PETER: I WILL NOT DENY YOU

Sermon Summary (7/28/19) “Peter: I Will Not Deny You” (Mt 16:13-25; Col 1:15-20)

I can vividly remember a half dozen Sunday School lessons from my elementary days and this is one of them: “Get behind me Satan.”  Whenever faced with Temptation, we were to say, “Get behind me Satan.”  I’m sure we didn’t understand what divine things were that we were to be thinking, maybe Peter didn’t either.  Poor Peter, the butt of all of Jesus’ teachings.  But certainly one of the questions we should be asking, what are the divine things we should be setting our minds on?

The disciples had been with Jesus now for nearly three years.  Time was drawing near.  He took his disciples on a retreat to the region of Caesarea-Philippi, 25 miles north of Capernaum at the base of Mount Hermon.  It was a pagan place, a place where people came to worship the god of nature, Pan; and to praise Caesar.  Yet this was the place where Jesus believed his disciples could come to grips with who he really is: “Who do the people say that I am?”  “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter, without really knowing, I think, blurts out, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” 

Peter may have no fully understood then, but on this side of Easter, the disciples would come to understand that “He was the image of the invisible God; and in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” (Col 1:15; 19) 

Following the confession of Peter, Jesus began to teach them that he must go to Jerusalem, be handed over to men, to suffer greatly, to be killed and then be raised on the third day.  This shocked the disciples and Peter said, “Lord I will not permit it, this must not happen to you!”  To which Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Here was the teaching moment.  To be Jesus’ disciple 1) deny yourself; 2) sacrifice; 3) follow. 

Deny yourselves, place the interests of others above your own.  Sacrifice, Jesus said the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve (Mt 20:28).  And three, Follow Jesus.  1 Peter 2:21 says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you. Leaving you and example, so that you should follow in his steps.”  “In his steps.”  This bible verse by Peter is the basis for the awesome book, “In His Steps” which raises the question “What would Jesus do?”  Follow.