Turning Point
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We’ve just come out of the greatest revelations by a human, through the revelation from God, so far in the book of Matthew. Jesus, in an attempt to push the disciples to declare their belief in truth, asked them, two questions.
Who do others say I am?
Who do you say that I am?
Peter’s answer was spot on, but not because Peter was 100% right in his study of Jesus or in his ability to bring all the facts together based on popular opinion, but because the Father in Heaven had revealed it to him.
Jesus then gave all of the disciples the message of their duties on this earth.
They hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that they have been given the job of binding and loosing.
But oh, how quickly the tables can turn in our lives.
In the next 8 verses, just when they think they have it all figured out, there is a surprise and a rebuke.
Jesus Predicts His Suffering and Death
Jesus Predicts His Suffering and Death
21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
Verb for “Began to show” doesn’t mean, starting to gradually reveal. It means He began the process of repeatedly telling them and reminding them of his real purpose.
Must - “it is necessary” Jesus was telling the disciples that it was necessary to go to Jerusalem and to suffer, be killed, and necessary to rise the third day.
Why? Because it was the will of the Father.
Matthew D. The King Takes the Road to the Cross (16:21–23)
Jesus indicated he would suffer many things at the hands of the religious leaders, because this suffering was an integral part of the price Jesus paid. The elders were synagogue officials in various cities, but in Jerusalem the term probably meant members of the Sanhedrin. The chief priests were the highest spiritual leaders of Israel who oversaw the temple sacrifices and other ceremonies (headed by the high priest, at this time Caiaphas, 26:3, 57). The teachers of the law were the Jewish legal experts, steeped in the Old Testament and all the man-made regulations or traditions (15:1–9).
Matthew (D. The King Takes the Road to the Cross (16:21–23))
By listing all three groups and avoiding distinctions, such as Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus focused on their functions in the spiritual leadership of Israel. He was saying that he would undergo persecution and rejection by the entire spiritual leadership of Israel.
This had to have totally caught the disciples off guard. Even in times where Jesus faced persecution from the Pharisees and Sadducees, it must have not crossed their minds that Jesus, the Messiah King, would ever die! This just goes to show how blinded we can be sometimes to seeing and hearing the will of the Father in our own lives. They would have read Isaiah 53.
1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 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. 11 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. 12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
Peter’s Rebuke
Peter’s Rebuke
22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Though we do see Peter doing his rebuking privately, which is respectful, the fact that he is rebuking God the Son, the Christ, the Son of the living God, rebuking him at all is where he went terribly wrong.
IT must have felt so natural to go into that time of rebuking Jesus due to the false sense of self confidence that Peter might have had after stating the truth of the revelation he’d received from the Lord.
God will never contradict his own word. That’s what Peter suggested was happening. He had just stated that Jesus, the Son of Man, was the Son of the Living God, recognizing Christ’s deity but then believing that mere man could know something that God didn’t know. Peter was tempting Jesus to disobey the Father by going against the Father’s will for his life and seeking his own self interest.
How many times do Christians today give other christians that same bad advice? It’s in our fleshly nature to want to seek our own benefit, our own comfort, our own gain, so when a brother or sister in Christ comes to us and tells us that they feel God is leading them to do this or that, or first response should be, does that line up with Scripture? In other words, are you sure you heard the Father correctly? It should not be a question of their character or spiritual maturity, it’s a question of “are you really listening to the Father to hear from the Father so you can be obedient to the Father”. To ask someone “does the line up with scripture” is to point them to the truth that will either confirm or call into question what we think we are hearing from the Lord.
Jesus’ response to Peter is very fitting. “Get behind me Satan”. Peter had spoken as a messenger of the Father but now as a messenger from Satan.
We can be sure that Peter was not aware that he spoke for Satan, just as a moment before he was not aware that he spoke for God. It is often much easier to be a tool of God or of the devil than we want to believe. To tell the difference we need discernment. We need to be walking in step with the spirit. We need to check the motivation of our spirit. Is it being influenced by our flesh or are we allowing the Holy Spirit to tell us what the will of the Father is?
Jesus points to the heart to this very thing. Peter was setting his mind on the things of man, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Lust isn’t always sexual. Lust is a hunger for something. As Christ followers, we need to be seeking the things of God!
Take Up Your Cross
Take Up Your Cross
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
The phrase “would come after me”ESV,
“desires to come after me”. NKJV
We are talking about if it is our desire to come after, or follow Jesus.
Jesus had already called them months ago to “follow” Him. Here he’s saying that if any one is truly going to follow, desires to follow Him in His footsteps, they are going to have to go through what he’s going to go through.
The cross wasn’t about religious ceremonies; it wasn’t about traditions and spiritual feelings. The cross was a way to execute people.
ii. In these twenty centuries after Jesus, we have done a pretty good job in sanitizing and ritualizing the cross. Yet Jesus said something much like this: “Walk down death row daily and follow Me.” Taking up your cross wasn’t a journey; it was a one-way trip. There was no return ticketing; it was never a round trip.
That takes denying himself. This isn’t self denial, like depriving yourself of chocolate for a week. or Television or screens for a week, or a month, or even a year.
To deny self when we surrender ourselves to Christ and determine to obey His will.
Denying self means to live as an others-centered person.
Human nature wants to indulge self, not deny self. Death to self is always terrible, and if we expect it to be a pleasant or mild experience, we will often be disillusioned. Death to self is the radical command of the Christian life. To take up your cross meant one thing: you were going to a certain death, and your only hope was in resurrection power.
Finding Life By Loosing It
Finding Life By Loosing It
25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
We must follow Jesus this way, because it is the only way that we will ever find life. It sounds strange to say, “You will never live until you first walk to your death with Jesus,” but that is the idea. You can’t gain resurrection life without dying first.
David Guzik - “You don’t lose a seed when you plant it, though it seems dead and buried. Instead, you set the seed free to be what it was always intended to be.”
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
This is referring to the apostle John who would receive the vision of the end times as depicted in the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Following Pauls example as He followed Christ’s.
8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.
Will you decide today to die to self, pick up your cross, and endure whatever Jesus has for you? Or, will you try and short cut God’s plan and desire for you and still end up in misery?