A Study of Matthew: The Wrong Play?
Notes
Transcript
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.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
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.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
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?
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.
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.”
The Mars Climate Orbiter, built at a cost of $125 million, was a 638-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998, to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes. In addition, its function was to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor ’98 program for the Mars Polar Lander. The navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the metric system of millimeters and meters in its calculations, while Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colorado, which designed and built the spacecraft, provided crucial acceleration data in the English system of inches, feet, and pounds. JPL engineers did not take into consideration that the units had been converted, i.e., the acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds^2 for a metric measure of force called newton-seconds^2. In a sense, the spacecraft was lost in translation.
In September of 1999, after almost 10 months of travel to Mars, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned and broke into pieces. On a day when NASA engineers were expecting to celebrate, the ground reality turned out to be completely different, all because someone failed to use the right units. Someone failed to make sure everyone was playing with the same playbook.
Last week, we saw Jesus having a conversation with his disciples. Jesus asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
Some folks have you confused with your cousin, John. Others think you are Elijah sent back to earth. Others think you are like one of the great prophets from the past.
“Interesting. Now, who do YOU say that I am?”
After some awkward silence, Peter speaks up. “You are the Christ, the anointed one, the son of the living God.”
Bravo, Peter! You have been listening to God! And this understanding of who I am is going to change everything. I am expecting great things from you.
Right now, Peter is a rock star. He has correctly identified Jesus as the son of God. Jesus is pleased with him. It’s all good.
Then Jesus starts to share about the real reason he came. “Guys, you need to understand that I came to save everyone from the curse of sin. You know the wages of sin is death. That’s why we do sacrifices. In order to really save everyone once and for all, I am going to be the perfect sacrifice. Not too long from now, I will be arrested and killed, but it’s all part of God’s plan. But I promise that, three days later, I will rise from the dead.”
Peter hears this, and still feeling the high of his big win before, he jumps into the conversation. “Don’t talk like that, Jesus. You’re going to be just fine. I won’t let anyone hurt you, let alone kill you!”
Peter is probably thinking Jesus was testing their devotion to him, and he’s sure he just passed that test with flying colors. Imagine Peter’s surprise when he hears Jesus respond.
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.”
Not only does Jesus protest against Peter, he calls Peter “Satan”!
Peter! You’re not only making the wrong play here, you’re using the wrong play book!
How can Peter get it so right one moment, only to get it so wrong in the next? It’s so easy to look at Peter right now and think, “Dude, what is wrong with you?”
And yet, how many times have we had a mountaintop experience, only to fall flat on our face? We are experiencing the victory, seeing God move in our lives, overcoming strongholds and tasting freedom in Christ, and the next thing we know, we are giving into temptation, acting in ways that are turning people away from God instead of drawing them closer.
And maybe it isn’t even that we fell into sin, so to speak. Peter was not rebelling against God at that moment. He thought he was defending Jesus. The problem was that Peter was trying to handle things the way the world does. He didn’t see the bigger picture. He was convinced that he had everything all figured out.
Sure, Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. And he has come here to overthrow the evil Roman Empire. He is going to set the hypocrite Pharisees straight. He is going to set up his throne and return Israel to prominence as a world power.
Peter understood a little of who Jesus really is, but he still didn’t have the whole picture.
When we think we have everything figured out, we can get ourselves in a whole heap of trouble. God has a plan that sweeps across all time, involving every person who ever has and ever will live. That plan is intricate and deep. And here we are, thinking we can somehow figure out that plan. Better yet, we can somehow improve on God’s plan.
Peter was pushing his ideas of what the Messiah should be, not listening to what Jesus had to say.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
There is this erroneous thinking that has come into the church today, that says that Jesus is all about granting our desires. We are told to speak out and visualize what we want; claim it in faith. We are told that we can live in whatever lifestyle we want because we have freedom in Christ.
But Jesus himself told us that we have to deny ourselves and pursue his will for our lives. He says that following him means taking up our cross. The cross is a death sentence. If we are taking up our cross, it’s because we are expecting to be hated and even killed for following Jesus.
Jesus DOES offer freedom, but it is freedom FROM sin, not freedom TO sin.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
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?
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.
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.”
What is Jesus saying here? We live in a world where we are taught to look out for ourselves. Kill or be killed. We are distracted by things that seem so important, but which, in reality, are only temporary and superficial.
Just this last Wednesday, I was invited to sing at an Ash Wednesday service that all our middle school kids were going to attend. There was good teaching about how the service was about remembering that we are sinners who need a Savior, and how the ashes represent feeling mournful about our sinfulness. The whole ceremony is supposed to be a time of reflection and introspection. Pastor Steve had me come up at the end to sing my song, and he said, “The service will be over after the song. You are welcome to stay as long as you want to to pray and reflect before you quietly leave.” As soon as the song was finished, nearly everyone immediately stood up and left.
It was sad to me, because so many people came to that service just to say that they attended Ash Wednesday. They did their religious duty. But they missed out on having a profound experience with God that night.
I get it. We live in a human world. We have all been raised up in human systems for government, relationships, doing business, and everything else. Before we came to Christ, these human systems were all we knew. And it’s so easy to come before God expecting him to do things the way the world does. Push to get ahead. Do favors to earn favors. Know who to butter up and impress.
What I am saying is that we can’t just assume that we know the will of God. God’s ways totally contradict the way the world operates. We need to be seeking the will of God. We need to know his heart, and we need him to change our hearts to be like his.
I heard an add for a program where you can learn how to help your church grow bigger. I was, of course, interested, but I quickly learned that the program was all about marketing, things to do that will make your church more appealing to the world.
I don’t want our church to be like the world. I want the world to see the difference in our church, and to want what we have.
We cannot grow God’s kingdom by using the world’s tactics. We are not going to achieve spiritual victories using man-made schemes. When we try to do that, we may see something that looks like success, only to find that we are scoring for the wrong team.
God, forgive us for thinking we can do you any favors. Forgive us for trying to accomplish your kingdom work through earthly means. Forgive us for trusting in political systems rather than coming to you to change people’s hearts. Forgive us for going through the motions of religion when you were seeking our hearts. Forgive us for all the times we were so eager to serve you, but we were determined to do it our way on our own terms.
Help us learn to submit ourselves completely to your will. Show us what needs to change in us. Help us surrender those things unreservedly. We want to be in the center of your will. We want to be on your team, letting you call the plays so that you may receive the victory.
