Back when the telegraph was the fastest method of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the office address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, busy office filled with noise and clatter, including the sound of the telegraph in the background. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office.
The young man filled out his form and sat down with the seven other applicants in the waiting area. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They assumed that the young man who went into the office made a mistake and would be disqualified.
Within a few minutes, however, the employer escorted the young man out of the office and said to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has just been filled.”
The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and one spoke up saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t understand. He was the last to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair!”
The employer said, “I’m sorry, but all the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. The job is his.”
We live in a world that is full of busyness and clatter, like that office. People are distracted and unable to hear the still, small voice of God as he speaks in creation, in the Scriptures, or in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Are you tuned in to God’s voice? Do you hear him when he speaks to you? Are you listening? Remember when we spoke of the transfiguration two weeks ago and God said “This is my Son, whom I love…Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5).
Aww but did they? Did they listen to the Son? Let’s look at our scripture…in your pew; right in front of you is a Bible. I want you to open your Bibles to Mark 8:27-30. This is on page 59 of the New Testament section of you pew Bibles. This is an introduction into our scripture passage today:
In your pew Bibles the description of the passage is called Peter’s declaration about Jesus.
27Then Jesus and his disciples went away to the village near Ceasara Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Tell me, who people say I am.” 28”Some say that you are John the Baptist,” they answered; “others say that you are Elijah, while others say that you are one of the prophets.”
29 “What about you?” he asked them, “Who do you say I am.”
Peter answered¸ “You are the Messiah.
30 Then Jesus ordered them, “Do not tell anyone about me.”
Peter was quick to answer who he though Jesus was, he was quick and I do believe Peter was sincere. Peter was human. Peter is actually one of my favorite disciples. Peter was quick in word and did not always think things through. Sound like anyone you might know? Sometimes in all honesty, my friends, that is me. My mouth goes into overdrive before my brain kicks in.
Why then does Peter not believe Christ when he is told of the upcoming events of Christ’s rejection, death and resurrection? Why does Peter pull Jesus aside and reproach him?
Listen to what Jesus says and you will have that answer:
“Get away from me Satan. Your thoughts do not come from God but from man.”
Peter was a man. He was thinking like a man. When we love someone, when we admire someone, when someone comes into our lives we do not want to think that we may loose him or her. We want them with us forever.
Peter didn’t want to face that pain of knowing that Jesus would leave him. So Christ tells him that his thoughts are not God thought but the thoughts of a man.
It’s hard for any of us to have God thoughts but in the next passage Christ challenges us to do just that.
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[1] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Let me read to you a translation from the Message translation:
34Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. 35Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. 36What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? 37What could you ever trade your soul for?
Did you hear what Jesus said—we aren’t in the driver’s seat, we aren’t in control. Now those of us with the type A personalities—we don’t like to hear that. We are a bit of control freaks….did you notice I am saying we.
Jesus is telling the disciples to take up their cross. They do not have a clue that this his how their Messiah will die; the humiliating, slow, torturous death on the cross. They could not see the path that was before him. He told them that he would die—did any of them catch on that he was giving them a clue to how. Take up the cross and follow me, he says. He doesn’t mean for us to follow him to his death but to turn away from our old lives and look forward to serving him.
For some good things in life we must suffer. I get frustrated by some Christians when they assume that just because they came to Christ that they won’t have to suffer anymore and life will just peachy. Yes, bad things will happen to us—we are not immune from what the world brings us, we are not immune to death, illness, pain or even famine, hunger and war.
War…. it seems to be lurking closer and closer. None of us want it, none of us want innocents to die, none of us want it to touch our homeland but we want to be loyal to our government and to our boys and girls ready to fight that our already over there. See we aren’t immune from this, either.
So, Dawn Marie, you are thinking—if we aren’t protected from the earthly things that seem to haunt and hurt humanity—why should we follow Christ?
Yesterday, in the mail I received my Internet bill and the provider had enclosed the following and it seemed to fit what I wanted to say to all of you today—
You have been on my mind and heart. I see you struggling and planning, worrying and sweating, crying and running, at a furious pace. You have been trying to move that mountain by yourself again, huh?
God asks that we cast all our cares on Him because He cares. Think about what your worrying says to God when you refuse to give things over to Him. When you are worrying about money, you’re telling Him that He is unable to provide for His children…that although He has riches beyond belief in Heaven, He is too stingy to share them with you.
When you worry that no one understands you, you’re telling Him that although He has been with you since you were formed in the womb, and has carved you into the palm of His hand, He doesn’t know you.
When you worry that you will not have enough food, you’re telling Him that although he reigned down bread from Heaven into the desert to feed his children, you are the one that he has forgotten.
When you worry that your enemies will have victory over you, you’re telling God that although He has given you spiritual battle gear to defend yourself, that despite his track record as a giant slayer, Red Sea divider, lion mouth closer, and furnace cooler, he can’t handle your co-worker, your neighbor, or a former friend.
When you worry that your children have decided to follow the world instead of your example, your telling God that he doesn’t keep his promises…that despite the fact that you have raised them up in the way they should go, they’ll stray because basically, He lied.
When you worry because the doctors told you that children are impossible, that a cure is impossible, that healing is impossible, your telling Him that this world controls your fate. Your saying that prayer time with Him is merely something to pass the time. Your saying that although he can raise the dead, make a virgin conceive, open the womb of a woman well past 80, heal a twelve year issue of blood, make the blind see and the lame walk, He can’t help you.
When you worry that you won’t be able to do enough to earn forgiveness, you’re telling Him, “That’s ok, Lord, no need for your son to die, I can earn my own forgiveness.” Let’s just act like Jesus never died and tell Him never mind that he doesn’t need to go to the cross.
When you worry that no one will love you, that you will lonely for the rest of your life, your telling Him that his love is insufficient…. that He couldn’t possibly love you enough to ward off loneliness. Your saying that although that He has promised life more abundantly, He was lying…. that despite the fact that he started off saying that it was not good to be alone that he has changed his mind.
When you worry and refuse to give the problem over to him, your telling him that although he could create the world, he can’t handle what going on in your world, so you will. Your saying that he won’t work things out, that obstacles cannot be overcome, that mountains can’t be climbed, that healing cannot occur, that what is lost will not be found, that joy does not come in the morning, that he is not a God of a second chance, that the promised land has been swallowed up by the desert, that you have discovered the height, depth and width of his love and found it to fall short of your needs.
Think about all that you are saying to the one who loves you the most and who has all power; really think about it. Then open your hands and release what you have been holding onto. Bow down on your knees and ask him to forgive you for doubting him. Walk away with a peaceful heart and note the footsteps that go before you to make the crooked places straight…
I don’t know who wrote that but it speaks to all of us know matter where we are in our lives and it answers the question from earlier…. Why should we follow Christ? How can we not. It is in the times of the rough spots and the hard times that we carry our crosses and we hold them up high. And do you know that they aren’t always that heavy.
When I was in Kennewick, I was visiting with someone who was slowly and painfully dying of a disease that only 20 people in the United States had. It caused her lungs to harden, her circulation to slow, and a variety of other problems. She knew that there was not a cure; she knew that she would someday die. On this day that we talked she told me a story of a dream she had…She was walking around, carrying this huge cross on her shoulder, she was tired and weary. She came across Jesus and asked him why she had to carry such a heavy cross. He took her to a door and told her to go in and she could find someone in there to exchange crosses with. She walked into that room and Jesus waited for her and he waited for her and he waited and waited…. When she finally came out, He saw that she carried the same cross as before. He asked her, “Child, why didn’t you exchange your cross.” She told him that this cross didn’t seem to bad after all. She had found much heavier ones in their and her burden didn’t seem so bad now.
She explained to me that yes there were some days she just wanted to quit, some days she just wanted to stop going on, and some days she was so tired of hurting but she knew that God was keeping her there for a reason and she knew beyond a doubt that she was loved.
And this wonderful, marvelous lady shared the love of Christ with so many. She sent letters, e-mails and when people visited she shared and encouraged. She had more than one caretaker coming to church and she was a witness more than she ever knew.
We have to be willing to listen…we have to hear what is being said to us by God, just like the Morse code operator we have to hear not just listen but hear what God is calling us for. Then after we hear we have to act and react.
My friends, now is the time for us to hear God, now is the time to follow Him. We are entering a time like no other in our history. If and when war comes this will not be the war of our father’s and grandfather’s; this will be a war of destruction; this will be a war that may and will be fought on our land; it is a war of bigger and badder weapons of destruction and not is the time where we need to pray for ALL involved, now is the time when we need to grasp onto our faith and commit ourselves fully to Christ.
Yes, you have listened to me today. But how will you act and react to what was said. Will you leave this building today knowing that yeah that wasn’t a bad sermon…she even spoke so we could understand…. or will you leave here thinking I need to put some of that into my life, or you know I may need to work on a few things in my life, or I need to share this with someone else.
Take up the cross of Christ, put Him into the driver’s seat and hear what he is telling us.
If you feel God nudging you, calling you…I invite you to come forward during the singing of our Hymn of Invitation.
If you desire to transfer membership or re-dedicate your life, please come forward.
