So we're going to pick up where I left off in Mark's Gospel chapter 8, and we're going to pick it up in verse 27. My plan is to take us all the way through Mark 8, all the way. We're going to pretend like there's not a chapter break and go right to 9.1 is where I'm going to preach this through to. And if you read your Bible there and maybe just see it in front of you, it looks like an unfortunate chapter break really because the flow goes right into chapter 9 verse 1. I'm not going to read it all at one time. I want to divide it into three sections. The first being the Great Confession, which is verses 27 to 33. Before I read the word though, let me pray for the word. Our Father and our God, we pause before the reading of your Word to acknowledge that this is the very Word of God. And Lord, we know that it's powerful and mighty. Lord, it can break down strongholds. So Lord, we just pray your blessing on your own Word, Lord, because we are dull. Lord, we have our minds drift when we listen to preaching. So Lord, we pray a divine enablement by your spirit that our ears would be open, our hearts could receive, Lord, our minds could understand. Lord, that you'd receive glory in the preaching of your word. And we thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. So the great confession Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi. And on the road he asked his disciples, saying to them, who do men say that I am? So they answered, John the Baptist. But some say, Elijah. And others, one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him. So we've been kind of marching on these journeys that Jesus has been taking his disciples on. And now we're at Caesarea Philippi. This is not Caesarea, which is on the Mediterranean coast. It's Caesarea Philippi, which is about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. So he's a little farther out than where they normally would be treading around. And I believe Jesus had some serious things he wanted to talk to his disciples about. And he takes them in that direction, kind of get away from the Pharisees and the scribes. And he can teach them. And he begins with this, what I'm going to call a test here, of not only who does the populace say I am, but who are you guys saying I am, is what he's doing here. When they respond about the people, the general public view, they knew very well what the people were saying. And we don't get that so much in the Bible. We don't get all the peripheral conversations that are going on in the crowd as Jesus is teaching, but the people talk. And they say to one another, could this be Elijah that's returned? And they're talking like this in the crowd. And the disciples who are out in the crowd, they hear this, and they know what they're saying. And they say, well, it could be John the Baptist, maybe Elijah, some say. One of the prophets, I believe it's Matthew, it might be Luke, says that maybe the prophet, meaning the prophet that Moses spoke of that was to come. The one thing the crowd does not say is they're all kind of thinking maybe you're the Christ, you're the Messiah, you're the anointed of God. The crowd is not saying that, even though, and this is significant in this story, even though Jesus has been performing the signs that the Old Testament spoke of that would be signs accompanying the coming of Messiah. But the people did not think that's who he was at this juncture. You remember back in Mark chapter 6, it says, "...King Herod heard of him," meaning Jesus, "...for his name had become well known." And he said, this is King Herod, he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead. Therefore these powers at work in him. Others said it's Elijah. Others said it's the prophet. There you go. Or like one of the prophets. But Herod heard and he said, no, this is John, whom I beheaded. He's been raised from the dead. So that's what the people are saying. And of course, he hones it down to who you say I am. Well, I went rabbit trailing yesterday on my study. And I'll share a few statistics. I'm not a big statistic guy. But there's two studies that I looked at. Because I just simply went searching for who do people say Jesus is today. What are the crowds saying today when you mention Jesus? And this first poll is a 2015 Barna research poll. And within that poll, they said that 92% of Americans believe that Jesus actually lived. He's an actual historical figure. 56% of those that were polled said that they believe that Jesus is God. 52% said Jesus was just a human and he had committed sin. A lot of people believe that. 26% of the adults surveyed said Jesus was just a religious teacher and leader in his day. 62% of adults said that they had made a personal commitment to this Jesus, which is kind of interesting as you start to stack the numbers. And then 37% of those who were self-identified Christians. So they asked the question, have you committed your life to Christ? Whatever the question was, they identified in the affirmative. So now they're just dealing with people that are self-identified Christians. 37% of those failed to acknowledge repentance and faith as key to entry into the kingdom. That doesn't surprise me quite honestly, because I tell you, the preaching of repentance has fallen on hard times. A lot of pulpits do not preach repentance. They think it's an offense to the ears of the people, and they really don't talk about repentance and being the flip side of the coin of faith, right? Returning from sin and self and embracing Christ by faith. Now, that 37% of these self-identified Christians fall into various buckets. So dividing that up, that 37%, 8% agreed that their goodness would get them to heaven, because they're good enough. 5% because they tried to keep the Ten Commandments, even if they failed somewhere along the line, they tried their best to keep the Ten Commandments. 7% said that because God loves all people, nobody will perish. Universalists, right? 15% said, I don't know. I identify, I'm telling you I'm a Christian, but I don't know if I will go to heaven. And 2% said they just simply didn't know what happens after death. Now, that's an older poll. That's seven years ago. There's a more recent poll that Ligonier put together, Ligonier Ministries, The State of Theology. You can look that up. They do it every two years, thestateoftheology.com. If you want to see the 2020 results, which is what I looked at, I don't believe the 2022 results have come out yet. But on that poll, they said, of those that were polled, 52% said Jesus is a great teacher, but he's not God. 48% said the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths. but it's not literally true. So they don't believe in the validity of the truthfulness of the Bible. And 65% of the evangelicals, those who said they were evangelical Christians, said, and this one almost shocks me, 65% of those polled said, and these are evangelicals, said Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. If you know anything about ancient heresy, that's the heresy of Arius. That the Jehovah's Witnesses still perpetualize in their teachings that Jesus is the greatest created being, but he's not God. He's like a little g-god. That's not scriptural. The thing I liked about Ligonier is when they came back after that, they didn't say, see all these people, they think they're Christians, they're not. What they said was, the church better listen to this as a wake-up call to pastors to teach the Bible. People that proclaim that they're Christians, if they're in a church somewhere and they don't know the truth of scripture, they need to be taught the Bible. So who do people say Jesus is today? It's just a cacophony of chaos of who they think Jesus truly is. And that's a little bit of what's going on in our story today where Jesus says, who did the people say that? They didn't know who he was. They certainly didn't think he was the Christ or Messiah. But he says, well, who do you say I am? You are the Christ. You are the Christ. Matthew obviously expands that a little bit more, probably the verse we think of, which is, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So in Mark's gospel, this is the first use of the word Christ, or God's anointed, since Mark 1.1, where we were told that this is the gospel about Christ, right? That that's the good news about Christ. There is other instances in the gospels where we see the disciples you know, in their fledgling ability, beginning to understand that perhaps this is the Messiah that was to come. John 1.41, Andrew, when he goes to find Simon, he says, we found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ. When Jesus walks on the water and gets in the boat in Matthew 14.33, they say, truly you are the Son of God. Who else walks on water? And when Jesus gives his teaching about him being the bread of life in John chapter 6, and he eventually in his teaching offends everybody. Everybody's offended. They all leave, except for his disciples. And you remember this story. It says in John 6, 67, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, do you also want to go away? It always gets me. Jesus goes, there's the door. I mean, now's your big opportunity. You can go with the crowd. Are you also going to go away? He says, but Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we've come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So it's a test of sorts here that Jesus would question them at this juncture. The Greek scholar Robertson says, but did the disciples still believe in Jesus as Messiah after all the defections and oppositions that were seen by them? They're two and a half years into this ministry, and it seems like everywhere Jesus goes, the crowds rush forward. They don't understand who he is. They don't understand his teaching. He heals. He casts out demons. The leaders, the Jewish leaders, over and over again. It doesn't look like things are going real well. Who do you say I am now is what Robertson's kind of tugging at there. And they say, no, you're the Christ. You're the son of the living God. There's a lesson here that Hendrickson in his commentary pulls out, and I thought it was good. He says, when Jesus says, but you, who do you say I am? It conveys a very important lesson, namely, that a true believer is one who is willing, whenever necessary, to fly in the face of popular opinion and openly express a conviction that is contrary to that of the masses. In the best sense of the term, the believer is willing to come forth boldly in the interest of truth. And that's exactly what's going on here. So Jesus and his blessing are omitted by Mark. They're not included in Mark's gospel. We have to go to Matthew to see that, where Jesus responds and says, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. Well, all of us sinfully curious Bible studiers go, why didn't Mark have it in his gospel? Well, the absolute answer is because God didn't put it in Mark's gospel. It's not supposed to be there because the gospel is perfect. But it makes you wonder if Peter was the primary source for Mark, which I think he was. Did Peter just simply omit it in the conveying of the information because of humility? Peter remembered where he messed up. As a Christian, he wasn't afraid to say, you know what, I really blew it here. But did he just in humility not want to convey that we had Jesus actually pronounced a blessing on me at that moment? Alexander McLaren in his sermon on this subject says, flesh, and listen to this, flesh delights to recall praise. Faith and self-knowledge find more profit in remembering errors forgiven and rebukes deserved, and in their severity, most loving." In other words, that God would lovingly rebuke us when we err, when we sin, that we remember where we really blew it, but God forgave me in Christ. We remember those things. Not so much the praises, is what McLaren is saying there. So to labor on this just for a moment, it's very clear that in Jesus' blessing, he conveys the thought that flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you. Human knowledge and human insight is insufficient for fallen man to recognize and confess that Jesus is Messiah, that Jesus is Christ. That has to come through divine enablement. That's what Jesus is teaching here. 1 Corinthians 12.3, Paul kind of references this thought when he says, Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Now, he's not talking about false professions of faith. Because Jesus deals with that. He says, well, many will come and say, Lord, Lord, we did this, we did that in your name. And I'm going to say, I never knew you. Away from me, you workers of iniquity. Jesus deals with that. Paul's talking about true professions of faith. We can't truly and accurately, from a heart of faith, say that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is Messiah, Jesus is my Savior. That comes from a work of the Holy Spirit in us. That's what Jesus is really teaching us here. Hendrickson says that Jesus exercises his sovereign will in this world. He recognizes only those people who led by the Holy Spirit, acknowledge his true divinity and obediently bow to his authority, right? It's a high calling. And Jesus is gonna move into that high calling when he calls us to himself. One more quote for you and then I'll move on. R.C. Sproul says, many people today have positive things to say about Jesus as a model of virtue, a great teacher, and so on, but they stop short of saying he is Messiah. This is the great divide between Christians and unbelievers. Only one who has been born again can confess that Jesus is the Christ. And then R.C. says, can you? And I'd say if you say, yes, indeed, I can confess He is Christ, He's my Savior, then that didn't come to you from flesh and blood. Thank God Almighty, you also are under the benediction or the blessing of the Lord who's enabled you to understand these things. So we have the great confession followed by the grim prediction. It begins in verse 31 down to 33. It says, And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned around and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Now I told you we're about two and a half years-ish into the ministry as Jesus has been discipling his disciples, maybe six months-ish before he goes to Golgotha to be nailed to the cross. It's looming. It's coming. It's a burden that Jesus knows He's been carrying it. We'll see what that burden looks like in the Garden of Gethsemane as He prays to His Father. But He's now going to share that burden, and the Bible says that He spoke the Word openly. Meaning he didn't give them a parable that they had to go figure out. He plainly told them exactly what was coming. He shares now that burden. And they must have known, and this is just me thinking, but they must have known that Jesus had something heavy on his heart. And when he finally you know, unloads that, if you will, and brings them into that knowledge that his closest ones, his friends, he calls them, his friends, his disciples, would also know the burden that he carried and where he must go. And when he told them these things, and I underlined it in my notes here, it says, he began to teach them that the Son of Man must That's key. The Son of Man, in other words, these things must happen. They must. McLaren, in his sermon on this subject, says, the cords which bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar were not spun by men's hands. The great must which ruled his life was a cable of two strands, obedience to the Father and love to men. These held him to the cross and fastened him there. He would save, therefore he must die. He must. Well, this flies in the face of not only the disciples' expectation for what was going to happen, but also the populace. Nobody expected Messiah to come in that day as a suffering servant. Nobody had that expectation of the Messianic mission. So we have to have a little bit of understanding when we see the reaction of Peter. Peter's thinking, okay, wait, now we got the messianic identification down, right? You are the Christ. Yeah, he acknowledges that's right. But Jesus has his messianic mission all wrong. You see, what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to go into Jerusalem, maybe the triumphal entry. You're supposed to take the throne of David and rally Israel to yourself, cast out Rome, and reign in glory now. That's what's supposed to happen. So Peter takes Jesus aside, maybe not to embarrass him, and kind of lays out, hey, look, you got this all wrong. This isn't the way it's... No, no, there's no suffering involved here. You go right to glory. And Jesus says, that's not the Father's will, that's not the Father's plan. You're actually interfering with what God has in store. When you look at some of these passages and you think, how did they not see this in the Old Testament? The teachers of the day would have said, well, the suffering servant passages like of Isaiah were really talking about the nation of Israel that was suffering under the weight of Rome and being occupied and not really having their freedom. That's the suffering servant. They didn't really equate it with the coming Messiah, the anointed one who would come. And that's why they didn't really understand why Peter had the reaction that Peter had. the road of suffering leads to eternal glory. That's a teaching that has been flip-flopped in our country, with the name it, claim it, folks. It's not a direct path to glory without going through the Via Dolorosa. You go through the path of suffering, you carry the weight of the beam to the point of execution that Jesus is gonna teach us, and it's to the grave, and then the skies, like the old hymn says. Glory later, suffering now. That's what Jesus modeled. Jesus said in Luke 24 verse 25, He says, and the context of this is after the resurrection, He meets the two on the road to Emmaus. They're so downcast because this one they thought was maybe even Messiah, and they ended up killing Him. And when He talks to them, He says, O foolish ones, That's kind of a rebuke, isn't it? O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? Isn't it the pathway of suffering that led Christ to glory? And they didn't understand. And it says he began at Moses, the Pentateuch. He begins with Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Which I have to imagine was the things concerning the path of suffering that would lead to glory. And Jesus taught us as Christians that the servant is not above the master. And he says that in John 15, beginning in verse 19, he says, if you, he's talking to his disciples, but we can really say this is to us, if you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they'll keep yours also. In other words, we shouldn't expect a life any different than what our Lord Jesus went through. Now, obviously, His passion is not what we suffer through. But if you ever thought to yourself, I just feel like I'm on this road of suffering, Jesus speaks it pretty straight to us. It's suffering now, glory later. And the book of Acts, just to inspire the churches, so they say in chapter 14 verse 22, what's the message? The message is, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. Or Paul says in Romans 8.18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. The glory that's coming. Suffering now, glory later. I remember being at the bedside of a man. He died young. He was maybe in his 30s. And he had a difficult dying. And I sat with him as he died. And I remember reading that verse to him. When you go down that path, when you're at that point, you better know this scripture. The sufferings I'm going through at this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. God's got a destination for us and it's not the grave. We're passing through that point. It's on to glory. It's on to glory. So Peter here rebukes Jesus, kind of a strong term. And again, McLaren says this, speaking of Jesus, it says, he hears in Peter's voice the tone of that other voice, which in the wilderness has suggested the same temptation to escape the cross and win the crown by worshiping the devil. And he puts the meaning of his instinctive gesture into the same words in which he had rejected that earlier seducing suggestion. You don't have to go to the cross, Lord. You can go straight to glory. And Jesus says, that's not the path. The path is through suffering, is through the cross, and then glory. It's interesting with Peter. Can't we all relate to him? He's doing so great. Within just a couple of verses, he receives revelation from God. He voices absolute truth. And the next thing, he's the voice piece for Satan himself. And Jesus rebukes him for it. And then thirdly, A radical commitment. A radical commitment. I thought for a while what I wanted to put there for that word. I had other words and I kept going, that's not it. And I said, no, it's radical. It's a radical commitment that Christ calls us to. He says, in verse 34, and I'm going to read it right to 9.1. It says, when he had called the people to himself, with his disciples also, he said to them, whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said to them, Assuredly I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power. Well, he used the language must when it came to his cross, his suffering. It must happen. It must, it needs be. When he gives this open invitation, the language isn't a must. All of you must carry your cross. All of you must deny yourself. What he says is whoever desires to come after me. He opens it up for a decision on the part of the people, but he doesn't play games with us. He lays it all out and says, but you got to understand, Jesus says, I set the parameters of what's required for you to come to me. It's on his terms. And Jesus lays out his terms here. It's the narrow requirement. And think about what we just read, and then think of this well-known passage, where Jesus teaches, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. So the criteria that Jesus lays out, well, what is that narrow, not only gate, we come to Christ, but there's a way, there's a path that we follow. What's that look like? And he lays out those parameters. He goes, well, one, if you want to be mine, if you want to be a Christian, if you want to come to Christ, you have to deny yourself. It involves the dethroning of ourselves off of our own lives. We have to take ourselves off the throne and enthrone Christ. And beloved, everything I'm telling you here is absolutely impossible in the flesh. This is something the Holy Spirit has to work in somebody. That's why we need to be praying for the lost. But we literally, in coming to Christ, have to deny ourselves. There's places where I have to now say no to my flesh. As a matter of fact, the Bible says the flesh is crucified in Christ. The old man's dead, right? And yet we still have these sinful tendencies. But we deny ourselves and we say yes to what Jesus tells us to do. He's our Lord now. He says, secondly, that we have to take up a cross. They would have understood what that meant. It's a little hard in our culture. If you're not a churchgoer, I don't know if somebody would really even understand what Jesus is saying here. But you have to understand, in the context of what's going on in history, in the context of this Mark chapter 8, that when somebody was convicted by Rome, not just Jesus, but somebody was convicted, and the conviction was deserving of death, they had to carry the cross beam all the way out to wherever they were taking them, in this case for Jesus, Golgotha, and take them out, and they would carry that beam all the way to their impending death. So when Jesus says, oh, you want to follow me? You want to be a Christian? One, you have to dethrone yourself. You have to deny yourself. Secondly, pick up that beam. Pick up that beam. You're going to carry that beam all the way to you finally one day die. And I think what he has within that is we must be willing to suffer shame for his name, ridicule. I've been laughed at when I preach Christ on the streets. And face the shame, take the ridicule, even being willing if it ever came in this country to the point that we would have to lay down our lives. Either deny Christ or you're going to be executed. That we say, you know what? There's a better world for me coming. This might be something you're going to do to me, but this is the last suffering I'll go through because the next stop for me is glory. And we have to be confident of that. That's what Jesus is calling disciples to. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. And follow me, right? Jesus said in John 10, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Right? We don't follow others. Jesus taught that in Ephesians 2. We follow Jesus. He mentions in this passage having a proper soul valuation. If somebody wouldn't understand the value of their soul, and we would see people. I looked up the richest people yesterday, because I don't really know these people. You've heard these names, but Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates. They have hundreds of billions of dollars. And I don't know these guys. For all I know, they're Christian. I don't know a thing about them. I know they're rich. But of all you're pursuing, even if you end up with $175 billion, if you don't have Christ, this life is a poof of smoke. Have you ever read the Bible about that? James says it's just a wisp of smoke. It's gone. We're living now in light of eternity, of where we'll spend eternity. Everybody will have eternal existence somewhere. either hell or glory, heaven, with Christ. And he says, you have to have a proper valuation of your soul. It's priceless. There's people that chase everything in this life. They get it all. They get the RVs, the campers, everything. And I'm not saying that's evil, but that's all they've got. That's the entirety of everything they've struggled for. Years ago, I had an insurance claim with a guy. And I used to meet so many people. And he was that guy. And he was telling me what he had achieved and what he was going to do. And the guy was like in his 80s. And I didn't say this. But I thought to myself, don't you know you're going to die? I mean, this isn't going to go on forever. What do you got planned for that moment? What do you got planned for after death? I mean, and that's what Jesus is referring to. Listen to this in Psalm 106. Now Psalm 106 is talking about Israel who sinned in the wilderness as God was leading them through the ministry of Moses. And they began to lust after what they didn't have. Now think about that. They got God, they got divine feeding, manna, and they began to lust about all that they thought they had back in Egypt. You know, the leeks and the onions and the good food. And it says in Psalm 106 this, verse 13, it says, they soon forgot his works. And they did not wait for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tested God in the desert. Now the next verse is what frightens me. It says, and he gave them their request. Oh, you want meat? Oh, you'll have meat coming out your nostrils. Remember that? He gave them their request, and then it says, but sent leanness into their soul. They wanted something physical. They lusted after something in the flesh. God even gave it to them, but it ended up with their souls being malnourished, is what the psalmist is saying. JD Jones says, we see men getting their desires, getting comfort, ease, and wealth. We see them pampering their lower self. And we see them paying for it in leanness of soul. On the other hand, when a man dies to self, when he crucifies his flesh with the affections and the lust thereof, he rises with Christ into a new life, a rich life, an eternal life. Sacrifice of some kind must be made. The only question we have to settle is which we will sacrifice, the lower or the higher, what the world calls life or what He calls life. Here, there's the first reason for obeying Christ's call and bearing the cross by sacrificing self, by crucifying the flesh, by losing that lower life, we gain the life which is life indeed. And I hope all of you know that's true. And then he says, now there's a way we could maybe put our faith in Christ and avoid the pain and the trials and the struggles by being a closet Christian. We could just make sure that, you know, your friends don't know you're a Christian, your co-workers don't know you're a Christian, nobody knows you're a Christian. You secretly put your faith in Christ, but you're not going to face any of the trials that the world will heap on you, because you're going to keep it all to yourself. And were there people in the Bible that did that? Yes, there was. When you read, and I think it's over in John's Gospel, John 12, there it is. He says, nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. They would have been cut off from society. That was the place where the society met. That's where all your friends were. They would have been put out of society, is really what he's saying. So they kept it all a hush. They didn't say anything. And Jesus sharply warns us not to do that, right? He says, if you're ashamed of me and my words and this adulterous sinful generation of him, that one who's ashamed of me, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father and his holy angels. McLaren in his sermon, pointed out something I didn't really think about, but he says he didn't say they were cut off from him. He just said it's going to impact what that experience is like when he does come for these people who truly put faith in Christ but were afraid to speak up on behalf of Christ. I don't want to be that guy. I was going to go one time, and I can't remember where it was. They were going to go to another country and preach. I wanted to go, and they interviewed me, because they don't just let anybody go. And they said, well, why do you want to go? And I said, because I don't want to stand before my Lord and have that look on my face that I was ashamed of Him in this life, that I wouldn't go to people and tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ. And they were like, OK, you're in. But I couldn't make that trip. Something happened. We ended up canceling that. So our conduct towards Christ now, Jesus says, determines Christ's conduct towards us when he returns. In Revelation 22.12, Behold, I'm coming quickly. My reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work. Let me say this before you think I'm preaching on every street corner. I've failed miserably at times with this. Where I went back home and I thought, you know what, I had an opportunity, I had an open door. I didn't tell them because I was afraid of what they might think of me. And if you're really true to yourself, I bet you've had those experiences too. You pray, you confess it to the Lord, you ask for His strength, and next time I walk through that door, maybe I go right back to that individual and I speak to them the things of Christ. But we've all failed at some point or another. So I don't want you to think I'm high and mighty looking down at you guys. We all struggle with that. And that's why we need to pray for each other and encourage each other. So lastly, this difficult verse, I'm not going to unravel it for you, but I'll give you a few suggestions, and I'll tell you why it's difficult. It's chapter 9, verse 1, because he says, Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power. So people look at that and they think, okay, the people that are there don't die. And I've heard people say, well, maybe somebody there, God still preserved their life until the second coming of Christ. We just don't know it. There's like three guys that were right there and they're still here, but they're kind of incognito. We don't even know that they're still living, right? Remember, John said there was a rumor going around that he was that guy, if you read the very end of John, but he said, that's not what the Lord said. He didn't say I was gonna live forever. But I don't think that's what's going on here. So then we have to ask ourselves, well, what is Jesus talking about when he says that there's people here that are not going to taste death until they see the kingdom of God present with power? Is he talking about the very next scene in Mark, the transfiguration, where we see Jesus in his revealed glory on the mount? Kind of seems odd that he says, some of you guys aren't going to die by next week. Because that was like six days later. It doesn't seem right to me. Could be that he's talking about, some of you won't die before I go through what I just explained and rise from the dead. And I'm powerfully risen. Ephesians chapter 1 talks about that mighty power that rose Christ from the dead. It could mean, that could be what he's talking about. Some of you, you're going to go through this, you're going to watch me die, but you're going to still be alive when I rise from the dead. Some think he's talking about possibly the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, the birth of the church, when thousands come at the preaching of Peter, a movement of the Spirit, where Jesus even says that they would be endued with power from on high. And that's when they go out and preach. And a few would look at this and say, well now he's talking about the coming of judgment in 70 A.D. on Jerusalem and the destruction of Jerusalem, where really Judaism was permanently separated from Christendom. It wasn't just a subset of Judaism anymore. It was stand-alone, if you will, dedication to Jesus Christ. I don't know the answer. But hopefully it made you curious enough that you do some studying on your own and maybe look into that a little bit, because I think it's interesting. If you want to read a book on it that somebody's devoted an entire book to, I wouldn't say Bertrand Russell. He's an atheist. He said he wasn't a Christian because of this. But R.C. Sproul has a book, and I think it's called, the end times according to Jesus. And that's an interesting read. I don't know if I agree with everything Sproul said in that book, but it's an interesting read. And I don't get any royalties for that, so I'll just be throwing that out there to you. Well, let me close with prayer. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for what you did. Hand yourself over to wicked men who took you and abused you and hung you on a cross where you died, but that death was vicarious. Lord, you died in our place. You took our sin upon yourself and you rose gloriously three days later. You died for our sins. We're raised for our justification. Lord, we acknowledge the high call to come and follow you. Father, help us not to ever water that down when we share the good news of the gospel with people, that you don't just call for us to lay aside part of ourselves, but to literally come off the throne and bow our knee to you in obedience. So Father, thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.