Who do you say that I am? - Mark 8:22-38

What does much of contemporary Christianity offer? Come to Jesus and … live your best life now, reach your full potential, enjoy fulfilment, inner peace and prosperity and have a comfortable life. Maybe even achieve cultural and political influence. Effort to make Christianity seem more appealing to the culture – whole church movements started by this philosophy – seeker sensitive churches – trying to make the gospel more palatable to unbelievers. Overall, the focus today seems to be on quite a self-centred version of Christianity, what’s in it for me?

Not much has actually changed in 2000 years. In our text this evening, we’ll see that Jesus’ disciples had a similar attitude. They had visions of glory in their life with Jesus – that they would ride with him to a this-worldly Messianic victory, to crush the Roman colonisers. They thought success, power and fame were coming their way.

Yet Jesus puts them right very quickly. No, he has not come for a this-worldly glory – instead he has come to earth to suffer and be executed on the cross. And if you follow him, you too must deny yourself and take up your cross.

What we’ll see in this sermon is that because Jesus is the Messiah, he suffered and died for our sins and calls us to die to a self-centred life.

Preacher: Rev. Antonio Coppola