Series: Call Me
Mark 8:35 ESV (Focus)
Mark 8:34-37 ESV
Mark 35:34-37 The Message
When I was younger this verse made absolutely no sense to me.
Mark 8:35 tells us, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”
So, since I did children’s sermons in large church (the kids called it big church) I had to figure out how to explain or illustrate this verse and other verses like it in a way that a child (or myself) could understand it.
So we need to look at the broader text from Mark 8:34-37, “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. 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 soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?”
Looking at the broader text does help some but when I was doing children’s sermons we didn’t have the tools we have today. I did have three Bibles that had different translations.
We did have the internet…of sorts. It was sometimes helpful to look things up but forty or fifty years ago it wasn’t anything like what we have access to today. One of those Bibles was the Living Bible.
We did not have The Message.
The Message from Mark 8:34-37 says,
“Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
It’s like having a teacher (which Jesus was). When we are in class we are not running the show. We are not in charge because the teacher has a plan to teach us something we don’t know. Even though we don’t know what we don’t know we need to trust the teacher because they DO know.
A really good teacher might give an illustration. Like, pretending she is teaching the class about something that would be interesting.
When we learn something new we know nothing about it can be difficult to relate to the new concept. In this case an example would be if you hurt your finger really bad and you try to pretend your finger doesn’t hurt, it’s going to hurt more. For one thing if you don’t clean the wound and put medicine on it the would will get worse. Instead you need to pay attention to the wound.
Plus, when I get hurt I’ve learned that if I turn to Jesus no pray about the wound it starts getting better immediately. Now, full healing may take time but Jesus can help with the pain we suffer.
By turning to Jesus we give Jesus (God) the right to help us when we hurt. Essentially we give the wound and the pain to God.
We let God be in charge of the healing.
It makes perfect sense really.
Unless we let go and ask Jesus for help and turn the matter over to God, we will remain in charge of the pain and it may not go away.
We also have to address control issues. If someone insists they must have full control of everything they are missing the big picture. If they are in charge, that means Jesus is not in charge.
There’s no other way around it.
According to Mark 8:35 the whole point of the Gospel Message is that we need to let God be God.
We have to admit we are not God.
We lose that part of our life (the need to always be in control) and in return we surrender to Jesus no give the control to Jesus.
It’s a trust issue really.
The other thing about people who always have to be in control is that they were not born that way. More than likely they had something tragic or frightening happen that made them think it’s not safe to give up control. If giving up control to Jesus is included in their need to hold onto control, they are losing out on having the life of freedom that Jesus wants them to have.
Some people are so intent on not trusting anyone that they won’t trust anyone (including Jesus).
The answer for them is found in admitting they have control issues. That’s because until they are willing to see the whole problem and to let go of having to be in control, they won’t be able to trust anyone, including Jesus.
It all goes back to trust.
So is there good news for them? Of course there is, because God is God.
Helping other people to learn to trust and let go of their fear gradually is what counselors and Spiritual Director’s do.
Even though baby steps are baby steps, each baby step in the right direction is progress.
And besides, God loves it when we take baby steps toward Him.
Spiritual Practice: Call God
Is there something you want to or need to let go of? Tell God you wanna wanna wanna let go. God will help you let go. God will ease you into it. Jesus WILL honor your desire to be closer to Him.
In God, Deborah
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