John Gunter: You might wanna knock me down just a little bit because I'm liable to get a little bit loud. This morning in the gospel of Mark, we're gonna talk about the faith of Peter and the disciples. Now we are blessed to live when we live and to be able to kind of view their lives almost like a snow globe. Anybody have a snow globe? Kinda peer in from the outside and see what's going on.
Now if I'm them, I don't want any of that. Do you? Do you want anybody looking at your life the way we get to look at theirs? No. No, sir.
And so I say that this morning just to kind of get our minds right. We we don't wanna be too harsh or to judge harshly, people in the progress of their faith. Right? Because that's exactly where Peter and the disciples were in walking with Jesus. They were on the journey.
Now if what we did every time someone messed up along the way, we wouldn't have anybody here with us, would we? And so as we read and as we consider their lives, let's think about it in terms of our own and our own spiritual journey. And so we begin this morning with Mark 8 starting in verse 27. And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea, Philippi. And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am?
And they told him, John the Baptist and others say Elijah and others, one of the prophets. And he asked them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are the Christ. And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. And he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after 3 days rise again.
And he said this plainly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. One thing I thought would be helpful this morning is to kind of show you where they began and where they ended up. And when I was in Israel, this is on the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee. This is just to the West, of where Bethsaida was, where they began their journey.
And so this is a very low elevation area, of course, on the on the Sea of Galilee. And hopefully, yeah, you see it better than I am. Good. And so they began walking from here to a place that looks like this, about 30 miles kind of north of here. This picture is actually from the, from Dan, the city of Dan, and where they were going was just a little bit east of here.
And so, they had basically a 30 mile walk uphill. And so, I know at times when we read our Bibles, we kind of read it flatly and so, hell, I just wanna get my daily Bible reading in or something, but real things were happening during this time. Real real events. Do you ever think about what were they talking about on the way? You know, sometimes we get a little bit of that information when, the sons of thunder are arguing about who's the greatest and can we be on the the right and left side of you, Jesus, when you come into your your kingdom.
Right? And what questions would you ask? I think about that on the way in, back in the nineties when Chris Farley was on Saturday Night Live. There was a skit he did as he played a nervous reporter or interviewer, interviewing Paul McCartney from The Beatles. And he was so nervous that he didn't ask him actual interview questions.
All he kept asking him was, do you remember when you were part of The Beatles? Yes. That was awesome. Was there a disciple like that that was so nervous around Jesus? Like, Jesus, do you remember when you healed the blind man?
Yes, John. That was awesome. Or they have conversations. Right? Real lives were were going on.
One of the things I loved at Lipscomb was really in, they expose you to different spiritual disciplines. One of those as you as you study the bible, as you pray is to do, what is called an imaginative reading of scripture. I know it sounds funny, but all that means is you read the scripture and then you put yourself in that place. What was going on on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Right?
What was happening as they walked to an area that looked like this? And so as you put yourself in those, conversations in those places, and my trip to Israel helped me with this because I I've been there. I've seen it. But what was going on? And so this morning, what Jesus the conversation kind of centers around is Jesus' question to them.
Who do people say that I am? And their response is, well, some people say John the Baptist. Remember at this time, John the Baptist, when he came, a lot of people thought he is from God. Okay? They a lot of people were not mistaken about this.
And scripture says, you know, prepare the way for the Lord. And they thought, well, if John is from God, even if he's been beheaded, God can bring him back, and maybe that's who Jesus is. Well, some people say Elijah. If you remember the story of Elijah, Elijah's walking along, all of a sudden, he's just taken up into heaven. Love to have been there for that.
But that's what happened. And so they thought, well, if God can bring him back, maybe they've, God has returned Elijah to walk the earth. And again, they are expecting God to do something in their lives. And some people say one of the prophets, which, of course, Jesus lives like a lot of the prophets do. But he asked the question to the group.
And Peter, apparently, as the spokesman, stands up and says, you are the Christ. And that appears, at least for a moment, to be that moment. Because all through the gospels, in every gospel, it seems like the last people to get it is who Jesus was and what he was about were those closest to him. Always, it seems, it's the people on the outside that that those on the inside would say, those people they would never understand, they would never get. But those people are always the ones getting it and understanding.
And Jesus says, well, you are the Christ. And he says, well, don't tell anybody. But why did he say that? Well, we could speculate a number of things, but I think the following verses just kind of shed some light on what was going on. Because as Jesus explains what's about to happen to him, he says the son of man is going to have all these things happen to him and die and be raised in 3 days.
Peter, I think, grabs him by the elbow, don't you think? Or, ladies, was it an ear? Which one is it? Which which body part did you grab when your kids were, making noise in church? Right?
And so Peter takes him aside and says, no. No. This is gonna happen. I can I can hear him say an over my dead body type of thing? Right?
And and Jesus' response is not, oh, well, thank you for for caring about me and thinking about me and and being there for me. Jesus' response is get behind me, response be if Jesus were to come back right now and you said something to me to him, and he said, get behind me, Satan. I'm gonna have to go cry a little bit over that one. Gonna have to do some prayer. Y'all gonna have to encourage me, and Angel's gonna have to show up and strengthen me as it did Jesus at times.
Because that is a that is a big thing to say, but what he's not saying is that that Peter is lost forever. Right? He's not saying you are the Satan, the adversary, but he is saying you have the mind of man, not of God. And so when Peter professes that Jesus is the Christ, he has an understanding and a concept that is different from what Jesus wants to put forth. That that maybe Peter is still understanding Jesus as someone who's gonna come back as a conqueror, and there'll be a physical throne, and we'll all be his guards, and we'll be his inner circle, and all of these things.
That's probably what Peter has in mind. So when Jesus says, well, the son of man is gonna have to be killed, all
John Gunter: this, and Peter goes, no. No. No.
John Gunter: No. Jesus, you don't understand. You're gonna take over this place. We're gonna wipe these Romans out. No, no, no, no.
You have the mind of Satan if you're not on my side and you're not understanding what's going to go on. Because Jesus says these things have to be fulfilled. I have to go through these things. The son of man will go through all of this. And if you're not with me, you're operating on another team.
And so do we do that? Do we often think, well, yeah, I want my life to go this way, Not even considering what God may want. I've got my desires. How about you? I've got my understandings.
I believe when I go to God in prayer, I've already got it worked out. God, if you'll just write the check, I've got everything else filled out. Right? Yeah. And at times, I can lose sight of the fact that I am not here for me.
I am not on on this earth. When I profess Jesus Christ as Lord and savior of my life, that meant a lot more than just claiming to be a Christian. And let's be honest, church. The problems in the church and church history, I believe, have been mostly about people playing church instead of being the church. We are so concerned with how things look that we've missed the big point about actually being in the moment, being with God, choosing to pray those scary prayers of not my will, but yours, God.
I don't like that prayer because I've already got it figured out and my way is the right way. And if that doesn't happen, I'm upset. That's a confession, by the way. You too? Yeah.
Well, what do we do with people like this? Well, hopefully, the same thing that Jesus does with his disciple. He doesn't throw them away because Peter has made this statement. And again, it it seems in the context here that Peter is speaking for all of them. They all kind of believe that, Peter just happens to be voicing it, as he looks at all of them.
But what he doesn't do is throw them away just like we don't throw people away on our spiritual journey, do we? We come along and we encourage and we lift up and sometimes we have to say things that are hard to hear like, yeah, you're you're off base here. And sometimes that may leave us if we're the one that was off base, that may leave us feeling alone. Sometimes we feel like we're on the right track. We feel like we're alone.
Where's everybody else in there? How many of you have watched, the Big Bang Theory or Young Sheldon? Good. You'll get this reference. Because I think they did it beautifully.
I've watched the Big Bang. We're working through Young Sheldon right now. And one of the things they did in young Sheldon was, Sheldon, has become a fan of the Nobel Prize. He has just had, a professor help him set up a shortwave radio where he can listen to the Nobel Prize ceremony from Sweden, and he is so excited he invites the whole school, because he does announcements, he invites the whole school to come over to his house. He's gonna serve cereal because it's 5 AM in the morning.
And he believes that everyone will show up because of this great prize at 5 AM in the morning at his house. The only person that showed up was his mom. She said, well, something like, does this not count? And he said, well, you live on the premises. So no, it doesn't.
But what I love that they did in on the show artistically, because if you watch the big bang, you you get it. What they did right after this is Sheldon feels all alone in the moment that, well, nobody else is like me, or nobody cares as much as me. And what they do is they pan over to different people's houses, and all of a sudden you see a young Leonard listening to the same thing. You see a penny passed out on the bed doing nothing. You see a Rajesh.
These are all his friends in the show if you don't watch. And so what he doesn't know is what's yet to come. And we live life that way, don't we? We don't know what's yet to come. And if we throw away the here and now, we won't experience that.
We won't get to see it in the same light. And so I pray as we think about the faith of Peter that and the disciples that we live lives, again, drawing close to God, maybe not understanding all that is to come, not all that he has for us, but we understand that he is in control. And so when we say, Jesus, you are the Christ, that that means more than just claiming Christianity. Jesus then says this, he said, in calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? I think Jesus is speaking right into what Peter has just said. Peter's desire, again, as he says it, is not the desire of God, but it is the desire for himself. And the question we should ask ourselves every single day of our lives is, alright, am I denying myself and taking up my cross and following God.
Because I think that's the number one hindrance to getting close to God is what I've decided to do, the decisions I've decided to make are always the best, and God, you better bless those or I'm off course. But instead, denying ourselves. And so when Jesus when Jesus is proclaimed as the Christ, and I believe he tells Peter to be quiet because Peter doesn't understand completely, but what he's trying to get across is you don't just claim me as Christ and Lord, you need to live like it. Because we have buildings that are full or partially full of people all over the country and the world who claim Christianity, but have no actual desire in living it out. That my desires of this life, my desires of this world are so great that I really have no desire to make Jesus Lord of my life.
Because to make Jesus Lord of my life means I need to make him Lord of my speech, and Lord of my calendar, and Lord of my social media, and Lord of how I talk to people around me, Lord of how I talk about other brothers and sisters around me. Amen? That's what it means to make Jesus Lord of my life, to deny myself and to defer to him. Jesus prayer in the garden has been in our our Bible class the last few weeks, and I think that's kind of a front and center issue with this that Jesus in the garden knowing what he was going to face. We only think about what we're gonna face.
Jesus knowing what he was going to face asked God, he prayed to God in such a way that his sweat was like drops of blood, but he asked God if it be your will, let this cup pass from me. But he ends the prayer with, not my will, but yours. Not my will, but yours. Do you have the spiritual strength to get out of the way and to pray that prayer? God, it's not my will and not what I want because I promise you I've told him.
But it's not my will, but yours. And then to be okay with that. To live a life that says, Jesus is Lord, and look what that means for me. Because I think people claiming Christ often look way too much like the world and not enough like Christ. Jesus had to go through this, and we're not gonna beat up on Peter and the disciples because just like in that, show about young Sheldon where we see his friends that he doesn't see yet, they don't understand that they're about to be the pillars of the church.
That because of this group of people, not only as close as 12, but all those who supported them, because of those people, we sit in our seats today. Can you imagine artistically if we had a movie about that, that, maybe The Chosen. Right?
John Gunter: A lot of you have
John Gunter: seen The Chosen. The Chosen shows their hardships and the things they go through daily, and then it fast forwards over to 2024, and here's a congregation of people. Because of them are sitting together, encouraging one another, spurring each other to to love and good works because of their sacrifice. They didn't understand what all was about to happen. They probably thought it was all going to be glorious.
We're gonna come into power with a kingdom. They didn't realize that what it meant was to suffer in the same way that Jesus was going to suffer. Suffer. We can certainly beat up on the disciples a lot because they didn't understand, but, again, I wouldn't want that on my life because there'd be plenty to say, well, John didn't understand that. But you notice they stayed together.
The only person that was lost from the group was Judas, and we get information about that. It wasn't just that, he chose to do this thing, but he seemed to be a bad person. We find out that he was actually stealing from the money bag and all of these things. He was not a good person. He had not given his life over to his rabbi, to his Lord.
But all of the other people were there. And we understand from tradition how they they lived, and how they affected people, and how they affected the early church, and even how they died for their faith. Group around you that loves you and cares for you and supports you and even tells you when you're wrong, find those people. Rebecca told me the other day that sometimes she doesn't agree with me, and that hurt. I still think about that.
She's wrong, but I don't know how. But we ought to be people who love God enough to surround ourselves with people who lift us up and bring us forward, who bring us back to the path when we're off, and we do the same thing for them that can speak truth in love and draw us back to him. Not people out here going solo, And often we feel like that. So surround yourself by people who want to do good. You're not always going to be perfect in that, but that imperfection does not mean you're thrown away and you are trash.
It just means you're on the journey. The journey that God sent his son to walk, to experience human life in flesh, to live a life understanding all the things that we go through. God is a God who understands us. That means a lot. Amen?
He understands our issues. He understands when you're beating yourself up because you did that thing again that I prayed about. He understands the pressure you feel at work. He understands the issue you have with that that thing you just can't get rid of. God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son for all of us.
Now what does it look like in our lives if we were to video this this morning and we take this 50 years down the road? Who is impacted by us? Are your kids or grandkids there? Are your neighbors and people you care about there because of the way you live and the way you submitted yourself to Jesus? Or did we just claim Jesus and play church?
That should be something we consider. I pray that my kids and grandkids and by the way, Logan, I think, is up to wanting 16 kids. So pray for his wife. You know, it's not that many generations that that go by that they don't know the previous generation or a couple of generations back. And that's depressing, I'll be honest with you.
But what we can leave for them, though they may not know us personally, is we can leave for them a faith that is stronger than anything else we can leave. We could leave money. You can leave all kinds of things. But if you leave a faith that builds the church, what more could you say for what can a man give in return for his soul? What are you pursuing this morning?
We've got a song of invitation picked out. We'd love to pray with you if you've strayed from the path. But again, we want you to, again, find encouragement from us. And if you don't have those people in your lives to encourage you, find them this morning. Shall we pray together as we, close this morning?
God, our father, we, lord, we just want to lift up our hearts. Lord, we want to, praise you for all the ways that you bless us. God, we thank you for convicting us of those things that, those times that we walk away from you, and and, God, they're more often than we'd like to to believe or or to tell other people about. To god be with us, surround us with people who love you, who care for you, and lord that, lord, that we leave behind a faith that impacts generations. Lord, and if we've strayed from you this morning, lord, we we wanna lift up our hearts, lord, to confess those things, draw encouragement from all those here who who try to walk the same walk.
Lord, would you encourage us to that? And, Lord, for those who haven't, proclaimed you as lord and savior, Lord, would you speak to their hearts at this time? Lord, they may come to you to be baptized to pledge allegiance to you as Christ in King. Which in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Would you stand as we sing?