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 three 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.” And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and 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 gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mark 8:28-36, ESV)

Ah, but we are followers of Christ. We do bear the cross. Jesus told the disciples not to tell anyone because they hadn’t seen the cross yet. Peter missed it even when Jesus spoke about it plainly. We Lift High the Cross of Jesus Christ. Our Beautiful Savior is the one who showed us who God is by His death on the cross. We don’t have to look at how the world is treating us to see what God thinks about us. We haven’t and can’t please God by the things we do, but Jesus did please God once and for all. That’s the foolishness that is so difficult for us to see and understand. That God would send His only Son, in the flesh to suffer and die and rise again, for me… for you. God isn’t pleased with us because of anything we do, but because of what Jesus did. If we want to see God’s favor we look the cross. If you want to know about your relationship to God, you don’t look at your “blessings,” instead you look at God’s promises through the cross of Jesus.

Labels: Sermon, Worship