January 15, 2014
“Who Do You Say That I Am?”
Mark 8:22-33
- Another Healing 8:22-26
- The Question 8: 27-30
- The Explanation 8:31-33
Jesus, who died for our sins, is worthy to be worshiped: worshipped for His power and riches, worshipped for His wisdom and strength, worshipped for His honor and glory, and worshipped for His unstinting ability and willingness, to shower His own, with His gracious blessings.
We would never be able to find the words to praise Jesus for all that He is…But beyond a shadow of a doubt, we can know, that He is worthy to be believed and trusted, above anything else, in this world.
We can trust Him, with all, that there is, for all, who will believe, and before all, who are watching.
He is worthy to be loved, more than any other person, place, or thing, in existence, even our most precious loved ones.
It’s safe to follow Him wherever He leads us, whether it’s into places of delight, or places of despair, because, only He, holds the future in His hands. Being with Him, is better than all the health, wealth, and pleasure, that we enjoy in this world, combined…
Jesus is worthy to be our example, to be our confident, to be our king,----He is worthy to be our everything….
He is worthy to be obeyed, and He is worthy of all He requires-----and He is worthy of all we can give Him….
He is the Creator of the Universe, the Son of the Living God, The Savior of the World, and The Giver of all Joy----- while at the same time----- He is the Shepherd of the lost, The Protector of the scared and the Comforter of the heart-broken….
Jesus cares about every single aspect of our lives, and we need, to not only learn to praise and worship Him for that… but we need to learn to trust Him, with the same innocence, and guilelessness, and wholehearted belief, that a child trusts Him with….
I remember, probably 20 years ago now, when Shelley Omer, who has grown up here, and a lot of you know, was just a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old------ She was at Vacation Bible School, and her class had gone to the bathroom in the Family Life Center, somehow, horror of horrors, for the teacher and the child---- she got separated from her class and was left behind----if I remember correctly, she came out of the bathroom looking tiny and lost-----and Ray Jernigan, a fine man in our church---father and grandfather and friend to many, happened to notice her----He picked her up, comforted her and took her right where she was supposed to go, much to everybody’s relief------
Later that day, she was telling her mama, Dee, all about it-----when Shelley got to the end, of the story, Dee said, “well Shelley, do you know who the man was?”
Shelley thought for a minute and then she said, “I’m not sure, but I believe it was Jesus…”
How sweet is the innocence and certainty of a child-----
The disciples thought they knew who Jesus was but they really didn’t see Him clearly----they couldn’t-----they lived before the cross----resurrection, even though they were willing to believe in it, would have been beyond the realm of experience, for them…..
So, in this lesson, Jesus once again tried to explain Himself and His God-ordained mission to them….Everything Jesus had done up until this point----all the healings, all the teaching, all the exorcisms, and all the outpouring, of love and compassion, that He had lavished on everybody, that He had come in contact with, had benefitted each one-------- but the real reason He had done it all, was to reveal Himself to the disciples, and to train and teach them to carry on His mission of spreading the Gospel…after He was gone back to the Father.
I. Another Healing 8:22-26
So, He starts with another miracle-----Blindness was a common thing in the ancient culture that Jesus lived in-----the lack of understanding regarding hygiene, the unavailability of effective medicine, and exposure to the elements, made clouded, staring, red-rimmed, gummy eyes, a common sight everywhere. The pitiful plight of the sightless man would have been hopeless except that the man had something wonderful going for him-----he had some good friends who believed that Jesus could heal him.
Somehow, the blind man’s friends, believed, that a touch from the Lord, could heal him. Whether they understood the importance of His touch, as their means of salvation, we don’t know. But we do know that they were earnest in their beliefs-----and forceful in their request, as they asked Jesus to heal their poor friend.
The countryside in and around Bethsaida was Gentile territory----the man and his friends were probably Gentile, and it’s possible that they had come to put more trust in Jesus’ touch, than in Jesus himself-----with little understanding of the spiritual lesson that the Lord wanted to teach them.
They must have either seen Jesus heal someone, experienced it themselves, or they had heard about how He typically performed His miracles. So, the friends thought that they had figured out how Jesus would go about healing their friend. They thought that Jesus would just touch the blind man, and he would be healed, and they would go on about their business. But they didn’t take in to account that Jesus can, and does, heal in different ways, based on the lesson that He wants us to learn from the healing.
Even among believers, maybe, especially among believers, do we think we know exactly how the Lord is going to pour out His grace------
When the Lord calls us to Him and we answer that call and we repent and are saved----at the time, it feels like we are the only person who has ever been called. And we think, that the way we come to the Lord, is the way that everybody should come to Him. But we are wrong, because the Lord brings us to Him in all kinds of ways-----there is only one way to the Father, and that’s through Jesus------but there are as many ways to Jesus as there are people, and the way may vary, but His grace will always be the same…
We have to be careful that we don’t put the Lord in a box----because we can limit our usefulness to Him and we can unexpectedly, lower our expectations of Him and His ability to do all He needs to do….and we can find ourselves resisting Him and any unexpected miracle, He might want to bless us with.
The Lord, intentionally, healed the blind man in two stages---I think that
lesus wanted him to have a faith, that matched the miracle. that He wanted to do in his life. And, I think that Jesus wanted the disciples to see that salvation can be a gradual process……that won’t be fully realized till Jesus comes back and sets up His kingdom…
Jesus, in His compassion, took the man by the hand and gently and kindly let him outside---away from the noise and a 1000 other things, which could easily distract him. Jesus held on to the man’s hand.
(Holding another person’s hand is a very intimate thing. A lot can be said, by two hands that are clasped, without a single word being spoken.)
Then Jesus used His spittle to touch the man’s eyes and asked him what he could see. At first the man could only see blurry objects and then Jesus touched his eyes again, and suddenly, the world was clear and sharp and exquisite, in its beauty.
The Lord will often surprise us with His presence and His gracious goodness, unexpectedly----He will pour himself out on us and we have no control over it----and we shouldn’t have any control ----- we should just be grateful-----which one of us can presume to tell the Savior of the World, how to do His job, or how and why to bless us----- Not one of us!!!!------------We may ask the Lord to grow us spiritually----but it isn’t our place, to lay down the guidelines, for how He wants to do it.
When Jesus sent the man home, he told him not to go to back through Bethsaida-----there was nothing else, that He wanted to show the people in that place, since they had seen and experienced so many of His miracles, but they had let none of them lead them to salvation----the Lord could see the storm clouds brewing, He knew the time was getting short---He could see Calvary off in the distance----He didn’t have any time to waste---He had to prepare the disciples for His leaving and for their new role, of stepping into His footprints.
II. The Question 8:27-30
As Jesus and the disciples traveled to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus questioned them about His identity. He knew that they were gaining knowledge with each step that they took, and with each lesson that they heard, and with each miracle that they witnessed----so Jesus wanted to see just how far their understanding had grown.
The disciples recited the list of popular opinions----the reincarnation of John the Baptist---or maybe of Elijah----or one of the other ancient prophets, that were so revered by the Jewish people. Our knowledge of what others believe is never enough, though; we have to form our own opinions, and come to the Lord on our own, individually---- so, Jesus asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, who was the spokesperson for the group----confessed and professed, that He was the Christ---their long-awaited Messiah.
Jesus told them not to tell anybody, who they believed He was…He knew they didn’t have a full understanding, so He didn’t want them sensationalizing who He was, before it was time. He wanted them to have more teaching and He wanted to do all He could before He had to leave----He was preparing the way for the Holy Spirit to come into their hearts, because He knew that the Holy Spirit would help them to remember all that He had taught them.
Almost everything we do in life, is a step by step process----I can compare it to building a house. If you’ve ever done it, you know that you know exactly how you want the house to look, right down to the pictures on the wall and the books on your bedside table….But first, you have to hire an architect to draw the plans-----when they’re done , you look at them, but they are nothing like the image in your mind---- you question the architect and he says to wait, and trust the process ----
Next------you hire a contractor to start building----he digs the foundation and pours the cement and frames the rooms-----it still doesn’t look what you have in your mind----you question the builder and he says to wait and trust the process-----
Over the next few months you see all kinds of people go in and out of the house---electricians, plumbers, wallboard installers, trim carpenters, tile people-----all necessary, all with a job to do--------- finally-----after 6 months to a year---the house is finished and you move in and it’s still not like you had imagined-----it’s a 100 times better!!
We understand the process of building a house or building a business or even building a relationship-----so we need to understand, that, in the same way, our growth in the Lord, is a process. And when we allow the Lord to do the growing----it turns out 100 times better. The disciples had a little understanding, and as they were ready for it, the Lord would give them a little more, and then a little more, and then a little more-----sometimes they were slow to learn and sometimes they were quick.
But, the blessing of it all, is that Jesus knows exactly what He’s doing, and exactly where we are, in the process of spiritual growth---just like the architect and the builder do in a house construction----He provides insight and explanation to us, through the Holy Spirit; He urges us along, reminding us of what has happened before, and showing us what’s going to happen next. He gives us the grace and the desire to obey Him; and He gives us the tools that He wants us to use, and He shows us how to use them.
We need to stop worrying about what our end product will be, and start trusting the Lord’s vision for us, and begin to appreciate the process, that He has decided is the right one for each of us.
III. The Explanation 8:31-33
For the first time, right here, without parables or stories with hidden meanings----Jesus spoke plainly about His upcoming suffering and death. Jesus explained it all to the disciples, just after Peter’s confession, to emphasize, to the disciples, that He hadn’t come to establish a political kingdom----Instead He had come to fling the doors of heaven wide open, by taking our sin, and nailing it to the cross.
so that never again, would we be separated from God the Father,
The Lord had to suffer many things----the cross, was the ultimate culmination of His suffering-----but for the 3 years of His ministry He suffered in other ways that are easier for us to understand, because we can identify with some of them-----He suffered the rejection of His family; He suffered the continuous rejection of His teaching; He suffered the gross misunderstanding of His goodness, in loving and healing people and casting out demons; He suffered when the religious leaders accused Him of being in league with the devil and attributed His gracious works as the devil’s work; He suffered when people only wanted Him, for what He could give them ,and He suffered terribly when His own hometown refused to acknowledge who He was.
Jesus went on to list 3 categories of people who would eventually demand His death----the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law…the very people who should have recognized Him and rallied around Him….His suffering was with Him every day----everywhere He turned-----but He never faltered----and He never disobeyed-----and He stayed close to the Father and true to His mission----He never lost His joy…..
Jesus spoke plainly about his suffering and death, to the disciples---so plainly, that Peter couldn’t take it anymore----he was horrified and He tried to stop Jesus from saying what He was saying----Peter allowed His emotions to get in the way of the truth----we all do sometimes----but that’s the way the world thinks and behaves----
Believers have to guard against letting our emotions keep us from doing, what we know the Lord would have us to do---with our spouse, with our children, with our friends with our health, with our money, with our homes, with our skills and talent----and with the tasks that the Lord has laid out before us.
(Robert Alan Cole said, “in regard to Peter, trying to stop Jesus, no sterner rebuke ever fell on any Pharisee, than on this disciple of Christ, this first Christian…The avoidance of the cross, had already been a temptation faced, and overcome, by the Lord, in the desert: and for Peter to suggest it here, was the human way of looking at things, not the divine way” Jesus didn’t need to be tempted by one of His own…..)
Peter meant no harm-----He wasn’t considering God’s purposes, he was reacting like of any of us would, when we love somebody and we don’t want them to hurt----He had Jesus’ best interests at heart-----but He had allowed Satan to cloud His mind with his emotions----so Jesus, had to forcefully rebuke satan, first, and then He had to sternly rebuke the disciples.
Unknowingly, the disciples were trying to prevent Jesus from going to the cross, which would have prevented Him, from fulfilling His mission on earth.
Satan’s motives in trying to prevent the cross were evil-----but the disciples were motivated by love and admiration and awe of Jesus----
But…… their place wasn’t to guide and protect Him, it was to follow Him, wherever He led-----so Jesus had to chastise them, so that they would understand----Peter and the others still couldn’t understand fully, but we know ,that when the Holy Spirit came, He made the reason clear to them, why Jesus had to die, the way He did.
It was hard for them to accept a cross when they were expecting a crown….it’s the same for us----the life of a believer is not a paved road to wealth and ease----it’s often a dirt road, that involves hard work, persecution, deprivation and deep suffering.
But that’s only part of the picture---the joy and blessing and peace that we receive, even when we’re stuck in a pothole up to our knees, far surpasses the suffering.
We don’t want to repeat Peter’s mistake, by looking at the circumstances instead of the big picture of God’s plan… Instead, we want to focus on the Lord, and trust Him, to bring good, out of what seems evil and mean and hopeless, to us. We have to look beyond the crucifixion, in every circumstance, and see the glory and the beauty of the resurrection.
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