Leaving The World at the Cross
What I Leave at the Cross • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Why all this seriousness and self-denial stuff?
Mark 8:31
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, and after three days rise again.
The death of Jesus was not merely an event; it was his message.
Mark 8:32a
And he said this plainly. ...
Jesus did not give us the opportunity to separate the message of the cross from his teaching.
Mark 8:32
And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
The cross is the part of Jesus’ teaching we hate the most.
Mark 8:33
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Rejecting the cross is exactly the satanic choice that made the cross necessary.
Mark 8:34
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
The cross was not merely to save you.
The cross was to teach you how to live and how to die.
Mark 8:35
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
The cross teaches us to die so that we can live.
Mark 8:36–37
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?
Side Note: What do you think “soul” means?
Genesis 2:7
then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
The soul is the “being alive part” of you - the breathing, speaking, and moving part.
Genesis 12:13
“Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life [literally, ‘soul’] may be spared for your sake.”
My soul is me. My soul is ‘I.’
Ecclesiastes 12:7
and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
God gave you life, and life returns to God.
Ezekiel 18:4
Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
All life belongs to God. There is no life apart from God.
Sin is the name of the choice to attempt life without God - to choose death.
Mark 8:35–37
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his LIFE?
For what can a man give in return for his LIFE?
If you try to keep your life, you will lose it.
Genesis 2:9
And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:16–17
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
We chose independence from God, and by so doing we chose death.
Mark 8:36–37
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his LIFE?
For what can a man give in return for his LIFE?
We have already traded our life away for the world. At the cross, we are given the opportunity to get a refund.
Accept the cross of self-denial and begin the life that is only in Jesus.