One more, let’s go back to Mark, and you need to go back to Peter and his comments in Mark 14. Come with me to verse 27 again, where Jesus says, Mark 14:27, “You’re all going to fall away.” And He quotes Zechariah (13:7), ““strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” What grace. What unbelievable grace. ‘I know you’re going to fall away. I know you’re going to fail Me. I know that. But I will greet you, I will meet you. I will come to Galilee. You go to Galilee, because I will be there to see you.’ It’s amazing.

Remember, we’re back to where I was when I thought God was through with me. It’s just really the beginning of His grace. Have you had that? Are you in touch with the beginning of His grace?

Peter: “Even if all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:29). Now, who are the ‘all’ to whom he is referring? I think that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I think there’s sort of a verbal gesture in this particular verse. And I think what he’s doing is saying, ‘even if all fall away, all these other guys. They’ll fall away, but I will not.’ And Jesus is not willing to put up with Peter. Not willing at all. And He says to him. See, the way Peter said it was, ‘even if all these guys fall away, I will not.’ Very emphatic. That’s why Jesus said to him, “Truly,” the old, “verily, verily,” you may remember that from your growing up years. “Truly, I tell you,” very emphatic. “This very day, this very night, by the time the cock, the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” Peter kept insisting he would not.

You know what this symptom is? Very simple: blind self-confidence. Blind self-confidence. Now, I’m not going to ask you if you have blind self-confidence. And I’ll tell you why, because it’s blind. I have it. Only after the fact. Only when my wife says something to me that opens up my eyes, in her gracious, kind, and insightful way. I have it. Peter had it.

So, you see the personal ambition and drivenness, you see the power-play, you see the invulnerability, and you see the blind self-confidence. Four symptoms. I’ve never seen a team that didn’t have to deal with these issues. Somebody on the team. Maybe me. Somebody on the team has these issues. See, we do have the Dreaded Leader’s Disease.

Now the very question is, what is our medicine? I mean, if we have the symptoms, what is our medicine? I’ve said the solution, not - I’m not going to call it a solution, I don’t think there is a solution. I think we’re, all of our lives, struggling with this Leader’s Disease. I think there’s a control, not a solution. And you know something, my friends? As we work our way through life, and we go deeper and deeper into ourselves, because we’re forced to and because we face various crisis. And because some of us will, at some point in time, all of us will at some point in time, face the end of what we’re doing. Oh, that’s the hardest moment. That’s when these things will come out.

Don’t you watch sometimes how the older leaders just hang on, and hang on, and hang on, and hang on, and eventually they choke the very life out of their ministry. I remember being with a core of young leaders in Asia, probably representing 12 or 14 different countries. There’s a group that was there at the conference I was involved in speaking and so I was invited to go and meet with these young leaders and interact with them. And it wasn’t so much that I spoke with them, as that I just interacted with them and had conversations, and discussed. And they all had the same issue; they all were struggling over older leaders who were doing, who were hanging on, who were staying in control, who weren’t making room for them. We talked about it and after we left, the men who invited me to come who was part of the team that was growing these younger leaders, he said, ‘you know, it’s really interesting.’ He said, ‘ all these guys who are complaining now, when they get into a position, will do exactly the same thing as the leaders over them are doing right now.’

Leaders Disease. We go from young, to mature, to older. We have to take our medicine. What is our medicine? Take up the cross. Everyday, take up the cross. That’s what made Jesus, Jesus. He didn’t just take up the cross in Jerusalem when He was condemned. He carried that cross throughout His whole life. He knew He was heading for the cross. As He matured, as He grew, as He got older, as He entered into the fullness of being Messiah, He knew exactly where He was going. And like Him, we take up the cross. He did not have Leader’s Disease of course. But in His love, in His passion, in His commitment, in His humility, He knew He was headed for the cross.

But we are desperately in need of control, for Leader’s Disease. “If anyone really wants to come after me” (Mark 8:34). If this is the case, if you meant what you said ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. If you really meant it. If you meant what you said thirty or forty years ago. If you really, really meant it, get in line. Get behind Jesus. Make Him the totality of your vision. Through your eyes, through your heart, through your perspective. Not with the things that you want. Not with the sense of failure, or not with the sense of ‘I haven’t achieved everything I wanted to achieve or could achieve.’ That’s not the point. Are your eyes on Jesus? Are you becoming like Him? Get behind Him. Take up the cross. Follow, follow, follow. Follow Him. Question is this: “Follow Him where?” We will answer that question, but not in the next Reality. We have to look at Reality number 6. And then we can answer that question in Reality number 7.