Setting Your Mind on the Things of God
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Rudyard Kipling, as you know, was the author of “Jungle Book” and “Kim” and such poems as “If.” Unlike many great writers, Kipling had opportunity to enjoy his success while he lived. He also made a great deal of money at his trade.
On one occasion, a reporter came up to him and said, “Mr. Kipling, someone has calculated that the money you make from your writings averages more than a hundred dollars a word.”
Rudyard Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, “Really, I certainly wasn’t aware of that.”
The reporter reached into his pocket pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, and gave it to Kipling. In a noticeably cynical tone, he then went on to say, “Here’s a hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now, you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”
Kipling looked at the hundred dollar bill for a moment, took it and folded it, put it in his pocket, and said, “Thanks.”
Kipling was right--wouldn’t you say? The word thanks is certainly a hundred dollar word. It may even be a million dollar word. It is certainly a word that is too seldom heard, too rarely spoken, and very often forgotten.
On one occasion, a reporter came up to him and said, “Mr. Kipling, someone has calculated that the money you make from your writings averages more than a hundred dollars a word.”
As we talked about last Sunday evening. I hope that you had the opportunity this week to give thanks to the Lord for all of your blessings. And I hope you had the opportunity to be around those that you love, and I hope your bruises are healing if you fought the crowds on Black Friday for that cheap TV.
Now that we have had time to reflect on all the wonderful blessings that we have, and if living in this country we do indeed have much to be thankful for. We have food, clean water, a place to live out of the rain and wind.
b. Now that we have had time to reflect on all the wonderful blessings that we have, and if living in this country we do indeed have much to be thankful for. We have food, clean water, a place to live out of the rain and wind.
Rudyard Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, “Really, I certainly wasn’t aware of that.”
c. So while we’ve given thanks for many things this week, hopefully they haven’t only given thanks for what Jesus called “things of man.”
So while we’ve given thanks for many things this week, hopefully they haven’t only given thanks for what Jesus called “things of man.”
The reporter reached into his pocket pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, and gave it to Kipling. In a noticeably cynical tone, he then went on to say, “Here’s a hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now, you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”
Kipling looked at the hundred dollar bill for a moment, took it and folded it, put it in his pocket, and said, “Thanks.”
In Mark chapter 8 starting in verse 27, Jesus has been traveling in Caesarea Philippi and he asks his disciples a question.
d. In Mark chapter 8 starting in verse 27, Jesus has been traveling in Caesarea Philippi and he asks his disciples a question.
27 And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
Answer in 28
You are the Christ - That is you are the Messiah, you are the chosen one of God to restore the kingdom back to God’s people, you are what we’ve been hoping for, what we’ve been waiting for, You are HIM with a capital H right?
And of course all of that is right!
But Jesus Proceeds to teach his disciples the way things are going to happen and they are not at all what they are expecting.
Results in Jesus rebuking Peter, “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Kipling was right--wouldn’t you say? The word thanks is certainly a hundred dollar word. It may even be a million dollar word. It is certainly a word that is too seldom heard, too rarely spoken, and very often forgotten.
i. Results in Jesus rebuking Peter, “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Now I doubt that I’m the only one here this morning that when I’m honest with myself, how much of what I expressed thanks for this week was physical in nature and not spiritual.
1. Now I doubt that I’m the only one here this morning that when I’m honest with myself, how much of what I was expressly thankful for was physical in nature vs spiritual?
2. So it’s my hope this morning that we seriously consider these words of Jesus to Peter to set our minds on the things of God.
So it’s my hope this morning that we seriously consider these words that Jesus spoke to Peter and that while we of course are thankful for all the physical blessings that we enjoy in our lives, that we won’t allow those physical things to become distractions from what really matters in this life.
And that is of course setting our minds, transforming our minds, from the things of man to the things of God. From the purely physical to the spiritual.
So we are going to focus this morning on how Jesus takes this moment of rebuke to Peter, and He uses it as an opportunity to teach not only his disciples, but also the crowd that was following him regarding what one must do in order to be a follower of Jesus.
Deny Yourself - Take up your Cross
Deny Yourself - Take up your Cross
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mark 8:
a. And I’ve mentioned before how it is sometimes easy for us to read portions of scripture and to be so familiar with their existence that we simply read them and move on to the next verse.
i. We are not going to do that with v. 34 this morning.
ii. In fact, I hope we all leave here this morning understanding how incredibly jarring these words would have been for everyone hearing these words.
1. See, we are incredibly blessed to live during the time that we live in, and in the society that we live in where the horrors of what Jesus is saying here don’t click with us the way they would have in the ears of those first century Jews.
a. In fact, when we are ignorant of the history surrounding the cross, we might even think that Jesus was the only person to have ever suffered death on the cross. After all, who is it that you think of when you see the cross on a church sign, on your bible, on a songbook, and even around our necks on our jewelry? My guess is it’s only one man,
i. One man that inspires hope, that inspires joy, that inspires peace.
In response we
ii. And so we might see the word Cross here and just by the way we associate that word with Jesus and his victory over sin and death on the cross that we hear this verse completely differently than those who where there where there would have heard it.
Or we might think here that Jesus is speaking of a metaphor, and while that may certainly be true, what we need to understand is that to those people who would have heard Jesus say this, they would have been mortified of the thought.
b. Make no mistake about it, for those listening to these words of Jesus, there would have not been a hint of hope, or joy, or peace in what Jesus said to them.
2. In order for us to fully appreciate what Jesus is saying here, we have some work to do.
a. We need to understand that crucifixion was not something that only happened to Jesus, but that crucifixion was something that was extremely well known among first century Jews for the torturous thing that it was.
The Act
Now I am not saying that we don’t know what crucifixion is, or that we don’t know the process of it. After all we are told quite clearly what the process entailed from the gospel accounts and there have been movies made that quite graphically and accurately portray the horrors of crucifixion.
How the scourging or the whipping of the condemned was done with whips that contained sharpened steel and bone designed to rip the flesh from backs of the condemned, how the condemned where then forced to carry their own crosses on their raw and exposed wounds to their own deaths, how they were nailed to the cross, hoisted up for all to see, and left there for as long as it took for them to die.
We are familiar with that, or at least as Christians we better be.
But we can sometimes easily forget that this was the fate for thousands of people throughout history.
The History
You see, by the time of Jesus, Crucifixion
NT Wright
The point is often made but bears repetition: we in the modern West, who wear jeweled crosses around our necks, stamp them on Bibles and prayer books, and carry them in cheerful processions, need regularly to be reminded that the very word “cross” was a word you would most likely not utter in polite society. The thought of it would not only put you off your dinner; it could give you sleepless nights. And if you had actually seen a crucifixion or two, as many in the Roman world would have, your sleep itself would have been invaded by nightmares as the memories came flooding back unbidden, memories of humans half alive and half dead, lingering on perhaps for days on end, covered in blood and flies, nibbled by rats, pecked at by crows, with weeping but helpless relatives still keeping watch, and with hostile or mocking crowds adding their insults to the terrible injuries. All this explains Cicero’s statement that everything to do with crucifixion, including the word crux itself, should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things, or the endurance of them, but liability to them, the expectation, indeed the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man. (In Verrem 16)
Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began (p. 54). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
The Roman PHilosopher Seneca
Seneca describes it as a long-drawn-out affair, in which the victim would be “wasting away in pain, dying limb by limb, letting out his life drop by drop . . . fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumors on chest and shoulders, and drawing the breath of life amid long-drawn-out agony” (Epistle 101.12–14).
The real-life Spartacus, who led a major slave revolt, met his end about a hundred years before Jesus. Many died in the final battle, but six thousand of his followers were crucified all along the 130 or so miles of the Appian Way from Rome to Capua (inland from Naples), making it roughly one cross every forty yards (Appian, Civil Wars 1.120).
If you lived in the first century under Roman rule, it was all but certain that you had witnessed a crucifixion and that the event turned your stomach.
And that was the goal of the Romans. They wanted their conquered populace to understand exactly who was boss, they performed crucifixions next to road sides, on top of hills, so that everyone could see the fate of rebels and traitors, of criminals and slaves.
The message was clear
You step above your place, we will elevate your shame
Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began (pp. 55-56). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
3. The Implications
23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began (p. 57). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.