3/24/2019
Are scripture reading for today comes from Matthew chapter 16 verses 13 through 19 and 21 through 23.
Now when Jesus came into the District of Cesery of Philip II he asked his disciples who do people say the son of man is and they said some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets he said to them but who do you say that? I am Simon Peter answered you are the Messiah the Son of the Living God and Jesus answered him blessed. Are you Simon son of Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my Father in heaven and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not Prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven. From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of 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 God forbid it Lord. This must never happen to you, but he turned and said to Peter get behind me Satan you are a stumbling block to me or you're setting your mind not on Divine things, but on human things the word of God for the people of God.
Thank you, sir.
Let us pray. Lord in the meditations of our hearts and the words of my lips be pleasing in your sight our Rock and Our Redeemer. Hey, man. This is the third chapter but second in the sermon series of Simon Peter. Would you do me a favor and raise your hand if you are in a Bible study or a book study that is this study. This is wonderful. Thank you. So if you would like to be or even if you don't have the time maybe but you would like to read along you can contact the church office and we'd be glad to to get you a copy and I think we're pretty much out there might be one or two left, but it's a wonderful wonderful book and a wonderful series and so I want to encourage you and also say thank you. We seen an uptick in Sunday School attendance and involvement around this studies. So it tells us that a it's it's really good. It also brings a little bit more pressure to the preaching because all the content that I would like to use you guys have already read and so that's a good thing because it keeps me on my toes as well. So this morning we're looking at
Peter being referred to as The Rock It's Simon Peter, but but Peter is.
Nickname of Jesus for 4 sign in essentially, right? Like it's the rock. I've been called a rock before usually dumb as a rock but I don't know. You don't know one in that point in day and age was called Rock right? Like the rock wasn't around yet. Right and so are we didn't have any rocks? No one called their Kid Rock, but you know Peter is a very common name now and The Testament to that is to the importance of Peter in our face and so they are the disciples and Jesus are in this area called Cesery of Phillipi. Now it was a beautiful nature area with a beautiful waterfall and in a deep Cavern.
I would say kind of like a smaller like Garden of the Gods K. Like you guys have probably been to Garden of the Gods. Right? Like it's just a beautiful space. Everybody knows it. You take a vacation there every five or six years and hope your kids don't walk off the end like so it's kind of like that for them. And this is long before Jesus and it was actually though 20 miles north of Galilee. So that's that's three days at Solid 2 to 3 days of walking. Now earlier it was a ball cultic Center. ISO is a place where they would worship ball and then after that it during the Hellenistic times it became penius the god pan was was worshipped there the god of nature, right and so is such a beautiful spot that that the Romans worship the god of nature there. Okay. So it's a very beautiful place. It's kind of maybe a place where you would like to take a retreat to but it was renamed by Herod the Great After the temple was built to to Caesar Augustus. Okay, and then after Caesar's death the territory went to his son Philip. Okay, Caesar's death. Philip. Philip is really humble. Philip named it after himself. And so he decided that the area should be named after himself and the Tiberius Caesar as well. And so that gives you a little idea of what was going on when Jesus and the disciples were there it would have been a place that was not their area of worship. It would have reminded them a lot of Roman occupation, which is what they had everywhere else. They went as well. And so it's a deep contrast to maybe a temple setting like the temple in Jerusalem, which is where Jesus tells Peter that they have to go. now they know that the priests or after Jesus to to kill him. And so Peter or Jesus asks them. The translation is not really good for our Southern friends. This is how it needs to go in Caesar says when Jesus says, who do you say I am it needs to be who do y'all say I am and so it's who do y'all say I am as a group and so Peter's response. Is it for himself but is representative of the whole group and that says the son of the of the Living God which is the anointed one is essentially what that what that is and the anointed one means, you know, we do anointing with oil and so it's a separation or a blessing a sign of God's blessing to to be anointed but they were looking for a very specific anointed one. They were looking for the Messiah they were looking for that the King of Kings the one that would not let them down. The one that would stand against all of these oppressors.
Give you a little bit of this idea of the importance of caesarea, Philippi. After Jesus's death and Resurrection, you know, Jerusalem is destroyed. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 66 to 70 right like during that war, okay. So before The Siege on the way there the Roman general, I think it's mysterious.
Yeah, like hangs out there. It's like a little R&R time before going to to Jerusalem. And then after the war in in the diaspora in The Taking of the Jews into captivity after that, right, they take some people there and they throw them to the animals in the cavern there to die. There's an understanding of of Jesus saying that the gates of of Hades right? Do you remember last week how Jesus was walking on the water? And they hadn't found the depth yet of of the Sea of Galilee slave thought maybe that was an Avenue to the area of the Dead Land of the Dead kid hadn't found the bottom of the cavern either. So is another way that could possibly be access to the cavern of the dentist. Well, you can imagine Jesus with the disciples in this area sitting down and talkin. Who do you say that I am And then and then Peter responds. But Peter responds not with like the best answer on the test. But out of divine revelation. Peter's response is because God has revealed to him who Jesus is, okay. So Peter gets it. And Peter understands it. and so or he thinks he does and so Jesus tells him that you are. The Rock, okay. now
Remember that Jerusalem that temple in Jerusalem? That Temple in Jerusalem at the foundation at the center of that is a rock that they believed to be the center of the world. And the temple was built on top of the Rock. You all have heard of this before but we know it more now from from Islam from Dome of the Rock the same Rock. It's the same Rock. Dome of the Rock The Rock that it's a temple in Jerusalem. And so does that begin to give you a little bit deeper understanding when Jesus says Peter is the rock on which I will build my church. Does that give you a little bit deeper cultural understanding of what the disciples probably heard that is that was drastically counter to everything that they knew. And so Peter gets it, right. And Peter gets it for like 2 seconds. 2 seconds cuz we go from that to Jesus say Jesus telling Peter Satan get behind me, right that's a drastic shift. And let me tell you why this happened. White one of the reasons why I think this happened first off.
Cheater gets it but Peter is still human. And Peter still loves Jesus so much that he knows what Jesus is told him is going to happen when they go to Jerusalem and he loves his friend his savior. He doesn't want to see him suffer. He doesn't want to see him die. And so we does the thing. That Temptation leads us to do. He tells Jesus what he thinks Jesus wants to hear.
Don't don't do that. You get some aside alone. It says look look look, look, let's not do this. Let's do something different. And Jesus says Get Behind Me Satan. Satan so many times now, we think like Pitchfork and horns, right? But like it in the in the gospel. We know that Jesus is tempted, right? And so it's the Temptation and so Peter tempt Jesus. With this thing cuz we know that Jesus is willing to do this, right but it's still an option because Jesus has free will okay, and so Jesus decide but that doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't also pray Lord. Take this cup from me. Right? Like Jesus says that okay, so we know that Jesus understands the death, but but in this spot Peter decides instead of having what many of us have learned to call The crucial conversation. He tells Jesus what he thinks Jesus wants to hear. Through so much like Peter. But that's the great thing. I know that Jesus says Peter is the rock but it's more like three-quarter reformed molded Jell-O like we just kind of get the jiggly. That's it. It is not necessarily like a firm Rock because he's human. And so the struggle that that we see here is that Peter is 100% just like us. How many times are we asked a question and then we don't want to say what God may be leading us to say but instead we want to say the comfortable thing that people want to hear and I'm not talkin about does this look cute. Okay, I'm not talking about. Oh, do you like my new boyfriend or girlfriend? Right. I'm not that's more important. But anyway, you know, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the things that we dare not talked about. That the things that that we just there's there's things in our life where we just don't want to have that conversation with that person because it's what we fear, right? And so how it how is God calling us to to live into that to be able to have those conversations lead by God when they're created. But how is God calling you to step out in faith in in in say This is what this is what I feel led by God to to say or to do, you know Peter took a lot of risk and saying that Jesus was the son of God. Son of the Living God, right? Cuz they're
monotheistic and that would be idolatrous.
But Peter understood because Peter got it for that brief half-second. Until he didn't get it later on, right? And in in like Peter is this constant flow of faith in two times. We understand and times we don't times we seek after in times. We want to go back to that comfortable place. Right? Like let's just go back back to my house and then hang out by the lake and you can tell us where to catch fish everyday and we can make a million dollars. But that's not what Jesus. Needs to do. And sometimes those when we follow where Christ is leading we can find out what God has in store.
That's part of what Christ is calling us to do to be like Peter. It's not that we always have it together cuz it remember like Peter is going to eventually be there with Jesus and and and they're going to say you will I don't really know Jesus right? Like I don't really know this guy is going to deny him three times.
Just simply a few days after he says he's a son of the Living God.
And so this morning might My Hope and my prayer is that you might also find where God is calling you to have those those crucial conversations when you're tempted to tell people what they want to hear instead. Tell them what God is calling you to share and also that you might follow Into the Wilderness to find out what what Christ is asking of you. Play cootie. You say Jesus is it's not is not.
There's nothing is more important as who you say Jesus is and we don't just say who we believe Jesus is with our mouths, but with our actions and with our love and with the way that we treat people.
You know, if you ever if you ever really want to want to know how people who like how people treat other people look at how people interact with like wait staff, right? Take a look at P how people interact with people in the McDonald's line when they get their order wrong. right and remember that when we do the same thing, that's also how others view US. And that's how they also view us as people of faith. Not that we always have it all together. Where these glimpses of these moments in time where we really understand it? The reality is Peter even had struggle. With the living it out. It's a when you have struggle. Realize that you're not alone.
Let us pray.
God we ask that you might guide us in all of our actions that you might help us to reach out and to love help us to seek your will and to walk in your way in Jesus name we pray. Amen.