To follow Christ means surrendering all rights to self-rule and accepting His call, whatever the cost. True discipleship does not seek comfort or self-preservation, for whoever tries to save his life will lose it. Only by letting go of personal pride and ambition can the soul find its worth in the love of God, who gave His Son as the propitiation for our sins. The challenge is simple yet searching: whose bid will you accept? The fleeting gain of the world, or the eternal gift of Jesus?

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now, we have a Bible reading this morning from the Gospel of Mark and Chapter 8. And in the Gospel of Mark in Chapter 8, Jesus is dealing with his disciples and he’s explaining to them about some of the choices of life once you’ve become a Christian. And those choices are things that the Gospels are written not only just to bring people to know Christ, that’s why they call them Gospels, but they’re also written so that by going deeper understanding into those Gospels, we’ll learn to make the decisions that make us successful disciples. And when we talk about the use of the Gospel, the use of the Gospel isn’t only just to convert people and get them to be recruited to be Jesus’ disciple, but to help them to find the change of life that true discipleship embodies.

[00:01:05] And that’s why the Gospels are as long as they are. If they were just to tell you to come to Jesus and be saved and that was it, you’d only need two or three chapters. But they’ve all got 20 or so chapters, 18 to 20 chapters, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because God wants us not only to get converted not only to come to know him but he wants to mould us and make us into deep disciples and so in this passage Jesus looked up and said I see people but that’s not the right passage so Mark 8 is where I was looking for let me just check it’s not my fault and verse 34 and we’ve got 24 there Mark 8 34 if we can adjust that and the passage that we’re looking at here is one where Jesus is talking about being a disciple and some of the cost of it and I had a bit of a thrill yesterday you probably, most of you are aware of the fact

[00:02:20] that we had a wedding here yesterday and after the wedding someone well I had a number of different times to talk to different people I knew but also someone came and talked to me about deeper things and about the fact that this the passage were used in the wedding about the love of God that passage talks about the fact that it’s not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And a lot of people have that idea that religion does engender in you that if you love God enough, then he’ll let you in the door. And so they do a good thing trying to be loving people, but the truth is that you can never do enough for God to let you in the door because we’re so completely sinners underneath.

[00:03:19] And the only way that we get in the door is that Christ came and he took the cost of our sin and he died in our place. So it’s not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation, the buying back us entrance with God or acceptance with God, the propitiation for our sins. And that was what the passage was on. And someone came to me afterwards and we had a talk about that propitiation when Jesus suffered our sins and died for our sins. So we don’t have to do anything to deserve becoming a Christian. Christ finished it. He did it. It’s not that we love him, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins. That was the thrill of my last night, as well as the wedding. It was a pretty good wedding. It was crowded out. Goodness me.

[00:04:27] Well, here we have Jesus and in this passage he’s dealing with the crowds, but he has in his mind the fact not just of people coming to be his disciples, he had a group of recruits already, but the fact that there is a decision-making to be persisted in, continued in, as we walk as Christians. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, now that’s because to be a disciple of Jesus back then you had to get up and follow him. When he called the people down by the beach, the fishing folk, he said, follow me and I’ll make you to become fishers of men. And the activity after you come to Christian is letting Jesus make you into something. And there’s often a cost to that, which is what he now wants to talk about.

[00:05:31] And he says, if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Because you see, there is this continual self-denial that we need to be up to allowing in order that what it is to be a disciple to continue to happen. Whoever who would save his life will lose it. Now when it says save his life, it’s what people do when they take precautions, not pay too much cost. You’d be amazed, I’ve been a pastor here for nearly 20 years now, and it’s very visible that we all go through certain little actions where we save ourselves from paying too big a cost. What happens when there’s something for me to do for my work as here, but there’s a good football match on? There’s nothing wrong with watching football.

[00:06:32] Nothing wrong with playing football, as long as you pick the right code. But at the Gabba, a fantastic thing, but there’s nothing wrong with going to the Gabba to watch a footy match, but there can come a time when you have to choose, and your discipleship may be that you have to deny yourself. You don’t, you’ve got to count the costs. That’s what this is talking about. Deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Jesus had to do that to die for our sins. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. Now, some of the older languages, older translations, word this, whoever loses his life, they talk about losing your soul. They talk about the soul.

[00:07:33] And so, we understand that language, that you give your soul to Christ to become a Christian. Well, you don’t actually pluck the soul out and put it in an envelope and hand it to the Lord. This is language about your personal, your person that you are in control of. But if you are someone who seeks to save your soul, you’re just shielding yourself from not doing two bigger sacrifices, that you lose what you cherish. But Jesus is talking about what cost there is if you try to save your soul. And the truth of the matter is, the soul is more value when it belongs to Christ. Then you’re saving it for your own leadership and selfish desires. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but forfeit or lose his own soul? For what can a man give him return for his soul?

[00:08:47] For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with his holy angels. There is a moment of accountability at the end of the age when Christ returns. And Jesus is asking us the question, if what’s stopping you being someone who walks with him, to follow him, to let you be his disciple, what cost is it if the thing that you save your soul from that to gain is the whole world? Well, is it worth it? One reason is you don’t get the whole world for a start. But your soul is of greater value. And Christian discipleship puts on us a decision, if not the decision at the start alone when you’re considering Christianity.

[00:09:48] But in the daily walk as a Christian growing, we shouldn’t be out to save ourselves, but to count the cost of giving to Jesus all the rights to be the one who leads. There’s many a person who’s gotten very close to becoming a Christian but never quite made it because somehow or other they had that process of saving themselves from the cost. Are you in that position? I first heard a sermon on this by a man from overseas who spoke about an illustration. It was a very good illustration about a Scottish lady. Now, I’ve got Scottish background and so my ears prick up about a very famous Scottish lady when you hear an illustration. And her name was Lady Anne Erskine. You might have heard the story. I, when I first heard another preacher using it, I thought it was wonderful for sermons and I began to use it.

[00:10:59] And then I heard another preacher friend of mine and he was giving my sermon using this storyline of Lady Anne Erskine. I was most annoyed in my heart at him. and he heard me give it, and he’s pinching my sermon, and then I worked out that there’s preachers all around the world who are using this illustration of Lady Anne Erskine and how she came to Christ. It’s such a good illustration, and probably he got it from someone else, not just me, the other bloke. But I want to tell you the story. It’s about this aristocratic lady. She’s Scottish, and she’s someone respected because of her status, and she has money, and she goes to church. She’s a religious person, but she’s never come to that spot of actually handing over her soul to Christ. And anyway, she has a pastor in the church,

[00:12:06] and the pastor in the church is a man that longs at the common people out in the fields or whatever, not necessarily in the church, could hear the gospel. And he tries to get the services such that he can get more of them to come, but they shy at coming because they don’t have the clothes. I don’t know whether you’ve ever been like that, where when you go to church, everybody’s all dressed up. I can remember scenes like this where they’d all frown at me because I wore my jeans or something, you know. And you don’t necessarily want to live up to the expectations of… And I was, as a teenager, was someone that all the older people used to frown at. I remember a group came to see my father at our house because he worked at the college. But they had a bad opinion of me.

[00:13:04] They were telling people about what I did. I drove too fast or other silly things. And it’s awkward when going to church, if the church is filled with people who are so correct. And that was the case back then. And this lady, though, was one who always went to church and was correct. And she had all the proper clothes and everything. And her name, Lady Anne Erskine, she had a carriage that she’d have a footman to go along and give the directions to the driver. This is back in years, 150 years ago or so. Maybe not that long, but she decided to go for a ride on a Sunday afternoon. But she was thinking around the pastor because he tried to open up the church for the common people and they weren’t feeling able to come in the door because they didn’t have the clothes.

[00:14:06] And the pastor was so upset that he couldn’t get them to come into the church that he worked out that they used to meet all down in the park and have a happy time down there. So he started going down on the Sunday afternoons preaching and get a talk and get a crowd and tried to evangelise the people who didn’t think they could go to church. And that afternoon she decided to go for a coach ride and she was riding on the coach, sitting inside, all dressed up properly. And the coach drew alongside the park and she saw this great crowd down a bit lower in the park and she didn’t know what was going on, but there was her pastor. And she called the driver or her man that gives the orders to the driver and said, what are they doing down there? And he replied and says, oh, lady, it’s Dr. Rowland Hill

[00:15:06] and he’s preaching to the people. And the emphasis was the people because he’s the peace pastor who couldn’t get them into the church so he went to where they were and he’s preaching to the people. And so she said, oh, she says, pull over here, I want to listen. And he pulled over and Dr. Rowland Hill’s busy giving the gospel to the crowd when he saw the coach come to a stop and he recognised the face of the lady looking out the window of the coach. And in midstreams in his sermon, he says, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got something to say for sale. It is the soul of Lady Anne Erskine. And all the crowd looked up to see her there with her gloved hand on the door looking out. And he continued, Lady Anne Erskine, is there anybody that bids for the soul of Lady Anne Erskine?

[00:16:12] Oh, I hear, Satan bids for a little bit more money, a little bit more prestige. Is there anybody else that has a bid for the soul of Lady Anne Erskine? You can imagine the crowd listening. And then he said, Jesus bids Lady Anne Erskine. Jesus offers eternal peace. He offers forgiveness. He offers to be with him, to be his disciple. I don’t know all his exact words. And then he finished. Lady Anne Erskine, which bid will you choose? You know, that illustrates the very truth of what is the gospel, that not that we love God, but that God loves us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the making right, the paying the cost, the setting matters correct, the propitiation of our sins. Lady Anne Erskine, which bid will you choose? And put on the spot this lady who was religious enough,

[00:17:37] this lady who was well-educated enough, this lady with culture at the top of how things were in Scotland and England those times. She opened the door as she stepped down to be seen. And she said, Dr. Roland Hill, I accept the bid of Jesus. And the gospel has this element in it that though our experience in coming may vary and we may not be put on the spot quite like she was that day, or we may be someone who’s been lulled to think that we were right with God because we were religious enough or because we hadn’t robbed any banks or because we’d cultured a nice personality. There’s nothing wrong with culturing a nice personality. Sometimes we need to do that more. But it doesn’t make you right with God. And the essence of the Christian life is what God has wrought in you not what you have dressed yourself up to present to him

[00:18:59] I’m asking you the question this morning have you come to the place of knowing that it’s not that you love God but that God loves you and gave his son to be the propitiation for your sins and have you been prepared or are you now prepared to say I accept the bid of Jesus you can’t escape that in discipleship there is this need to find that we have a sinful inclination to try and save our souls so that we can be the ones running the ship so that we can be the ones who can lift our heads and say what we have done don’t be like that missionary lady who only found out in her old age she was I’m only guessing in her 80s or something returned missionary having served God mission for lepers I think it was she was in overseas come back going to church and then comes what a realisation it must have been to her that day

[00:20:30] when she saw the young people coming to Christ and in the counselling room I put her on the spot I didn’t know what she was going to say this I thought she was there to check up on me watching me counselling the young ones and and she said I’m just the same as them and I led her to come to Jesus that day have you been trying to save your soul what shall a person give in exchange for his soul the answer is you don’t have enough to give to balance out your sins and you’ve got no benefit in thinking that you’re saving yourself for your pride for your career or being the one in charge of your life whatever it is that makes you want to save yourself and Jesus says what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul that’s what happens if you never get to do business with Christ we’ve had the testimony of a young man who

[00:21:54] was taken to church who had opportunity to believe and then came to know the Saviour and this morning I think there may well be others who like Lady Anne Erskine need to say I accept the bid of Jesus when the service is through if that’s you you need to do what you can to get to come and have a talk if not with me with some of the other people of our church who love opportunities to talk to people about coming to Christ but will you seek out someone to help you to accept the bid of Jesus this morning this is the day that he’s calling perhaps for you and your soul is the only way to be saved by putting it in the hands of Jesus he’s the one that has loved you and gave himself to be the propitiation for your sins let me pray Heavenly Father I thank you for the storyline of Lady Anne Erskine and for how she got put on the spot someone with a big reputation

[00:23:17] of all her niceness and status and elevation of culture and all the rest to do a step that probably a lot of folk might have misunderstood to a lot of worldly types probably laugh Lord if there’s somebody here who’s never really clinched the deal with Christ because they’ve been scared of being laughed at or someone who’s wanted to preserve their time for successful business or someone who’s wanted to cultivate a group of friends in high circles Lord whatever are the reasons why we try and save our souls protect ourselves from paying too much a cost I pray that you’ll use this sermon to be an arrow in their heart until they come in Jesus name Amen