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Series B – Second Sunday in Lent – Sunday, February 25, 2018 | Pr. Chris Rosebrough

Welcome to the Teaching Ministry of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church. Kongsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of Northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone, and now, here’s a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrough:

Time Stamp	Transcript
0:28	the holy Gospel According to Saint Mark chapter 8 verses 27-38
0:34	Jesus went on with his disciples to the Village of caesarea Philippi
0:40	on the way he asked his disciples who do people say that I am and they told him
0:46	John the Baptist others say Elijah and others well one of the prophets
0:51	and so he asked them but who do you say that I am Peter answered him you are the Christ
0:56	and he strictly charged them to tell no one about him and he began to teach them
1:02	that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and
1:07	the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again
1:13	and he said this plainly and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him but turning and seeing his disciples he
1:19	rebuked Peter and said get behind me Satan for you are not setting your mind on the things of God that on the things
1:25	of man and he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them if anyone
1:31	would come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it
1:38	whoever loses his life for my sake in the gospels will save it for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world
1:45	and yet forfeit his soul or his life what can a man give in return for his
1:50	life for whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him will the son of man
1:57	also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with his Holy Angels this is the gospel of the Lord in the
2:04	name of Jesus have you ever wondered what why this weird dichotomy in Our Gospel text I
2:11	mean on the one hand Peter gets it right he Nails the theological question who do people say that I am and no sooner does
2:18	he get the question right Jesus is saying to him get behind me Satan it just seems like a weird thing going on
2:23	there well we’re going to try to unpack this a little bit today and see if we can figure out what’s going on and this
2:31	is going to require us to do a little bit of theological borrowing if you were if you would from Martin Luther’s
2:38	Heidelberg disputation I know you all read this at night you know and you probably have it memorized but let me
2:45	remind you that in the Heidelberg disputation Luther came up with an idea
2:50	that had a great way of kind of understanding why there are two religions in the world and you’re
2:56	sitting there going wait a second that doesn’t make any sense two religions you see this Christianity there’s Buddhism
3:01	there’s Islam that’s at least three then you got Hinduism and then start adding and you said and they’re going wait a
3:07	second there’s got to be more than two religions in the world no in reality there really are only two
3:13	and they all fall into one of two categories the Theology of Glory
3:19	and the Theology of the cross the Theology of Glory really should be
3:25	understood as the Theology of self glory and here’s how the Theology of self-glory works you apply yourself
3:33	properly and do the good steps and you’ll get the great results and your
3:40	life will be better and you will be glorious and people will
3:45	say of you how amazing you are and you can sit there and go there’s a lot of different ways that that takes shape but
3:52	the other religion the Theology of the Cross basically says as Jesus said in Our Gospel text to deny yourself
4:01	to basically consider yourself to be a dead person walking and this is exactly
4:07	the truth of embracing what has happened to us in our baptisms we have been
4:13	United with Christ in his death and his resurrection and as a result of it we have all died we have died to sin dying
4:21	to the devil but I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself so let’s go back through our gospel text see if we can
4:28	make any sense of this here’s what it says Jesus went on with his disciples to The Villages of
4:35	caesarea Philippi you’re going to note the name caesarea Philippi doesn’t sound anything like well Hebrew so this is not
4:43	a Hebrew town this is not in Judea this is outside of Israel which is a great
4:48	place for Jesus to ask this question and so if you know anything about caesarea
4:53	Philippi I’m always a big advocate for traveling the world using other people’s vacation photos via the Internet if
5:00	you’ve ever been to caesarea Philippi in that way then you’ll note that this was the place where the famed gates of Hades
5:06	or the gates of hell were located and on one of the Roman roads coming into town you would see a cliff face and carved in
5:14	The Cliff face where all of these little grottos in back in the ancient world they stuck little Idols statues to the different Roman
5:22	Greco-Roman deities to Zeus and to Athena and and the like so this is idolatry Central which is a great place
5:29	to ask question because we’re going to ask a similar question today in the idolatrist world that we live in so
5:36	Jesus throws this one out on the table asks who do people say that I am
5:42	and now the question the answers are a little bit weird they told him well
5:48	some say John the Baptist weird answer for a Jew to give because Jews don’t
5:53	believe in reincarnation John the Baptist is already dead so that’s a little on the creepy scale so others
6:00	said Elijah which makes a little bit more sense because if you know the story of Elijah
6:06	Elijah was taken to heaven in a you know Chariot of fire so he technically didn’t
6:11	die so that’s a little bit more feasible and then the other is well maybe one of
6:16	the prophets yeah that was a spectacular fail right there theologically dubious and sketchy
6:23	at best so then he asked them and here it comes you ready who do you
6:29	say that I am and that one just kind of sits out there
6:34	for a minute I almost like to see like the other disciples kind of like kicking a rock or like not making eye contact
6:40	with Jesus like if I don’t look at him maybe he won’t call on me you ever do that in class by the way or is that just
6:46	me all right so Peter being the Bold one here he steps up and says you are the
6:53	Christ and we learn from the methion text in the gospel of Matthew that he says you
6:59	are the Christ the son of the Living God and Jesus Praises him for this correct answer and it’s interesting to note that
7:05	the gospel of Mark technically are the preaching notes of the Apostle Peter and Peter kind of leaves that other part out
7:11	he doesn’t want any anybody having a real glowing reporter thought about him so he says you are the Christ and then
7:17	it says this Jesus strictly charged them to tell no one about him and we’re going
7:23	to see exactly why here in a second and this has to do with the next question
7:28	that is implied but is not in the text the next question is what do you think
7:34	Jesus or the Messiah came to do why did he even come at all
7:40	you see you can get the theological answer as to who Jesus is correct and
7:46	still actually have an idol that you’ve created named Jesus I know that sounds
7:51	weird but the idea is this is that Peter rightly understood that Jesus is the
7:56	Messiah that he’s the Christ but what he was expecting from the Messiah along with the disciples and other people in
8:03	Jesus’s time was they expected the Messiah to show up Flex his miraculous muscles kick the
8:12	Romans out remember they’re under Roman occupation at this time kick the Romans out and that righteousness would go
8:19	forth into all the Earth from the re-established davidic kingdom
8:24	with Jesus as the king of course the disciples themselves wanted cushy cabinet positions in this
8:33	new coming kingly Administration and we know this because as they were getting ready to go to Jerusalem the sons of
8:40	Thunders get this they had their mommy the sons of thunder which is a funny way
8:46	of talking about them the sons of thunder literally had their mother go and talk to Jesus and say when you come
8:53	into your kingdom can my one son be on your right and your other son my other son be on your left
8:59	if you have to have your mommy ask Jesus these questions that tells me something about you but I’ve digressed so you get
9:07	the idea that these guys really expected that something spectacular was going to happen and then if you remember after
9:13	Jesus’s death and his resurrection they literally failed the final final in
9:20	seminary I don’t know any guys who ever went into Ministry who failed the final final and here’s how they failed it
9:28	as Jesus is getting ready to ascend to the right hand of the father one of them
9:33	blurts out Lord are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel
9:40	and you can see the Facebook memes now face palm this is a total failure but this is what
9:46	they were expecting from Jesus so the thing they wanted Jesus to do for them
9:52	the Jesus or the Messiah they believed in was all about freeing them from the oppression of the Romans
9:59	so I’ll just kind of throw this out there what do you expect Jesus to do for you
10:04	I mean you believe he’s the son of God we confess it in the Creed week after week I hear you guys do it I’m assuming
10:10	that none of you are taking issue with you with that but what do you expect Jesus to be doing for you
10:16	is the Jesus you believe in here to make your children better behaved well my
10:21	Jesus never was able to do that what’s the reason you believe in Jesus
10:26	is the reason you believe in Jesus because you think you’re a good person and that if you apply Jesus tips and
10:33	principles to your life you’ll be a gooder person what’s your Jesus there for is he there
10:41	to make you prosperous healthy skinny my Jesus hasn’t done that for me yet
10:48	what’s your Jesus here for why did he come see that’s really the issue and this now
10:55	comes back to that distinction Theology of self-glory versus the Theology of the Cross if the Jesus you believe in is
11:03	here to make you amazing in the here and the now to make you prosperous healthy wise
11:11	influential and all of those other glorious things that would be so amazing if you could be then you have an idol
11:19	name Jesus and you’re guilty of breaking the first commandment because you have in mind the things of
11:25	this Earth not the things of God you see Jesus didn’t come to spiff you up here
11:31	in the now he’s actually called you to repent to come and follow him and live
11:37	your life as if you literally are a dead person walking how do I know
11:43	well from the text that follows so here’s what happens after Peter gets the
11:49	question right Jesus began to teach them that the son of man and he says this
11:55	plainly Peter makes a point of letting us know this that the son of man must suffer many things get this be rejected
12:03	by the elders the chief priests the scribes be killed and after three days
12:10	rise again he said this plainly well what good is a dead Messiah
12:21	what good is a dead Messiah I mean those sound about as useful as dead dogs
12:27	what are you supposed to do with a dead Messiah how is a dead Messiah supposed to get rid of the Roman Empire
12:33	is supposed to make me have shiny teeth a big padded wallet and well make me the
12:40	bee’s knees and gloriously celebrated throughout the Earth I don’t need a dead Messiah I need
12:46	somebody who’s going to help me really make me the best me I can be dead Messiahs don’t really help anybody
12:55	and that’s Peter’s issue so Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Jesus
13:02	how the text doesn’t end at this point in saying and then sulfur and fire fell
13:08	from heaven and that was the end of Peter I don’t know that’s God’s mercy but I would assume
13:13	that rebuking the Son of God in human flesh that’s ridiculous
13:20	but see the thing is is that when our Idols are challenged and the false gods that we’ve created in
13:27	our minds are torn down we oftentimes lash out at the person who’s torn that
13:33	Idol down and that’s exactly what Jesus did by saying I’m going to be rejected not celebrated I’m not going to live I’m
13:42	going to die oh and by the way I’m going to rise again on on the third day nobody understood what that meant at this point
13:48	so Peter rebukes him and then Jesus turning and seeing his disciples he rebuked Peter and he said get behind me
13:55	Satan you see Satan’s all about Satan we know
14:00	this from Isaiah 14 where Satan basically says I will arise to the highest mountain I I
14:06	and who’s Peter really thinking about Peter that’s who he’s really thinking about
14:13	and so Jesus Nails Nails him and points out that his false Messiah
14:19	is satanic and he says you are not setting your mind on the things of God
14:26	but on the things of man and here comes some tough words now so Jesus called him the crowd with his
14:33	disciples and he said to them if anyone would come after me let him deny himself take up his cross
14:41	and follow me see Jesus made it clear he’s heading Jerusalem to die and he’s now calling his disciples to pick up
14:47	their crosses which is telling them exactly how he’s going to die and to follow him and by the way dying on a
14:54	cross is not a glorious death it is the exact opposite of Glory it is the most shameful ignominious painful disgusting
15:01	horrible way to die and the Romans used crucifixion as basically psychological
15:07	warfare to let everybody know those who oppose us this is what happens to them and
15:13	scripture itself says of those who are hung on a tree that they are cursed
15:21	Jesus is literally revealing that he’s going to die by a cross which means he’s going to be cursed he’s going to be
15:26	rejected and Jesus says if you would come after me you must deny yourself
15:31	deny yourself in what way well he goes on whoever would save his
15:36	life will lose it whoever loses his life for my sake in the gospels will save it
15:42	what does it mean to lose your life simple it begins by saying God you’re right
15:49	I’m wrong it begins with repenting it begins also then from there realizing
15:55	that there’s nothing here on this Earth that you are to attach your affections
16:01	to even your own body all of this is going away
16:07	Christ himself is going to return and all that you see will be destroyed by
16:13	fire nothing Will Survive so all of the Power games all of the
16:20	celebrity games all of the money hoarding all of the nonsense that the world chases after
16:25	Fame wealth power it’s all a pipe dream
16:30	a satanic religion designed to glorify your self
16:36	to deny yourself is to say I count nothing in this life is worth
16:41	more than Christ and what he has promised in the future and it’s to recognize that the reason
16:48	why the world is as backwards upside down and inside out as it is is because of our Collective sin and yours and my
16:56	sin individually we have all contributed to this Jesus did not come to give us
17:01	what we wanted he came to give us what we need and the reality is is that what
17:09	is necessary to give us what we need must address the root of the problem the
17:14	root of the problem is is that we have all sided with the devil we are all sinful we are all ungodly we are all
17:21	sinners and Jesus only came for that group
17:27	if you are here because you expect Jesus to make your life simpler easier less
17:33	painful you’re in the wrong place how do I know let’s take a look at our
17:39	epistle text our epistle text Begins by assuring us that Christ has given us the very thing
17:47	that we need and that is peace and reconciliation with God it’s because of
17:53	our sin that we have been estrained from God and that we are suffering the way that we do
17:58	Romans 5 1 says therefore since we have been notice the past tense we have been
18:05	Justified it’s a big word let me unpack it it literally means to be declared
18:10	righteous we as Christians those of us in Christ we who believe in Jesus for the
18:17	Forgiveness of our sins we have been not will be we have been Justified and this
18:22	is it by Faith by believing the promise of our justification and forgiveness we
18:28	have peace then with God through our Lord Jesus Christ that’s the thing we
18:33	need and that peace only came through the theology more than the
18:39	theology the very actions of Christ in denying himself and going to the cross
18:44	see through him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we
18:50	stand now access is a kind of a funny word have you ever seen depictions of
18:56	people in New York City where there’s like a super popular nightclub and there’s people standing outside and
19:02	maybe the weather is inclement but they have the red velvet ropes and people are hoping to get into this club because in
19:10	order to get in you either got to know somebody or you have to have connections or you got to pray that they’re merciful
19:16	and the person who walks up right to the door and they let them write in that person has special
19:22	success now I want you to think of it this way that through Christ
19:29	we have access to God we have access into Grace we have access
19:35	into the Forgiveness of sins and in this we are called to stand
19:41	and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God now that would be a great sermon in
19:48	and of itself but Paul goes on so think of it this way you think that’s great
19:54	okay you think the cake is amazing wait till you taste the frosting and here’s
19:59	the frosting for this more than that we rejoice in our
20:07	sufferings okay as somebody who’s experienced a wee bit
20:14	of suffering over the past few years I can never honestly say that in the midst
20:20	of my sufferings I have broken out in spontaneous praise singing my God is an
20:28	awesome God isn’t it great I get to suffered in no I haven’t done that
20:34	yet Paul is literally saying that more than the fact that we’re forgiven and we have
20:40	a right standing with God more than that we rejoice in our sufferings
20:46	you got to be kidding me I really have a problem doing this
20:54	and I bet you do too have you ever considered that maybe the reason why we have difficulty rejoicing in our
21:00	sufferings is because like Peter we haven’t think in mind the things of man rather than things of God
21:07	you see Paul goes on to say this and understand he’s writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
21:13	we rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces endurance
21:19	endurance produces character character produces hope and hope does not put us
21:25	to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
21:30	Spirit who has been given to us there are so many people out there preaching that Jesus wants to give you
21:36	your best life now that he wants you to discover some massive dream destiny that
21:41	God’s supposed to reveal to you privately in your heart and that somehow you’re going to become the most influential and affluential person and
21:48	you’re going to gloriously change the world when I hear stuff like that you’re going to notice What’s missing the great
21:54	icing of Christianity the great cake that we have in the Forgiveness of sins is suffering
22:00	the person who’s telling you that Jesus has come to make your life easy is behaving satanically
22:07	Jesus didn’t come to make your life easy he’s come to call you to repent take up
22:14	your cross consider yourself to be a dead person walking and come and suffer
22:19	and die and that we having in mind the things of God would see our sufferings as precious
22:28	something to Rejoice over there’s that strange story in the book of Acts where
22:34	the disciples for the first time were beaten for proclaiming the gospel and
22:39	they went home rejoicing that they were found worthy to suffer shame for the
22:44	name of Christ how come they didn’t teach me this in school and I know for a fact there are many of
22:51	us here who are currently suffering in our lives
22:57	in all kinds of ways either in health or in family
23:04	or name it you’re suffering brothers and sisters rejoice
23:10	this is a precious gift given to us by Christ this is the Theology of the cross that teaches us to deny ourselves you
23:18	see you suffered you realize this world’s got nothing to
23:23	offer you you truly suffered you realize you’re not as strong as you thought you
23:28	were you truly suffer and you realize just how completely weak and sinful you really are
23:35	suffering produces endurance endurance produces character character produces hope
23:41	in the resurrection hope in the Forgiveness of sins hope in Christ hope
23:47	in the new world hope that he’s going to make all things new and see this hope does not put us to
23:54	shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us and see here’s
24:00	the reason why for while we were still weak
24:07	at the right time Christ died for and here’s that scandalous word
24:12	the ungodly Jesus didn’t die for good people who were just needed a little bit of help
24:18	getting better Jesus died for the ungodly that’s me
24:25	and if you’re honest with yourself and evaluating your life according to God’s
24:31	law then you will rightly confess that that is also you if you do not believe that this is you
24:39	then you do not understand what God demands of you and you must take a harder look at your
24:45	own life in light of what God’s law demands you sin against God in thought word deed
24:53	the things you do and the things you don’t do this is most certainly true and because
25:00	of that you and I truly have been declared ungodly
25:05	and yet we hear of God’s great love that Christ died for that group
25:12	for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die
25:19	and we hear stories of this from the battlefield the guy who takes the grenade for his buddy so that they can
25:25	go on living but see God shows he demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still
25:32	sinners Christ died for us
25:37	and see since now we have been Justified declared righteous by his blood not ours his how much more shall we be saved by
25:45	him from the wrath of God and here are some very comforting words because we as Christians
25:51	we know that we are still extremely weak that our good we our good works are
25:56	still tainted with all kinds of sin that even on our best day we still have to
26:02	pray at the end of the day forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who
26:07	trespass against us and so because we still wrestle with our own sin it’s very
26:13	common for doubts to arise in our mind and yet Paul assures us think of it this
26:19	way if Christ died for you when you were ungodly and a sinner how much more are you saved now that you
26:27	have been reconciled and that’s his point for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of
26:33	his son how much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life
26:39	not yours his and more than that we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through
26:45	whom we have now received reconciliation returning then back to our gospel text
26:53	we now see what Jesus is talking about if anyone would come after me Jesus says let him deny himself
27:00	repent be forgiven live his life as a sacrifice for his
27:06	neighbor suffer and rejoice in those sufferings
27:11	if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me whoever would save his life
27:17	will lose it whoever loses his life for my sake in the gospels will save it if
27:23	your Jesus is here to save your life in the here and the now you have a false Jesus
27:29	what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his life
27:35	that seems like a foolish exchange does it not and yet we can think of human history
27:41	examples of people who have climbed the ladder of wealth died with millions and
27:46	bazillions of dollars but have died without faith in Christ
27:52	and what do they have to show for it on the day of judgment will their money
27:57	save them no so what can a man give in return for his
28:03	life that’s another great question you see if you could give something in
28:09	return for your own life then you wouldn’t need a crucified rejected
28:16	risen Jesus but you can’t you see Jesus is the one who was given for your life there’s
28:23	nothing you can give which is why Jesus says whoever is ashamed of me and of my words and this
28:30	adulterous and sinful generation ashamed of the Gospel ashamed of the one
28:37	who was crucified ashamed of the theology that Jesus preached to
28:43	deny yourself whoever is ashamed of that in this adulterous and sinful generation of him
28:49	will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and his fathers
28:54	with his glory of his father with his holy angels so who do you say Jesus is
29:01	but more importantly what do you believe he came here to do why do you worship him what do you
29:08	expect of him if you expect for him to ease your suffering to make your life easy in the
29:14	here in the now to raise you up to Glorious Heights so that everybody lawed and magnifies your
29:22	name then you have a false Jesus like Peter did and
29:28	you have more to do with Satan than you do with Christ if that’s you repent
29:35	repent be forgiven Jesus was rejected so that you would not be rejected by God
29:41	he died so that you could live and he has risen again the firstfruits of the new creation and we who are in
29:48	him when he returns will raise us up with him also he hasn’t given us what we want because
29:54	what we want is satanic he’s given us what we need and what we need is reconciliation with God and that takes
30:01	it crucified and risen Jesus in the name of Jesus Amen

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