17^th Sunday after Pentecost – September 27, 2009

Mark 8:27-35 – ²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” ²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” ³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. ³¹ He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” ³⁴ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Dear fellow followers of Jesus Christ,

Have you ever asked yourself what it means to be a Christian? After all, the word Christian appears only three times in the Greek New Testament. It isn’t until Acts 11:26 that we first read, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” And even then, it’s hard to tell if this was a term adopted by believers or a term invented by enemies to serve as an insult. But either way, the nickname stuck, and so Peter would later write, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name” (1 Peter 4:16). And what better name could there be for those belonging to Christ?

Of course today, Christian is a popular name and one that we indeed carry with pride. But unfortunately, it is also a term that has become confused with the passing of time. It seems like everyone wants to call themselves a Christian, even if they don’t believe the Bible. Our country and many of its citizens want to label our nation as a Christian nation, even though it is not. And it seems like anyone who says they believe in a god (doesn’t matter which one) is thus identified as a Christian. But is that really what a Christian is?

The reason those early believer’s were called Christian’s was because they were followers of Jesus. And what that all involves is told us by Jesus in our lesson before us. So, this morning we let the words of Jesus explain to us what it means to be a Christian. As we do, we will see that to be a Christian means confessing that Jesus is the Christ; it means believing Jesus’ mission was the cross; and it means following Jesus with our cross.

If you were to go around asking your friends, “What do people say about me?” they would most likely take it as an evidence of pride. What difference, after all, does it really make what people think or say about us? We are not that important! But it is a completely different story when it comes to what people believe and say about Jesus. That is important, because that is a matter of life or death!

That is why Jesus, after asking his disciples who people said he was, put them to the test with the more personal question: “Who do you say I am.” Jesus wanted to find out if after all this time spent with him, after all his miracles and instruction, after having heard demons call him the Son of God, after having heard him claim the authority on earth to forgive sins, after having seen the theologically trained teachers of the law reject him, if they had now come to a conviction as to who he was? Peter’s answer shows that they had, “You are the Christ.”

But what did Peter mean? After all, to confess that Jesus is the Christ is to do more than just call Jesus Christ. The title Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah.” It means the “Anointed One,” one commissioned and appointed by God. But it is even more than that! The Messiah spoken of by Moses and the prophets would not only be commissioned and appointed by God, he would come from God. The promised Messiah would be more than a man. This understanding is clearly evidenced when Caiphas asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mark 14:61). Therefore, the title Christ indicates that Jesus was the very Son of God, divinely appointed and commissioned to carry out the great redemptive work as the Savior of mankind. Jesus the Christ is Jesus the Great Deliverer. Jesus the Christ is the Savior of mankind.

To believe that “Jesus is the Christ,” then, is to believe that he is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, the Savior sent from God, that he is exactly what he claimed to be. As Christian’s, Peter’s answer has to be our answer. That Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man, our Christ, our Savior, our Redeemer. This is the testimony of God, and to believe this is what it means to be a Christian. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1).

To have this knowledge of the person of Jesus is an absolute necessity if we are to understand his work. How clear this becomes when we look at Peter and the other disciples. Even though they had been with Jesus for so long, even though they had seen his miracles and heard the demons, even though they confessed Jesus as the Christ, their understanding of Jesus, the Christ, was not where it needed to be. That is why they were stunned when Jesus announced, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and…he must be killed and after three days rise again.”

You see, the disciples had expected the Messiah to come as a conquering king, not as a sacrificial lamb. They thought that the Messiah would come and defeat all their enemies and establish a glorious kingdom for Israel. They were unable, or at least unwilling, to concede the fact that their Messiah had come to suffer and die. And that is what Jesus told them, “He must suffer and die.” Take note of Jesus’ small little word “must.” That word points to the inevitableness and rationale of the cross. Since God is love and man is a sinner, God would provide a salvation for the sinner. But since God is also just, it was necessary for Jesus, God’s Son, to die on the cross and thus pay the penalty that would satisfy the demands of that justice which required that sin be paid for.

Jesus HAD to suffer and die. He HAD to because God in his grace, in his love for us undeserving sinners, had decided from eternity to have his own Son wipe out the sin and guilt of mankind by his suffering and death as their substitute. He HAD to because he was God’s love reaching down to worthless sinners like you and me, pulling us up out of our well deserved hell and making us his dear children by faith. Christ is the go-between, the mediator, between God and man. Christ is our lawyer who pleads for us before the throne of God. His pleading is effective because he lived a perfect life for us and suffered the punishment of sins for us. For his sake God declares us all forgiven. Thus, Jesus tells us that to be a Christian means believing that, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).

When Peter began to try and correct Jesus for saying that his mission was the cross, Jesus turned around and rebuked Peter and the rest of the disciples for agreeing with Peter’s assessment of the situation. Part of the problem was that with this type of thinking, they demonstrated a deadly failure to understand how necessary Jesus’ suffering was for man’s salvation. Yet, the problem went even deeper than that. There was also a very practical problem. Jesus had called these men to follow Him, and they knew that whatever happened to him would happen to them. Therefore, if there was a cross in his future, there would be one in their future as well. That wasn’t very appealing! In spite of their devotion to Him, the disciples were still ignorant of the true relationship between the cross and the crown. They wanted to follow Satan’s philosophy, glory without suffering, instead of God’s philosophy, suffering transformed into glory.

So, since we now understand who Jesus is and what he did for us, let us also understand that faith shows itself by enduring suffering for Jesus’ sake. That is why Jesus goes on to say, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

With these words, Jesus tells us there is a price to pay for being a Christian – we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. So, what does Jesus mean when he tell us to deny ourselves? Simply put, we are to surrender ourselves completely to Him. Now understand – this is not the same as self-denial. We practice self-denial when, for a good purpose, we occasionally give up things or activities. But we deny ourselves when we surrender ourselves to Christ and determine to obey his will. We deny ourselves when we refuse to make ourselves the sole object in life. We deny ourselves when we turn away from self-centeredness. We deny ourselves when we let God and his will dictate our lives instead of letting our self-interests shape our lives. It means asking, “How does Christ want me to live?” and then actually following through on his answer. It means gladly and willingly avoiding everything, not just most things, that might come between us and our Savior.

This, of course, is not very appealing to our sinful nature. In fact, our sinful nature downright hates it. And sadly, far too often we find ourselves identifying with that sinful nature and doing the things we want to do even though we know they are opposite of what God wants us to do. You know exactly what I mean! Whether it is time spent in the Word at home, worship or Bible Class, or the subject of our offerings, we are all too familiar with the sinful complaints we raise to God, but…but…that would mean taking time away from me and keeping me from purchasing everything I want. You would be lying to me, yourself, and to God if you are not willing to admit that many times you sinfully make yourself the center of your life and fail to live up to your Christian name by denying yourselves.

Jesus also tells us that being a Christian means being willing to take up our cross. To bear our cross and follow Jesus is to be willing to endure whatever comes to us because we are a follower of Jesus. This does not mean suffering as He did or being crucified as he was. Nor does it mean valiantly bearing life’s troubles. Rather, it means obedience to God’s will as revealed in his Word, and then accepting the consequences without reservations for Jesus’ sake and the gospel. It is the suffering that comes because we strive to put into practice everything God asks of a faithful follower of Jesus. So, if you willingly continue in a difficult marriage because you know it is God’s will, you are bearing a cross. If you haven’t gotten married because you are not willing to compromise your faith, you are bearing a cross. If you have given up good friends because you take seriously God’s words, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33), you are bearing a cross. If your allegiance to Jesus and his Word cause you to give up some advantage or profit at work, you are bearing a cross.

Once again, this is something our sinful flesh opposes as it whispers in our ear, “Say yes to God’s will and way, even when his way is the hard way – you’ve gotta be kidding me!” Then, before you know it the whispers of our sinful flesh become our very own thoughts and actions and we set our cross aside. We rationalize: “God doesn’t want me to be unhappy, so he can’t mean that I should follow his word in this situation.” We rationalize: “It’s easier for me to go along with this now and ask for forgiveness later.” We rationalize: “God doesn’t want be to be lonely, so it must be ok to compromise.” But Jesus never said, take up your pillow and follow me. In fact, the idea behind that word “follow” is not that of following behind another, but that of accompanying the other person, taking the same road that he takes and joining with him along that road. You would be lying to me, yourself, and to God if you were not willing to admit that many times you sinfully have set your cross aside and failed to live up to your Christian name by carrying your cross.

Now that we know what it means to be a Christian, we have to admit we don’t deserve the name. We have to admit we deserve to have God strip that title from us. We have to admit that we deserve to lose our life and be sent to hell. How could it be any other way? Yet, that is why it is so essential that we know the person and work of Christ. Knowing the person and work of Christ, we know that we have forgiveness. After all, it was the very Son of God who died on the cross. It was the very Son of God who shed his blood to win our forgiveness for all the times we’ve denied Christ instead of ourselves and for all the times we were too ashamed to carry our cross and follow him. Not only that, but knowing the person and work of Christ enables us to look at those five very important words that the disciples missed – “after three days rise again.” Jesus not only predicted his death, he also predicted his victory. He was going to go to the cross, suffer and die, to pay for sins, but he wasn’t going to stay dead. His resurrection would signify that he had not gone to the cross in defeat, but in victory. All had been won. It happened exactly as planned and as necessary. Our sins are paid for, death is vanquished, Satan is defeated, and heaven has been opened to us.

So now, as we live up to our Christian names, we can know that no matter how much we have to deny ourselves, and no matter how many times we failed; no matter how difficult our cross, and no matter how many times we have failed to carry it, we can run back to the Word, fix our eyes on Jesus the Christ and his mission, and see our forgiveness. We can take another peek at our heavenly home won and prepared for us by him. We can realize that to deny ourselves and take up our cross is not an act of desperation but an act of devotion. We can realize that God’s ultimate good does not necessarily guarantee comfort and easy living for Christians, and we can be ok with that because we know of the glory and joy of the heaven that is waiting for us.

So, who do you say Jesus is? Indeed that question is of utmost importance – and by the grace of God’s we know. We know he is the Christ and that his mission was the cross. Now we are Christians, and now we can live like one. God help us in this life, dear fellow Christian. Amen.