Get Behind Me Satan

This sermon from Mark 8:31–38 confronts the sharp contrast between confessing Jesus as the Christ and actually following Him as Lord. After Peter rightly identifies Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus reveals that His mission—and ours—runs through suffering, rejection, and the cross, not comfort, power, or ease. By exposing the lie that God’s kingdom should be fast, cheap, and painless, Jesus calls His disciples (and us) to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him without shame. This passage presses a searching question on every heart: will we cling to the comforts of this world, or will we lose our lives for Christ and the gospel in order to truly save them?