Developing

As we focus on where we are headed as individuals and a church on this walk with Jesus its easy to get caught up in puzzling through our lives, trying to make sense of the circumstances and information stuff going on around us… Life is confusing! But Life is meant to have meaning!!! "In 1839, eighteen-year-old youth Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote to his brother: “Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.” We are to have MEANING! To become more Human! More in tune with relationship! And yet life still remains a mystery.

Developing Eternally Significant Relationships... Our four word mission statement. It's a statement that's on all our stuff at this church... four words, taken for granted words, loaded words, words filled with wonder and fear and change and oneness and so much... As we Walk with Jesus to the Cross we are going to look at these words, so first we’ll talk about “Developing”.

There are lots of different ways to look at this word... The inactive ways to look at the word developing usually involve the concept of waiting… for surfers, it’s sitting out there on your board, waiting for that set to develop... And unfortunately that happens a lot in churches… we sit here and wait for God to do something… and yet he has designed us to do His work!

The definition we want to use is active… take a look at the Bulletin… Take the word developing and take some stuff away and see what we end up with D~~EVEL~~OPING = DOING

We are made to do, to change, to grow, to get somewhere! Developing (in the sense of spiritual development) is about getting somewhere. Developing in the eternally significant sense is doing what God intends you to do! Being what He intends you to be...

In the movie Braveheart, William Wallace says "All men die, but only a few really live!"

ARE YOU READY TO DEVELOP? TO DO! THEN HERE ARE SOME WORDS FOR YOU! HARD WORDS, SCARY WORDS, BUT WORDS THAT BRING LIFE ALIVE! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE? Jesus said in

Mark 8:34 – 37 "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

These are some tough verses, but if you want to hear them in a harder context try Matthew 10:34-39 or Luke 14:26-27… these same words are tied to putting Christ before the most intimate of your relationships, family, not just stuff!

a) Verse 34 starts with a "easy out" word, "If." A question... a chance for escape from the words that follow. If... We use this word a lot, if only, if this, if that, then maybe it could happen. Do you want to live in the magical land of If? The land of unmet expectations, the land of chances never taken, the land of what if? I have grown to hate that place... I know because I have lived there! The land of excuses, unfulfilled relationships, waiting for the next bus, next job, next... next... next! And nothing ever happens!

b) I have a dare for you... take your Bibles and look at that verse, pick up a pen and draw a line through these words, "~~If anyone would~~ come after me, ~~he must~~ deny himself ~~and~~ take up his cross ~~and~~ follow me.

i) Yet the context of this statement says that if you keep the "if" there, you'll lose the following! So let's commit to take on the “if'’s” in our lives! Don't let them drain life from you!

ii) Dr. Bilezikian, a mentor of Bill Hybels spoke of this passage and said, "Let us take the great gamble. Follow the model of Jesus with reckless abandon. Take advantage of every opportunity to serve— even if it seems like something insignificant. Take out the garbage even though it's not usually your job. Volunteer to stack the chairs after the meeting. Take the arm of the elderly woman negotiating the stairs in the department store. Open your eyes. Keep your servant's towel handy. Monitor the condition of your heart, week to week. Then ask yourself: Am I gaining or losing?"

iii) "And if you want to," he said, try it the other way. Every chance you have, put yourself in the center, be demanding, ask the world to revolve around you. Push your way to the front of the line. Disappear when it's time for the dirty work, the menial tasks. Bow low every morning in front of a full-length mirror. Then step back and honestly assess. Are you becoming closer to God and people or more isolated? Is your life fuller or emptier? Do you feel fulfilled or frustrated?" [ii]

c) What are the “ifs” that are holding you back from Doing what God is calling you to do!?!

ii) They may seem so important now, they may even make sense as far as the world is concerned, but Jesus is calling, will you follow? Then put those things down and Go and Do!

2) Question #2: What are your future aims? "come after Jesus, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ.

a) I want to start by overcoming a first objection, that this sounds really hard... But I want to answer simply and directly... this is what you were made to do! Your relationship with Jesus makes you more human!

b) Then a second objection, "I'm not worthy." Simple answer, Jesus has made you worthy, he erased the “ifs” at the cross. So when you deal with those "ifs" there's no choice but to "come after Jesus, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ.

i) So now that the major objections are taken care of let's get to the doing of developing this kind of life.

ii) Harry Blamires, in his book The Christian Mind says that the marks of a Christian mind are:

c) A man who did this was Peter. Peter built his life on the rock... and as he learned courage and became more strongly rooted in that rock his ministry flourished.

i) “(Churches) need as many acts of courage as they can muster. Courageous people help a (church) to ask tough questions.”

ii) Peter was a strong and skillful man, yet he was afraid of a young girl who asked to many questions. In Matthew 16:22,23, Just before Jesus says these words, and after Jesus has said He is to go to Jerusalem to die and rise again on the third day, is this exchange: 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!" 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

iii) Yet his courage grew as he grasped the reality of the Rock he was standing on. As he lived for Christ he found it easier and easier to have in mind the things of God! We have that same advantage in this world. We can stand on that same rock and view the world in a different way. What are your future aims?

3) Question #3 Where are your eternal values? 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." Here is where we get down to the tough stuff of the Good News… it does turn the world upside down. Most of us human beings have the idea that all that matters is that we live! We breathe, and in the United States, that we do it in style… But the Greek word for “lose” here is apollumi, and it’s meaning in far from subtle… it means to destroy, to destroy utterly

a) In America we are taught to chase the American Dream, but this “Dream” is just a dream… and it ends when you wake up in eternity.

i) If all you chase after is all that you think or feel will make you happy, if getting is all that matters, if saving and storing up treasures is the major goal of your life, you are in for a surprise.

ii) Jesus said this in Matthew 6:19-20 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

b) God wants us to look at REAL LIFE… not the hokey stuff that gets foisted on us so often in the mainstream world and even in churches… that pat on the head and those words, “ Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.” We are to have eternal values!

i) If all we look at is “today”, it often never turns out right… and that’s the beauty of this vision of REAL Treasure.

ii) In both statements, Matthew 6 and our main text for today in Mark 8, we find a vision of something more… of something beyond the good, the bad and the ugly of this life… eternity! and that brings us to our ultimate question.

4) Question #4 What is your ultimate goal? 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

a) These are the questions we must ask as we look at the doing and the developing in our life… WHY??? Why am I doing this? And I think this includes the big and little pictures, the macro and the micro bit of life.

i) Way to often we simply react to the situations of life, reacting to the world, grabbing at as much of it as we can, either vicariously, TV lets us do this now, or in reality, greed is the god in that one…

(1) Let’s fill our bellies with all we can… stuff our faces… and walk out wobbling and sick.

ii) We’ve had eternity placed in our hearts… we have souls… WE ARE MEANT FOR ETERNITY!

b) And so determining our ultimate goal is the most important question for us to answer when it comes to our desire to do… “WHERE ARE YOU TRYING TO GO?” WHAT IS YOUR ULTIMATE GOAL?

ii) What do you need to pick up to get there? Jesus has a pretty definite answer here!

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Are you ready to DEVELOP… to DO, because developing in the eternal sense is about doing what Jesus did… coming after Him, denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Jesus, the ultimate goal, the only way to an eternal relationship with God.

[i] Mckenna, David L., The Communcator's commentary: Mark (Waco, TX, Word Books, 1982), p.183)

[ii] Hybels, Bill, The Volunteer Revolution, Chapter 3

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