The Concerns of God — Matthew 16:21-28

In Matthew 16:16, Peter makes the fundamental confession of faith in Christ, the truth on which Christianity is built: “¹⁶ Simon Peter answered (Jesus), ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”

By claiming that Jesus is the Messiah, Peter identifies Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, the One Who will rule the world in truth and righteousness and bring God’s glorious vision for humanity to its perfect and final state.

By claiming that Jesus is the Son of God, Peter states that Jesus fully reveals the character of God in tangible, human form.  As the Son of God, Jesus represents God, speaks for God, and gives humanity the opportunity to interact with God.

If Jesus is the Messiah, we can stop wishing for a Messiah or looking for someone else to save the world.  If Jesus is the Son of God, the physical manifestation of God and how He works in this world, we can stop wishing for a different sort of “god”, who would act in a different sort of way!

But as we have pointed out at other times, the work of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, had to include His death on the cross – and His resurrection… because the world which had only heard teaching and seen miracles was the very much lost world that crucified Him.  Even the disciples, who had heard all the teaching and seen all the miracles, had no response apart from helpless terror and utter defeat.

The cross is critically important, and from this point on in Jesus’ ministry, He focuses on preparing His disciples for this event they simply can’t comprehend!

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(Matthew 16: 21-28 can be read online at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16&version=HCSB. We are using the Holman Standard Christian version in this post.)

1)  (V. 21)  Jesus is the Messiah and He rules the world.  He is the Son of God, the sovereign Ruler of all reality… But what He tells His disciples next is completely incompatible with everything they understand about either the Messiah or God Himself!

“²¹ From then on Jesus began to point out to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.”

— Whenever we consider Jesus’ life, and especially, His final days of ministry in Jerusalem and the Crucifixion which followed, we must remember that this is the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

— While throughout the ages, many people have suffered unfair treatment and wrongful death, we must remember that Jesus was no victim!  He chose to allow the people of this world to do exactly as they pleased and express exactly what was in their hearts.

— Matthew recounts that Jesus was specific about who would persecute Him:  the elders, the chief priests and the scribes – the very people one would expect to be enlightened and aware of God!

— When we consider Jesus’ ministry up to this point, however, this is not a surprise – we never see a favorable response to  Jesus’ teaching or reasoning from the religious community.

…And this despite the fact that He affirmed and never discounted the teaching of Old Testament Scripture.   Jesus did not teach anything apart from the sovereign God and His holy and righteous character, and the need to live lives consistent with this truth.

— Continued opposition by religionists who were blind to Jesus’ miracles, impervious to reason, and completely prejudiced against Jesus and anything He might do or say, should not have been a surprise to the disciples – but the news that He would be killed shook them up.

— And the statement that He would be raised the third day seems to have completely eluded them!

2)  (Vv. 22-23)  Jesus accepted that the death and resurrection of the Son of God is what it would take to save the world.  As a completely human man, however, He certainly knew how awful this suffering would be.

And His disciple Peter absolutely couldn’t understand why this should happen!

“²² Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, ‘Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to You!’”

²³ But He turned and told Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s.’”

— In our fairy worlds, where evil fails and right prevails after a skirmish or two, the hero always wins, avoiding death and living happily forever after!

So, in Peter’s mind, death is ultimate and he cannot fathom a story of triumph which involved Jesus the Messiah dying!

— Jesus seems to affirm that, according to man’s concerns, Peter was right!  As the Son of God and the Savior and Ruler of the world, Jesus certainly had the power and the right to command respect, to enjoy prosperity and pleasures of this world – and to allow His disciples to share in these with Him!

— But the very suggestion that these things would be the objective of His life or the focus of His ministry offended Him – and did not represent the purposes of a holy and righteous God.

— Jesus always lived to serve the concerns of God, His Heavenly Father.  And the concern of God is that people know the truth about His sovereignty over all creation and His great love for them, human children made in His image created to have friendship and fellowship with Him!

— It was to serve God’s purposes that Jesus lived and died as He did, so what are some purposes Jesus’ life achieves?

* As the Son of God, Jesus demonstrated the perfect and holy character of God.

* He demonstrated the sovereignty of God over all circumstances and natural phenomena.

* He separated the holy God from the unholy institutions of our society and revealed wickedness, oppression and falsehood for what they are.  Jesus is the definition of holiness, and to do other than what Jesus did is to be other than holy!

* He demonstrated life after death – and life beyond the goals of a materialistic world.  To crucify the idea that this world is all there is, Jesus Himself was crucified – and then was resurrected to a new and more glorious life.

* He demonstrated a life of submission, obedience, faith and peace with God.

* But most of all, by His willingness to come and be our Friend, and to personally suffer death so we could understand truth that gives life shows how deep the love of Jesus the Son and God the Father is for us!

3)  (Vv. 24-26)  Jesus did not come to the world to pursue the concerns of man, but the concerns of God, His heavenly Father, and the Creator of all.  To follow Jesus is to choose the concerns of God over the concerns of man:

“²⁴ Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. ²⁶ What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?”

— If we are “with” Jesus, it means that we have the same priorities and goals He has.

— And these goals do not involve personal comfort, personal achievement, or personal prestige in this world!  As much as we may appreciate these things if God chooses to grant them, pursuing them cannot be the point of our lives, nor should we assess our lives in these terms!

— Our “cross” is the challenge to demonstrate God’s holy character in whatever circumstances He places us.

— When we live to please God by demonstrating faith and obedience to Him, our former priorities become peripheral, and we will indeed stop focusing on those temporary things which once seemed so important.

— We will lose our old way of thinking and acting, but gain the wonderful peace and joy of being the good and righteous people God created us to be, trusting in His power to make our lives better than we could ever imagine.

— Indeed, what good is anything in this world if we have no joy or peace?

4)  (Vv. 27-28)  There is a reality beyond the world we have been born into, that realm we have perceived through our senses from the moment of birth… And Jesus assures His disciples of that reality:

“²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will reward each according to what he has done. ²⁸ I assure you: There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.’”

— Jesus promises that He will “come”, that there will be a time when we perceive Him and the glory of His Father in a more complete way than we do right now.

— Jesus promises to reward us.  Each of us makes many private and often unrecognized decisions each day, but God Who knows all will certainly acknowledge our every act of obedience and love.

— Jesus promises that we will see His kingdom, His righteous and holy work to transform this world – and that some of us will see this work before “tasting death”.

— And all who believe are promised eternal life, life where all is finally as a holy, righteous, loving God created it to be!

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How fitting that this passage of God’s promise and Jesus’ sacrificial love  leads us into Easter!

May we be encouraged as we remember Jesus’ willingness to suffer death, God’s glorious power which raised Him from the dead, and the love and concern for our souls that led our God to die for us!

Peace

“Deus regit – God rules!”

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When Peter Stopped Seeking — Matthew 16:13-21

The Pharisees believed that the Messiah, the One to be sent by God to save His people, would overthrow the Roman government and rule the world from Jerusalem.  Their Messiah would do away with all wrongdoing in the land – and in the world.  All enemies of Israel would be vanquished. There would be peace and prosperity for all, righteous and justice would reign, there would be no more trouble, no more pain…

When they contemplated this ideal Ruler, however, the Man Jesus did not come to mind — Jesus the humble carpenter of Nazareth, Jesus Whose birth raised some questions of legitimacy, Jesus Who fed the poor, healed the sick and loved foreigners.

After Jesus had taught about God and worked miracles everywhere, demonstrating divine authority, these Pharisees demanded, “Show us a sign.”  Jesus assured them that there be no other “sign” except for His own death and resurrection after three days – “the sign of Jonah”.

Because the religious establishment did not understand the character of God or acknowledge His sovereignty over all reality, they did not recognize Jesus His Son as the Messiah, the gracious Ruler of all mankind.

The Pharisees were not ready to stop seeking the “messiah”.   But what about Jesus’ disciples? Here, we have the account of when Jesus posed the question to them.

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(Matthew 16:13-21 can be viewed online at  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16&version=HCSB. We are using the Holman Christian Standard version in this post.)

1)  (Vv. 13-14)  We know the Pharisees rejected Jesus as being in any way supernatural, or having authority to teach about God.  They had their own agenda.  But what about the ordinary people who would not have these motives?

“¹³ When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’

¹⁴ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’

— The people do not reject Jesus, but it is obvious that they see Him merely as a teacher or a prophet.

— Prophets taught about God and relayed His Word to the people.

— They, at times, told of future events.

— At times, they revealed private actions of people, supernatural knowledge revealed to them by omniscient God.

— At times, they performed supernatural acts that could be enabled only by a supernatural God.

— It seems that the people were willing to acknowledge that Jesus had demonstrated the same sorts of miraculous works as the prophets had…

— But in this description, we do not see that they acknowledge that He is either the Son of God or the Messiah, the ultimate Savior of mankind promised by God.

2)  (Vv. 15-17) But what about Jesus’ disciples?

¹⁵ ‘But you,’ He asked them, ‘who do you say that I am?’

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!’

¹⁷ And Jesus responded, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven.”

— Simon Peter states Jesus’ full identity:  the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

— By claiming Jesus as the Messiah, Peter is stating that Jesus is the salvation, the Redeemer of the world, so long awaited by Israel.

— By accepting Jesus as Messiah, one relinquishes the hope for another “Rescuer”, a different sort of Savior.

— And by acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God, the human manifestation of an intangible God, one relinquishes the hope for a different sort of God! 

— When we see God in the flesh, there is no more room for speculation about His character!  God is not “other” than the way Jesus revealed Him to be!

— The truth that Jesus is the only answer for a troubled world, and that invisible God is exactly the sort of humble and gentle Person Jesus Christ is, is the truth believers embrace.

— When we embrace this truth, we stop seeking other answers or a different sort of truth.

3)   Simon Peter recognized that Jesus Christ was all the world needed, the fulfillment of every promise God had made to Israel, the answer to everything believers desired from God…

— Being able to recognize the spiritual as being more important than any detail of physical circumstance or power was certainly not the sort of thing anyone learns for the external world!

— External circumstances invite us to seek peace through learning to understand and manipulate everything that surrounds us…

— But God invites us to believe that He created this world, that He controls it, and that since He loves us, we can trust Him!

— Peter – and we ourselves – come to this understanding only through the God’s work in our lives; a dialogue He conducts with us through our circumstances, the reasoning of God’s Holy Spirit of truth with our souls.

— I personally ignored God for many years, but through His involvement in my life, I came to acknowledge that,

* In my own strength, I was doomed; I had no hope of improving myself, no guarantee of attaining anything better in my future.

* The fact I was still alive, despite all my failures demonstrated God’s provision and His grace.

* The God Who was willing to come and live the life — and die the death — of Jesus gives me complete confidence about everything in this life which still awaits me!

4)  (Vv. 18-19)  The truth of a good God,  a holy and sovereign Ruler of all reality, Who is the Person revealed by Jesus His Son, is the salvation of all who believe.

This truth is the foundation on which God builds His church – the congregation of all people Who acknowledge Him as Lord:

“‘¹⁸ And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven.’”

— Understanding truth is what allowed “Simon”, the fickle fisherman, to gain a new identity as “Peter”, the rock of spiritual stability.

— Solid truth will endure forever – as will those who are saved through faith – despite any trial or circumstance thrown at us!  Our God, the Creator of all, is greater than all!

— Jesus states that He gives Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”  I confess that I don’t completely understand what this means, but perhaps, if “heaven” is where God’s perfect will is done, this may simply mean that God will ultimately address all things that grieve us.

— He will leave no loose ends untied. His will will be done – completely; and perhaps His will is to “do right” by us, His beloved children!

5)  (Vv. 20-21)  Jesus is the Messiah.  His disciples – and we ourselves – do not need to wait for another!   But there was more perplexing teaching to follow…

“²⁰ And He gave the disciples orders to tell no one that He was the Messiah.

²¹ From then on Jesus began to point out to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.

— Jesus is the Messiah!  But He was not the sort of “messiah” the people had been expecting.

— We can understand that embracing a label with so much misinformation attached to it would be counter-productive at this time.

— Perhaps His disciples didn’t understand this… But they certainly didn’t understand what He told them next:  that in Jerusalem, He would suffer many things, be killed, and then be raised on the third day!

Conclusion:  When Peter acknowledged that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, this means he accepted that Jesus was the Savior that the world needed, and that Jesus fully reveals the character of the God and Creator of all reality.

If Jesus is the answer, we can stop looking for another person to save the world, and we can stop wondering what God is like and whether He cares about us.  Once Peter had the answer, he was able to stop seeking!  May we enter that same rest!

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Until next post,

Peace

“Deus regit – God rules!”

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The Yeast of an “Unsovereign” God — Matthew 16:1-12

Jesus was well-known in the region of Judea.  Even King Herod knew that he was a worker of miracles.  He had taught multitudes, healed scores, and within a brief space of time, fed a primarily Jewish crowd of more than 5,000 and a primarily Gentile crowd of 4,000.  Jesus indeed had done the miraculous, demonstrating supernatural power which could come only from the “true God of Israel”.

But when Jesus and His disciples set foot again on Jewish territory, He is confronted by a group of Pharisees with a apparently oblivious request:  “Show us a sign,” they demand – completely discounting everything Jesus had done!

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(Matthew 16:1-12 can be read online at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16&version=HCSB. We are using the Holman Standard Christian version.)

1)  (Vv. 1-4)  Jesus had healed the diseased and disabled, He had fed the hungry – all revealing supernatural power of God… But when He sets foot on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, apparently there was still an unmet need, an unanswered question, doubt:

“¹ The Pharisees and Sadducees approached, and as a test, asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.

² He answered them: ‘When evening comes you say, “It will be good weather because the sky is red.” ³ And in the morning, “Today will be stormy because the sky is red and threatening.” You know how to read the appearance of the sky, but you can’t read the signs of the times. ⁴ An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.’ Then He left them and went away.”

— We see in v. 1 that the spirit of this question was not to actually acquire information from Jesus, but to test Him.

— I think we can assume that the Pharisees had heard about the miracles of Jesus, and that God’s supernatural work through Him was impossible to deny, so what exactly were these Pharisees testing or trying to achieve?

— It seems to me that with this question, they were implying that the miracles Jesus had done, very real signs of a supernatural Presence, didn’t matter to them. 

— Perhaps this “test” was simply a veiled demand that Jesus be the Messiah they wanted Him to be and do the things they wanted Him to do – and that healing the disabled, feeding the needy and teaching Gentiles about the true God was not on their agenda!

— Just as the sky gives a seasoned observer plenty of clues about weather on the way, surely miracles should indicate that God is present and on hand to involve Himself in our world.

— Jesus calls these Pharisees “evil” and “adulterous”; evil because they had no love for God or His righteousness, adulterous because their request for a sign is insincere, and they refuse to reason honestly.

— Jesus states that no sign will be given except for the sign of Jonah.  If the miracles He had already done were not convincing to them, certainly more of the same would make no difference.

— …And of course, He isn’t going to do the one thing they really want Him to – come with overwhelming force and overthrow the Roman government.

2)  (V. 4)  What exactly is the “sign of Jonah”?  Jesus has used this term before:  in Matthew 12:38-40, He answers the same request the same way:

“³⁸ Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.’

³⁹ But He answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.’”

— An intellectually honest person must acknowledge that no mere person could have done the miracles Jesus did.  Even the Gentiles saw Jesus’ miracles and gave glory to the God of Israel (Mt. 15:31)!

— The only other sign or proof Jesus will give these close-minded deniers of truth is the prophecy that He will lie dead in the ground for three days and three nights – and then be  restored to life, as the prophet Jonah was.

3)  (Vv. 5-6,12)  After arriving in this climate of outright denial of reality, Jesus gets right back into the boat and leaves.  Mark 8:12 adds the information that He “sighed deeply in His spirit”.

Then, He and His disciples have a discussion about yeast:

“⁵ The disciples reached the other shore, and they had forgotten to take bread.

⁶ Then Jesus told them, ‘Watch out and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’

⁷ And they discussed among themselves, ‘We didn’t bring any bread.’

⁸ Aware of this, Jesus said, ‘You of little faith! Why are you discussing among yourselves that you do not have bread? ⁹ Don’t you understand yet? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the 5,000 and how many baskets you collected? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves for the 4,000 and how many large baskets you collected? ¹¹ Why is it you don’t understand that when I told you, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” it wasn’t about bread?’

¹² Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the yeast in bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

— I imagine that their previous stop had been so brief that the disciples hadn’t even had time to go buy bread – and apparently, when Jesus said the word “yeast”, this is what leaped to their mind.

— In vv. 8-10, Jesus chides them for even worrying about physical bread!  He had demonstrated His absolute ability to provide bread anytime it was needed!

— To worry about bread was to demonstrate extreme forgetfulness and lack of faith!

— But more importantly, this tangent completely missed the point He was trying to make; He wasn’t discussing bread at all, but the insidious teaching of the Pharisees!

4)  How is the teaching of Pharisees like yeast?

— Jesus has mentioned the behavior of yeast before:  the smallest amount, when added to a lump of dough of any size soon grows and permeates every part (See Mt. 13:33).

— Believing that God is the King of all reality is a concept which is simple to state, but when we take it to heart, it changes everything about the life we live!

— The “yeast of the Pharisees”, equally easy to state, equally affects all of life:  the Pharisees believed that God was limited.

*  The “god” of the Pharisees cared only about Israel.

*  The “god” of the Pharisees had no jurisdiction over human government, no response to a tyrant like Caesar.

*  The “god” of the Pharisees did not care about the needy, the sick, or the outcaste.

*  The “god” of the Pharisees loved poorly if at all; unaware and unconcerned about the everyday burdens of people, the worries and hurts that drag us down.

*  The “god” of the Pharisees was not the Creator of all people or all circumstances, and certainly had nothing to do with the presence of Jesus of Nazareth!

*  The “god” of the Pharisees was only superficially good, apparently concerned only with the letter of the law, without awareness of the attitudes or intentions of people.

* The “god” of the Pharisees did not require people to acknowledge truth, reason honestly or judge fairly.

— As soon as we start to doubt God’s ability to address any part of our circumstances, we fall prey to the yeast of the Pharisees, a spirit of doubt and disbelief which undermines our confidence and joy, a spirit which erodes our faith in the true God Who loves and protects us, a spirit which discounts our Heavenly Father, our wise and righteous Guide.

Conclusion:  God our Creator loves us.  He understands us. He has good plans for us.  The disciples had witnessed His power, wisdom and compassion again and again.  He healed every sort of disease and solved every sort of problem. We do not need to worry about anything when we trust in the God Who rules reality.

The only people who need to worry are those who do not believe this wonderful and gracious truth!  Our problems may very well be too big for us, but they are not too big for God!

Let’s be very careful to completely avoid the discounted “god” of the Pharisees!

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Until next post,

Peace

“Deus regit – God rules!”

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