08.27.2023 - Serving Jesus

Scripture: Matthew 16:13-20

Matthew 16:13–20 NIV

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, 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. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

8/27/2023

Order of Service:

Announcements

Kid’s Time

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Serving Jesus

Preparation and Practice

School is back for many students and teachers, and football games have started, which gave us this strange feeling of fall despite this week being one of the hottest weeks of the year. We’ve switched from pray for rain summer vacation modes and have started getting into harvest gear. Those of you who have lived through a few harvest seasons know there are more extensive seasons beyond that. There are seasons filled with weddings, baby showers, toddlers, homework, ballgames, and graduations, and then seasons where there is suddenly silence and empty spaces in your schedules when doctor appointments do not take them up.

There are seasons beyond those, each presenting its challenges and rewards. Jesus is there with us every step of the way, and He wants us to continue following, growing, and learning from Him as He shapes us in His image. We may not all be in the same place in our walk with Jesus, but we all follow Him together, and He is a patient teacher. Like a good teacher, he prepares us and allows us to practice what we are learning so that those lessons stick and stay with us.

We spent July soaking up some of the powerful parables of Jesus, and this month, we read about how the disciples served alongside Jesus. Sometimes, they were trying to help others. Other times, they were trying to take care of Him. They struggled through it all. I imagine Peter, who was there in the middle of all of it, felt like he was going through seasons as he strived to learn from Jesus. Each of those opportunities brought about a new understanding of Who Jesus was and who Jesus was shaping Peter into. His life changed the day He accepted Jesus’s invitation to put away his fishing net and follow Him, and it continued to change daily. Peter’s relationship with Jesus changed because Peter was changing, and Peter's one handle on that process was choosing how He would serve Jesus.

We stand together at the end of Bethel Mall season and the beginning of our Bethel Bible Camp this afternoon. We have had opportunities to serve in prayer, prepare, practice for our roles, and clean up afterward. We all know these ministries are far greater than that one short sentence, but those words are significant to how we do our ministry together. Most importantly, we know we can only do it with Jesus. As I mentioned last week, we focus on following and serving Jesus, and it is Jesus Who empowers us to serve Him.

Providing and Protecting

Peter did not wake up one day and believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus led him to faith through nearly three years of ministry to and with Peter. He took Peter and the twelve disciples aside and taught them individually. Then Jesus sent them out to do small ministry errands, often going into the villages to recruit people to see Jesus. Later, Peter and the others would help organize those gatherings and do some praying and healing themselves.

There were a few brief moments away from the crowd when Jesus began to elude to the actual work that Peter and the disciples had ahead of them, but for the most part, Jesus led them a few days at a time for the first few years. In their minds, they might have thought they were doing ministry. Jesus knew that they were practicing, learning the ropes to be ready to lead His Church eventually.

Our passage begins with a leading question from Jesus to the disciples. Who do people say that I am?

This was an innocent question with no particular correct answer. It sounds like a survey question or a question for political polls. We’ve been traveling Galilee for nearly three years. What had the people decided about the work they had all done? They shared what they had gathered from the side conversations held after the preaching, teaching, and healing. Some thought he was Elijah or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets returned from the dead. After all, Jesus performed many of the types of miracles that those prophets did in their time.

Then, He turns the question back on the disciples. Who do you say that I am? It is a pop quiz, and they should have seen it coming.

Feeding the 5,000 and 4,000

The disciples had seen behind the curtain in the ministry of Jesus. They had seen him display human emotions of joy and sadness, anger and frustration. Sometimes, they had been the cause of those emotions. Those disciples got to see the world a little closer to the way Jesus saw it because they got so close to Him.

In the wilderness, some probably ate from the miraculously multiplied fish and loaves and never knew they had eaten a miracle. However, the disciples were the ones who took the meager rations and placed them in the hands of Jesus. They saw Him bless and break that offering. No one wants to turn people away who are in need. The disciples were handing that food out, praying that it did not run out.

It is an easy thing to proclaim that God always provides. It takes genuine faith to be the one responsible for paying the bills. Unlike most people in the crowd, the disciples knew what it was like to leave towns where people did not have faith in Jesus and did not receive all the miracles. Through it all, they personally experienced Jesus providing for them and teaching them to share all that He gave them with others. He grew them from being doers of God’s Word to sharers of God’s Word.

Walking on Water

Part of the growing process happens when the teacher invites the disciple to step out and serve beyond the ways they feel comfortable. Good teachers like Jesus always see more in us than we see in ourselves. They know how to coax those hidden gifts out of us in ways that teach us to rely on Him more than ourselves. That takes a special God-given kind of perception. But that kind of discernment and encouragement are only half the gifts needed to raise up disciples.

Teachers can only achieve their goals with follow-through. This is what Peter and the twelve received more than anyone else that Jesus interacted with. Jesus encouraged Peter enough to get him out of the boat and to walk on the water. But the moment that sealed that empowering lesson in Peter’s life was when he started sinking, and Jesus caught and corrected him. From that moment on, Peter understood that he could do anything if Jesus led him there, but he was a goner when he went off on his own.

Good teachers can encourage and correct disciples in truth and love. Peter learned that Jesus would always protect him, even from his own foolish choices.

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Seeing the People

When faced with the many needs of people, Jesus, instead of handling it all Himself, invited and empowered the disciples to serve alongside Him. He debriefed with them afterward, helped them to understand the bigger picture of what they were doing, and corrected them when they made mistakes or got off track. For Jesus, it was never a matter of whether He trusted Peter. He knew Peter better than Peter knew himself and knew how many times Peter would fail Him. But He trusted Peter to work alongside Him for three years anyway, so Peter learned to trust in Jesus.

Even more, Peter slowly began to see others the way Jesus saw them. The Canaanite woman we heard about last week was the first of many Gentiles Peter would interact with and invite into discipleship with Jesus. Years later, it would be Peter, not James, John, or any other disciples, who would preach in a Gentile house, see an entire family filled with the Holy Spirit, and baptize them because He began to see what Jesus was doing.

Peter did not do that because He was more intelligent than the other disciples or knew the scriptures better. He did it because he learned by experience that when we serve as disciples of Jesus, we are not serving to fix people. We are not serving to bring God’s Kingdom to earth. We are not serving to earn heavenly merit badges... We serve Jesus. That’s it.

Jesus made this very clear in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats. I love the example Mother Theresa gave the world when she explained that she washed the feet of the dying because she saw Jesus in them and wanted to serve Him. Everything Peter and the disciples learned about serving directed them to focus on serving Jesus as their Lord and Savior, not being distracted by every other opportunity and distraction around them. That is why Peter passed the pop quiz and named Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. Jesus was the one Peter had decided to serve with His whole life.

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You Are Chosen

Jesus teaches, encourages, and corrects us as well, and on occasion, He gives us pop quizzes to help us see what parts of His teaching are sticking and what we are still missing. When He tests us, it is not for His sake. He knows how we will respond better than good parents know their children. These testing times are there so that we can see how much our faith has grown.

Claiming Jesus as your Lord and Savior is not the final exam. What that means for your life and how you will serve Him changes over time. It means one thing to serve Jesus when you are one of the kids coming to Bethel Bible Camp. It means something else when you are one of the leaders. Every step of the way, we have the choice to change our answer and decide to serve something else, so Jesus continues to ask us:

Who do you say that I am?

When we choose to serve Jesus first and only, we show ourselves that we are ready to move away from only practicing ministry and begin to do the real work of the Church. Jesus stands ready to hand you the keys to His Kingdom. Are you ready and willing to step up and serve Him the way He directs and empowers you?