Come out of the closet!
Mark8:34-38
It used too be if someone talked about coming out of the closet it meant that their older sibling had shoved them in there and shut the door. Now it means a whole variety of confessions about oneself. There are “closet conservatives”, “closet liberals” and of course the most famous of all “closet gays”. Well today, we are going to talk about some folks that live in the closet that need to come out, the rest of them can stay there as far as I am concerned. Today church we are going to talk about closet Christians.
Read Scripture Mark 8:34-38 “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, and 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 gospel’s 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."
Now I know what some of you are thinking; “It is the Christmas season, you are supposed to be preaching a message of hope, and joy.” No, I am supposed to preach what God has laid upon my heart and that is exactly what I am doing today.
In a world where everyone seems to be “coming out of the closet” it is time for Christians to come out of the closet and stop being ashamed of their Savior Jesus Christ.
I want to focus on one part of our scripture message today. V.38 “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”
There are five things said in this verse:
1. Christ is the true Messiah. He and His words determine a person’s destiny, note “Me and My Words”
2. A man can be ashamed of Christ. There are two things that need to be understood here:
a. In order to be ashamed of Him you have to claim belief in Him. How could someone that does not claim to be a Christian be ashamed of someone they do not believe even existed? This statement is made to His followers, not to the Pharisees and Sadducees, not to the heathen but to those that followed Jesus.
b. There are different levels of ashamed; you are ashamed of Christ if you let the world influence you into not professing Him. You might be afraid of being ridiculed, sneered at, talked about, avoided, abused or persecuted, but all of these show one being ashamed of Christ. You can deny Christ in three ways:
i. By word: The verbal denial of Christ,
Akin to Peter in the Book of Mathew 26:69-75 “Now Peter sat outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came to him, saying, "You also were with Jesus of Galilee." But he denied it before them all, saying, "I do not know what you are saying." And when he had gone out to the gateway, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, "This fellow also was with Jesus of Nazareth." But again he denied with an oath, "I do not know the Man!" And a little later those who stood by came up and said to Peter, "Surely you also are one of them, for your speech betrays you." Then he began to curse and swear, saying, "I do not know the Man!" Immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." So he went out and wept bitterly.
ii. By action: Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. I heard Dr. Bon Record tell the following story: A pastor in Texas was in a hurry after work. He had to get to the mall for some items, go to his daughter’s school to pick her up, take her home, get to a Deacons meeting, and then to spend the evening in counseling sessions. Once in the mall, he saw an advertisement on a music store window that said, “2 CD’s for $9.99”. He loved music so much he decided he just had to take advantage of it. He went in and picked up 2 CD’s he really had been wanting, and went to the register to pay for them. He threw down with his money while talking to everyone around him- as pastors do.
Then he picked up his bag and his change and went out of the mall. When he threw the bag in the front seat of his car, he noticed for the first time that the clerk had charged him $1.99 instead of $9.99 for those CD’s. His first thought was that he didn’t have time to go back in to get it fixed. But a small voice kept saying, “You don’t have time not to.”
So, he went back in, stood in the same line until it came his time to talk to the clerk once again. He said, “Look I’m in a hurry. You made a mistake. The sign says $9.99 and you charged me $1.99. Please make this correct so I can get on with what I have to do.”
She said, “Sir, I didn’t make a mistake.”
He said, “Sure you did. There is the sign, here is the receipt. Please make the correction.”
She said, “No, sir, I didn’t make a mistake.”
He said, “What do you mean?!!”
She said, “Can I tell you the rest of the story. Will you let me finish, please?”
He said, “Yes I will.”
She said, “For 17 years I’ve been out of church. Recently, my life has been falling apart and I needed to get back into church. I looked around at what was closest to me. I found the name of the church and I went there Sunday and slipped in and sat on the back row. The pastor that day was speaking on integrity. Sir, it happened to be your church. And when I saw you in my line, I wondered if this was something you preached on Sunday or lived on Monday. And I determined to find out.” Then she said, “Sir, I don’t even know the right questions to ask, but I know that whatever you’ve got I need. “ And then she began to cry. The manager, who happened to be a Christian, stepped in and took over the register, dismissed the pastor and then he led her to the Lord. Do you think she would have ever darkened the doors of a church again if this pastor had not gone back in?
Your witness, even in the everyday events of your life, makes a difference in others lives.
iii. By silence: By refusing to proclaim Him as Lord and Savior to the world. “But Pastor, I’m a quiet Christian”… If I came to you toady and gave you a gift, say a Rolex model 118238, it retails for $33,100, wouldn’t you show it to all of your friends and relatives? You would even show it to strangers if you could get them to look at it wouldn’t you? Well let me tell you something, when you die, that watch is not going to do you one bit of good. If you sit it down on the road and a semi runs over it, it will bust into a hundred pieces. Well Jesus gave you a gift that cannot be destroyed, He gave you a gift that will never ever go out of style, he gave you a gift that will truly last an eternity…and you are afraid to show it off because someone might make fun of you.
3. My Third point of this scripture is this: The world is harsh, and Jesus knew it when He said this. Do not fool yourself; do not buy into the lie from the enemy that “If only Jesus had known what the world would be like today he would not have placed such a burden on me.” He knew; He calls it an adulterous and sinful place. There is nothing new under the sun that the Son does not know about.
4. The day of the Messiah’s glory is coming; a day when His glory will be revealed to all and even those without faith will know that He is Lord.
5. With that day of Glory will also come a day of judgment! This will be a day of shame and being a shamed. All that have spent their lives being ashamed of Jesus will on this day feel shame where it really counts; before God Himself. When this day come we will see Christ standing at the right hand of the Father, and He will be ashamed of the person that was ashamed of Him. And then those that are ashamed of Christ will hear those fateful and terrifying words: “I never knew you; depart from me you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23) Luke 12:9 “But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.”
All right, some of you may be sitting here thinking to yourself, “DUH, I knew that”, but to some I have laid a burden on them today that they may not be able to face. If that is the case, I am sorry, sorry that you are ashamed of Christ. However, it is a shame that you can overcome. If while I was speaking this morning you suddenly realized that I was describing your behavior toward Christ I invite you to come forward and let me pray with you this morning. Come down right now and give all of yourself to Christ. If you are ashamed of Him, there is a part of you that never accepted Him, there is a side of you that still desires the acceptance of the world over the acceptance of Christ. Come down right now and give yourself to Him completely and he will give you the strength to stand before all of mankind and proclaim, “I am a Christian and Jesus Christ is lord of my life”.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
