622 Shame, Really? - Mark 8:38

Would Jesus really be ashamed of me? 

Hey, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me for the Follower of One Podcast. We've been talking about this passage in Mark 8:34-37, the last couple of days. And today I want to pick up with verse 38 and wrap it up. 

"For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." That's Mark 8:38 from the New American Standard Bible. And I switched between that and the English Standard Version. But in this particular passage, ashamed is a keyword. 

We don't think about shame much in our world, or we talk about it as being something that's wrong, that we don't want to do almost every translation. I looked at, use the word ashamed here both when we were ashamed of Jesus and when He is ashamed of us. He's only ashamed of people who don't trust Him. And so our trust in Him, and our willingness to not be embarrassed or not be ashamed about our confidence in Him, is what he's talking about here.

And I actually believe this goes all the way back to where Peter originally said, "Hey, Jesus, don't be talking like that." Peter tried to correct Jesus at the beginning of this passage. We didn't really talk about that part of this passage, because we wanted to study Jesus and his situation here and about the need to be a follower.

I believe  Jesus is reminding us that we follow Him. He's being direct. And he's making a point. We only have two options. Either Jesus is Lord of the universe, or he's not. He's this crazy person or he's badly mistaken.

And therefore, if he's Lord of the universe, we have to believe what he says, even if it's hard, even if it's difficult. We have this choice of following Jesus today. Let's choose to follow him. Let's choose to do what he says. Let's choose to trust him with our lives. We give our physical life away a little bit at a time by choosing to do the things that Jesus guides us to do either through his word or through his church or through other Christian friends, which are also his church.

Jesus can direct us and we can follow Him and do what he says. And when we do, we do not risk Him being ashamed of us. We will be his child.  And we will get to be with him. I'm looking forward to that day. I look forward to being with Jesus on a daily basis today as I live my life. And also when I'm no longer in this life and I'm in the next.

And I want to challenge us today to remember that Jesus is Lord. He is the almighty ruler of the universe, and that should change our behavior. As followers of his, we should let him change our behavior on a daily basis. Let's look for ways to do that today. Sometimes it will look like taking up a cross.

Sometimes it will look like following Jesus. And sometimes it may look like just doing the next right thing because that's what he challenges us to do. 

Let's join Jesus today in His work in our world and watch Him make a difference in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.  

Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference with your faith in the workplace, your faith, and the way you live matters.

You're a leader because of the way you live. And we'll talk about that in the next episode to our commitment to following Jesus still makes us a leader. Thanks very much.