Count the Cost

Mark 8:34-38
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, October 18, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gary Wassermann

Satan said, “Skin for skin!  A man will give all he has for his own life” (Job 2:4).  The question before us today is, how much will a man give for his own soul?  How much is your soul worth to you?  Will you give all you have for it?

We cannot save our own souls, but Christ can.  The book of Mark has shown what Jesus does for sinners by the graphic demonstrations of his miracles.  What he did in causing the lame to walk and the blind to see shows what he does for sinners.  He healed the continual bleeding of the woman, and he is the one who heals and stops the heart from continuing to bleed out sin and misery.  He called a dead girl back to life, and he gives eternal life to the soul that is dead in sin.  He was willing to cleanse the leper, and he is willing to bring sinners into the glory of heaven, spotless and clean.

But how are we to gain this salvation?  How do we come to share in this salvation? That is the question Jesus addresses here.  We must be his disciples, and he is very explicit about what that means.  This definition of discipleship appears at least six times in the gospels: twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, and once each in Mark and John.

I am going to divide our text into, first, the cost of discipleship (v. 34), which will be my main focus for the morning, and, second and more briefly, the cost of refusing discipleship (vv. 35–38).  There are only two choices: discipleship or not discipleship.  Every one of us will choose one of them, so we must understand what these two paths will bring.

The Cost of Discipleship

If anyone wants to share in Christ’s salvation and to join him in his glory, in his everlasting kingdom, he must be Christ’s disciple.  Jesus gave three commands to those who would be his disciples: you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him.

These are not three steps to be done in sequence.  We could describe them as three facets of what it means to be a disciple, or, the cost of discipleship.  Certainly, they overlap in meaning, but in order to emphasize what is distinct among them, I am going to cover them in succession:  “Deny yourself” (put yourself down); “Take up your cross” (bear the hatred of the world); and “Follow me” (you will not know the plan). 

Deny Yourself

This is a widely misunderstood command. “Deny yourself” does not mean “Don’t eat chocolate.”  It does not mean denying things that you like.

In classical Greek, the word for “deny” was used first in the sense of saying “No” to a question.  “Did you go to the school campus without permission?”  “No, I have not been there at all.”  That is a denial.  The word then came to be used in a second sense, which is to refuse in relation to a demand or claim.  Hebrews 11:24 uses this word to say, “Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”

Both of these two meanings in the earlier Greek language are gathered up into what came to be the main sense in the New Testament, which is to deny a person.  The one whose claims are resisted and denied is a person.  You deny someone, not something.  And you deny not just any person, but a person with whom you previously had a personal relationship—a relationship of obedience and fidelity.  In Revelation 3:8, the Lord says to the believers of the church in Philadelphia, “You have not denied my name,” and he commended them.  “Deny” is what Peter did to Jesus when he called down curses on himself and disavowed knowing or having any association with Jesus.  That is what the disciple must do to himself.

You must deny yourself because self and God cannot stand together any more than Dagon and the ark can both stand.  Self must fall.  Sin puts self in the place of God, and is determined to take God’s throne, and therefore self must be denied.

I am going to cover four areas where self competes with God and must be denied, following the division of the Puritan Thomas Manton.

First, do not trust in yourself.  There can be only one who is ultimate and independent.  Sinful man wants to be independent.  The devil’s first temptation in the garden was baited with the lie, “You will be like God knowing good and evil.”  In other words,  “You will be able to stand on your own two feet.  You will be the judge. You will be the measure of all things.” That is a statement of humanist philosophy, that man is the measure of all things.

But God alone is independent and self-sufficient, and he expects obedience and trust from us.  We are creatures, and there is nothing that we have that we have not received.  There is not one of the good and perfect gifts that come to us daily, that does not come to us from above, from heaven.  Therefore, we cannot rely upon or depend upon ourselves. Do not trust in your own wisdom, your own abilities, your own possessions, or your outward circumstances.  Do not trust in your own righteousness.

Now I could imagine that perhaps there is no one here who would say, “I am trusting in my own righteousness.” And yet it is very easy to deceive ourselves at this point so that we are doing the very thing we say we are not doing.  So consider this: Do you slack off in your service to God, taking into account your past service, as though you could ride on that past service for a little while?  Do you grumble and get angry and irritated when God does not hear your prayers or show up when you seek him?  Why has he not recognized all of your efforts? If Jesus Christ is not most precious to you, that is a sign that you are, in fact, trusting on your own righteousness.

Second, deny your own will.  There can be only one absolute Sovereign, and the greatest contest between God and man is whose will shall stand.  Sinful man asserts himself.  We read in the book of Jeremiah about the hardened determination of sinners to do their own will.  Jeremiah 18:12 says, “But they will reply, ‘It’s no use.  We will continue with our own plans; each of us will follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”  As our pastor has often said, man says, “I will do what I want to do when I want to do it, how I want to do it, and who are you to tell me what to do?”

Well, if you want to know who God is to tell you what to do, the answer is, “He is the Lord.” And he expresses his will in two ways. One is through his commands, and the other is in his decrees, which he works out through providence. In both of these, we must deny our own will.

So we deny ourselves, first, by obeying his commands.  He is the Lord. He does not ask what is easy or what you feel up to doing.  Jesus himself demonstrated what denying your own will looks like when he faced the cross and he prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Some of his commands are immediate and specific:  “Cut off that sinful relationship!”  “Tell your family how much God has done for you!”  Some of his commands are much longer term.  As he told the servants in the parable of the talents, “Put this money to work until I return.” He also says, “Love one another.”  “Raise your children in the fear and knowledge of Lord.”

Do not look at these long commands and say, “I can’t.”  He who knows our frame has given these commands.  It is true that we cannot keep them in our own strength, but in his strength we can.  If we go on saying, “I can’t,” we are simply saying, “I won’t.”

God also expresses his will also in his decrees worked out in providence, in whatsoever comes to pass, that is, what he has determined should happen. But the response of self is to say, “God is not doing it right. I know how things should be run.  If I were in charge, things would be different.”

When we murmur and complain, we are grumbling against God.  When we are disappointed and gloomy, we are saying that God is not doing right.  You must deny yourself by submitting to God’s will in whatsoever comes to pass.  We have a hymn that expresses this well. It says, “Whate’er my God ordains is right.”

So submit to God by saying that in all things God is in control, and what he does it good.  Receive cheerfully whatever he brings because his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  Whether the Lord gives or whether the Lord takes away, bless the name of the Lord, and even further, say that what has happened is good.  Apply the truth that God works all things together for the good of those who love him.  Now, this does not mean that we become passive fatalists and do nothing about our circumstances.  As Paul said to slaves in 1 Corinthians 7:21, “If you can gain your freedom, do so.”  But in that same passage, he also said to the slaves, “If you cannot, do not let your station in life trouble you.”

Third, do not love yourself.  There can be only one who is the highest good, who is to be valued above all else.  God is rightly that one.  He rightly deserves all our love.  Sinful man refuses to love God or his neighbor, and when these two are pushed aside, all that remains is self and what belongs to self.

Everyone does this by nature.  But some people are especially prone to it.  Successful people are especially prone to it—those who get A’s, those who are succeed in sports, those who get promoted—are especially prone to love and congratulate themselves.  People who govern and people who perform in public are prone to being impressed with their own virtues and their own successes.  Remember that in the perfection of heaven, pride entered the heart of a mighty angel, and he became the devil.

Very few people would ever admit to loving themselves, even though most people do it. So consider:  Are you impressed with your own abilities and your successes?  Do you minimize your failings?  Are you envious of others, and upset when they are privileged or recognized when you are not?  Envy is a sure sign that self is large within you and that it has not been denied.

All of these are love of self, and as Pastor Mathew has famously said, you can love yourself to death.[1]  If you want to deny yourself, you must face seriously your own sinfulness.  Bring your own estimation of yourself down several notches. Don’t minimize it, and don’t be superficial about it.  Fix your eyes on God, who in contrast is light and is perfectly pure.  Consider how much you owe to God, and then look at your life and see how your life measures up to your obligation.

Fourth, do not live for yourself.  By “live for yourself,” I mean that in all you do you aim at your own enjoyment, your own good, your own profit, and your own advancement.  We cannot serve the ultimate good of two masters.  There can be only who is worth serving, and we were made to glorify God.  That is why 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”  If you are going to live to glorify God, then you are going to choose some things that will be for the worse for you because there can be only one ultimate. That is what the cost of discipleship is.

We may not notice when we are living for ourselves, so consider these questions.  In your decisions, do you prioritize the kingdom of God above getting a better job, above securing for yourself what you want, above being able to find a spouse, and above recreation?  Do you go to church primarily for some benefits—perhaps the social interactions, perhaps help with your children, or something else?  Is “because I like it” reason enough for you to do the things that you do?  And, finally, on this point of living for yourself, do you love others?  If in your “self-denial,” other people are a bother and an irritant that you would rather avoid, then you are still self-seeking.  Love means the other person’s good at my expense.  And as Jesus said in Matthew 5:46, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” That is ultimately still self-love.

All of this is what is included in the command to deny yourself.  Now, I want you to understand that at no point in your life will your self ever be gone and in the past, so that you no longer have to actively deny yourself.  That’s the cost. But I ask again, how much is your soul worth?  How much is Jesus Christ worth to you?  The great promise is in verse 35: “Whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” 

Take Up Your Cross

The second part of the cost of discipleship is “Take up your cross.”  Taking up your cross does not mean putting up with the burdens, the troubles, and the irritations of life.  It is not the case that the more irritable the person, the more he is bearing his cross.

This is the first time in the gospel of Mark that the cross is mentioned.  Just before this Jesus said that he must be rejected and killed, but he didn’t say crucified.  It is the disciples’ cross and our cross that is mentioned first.

The disciples and the crowd who heard him had seen many people crucified.  In 4 BC, the Roman general Varus crucified two thousand Jews, and, according to Josephus, there were mass crucifixions during the next hundred years.  The Romans used crucifixion to humiliate and torture their enemies to death.  And, of course, the person sentenced to death by crucifixion had to carry his own cross to the place where he would then be crucified on it.

Anyone who wants to follow Christ must take up his cross.  Just as the cross was the fullest expression of the Roman Empire’s hatred, the disciple’s cross is the hatred of the world.  If anyone wants to follow Christ, he will be hated by the world.  Second Timothy 3:12 says, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  The world expresses its hatred in many ways—through rejection, insults, slander, mocking, imprisonment, physical suffering, and even death.

It is the world that does the hating, and it is the world that inflicts the cruelty, but Christ’s command to take up your cross is an active command.  How are we then to take up our cross?  In two ways, basically. One is in reckoning and the other is in doing.

So, first, think through and embrace the world’s hatred.  If you don’t come to terms with it, you will shrink from it and try to avoid it and be shaken by it when it comes.  The second-soil hearer does not think through the trouble and persecution that comes because of the word.  So when these things do come, he quickly falls away.  He never took up his cross.  Look at the martyrs we know in history.  They were not super-Christians.  They were the same kind of Christian as every other true Christian.  And we are not exempt from what happened to them just because we are Americans.

Following Christ does not mean health and wealth but suffering and death.  When Jeremiah faced ridicule and scorn, he said, “O Lord, you deceived me” (Jer. 20:7). But God did not deceive him.  God had told him plainly from the beginning, “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you” (Jer. 1:19).  But Jeremiah, rather than keeping the word of God in his mind, looked around and just assumed that his life would play out much the same as the lives of other people he saw around him.

Will you follow Christ if it means ridicule and scorn? Will you follow Christ if it means a harder and shorter life, or a harder and longer life—long with pain and difficulty?  How much is your soul worth to you?  The apostle Peter received the rebuke that Jesus gave him just before this passage, and later on in his life he wrote, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.  If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Pet. 4:12–14).

Second, we take up our cross by doing what will result in the world’s hatred.  You do that first by doing the will of Christ.  That will provoke the hatred of the world, even though that is not your goal.  The world considers religion to be a part of life in the same sense as hobbies are a part of life.  One person likes basketball, another person likes golf.  One person likes Christianity, another person likes Judaism, and another prefers no religion at all.

But the world cannot understand obedience to Christ above all.  It is at first baffled and then indignant.  Jesus said to a man in Luke 9:59, “Follow me.”  Now, the man understandably requested to go first and bury his father.  This may seem like even a noble request—a request born out of a noble filial piety.  But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”  We do not know what he did.  But suppose that he did follow Christ as Christ commanded. What would his relatives and neighbors think of him?  Would they appreciate the authority of Christ’s call and the man’s own devotion that caused him to follow Christ and to neglect the world’s idea of a family duty?  I think you can well imagine what would have been said of him.  If you want to follow Christ, you will have to bear the loss of friends and the suspicions of those close to you who feel slighted.

You take up your cross by living a holy life.  The world is sinful.  The world cannot understand holy living.  Peter says, “They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you” (1 Pet. 4:4).  The world will not hate a compromiser.  The world hates the one who says, “No,” and who makes it stick.

You take up your cross by speaking about Jesus Christ.  Make known who you are as a Christian and who it is you serve.  Don’t keep silent and hide.  It is not our goal to be contentious or abrasive.  Our goal is to draw others to Christ, to share in the same salvation that we have received.  But the world hated Christ, and the world continues to hate Christ.  In John 15, Christ referred seven times to the hatred of the world against himself and his people.  Speaking about Christ will not win you friends.  It may look scary.  But it is the way of discipleship.

This is the way of a Christian’s life.  The parallel passage in Luke 9:23 says that if you want to follow Christ you must take up your cross daily.  It is true that each of us can die physically only once, but we take up our cross daily by daily living toward that one death.  Jesus also died only once, but he lived his life always moving toward the cross.  (GMW)  At the beginning of his ministry, as we read in John 3:14, he stated, “The Son of Man must be lifted up,” clearly alluding to his coming crucifixion.

Count the cost.  Is your soul worth enough for you to take up the cross?  It was to the apostle Paul.  Paul said in Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” 

Follow Me

The third part of the cost of discipleship is the command, “Follow me.”  If you want to go where Christ is going, to his glory, to be with him in his kingdom, you must follow in his footsteps along the path he trod to get there.  There is a false notion prevalent in the church world today that Jesus obeyed—Jesus did the obeying—so I don’t have to obey.  Jesus suffered—Jesus went through all that and the crucifixion, so I don’t have to, but I get all the benefits.  Well, not according to Jesus. If you want the benefits that he came to bring, you must walk in the path that he walked.

He has indeed gone before us in denying himself and in taking up his cross.  You know that he who was rich in eternal glory became poor for our sakes, so that we “through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).  At any time over the course of his life, he could have called down legions of angels to do his bidding.  And aside from his supernatural power, at key times he could have kept quiet and avoided trouble.

But he did what he did because as he said so often, “The Scripture must be fulfilled.”  He did not make decisions based on what he had the opportunity to do, or what he had the ability to do, or what he wanted to do.  He did what he did because that is what the Bible said.  And that is the pattern for his disciples as well.  We do not live by what we are able to do or what we want to do, but what the Bible says.

But “Follow me” doesn’t just mean do as he did.  It means follow him.  Discipleship is not fundamentally about living a moral life or even following a sterling example.  There are plenty of people who do not participate in the prevailing moral rot going on around us who are nevertheless not Jesus’ disciples.  And all such righteousness will ultimately be seen by God as filthy rags.  Discipleship is following Jesus himself.  It is ultimately what is done from him and through him that is pleasing to him.

Now, what does it mean to follow him rather than just a moral code? Well, for one thing, we read in Revelation 14 about those who had been redeemed from the earth standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion.  Verse 4 says, “They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.”  A disciple follows Jesus wherever he goes.  And as we focus on the cost of discipleship, you must understand that you are not going to be given a roadmap that says what the course and sequence and events of your life will be if you set out to follow Christ.  God doesn’t tell you exactly what sacrifices you will actually be called to make—only that you may have to make any and every sacrifice.  He does not tell you exactly what work or service he will call you to do, or whether it will be something different tomorrow or the same thing for a long time. He says, “Follow me.  I will tell you what you need to know when you need to know it.”

We like to know the plan.  We want it all laid out for us.  We can even handle a great deal of hardship if we know how long it will last and what the limits of it will be. But God does not give us that.

Sinful man has his plans and his ambitions, and he is determined to go on the path that he wants to go on.  James 4:13 gives the words of the man who determines his own course.  He says, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”  He’s got his plans. It is all laid out.

Now, you can make plans, but your plans are always subject to the Lord’s cancellation, and Christ’s disciples look to him to follow where he leads.  To say instead, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that,” that is not just the language of wisdom, but it is the language of submission.  Disciples do not know what is coming next, and in these times, we’ve gained some experience of not knowing what is coming next.  Disciples are content to know that it is in the Lord’s hands.  They are like the Israelites who set out when the pillar of cloud rose, and encamped when the pillar settled, and there they stayed until the day God led them somewhere else.

Jesus rose morning by morning and sought his Father in prayer.  The Lord opened his ears, and he did the will of his Father.  This is what the Lord’s disciples do also.  This does not mean we don’t make plans.  Young men, if you want someday to support a family, you must work toward a career goal over a long time and be disciplined about it.  In fact, almost anything we do requires planning.  But if we want to go to be with the Lord in glory, we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.  In all our ways we acknowledge him (Prov. 3:5–6).  When he says, “Go,” you go.

So are you following the Lord?  Do you receive direction?  Do you receive correction?  Do you seek God’s will ongoingly?

Now we may ask at this point: Is the cost of discipleship so severe because Jesus resents disciples?  Is he reluctant to have disciples and irritated by those who would follow him, so that he is trying to get rid of them, if possible?  Not at all.  The one who said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me,” also said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).  He is also the one who said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37).  He has the same heart as God the Father.  In Ezekiel 33:11 God says, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” 

The Cost of Refusing Discipleship

It is out of this desire for our salvation that he goes on to speak of the cost of refusing discipleship.  Verse 35 begins with the word “for,” and in the original text, verses 36, 37, and 38 all also begin with “for” although the New International Version omits it.  “For” gives a reason, and reason is somewhat implicit here.

To make explicit what Jesus has in view when he says “for,” we could read verse 35: “See to it that you do not refuse, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”  And verse 36: “See to it that you do not refuse, for what good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”  And verse 38: “See to it that you do not refuse, for if anyone is ashamed of me and my words . . . the Son of Man will be ashamed of him.”

So if the cost of discipleship seems overwhelming or impossible—suppose you refuse.  As Jesus says, “Whoever wants to save his life . . . ”  Understand that to refuse discipleship, you don’t have to do anything.  You don’t have to curse God.  You don’t have to act like a punk.  You don’t have to get up, turn your back in anger, and walk out in a dramatic demonstration.  All you have to do is—nothing.  Carry on as you were.  In fact, you can even enjoy hearing about Jesus and approve of his words and of his call to discipleship.  But if you do not actually do what he has said to do, you are refusing discipleship.  The person who is just a lump refuses discipleship.  The person who returns to frivolous conversation and forgets what is said refuses discipleship.

You don’t have to deny yourself.  You can do what works for you, what advances you, what makes you comfortable, what makes you more money.  You can look at your sins and determine that you will solve that problem by doing a better job on your own.  You can live by the motto, “I am right.”  And suppose that in the most extreme possible case you got everyone else to agree with you. Suppose that somehow everyone else is as impressed with you as you are.  What will happen in the end?  What the devil hides, Jesus states plainly.  You will lose your soul.  It all amounts to nothing.  You must finally face the truth.

The road of discipleship is narrow, and few find it.  The road of refusing discipleship is broad, and many travel on it, and as they travel, they are pursuing a little bit more, a little something more—a raise, a bigger house, a promotion, an inheritance.  A little something more. If I had a little more, I would be comfortable.

Well, suppose you get a much bigger house and a promotion way up the ladder.  One person who made it all the way to the top was Alexander the Great.  He conquered everywhere he went to the point that he was in charge of almost the entire known world, and it is said that he wept because there were no more lands to conquer.  And at the young age of 32 he died like every other mere man and he went down to torment.

How about a little more money?  What could you do with it?  The lust for a little bit more money drives the world.  People spend time and effort to get a little bit more and they spend, at best, left-over time and left-over effort on God.  People make the decision that this is better than that because this is more profitable.

But what will you do?  What will you get with a little more money? Suppose you get not a little bit more but a lot more. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of about $200 billion.  Two hundred billion dollars is not enough to keep him from dying, and neither is $200 trillion.  No amount of money can save your soul. A little bit more money becomes golden handcuffs that keep us from following the Lord.  And to use the language of James, the wages that you choose, that you pursued, at the expense of discipleship are crying out against you, and they will appear as evidence against you at the great throne of judgment on the last day.

And as for this matter of shame: We live in a world that is ashamed of very, very little.  Jesus calls this “a wicked and adulterous generation,” and adultery stands as a representative of this whole family of sins that the world is totally unashamed of. In fact, people march in pride, declaring their pride in all these sins.  You go downtown, and you see flags flying. You drive on the road and you see bumper stickers.  At the governmental, in the courts, and in the schools, in the corporate workplace, you see sin celebrated and promoted. In the entertainment industry, in music, in television shows and movies, everything promotes and normalizes sin. And the only one the world has contempt for is Jesus Christ. And the world has contempt for anyone who follows Christ. And the world casts shame on anyone who follows Christ. And you will be ashamed of Christ, if you are not ashamed of your sin. You will bend and bow, and you will become a friend of the world, and an enemy of God.

But understand this: Christ will come again, and he will come in glory. He will come in the glory and power of his Father, with his holy angels, and he will be seated to judge the world.  And when he is seated, what will the judgment be upon those who are ashamed of him in this wicked world? He will declare, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.”

But you don’t have to come to that state.  And if you are ashamed of your sin, you will not be ashamed of Christ, because Christ is the only Savior and the only Redeemer from your sins.  The apostle Paul was not ashamed of Christ.  In Romans 1:16 he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” There is salvation in and through Christ alone. And even while Paul was suffering in prison, he said, “I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).  Disciples of Jesus Christ will overcome the contempt of the world and the shame that the world tries to cast upon them, to stand boldly and unashamedly for Christ because we have nothing to be ashamed of.

Now, Christ has plainly laid out the cost of discipleship, and the cost of refusing discipleship.  I want you to understand this: that heaven and eternal glory, and a place in the glorious kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not for those who don’t want to go to hell.  Glory is for those who follow Christ as his disciples in this life. It is for those who are faithful unto death.

Follow Christ.  Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him.  The cost is high, but the cost of refusing is incomparably higher.  Amen.

 

[1] P. G. Mathew, “Love Yourself to Death,” https://gracevalley.org/sermon/love-yourself-to-death/.