1. The Suffering Son of Man VS 31
2. The Cross Or Glory VS 32-33
3. Following Jesus Means Losing YOUR Life - VS 8:34-9:1

Daniel 7:13–14
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Rankin Wilbourne & Brian Gregor
Jesus is God’s response to suffering. God became human, and being fully human he suffered. God submitted to the same constraints of all suffering flesh: hunger, thirst, fatigue, temptation, and death ... Hebrews 2:9 tells us that Jesus tasted death for all. Those who suffer can know that God is not a distant, dispassionate observer but a God who endured suffering and death himself. The cross is God’s solidarity with human suffering.

Isaiah 53:10–11
Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Hosea 6:1–3
Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

Hebrews 2:9–10
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

1 Corinthians 2:1–5
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer
The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.… But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call. Jesus’ summons to the rich young man was calling him to die, because only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and his call are necessarily our death as well as our life. The call to discipleship, the baptism in the name of Jesus Christ means both death and life.

Philippians 1:29
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake

1 Peter 4:12–14 & 19
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

1. Who do others say I am?
2. BUT who do YOU say?
3. You are the CHRIST!

Mark 6:14–16
King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” But others said, “He is Elijah.” And others said, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

Malachi 4:5–6
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

James Edwards
No OT personality held such fascination for first-century Judaism as Elijah. The reason lay not in his deeds, for the accomplishments of other OT figures— Abraham, Moses, David, even Joshua—exceeded Elijah’s. The reason lay in the report that Elijah had been taken bodily to heaven (2 Kgs 2:11) where he was believed to oversee the deeds of mortals, to comfort the faithful and help the needy, and, above all, to return as forerunner of the great and terrible Day of the Lord (Mal 3:1; 4:5–6).

Mark 4:41
And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Matthew 16:13–20
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Jeremiah Fyffe -
The focus of the messianic prophecy was on the result and not the means. They were looking for fruitful results without Jesus’ faithful means.

Ben Witherington
Peter is indeed the representative of the Twelve, but he represents both their insight and their blindness, with this pericope revealing both sides of this reality. By calling Jesus Messiah, Peter sees Jesus as God’s anointed, and so most blessed, one. But there appears to have been little or no expectation in early Judaism that Messiah would come and suffer. Peter obviously doesn’t understand Jesus’ messianic vocation yet, and Mark, for his part, wants to make evident that until one understands who Jesus is, one cannot understand why he had to die. Thus Peter’s confession, while true, is not the whole truth about Jesus.

C.S. Lewis -
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.