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Mark 8:31-38
Sign Up and Serve
March 4, 2012
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests
and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. {32} He spoke plainly about this,
and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. {33} But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked
Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." {34}
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny
himself and take up his cross and follow me. {35} For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for me and for the gospel will save it. {36} What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
{37} Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? {38} If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the
holy angels."
A lot of people join the military because of the great benefits. You have a regular job and paycheck every month. It
includes health insurance and medical care. After basic training you can learn a useful trade. There’s the opportunity for
travel around the world. You get a free ride through college with all tuition paid. It looks great when you sign up. A
couple years of your life in exchange for having all your college expenses paid? It sounds good. But then reality strikes.
All of a sudden your unit gets called up for active duty and is deployed to Afghanistan or some other hot spot on the other
side of the world. Then all of a sudden you realize that what you actually signed up for is not only great benefits but also
leaving behind your spouse and children and family and even putting your life on the line in service to your country.
A lot of people sign up with Jesus Christ, because they are rightly attracted by all the many wonderful benefits and
blessings that he promises them. But then they wrongly conclude that there is nothing to faith in Jesus except raking in all
the blessings. When Jesus calls them up to active duty and deploys them to sacrifice and service, they think that
something strange is happening to them. But Jesus himself was honest when he recruited us to serve as his Christian
soldiers. When you sign by faith, Jesus said, remember that you are signing up for sacrifice and service in the kingdom of
God. And just like the service of any good soldier, understand that this service includes the sacrifice of giving up your
life. When you sign on to follow Jesus, you sign up to serve. In our Gospel Lesson today Jesus answers three important
questions about service in his kingdom: 1. What did we sign up for? 2. What did it cost Jesus to win the blessings? 3.
What will it cost us to thank Jesus?
1-What did we sign up for? Jesus had taken his disciples up north to a region called Caesarea Philipp for some private
instruction. When he had them all alone he asked them a couple questions: Who do people think I am? They answered
with the popular opinions of the people that some thought he was Elijah, some thought he was John the Baptist and still
others thought he was one of the prophets come to life again. What about you, Jesus asked, who do you think I am? Peter
and his type-A personality immediately answered: You are the Christ. You’re the promised Messiah. You’re the One
God promised. You will lead us to glory. Right after that it says: He then began to teach them that the Son of Man
must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed
and after three days rise again. {32} He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
Peter wanted the benefits of being with Jesus, but he didn’t want the sacrifice that goes along with it. Peter wanted to
follow Jesus to glory, but he didn’t want the cross that comes before that glory. He didn’t sign up to watch Jesus die or
even suffer death himself. This is the same Peter who walked on water with Jesus, that is, until he saw the waves coming
at him. This is the same Peter who said he would never deny Jesus, that is, until he saw that sticking with Jesus might
cost him his life.
Peter’s weakness is one that we all share. We are willing to sign on for all the wonderful blessings that come with faith in
Jesus Christ. In Jesus we find complete relief for all our guilt. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, purifies us from all
sin. In Jesus there is the promise of answer to every prayer: Ask and it will be given to you, Jesus promised. Seek and you
will find, knock and it will be opened to you. Signing up with Jesus means our lives will be made happy through his word.
Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it, Jesus said. Signing up with Jesus means that he is going to stand
by us every minute of our lives: Surely, I will be with you always to the very end of the age, the Savior promised. Signing
on with Jesus means dying in peace and rising to life eternal with a perfect glorified body that will never again wear out.
Jesus promised: Today you will be with me in Paradise, and Because I live, you will live also.
Who would not want to sign on? But like Peter we often forget what it means to enlist. When it comes to sleeping in on
Sunday morning or giving up sleep to get the family to worship, we make the wrong choice. When it comes to watching
American Idol or having a family devotion, we choose the idols of the world instead of the One who died to save the
world. We pay devoted attention to our investments and savings but seem to not have equal time to study the words of
God in Bible Class. We follow the discount fliers and rummage sales and auction ads to add to our personal stash of
stuff, but the needs of the sick and the needy go unnoticed. We enlist without the thought of active duty and sacrifice and
service to others.
2-How much did it cost Jesus to win our blessings? The recruiter who seeks to enlist us in the military has already
spent his time deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq. When we enlist with Jesus, we also have been recruited by someone who
saw active duty. The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of
the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. Freedom is not free. In order to free us from sin,
free us from guilt, free us from fear, free us from punishment and hell – Jesus had to pay the price for our freedom. He
suffered many things. The price was giving up his glory and home in heaven to come to a world where he had no place to
lay his head The price Jesus paid was persecution by a government that made him and his family flee to Egypt when he
was still a baby. It was having Satan in his face in the desert and fighting his constant temptations, the scoffing of
hypocritically religious countrymen, the doubts of his own disciples, crowds who walked away betrayal, denial, beating,
crucifixion and the last straw – being forsaken at his worst moment by God himself.
Enlisting with Jesus means knowing the great price of the freedoms we enjoy. To truly enjoy the benefits of enrollment
we must look at the cost that was paid to secure those benefits. It was humility, sacrifice, service, persecution and death.
But it was something Jesus wanted to do. What is striking is that little word must. He must suffer these things. It was a
must of love - love for us, love for his Father. It was the plan he and the Father had conceived in eternity. It was what the
scriptures promised. It was what Jesus wanted to do so that we would never have to pay the price ourselves.
3-What will it cost us to thank him? Jesus said, : "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me. {35} For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for
the gospel will save it. Jesus did not enlist us in his army of Christian soldiers under false pretenses. The benefits he
promised are all real and true. Jesus does forgive our sins. He does answer all our prayers. He does stand by our side
through thick and thin, and he will take us to eternal paradise. We can’t win those wonderful benefits ourselves. Jesus
won them all for us with his perfect life and his death on the cross. But Jesus was also honest when he said: In this world
you will have trouble. Enlisting with Jesus includes willingness to sacrifice and serve as he did, to take up our own
crosses after him, to deny our sinful selfish desires – not to earn blessings, but to give thanks to Jesus for already earning
them for us.
Christian soldiers will be called up to active duty. Peter said to Christians: Don’t be surprised at the painful trials you are
suffering as though something strange were happening to you. Don’t say, “I’m a Christian, I shouldn’t be having the
troubles I am having.” The Bible says, The Lord disciplines those he loves and punishes everyone he accepts as a son.
He allows troubles and crosses to come into our lives, not because he is punishing us for our sins which have already been
punished on the cross, but because he loves us. He tests our faith to make it stronger. He molds us through troubles and
forms in us the mind of Christ. Having major troubles in life is not a sign that God has abandoned you but that you are
one of his children. And dealing with troubles is the way the Christian says thanks to the Lord Jesus for the freedom he
has secured for us. Jesus says, Whoever wants to save his life will lose it. If you want all the good stuff this life has to
offer, you will lose Jesus. But whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. If you sign up with Jesus in
faith, you will be willing to serve and sacrifice with Jesus.
The United States Armed Forces takes good care of their recruits. It provides them with the best training, best weapons,
best defensive protection, and the best medical care. Christian soldiers who enlist with Jesus also get the best from God
when he deploys them for battle. Jesus said, In this world you will have trouble – but be happy, for I have overcome the
world. God will never let you be tested beyond what you can bear but will always provide a way to stand up under it.
Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will ever take it away from you.
Willingly we lay our life on the line for Jesus. Amen.