The end of chapter 8 is smack dab in the middle of Mark’s gospel account. It also contains the pinnacle climax crescendo of the entire book! It’s the famous passage in which Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, speaking on behalf of the others, says, “You are the Christ. The Son of the living God.” Bingo! Nailed it. Gold star for the boys.
Moments later, however, Jesus is rebuking Peter and calling him Satan. That escalated quickly! Jesus had just got done telling the disciples that he must suffer and die. That’s not the expectation they had for the Christ. The Messiah that was supposed to rescue his people was going to die? That sounded like a terrible plan to the 12! And Peter let Jesus know.
It was right after the humiliating rebuke of Peter that Jesus spoke some of the most famous words that we find in red letters. He called the crowds of people over to him. Everyone that was within earshot. “Gather around. This is important. You need to hear this.” And he proceeded to give them an incredible invitation. An invitation to follow him!
Thousands of pastors give a similar invitation toward the end of their sermons each week. An invitation to follow Jesus. But it seems to me that the content of most 21st century “follow Jesus” invitations are very different than the one that Jesus himself modeled for us in Mark 8. I grew up hearing a lot of these invitations. I’ve seen a lot of them on television. They’re all a little different, but they’re all pretty much the same:
“Are you tired? Is your life not going the way that you had expected? Not going the way that you desire? Are you struggling in your marriage? Are you struggling in your finances? Are you struggling with your health? Are your kids out of control? Do you have fear & anxiety in this economy? Is your joy gone? And maybe you’ve tried everything. Maybe you would be brave enough to admit that you’ve given yourself over to the lusts of your flesh. You’ve tried alcohol. You’ve tried porn. You’ve tried Netflix. You’ve tried vacationing to different destinations trying to find some peace. You’ve tried entering into different relationships trying to find fulfillment. And yet your life is still a mess? You just can’t seem to find that fulfillment no matter how hard you try. You can’t find meaning. You can’t find satisfaction. You can’t find happiness.
“If that’s you, I want to invite you this morning to try Jesus. Come to Jesus. Follow Jesus. He loves you. He loves you more than anyone ever has and he loves you more than anyone ever could. He has a good plan for your life. Plans to prosper you. To give you a future and a hope. He can bless your mess and make beauty from ashes. He’s a miracle worker who makes a way where there seems to be no way. He will use his resurrection power – the same power that raised Christ from the dead – to resurrect things in your life that have been dormant for years. He will turn your mourning into dancing and your sorrow into joy. He will give you the desires of your heart. He will make you more than a conqueror!”
The invitation usually ends with something along the lines of, “With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you want to receive that kind of blessing this morning, just go ahead and slip your hand up.” In my particular experience, there was always someone in the back of the sanctuary with a handheld tally counter looking at all the hands that go up. Click, click. Click, click, click.
I vividly remember, toward the end of each year, that particular church would always announce how many new salvations they had. It was always some astronomical number. “We had 742 new decisions for Christ this year!” As everyone else was clapping and cheering, I remember looking around and thinking, “There’s only like 500 people in this auditorium. Where are all the new converts?” Sadly, there are likely hundreds of thousands of false converts across America each year that receive some sort of false assurance from some sort of false teacher that they are good to go for eternity because they raised their hand and repeated a prayer.
The problem is that the invitation, although containing hints of biblical language, is largely a man-centered version of “Jesus thinks you’re awesome and wants to sprinkle you with so much magical fairy dust that you won’t have room enough to receive the blessings,” rather than “Jesus is the sovereign King of the universe and demands your whole-hearted allegiance and faith.”
Jesus’ invitation was simple. “If you want to be my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” Essentially, “If you want to be a Christian, you must reject all your selfish ambitions and be prepared for some suffering. Possibly death.” Not as many hands are going up for that one.
But this is true Christianity. This is the cost of genuine discipleship. And we ought to count the cost before we raise our hands (Luke 14:28). Jesus never promised that following him was going to be gumdrops and puppy dogs. Quite the opposite. John 15:20. Matthew 5:10-11. John 16:33. Matthew 10:16-18. 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4. 2 Timothy 3:12. 1 Peter 4:12. James 1:2.