Sermons

Have you ever seen the power-lifting competition when the Olympics come on? Four years of training and practice go into each Olympic competition. The lifters spend just about every day in the weight room, lifting weights over and over again so they can be ready. Our text for this morning tells us how we can be spiritually strong. Jesus tells us, “Take up your cross!” We do that, first of all, by confessing Jesus as Christ, and secondly, by following Jesus under the crosses that we bear. I. Confessing Jesus as Christ At this point in Jesus’ ministry, we find him going with his disciples from town to town, preaching and performing miracles. As he was traveling with them, he asked them a question. He asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” But when he asked this, he was not seeking information that he didn’t know. He was not using the disciples as spies to find out what public opinion of him was. Jesus already knew what people thought of him. Instead, he was seeking to elicit a confession of faith from the disciples. Other people said that Jesus was really John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets. People realized that there was something special about Jesus from his teaching and miracles. But they all thought he was someone else resurrected, not the Messiah sent by God. That was the confession he was seeking from his disciples. He wanted them to say, “We believe you are who you say you are.” And Peter, as usual, rose to the occasion. When Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, Peter, speaking for the Twelve, boldly answered, “You are the Christ.” Jesus’ disciples confessed Jesus to be the promised Messiah, sent into the world to save people. Yet Jesus’ words and actions tell us that people didn’t quite fully understand what that saving was or how it would take place. Many people had false ideas about what the Messiah would do for the people of Israel. Most thought that the Messiah would come to restore an earthly kingdom like King David’s. To correct misguided notions about the Messiah and his mission, Jesus begins to tell his disciples exactly what it means for him to be the Messiah. Up until this point in his ministry, Jesus had spoke about his suffering, death and resurrection in metaphors and parables that not everyone understood. Now he begins to tell them plainly what he must do to complete his mission. He tells them that he must suffer and die. His victory would not be over a mighty nation or a powerful people. In fact, he would be put to death by a conquered nation. But Jesus also explained the other part of his mission to them. He was to rise again from the dead, declaring to the entire world for all time that God accepted the sacrifice that he was about to make. But Peter would have none of it. This was not his Messiah. According to Peter’s line of thought, the Messiah was too powerful to let anyone or anything subject him to suffering or death. The Messiah would reign over his kingdom and nothing could stand against him. So Peter took Jesus aside, thinking he would straighten Jesus out. But Jesus had a strong rebuke for Peter. “Get behind me, Satan,” he said. By his words, Peter had been trying to do what Satan tried to do when he tempted Jesus in the desert. He was trying to convince Jesus not to go through with the plan of salvation, to not complete his mission. Jesus tells Peter to get out of his sight because Peter was concerned more with earthly glory and power than God’s plan to rescue the world from sin, death, and hell. Who do we say Jesus is? What about our confession of Christ? We join in confessing our common faith when we use the creeds here in worship. They are a true testimony to the life and work of Jesus on our behalf. But sometimes in our lives as Christians we think the same way as Peter. Sometimes we think that since we are Christians and believe what Jesus says, God should see to it that we don’t have any problems in this life. We ask ourselves, “If God loves us, why does he allow painful things to happen to us” instead of trusting that God is working everything out for our spiritual good. At other times we are timid, failing to confess to others the wonderful truth that they have a savior from sin in Jesus Christ. But no matter how many times and whatever way we have failed to confess Jesus perfectly, Jesus always made a clear confession of who he is and why he came. Once when he was at home in Nazareth, he read from the prophet Isaiah at the synagogue, and told the people there that he was the fulfillment of that prophecy. Here it says that he spoke plainly about what he must go through to complete his mission. Not only did he confess clearly and plainly what his mission was, he completed his mission perfectly. Just as he told his disciples in this account, he went on to suffer, die, and rise again to free us from the bondage of sin. We are now free to take up our cross and boldly confess our salvation to others. II. Following Jesus Under the Cross And just as Jesus followed through on his confession, we follow through on our confession by following Jesus under the cross. As a general rule, if we speak in a certain way, people expect us to also act in a certain way. If we say that we prefer eating corn more than eating peas, people would expect us to pick corn when given a choice. If someone claims to support a certain sports team, we would be surprised if we found that person rooting against them. We demonstrate the truth of our words by how we act. The same is true of our spiritual lives. When we confess that Jesus is the Messiah who rescued us from our sins, we are saying that we want to follow where Jesus leads us. Our faith in Jesus leads to faithful obedience to his word. Then we no longer have in mind the things of men, the worries about our future, the unpleasant things that are happening to us right now, and doubts about whether God is really there and if he cares for us. We have in mind the things of God, our salvation and how to share that salvation with as many people as possible. There are many things to distract us along the way. Satan uses everything he can to tempt us to follow a path other than the one that follows right behind Jesus. He uses the blessings God gives us to make us focus on ourselves. He gets us to think, “I must be doing pretty good as a Christian. Just look at all the stuff God has given me.” If that doesn’t work, he misleads us the other way and gets us to think, “Why have all these bad things happened in my life? God must not really love me.” And how often Satan succeeds leading us down those other paths! How often he leads us to think that our success or failure in our earthly lives is a reflection of our relationship with God! These ways of thinking are not the things of God, but the things of men. Solomon reminds us in Proverbs, “There is way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (14:12) If we follow anyone other than Jesus, we are headed for a spiritual dead end. But as we think about the times we haven’t followed Jesus under the cross, we are comforted by the fact that Jesus gave his life for us on the cross. Instead of telling his Father in heaven that his mission of salvation was too heavy a cross to bear, Jesus bore it willingly because of his immeasurable love for us. And on that cross he bore the weight of the sins of the entire world. Our sins were there too. Then Jesus rose to prove that our sins and their punishment were gone forever. Jesus has shown us the way to follow him. First of all, we have his example to follow. Jesus quietly and confidently bore his cross, even in the midst of his suffering and crucifixion. We can do the same because we know that our reward is not set aside for this life but for the next. Even the blessings God gives us serve as reminders that one day we will share in the blessings of heaven. As we seek to follow after Jesus under the cross, he himself gives us some direction. There are two things that Jesus includes when he teaches his disciples how to follow after him. Jesus first says that a person must deny himself. This doesn’t mean that we lock ourselves away in a room, take vows of silence and refuse to eat for days at a time. Denying oneself is to put the things of God above the things of men, to ask ourselves, “How can I give God glory today?” rather than, “How can I improve my earthly life today?” We do that by being faithful in our jobs. We do that by being responsible Christian parents. The other direction Jesus gives us is similar. He says that those who lose their life for him and the Gospel will have life. This doesn’t mean that the only way to heaven is to die as a Christian martyr. But just as we are to put the things of God above the things of men, we are to give ourselves completely to serving God in this life, even if it would someday mean losing our earthly lives. We may never be physically strong enough to compete in an Olympic power-lifting competition, but we know that God will strengthen us spiritually by sending crosses into our lives for us to bear. Jesus has already done all the heavy lifting for us, winning salvation for us by his perfect life and innocent death on the cross. The Holy Spirit, working through the knowledge of what Jesus did for us, gives us the strength to take up our cross and follow Jesus until we reach our heavenly goal. May we always bear our crosses with gratitude and joy! Amen.