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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon is titled "Jesus Invites," on Mark 8, verse 27 through Mark 9, verse 1.
It is the final sermon in the series "Who Do You Say That I Am?
The Son of God and the Gospel of Mark," which is part one of Mark.
This is my thirteenth residency sermon, and it was preached on April 13, 2025.
This is a great sermon to end with.
What I mean by that is a great passage to end with.
It's Jesus inviting people to death with Him, and what that means.
And what it doesn't mean, it's also the first time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus is identified
as the Messiah by people in the narrative.
And I enjoy preaching this sermon because it had great ramifications for life today,
life 2025 years after Jesus's resurrection.
So Mark 8, 27 through 9, verse 1.
Enjoy.
Good morning.
My name is Mitch Holtus.
Our scripture today is from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verse 27 through chapter
9, verse 1.
Hear now the word of the Lord.
Jesus went out with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road He asked
His disciples, "Who do people say that I am?"
They answered Him, "John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets."
"But you," He asked, "who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered Him, "You're the Messiah."
And He strictly warned them to tell no one about Him.
Then He began to teach them that 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.
He spoke openly about this.
Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.
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 human concerns."
Calling the crowd along with His disciples, He said to them, "If anyone wants to follow
after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of
me and the gospel will save it.
For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life?
What can anyone give in exchange for his life?
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."
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."
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
Thank you, Mitch.
Good morning, everyone.
When I was a kid, I had a blast taking things apart and putting them back together again.
Putting them back together again never really worked out that well, though.
Usually, I would take my toys apart, and then they were unusable forever.
This, over time, turned into an obsession for myself with DIY projects that were just
irrelevant.
These were projects I did not need to do myself, but I really enjoyed doing them.
One time, Christina and I had this TV that was a hand-me-down TV.
It was years old, and it had this white, bright spot on it.
Night after night, we would watch this TV, and all I could see was just one little, white,
bright spot.
It didn't obstruct the image at all.
It wasn't unwatchable, but for me, that's all I could think about.
I would think, "There's got to be a way to fix this."
One time, Christina left on a trip, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to watch a couple YouTube
videos.
I've got a week to do this."
I watched some YouTube videos, and I decided I was going to take apart this TV and fix
it.
Friends, I was so right, and I was also so very wrong.
I was right.
It could have been easily fixed.
All you need is the proper tools and truly, truly a small dab of super glue.
That's it.
I was also very wrong.
I was just shy of understanding all that this fix entailed.
I didn't have the proper tools, though I did have some tools.
I didn't have the proper materials, though I did have some materials or even the proper
context and space.
This whole endeavor took place on a hardwood floor of a small, hot apartment.
In order to fix this TV, I should have counted the costs and committed to doing it properly.
Now, I will say we'll never know if I actually fixed it or not.
You might ask, "Well, why won't we know if it's fixed or not?"
Well, I was putting the TV back together, and I smashed the screen.
The whole screen just exploded.
I was like, "Well, I like to think I fixed my original problem.
I just made a much bigger problem."
We do this all the time.
We get things partly right but miss the rest.
Maybe you've wrestled with IKEA furniture.
You've got the tools.
You've got the confidence.
You don't need those directions, and then the drawers just don't fit, and your wife
keeps buying you IKEA furniture.
Or you quote, "God helps those who help themselves."
That sounds really nice and really biblical, but it's not actually in the Bible.
Or you deliver some hard news, some hard truth, and say, "Hey, I'm just being honest."
Not realizing that the way you deliver the news is hurtful and harmful.
We're often half right, but that still means that we're wholly wrong.
In our text this morning, Peter is in the same spot.
He's correct.
He's half right.
Jesus is the Messiah.
He's also very wrong about what that meant for Jesus and what it means for all who follow
Jesus.
What Peter did not realize is that to follow Jesus, true disciples who follow Jesus, discipleship
requires a total commitment to Christ.
True discipleship requires a total commitment to Christ.
It requires that we commit to Christ as He describes Himself, not the version we create.
And it requires that we imitate Christ even to the point of death.
This morning is the conclusion of this first part of our series on the Gospel of Mark.
It's already been 15 weeks.
We've been seeking to answer Jesus' question this whole time.
Who do you say that I am?
Mark wants his readers.
He wants his readers to respond to this question, and he tells his Gospel with this question
in mind.
Who do you say that Jesus is?
And along the way, he's been dropping hints.
And now, at the climax of Mark's Gospel, Jesus poses this crucial question to his disciples,
and he asks us the same question as well.
Who do you say that Jesus is?
Now the disciples have been journeying with Jesus for some time now, quite a long time,
and they've seen Him do many wonderful and miraculous things.
They've seen Him heal the sick.
They've seen Him cast out demons.
They've seen Him raise the dead.
They've seen Him feed tens of thousands of people with little food.
They've seen and witnessed Jesus' authority over both the natural and supernatural realm.
And so he takes them away to this remote place, again a wilderness, desolate, remote place
that is dominated by pagan religions and Roman rule.
And it's in this setting that is in such strict opposition to the message of God's people
that Jesus asks a crucial question.
In verse 27, he says, "Who do the people say that I am?"
They answered Him, John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets.
Many people who witnessed the wonderful things Jesus had done had highly regarded Jesus.
Some of them thought He was a prophet reincarnated.
Maybe He's Elijah from the Old Testament because He's doing some pretty amazing things.
Or maybe He's John the Baptist recently raised from the dead.
Some regarded Him as just another prophet, maybe even a good one, but just another prophet.
But these are the same people who would shout Hosanna in the highest on Palm Sunday and
then crucify Him a couple days later.
Thinking that Jesus is a prophet or a good teacher is not enough.
And many today, in our day, in our context, think the same thing.
Sure, I like Jesus.
He was a great moral teacher, an awesome one, and I actually think that the world would
be a better place if we listened to more of His teaching.
In fact, popular figures will believe this today.
I recently found a clip of Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight in The Office.
He has a podcast where he hosted two other podcast hosts, Rhett and Link, who hosts the
podcast Good Mythical Morning.
And they discussed their thoughts on Jesus in this clip.
And what's interesting about their discussion is that all three of them admire the teachings
of Jesus.
Rainn Wilson, who was a part of another religion, says this in this clip, "I consider myself
a Christian because of my love of Jesus, and especially the red letter Bible, like what
Jesus taught, what He said, and what He did, which is different than what rose up hundreds
of years after His life."
And Rhett responds, Rhett is a deconstructed Christian, and he says, "If we're talking
about subscription to the teachings of Jesus, then I am a Christian as well.
But because being a Christian meant something different, someone who had faith in Jesus
and believed He died for our sins, I would deny being a Christian in that sense."
That distinction is very important.
It's not enough to say that Jesus was a great teacher.
It's not enough to say He was a good person and think that that makes you a disciple of
Christ.
True disciples don't just admire Jesus.
They don't just like what He has to say.
They follow Him.
They submit to Him, and they agree with His teachings.
And these two deconstructed Christians, Rhett and Link, they recognize that, that we can
say we like Jesus, but that doesn't mean you're a Christian.
Being a Christian is committing to the Lord Jesus Christ with all of your life.
Scholar R.T.
France says this, "From the point of view of Mark's narrative, however, the precise
form of popular belief is not important.
It doesn't matter who the people think Jesus is.
It doesn't matter if they think He's Elijah.
It doesn't matter if they think He's John the Baptist.
What matters is that Jesus is popularly perceived as a prophet.
This is undoubtedly a positive assessment, but it falls short of the truth about Jesus."
Friends, believing that Jesus is a good teacher is not enough.
Believing that He's a strong moral figure is not enough.
Believing that He was a prophet is not enough.
Believing these things about Jesus falls short of the most important truth about Jesus.
The truth is that Jesus is not a mere prophet.
He's not just a good teacher.
He is the Messiah.
He is the Messiah.
And the disciples finally pick up on this.
In verse 29, Mark says that Jesus asked them, "But you, who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah," and he strictly warned them to tell no one
about Him.
This is only the second time in Mark's gospel up until this point that Jesus is called the
Messiah.
The only other time before chapter 8 is all the way back in chapter 1 verse 1 where Mark
says the gospel of Jesus Christ or the gospel of Jesus the Messiah.
This is important.
This is what we're geared towards in this book.
Who is Jesus?
He's the Messiah.
Peter gets it.
Jesus is the one foretold in the Old Testament.
Jesus is God who has come in the flesh to save His people.
And He's not just any type of Messiah.
He is the Messiah, the one the Old Testament foretells, who can truly save you from what
seeks to destroy you.
And at this revelation, Jesus warns them.
He says, "Don't tell anyone about me."
Again, this is the first time He's been identified as the Messiah.
Why keep it a secret, Jesus?
Why are we keeping it a secret that you are the one who has come to save us?
Is Jesus denying the title of Messiah?
No, that's not it.
Is He taking a more humble approach and wanting to be called the Son of Man?
No, that's not it either.
So why, Jesus?
Why keep it a secret?
You know that you're the Messiah.
We know you're the Messiah.
Why can't we go and tell everyone?
The reason is that claiming to be the Messiah, especially in regions dominated by Roman rule,
local leaders, and paganism, is a dangerous thing, and it would lead to an untimely death.
New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says that the command to secrecy, the Messianic secret,
is an indication of what we've already seen.
Once Jesus was thought of as a potential or would-be Messiah, the movement would swiftly
attract attention of the wrong sort.
He would attract attention from Israel, but also Rome, because in His day, the Messiah
was a politically charged and deeply nationalistic word.
It evoked deep, deep hopes of liberation from foreign rule and the restoration of Israel.
So when people heard the words Messiah, they thought of overthrowing Roman rule, which
is a big empire to overthrow, and Rome cannot have that happen.
Jesus knew that His identity carried this weight, He carried the weight of explosive
expectations of uprising and deliverance, but this is not the point of Jesus the Messiah.
That's not His aim.
His aim is to not tear down the government of Rome.
You see, Israel was expecting someone like from Daniel 7, 13, and 14, it's one of my
favorite passages in all of the Bible, and this is from the NASB, "And behold, with the
clouds of heaven, one like a son of man came, was coming, and he came up to the ancient
of days and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, honor, and a kingdom
so that all peoples, all nations, and all languages might serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom one which
will not be destroyed."
Doesn't that excite you that the Savior is coming and He will have a permanent kingdom?
He'll be given all power and glory and dominion and it won't be destroyed, and all peoples
will worship Him and be in this kingdom.
But what Jesus reveals next grinds against these expectations.
When they heard Messiah, they thought of Daniel and his son of man coming with kingdom power,
but Jesus says this in verse 31, "He began to teach them that it was necessary for the
son of man that Daniel described, that Daniel saw going up to the ancient of days, that
this son of man must suffer many things, must be rejected by the elders, the chief priests,
and the scribes, that this son of man must be killed and rise after three days."
Jesus was so open, clear, and transparent about this that Peter rebuked him, and then
Jesus rebukes Peter back saying, "Get behind me, Satan.
You're not thinking of God's concerns, but of human concerns."
You see, Peter was right.
Jesus is the Messiah, but He's also wrong.
He was wrong in what the Messiah was coming to do.
These expectations were not calibrated to receive Jesus' words, and it's kind of crazy
to think about Peter rebuking the Lord Jesus Christ, right?
Like yes, you're the Messiah, but also you're wrong, Jesus.
That's crazy.
I mean, that'd be like, picture this with me, I, Jacob and Annie, somehow acquire sideline
tickets to a Chiefs game.
It's the third quarter, the Chiefs are driving the ball down the field one yard at a time,
and then Mahomes does an interception, which is pretty devastating.
He walks off the field, and I walk up and I say, "Patrick, let me show you how to throw
a football."
That was a tough situation, but let me show you where you can look next time before you
throw.
Man, you really messed that up, but you should do this.
What do I know?
Where do I get off telling a literal professional how to play football?
I played left bench at a small California school, all right?
This is not my field.
But this is what Peter is doing, and what Peter is doing is far worse than that.
He's not just coaching, trying to coach a professional, he's trying to tell the God
of the universe how he should be acting.
Rebuke here means to express strong disapproval of someone.
Peter strongly disapproved of the image of the Messiah that Jesus was painting.
Again, they were expecting Messiah to rise up and triumph over Israel's enemies with
politics in battle.
So if someone claiming to be Messiah told you, "Hey, I'm going to go die now," well,
that's no Messiah at all.
That's not my expectation of a Messiah.
The disciples here have partial sight.
They see that he is a Messiah, but they still don't totally get it.
Scholar Ernest Best puts it this way, "Part of discipleship is acceptance of the strange
idea that Jesus the Lord should die, and this acceptance takes time.
Even at the end of the journey to Jerusalem, the disciples do not fully understand, and
if they do not fully understand the death of Jesus, still less will they understand
what this means for themselves."
We must avoid letting our circumstances dictate what the Messiah looks like.
The people of Israel in Jesus's day were under heavy oppression, facing heavy oppression,
and so their image of the Messiah was trained in their history.
But that's not what the Messiah has come to do.
You cannot let your circumstances dictate what the Messiah looks like.
You can't let your situations shape that.
You can't let your desires shape the Messiah.
You can't let your desires tell you what God should be doing in your life, or tell
God what you should be doing in your life.
You telling a professional football player how to play football is complete sanity, compared
to telling the God of the universe how he should show up in your life.
And when we oppose God's will, as Peter does in this gospel, we are thinking on human terms
and not God's terms.
When we oppose God's will, we are thinking of our temporary decades and not the eternity
ahead of us.
And to keep our mind on these things, on this life, opposed to the paradoxical work of the
Messiah, is to agree with God's ultimate enemy, Satan.
Throughout this gospel, Satan only confronts Jesus one time.
The rest of the time it's through others, through Satan shaping their expectations in
opposition to the Messiah.
And so when we start to think of things that are not on the kingdom of God and not on Jesus,
we start to find ourselves agreeing with God's greatest enemy.
I think for Peter, his rejection was also coming from a place of fear.
We've healed the sick like Jesus, we've cast out demons like Jesus, do we have to die like
him now too?
Is fear driving your response to God's will in your life?
Are you afraid of what God is telling you to do and therefore not doing it?
This must not be so.
And if it is for you right now, you must remember all that God has done and said in his word,
and you must remember and recall all that God has done and said in your life.
The love of God will cast out fear as you go to do his will.
So let the scriptures teach you what it is the Messiah has come to do in history and
is coming to do in your life.
Be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do as Jesus did.
Don't do as your family is doing, don't do as your friends are doing, don't do as the
world is doing, do as Jesus did.
True disciples of Jesus must commit themselves to the Messiah, the Messiah promised in the
Old Testament, a Messiah who has victory over the world, over the flesh and the devil and
this victory comes by dying on a cross.
After this revelation that he is the Messiah, Mark tells us in verse 34, "Calling the crowd
along with his disciples, he said to them, 'If anyone wants to follow after me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of
me and the gospel will save it.'"
You know, I've said it again and again in my sermons on the gospel of Mark and even
in this sermon, the phrase, "Be with Jesus, become like him and do as he did."
Be with Jesus, become like him and do as he did, that is what discipleship is, it's being
with Jesus.
In his book, Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer explains this very well, his whole book
is about this phrase and he says that being an apprentice of a rabbi, which is what Jesus
was, meant that you reshaped your entire life around this rabbi and three goals, being with
your rabbi, becoming like your rabbi and doing as your rabbi did.
So when Jesus invited his followers, he was inviting them to a life of apprenticeship,
to these same three things, full-time, all-of-life discipleship.
And the call to discipleship has not changed.
If you are a disciple of Christ, your call is to shape your entire life around Jesus,
to be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do as Jesus did.
And implicit in the demand to do as Jesus did, is to step out in faith to do things
you wouldn't normally do.
This means that if it's God's will, then you too might do the things that Jesus did, like
heal the sick, give sight to the blind, open the ears of the deaf or set free those who
are captive to demonic forces.
That is not outside of the realm of possibility for you as an apprentice of Jesus.
And that's an amazing work that you and I can and are called to.
But doing as Jesus did also means you might lose your literal life.
And I hate to break it to you, but when Mark records these words of Jesus, he's not using
extreme metaphor.
He's being literal, that being a follower of Christ might require your physical life.
What Mark is not saying is that following Jesus might require you to sacrifice things
you desire.
That's definitely true in the Christian life.
We have to give up those things that we desire that are in opposition to God and his will.
But that's not what Mark's getting at in this passage.
Mark is saying that following Jesus might require you to climb up on a wooden instrument
of torture and death and die yourself.
As Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit activist once said, "If you want and follow Jesus, you had
better look good on wood."
That's the life you're being called to.
And it's hard for us to imagine this in the West.
We're not in a context where proclaiming Christ as Lord is going to get you in physical danger.
I'm not going to leave here after preaching that Christ is Lord and die for that.
But that sense of safety is often just an illusion.
We assume martyrdom only happens in places where governments are suppressing the gospel
message.
And that's true.
Martyrdom does happen there.
But while that's true, it narrows our understanding of what costly discipleship is, what it really
means to live your life as a disciple.
And worse, it can become an excuse for us to avoid gospel work here.
Many of us, myself included, will proudly proclaim, "I would die for Jesus.
I would die for Jesus if someone came and threatened my life and said, 'The only way
you're getting out of this is if you recant that Jesus is Lord, I would die for Jesus.'"
But we also roll up our windows pulling off a highway because we don't want to talk to
the homeless.
I'd die for Jesus, but I'm not going to that neighborhood because it's kind of dangerous.
I'd die for Jesus, but I'm not going to this situation because it's uncomfortable for me.
Jesus risked his life for the gospel.
Avoiding uncomfortable situations is not what Jesus did.
And you are called to do as Jesus did.
What he did was risk his life, indeed give his life for the gospel.
And I think you and I need to be open to that as well.
I worked with a pastor, his name was Andrew, who did this very well.
For years he had been ministering to a drug addicted, on and off drug addict, homeless
man named Scott.
And once Andrew helped someone in a way that Scott did not like, was not a fan of, and
Andrew was in his office about a week later, and the homeless community in that area, many
of them, came to Andrew's office and started banging on the windows, "Pastor Andrew, Pastor
Andrew, you've got to get out of here.
Scott said he's coming and he's coming to kill you, and we've seen him do it before.
Please leave."
They pleaded with him.
But Andrew, who is an apprentice of Jesus, who spends much time with Jesus, becoming
like Jesus, and doing as Jesus did, asked these people, "Well, where is Scott?
I think him and I should have a talk."
Andrew phoned a friend.
They found Scott waiting in the park with an aluminum baseball bat.
Andrew confronted Scott.
This confrontation ended with Scott giving Andrew a big hug and tears, and that aluminum
bat sits in Andrew's office today.
That's a positive end to the story, but Pastor Andrew knew the cost of discipleship.
Pastor Andrew knew Jesus' words well.
Andrew was ready to die to help Scott, to do as Jesus did.
Are you willing to follow Jesus in that way?
If God called you to go to Scott, and it didn't call me, then I probably would have said no.
I'm not going with you to this crazy meeting you're going to have, but that's because I
don't understand that ministering to people might require my life.
Are you ready to follow Jesus that way?
R.T.
France again says, "What Jesus calls for here is a radical abandonment of one's own identity
and self-determination.
A call to join the march to the place of execution follows appropriately from this.
Their self-denial is on a different level altogether from giving up chocolates for Lent.
It is not the denial of something to the self, but the denial of self itself."
You're not giving up things that would deprive you of worldly pleasures.
You're giving yourself over for the gospel.
Now what I want to tell you is don't go into life-threatening situations, but I hesitate
to say that, because if I say that, I am ignoring and disobeying the words of Jesus.
So instead I tell you, seek God's will, and if that includes you heading into dangerous
life-threatening situations, know that this is what Jesus did, and he did it for you.
He never tells us to do something he's not willing to do or hasn't done himself, and
he has gone ahead of you and died himself, and if he's calling you to these dangerous
situations, he will go before you and be with you.
True disciples of Christ imitate Christ even to the point of death.
Are you apprenticing with Jesus in this way?
Are you living a life of willingness to lay your life down for Jesus and for the gospel?
And the real question is, is Jesus worth your life?
Being a disciple means committing all of that life to him.
This is hard for us, because we still have those areas where we say no, like I'll die
for Christ, but I won't go there.
Jesus can have my whole life, but not this one area.
Are you holding back areas in your life from Jesus?
Are you holding back your very life from Jesus?
Doing so does not help us answer the question, the most important question, of who Jesus
is.
It's been the forefront of our minds this whole series, and it is the most important
question you will ever answer in this life.
Who do you say that Jesus is?
And the reason it's so vitally important is because if we get Jesus wrong, we get all
of life wrong.
If we get Jesus wrong, we will miss his kingdom.
If we miss the paradoxical work of Christ on the cross who conquered death by dying,
then we will miss the power of God's kingdom in the world today.
At the end of our passage, Jesus tells his disciples, "I tell you, there are some standing
here today who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming in power."
I don't know about you, but I believe what Jesus says, and if I believe what Jesus says,
that means those who heard his words at this time saw the kingdom of God come in power.
But if I miss Jesus and his work as a messiah, I'm going to miss that power.
I'm not going to understand that the kingdom of God has come.
I'm going to seek to bring the kingdom of God through other sources of power like money,
wealth, politics, or even brute force instead of laying my life down for the gospel.
If we miss Jesus, we miss his kingdom power because his kingdom power does not look like
what we expect it to look like.
If we get him wrong, we'll miss the presence of evil in our day.
The people of Israel were expecting Messiah to crush their enemies, and they thought that
their enemies were Roman rule and pagan religions.
That if we can just get rid of Rome, we'll be good.
If the messiah comes as a military leader against Rome, all things will be well, but
they miss the fact that their true enemy was not geopolitical forces or the oppression
of Rome.
It was sin, death, and the devil.
Jesus does come as a mighty warrior, but he comes to save those who are lost, to throw
out demonic rule, to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, not crush politics.
And today, if we get Jesus wrong, we will engage in losing battles with false enemies.
Your enemy is sin, death, and the devil, and Jesus has conquered that enemy by dying.
If we get Jesus wrong, we will be wrong about what the truly good life looks like.
We'll chase after temporary things that only temporarily fill us up, and then leave us
feeling more empty than we did before.
We'll worry about temporary and fleeting things that are not of God, that won't even exist
when his kingdom comes in its fullness.
And if we are not getting Jesus right, we will live a life that is paradoxically full
of lack.
Friends, we cannot get Jesus wrong.
Who do you say that I am is the most important question that you and I will ever answer.
And you may, you may, you may have to answer it with your life.
And so I ask you here today, who do you say that Jesus is?