More Precious Than Praise and Possessions
00:00:00.000 | Praise and possessions.
00:00:06.620 | Those are two dominant idols of our age.
00:00:08.960 | The desire for self-glory and the desire for material wealth.
00:00:13.000 | So what is the Christian's relationship to the praise of the world and to the possessions
00:00:17.080 | of the world?
00:00:18.080 | Pastor John explained in a really helpful sermon at the 2019 Gospel Coalition National
00:00:23.320 | Conference in Indianapolis.
00:00:25.720 | The sermon on Jesus' words in Mark 8 verses 31 to 38.
00:00:30.520 | I'll begin by reading the text.
00:00:33.760 | Mark 8 31 to 38.
00:00:35.480 | And he, Jesus, began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be
00:00:39.680 | rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three
00:00:45.800 | days rise again.
00:00:47.600 | And he said this plainly.
00:00:49.320 | And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
00:00:51.420 | But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan, for
00:00:57.040 | you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."
00:01:01.320 | And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after
00:01:05.520 | me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
00:01:09.040 | For whoever would save his life will lose it.
00:01:12.240 | But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.
00:01:16.940 | For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to forfeit his soul?
00:01:21.560 | For what can a man give in return for his soul?
00:01:24.440 | For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation,
00:01:30.160 | of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with
00:01:35.720 | the holy angels."
00:01:39.440 | Here now is Pastor John.
00:01:42.240 | Verse 36, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
00:01:53.840 | For what can a man give in return for his soul?"
00:01:59.300 | This is about possessions.
00:02:00.300 | This is about stuff, money, houses, books, computers, land, businesses.
00:02:12.160 | Suppose your heart considers the worth of Jesus and considers the worth of possessions,
00:02:19.720 | the gladness you could have in Jesus, the gladness you could have in possessions.
00:02:24.760 | And suppose your heart is drawn to prefer possessions, which is what is happening to
00:02:33.560 | billions of people.
00:02:35.600 | Suppose your heart is drawn to prefer the worth of possessions and you turn away from
00:02:40.800 | Jesus and you embrace as superior to Jesus all that earthly possessions can give you.
00:02:51.080 | And suppose you succeed all your life, you succeed, nothing but success.
00:02:55.960 | And by the end of your life, suppose you own everything, the world, everything, not just
00:03:08.640 | Apple and Google, mobile oil, all of it.
00:03:15.400 | It's yours.
00:03:16.400 | You call all the shots.
00:03:17.960 | You own them all.
00:03:19.920 | That's what he envisages, right?
00:03:22.040 | Verse 36, "Gain the whole world and then you die."
00:03:31.080 | And instantly you realize it was suicide.
00:03:37.800 | It was eternal suicide.
00:03:41.680 | And suppose facing Jesus, you say, "I'll give you everything.
00:03:48.680 | I'll give you everything I have.
00:03:51.080 | I own it all.
00:03:52.080 | I'll give you everything, the whole world in return for my soul."
00:03:57.960 | What do you think he will say?
00:04:02.720 | I think he will say this, "You would try to buy your soul with the very possessions
00:04:15.640 | that destroyed your soul?
00:04:19.240 | The very possessions that you preferred over me?
00:04:25.400 | Christ-replacing, Christ-belittling idols have no currency in heaven."
00:04:38.600 | And he will turn his face away and you will perish forever.
00:04:44.880 | What you just tried to do with your money, that ransom, pay.
00:04:53.440 | For the many, for the elect of God, the ransom is paid and you preferred not to be a part
00:05:03.280 | of it.
00:05:04.720 | You preferred not to be with Jesus.
00:05:08.280 | You preferred to make crystal clear you were not elect.
00:05:13.160 | That's what you meant to do.
00:05:14.920 | You're going to go with the alternative treasure.
00:05:18.480 | "Oh, my, don't do that."
00:05:24.120 | That's verses 36 and 37, and the intention is to clarify how the me and my gospel of
00:05:31.200 | verse 35 is more precious than things.
00:05:36.280 | Do you feel freedom welling up in your heart right now?
00:05:40.000 | I do.
00:05:41.000 | I mean, there are temptations.
00:05:42.360 | 73, with stuff.
00:05:46.120 | I need all the help I can get to be free.
00:05:49.120 | Right?
00:05:50.120 | You do too.
00:05:51.800 | Free, free, free from the main idols in the world, possessions and praise.
00:05:59.640 | Let's look at praise.
00:06:01.480 | Verse 38, "For whoever is ashamed of me and my words."
00:06:06.720 | And notice again, me, me, my words.
00:06:11.800 | Verse 35 said, "Me and the gospel."
00:06:14.120 | Here it's me and my words.
00:06:16.120 | "Whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of
00:06:24.280 | him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father and with
00:06:30.440 | the holy angels."
00:06:33.040 | So Jesus is making clear there are two audiences for our lives.
00:06:39.200 | Number one, this adulterous and sinful generation.
00:06:44.520 | Adulterous, not mainly because they sleep around, but because they find more pleasure
00:06:50.800 | in God's creation than in God, and thus they commit adultery against God, which is
00:06:57.000 | the essence of sin.
00:07:00.600 | Adulterous and sinful generation.
00:07:03.880 | The other audience is three, the coming of the Son of Man or the Son of Man at his coming,
00:07:11.720 | his glorious Father, and millions, I'm going to say millions from Daniel 7, millions of
00:07:19.240 | holy angels.
00:07:21.560 | That's a lot of glorious beings to smile at you or turn away.
00:07:27.240 | And the question for us is, whose approval do we crave most?
00:07:32.840 | Whose praise are you most desperate not to lose?
00:07:39.160 | In whose presence do you fear most being shamed?
00:07:44.240 | Which relationship is most precious to you?
00:07:48.600 | Which brings us back now to verse 35, "Whoever would save his life will lose it."
00:07:55.080 | That is, whoever lives to save his reputation, to avoid shame, to save his acceptance with
00:08:03.960 | the people that matter to him, namely an adulterous and sinful generation, which points out the
00:08:12.760 | inanity of it all, will lose his respectable and popular life.
00:08:19.160 | The Son of Man, the Son of Man, the all-glorious Father, the millions of holy angels will,
00:08:26.320 | in one terrifying moment, turn their face away in eternal shame.
00:08:31.480 | If you have tried to save, "I've got to save my reputation.
00:08:36.120 | I've got to save my acceptance.
00:08:38.520 | I've got to save how cool I am in the lives of everybody," you're going to die.
00:08:44.720 | And millions of angels, the noblest creatures in the universe under God, will turn their
00:08:50.720 | face away.
00:08:53.120 | But the second half of verse 35, "Whoever loses his life on account of me and the gospels
00:08:59.080 | will save it."
00:09:00.080 | In other words, whoever experiences me and my suffering and my rejection, my death, my
00:09:08.280 | shameful crucifixion, my resurrection, whoever experiences all that is more precious than
00:09:15.160 | the respectability of popularity, more precious than being accepted, being admired by an adulterous
00:09:26.480 | and sinful generation, you're going to live forever under the smile of the Son of Man
00:09:32.840 | and his Father and millions of angels.
00:09:36.260 | So here's the sum of the matter.
00:09:38.640 | Mark 8, 31 to 38 is first news, the greatest news in the world.
00:09:45.880 | Verse 31, "The Son of Man must suffer many things.
00:09:52.160 | He must be rejected.
00:09:55.080 | He must be killed.
00:09:57.600 | And he must rise again.
00:10:00.600 | The merciful, sovereign, all-controlling God planned it, prophesied it, performed it, suffering,
00:10:09.080 | rejection, death, resurrection of the Son of Man.
00:10:14.500 | And therefore, it's not random, it's gospel.
00:10:20.600 | It's ransom.
00:10:22.040 | It's grace.
00:10:23.800 | The way in to the gospel so that you not only experience the suffering, the rejection, the
00:10:30.200 | death, but the resurrection unto eternal joy with Jesus, the way into that is to experience
00:10:38.040 | the birth of a new self, a self that looks at the suffering, the rejection, the killing,
00:10:45.580 | the rising of Jesus, and then looks at possessions and looks at praise and says, "Possession-loving
00:10:55.920 | self, praise-loving self, I deny you.
00:11:02.840 | I kill you.
00:11:04.000 | I reckon you dead.
00:11:05.320 | You have no dominion in my life."
00:11:07.760 | That's a new man.
00:11:10.040 | That's a miracle.
00:11:11.040 | That's salvation.
00:11:13.480 | And if it costs me my life to deny you, you possession-loving self, you praise-loving
00:11:21.360 | self, if it costs me my life to deny you, I'll die gladly to be with Jesus forever.
00:11:29.640 | That's the point of this text.
00:11:31.120 | Amen.
00:11:32.120 | Dying to self-praise and dying to a love of possessions.
00:11:36.080 | You can listen to or watch the entire 2019 Gospel Coalition National Conference message
00:11:40.400 | online at DesiringGod.org and search for its title, "The Golden Stitches of Sovereignty,"
00:11:46.400 | preached a little over a year ago on April 1st, 2019.
00:11:50.000 | Thanks for listening today.
00:11:51.000 | If you haven't done so, you can get new episodes as soon as they launch by subscribing to Ask
00:11:55.160 | Pastor John in your favorite podcast app in Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube
00:11:59.240 | channel.
00:12:00.240 | And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us of your own,
00:12:03.800 | go online to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:12:09.240 | Well is God humble?
00:12:11.280 | Is God humble?
00:12:13.240 | It seems like such a simple question, doesn't it?
00:12:15.200 | It's not.
00:12:16.200 | It's actually a really great question, exactly the kind of question we have come to expect
00:12:20.360 | from our perceptive listeners out there.
00:12:22.920 | Keep them coming.
00:12:23.920 | Thank you for sending in great questions like this one.
00:12:26.200 | Is God humble?
00:12:27.200 | I'm your host Tony Rehnke.
00:12:28.640 | That's next time on Friday.
00:12:29.640 | We'll see you then.
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