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Sermon of the Week
Look up the passage

28/8/05 8am

The Scandal of the Gospel Matthew 16:21-28

In 1 Cor 1:22-23 Paul writes: "For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." And of course he was right. To think that God would send his Son to earth just so he could die sounds crazy. To think that the Messiah, God's promised king, would just stand by while his enemies took him and put him to death is ludicrous. To call people to bow down and worship a man who's died the death of someone who's obviously cursed by God seems a waste of time.

That's certainly what Peter thought when Jesus began to explain how he'd act out his role as Messiah. Remember that Jesus had just asked his disciples "Who do people say that I am?" And then he'd asked "Who do you say that I am?" And it was Peter who'd made this amazing statement: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." But when it came to understanding the nature of Jesus' rule, the means by which he'd bring his enemies to subjection, Peter was totally lost; appalled. "God Forbid!" he says. He wants to have nothing to do with any talk of Jesus being killed. Jesus has come as their king, How can he even think of the possibility that he might be killed? No! It's too scandalous to even contemplate.

Of course the cross is still a scandal even today. Still we have theologians denying that God could have asked his only Son to die such a barbarous death just so his justice would be satisfied. Still people want to pretend that Jesus was just a good teacher, that his aim was to instill in the minds of the disciples an attitude of love and acceptance that would carry them through, once he was gone. The scandal today though isn't that he might be a king who's killed before his time. These days the issue is usually over one of two things. It may be over the idea that God would substitute his Son for us so his wrath might be appeased. There the problem is that they think that it's either unbelievable that a loving God would require sinful people to die or else that it would be totally unjust, not to mention barbarous, for God to use his only Son as a substitute for us.

   The other objection is to the idea that Jesus might have physically died and risen again. There the problem has to do with our modern rationalistic/scientific world view that says that anything we can't explain by rational thought or scientific evidence can't be true. That of course has at it's base a disbelief in the God of Scripture. In fact it would question whether Scripture is indeed the word of God rather than just a collection of human writings. Because to think otherwise challenges everything we've been taught as we've grown up. Never mind the fact that Jesus says quite plainly that he's going to be killed but on the third day will rise again. 'That's just something the disciples made up after the event' will be the response.

   But look at how Jesus responds to Peter when he turns his mind away from God's plan for the salvation of the world: his response is sharp and instant: "Satan!" he calls Peter. "You may think the cross is a stumbling block," he says, "but the stumbling block is actually you."

"²³But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.'" You see the trouble with Peter and with so many liberal theologians today is that they look at God's plans through human eyes. They see the way God behaves and they judge it before they have anywhere near all the facts.

But it isn't just them that has a problem with this. We can be equally guilty of looking at things through world shaped eyes rather than through God-shaped eyes.

The fact is that our minds are so shaped by our world that it's all too easy to jump to conclusions before thinking fully about an issue. We see the way God chooses some to be saved but leaves others out and we say "That's unfair." We compare ourselves to certain other people and we think we must be pretty good people. We see injustice happening all around us and we wonder whether God's even there if he lets these things go on. Or if he is there then maybe he isn't as all-powerful as we've been taught.

But as soon as we think like that then we're guilty of acting like Peter in this story; our minds are not on divine things but on human things.

And even when we think we're thinking in a godly way, in a way that we think honours Christ we can still be led astray. You see what Peter was doing here was just that, wasn't it? He thought he was honouring Christ. He understood who Jesus was. He knew what Jesus was here for. He'd applied his spiritual understanding to the situation and had come up with the right conclusion, hadn't he? Well, almost. He'd recognised who Jesus was, but his conclusion about what that might mean was deeply flawed wasn't it? And why was it flawed? Because he hadn't properly understood the Scriptures that talk about the Messiah and what he'd do. He hadn't thought through the implications of those 'Servant Songs' in Isaiah for instance, or those prophecies of Zechariah that we looked at a few weeks ago.

Most of all, Peter's error was that he hadn't listened to Jesus as the Lord he claimed him to be. He hadn't submitted himself to Jesus' Lordship in everything. He hadn't allowed his mind to be shaped only by what Jesus said rather than by his own personal desires.

Well let me ask you, where is your mind? Is it set on divine things or on human things? Last week Michael preached on Rom 12 and this is one of the verses we read: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect." Is that what you're doing? Renewing your mind so you can discern the will of God, so you can think with minds that are God shaped? Are you immersing yourself in God's word so you can know how God would have you think? Are you consciously wiping clean the contamination of the world that gets into your mind through what you see and read and hear every day of the week?

Look at what Jesus says next: he says that anyone who wants to follow him has to be prepared to suffer exactly what Jesus was about to suffer. "²⁴If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Following Jesus = losing your life. If you thought that Jesus' being willing to die in order to fulfill God's plan for the world was crazy, just hang on a second, because that plan might also involve Jesus' followers dying as well. If Peter and the other disciples thought they were on an easy road to becoming rulers of Israel at Jesus' right hand they had another think coming. The path to victory in Jesus' army involves self sacrifice in the ultimate sense. If you think you can work out what's right in God's economy all by yourself then here's a message for you. You need to submit your mind to God, to give up your right to think independent rational thought, unless that thought first derives from God's own way of thinking. You need to be prepared to listen to what God has to say about the world before coming to your own conclusions about it.

But of course that isn't all he says is it? He also assures them that those who do give up their lives for his sake will gain them in the end. So following Jesus means losing your life, but following Jesus also means gaining your life. Look at vs25-28: "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? ²⁷'For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'"

God is no-one's debtor. Those who give their lives in his service can trust him to repay them a hundredfold. Following Jesus means life even if, in this world, suffering may be our lot. Notice, though, that the promise of v27 is also a warning to those who choose not to give up their lives for Jesus' sake. There's a sense in which our future with God is dependent on our present life in his service. Not as far as our salvation is concerned. God's word elsewhere is quite clear that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, but we're told in a number of places that our life with God will be affected by the way we serve him while we're on this earth. Those who willingly give their lives in God's service can expect to be rewarded in the life to come.

In fact that seems to be behind this difficult saying of Jesus in v28. Jesus is so sure of the reward that his followers are to earn that he says some of them will still be alive when they see him coming in his kingdom. Mind you, no-one really knows what Jesus was referring to here. It obviously doesn't refer to the second coming. It may, though, refer to Jesus' resurrection and subsequent ascension. That fits the idea of him coming in glory as well as addressing the issue of how the Messiah can willingly give up his life. It could refer, though, to the transfiguration that takes place a week later. It might also refer to the coming of the Holy Spirit to give the disciples a foretaste of heaven, as God comes to dwell within them.

Whatever he had in mind though, the promise is clear, those who give up their lives for Jesus' sake will save them. He will reward us with life eternal in exchange for these mortal lives we enjoy now.

Jesus' death on the cross, his resurrection 3 days later, are a scandal to the rational mind. But to the mind filled with God's word, to the mind tuned to God and to his plans for the world, they're great wisdom. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. So let's make sure our minds are transformed by what God has to teach us, not conformed to what the world pours into them day after day.



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	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	28/8/05 8am
	The Scandal of the Gospel	Matthew 16:21-28

	In 1 Cor 1:22-23 Paul writes: "For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." And of course he was right. To think that God would send his Son to earth just so he could die sounds crazy. To think that the Messiah, God's promised king, would just stand by while his enemies took him and put him to death is ludicrous. To call people to bow down and worship a man who's died the death of someone who's obviously cursed by God seems a waste of time.
	That's certainly what Peter thought when Jesus began to explain how he'd act out his role as Messiah. Remember that Jesus had just asked his disciples "Who do people say that I am?" And then he'd asked "Who do you say that I am?" And it was Peter who'd made this amazing statement: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." But when it came to understanding the nature of Jesus' rule, the means by which he'd bring his enemies to subjection, Peter was totally lost; appalled. "God Forbid!" he says. He wants to have nothing to do with any talk of Jesus being killed. Jesus has come as their king, How can he even think of the possibility that he might be killed? No! It's too scandalous to even contemplate.
	Of course the cross is still a scandal even today. Still we have theologians denying that God could have asked his only Son to die such a barbarous death just so his justice would be satisfied. Still people want to pretend that Jesus was just a good teacher, that his aim was to instill in the minds of the disciples an attitude of love and acceptance that would carry them through, once he was gone. The scandal today though isn't that he might be a king who's killed before his time. These days the issue is usually over one of two things. It may be over the idea that God would substitute his Son for us so his wrath might be appeased. There the problem is that they think that it's either unbelievable that a loving God would require sinful people to die or else that it would be totally unjust, not to mention barbarous, for God to use his only Son as a substitute for us.
	The other objection is to the idea that Jesus might have physically died and risen again. There the problem has to do with our modern rationalistic/scientific world view that says that anything we can't explain by rational thought or scientific evidence can't be true. That of course has at it's base a disbelief in the God of Scripture. In fact it would question whether Scripture is indeed the word of God rather than just a collection of human writings. Because to think otherwise challenges everything we've been taught as we've grown up. Never mind the fact that Jesus says quite plainly that he's going to be killed but on the third day will rise again. 'That's just something the disciples made up after the event' will be the response.
	But look at how Jesus responds to Peter when he turns his mind away from God's plan for the salvation of the world: his response is sharp and instant: "Satan!" he calls Peter. "You may think the cross is a stumbling block," he says, "but the stumbling block is actually you."
	"²³But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.'" You see the trouble with Peter and with so many liberal theologians today is that they look at God's plans through human eyes. They see the way God behaves and they judge it before they have anywhere near all the facts.
	But it isn't just them that has a problem with this. We can be equally guilty of looking at things through world shaped eyes rather than through God-shaped eyes.
	The fact is that our minds are so shaped by our world that it's all too easy to jump to conclusions before thinking fully about an issue. We see the way God chooses some to be saved but leaves others out and we say "That's unfair." We compare ourselves to certain other people and we think we must be pretty good people. We see injustice happening all around us and we wonder whether God's even there if he lets these things go on. Or if he is there then maybe he isn't as all-powerful as we've been taught.
	But as soon as we think like that then we're guilty of acting like Peter in this story; our minds are not on divine things but on human things.
	And even when we think we're thinking in a godly way, in a way that we think honours Christ we can still be led astray. You see what Peter was doing here was just that, wasn't it? He thought he was honouring Christ. He understood who Jesus was. He knew what Jesus was here for. He'd applied his spiritual understanding to the situation and had come up with the right conclusion, hadn't he? Well, almost. He'd recognised who Jesus was, but his conclusion about what that might mean was deeply flawed wasn't it? And why was it flawed? Because he hadn't properly understood the Scriptures that talk about the Messiah and what he'd do. He hadn't thought through the implications of those 'Servant Songs' in Isaiah for instance, or those prophecies of Zechariah that we looked at a few weeks ago.
	Most of all, Peter's error was that he hadn't listened to Jesus as the Lord he claimed him to be. He hadn't submitted himself to Jesus' Lordship in everything. He hadn't allowed his mind to be shaped only by what Jesus said rather than by his own personal desires.
	Well let me ask you, where is your mind? Is it set on divine things or on human things? Last week Michael preached on Rom 12 and this is one of the verses we read: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect." Is that what you're doing? Renewing your mind so you can discern the will of God, so you can think with minds that are God shaped? Are you immersing yourself in God's word so you can know how God would have you think? Are you consciously wiping clean the contamination of the world that gets into your mind through what you see and read and hear every day of the week?
	Look at what Jesus says next: he says that anyone who wants to follow him has to be prepared to suffer exactly what Jesus was about to suffer. "²⁴If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Following Jesus = losing your life. If you thought that Jesus' being willing to die in order to fulfill God's plan for the world was crazy, just hang on a second, because that plan might also involve Jesus' followers dying as well. If Peter and the other disciples thought they were on an easy road to becoming rulers of Israel at Jesus' right hand they had another think coming. The path to victory in Jesus' army involves self sacrifice in the ultimate sense. If you think you can work out what's right in God's economy all by yourself then here's a message for you. You need to submit your mind to God, to give up your right to think independent rational thought, unless that thought first derives from God's own way of thinking. You need to be prepared to listen to what God has to say about the world before coming to your own conclusions about it.
	But of course that isn't all he says is it? He also assures them that those who do give up their lives for his sake will gain them in the end. So following Jesus means losing your life, but following Jesus also means gaining your life. Look at vs25-28: "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? ²⁷'For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'"
	God is no-one's debtor. Those who give their lives in his service can trust him to repay them a hundredfold. Following Jesus means life even if, in this world, suffering may be our lot. Notice, though, that the promise of v27 is also a warning to those who choose not to give up their lives for Jesus' sake. There's a sense in which our future with God is dependent on our present life in his service. Not as far as our salvation is concerned. God's word elsewhere is quite clear that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, but we're told in a number of places that our life with God will be affected by the way we serve him while we're on this earth. Those who willingly give their lives in God's service can expect to be rewarded in the life to come.
	In fact that seems to be behind this difficult saying of Jesus in v28. Jesus is so sure of the reward that his followers are to earn that he says some of them will still be alive when they see him coming in his kingdom. Mind you, no-one really knows what Jesus was referring to here. It obviously doesn't refer to the second coming. It may, though, refer to Jesus' resurrection and subsequent ascension. That fits the idea of him coming in glory as well as addressing the issue of how the Messiah can willingly give up his life. It could refer, though, to the transfiguration that takes place a week later. It might also refer to the coming of the Holy Spirit to give the disciples a foretaste of heaven, as God comes to dwell within them.
	Whatever he had in mind though, the promise is clear, those who give up their lives for Jesus' sake will save them. He will reward us with life eternal in exchange for these mortal lives we enjoy now.
	Jesus' death on the cross, his resurrection 3 days later, are a scandal to the rational mind. But to the mind filled with God's word, to the mind tuned to God and to his plans for the world, they're great wisdom. The gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. So let's make sure our minds are transformed by what God has to teach us, not conformed to what the world pours into them day after day.