it.
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but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it.
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For what does a prophet demand to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
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For what can a man give in return for his soul?
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For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, and his adulterous and sinful generation, of him will a son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels.
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Let's pray.
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God, I just thank you so much for this awesome opportunity that I have to preach your word and to talk about Jesus.
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I pray that I would be faithful to your word.
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I would preach what it says.
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God, I pray you would hide me behind your cross and your Holy Spirit would speak in and through me because he is a far better preacher than I ever can be.
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God, we thank you so much for what you are gonna do in this place today.
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We thank you so much in advance.
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In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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So I'm gonna set up this story for you a little bit.
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The passage says that Jesus and his disciples were walking to the village of Caesarea Philippi.
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Here's Jesus walking.
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We got a couple of Jesus's up here.
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Here's his disciples.
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Now, in order to understand this story completely, you'd understand the background of Caesarea Philippi.
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Caesarea Philippi is an area that was very pagan.
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It was an area that used to be a worship center for the false god, Baal.
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And then it was converted into a shrine to the god, Pan.
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And it's located at the base of a mountain.
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And actually they used to carve out different shelves in the cliffs that housed false gods.
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So I tried my best to make a mountain.
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I don't know why Jesus is almost taller than the mountain.
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Don't ask me.
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But I had to work with what I had.
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So I was kind of mad this is a big cliff that's bigger than five inches.
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So they're walking to the village of Caesarea Philippi and Jesus turns around and asks them, who do people say that I am?
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He asked them, what's the public opinion of me?
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What do people think about me?
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And they answer him and say, "John the Baptist, pretty much John the Baptist "reincarnated because up until that point "he had been killed." Others say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets.
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We live in a culture that has a lot of false ideas of who Jesus is, right?
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There's a lot of false ideas of who Christ really is.
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People think he's a good moral teacher, he's a good example, he was a wise man, he's the last resort whenever I'm in trouble.
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But all of these are false, and they fall short of who Jesus Christ really is.
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And Jesus didn't really seem too thrilled with what they came up with there.
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So he turns to them in the midst of false gods, idols and shrines and false ideas of who he is.
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And he asked them the single most important question in human history, who do you say that I am?
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And I think this question extends to each and every one of us today in this room.
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And our answer to this question is the most important thing about us because our eternity rides on the answer to this question.
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So Peter, like he always does, he jumped at the opportunity to speak and he answered and said, "You are the Christ." And in Matthew's account of this story, he gives some more details and he says, "Whenever Peter said, 'You are the Christ,' Jesus turned immediately and looked at him and said, 'Blessed are you, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.'" So I'm praying today that like Peter, God will reveal the answer to this important question to us because hear me, when you know who Jesus Christ truly is, God himself revealed that to you.
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You didn't come to that conclusion yourself, you weren't smart enough to figure it out, God himself had to open up your heart to that reality.
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So I pray in this time that we wouldn't believe what the world says about Jesus.
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Instead, we would believe what the word says about Jesus.
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So don't let flesh and blood tell you who Jesus is, but God himself.
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We just stop letting the world around us influence our view and our opinion of Jesus.
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And instead let the word inform us of who he is.
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'Cause Jesus is not just some moral teacher or a good example, he's not just a good man.
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He is the living King of the universe.
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He is God.
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He calls for our absolute devotion and submission.
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So my first point is that we are to submit to the revealed character of Jesus.
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I think submission has been really given a bad rap today, in today's culture, especially even the church.
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It's almost like a swear word to talk about submission.
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Whenever people hear it, they get on edge and they don't like it.
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It's really unfortunate because in the Bible, submission is a very beautiful picture of our relationship with Christ.
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Submission is to voluntarily yield one's will to another.
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It is to absolutely surrender to someone, to put yourself under their authority.
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A lot of times we have this picture that God is up in heaven like putting us in a chokehold and forcing us to submit.
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Could he do that?
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Could he do that?
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He's the almighty God of the universe.
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But according to the Bible, he lovingly leads us into submission.
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He doesn't force us.
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So to submit to Jesus Christ and who he is, is to lay down one's excuses and desires and wants in order to fully devote oneself to Him.
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Whether we realize it or not, we all submit to a multiplicity of people and realities on a daily basis.
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We all submit to the law of gravity every single day, right?
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I don't see many people complaining about that.
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But whether you realize it or not, if you fight against it, it's not gonna work out for you.
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I can get to the top of this building and jump off and say, I'm not gonna submit to gravity, I'm gonna fight against it.
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and you'll find me splattered on the side of the sidewalk.
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It's not going to work out for me.
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In the same way, we all submit to the government, and when we don't, it doesn't work out for us.
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Kids in the room, whenever you don't submit to your parents, does that usually go well for you?
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I know it didn't for me.
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I got spanked a couple times.
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Yeah, bad.
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It's not like today, whenever a kid messes up and the parent says, you go in the corner and you think about that.
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Back then, anyone could beat you.
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Back in the '90s, your aunt, your uncle, your grandfather, or your grandma, anyone could beat you, your teacher could hit you.
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And if you don't submit to these things and these people, it's not gonna go well for you and you will regret it.
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In the same way, if you don't submit and surrender your life to Jesus Christ, it's not gonna go well for you and you're going to regret it.
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So I'm gonna ask the question that Jesus Christ asked his disciples, who do you say that I am?
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I know there has to be someone in this room false idea of who Jesus Christ really is.
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I have to believe there are some in this room who have never truly submitted to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
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If that is you today, I pray that God himself would open up your heart to the reality of who Jesus Christ really is.
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Stop listening to what the world says about Jesus and believe what God says about him through his word because Jesus Christ is alive, he is real, And He really did conquer Satan, sin, and death on the cross. Amen?
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He really did come to give us new life and salvation from our sins.
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There is no middle ground when it comes to Jesus.
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He didn't leave you room to be so-so about Him, be like, "I'm not really sure." No.
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You have to make a decision. You have to stop riding the fence.
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I pray that God would move you to repent of your sin, to turn your back on Satan, sin, and self, and turn your direction to Jesus Christ, and trust in him as your Lord and your Savior.
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You'll never regret it.
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Number two, we are to submit to the perfect plans of Jesus.
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In verse 31, Jesus began to talk again.
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He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed after three days, rise again.
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He said this plainly.
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And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him "But turning and seeing his disciples, "he rebuked Peter, saying, 'Get behind me, Satan, "'for you are not setting your mind on things of God, "'but on the things of man.'" Jesus' mission to go to the cross was so unprecedented, it was so against any idea of what people had the Messiah.
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Back then they thought the Messiah was gonna be a warrior who would come and overthrow the Romans and give them the kingdom of Israel back.
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So Peter's hearing this and he's like, "Wait, you're gonna be killed?
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"And I don't really get this.
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"Like, what are you talking about?" He didn't really agree, so he decided he was gonna try to set the sovereign creator of the universe straight.
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He wanted to take Jesus aside and be like, "Oh, come here, come here.
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Jesus, get over here, get over here, come here." You laugh, but we do this all the time, right?
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God tells us something in his word, or we know what God expects of us, and we're like, "What? Really?
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This is the 21st century.
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There's no way this is for us.
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There's no way.
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Jesus, come over here, come here, come here." Try to give him some advice.
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But I do that all the time.
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Whenever I don't agree with God, take him aside and try to tell him what I think.
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I think this is a perfect example of how Peter constantly put his foot in his mouth.
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And he gives me a lot of hope 'cause I do a lot of stupid stuff like him every day.
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So I think it's funny 'cause Jesus goes from commending him one minute and saying, "Blessed are you," and literally the next minute he calls him Satan.
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I feel like that's like the end of name-calling.
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Like, how can you trump that?
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Like, you're in a name-calling contest, "Satan." I got nothing, I'm done.
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But I think men in the room can kind of relate to this, right?
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We can relate to Peter.
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Guys, have you ever had one of those days when you're like, you know, really super smooth with your wife or your girlfriend, you're saying all the right things, and she's all over you, and all of a sudden you say something completely stupid that ruins everything that you did before.
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And you're like, "Why did I say that?" And you're building all these points up for yourself, all these brownie points, and all of a sudden they're completely gone, you just start from zero, right?
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I've heard what's happened to Peter.
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He got the highest recommendation, and he got a gold sticker on his report card, all of a sudden Jesus rips it off and calls him Satan.
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But in all seriousness, I think like Peter, there are so many times when I hear the words of Jesus and I don't like it and I don't agree.
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But in those moments, I'm completely wrong.
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And I need to repent and obey instead of harden my heart and resist his will for my life.
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in those moments I need to set my mind on the things of God, not in the things of man.
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Because the ways and the things of man are short-sighted, foolish, and destructive, and they will lead you nowhere good.
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Solomon says in Proverbs 14, 12, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Who in the room is good with directions?
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Just be honest.
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You say, "I'm seriously, put me in the wilderness, I can get back home." Good with directions.
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Well, I am not good with directions.
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I am very directionally challenged.
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If you want to get lost, I'm your guy.
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Otherwise, I'm not gonna be much help to you.
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So I think the greatest invention in human history is the GPS.
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I literally use the GPS every day.
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And there's been a couple of times where I'm driving somewhere and using my GPS and my GPS says to go this way, but I'm like, wait, that's not the right way.
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I know where I'm going.
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I got this.
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And nine times out of 10, I get lost.
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But I think in the same way, We get to a fork in the roads of our life.
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And we know what the word of God says.
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We know where God wants us to go.
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He wants us to go down this way.
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But you think, you know what?
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I got this, I know what I'm doing.
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And you decide to go your own way.
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And you end up going down a path you never thought you'd go.
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And you get lost.
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So often we want God to follow our advice and to follow our timetables.
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But little do we know that if he did, our lives would be an absolute train wreck.
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and we would be going down a road of darkness and despair.
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God's plans and his ways are so counterintuitive to our own, but they are literally a million times better.
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His perspective is much better than mine and much better than yours.
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So while I was studying and preparing for this message, I began to think what would happen if like, Peter took him aside and said, far be it from you, Lord, this will never happen to you.
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And Jesus is kind of like, hmm, you know what, Peter, you're right.
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I don't know if I was thinking about this whole cross thing.
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It sounded really painful.
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I don't really want to do that.
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I'm just going to scrap that.
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I'm just going to build up my ministry and see what happens.
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If Jesus had heeded the advice of Peter in that moment, we would all be dead in our sins and separated from God.
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And in the same way, if Jesus heeded the advice that I give him every day and the advice that you give him every day, we'd be missing out on his best for our lives.
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Amen?
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We need to stop giving God advice and instead submit to Him and what He says and trust that He knows what He's doing.
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There have been so many times in my life when I didn't submit to Jesus and I knew what He wanted me to do and I'd said, "No, I'm not gonna obey." And I've regretted it ever since.
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There's never been one time in my life where I obeyed Jesus and submitted to what He says and I've regretted it.
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It's been hard and it's been difficult, but it's always been worth it.
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And it's always worked out in the end.
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So what hard truths are you ignoring or resisting in your heart today?
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You know what the word of God says about this issue.
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You know what the Holy Spirit's convicting you about it.
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You just don't want to be honest about it.
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You keep pushing it down.
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You keep resisting it 'cause you don't want to deal with it.
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Maybe it's with your sexual life.
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Maybe you're doing something in this area you never thought you'd do.
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And you're feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
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You know what the word of God says.
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You'd be like, no, I don't want to listen to it.
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You push it down.
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You resist, you resist.
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Maybe God wants you to step out in your life you take a risk, but you keep making excuses.
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You keep resisting the call of God in your life.
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Please, your own opinions and your own ways will lead you down a path you never thought you'd go, a path of darkness and destruction.
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But if you follow the way of Jesus, you'll go down a path that's filled with more joy and more life than you ever thought possible, even though it's hard and even though it's difficult.
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Stop fighting God and surrender to his perfect plans for your life, even when they don't make sense.
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Because there are times where God's directions seem ridiculous, but they always work out.
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This Bible is filled with a thousand different stories about how ridiculous God's plans are, but how they always work out in the end.
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Amen?
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That can be true for your life.
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God may be telling you something right now and it seems ridiculous and it seems stupid, but if you obey him, God will accomplish wonders in your life and he will do amazing things in and through you.
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Thirdly, we are to submit to the infinite worth of Jesus.
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Jesus goes on and says, "If anyone come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
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For whoever would save his life will lose it.
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But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.
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For what does a prophet demand to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul.
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For what can a man give in return for his soul?
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See, everyone in this world is searching for life and happiness, but they're looking for it in all the wrong places.
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True life and fulfillment cannot be found in money, comfort, people, or anything else this world has to offer.
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That's why in this passage and in the gospel, Jesus Christ calls us to end our pointless pursuit of happiness and things that fail to deliver And by doing so, we'll find all that we were looking for in Him.
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By letting go of what this world says is the good life, we can find true life in Jesus.
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Must be willing to put aside our dreams and our desires in order to grab a hold of true life in Jesus Christ.
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In Matthew 13, 44, Jesus describes himself as a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.
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then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has to buy that field.
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In all of his joy, he goes and sells all that he has to buy that field.
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Jesus is infinitely more valuable than anything else in this universe, and he is worthy giving up everything for.
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If you have everything this world has to offer, but you don't have Jesus, then you really have nothing.
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What's the point?
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Brad's passage says, "For what can a man, "what does a prophet demand to gain the whole world "and forfeit his soul?" We're gonna delve more deeply into this topic next week, but I want all of us, myself included, to realize that Jesus is far more valuable and far more worthy than anything else in this world or anything we are currently pursuing in our lives.
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And once we figure that out, once we realize that and submit to that truth, we'll find all the joy and the fulfillment we were so desperately searching for all of our lives.
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Now, some of you may find this shocking, but I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 21 years old.
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Surprising, right?
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Oh, you guys are hurting my feelings.
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No one was surprised.
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I'm gonna say that one more time and maybe feel a little bit better.
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Yeah, some of you may find this shocking, but I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 21 years old.
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Oh, yeah, it's surprising, right?
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Right?
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Most of you are like, no, it makes complete sense to me.
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So for all those years, I lived a single lifestyle, playing video games, watching movies, hanging out with my friends whenever I wanted.
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And I never really met anyone who I wanted to give up all my freedom for, you know?
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Guys know how, you know how it is.
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Married people in the room are like, "Yeah, I know what you mean." But then I met Kate, my current girlfriend, and everything changed.
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And her, I found someone worth giving up my former life for.
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I promise I wouldn't embarrass her, I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but I found someone worth giving up some things for.
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So I put down the controller and went on a date.
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That's a word for some guys in this culture, amen?
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Go on, put down the controller and go on a date with a real girl.
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It really wasn't much of a contest, real flesh and blood girl, or trying to prestige for the fifth time on call of duty.
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It wasn't really much of a contest.
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And you know what?
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I really don't miss those things at all, because I found something much greater and much more fulfilling.
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In a much greater way, Jesus is infinitely worthy of our time, our efforts, and lives than anything else in this world.
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What was that?
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Yeah.
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Lost my train of thought.
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But, Jesus calls us in this passage to deny ourselves.
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And this is very intricately tied to the idea of submission.
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To deny yourself is to disregard your preferences, your ambitions, your wants, and your dreams in order to obey Jesus.
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It's His way over my way.
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We're to deny ourselves and go after Jesus.
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This laying down of our old lives to take up a new life in Christ isn't easy and suffering will be normative and often.
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Seriously, the way of Jesus causes you to do everything the hard way.
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Literally everything. Money, sex, relationships.
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Every way is the hard way, but it is so worth it.
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And Jesus calls us in this passage to be even willing to go to death in order to obey him.
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The Christian life is difficult and arduous, but in the end, we get everything that really matters.
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Salvation from our sin, a restored relationship with God, a new family in the church, a new identity, and eternity in the presence of our creator.
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What more could we ask for?
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We have everything that really matters if we have Jesus Christ.
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This passage ends with one of the most sobering verses in all the entire Bible.
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When Jesus goes on and says, "For whoever is ashamed of me, in my words and his 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." What Jesus is saying here is that if any one of us is more concerned about what this culture thinks about us, what people think about us, we put more value and worth in what people think about us, there may be a chance we don't really know Him and we're still under the wrath of God.
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I mean, this verse keeps me up at night.
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This verse is scary when you think about it.
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So if our lives are marked with an embarrassment and an ashamement of Jesus, we should examine ourselves.
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examine myself.
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Why am I so often embarrassed of Jesus?
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Why am I so often quick to shut my mouth around somebody who needs him?
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Because we are around people on a daily basis who are heading to an eternal hell apart from Jesus, and we're not gonna talk to them because we're too afraid, we're too embarrassed.
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That doesn't make sense to me.
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Yeah, I do that all the time in my life.
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I know this person doesn't know Jesus.
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I know this person is heading for an eternity of separation from God, but I care more about my reputation and what this person thinks about me, and about more not getting embarrassed.
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What's up with that?
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Why do I think that way?
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When Jesus is leading me to talk to somebody, I think, "Ah, I don't wanna be embarrassed.
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"I don't want them to think less of me." And I leave.
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I fail to be faithful with what God told me to do.
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I pray that God will make us fear disobedience more than embarrassment and what people think about us.
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Because the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:16, "For I'm unashamed, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ "for it's the power of God and the salvation "for all who believe." The gospel has the power to save, it has the power to transform lives.
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And there are billions of people in this world who do not know Jesus and they need to know Him.
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'Cause Jesus Christ is worthy of their praise and their worship and their lives.
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He is worthy and He is awesome and He is worth talking about.
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He is worth proclaiming.
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Do you and I really believe that Jesus Christ is worth giving up everything for?
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Is He worth laying aside our sinful desires, our time, our money, our efforts, or to follow Him and please Him?
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Does your life really make sense in light of scripture?
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So I look at my life and I see what Jesus calls me to and this word doesn't match up.
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I'm not living the life of radical devotion that Jesus calls me to.
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There are a lot of things in my life that are more worthy to me than Jesus.
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I think if we're honest with ourselves, we can all say that.
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So what in your life is more worthy to you than Jesus Christ?
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Is it obvious from your life, your relationships, your finances, that Jesus Christ is the highest priority in your life.
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And if not, what is holding you back?
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Maybe there's someone in your life that's holding you back, a relationship you have, and you need to end that relationship 'cause they're keeping you from all that God has for you.
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Maybe you're stockpiling your money and you're not being generous, and God's calling you to fund his mission to spread this gospel.
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Whatever it is, I pray that God will reveal these idols to our lives.
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We would allow God to place Jesus Christ at the rightful center of our hearts where he belongs.
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Because surrendering and submitting oneself to Jesus Christ is the fuel of the fire of obedience, devotion, and unashamed witnessing.
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We are called to submit to the Jesus Christ of this Bible.
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He is not just some meek, mild-mannered, nice guy.
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We have to get beyond this felt-born Jesus who requires nothing of us.
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We must submit to the Jesus of the Bible.
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He is the Savior, God, Lord, King, and Christ, and He deserves everything that you have.
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Anything less is disobedient and sinful.
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So I pray today, we would give everything we have for Him in the cause of the gospel to see lives transformed, hearts changed, legacies altered forever, and our lives would count for the gospel.
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Let's pray.
