Are You Sure You Are Up For This?

Rev. Todd R. Lattig

FRESH START • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

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“Taking up our crosses” to be disciples of Jesus means being willing to risk inconvenient demands on our time, lack of certainty, embarrassment, and sometimes even physical danger. But Jesus is the way to life, and he calls us to make fresh starts in faith. A fresh start requires courage, focus, and practice.

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Scripture Passage

Mark 8:27–38 (NLT)

27 Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.” 29 Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” 30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. 31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. 33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” 34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Focus Statement

“Taking up our crosses” to be disciples of Jesus

means being willing to risk inconvenient demands on our time, lack of certainty, embarrassment, and sometimes even physical danger.

But Jesus is the way to life,

and he calls us to make fresh starts in faith.

A fresh start requires courage, focus, and practice.

Point of Relation

Have you ever thought of having a fresh start at any point in your life?

A Fresh Start in this sense is defined as:

“a complete change in your way of life or the way that you do things, especially after you have previously been unsuccessful.”

I have been there.

When I went to Chubb Institute, it was my dream to become a successful business programmer and web site developer.

Following graduating, I found a job as a Software Engineer at a home automation software company.

This job was awesome and I got to even go on business trips to Home Automation conventions in places like Indianapolis and Las Vegas.

But, as things work out, that company couldn’t compete in the market and went belly-up a year after being hired.

I tried to find other jobs, but since I had “less than 5 years of experience”

no one would hire me.

So, what did I do? I set out to create my own web site development company...

And I went place to place to place....

But everyone, by that point, had their own web site...

I was just a year or two…too late and in the world of tech, you might as well be a thousand years too late.

In the end, my business ventures were disastrously unsuccessful.

And I needed a FRESH START, I needed to rethink what I was truly supposed to do with my life...

It took me a little while, but eventually I realized I needed to redo EVERYTHING...

You see, I had come to realize God had called me into ministry and I was NEVER going to be looking back at being a Web Developer again.

That part of me had been let go.

Things to Consider

Have you ever had to change your perspective on something?

Sadly, our church has had to let go of things that were once cherished in the past.

This is nothing unique to our church but happens at all churches.

For instance, we once had paid staff, including a youth pastor, a business administrator, an associate pastor, and of course a music director.

But…our society has changed tremendously since the 1970’s…the times were even changing then…but the church was innocently ignorant of it...

But from the 1970s till now…much has changed...

Including less and less people attending and giving.

So, since our attendance has consistently declined and our budget has declined due to less and less tithing...

We, at some point long before I arrived here, we could not longer sustain being a staff driven church.

We no longer have all of those positions anymore.

How have we, as a church responded to that.

I am sure, at the time it was not looked at positively...

How do I know....because those people who didn’t look at it favorably then, let me know now.

I am constantly reminded of a time when we had 50-70 kids in Sunday School, a Vibrant VBS, a Children’s Choir, an active Youth Group and Small Groups galore.

People remind me of that because they see those days as better than the days we are in now...

and yes…having those numbers would rock…but are we so sure that Jesus wants us stuck in the past…

appreciating what was so much more than what is?

Or should we be looking toward what is and what WILL BE…preparing ourselves for a FRESH START to Christ’s mission and ministry?

What Scripture Says

Friends, sometimes, difficult times necessitate a “fresh start.”

A few chapters earlier (Mark 6), John the Baptist, who had come to prepare the way for the Messiah, was killed. A new leader was needed.

The religious leaders are testing Jesus for a sign that he is/is not the Messiah (Mark 7-8).

In this chapter (Mark 8), Jesus flips the understanding of who the Messiah is and what the Messiah is supposed to do in Mark 8:31, where it says:

31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead.

Peter did not expect the Messiah to suffer and is resistant to that reality.

No one would have expected a Messiah to be rejected by the religious leaders and killed,

let alone rise from the dead,

nor would anyone have expected that the people’s salvation would come this way.

This new kind of “suffering servant” Messiah was offering a very big picture “fresh start.”

It was a fresh start God’s way, not the human way,

which made it difficult for Peter to understand and why Peter began to scold or reprimand Jesus, as we saw in: verses 22-23

I want to make this clear:

Jesus did not suffer simply for the sake of suffering or to be seen as a victim.

The purpose of Jesus’ suffering was to lift others up,

especially those on the outside/margins,

and bring them to healing and fullness of life.

We see Jesus in the passages that lead up to this statement

willing to take the risk of relationships with those who are on the outside.

For instance, when Jesus heals a blind man in Mark 8:22-26, who was no doubt judged a sinner under God’s curse by his community.

Lifting up the marginalized and upsetting the status quo necessarily entailed the risk of suffering.

It was a risk Jesus knew and was willing to take for the sake of the big picture, God-sized, fresh start he was sent for.

Friends, the Gospel of Mark is about expectations and who you are in Christ.

The tone of the gospel is imperative - the time is now, for a new thing is happening!

Jesus is announcing that to be his followers, people need to be willing to suffer, to “take up their cross and follow him.”

Again, this is not suffering for the sake of suffering.

In following Jesus’ way of lifting up those on the outside,

and letting Jesus live in and through us, even when it is not what we might have chosen,

we risk and accept the possibility of suffering.

Taking up one’s cross, pointing to Jesus’ final sacrifice, leads to salvation.

Our being willing to deny ourselves will also lead to life in unity with Jesus.

What This Means for You

I want to Invite you to consider where you might be (or have been) resistant,

like Peter,

to the kind of fresh start Jesus offers,

or where you may not have a full understanding of what God is doing and why.

Against the messages we sometimes hear in this world,

when you give your life to Christ, there is no promise that your life will be devoid of suffering.

Following Christ might even bring about suffering!

How might we invite a fresh start by being honest about our expectations of a life of faith?

Pause

How will we be open to taking up our crosses?

Pause

What This Means for Us

I want to challenge us as a congregation

to move into the new thing that God is doing,

even though it will require taking up the cross.

How are we being called to deny ourselves for the sake of the gospel?

Consider our community demographics in Newton and the surrounding areaswe serve.

How have they changed over the years?

Pause

What might it look like to bear the cross in our community?

Pause

Perhaps it might look like showing up to town council meetings to advocate for the “Least of these” in our community.

It might look like starting a ministry to help the homeless in our community...

or signing up with Evie to help out at Manna House.

Or, if you are bilingual…

perhaps it will look like starting up an ESL class at our church for people looking to learn English as their second language.

Whatever the case may be, we has a church can and WILL take this necessary step toward a FRESH START in serving our Lord and our community.