Sermon Are We Ashamed?
Today we are going to begin a journey through Lent. Although last week was the first Sunday of Lent I was finishing up a series from Genesis on Getting Back to the Basics. So today we begin our journey through Scripture to lead us to Easter Sunday.
The Scripture today is preceded by Jesus asking the disciples who people said He was and their response. Jesus then asks the disciples who do they say He is and Peter replied that Jesus was the Son of the Living God. They are in Caesarea Philippi which is a haven for pagan worship, so this statement from Peter is one that came from heaven and not from human means. Listen to what the Scripture speaks to in the few verses prior to today’s text: 27 Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.” 29 Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” 30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. In Matthew 16:16 and 17 we read the following: 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
So this sets the background for today’s text. Let us review it together!
31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead.
Jesus tells them He must (has to):
- Suffer
- Be rejected
- Be killed
- And be raised from the dead
- This is important because Peter has made a confession that they believed or at least he knew that Jesus was the Messiah or the Christ that they had long awaited for and now Jesus was telling them He would be lowered down or humiliated in manner that did not make sense to Peter.
- Jesus will tell Peter why when Peter approaches Jesus — notice Jesus knew what Peter was thinking and what he was going to say before He even pulled Jesus aside!
Let us see that encounter in the next few verses …
32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand (rebuke) him for saying such things.
- Peter took Jesus aside and did not rebuke Jesus in public.
- The word rebuke means to warn someone forcefully with a strong disapproval and with heated words. In this case it is used for personal scolding where Peter takes Jesus aside and with heated words tries to turn Him from His path.
- No matter how well intended Peter was and just after calling Jesus the Messiah we see Peter’s mindset and thoughts as that of the world and what he desired instead of what God desired.
Let us continue on and see what Jesus says in response to Peter …
33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded (rebuked) Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
- Wow! Jesus had just a few verses earlier lauded Peter’s heavenly wisdom and now Jesus is calling Peter Satan or at least telling Peter that his thoughts are more in line with the human point of view which is Satan’s point of view and not God’s!
- However, when looking at the Greek in this text we see that this rebuke was not only to Peter, but to all the disciples. It was a teaching moment to say that when we follow Christ we need to leave our thoughts and desires behind to follow Him. I use this verse so much but Galatians 2:20 states that when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior: We have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. And the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.
- Accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior
- Commit to Jesus and allow Him to be our Lord and Savior
- Surrender to Jesus and make Him our Lord and Savior over everything in our life!
34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.
- Jesus then explains how we can accept, commit and surrender to Him but taking up the cross and following Him. Therefore, Jesus’ command to “take up your cross and follow Me” is a call to being humble and willing to sacrifice everything to live for Jesus not for ourselves. One must be willing to die in order to follow Jesus. Dying to self (our desires and our biases and our agendas) is an absolute surrender to God.
35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.
- When we try to live for the world and live out our own desires and wants then have we really committed and surrender to Jesus? So many want to have one foot in the water and one foot on dry land! We need to jump in the deep in folks and allow Jesus to control our whole life!
- That is hard because it no longer becomes about us, but it becomes about Him! Everything we do centers around what Jesus desires for you and me — even if He desires something we don’t like.
- Let me say there is not an aspect of our life that Jesus doesn’t want to be a part of and consulted about! We should be seeking Him for everything in our life. Prayer and seeking His will is what we have to do to surrender our life to Him!
36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
- We can be successful by worldly (Satan’s) standard but we look our very soul, meaning we lose our eternal life! So many today are rejecting Jesus to seek the pleasures and fortunes of this world to only in the end lose their soul to hell! It doesn’t we don’t strive have a good life here on earth — but a truly great life is one that has us living for Jesus and Him guiding our paths. Then even when life isn’t what we want it to be we are told at Proverbs 3:5 and 6 that he will make straight our paths!
38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
- Today’s message is titles Are We Ashamed? And this is the verse that speaks to that. When we live for ourselves we place the emphasis on us and not on Jesus!
- Jesus tells us that anyone who is ashamed of me in these adulterous and sinful days (boy that describes today to a tee) He will be ashamed of us when He returns to call us home!
- Are we living a life that we are surrendering to Jesus or are we just surrendering what is convenient and harmless to our easy and comfortable lives? Are we willing to live for Jesus or live for ourselves? The choice is ours — which do we choose this morning?
