Mark 8: 27-35 Pentecost 17
Rev. Charles Degner September 14, 1997
How often have you prayed the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be thy name?” But do you know what those words mean? Luther’s explanation in his catechism is excellent. What does this mean? God’s name is certainly holy by itself, but we pray in this petition that we too may keep it holy. How is God’s name kept holy? God’s name is kept holy when his Word is taught in its truth and purity and we as children of God lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But whoever teaches and lives contrary to God’s Word dishonors God’s name among us. Keep us from doing this, dear Father in heaven!
Maybe an illustration will help us understand our responsibility to keep God’s name holy. Imagine that God is a president of the world’s most successful business. You’ve heard that he is really a nice man, and you want to do business with him. You make an appointment to see him at his office. Hundreds of people are coming and going, and yet He has given you time on his busy schedule. You can’t wait to meet him. You enter into his office complex and are greeted by his secretary. “What do YOU want?” she says. You wonder if you’re in the right place. The secretary looks at her book and says, “I suppose you’re Mr. So-and-So. Sit down and take a seat. You people come parading in here as if the boss has all the time in the world. Don’t you know he has more important things to do?” You says “Excuse me, I must have the wrong place.” And you leave.
Do you get the picture? The boss might be the nicest man in the whole world. But if his receptionist is crabby and misrepresents her boss, most people will get the wrong first impression and leave. We are God’s receptionists. People don’t discover God by themselves. They find out about God and our Savior Jesus through someone else. They find out about God and our Savior Jesus through YOU and ME. Oh that we give people a good first impression of our God and Savior and speak only the truth about our Lord! Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven. God forbid that we do not speak the truth about God. God forbid that our actions might offend people and turn them away from God! Keep us from doing this, dear Father in heaven!
In our text today, we will see ourselves in one of Jesus’ disciples. We will see Peter make a marvelous confession of faith, and we will see him say something awful. Our prayer today as we consider how Jesus would use us to be his witnesses to the world is this.
LORD, USE MY MOUTH!
I. Help me to make a good confession of my faith in you
With all the miracles that Jesus did, and with all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in his life and ministry, and with all that Jesus taught, a lot of people just didn’t get it! Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?" 28 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod by this time. The people had accepted John as a prophet sent from God. They believed Jesus to be something greater than John was - a prophet who had come back from the grave, some kind of a super-prophet, if you will.
But the popular opinions about Jesus fell short of the truth. They didn’t say he was the Son of God. They didn’t say he was the long awaited Messiah. They didn’t say that he was the Savior of the world. No doubt it upset Jesus that he was so misunderstood.
Friends, the popular opinions of the people in the world today are very similar. If you ask people who Jesus is, many will say he was a great religious teacher. He started one of the great religions of the world. Someone will compare him to other famous religious teachers, like Moses, or Confucius, or Gandhi, or someone else. I am sure that it upsets Jesus today that so many still do not understand who he is.
What did Jesus disciples believe about him? He asked the question. “Who do YOU say that I am?” The answer was quickly, confidently given. Peter said, "You are the Christ." 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Matthew tells the story a little more completely. Matthew 16:16-18 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Peter had it right. Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the promised Savior. And Jesus was the Son of the living God, and therefore also true God himself. How did Peter know this when others got it wrong? Because the Father in heaven had revealed it to him. Peter heard Jesus speak God’s Word. He listened to him open the Scriptures. He saw the miracles which fulfilled the prophecies. And through the Holy Spirit, Peter believed!
“Who do YOU say that I am?” Jesus asked. Sometimes, when we imagine the final judgment, we imagine ourselves stepping before Jesus’ throne and giving an answer for our lives. I really don’t think Jesus will have any questions to ask us. He certainly won’t ask us about the good we’ve done in our lives - because our good works really don’t matter before God. Nor will he ask us about the sins we’ve committed - because everyone of them has been completely forgiven and cannot be counted against us. I don’t think Jesus will ask us to give an answer for our faith, but if he did, this might be the question. “Who do you think that I am?” Do you believe that Jesus is God? Do you believe that he is the Savior God promised? Do you believed he lived a perfect life as your substitute and died to take away your sins? If you believe this, then like Peter, you are truly blessed! “For this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” God has sent his Spirit into your hearts and you have a living and saving faith!
But even though you may never have to answer this question before Jesus, you will have to give answer to this question. Someone, somewhere, sometime will ask you, “Who do you think Jesus is?” What answer will you give? Will you give an answer? There is a story often told about a simple, Christian woman who washed clothes for a living. Wherever she went, she told people about Jesus. In her old age, Sally the washer-woman could hardly see. One day someone saw Sally outside the old Five and Dime store, talking vigorously to the wooden Indian that stood there. On and on she went about Jesus. A few men in the store watched for a while and laughed about her. Finally someone went outside and said, “Sally, I know you mean well, but do you realize you’re telling the wooden Indian about Jesus?” Sally stopped for a moment and said, “I’d rather be a live Christian talking to a wooden Indian than a wooden Christian not talking to anyone!”
When a friend says, “I think that all the religions in the world are the same - it doesn’t make any difference what you believe?” what will you say? If someone says, “I don’t really believe that Jesus rose from the dead?” what will you say? If someone says that they have tried to live a good life and they hope they’ve done enough to earn their way to heaven, what will you say? Will you give a good, solid confession of your faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the only Savior there is? Will you tell them about God’s plan of salvation - that we are saved not by works or human effort, but through Jesus, God’s Son, who died on the cross to take away our sins? Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven. Use our mouths to make a good confession of our faith in you!
Peter shows us another side of us this morning, though, that is less complimentary when he tried to interfere with Jesus’ work.
II. Keep me from getting in the way of your work
The second conversation took place soon afterwards. Could it even have been on the same day? Listen. 31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." 34 Then 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. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. In Mark’s gospel, this was the first time that Jesus spoke plainly about his death and resurrection. Jesus said that the Son of Man MUST suffer. The very first promise in Genesis 3:15, where it said the seed of the woman would bruise his heal, showed that the Messiah must suffer. There was no other way that people could be saved! It had to be this way or no way at all!
But Peter didn’t want to hear this kind of talk! So he scolded Jesus for talking this way! Why would Peter do so? I suppose he still was under those false notions that the Messiah would set up an earthly kingdom for the nation of Israel and reign like David once reigned over his people. One moment Peter makes a marvelous confession of his faith and in the next moment the devil is trying to use him to undermine God’s kingdom and destroy God’s plan of salvation? How can this be? Sometimes it happens when Christian’s are ignorant about all of God’s truth. They have blind spots in their Christian education. Sometimes it happens because Christians let their Old Adam speak instead of their New Man. Jesus said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
Friends, have we ever gotten in Jesus’ way and tried to hinder the work of his kingdom? How many parents drop their reluctant children off at the curb for Sunday School and never get out of their own slippers to go to church? What kind of confession does that make before our children? I once heard a parent tell a child in my confirmation class: “Don’t you want to get confirmed? There will be a lot of money in it for you on your confirmation day!” Jesus said, "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Or a parent might be disciplining a child and say to them, “Jesus doesn’t like you when you do those things!” What kind of a message does that give about our Savior?
Have any of us ever made a perfect confession of our faith all the time and never gotten in the way of Jesus’ work? I don’t think that we have done much better than Peter. Sometimes we can make a wonderful confession of faith in our Savior! When we do, it is because God has used us and opened our mouths to declare his praises. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! And sometimes we can have in mind the things of men and get in the way of Jesus’ work. Keep us from doing this, dear Father in heaven! But in the end, by God’s grace, Peter was saved. And so are we. In the end, God did use Peter’s mouth for the good of his kingdom, and God will use ours also. Amen.
