Mark 8 - The Basics of Christianity
Tom Shrader teaches on the fundamental questions of Christianity from Mark 8, focusing on Jesus' question to His disciples about His identity and Peter's declaration that Jesus is the Christ. He emphasizes that Christianity begins with the narrow way of salvation through Christ alone, followed by discipleship that requires self-denial, taking up one's cross, and following Jesus in daily obedience.
“The heart of the issue isn't what does the public opinion say about Jesus, the heart of the issue is who do you say that He is.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Miscellaneous
Recorded: 2009
Duration: 33 min
Themes: identity, discipleship, sacrifice, obedience, salvation, following, commitment, surrender, new believer, questioning faith, seeking purpose, struggling with commitment, young adult, pastor, feeling called, facing decisions
Scripture: Mark 8:27-34, Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 6:1-16, John 14:6, Romans 6:23, 1 Corinthians 15:56, Acts 2:24, Isaiah 6, Matthew 5:3, Philippians 2:5-8, Luke 9:23, James 2, Ephesians 2:8-10, James 1:22, 1 John 5:21, 2 Corinthians 13:5
Theological Themes: christology, soteriology, salvation, discipleship, sanctification, cross bearing, self denial, lordship
Full Transcript
And verse 27, just a couple of housekeeping things. I want to remind you again, the brochures are here. These are for the retreat, the first annual Abundant Life Retreat up at Prescott Pines, just outside Prescott. Scheduled for September 5th, 6th, and 7th. The reason we got these up here now is because we know that in the summer people often take off and maybe you'd forget about it or we wouldn't get the information to you soon enough, so we want to have those available for you.
We can accommodate, if I remember correctly, a couple of hundred guys, maybe a little bit over that. We'd encourage you to fill the little card on the back out and send it in. So we'd encourage you to get involved in that.
Primarily, and probably of most importance, Larry will be back next week. I haven't talked to anyone who's talked to him in the last four or five days, or seen him. We talked to him, his mouth cleared up and the sores are basically gone and he's feeling very, very well. He's all fired up and ready to come back. So I'd encourage you to look forward to that, as I'm sure you do anyway. He will be back next week, on Tuesday night and on Thursday morning.
The Question of Identity
With that out of the way, Mark chapter 8 and verse 27. Let's just read that. Jesus went out along with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way, He questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?" Mark chapter 8, verse 28. They told Him, saying, "Some say you're John the Baptist, others Elijah, and yet others say one of the prophets." He continued by questioning and they said, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ." Then skip down to verse 34. He summoned the multitude and His disciples to Him and He said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." That's the basics of Christianity.
Learning the Fundamentals
Not long ago, I found that my golf game was in such disarray that for the first time in my life, it was important to me to take a lesson. I went out to the driving range with the pro and he threw down a half a dozen balls and he stood behind me and I hit them. Then he threw down another half a dozen and he went in front of me and I hit them. I said, "Well, what do you think?" He said, "Well, let me tell you something, Tommy, your grip is pretty sound and your stance is a little wide. You need to narrow that and you're getting a pretty good turn and you need to get the club up and you're coming through the ball. Not too bad. There's just a couple of things to work on." What he did is he took a look at my swing and he analyzed it by looking at the basics. He looked at the stance and the grip, a little bit of the turn and a little bit of the follow through. He said, "There's the basics and that's what I need to look at."
If as a salesman, you have a problem and you go into management or they call you in and you sit down, they're going to say, "What's the problem, Tom? How are your basics? Are you making the right number of calls? Are you seeing enough people? When you see them, do you know your product line? Do you know the competition? Do you know how to overcome all the objections that are out there?"
If in your marriage there's a problem and you go and you seek counsel, good counsel will almost inevitably go back to the basics. Are you communicating? Do you talk? Is there love? Is there respect? I think I've told you this before. We once sat down with a guy and I said, "I understand you're not getting along now, but there has to be some commonality. I mean, you just didn't wake up one morning and you were married." The guy looked up to me and said, "That's exactly what happened to me." I said, "Well, that's the end of that. I'll never use that again." So there's exceptions to the rule.
The Core of Christianity
Christ gives us, I think in these verses, the very basics of Christianity. We got away last weekend and went down to Tucson for our anniversary. A fellow who's in our Bible study down there—I mentioned to you on Wednesday morning, we have what we call the sister group of this that meets in Tucson at La Paloma Country Club. If you know somebody in Tucson, shove them on up that way. We meet at seven.
One of the guys said, "I'd like to get together and I want to bring my wife and you bring your wife and we'll have this little lunch." I said, "Well, that'd be neat. That'd be really nice." I had checked this guy out and I found out that he was a fairly important guy in his church. His wife was pretty much a leader in their church.
We were having a pretty nice lunch and we were talking about nice things. Finally she was talking about church and how sweet it was that I would come to Tucson and do a Bible study and how interesting her husband found it. She said, "You know, we've been a Christian for a long time, my husband and I." I said, "Really?" She said, "Yes, yes, yes. We've been in church for quite some time." I said, "Really? Well, we've been Christians. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but we've been Christians for quite a while. Absolutely. Oh yeah. My husband teaches."
Getting Back to Basics
It made me realize that so often I take for granted that everybody understands everything that you say all the time. It drove home to me that we can talk about some heavy doctrinal issues. Over the last three or four weeks we have, and in Larry's Bible study, he does always. Sometimes we get so carried away with the doctrine that we forget the very basics and Christ lays it out for us. Let's just take a look at it. Verse 27, Jesus
Jesus is walking with His disciples, and as they're walking along, Jesus asks, "What does the Gallup poll say that I am?" He wants to know the general public consensus of who He is. In verse 27, He asks, "Who do the people say that I am? What's the general gist out there in the real world? Who do they think Jesus Christ is?"
The disciples respond, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others say the prophets." Some say You're John the Baptist because You preach fire, You preach repentance and belief. Don't ever paint little baby Jesus meek and mild into a corner and forget that Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark are "repent and believe." He preached with that fire that John the Baptist did. So they said, "Some say You're John the Baptist, others say You're Elijah, some say You're a prophet." The general gist is that You're a man of God of some sort, but we don't have a box for You yet. We haven't been able to put You into a specific position yet.
The Heart of the Issue
In verse 29, Jesus asks a rather pointed question: "Who do you say that I am?" That's the focus. I have a lot of lunches where people want to get together and they want to talk about Jesus in the broad sense. They want to talk about public opinion of Jesus. "What do you think about Jesus' teaching on the Olivet Discourse? What do you think about Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount? Was that pre-millennium or post-millennium or kind of millennium or sort of trib or pre-trib or after? Where is that?"
My response is generally, "I don't know what you're talking about. You lose me with tribs and all that. I'm not good in prophecy and I'm not good in that stuff. But let me ask you a question, sir. Who do you say that He is?" That's the issue. Usually at that point, he grabs the check and I get a free lunch.
That's the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue isn't what public opinion says about Jesus. The heart of the issue is in verse 29: "Who do you say that He is?" That was the issue with the lady the other night. What makes somebody a Christian?
The Statistics Don't Add Up
The poll that was taken in January in Maricopa County showed that 88% of the people in Maricopa County said they're a Christian. That means almost 9 out of 10 people you meet are Christian. Does the data that you gather every day support that? 51% of the people said they are a born again Christian. I'm kind of a cynic. I'm the guy that believes every silver lining has a cloud. I think that's not true. Not my job to judge. I'm not going to do that. But I don't think that's true.
Look at Peter's response in verse 29: "Thou art the Christ." That's the essential question. I want to spend just a second here. Keep your finger in Mark and turn over to Matthew chapter 7, verse 13. This is at the very end of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus in that sermon talks about a lot of different things, but He begins with what we know as the Beatitudes. Not the "be happy attitudes," but the Beatitudes. He said, "Here is the profile of a Christian." It starts with humble in spirit and it ends with persecution, because that's where Christianity starts—with humility—and it ends in living that life.
Two Gates, Two Ways
In Matthew chapter 7 verse 13, Christ lays it on the line. He's very hard and He's very straightforward and He's very definite. He said, "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter it." Verse 14: "For the gate is small and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it."
Jesus said, "Here's the problem." So we're not looking for subtleties. Let me tell you what I think He's talking about. He's talking about heaven and hell—two good old-fashioned words. He says there is a broad way, and it's an easy way, and many people are on it, but it leads to death or destruction. It leads to hell. There's a narrow way. It's a hard way. Very few people are on it, and it leads to heaven. I think that lady the other night was on that broad, easy way to hell.
My Changing Understanding
I used to have a picture of it this way: here was this broad way, and here was this little off-ramp, and on the off-ramp it said "Narrow way." So I had this clear choice between this broad way and this narrow way. Then I thought a little differently. I said, here's this broad way, and down the middle of it is a swath that's cut, and it's the narrow way. There's the broad way that leads to destruction, and in the course of it is the narrow way.
Now I have yet another view of it. There is a broad way and a narrow way, and both of them are marked heaven. John MacArthur suggests this, and I think he's right. Both of them are marked heaven. I've yet to have a discussion with a guy that said, "Yes, I'm going to hell." If I ask you right now, "How many of you are going to hell?" there's not a hand in this room that would go up.
The Deception of the Broad Way
It's a narrow way, and I want to focus first on the broad way. Look down into verse 21. The broad way isn't this way of sin and degradation and "I don't care." Verse 21: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? In your name cast out demons. In your name perform miracles?' And I'll declare to you, 'Depart from me. I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Those people weren't people who were out leading lives of obvious sin. They were living for the Lord. But something's wrong in that life. Flip back to Matthew chapter 6. This is back probably a page, Matthew chapter 6 and verse 1. I think we looked at this here maybe a few months ago. The Pharisees give us a great illustration of this. The Pharisees as we see them...
The religious leaders of Jesus' day weren't sinister figures with long eyebrows twirling mustaches. They were the respected hierarchy, admired by society. But Jesus exposed their true motives in Matthew chapter 6, verse 1: "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them. Otherwise you have no reward in the Father."
When they gave alms, Jesus said they sounded trumpets "that they may be honored by men." When they prayed, they did it publicly "in order that they can be seen by men." When they fasted, they put on gloomy faces "in order that they may be seen fasting by men." Their whole motivation was what people thought. Their whole motivation wasn't an intimate relationship with God - it was based on a horizontal relationship. They were going through the motions.
The Wrong Motives
I can be very personal with this. Six and a half years ago when I went to Phoenix Country Club for the first time to hear Larry teach, I did not go there to try to find the narrow way. I went because, first of all, I thought it would be good for business. Secondly, I figured it's a Bible, it can't be bad. And third, I had this generic view that it would be somewhat of a religious rotary. We would come together and Larry would teach, and it couldn't be bad. All the right appearances, all the wrong motives.
Jesus says the issue is your heart. You can pray and you can fast and you can give. You can come to Bible study at 7 o'clock on a Thursday morning. You can drive to Tucson and teach a Bible study on Wednesday morning. And if you're not on the narrow way, you're going to hear, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
The Broad Way Leads to Death
The problem is the broad way leads to death. Proverbs 16:25 says, "There's a way that seems right to men, but its end is death." You and I are born into the world lost. I'm not born into the world safe and then lose my salvation - I'm born lost. I'm born dead. Romans 6:23 says "the wages of sin is death." First Corinthians 15:56 says "the sting of death is from sin."
But the good news is this: Jesus. Acts 2:24 says God raised Jesus from the dead to put an end to the agony of death. Jesus said, "Here's the antidote for death." In John chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."
Does that sound narrow? "I am the singular way, the truth, the life, and there is no other way." What about the good Jew who wants nothing to do with Jesus? What about the philanthropic atheist who's really a good man who raises His kids but wants nothing to do with Jesus? I would suggest to you, He's on the broad way that leads to destruction. That's what Jesus is talking about.
The Moment of Reckoning
There comes a point in your life and my life when we need to deal with this very issue: Who do you say Jesus is? In Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah sees God for the first time in His life, and His response is, "Woe to me for I'm undone." The implication is, "I had it together and it fell apart." Paul on the road to Damascus had it together and it fell apart when He saw God for who He really was.
Paul, Isaiah - incredible circumstances, but what happened to them has to happen to you and me, or I'm not on the narrow way.
Major Ian Thomas's Appraisal
Let me read to you Major Ian Thomas's appraisal of Paul's conversion. I think it's so good that we need to hear it frequently. This is Major Ian Thomas as Paul evaluates His life:
"So, there was a time when as Saul of Tarsus, I made my own independent evaluation of this man called Jesus. I investigated into His life to see if the leader of this Nazarene cult was worth following. I made my own independent evaluation of what He was worth. I was not unfair and I was not unkind. I applied to Him all the normal natural standards by which we evaluate life in any age.
I looked first into His ancestry and discovered there was a cloud over His birth right from the start. As I investigated it, it became quite clear that He was the illegitimate son of a faithless woman who had been taken in by a kind-hearted carpenter and raised as His own son. But He was an outcast from the beginning and socially, He was worth absolutely nothing.
I investigated His professional standing and discovered that He was born of peasant stock and attended no schools. He was raised as a simple carpenter in a village of no standing in Israel and professionally, He was worth absolutely nothing.
As Saul of Tarsus, I investigated His theological background. I found that He sat at nobody's feet, that He had been in no seminary, He had no theological training. In fact, He was repudiated by all the ecclesiastical authorities of His day. He was nothing but an incorrigible street preacher and as far as His theological standing was concerned, He was worth absolutely nothing.
Furthermore, I looked into His standing financially. I found He had no bank account, that He was born in a cave and laid in a borrowed manger and then He lived in other people's homes. He was an incorrigible scrounger, always borrowing things. He borrowed money to pay His taxes, He borrowed His clothes from other people, He rode on a borrowed donkey, He died on a borrowed cross and He was buried in a borrowed tomb. Financially, from the standpoint..."
of accumulating this world's goods, he was worth absolutely nothing. So as I investigated and applied to him the normal standards by which any life is evaluated, I discovered that this man Jesus was not worth following. He was worth absolutely nothing.
But on the road to Damascus something happened. There was a blinding flash of a moment and I looked into the face of a man and I saw God. I discovered that He whom I thought to be worth nothing was Lord of everything. He was the God of glory, that everything that is made is upheld by the word of His power, that He is behind all things, He is the very imprint in the image of God. There I found that He who I thought to be nothing was everything and I who I thought to be everything was nothing.
In that moment I came to a tremendous reversal of all my life's values. Later I learned that I who was nothing could be filled with Him who was everything and that would make my life something. Well, that's Ian Thomas's Paul and I pray that that's Ian Thomas's version of your life and my life. See, that's climbing on to the narrow way and Jesus says there isn't any other way and I know that's limiting and I know that's restrictive but nothing else is going to work.
Living on the Narrow Way
Well, now I'm on that narrow way. Verse 34 of Mark, we're back into Mark chapter 8 verse 34. I've come to Christ and I've come through the narrow way. I've come to Him in faith and repentance. I've acknowledged with a broken heart that I'm a sinful man and I need a savior and that's the only way that I'm going to gain entrance into the kingdom.
But now it's time to live here. Someone has said that Christians always have their minds on the sweet by and by and they're not much good right here. Jesus said, here's what you need to do to follow me. Verse 34, deny yourself, take up your cross, and simply follow me.
The First Step: Self-Denial
He said it all begins with self-denial. Three aspects into discipleship. That's what we're looking at is discipleship. James Boyd says that discipleship is nothing more than forsaking everything and following Christ and he said it starts with self-denial.
Matthew chapter 5 verse 3, the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are they who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are spiritually bankrupt. Blessed are those who look more on others than they do themselves.
Philippians chapter 2 verse 5, Paul holds up Christ as our example and he said, have the mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a thing to be grasped. But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance of man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
He said, here is your role model. Somebody thinks or said, we don't have any heroes anymore. Here's your hero and your role model. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And what He was, was God and He emptied Himself of that glory to become God's man on this earth.
The World's Contrary Message
And that runs contrary to everything that we see around us. All the world says, no, no, don't give up yourself but hold up yourself. We see it even in our magazines. We used to have life and then time and then people and then us. And now we have self.
The bumper sticker in Tucson says, on a lot of these cars, especially on the old one, says, come on, hit me, I need the money. And the implication is, come on and hit me, I need a good, healthy lawsuit. I'm amazed every time there is any sort of a disaster, it doesn't take 15 seconds for somebody to say, well, you better call a lawyer. Your rights have been violated.
And I think what Christ is saying here through Mark's pen is, hey, there's a time to set aside your rights. We got a resume from a kid the other day and it said this, I'm a self-starter, self-reliant, self-motivator and self-sufficient. I don't need anybody or anything. And what's interesting is, somebody probably told Him to put that on the resume because in the business world, that's what we look for. A guy that's got it all together.
Jesus said, no, that's not the way I work. He said, there's a different way. It's to take that self and put it aside. It's to focus not on what everybody can do for me, but what can I do for someone else.
What Self-Denial Really Means
And we're not talking, when we talk about self-denial, Swindoll, Chuck Swindoll has written this, self-denial is not denying one's personality or denying one's thing. Rather, it's a denial of self. It's turning away from the idolatry of self-centeredness and making every attempt to orient one's life by the dictates, not of self-interest. Self-denial isn't going without. Self-denial is setting aside self.
Jesus said, as you walk with me, the first thing that you have to do is come to grips with self-denial. The philosopher Eucharist, and this isn't Bob Eucharist, philosopher Eucharist said, the worst thing that can happen for a man, the worst thing that can happen to a man is for his old self to get religion. What he's saying is, what the worst thing that can happen there is for the old self not to be killed, but just to try to clean its act up, just to come to a Bible study or get involved in church or start teaching the high schoolers. He said that old self has to die.
The Second Step: Taking Up Your Cross
And then there's a second aspect of it. That's the negative part. Here's the positive. You need to take up your cross. You hear that a lot. I'm bearing such a cross. Well, what is it? Well, it's a physical handicap. It's something that's come into my life that I don't have any control over, is what he's saying.
And Jesus isn't saying that at all. He said, take up your cross. He's talking about a voluntary action. He's talking about a voluntary action of living for Christ. Cross-taking and caring is going to exemplify itself in a variety of ways, prayer, Bible study, witnessing, sharing. Cross-sharing is, cross-bearing is universal. It's intentional.
It's continuing. Luke chapter 9, verse 23 says, take up your cross daily. Now comes the real hooker in the whole deal. Jesus said, "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me."
When we just say that, we have this picture of somebody drastically, radically changing their circumstance. Somebody said, "I'm going to follow Christ," and as they do, it seems like implied in that is, "I'm going to sell everything and move to bongo-bongo land. I'm going to give up everything that I have, all this stuff that I have, and I'm going to go live for Him now," as if I can't live for Him right where I am.
A Change of Heart, Not Circumstance
Christ is talking about a radical change, not in circumstance, but in heart. He's talking about living for Him right where He is. He's talking about you being unique in the marketplace. The Living Bible in Philippians chapter 2 says you and I are to be lights in the midst of a bunch of crooks and perverts. Does that sound like your workplace? Your softball team? Your family reunion?
He said you want to be a light, you don't need to go to Calcutta to do it. You can do it right here, right where you are, probably right in your house. You can be salt and light right there. All you have to do is to be obedient. "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." There's an idea of obedience, of commitment.
Faith Must Show Evidence
James chapter 2, James says if you've got faith, you'll have works. If there's no works, then your faith is dead. If you've come to Christ and you're on the narrow, hard way, there's going to be evidence of it. I'm not trying to ask you to judge the guy sitting to your left or to your right. I'm asking you to look at your own life. Not to doubt your faith, but certainly to question it to see if it's real.
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 says you and I have been saved by grace through faith, not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, not as a result of works that no man should boast. We have such a desire to put a period right there. But verse 10 said, "for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works." If you're on that narrow way, there'll be evidence of it. There'll be some proof to it.
James chapter 1, verse 22 said, "prove yourselves to be doers of the word." It's a narrow way. Christ said, "I want you to get on it and I want you to follow me. I want you to come after me."
Guard Yourself from Idols
John summarized it in 1 John chapter 5, verse 21. He said, "Little children, guard yourself from idols." You can't have idols and follow Jesus.
The Japanese have what they call a God shelf, and it's just a shelf with their gods on it. Confucius or Buddha or whatever it is. There's just a little shrine or a candle that they worship these gods. In a sense, we all have a God shelf. What Jesus is saying is, the problem here is, is there anybody else on the God shelf? Where does your time and your money and your energy go?
This ties fairly closely into what we talked about last week. Jesus said, "Come on the narrow way and the hard way. And then when you get on it, I want you to deny yourself. I want you to take up your cross. I want you to follow me." And it's an ongoing proposition.
A Test of Reality
Let me just close with this. 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5, and it's from the Living Bible. It's a verse that means a lot to me. There isn't a week goes by that I don't read it and think about it. 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5 from the Living Bible. It said, "Check up on yourselves. Are you really a Christian? Do you pass the test? Do you feel Christ's presence more and more within you? Or are you just pretending to be a Christian when actually you're not?"
Are you on the narrow and the hard way? Have you come to Christ in repentance and faith? Or are you just going through the motions?
Closing Prayer
Now let's pray. Father, we can stand before You and we can't con You. You can look past all the trappings and look into our hearts and You know where we are. I just pray that You would touch our hearts this morning and bring us to You. Give us the strength to stay on that narrow way. And if in fact we're not there, if we've never come to You in faith and repentance, trusting You and acknowledging our sin and lostness, I just ask that You'd touch us in a special way and draw us to You.
I pray that anyone who is here this morning who's never come to You would come now in faith and repentance. Turn to You. Give us, like David cried, the ability to look at our life and to acknowledge the sin in it and then to turn from it. Give us the strength to deny ourselves and become less and less concerned about ourselves and more and more concerned about You. Give us that current perspective on eternity.
Father, I thank You for the men and the women in this room who are so faithful to You, who love You so much, who come to hear Your word. We pray especially this morning for Larry, who travels back to Phoenix in a day or two, and that You continue to strengthen him and pursue and how well she's doing. We just thank You and give You the glory for that and ask You to continue to heal them.
Father, we look forward to their return. But more importantly to that, we look forward to the return of Your Son, Jesus Christ. And it's in His name that we pray. Amen.