The Sunday before Lent

SERMON

Text: Mark 8:27-38

Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, "Who do men say that I am?" So they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him. And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

In Christ Jesus, dear fellow-redeemed:

"Who is it?" That was a question that plagued King Herod. It was a question that plagued him because he had a very guilty conscience concerning John the Baptist. King Herod had enjoyed going out into the wilderness to hear John preach. Some of the things that John preached did not, however, please Herod because John would rebuke Herod for his sin.

John’s rebuke of one particular sin especially angered Herod, but even more significantly angered his wife. Herod had married his brother’s wife and when John spoke against this marriage, Herod’s new wife wanted nothing more than to kill John.

The opportunity for Herod’s wife came at a feast on Herod’s birthday. Herod’s step-daughter came to the feast, performed a dance which greatly pleased King Herod and his guests. So pleased was Herod that he foolishly promised his step-daughter anything she would ask, up to half his kingdom. The step-daughter ran to her mother for advice and she immediately said to ask for "The head of John the Baptist." Herod followed-up his foolish promise by not having the courage to refuse the daughter’s wicked request. So, he gave the order and John was beheaded.

But then, Herod began to hear reports about Jesus and about what Jesus was doing and how He was preaching. When Herod heard about Jesus he said, "Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, "John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him" (Mark 6:14). Others said, that it was Elijah, or another prophet, but when Herod heard those theories he was unconvinced and with a guilty conscience bothering him greatly he said, "This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!" (Mark 6:16).

"Who is it?" was a question on the minds of many in Jesus’ day. Nearly everyone was trying to identify who this teacher from Galilee was. The people in general marveled at what He did and what He said and asked, "Who can this be?" and they had their own theories. The people of Nazareth wondered who this was but could never quite get past the fact that this man was the boy-Jesus whom they saw grow up in Mary and Joseph’s household. So, the people of Nazareth rejected any idea that Jesus was the Savior because to them He was always the boy from down the street. [cf: Mark 6:1ff]

In our text, Jesus asked His disciples, not only "who do people say I am, BUT who do YOU say that I am?" Using these words from the Gospel account of Mark, this morning, we want to ask the same question here. IN YOUR MIND (and heart) WHO IS JESUS? I. WHO? According to His Work II. WHO? According to His value?

I.

When Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" they gave the list of different theories – John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked that question, "But who do you say that I am?" and Peter spoke up for all the disciples and said: "YOU ARE THE CHRIST [v.29] (and Matthew adds in his account) THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD!" (Matthew 16:16).

Peter and the other disciples did not at this point understand all that it meant when he said to Jesus "You are the CHRIST." But in their young faith, they were able to identify that this person—this Jesus with whom they had been walking whom they had been hearing preach and seeing him do miracles—this Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. This Jesus the "Anointed One" who had been chosen by God to be the Savior of the world. He was the Messiah, the Christ, the Promised One, the One promised to Abraham and through the generations. By identifying Jesus as the "Christ," Peter also identified Him as the Son of God.

So who was this Jesus to the disciples? He was more than just a man. Now there were times when they didn’t give Him a whole lot of credit for being more than a man, but in their hearts they KNEW He was more than just a man because He was also the Son of God.

Having heard that confession of Peter, Jesus went on to instruct the disciples as to what it did mean that He is the "Christ." Jesus began to speak about His suffering and death. Jesus would discuss these things more and more as the time for His death drew nearer – with this text we are in the latter weeks of Jesus’ ministry. This week WE will begin our annual meditation and consideration of Christ’s suffering and death during the Lenten season. As we hear Jesus explain for the disciples what it means that He is the Christ—to tell about His suffering and death—we are also preparing ourselves to meditate upon these things in the coming weeks. "[Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly." [vv.31-32a]

Jesus took the confession of Peter, "You are the Christ," and He built upon it. Jesus went back to the Old Testament, such as the prophesies in Isaiah that described how the Christ would suffer and die; but then Jesus added the specifics that it would be the elders, chief priest, and scribes who would bring Him to trial and oversee the road to death.

Jesus preached these things openly. He openly talked about how He was going to be arrested. He openly talked about how this MUST happen. "This is a NECESSITY that I be arrested, suffer, and die, but don’t grieve! Because three days later I will rise again!" Jesus began to convey to the disciples (and others who would listen) the very essence of what He came to do—His work of redemption for sinners.

Just a verse earlier in the text, Jesus had "strictly warned [the disciples] that they should tell no one about Him" [v.30], namely, that He was the Christ. At that time and in that situation, Jesus told the disciples not to spread this confession widely because Jesus didn’t want people following Him for the sake of the name only. But Jesus went on to PROCLAIM OPENLY the WORK He would do. That work which Jesus would accomplish and the Gospel announces is what would create true faith in the hearts of the people. So Jesus warned the disciples not to go out just spreading, "He is the Christ…He is the Christ!" Rather, Jesus was instructing the people what that meant, that He would the Savior from all sin.

When Peter heard these things, He rebuked Jesus. "Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." [vv. 32b-33]

Peter didn’t want Jesus talking about such things, "No Lord, No—you aren’t going to suffer and die. Don’t talk that way! Such things couldn’t/shouldn’t happen to You." Jesus called Peter an instrument of Satan—"get behind Me SATAN." If Jesus would have followed Peter’s rebuke and said, "You know what Peter, you are absolutely right! I don’t need to suffer and die and I won’t!" then Satan would have been delighted for salvation would have been lost. Peter’s rebuke was a temptation to Jesus to stop the work He came to do and therefore Jesus rebuked Peter’s rebuke.

Peter wasn’t focusing on the work of Christ. He wasn’t being mindful of the things of God, Jesus said, but of the things of men. Peter had fallen into the temptation of identifying Jesus by His work, but of the type of work that Peter had conceived for Jesus in his mind. Jesus was instructing Peter and the others to be mindful of the things of God. They needed to learn that this suffering and death which Jesus was describing was something that God had planned. This was the God-appointed work that He had come to do. Jesus wanted the people to be mindful of the things of God and see how God would accomplish salvation through Jesus’ death. He wanted to see God’s salvation and then put their trust in that salvation and to know Jesus by His work—know Him as the One who came to die so that we might live.

We now know Jesus by His work having been fulfilled. At this time (in the text) Jesus was just talking to His disciples about what would come. We can look back and see how everything Jesus said did come true…exactly as He said it would. He did fulfill these things. He did die. He did rise again. He is our Christ. He is our Messiah.

So when we want to identify Jesus and know who He is in our hearts and minds, we look to His work because that work is all-important. When we consider this work and how He came to die for us, it assumes our sin. It is important in identifying Christ that we identify ourselves as well. We need to identify ourselves as sinners who would be in the hands of an angry God if not for Christ. We need to identify ourselves as sinners under the condemnation of the Law so that we can properly identify Christ as the one who sets us free from that condemnation.

Identifying Christ by His work assumes that there is no value in ourselves—no reason for self-reliance. Because if we are sinners and we are identifying Christ as One whose whole work was to save us from our sins, and He did it ALL! There is nothing left in ourselves to rely upon…unless we want to rely upon our sinfulness, our weakness, and our failures.

Identifying Christ by His redeeming work recognizes that now, because I have been brought to faith in Christ, Christ lives in me. He is not just a nameless guy that has an impact for a little while, but rather HE LIVES IN ME through the Word and through faith. This produces the result that I am no longer living for myself but I am living for HIM who gave Himself for me! It changes my whole life! . . .because I’m identifying and believing in Him as my Redeemer from all my sin.

This identity of Christ and what He came to do is very important, because if we don’t identify Christ in this way we may very well fall into despair because of our sin. We may very well become discouraged in our lives because they aren’t anywhere close to perfect. Our lives have failures from beginning to end. We need to identify Christ as our perfect Redeemer so that we can, like Peter, confess: YOU ARE THE CHRIST THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD; but also understand by that, "my sins are removed, I don’t have to fear them anymore, they are forgiven."

There is a danger in assigning to Christ a kind of work that we make up instead of what Christ came to do. If we identify Christ according to His work and say that His work is to make earthly life "a breeze" – that life on this earth is always going to be happy. If I identify Christ by saying that His work is to assure that I have happiness in this life, we aren’t identifying Him correctly because that is not what He came to do. If we identify Christ by His work saying He came to make this life happy then we are going to see a failing Christ because He doesn’t always see fit to make this life trouble-free. We need to identify Christ by His true work to understand His true purpose.

If we identify Christ according to His work saying that His work is to make us feel comfortable in our sin; if we believe His work to be a pal who will walk along side of us and more-or-less wink at my sin to let me go on feeling comforted believing that the sin isn’t so great because after all I have Jesus; if we identify Jesus’ work as something to soothe our consciences without forgiving our sins, but rather allowing us to keep on sinning, then we have identified Him poorly and He is not our Savior.

In the year 2000, how do people identify Jesus? Who do people now say that He is? One of the late night TV programs sometimes goes around a city asking people various questions to test their knowledge. Often times these questions are about Scripture—some of the very basic things of Bible History. It is sad to know that many people don’t even know the very basics. There are many people who, if we asked them "who do you say Jesus is?" would respond saying, "WHO is WHO????" I don’t even know what you’re talking about." Or even, whether it is in the "religious community" or not, people might know the name and say "Jesus this…Jesus that…" but if they never get past the name to His work it again remains a very shallow identification of Christ.

When we go through our lives, so much of the frustration and sin we experience is because we are being mindful of the things of men rather than the things of God. When we remain mindful of the things of God and identify our Savior by His work and then realize that His work is a part of our day-to-day life then that sin and frustration will fade away. Keeping our Savior’s work in our minds and in our hearts, identifying Him for who He is will change sin’s sorrow to the joy of forgiveness.

II.

Not having in mind the things of men but of God also applies to the VALUE that we assign to Jesus. The value that we assign to Jesus is another way of identifying Him in our minds and hearts.

Jesus went on to say in the text, "When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it." [vv.34-35]

We know that the value of something is truly great if we are willing to give up something else for it. Jesus called the disciples and the others to Himself and said, "if you want to follow Me…if you are going to be My disciples, then take up the cross and follow Me." We mentioned in connection with the New Testament reading that "taking up the cross of Christ" means to suffer loss because of our faith. This can come in the form of persecution in this life, but even more than that, just by being a believer we deny ourselves what our selves love most.

When we follow Christ we are sacrificing our old way of living. When we follow Christ we are sacrificing those things that please our flesh because we know that they displease God. This can be hard…for our flesh…because it doesn’t want to give those things up. Jesus says, "whoever desires to save his life will lose it." If you want to save your life eternally through Christ, you will lose that old way of living which is steeped in sin and following after Satan. THERE is the VALUE. Is Christ and His salvation worth cutting off the things I love most according to the flesh?

When we consider Scripture and what Jesus shows us about His work, we say, "Yes! Indeed it is worth it!" It is VALUABLE and worth cutting ourselves off from the desires of the flesh because in our Savior and with the enlightenment of His Word, cutting them off doesn’t look so much like a difficult thing. Why would we want to remain in our sin, following after sinful ways, and living according to the world when we have salvation in Christ?!? Why would we be under the burden of all those cares and concerns of the world when Jesus says, "My burden is light! Let me bear the heavy burden of sin for you, and you REST!" (cf: Matthew 11:28-30). "Cast all your care upon Me, because I’ll care for you!" (cf: 1 Peter 5:7).

The Devil tempts us to want "all the world." Do you remember when the Devil came to Jesus after He had been fasting 40 days in the wilderness? At that time, one of the Devil’s temptations was that he would give Jesus the "whole world" if Jesus would bow down and worship him. The world, the Devil, our flesh wants EVERYTHING that pleases our sinful side—our Old Adam. Losing that old life of sin, we follow Christ. The value we place on Christ determines how willing and eager we will be to sacrifice what pleases the flesh and follow Him. Is it hard? Yes it is, according to the flesh, but Jesus encourages us and enables us to do so.

Jesus continues, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? [vv.36-37] Here we come to the "bottom line." If we are counting value here is the total. All the things that I could possibly gain is always going to look like a negative number compared to the value that I have in Christ.

When Jesus says, "what will it profit a man if he gain the whole world," we perhaps think most often of financial gain and fame, but it doesn’t even have to be limited to that. Whatever "means the world" to someone is the world. If gaining whatever means the world to me comes at the cost of my soul then I have profited NOTHING and lost EVERYTHING.

In Jesus’ parable of the rich fool, the man’s "world" was his farm and what it produced. His farm had produced remarkably well that year, so well that he had to tear down his old barns and build new ones to store his bounty. Having big brand new barns filled with grain meant the world to the man and he said, "And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry." But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’" (Luke 12:19-20). What did it profit this man to gain, in his mind, the whole world when he lost his own soul? NOTHING!

The value of our Savior is eternal. Jesus continued, "Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." [v. 38]

It is very hard to imagine something more heart-rending than to conceive of Jesus, your Savior, being ashamed of you. Just think about it—Jesus the Son of God came to earth to give Himself up for YOU. He loves you deeply! He gave Himself so that you could live with Him forever. He’s done everything. Would you want such a great friend to be ashamed? Certainly not, because He is valuable, a cherished friend, our treasure, our eternal LIFE. Despite our sins, Jesus is not ashamed of us and has redeemed us. However, Jesus says, if you reject Me, if you reject all that I have done for you, are ashamed of me and follow your own sinful ways, then you will profit whatever you profit but will lose your soul. Then when I return on Judgment Day, I will be left with no alternative but to reject you because you will still be in your sins and without Me cannot be counted righteous…cannot enter eternal life.

Concerning the value of Christ there is temptation just as there is concerning His work. "I haven’t got a life!" Many times this is really saying, "I don’t have a life like that of the people around me. It is not as exciting as the people who are following worldly ways." Forget about that! What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, has a wonderful life in the way the world counts it, but loses his soul?

"My style of life isn’t very valuable, its down there in the lower range of society." Forget about it—don’t worry about it! What is a man profited if he lives in the most stylish of ways all of his life, but loses his soul and spends eternity in hell?

The value that I place on Christ will determine my priorities and what IS most important in my life. If I value Christ in the way He is worthy to be valued, if I put Christ as my chief value then the things concerning Him will also be my chief priorities.

Where do we go for direction, counsel, and guidance in this life? If we’re valuing Christ we will go to Him and His word. We value Him and what He has done for us and what He says. For this reason we greatly value the Means of Grace—the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. We value the Gospel so highly because it is the power of God for salvation (cf: Romans 1:16). It is the Word of God which has led us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, our Savior. It is the Word of God which will keep us holding onto Christ as our valuable treasure. Through the Gospel we receive the valuable gifts of forgiveness of sins and life eternal.

When we look at VALUE and WORK together, we find that they are connected. We value Christ because of His work. Jesus values you so much that He shed His blood for you. Christ’s love for us moves us to love Him (cf: 1 John 4:19). We love Jesus because of His WORK. We treasure Him because the VALUE of that work is eternal life.

As we now enter a new Lenten series we will be considering the "Meaning of the Cross" in our midweek services. In the meaning of the cross we will find tremendous VALUE, because there we see the WORK of Christ that has bought us back for LIFE.

—Pastor Wayne C. Eichstadt