“The Things Of God”

Scripture Lesson: Mark 8:31-38

Sermon Transcript for March 8, 2009

By Pastor Bob Coleman

As we continue in our season of Lent, as you heard, not to be confused with the lint in our pockets. Spelled differently, in case you didn’t catch that. But Lent is a time of planting of seeds and indeed of watering, and preparing, and waiting, waiting to fully understand. Hearing God’s Word we need to fully understand; seeking to understand and then to do God’s Word. That’s our theme of “Hearers and Doers of the Word”.

The passage for today, most interestingly, is Peter, who in his impetuous way, didn’t always want to hear what Jesus was saying and clearly didn’t want to do what Jesus was asking him to do. Not alone was he with the other disciples, but he was the spokesperson to seemingly go against Jesus. And that is exactly what is happening in the word today. It seems that he has lost sight or maybe had never really seen yet the spirituality of Jesus. What Peter was doing was maybe more of what we tend to do today. And that is make Jesus into a religion instead of a relationship.

Through Christ we find a new concept of God. Actually it was there all along but people just were not ready to hear or to understand. It was a concept that “yes”, God is to be feared with a great sense of respect, but also God is to be loved and to receive love from God. The balance of that awe and deep respect, fear, and love is what Christ brings, but at a cost. And that’s what Peter didn’t like to hear.

From Mark, Chapter 8, Versus 31-38, with some comments interspersed, it says: “He (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” Now, that alone, Peter is taking a step to say, “I confess you as my Lord, but I want to confess you as my Lord in the way I want you to be, not necessarily in the way that you are going.” Peter changes from confessing Christ as a loving Savior, but counsels Christ not to be a suffering Savior. Now that puts him in league with Satan. Pastor Andy last week told us and shared with us about the impact of the temptation that Jesus had to experience in the wilderness and it didn’t stop when he left the wilderness. Temptations continued on. And here Peter is one of those prime examples. And we may today even take Peter’s role and be an agent of Satan, if you will, by tempting Jesus or reshaping Jesus to be something other than what is truly presented in both Scripture and in real life.

So it goes on in the Scripture, “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!’ And 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. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the Gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man get in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” May God add wisdom to the reading of this Word.

But may God also help us to understand that at times we are Peter. We don’t like to hear this part of it. We like to keep things light in our life. Even when the world is falling apart around us, we look for and yearn for the things that give us a sense of pleasure and hope and also, particularly, comfort. That’s what my box was when I was a child. Maybe you did this too. Maybe as a child you know they are doing that now. They take a box and they put in there those special things that they find, the little treasures of their life. For me it was an Ohio buckeye. Have you ever had one of those and carried them around in your pockets? They’re smooth. They are kind of neat. You’re not sure if they are poisonous and are going to explode on you. But they are fun to carry around in your pocket. And then there was a feather from a bird that I remember. I don’t know what the bird was but it was a beautiful feather. And a few other things like that. And to keep it in safe, protective custody in a box, I kept it under my bed. Now I have four sisters, you’ve heard me say that. And they weren’t really necessarily after that box, but they would have done anything to tease me from moment to moment when they weren’t teasing each other.

So I put in that box and hid it safely the things that meant something to me. And that in a sense is what God is doing for us in this passage because Jesus says in this translation, “You do not know the things of God but the things of man.” The “God box” as we would call it is with us here today. In fact, if I turn it, you’ll see very clearly this is the box for God. God things are in here, the things of God that Jesus referred to. These are…what would you figure? Are they a little small replica of a church, or a Bible, or a cross? Well, they could be. Those are external kinds of things. Maybe a steeple, maybe if you really got in to Biblical imagery, bread and water and grape juice or wine for communion.

No, there are other things that are in this. One is a relationship and how do you look at a relationship in a box? But that means when two people, as we understand it in human terms, connect together. They have a relationship. It may be given to them by birth in a family or they may choose each other in love in that relationship, as friends. Relationship with God. The thing of God is God wants us to be in a relationship with Him. If we fear God too much we stay away from that; we hold God too distantly. But Jesus comes and says, “I am yours. You see me you see the Father. You see the Father, you know me. We are One, He and I. And then you can be with us also.” How much more personal a deep relationship is there than that? What Peter liked was the friendship part. What he didn’t want to hear was that this relationship might bring suffering along with it.
Another thing that is of God in this box is prayer. And prayer is an image that’s depicted by folded hands, a sense of humility. Prayer is communication. It is one thing to walk hand-in-hand in the garden with God if you want to use that imagery. It’s another to speak with God and to hear God’s voice in Scripture and in other ways. Prayer is a personal relationship. But also prayer means when the very depth of your soul is exposed to someone else. And that might bring suffering for a moment until healing is applied.

Another is meditation that is a thing of God in this box. And meditation represented in a way that we know that we have the opportunity to be able to be with God and alone with God and in the world but with God alone all at the same time. When we read Scripture, it’s a pathway, an open door, an opportunity to experience who God is, who God is in a personal way. Meditation upon just not the Holy Word in Scripture, but meditation even upon a shore walking along it, the creation, the power that is around us, the beauty of God’s love presented for us.

Another thing that is of God is the action of service. Two hands put together to share an offering, a service to another. To offer the bread of communion, a cold drink for a thirsty heart in mind. To do service in the name of Christ. It’s one thing to do good things, and there is nothing wrong for them on the surface. But what Jesus says, if you come along with me, you will do service but you may well be rejected, people will misunderstand you, you may even be chastised for it. But service you do nonetheless because that’s what I come to do for you.

The things of God are deed Gods for us. But unfortunately what we’ll do is we’ll switch the box. And what we have is not the things of God in our mind and in our hearts but the things of humans. Now, God created humans, what could be so bad about that? It’s that when we forget that God created us that we get in to trouble, when we lose the connection and understanding. And what we begin to do is a whole realm of things that fall under what I like and what is used now called “entitlement”. We have too much entitlement in our lives.

The first one being the good life, the entitlement of what we see as the image that we now know is a problem in our world. The image of an expensive home, for example. This expensive home? No, none of us live in one like that. Not in this area. But we might dream about it or we did at one time. We know that’s what’s gotten us in to trouble. We live beyond our means because we believe we were entitled to this. The things that are of humans also say that we are entitled to the good life. That’s a life of ease and pleasure. That’s one where we sort of kick back and believe, well if we just make it to a certain level, we can do this for the rest of my life. I can retire and 40 and just think, cruise on home. If we believe it’s something we are promised and entitled to, then we forget that very few people have this. Many people suffer just to have the basics. The ease that we have, the understanding that we are able to have an easy life is something that we’ve used long as a dream that is a false dream because so much of the world suffers.

Now, one of the things we look forward to is possessions. And possessions are those things that, this is represented by a dorm room, by the way. And that’s what mine looked like when I was in college. We gather things around us thinking they give us a sense of hope and promise and security. But things can be blown away. Joyce doesn’t like to watch it; I don’t really like to but we see now the programs on TV about tornadoes because we experienced it. We know what it means in a moment it’s all blown away. Not for us personally but we shared that with others in our community. Possessions become our entitlement and what we will try to do is protect ourselves against the hurts of the world by gathering things around us. Or we protect ourselves by saying, “If I can have these, I don’t have to suffer.”

Another is the abundance of food. It’s one thing to feed ourselves; it’s another to have so much that we throw it away when the world has so many people who are suffering. These are the human levels of entitlement where we expect God to bless us with this great abundance. And more and more are becoming irritated now with the side of the Gospel that is presented that says all you have to do is trust God and He will open the heavens and fill you with all the abundance of everything you need and all that your heart desires. That’s a false message folks. It’s not true! Jesus turned to Peter and said, “You get behind me. That’s a lie. I’m going to have to suffer. I’m suffering for you. And if you going to follow me, you may well have to suffer too.”

Don’t misunderstand the Gospel; don’t misunderstand the interpretations of the Gospel. For indeed, money is the symbol now. It’s shrinking away. But the image of money that we have in our hands is something that becomes an opportunity for us to have freedom we think. But we find that there is not freedom in that. For Jesus clearly says, “If you love things of this world you can not love me.” If you love manna or money and possessions more than God, well you’ve chosen your order and that’s what you get. And nobody takes it with us when we die.
Paul later, in response to this, as God had touched his life and took him through a time of suffering where he had been causing suffering for other people, other Christians, then he follows the road of suffering in many ways. He spoke of this in Galatians, Chapter 5, where he talks about the acts of the sinful nature, the human aspect. We’ve talked about the abundance of things—money and possessions and all that—but then there is also the action of sexual immorality and idolatry, putting something before God in our worship. “Discord, jealousy,” as he says in Chapter 5 of Galatians, “fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, fractions, envy and things like that.” He lists those because we need to be aware that those are the other blocks because they come from fighting over these things we just talked about. Desiring to be on top—but Jesus says the ones who are on top will find themselves at the bottom. The ones who are the least will become the ones who lead.

Later on in that same passage of Chapter 5 in Galatians, Paul adds the positive and turns the box around and says it’s not the human things, it’s the God things like love and joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. All of these put us in second place and maybe a suffering approach to life. The difficulty is that we find ourselves boxed in. We find ourselves boxed in because at one point the world is so enticing. The images are there all the time. Young people particular find it so appealing to go after those things of this world. But even sometimes when we are older we begin to believe we are entitled to something. That’s not the way it is in Christ’s way. Now we put God in a box and then we close the box up and we set it aside because we don’t want to get too close to God. But God says through Jesus Christ, “I not only want to get close to you, I want to be in you. My spirit is ready to dwell in you if you’ll but open your heart and mind.

Now I want to do a little play drama with Pastor Andy here. And I’m going to step out of the role of being a minister and just be the average person out there. And I’ve got a question for Pastor Andy because Pastor Andy is a very knowledgeable guy. He knows everything; he knows God. I mean, he has a direct connection with God doesn’t he? Preachers do, don’t they?

Pastor Andy, I have a question for you. Tell me about God. Who is God?

Pastor Andy: That’s a big question, isn’t it? How much time do we have, Bob?

Pastor Bob: Not enough time for a preacher to go on. Be quick about it. I don’t want to have to suffer through your message. I just want to hear, who is God?

Pastor Andy: Well, for me God is the creator. For me, I’ve known God as my Father. Some one I’ve come to know through the lives of people in the church. I’ve come to know God through prayer. I’ve come to know God through the preaching of the Word, through the sacraments. I’ve come to know God as my Father through family through the support of loved ones. So I’ve come to know God personally over the years by the experiences I have had in my life when I’ve gone through times of struggle.

Pastor Bob: That still sounds like preacher-talk to me. I want to know, tell me, you’ve got a first person connection. I mean, tell me about God, will you? I mean, what is God’s first name anyway?

Pastor Andy: Well, I call God Father, Creator. I’ve come to know God through Jesus and I think what’s important is I’m carrying on a one-on-one relationship with Him. So it’s not so much I can talk about Him, but I think you have to know Him. And that’s a difference. So for example, how did you get to know Joyce?

Pastor Bob: Oh, well, that’s a long story right there.

Pastor Andy: See, I know it is. And we’ve only got five minutes.

Pastor Bob: Yeah, I understand.

Pastor Andy: But if I wanted to get to know Joyce, I can begin to know Joyce. I can’t know about her; I need to get to know her through a one-on-one relationship.

Pastor Bob: Okay.

Pastor Andy: Does that help?

Pastor Bob: Well, it’s helping.

Pastor Andy: Good.

Pastor Bob: In other words, I can’t know God through you. I have to know God directly.

Pastor Andy: Well, I hope I can reflect God’s love through me so that you can get to know God. But, I think what is important is that God invites you into a personal relationship with Him. And there is only one way you can do that and that’s through Him, through His life. Does that make sense?

Pastor Bob: Well, I’m going to work on that.

Pastor Andy: And tomorrow we meet at 9:00 a.m. We have plenty of time.

Pastor Bob: Okay. Thank you. He’s going to preach to me tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.

To say it another way, there is an old story about a Rabbi and a student was going along with him. And he said, “Rabbi, where are you going to stay tonight?” Because they were journeying along and walking as they did in that day. And he simply said, “Well, you come and see.” “Well, Rabbi, where are you going to be living?” “You come along and see.” The steps are, we don’t go second-hand to God, we go first-hand. And to know Jesus as personal savior is both a joy and a privilege but a challenge. It always has and it always will be. Because Jesus says, if you are going to know where I’m going to live tonight, where I’m going to be tomorrow, you come with me. Don’t take somebody else’s account; don’t listen to somebody else’s story. In fact, don’t even read just the Bible because it is only words until you know me.

And so our humorous way of dialogue is that I can’t find out who God is just by what a preacher says. I have to find out firsthand. And that’s what Peter finally learned after he fell on several occasions. For Peter continued to try and do the things of the world and reshape Jesus into his own dream, into what he wanted Jesus to be. But Jesus kept saying, “No, if you’re going to follow me, if you want freedom of life with me, it’s going to mean discipleship, it’s going to mean taking a not easy way and there may even be suffering. For I come not to condemn the world but to save it. I come through suffering to show you the way.”

The secular mind is the one who puts God in a box in the way we want God to be. But the spiritual mind is the one who opens the box and lets God reveal as God is. Do we share Peter’s guilt in confessing the Christ who serves us only when He also is calling us to serve others? Do we confess Peter’s guilt that we want the easy way out to Christianity and we seek it for our own benefit and our own entitlement? Or do we seek Christ because God loves us in and through Jesus Christ?

Eugene Peterson in his translation of, “The Message”, I want to pick up with that encounter again and hear how he finishes out that translation in his paraphrase of the same passage that you heard earlier. “But Peter grabbed Him in protest. Turning and seeing His disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. ‘Peter, get out of my way. Satan, get lost.’” Notice he split; he didn’t demonize Peter. He moved on in the passage and says, “You have no idea how God works.” Calling the crowd to join his disciples He said, “Any one who tends to come after me, has to let me lead. You are not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I will show you how. Self help is no help at all. Self sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want, and yet lose yourself, the real you. What could you ever trade your soul for? If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I am leading, then you need to get around your own fickle and unfocused friends and know that you’ll be an even greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when He arrives in all the splendor of God, his Father, with an army of holy angels.”

If we try to trade God for the things of this world, we will always be disappointed. But if we trade the things of this world and not let them control us and accept the things of God, we will know the way of light, and truth, and eternity. I want us to take a moment of silence before Pastor Andy brings us our prayer for this morning to consider how you have put something in place of God in your life, whatever that might be--that piece of idolatry, that piece of reshaping God to fit your hopes and your desires and not accepting God in Christ as he truly is. Let’s think about that, meditate upon it, pray concerning it, seek God’s presence to help you to replace those things that should not be there that have blocked your relationship with God and Jesus Christ.