Mark 8:11-9:1 - Jesus is God and Lord and Savior

Well, it's the end of another week, and I hope that this week's been good for you, that you've gotten in some rest or some needed time with friends or family.

We're going to complete this week in the middle of Mark chapter 8, and we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 26 today. And we've been journeying with Jesus.

The very end of the last episode, we saw Jesus and His feeding of the 4,000, of His care for those that normally would be overlooked or neglected by the Pharisees, which is exactly who we run into in verse number 11.

So Jesus had just gotten into the boat with His disciples. They'd gone to this particular area by the Sea of Galilee, and it says the Pharisees came and began to argue with Him, demanding of Him a sign from heaven to test Him.

And I do that because the very next phrase signed deeply in His spirit, Jesus said, Why does this generation demand a sign? Truly, I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.

So here the Pharisees do the exact same thing as many atheists and unbelievers today.

They say, okay, if God's really real, then I want Him to strike this thing with lightning, or if God's really real, then He'll stop me from blaspheming and He'll kill me.

And it's this thought that says I can make God do what I want when I want Him to do it. And that's just not the case. God has made Himself abundantly clear and able to be known.

Jesus has been working on all of these miracles and incredible things, chapter after chapter after chapter. It was clear that He really was the Messiah.

These Pharisees did not need a sign from heaven, from the skies to show that Jesus was the Messiah. They just did not believe Him and they wanted to argue.

They wanted to ignore everything that they had heard and seen, and they wanted God to work on their terms and in their way. And so Jesus tells them you're not going to get any sign, any signification other than what has been given to you.

Verse number 13, then He left them, got back into the boat and went to the other side. So here it's frustration. It's the people that were supposed to know the Bible the best.

They are falling at the least. They don't know the author. And so verse number 14, the disciples had forgotten to take bread, which is funny when you remember the seven basketfuls of bread that they had had just a few verses before.

And now they only have one loaf with them in the boat. Then Jesus gave them strict orders. Watch out.

Beware of the leaven, the yeast of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. They were discussing among themselves that they did not have any bread. So they don't understand what Jesus is saying here.

Jesus is saying this disbelief in God. This realization of everything that he's done. And yet it's still not enough for these people that they want God to work on their timetable by their rules.

That's just not how God does it. Or Herod, as we would even read later, he would do some of the same things even when he was putting Jesus on trial. That he was like, Hey, will you show me a sign or something?

And Jesus just doesn't answer. He's like, you guys are hopeless. You guys are hearing about all of these things over the course of years.

And yet it's not resulting in a change of heart. Instead of going, Oh man, God is with us. They're just too busy trying to argue that he's not really God.

Verse number 17, aware of this, that the disciples were like, Okay, is he saying aware of the leaven because we don't have bread? Is he mad that we don't have bread? What's going on?

So aware of this, Jesus said to them, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Don't you understand or comprehend? Do you have hardened hearts?

Do you have eyes and not see? Do you have ears and not hear? They're quoting from Isaiah.

And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of leftovers did you collect? Twelve, they told him.

When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you collect? Seven, they said. And he said to them, don't you understand yet?

Here this call is, guys, don't you realize who I am? And he's encouraging them, don't be like the Pharisees, don't be like Herod, who does not believe instead, have a believing heart.

And they're just focused on the here and now, and they don't really have much of a care for what had happened. And he tells them, you guys are just shutting yourselves off from the spiritual in place of the physical.

And he says, you can't even see or notice what's happening spiritually because you're so just laser focused in on this bread. So then verse number 22, Jesus, there's a lot of difficulties.

You can see the really grief in his heart as he's interacting with all these people and he's not finding obedience and belief. He's finding out that even though God himself is walking among them, they are intent on just following their own way.

Verse number 22, They came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village.

So again, Jesus is going, all right, they gotta quit focusing on the physical. They need to focus on the spiritual. But I care about people.

I love people. And so I want to help out with the physical when I can. It says spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him.

He asked, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people. They look like trees walking.

So we can't make out any specific like facial features or anything. It's all just kind of a blur. Again, verse 25, Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes.

The man looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him home, saying, don't even go into the village. Jesus goes, all right, I know by now, no one listens to me when I say, don't tell people about this.

So he says, don't go to the village. Just go home, rejoice, be glad. And eventually the news would get out.

But hopefully it would be after Jesus was to leave. I was going to do this. I was going to save the whole next section until the next episode.

But frankly, it kind of goes right along with this. So all of this has been happening with Jesus. In verse 27, we see that Jesus went out with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.

So this was far north of Israel. And this was at the kind of foot of the mountain range, that Mount Hermon, which was a place of great idolatry and idol worship, where all of that took place.

There was a lot of paganism and different things there in Caesarea Philippi and in that region. Going back thousands of years, honestly, even during the time of the children of Israel being there, much idolatry took place in that region.

It was a very Roman area. And Jesus on the road asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? They answered him, John the Baptist.

Others, Elijah. Still others, one of the prophets. So all those things we'd read about, I think it was back in chapter 6.

And they say, here's who people say you are. He says, but you, he asked them, who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are the Messiah, the anointed one of God.

And Jesus strictly warned them to tell no one about him. Jesus goes, all right, you guys got that much. All right, the anointed one, that much is clear.

But he wants to explain to them what that actually means for him to be the Christ, the Messiah.

Then he began to teach them that it was necessary for the son of man, again, that title from Daniel 7, the conqueror of earth's kingdoms, the one who rules by Yahweh's side, says it was necessary for the son of man to suffer many things and be

rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, be killed and rise after three days. So Jesus here gives very clearly, here's the gospel, I'm going to suffer and die for sin.

I'm going to be rejected by our people, but I will rise again, triumphant over the grave. Verse 32, he spoke openly about this. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Can you imagine telling Jesus, you don't know what you're talking about. Stop that. Verse 33, but turning around and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan.

You are not thinking about God's concerns, but about human concerns. Man, what a statement that Peter here, Satan's temptations from the wilderness now are being brought to Jesus again to say, you don't need to go through the crucifixion.

You don't have to pay for sin. You can just become king of the world without saving mankind as a whole, like changing their hearts, without doing the mission that God sent you for. And Jesus realizes, hey, this isn't coming just from Peter.

This is what Satan's will is, and Satan is working through Peter to tempt me. And so he says, get behind me. You don't care about what God wants.

You care about what you want. And so then he, verse 34, calling the crowd along with his disciples, he then tells them, hey, what's God's concern? He says, he said to them, if anyone wants to follow after me, you want to be my disciple?

You want to be one of the big shots in the kingdom? He says, let him deny himself. Tell you know about the things that you want, the way in which you want your life to go.

He says, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me. The cross was the most humiliating and degrading method of death at that moment.

It was saved for those that Rome wanted to make an example of. And Jesus says, hey, you want to follow me? Then you need to give up on your hopes and desires.

You need to take humiliation and shame on yourself and follow me. Verse 35, he says, whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life because of me and the Gospel will save it.

Here, this word life is the word, it's the psyche. If you want to save your soul, your innermost person, if you want to keep it, to protect it, he says, you're going to lose it.

He says, if you protect your soul against God, and you say, I'm not giving it over to him because he's not going to treat it good enough, he says, you're going to lose it. You will lose out on your soul if you try and withhold it from God.

He says, but whoever loses his life, his psyche, his soul, whoever gives his life to God because of Christ and the Gospel will save it. He says, if you give it to God, if you give it because of the Gospel of who Jesus is, you will save your soul.

He says, what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?

He says, if you get everything but who you are, the life that lasts beyond the grave, if you miss out on that, man, everything in the world can't be compared to that. He says, what can anyone give in exchange for his soul?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels.

So here really has a rebuke to Peter, even more so than calling him Satan.

He says, Peter, if you persist in not wanting to align yourself with me and my teaching, my words, he says, then I'm going to be ashamed of you when I return because I am King. I am the Son of Man. I am the one prophesy.

He says, but if you reject my words, then your soul will be lost forever.

And then chapter 9 and verse 1, he says, Then he said to them, truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power.

And we'll see a little bit of that take place even in our very next episode of some people that saw the kingdom of God begin to come in power. And obviously Jesus' life, death and resurrection was the first fruits of that kingdom that was coming.

And these people here, particularly Peter, James and John, would see the glory of God's kingdom as shown in Christ in our next episode. Man, I don't want to be like Peter in this scenario.

I don't want to tell Jesus that your plan for my life is not good enough. I want to be grateful for what God has given me. I want to realize that this life is not the end, that I can go through hard times.

But if I reject God in the hard times, if I get rid of Jesus, man, what other hope is there for my soul? My only hope is Jesus. He is the only one that can redeem my soul, that can bring me to glory.

He's the only one that gives me a relationship with God, and to reject him is to reject life itself. I want him to be happy, to be thrilled to call me his child, his brother, when he comes again.

But that means that I need to reject my own way, deny myself, take up my cross, endure whatever shame that Jesus has for me, and follow him, because he's got the words of eternal life.

He is the one that will save my soul, and it's only by giving it up, by saying, God, I'm giving up control of my life. You are my Lord. I'm not the Lord.

That command, that belief, that following, is what Christianity is at its barest essence. To say, Jesus, I can't save myself. I'm giving myself up to you.

Jesus, you have claimed control of my life, and I give it over to you freely and willingly. This life is not mine to live and to choose what I do with it. This life is yours.

Whoever gives up his life, loses it for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel, they will find it. Today, that's a life worth finding. Today is Jesus your Lord.

Are you allowing him to call the shots for your life? Are you open to his plans and his ways? Will you recognize him for who he is?

He is God. Even if people don't like it, if people want to sign, if people want him to do specific things that he's not doing, will you choose to say, God, my soul, my life, my psyche, my mind, my obedience is all yours? Thanks for tuning in today.

Tomorrow, we will begin in Chapter 9 and Verse 2, looking at the transfiguration of Jesus. It's an amazing story.