SPEAKER_00: Matthew 16, verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, that he must suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
SPEAKER_00: Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this should never happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: You're a hindrance to me.
SPEAKER_00: For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We all make plans, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have planned out where you're going for lunch today.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are just trying to make it through tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have next week plans, next school year plans.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter how carefully we plan, our plans are always limited.
SPEAKER_00: And our plans are limited because we don't know the future.
SPEAKER_00: Our plans are limited because we don't know variables or what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: It is immature to not plan, first of all.
SPEAKER_00: Some people excuse the idea we don't know the future by with apathy and by say, I'm not going to make a plan because I don't know what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: That's immature.
SPEAKER_00: A mature person charts out where he wants to be, charts out the steps to get there, and enacts them.
SPEAKER_00: But it is also immature to think that our plans are infallible or unalterable.
SPEAKER_00: A mature person makes plans and then holds them loosely.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't know what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give you a very real-world example.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say you have a plan for where to go lunch today.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go to Mike's.
SPEAKER_00: Mmm, Mike's.
SPEAKER_00: And then you meet somebody here at church this morning from your work that is new at church.
SPEAKER_00: They don't normally come to church.
SPEAKER_00: It hadn't been before, and you run into them in the hallway, and they invite you to their house for lunch today.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to say?
SPEAKER_00: No, I was planning on going to Mike's.
SPEAKER_00: You better not say that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh no, this is the right thing to do because I made my plan.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: We hold our plans loosely because we don't know the future.
SPEAKER_00: We know so little.
SPEAKER_00: We are limited by what we can see and what we know.
SPEAKER_00: We can't see beyond the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that means we can't see tomorrow because tomorrow is beyond the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: We know so little.
SPEAKER_00: It was Mike Tyson in 1987 who famously said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
SPEAKER_00: He's right about that.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, God's plans never change.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has complete and absolute knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: God never needs a plan B, and God never needs to hold his plans loosely.
SPEAKER_00: God brings every one of his plans to pass in perfection.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing ever takes him by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: He knows every step along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And it is not because he's seen the movie before.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that God has a plan and knows what's going to happen because he can see down the tunnel of time and sees what's going to happen, and so he backs up and says, I will plan that.
SPEAKER_00: No, God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: God knows the future because he's the architect of the future.
SPEAKER_00: He brings things to pass.
SPEAKER_00: He brings them to pass.
SPEAKER_00: He is the director of the movie, the screenwriter of the movie, the casting agent of the movie.
SPEAKER_00: He does all of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so he knows the future because he brings it about.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way God orchestrates all events.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing takes them by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with us.
SPEAKER_00: Our plans falter, his plans stand firm.
SPEAKER_00: Our plans disappoint.
SPEAKER_00: His plans not only are perfect, but lead to life.
SPEAKER_00: Our plans require backups.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of God's plans comes to perfect fruition.
SPEAKER_00: There's an expression in the Old Testament in Samuel that there are no falling words of God.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel says that.
SPEAKER_00: None of God's words fall.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an odd expression, but it's an image of a bunch of plates falling or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And you can grab a few of the plates, but some are going to fall.
SPEAKER_00: None of God's words fall to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of God's words achieves its perfect and complete and intended purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says God's word always returns what it was intended.
SPEAKER_00: If it brings rain, it brings rain.
SPEAKER_00: Snow, snow, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Life, life, death, death, God's words always accomplish the plan.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 19, 21.
SPEAKER_00: You see this in the passage we're reading right now.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has a turn of phrase in here.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He must do these things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in fact, opens the word of God to the people.
SPEAKER_00: He begins to show his disciples, show here, he's arguing from the scriptures that he must go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same kind of conversation that happens on the road to Emmaus with the disciples who are distraught that Jesus had died, and they're walking alongside Jesus, they don't recognize him at first.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus proceeds to show them from the Word of God how the scriptures themselves say the Messiah is going to die and resurrect.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is showing his disciples that the word of God says that he must go to Jerusalem, he must be betrayed, he must die, be buried, and resurrect.
SPEAKER_00: These things have to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And when he says they have to happen, it's because God has planned them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in his human will, is perfectly submissive to God's will.
SPEAKER_00: His human will is submissive to God's will.
SPEAKER_00: So when he says this thing must take place, he's saying that I am submissive to the plan of God and he knows the plan of God.
SPEAKER_00: In his divine will, he's saying these things must take place because he's the one who planned them.
SPEAKER_00: So don't, it's wrong to view Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't view him as like the teenager who says, I have to clean my room before I text my friends.
SPEAKER_00: I must clean my room before I text.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not operating like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that he has to do this to get to what's next.
SPEAKER_00: He's when he says these things must take place, it's because he planned them to take place.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a plan that did not start yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: It did not start last week.
SPEAKER_00: He has not just been planning this all day or all week.
SPEAKER_00: He has been planning this since before time.
SPEAKER_00: He has been planning this.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Revelation, it describes the plan of salvation as the book of life of the Lamb who was slain from before the foundations of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 1, verse 2 says, as a promise made in eternity past.
SPEAKER_00: Before there was time, there was the plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Before there was an unfolding series of events, God designed that the Son of God would come to earth, go to the cross, be killed, resurrect from the grave, and offer eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: He planned that it would happen in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this in verse 21, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is so far away from where they are.
SPEAKER_00: They're in Caesarea Philippi, which is on the border of Israel and Lebanon and Syria.
SPEAKER_00: They all kind of come together right there.
SPEAKER_00: He is out there.
SPEAKER_00: This is as far away from Jerusalem as you could get and still be inside of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He had been to Jerusalem a few other times in his ministry, of course, and I would say those didn't go well from man's perspective, like they tried to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when he says he's going to go back to Jerusalem, and Thomas says, Great, I guess we'll go with you and all die together.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Caesarea Philippi, he's had a fruitful ministry with the Gentiles up in Tyre and Sidon, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, those areas.
SPEAKER_00: He had a fruitful ministry there.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews are hounding him.
SPEAKER_00: They're out to kill him, the Jews are, but the Gentiles were receptive to his ministry, it seems.
SPEAKER_00: And now Jesus is up on the border and he says, I'm going to go to Jerusalem so that I can die.
SPEAKER_00: God's been planning this from before time.
SPEAKER_00: You see it in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to go to the very spot where Abraham takes Isaac to be sacrificed.
SPEAKER_00: And God provides a substitute.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jerusalem is.
SPEAKER_00: It's the very spot where David bought a field to build the temple.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jerusalem is.
SPEAKER_00: It's the very spot where Solomon stood and prayed that when the Savior comes, the nations would turn their face to this place, pointing at that field that David bought, where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice, pointing at that field and said, Oh, for the day when the nations look here and turn and be saved from here.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he has to go.
SPEAKER_00: The flip side of that, though, is that's where all the prophets are killed, from Abel to Zechariah.
SPEAKER_00: I know Abel wasn't literally killed in Jerusalem, but that's what Jesus says in Luke 13.
SPEAKER_00: He says, All the prophets from Abel to Zechariah are killed in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of hyperbole.
SPEAKER_00: Cain was murdered by Abel, and Jesus is saying the religious leaders of Jerusalem have more in common with the lineage of Cain than the lineage with Abel.
SPEAKER_00: And then all the prophets are killed there, it seems.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah, Saun, and two.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah may not have been killed there, but he was definitely betrayed there time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah, one of the final prophets in the Old Testament, dies clutching the altar.
SPEAKER_00: They're all killed there.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says, I'm going to go there because that's where the prophets are killed.
SPEAKER_00: This is a full-on collision of God's plan versus man's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: You see this structured by verse 21, saying, I must do this, that's God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 23, where Jesus says to Peter, You're not setting your minds on the things of God, but on the things of man.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: What God says must take place with what mankind says ought not take place.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan versus man's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast they are, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: God's plan that the Savior would suffer.
SPEAKER_00: It's always been God's plan that the Savior would suffer.
SPEAKER_00: The very first time you encounter God's plan for the Savior in the Bible is in Genesis 3, where God gives the very first prophecy of the Bible that the Savior will be born from Eve, in other words, will be a human being, and he will crush the head of the serpent, he will defeat the devil, but he will be struck in the heel.
SPEAKER_00: He will get bit.
SPEAKER_00: So as soon as you introduce to Jesus Christ, you're introduced to the fact that he will win, but he will get hurt.
SPEAKER_00: But that's played out throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 22, verse 6, a prophecy, another prophecy about the Savior, where the Savior will say, I am a worm and not of man.
SPEAKER_00: I am scorned by mankind and despised by people.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, later in Psalm 22, the Savior will say, All who see me mock me.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 50, verse 6, the Savior will give his cheek to those who will pull out his beard.
SPEAKER_00: Now that seems an odd phrase for us, but remember in the Old Testament, that was a sign of reproach on people.
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish soldiers, the Israelite soldiers, had their beards plucked out and they stayed in hiding until their beards grow back.
SPEAKER_00: And when David prophesies a Savior, he says, it'll be like that.
SPEAKER_00: They will mistreat him so badly.
SPEAKER_00: The most famous prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus are in the book of Isaiah, and they're called the suffering servant songs, the songs of the suffering servant.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel dumb even saying this, but they're called the suffering servant songs because they are about the servant's suffering.
SPEAKER_00: You all can go to Bible school now.
SPEAKER_00: It's that easy.
SPEAKER_00: Each one of those songs prophesies how the Savior will suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53.
SPEAKER_00: It says the Messiah will be despised by men in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be rejected.
SPEAKER_00: Later on in Isaiah 53, he'll be called a man of sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be familiar with grief and anguish.
SPEAKER_00: People will feel so sorry for him that they'll hide their faces from him.
SPEAKER_00: He will not be esteemed, Isaiah says he'll be mocked.
SPEAKER_00: He will not be honored, he will be ridiculed.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 69, verse 20, reproaches have broken my heart so that I am in despair.
SPEAKER_00: I look for pity and there was none.
SPEAKER_00: I look for comforters and found none.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus says, I have to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, and he's showing that from the Old Testament, those are the kind of passages he's using.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior will suffer, he will be ridiculed.
SPEAKER_00: Our reproach will be given to him.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament predicted his sufferings, and Jesus was sent to fulfill them.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking in the pattern laid out before him.
SPEAKER_00: Not just that the Savior would suffer, but God's plan is that the Savior would die.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that he'll have a difficult life, but that difficult life will result in his death.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 31, verse 5, the Savior will declare, Into your hands I commit my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And you can read that and think, oh, that's just what somebody says at the end of their life.
SPEAKER_00: He could die at a ripe old age and say, Into your hands I commit my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not quite.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 12, verse 10 says that he will die by being pierced.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, he's going to be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be murdered.
SPEAKER_00: His hands and his feet are going to be run through.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 9, verse 26, says, His days will be cut off.
SPEAKER_00: There will be an abrupt ending.
SPEAKER_00: Not a ripe old age, saying, Into your hands I commit my spirit, but he will be pierced and run through abruptly.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be murdered.
SPEAKER_00: His death will have an accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53, verse 7, his life will be poured out as a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_00: So he'll suffer in Isaiah 53 all the reproaches, all the difficulty, and that will result in his soul being poured out as a burnt offering.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the most interesting passage about this is Psalm 89, verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 89 is one of the longest psalms in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It is a meandering psalm about the suffering of the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And in the middle of the Psalm it says, His days will be cut off in his youth.
SPEAKER_00: He will be murdered when he's young.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53, verse 9, he'll be buried in a rich man's grave.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that means to state the obvious that he dies.
SPEAKER_00: He's murdered when he's a young man and buried.
SPEAKER_00: That is all described in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus tells the disciples, I have to go suffer and die, he's saying, this has been prophesied throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And it has to happen in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 13, verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's plan for the Savior to suffer, to die, and then ultimately to resurrect.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 12, verse 2 says, Those who fall asleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and contempt.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, everyone's going to die, and they're all going to wake up, some in eternal life, and some in eternal death.
SPEAKER_00: It follows, if people who die in faith are resurrected to life, that the sinless Savior would be resurrected to life.
SPEAKER_00: This is a recurring prophecy throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 16, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior says, My soul will not be abandoned to Sheol.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 49, verse 15, God will ransom my soul from the power of the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53, verse 10, which is the verse after he's buried in a rich man's grave, says he's going to have his days extended and see his offspring.
SPEAKER_00: That's the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Hosea 6, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: On the second day, after two days, we will be revived.
SPEAKER_00: On the third day, he will raise us up.
SPEAKER_00: This is speaking of the nation of Israel that will suffer in exile for two days, and the third day be exalted, resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: And that becomes a prophecy for us.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus dies in our place, is buried in our place.
SPEAKER_00: After two days, he rises from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: On the third day, he resurrects, and so we rise with him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, when Abraham went to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the last thing he said to his slaves before he left?
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'll be back in three days with my son.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to sacrifice his son, but he he this is a pattern for the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to the mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Three days from now, we'll be back.
SPEAKER_00: This is God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: This is a plan, by the way, that has been in the mind of God from before the foundation of time.
SPEAKER_00: Like I mentioned, the Lamb's Book of Life from before time.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 4, verse 3 says that the planning of redemption was accomplished from the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 11, verse 50 is a verse I had never really appreciated or looked at carefully until this week.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 11, verse 50, Jesus says, The blood of the prophets has been spilled from the foundation of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world?
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking of in the mind of God.
SPEAKER_00: This has been his plan.
SPEAKER_00: You see this in types in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've given you little verses, but it's bigger than verses.
SPEAKER_00: It's the whole pattern of the Old Testament that Israel would be raised up in Israel, sent to suffer as slaves in Egypt, and then resurrected, so to speak, back into the promised land through the parting of the water.
SPEAKER_00: You see the death prophesied with Melchizedek, the priest, who would be a prophet, a priest, and a king, who's going to make a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: You see this with the Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_00: A lamb who's put forward as a substitute who will be slain.
SPEAKER_00: And the wrath of God that you deserve is not poured out on you, but is poured out on the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: You put your faith in the blood of the lamb, and God's wrath and death pass you over based upon your faith in the blood of the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a pattern that is set up throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pattern that includes resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Sarah dies, and Abraham takes her bones.
SPEAKER_00: Starts moving her bones around Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob dies, and remember his promises.
SPEAKER_00: You better get my bones out of here.
SPEAKER_00: They get back in Israel, they're bringing everybody's bones with them.
SPEAKER_00: This is a pattern for Jesus who will be buried and resurrected in the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pattern of the Passover lamb, it's a pattern of the priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many of these patterns in the Old Testament to demonstrate for you that the plan that Jesus would suffer and die and resurrect is not optional.
SPEAKER_00: And it was not, oh my goodness, people aren't responding to Jesus after his baptism in the gospels.
SPEAKER_00: Let's come up with something new.
SPEAKER_00: It is not that.
SPEAKER_00: This is a plan written in the mind of God from before time begins.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with man's plans.
SPEAKER_00: Man's wisdoms are not like any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Man's wisdom is focused on power, political objectives, self-promotion, self-exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: Man's power is fixated on the here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Man's wisdom is stuck on earthly accomplishments, personal promotion.
SPEAKER_00: And some of this is inevitable, of course, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're people.
SPEAKER_00: And so, like I said at the beginning of the sermon today, you're planning out your future.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I want to be here in five years, I want to do this in a few years, and you start thinking of steps to accomplish that.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're enacting your plan, so you're putting yourself forward to carry about your objective.
SPEAKER_00: That's what wise people do.
SPEAKER_00: That's not even bad.
SPEAKER_00: That's what wise people do.
SPEAKER_00: But you can right away see the problem that all of our plans are about us and they're putting us forward.
SPEAKER_00: That is man's wisdom on its best day.
SPEAKER_00: If left to its own ends, man's wisdom is always resulting in self-exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this even with godly people, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: James and John, two of the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They're finally persuaded that Jesus is going to go to the cross, die, and resurrect.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: They finally get there.
SPEAKER_00: And remember what they ask?
SPEAKER_00: So in your kingdom then, can we sit at your right and your left?
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: That's your question.
SPEAKER_00: You waste your one question on that.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Peter asked to call down fire from heaven on people that are preaching the gospel that aren't recognizing Peter's authority.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know the flow chart.
SPEAKER_00: And if they're not honoring me under the flow chart, then what are we even doing here?
SPEAKER_00: That's Peter's question.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about self exaltation.
SPEAKER_00: Simon the sorcerer, he believes in Jesus and his death and resurrection and starts to think what can I get out of this?
SPEAKER_00: How can I buy the power of the Holy Spirit for my own purpose?
SPEAKER_00: This is why Peter takes out his sword to fight the guards arresting Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In the garden.
SPEAKER_00: They're resting Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He takes out his sword and cuts off the guy's ear.
SPEAKER_00: I like the three of the gospels like one of the disciples, one of the disciples, one of the disciples, and John says Peter did it.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if this isn't why Jesus hid the identity of the one who betrayed him from Peter.
SPEAKER_00: From all the what would Peter have done to Jesus if he knew that Jesus was going to betray Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Man's wisdom does not result in God's goal.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that Peter actually forbids Jesus from doing this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: Peter took Jesus aside.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an ongoing, Jesus is teaching in an ongoing way about what the Bible says is going to happen to him.
SPEAKER_00: I love that Peter takes him aside to confront him.
SPEAKER_00: Like he he loves Jesus too much to confront him in front of the other eleven.
SPEAKER_00: You can picture this at like the staff meeting or something.
SPEAKER_00: They're all talking and Jesus is doing his devotional, and Peter's like, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: Can you step outside real quick, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to correct you in front of the room.
SPEAKER_00: So into the hallway.
SPEAKER_00: The other eleven can probably hear the shouting in the hallway.
SPEAKER_00: Takes him aside and begins to rebuke him.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Peter rebuking Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he used a compliment sandwich.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I like that you're thinking outside the box of this whole crucifixion thing.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: We won't allow it.
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: But good job leading us.
SPEAKER_00: Far be it from you, Lord, he says in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: This will never happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he's willing to back this up with violence if needs be.
SPEAKER_00: He flatly forbids the plan.
SPEAKER_00: And think of Peter's arrogance here.
SPEAKER_00: This is the plan that has been written before time, and Peter forbids it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know about the typology of the Passover Lamb, Lord, not buying it.
SPEAKER_00: Not on my watch.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this might be a moment for brief personal reflection in your own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's easy to make fun of Peter a little bit for rebuking the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's designed to make you laugh a little bit at it and make you, you know, kind of roll your eyes at Peter, of course.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also written to help you see yourself in this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, every time you correct the Lord on what he's doing in your life, you're being like Peter here.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I know you're working all things for your good and glory, ultimately for my good too.
SPEAKER_00: I like I appreciate that, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But not this.
SPEAKER_00: This trial is off limits, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: My children?
SPEAKER_00: My wife?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I thought we had limits here, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You can work out what you're doing for your good and for your glory and all that, but you can't, not with my kids, not with my family.
SPEAKER_00: That's too much, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When you speak like that or think like that in your heart, you're acting like Peter, who says, I recognize this is the plan of the Lord, but not today.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord doesn't tolerate it.
SPEAKER_00: He turns to Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Get behind me, Satan, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: So there's no mincing words here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus blasts Peter out of the sky.
SPEAKER_00: I listened to a health, wealth, prosperity gospel teacher on TV once, and this is a problem for the health, wealth, prosperity movement, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because they teach if you have faith in the Lord and you know you can actualize your own reality and all this suffering and sickness and illness won't happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus, meanwhile, the most faithful person who ever lived, is going to be rejected, betrayed, and crucified.
SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
SPEAKER_00: And so this health, wealth, prosperity teacher on TV says that the English has the punctuation wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And that what happens here is Peter says, No, it won't happen to you, I forbid it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is agreeing with Peter and says, get behind me, period, and now goes on to rebuke Satan.
SPEAKER_00: No, don't buy that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, because he's opposing God's will, is speaking on behalf of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And this goes back to the sin in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: It was the devil who brought sin into the world.
SPEAKER_00: It was God who said the devil would be defeated by the Savior, and now it is Peter who's saying, no.
SPEAKER_00: Not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, who moments ago had just confessed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, who moments ago Jesus just said, I'm going to build my church on the foundation of your confession, is now said that you're speaking for the devil.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's a week in our minds between here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a week and there's a paragraph break between verse 20 and verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at verses 18 and 19 a week ago, so it can be distant from us.
SPEAKER_00: It was not distant for Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells Peter, flesh and blood did not reveal that to you.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are you, Simon.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to build my church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be the cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be the foundation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to build my church on your confession of me as the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like five minutes later, get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And that paints the battle lines in our world.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can confess Christ without the Holy Spirit, even if it's Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And anybody who opposes the plan of God for salvation is speaking on behalf of the devil, even if it's Peter.
SPEAKER_00: We very much live in a world that is a battle between God's plan and man's wisdom, between what the Holy Spirit has designed in the triune council of God and what people come up with to advance their own agendas.
SPEAKER_00: Good and evil, light and darkness, life and death.
SPEAKER_00: That is the battle line.
SPEAKER_00: There is no neutrality in this.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of our thoughts is on one side or the other.
SPEAKER_00: I recognize that we are always working with mixed motions and mixed motives.
SPEAKER_00: We want to do something for some good reasons and some bad reasons, but when you drill down to the most basic level, those motives are good or bad, even the mixed ones.
SPEAKER_00: You can operate to advance the agenda and the plan of God in this world, or you can operate to oppose it.
SPEAKER_00: And at the most foundational level, God's agenda in the world is the crucifixion and substitutionary death of his son, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To bear the wrath of God, the punishment for sins that people deserve.
SPEAKER_00: He bears it in himself.
SPEAKER_00: He gives his life up.
SPEAKER_00: He's buried and resurrected on the third day to show the punishment for sin was paid for.
SPEAKER_00: And now people who place their faith in him can receive forgiveness of their sins and have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: That is God's plan in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And that plan will succeed, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: There are no falling words.
SPEAKER_00: And to oppose that plan, to say there's salvation in any other name, is to actually advance the agenda of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: It is the devil who teaches people that all paths lead to God.
SPEAKER_00: It is the devil that teaches people that people can be saved without the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It is the devil who teaches people that the empty grave is not essential.
SPEAKER_00: It's the devil who teaches people that they can't tell the difference between life and death.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember earlier when Jesus was giving life and the Pharisees said, oh, he's got a demon in him?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, That's the unforgivable sin.
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking at somebody who's offering eternal life and you're saying that could be the work of the devil, you are so blinded and so deluded.
SPEAKER_00: Those that advance the agenda of death are darkened.
SPEAKER_00: Those that advance the agenda of life coming from the empty grave are enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Even if your name is Peter, when you oppose the gospel or think that there is another way for people to be saved, you are speaking on behalf of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: This would shock Peter, of course.
SPEAKER_00: It would shock him.
SPEAKER_00: It would crush him.
SPEAKER_00: All the evil in this world is going to come crashing down at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The devil thinks that he's accomplishing his own ends.
SPEAKER_00: He's really sealing his own doom.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus tells Peter, You are a hindrance to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ESV hindrance right there in verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: Scandalon is the Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: We get our English word scandal from it, which doesn't mean now what it used to mean.
SPEAKER_00: The word scandal, in Greek, it's the word for a trap that's laid out on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: You lay a bird trap on the ground, you can't see it, you step in your own trap.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why it's helpful in the political world, is a scandal.
SPEAKER_00: You set a trap for yourself, you walked in it, it became a scandal.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus just told Peter, you're going to be the foundation of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, you're the trap.
SPEAKER_00: You're the trap.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're not taking your thoughts captive for God.
SPEAKER_00: As I said, those are the battle lines.
SPEAKER_00: You have a choice between the scandal of grace or the scandal of pride.
SPEAKER_00: Living for God or living for man.
SPEAKER_00: The question: will Peter be able to surrender his heart and his desires to the Lordship of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Or will he insist on doing things his own way and living for himself?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question for each of us as well.
SPEAKER_00: You can hold on to your pride, try to navigate the world without confessing your faith in the cross and in the empty grave, and stand condemned, speaking for the devil himself.
SPEAKER_00: You can humble yourself and receive the forgiveness that Jesus offers to all those who would believe.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that you make the way of salvation clear by declaring even before you went to the cross that this must take place.
SPEAKER_00: We're so thankful that it did take place.
SPEAKER_00: The grave is open, like the arms of our Savior are open, inviting all who will to come.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone who's here today that has never had their eyes opened to the beauty of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that today they would submit their life to you, that they would receive the forgiveness that comes through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The cross and the empty grave.
SPEAKER_00: They would see this as the fulfillment of your plan from before time, and they could see themselves participating in it by receiving the forgiveness that comes from it.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would work that miracle in people's hearts today.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.