Who Do You Say I Am

This week we are looking at Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah (Mark 8:27-9:1). I think we can all relate with this passage because of Peter's big mouth. He makes this great claim about who Jesus is, which is correct, but then proceeds to tell Jesus that means. Jesus then calls Peter Satan and goes on with his teaching of what it means to be a disciple of the Christ.

In our society today it is so easy to honor God with our lips, to give him lip service, but not to fully engage our whole being into his will. We will say the right things about him, but we define God in our terms, we want him to be and do what we want with a blatant disregard for his character.

The question, "Who do you say I am?" we all must answer, and how we answer determines what we truly believe about Jesus. C.S. Lewis has said their are only three things a person can say about Jesus. Either he was a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Jesus either lied about his mission and ministry on earth, or he was crazy or he truly is the Christ, the savior of the world.

After Peter makes the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus starts to tell them that he is going to suffer and die but he will rise again after three days. Peter, who thinks he knows what the Messiah is going to do, refutes Jesus. He tries telling Jesus what he is or is not going to do as the Messiah.

How often do we do this or does the world we live in do this?

We try to tell Jesus what he is going to do or how we want him to work in our lives. We don't want a Jesus who is in control of our lives, we just want a Jesus who will be there when we want him too and do what we can't do on our own. Other than that he is just another person or thing in our lives that gets no priority.

Jesus doesn't get bogged down though with Peter's refusal. He continues to teach his disciples. He teaches them what it will look like to follow him if they truly believe that he is the Christ, the Messiah. He says that we must pick up cross and follow after him. He wants us to die to ourselves and our desires and let him take total control of our lives. He says a profound statement in vv 35-36. He says "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel, will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Jesus is saying that we, if we are to truly follow him, if we truly believe in his mission to come and save the world, that we will have to give up our selfish desires and follow his example of going to the cross.

So what does the cross look like in our lives? I was listening to a sermon the other day about how being a Christian and facing persecution go hand in hand together. If we are truly Christians, we will face some kind of persecution. This is one way of picking up our cross. If we truly believe in the message of Jesus, we will have to tell others. People may ridicule you and you may be standing on the outside as life passes you by, but you will be living for Christ.

Maybe it looks like giving up something that you love to do because it is coming between you and your relationship with God. Maybe it is changing friends because those who you were friends with now ridicule you. These are just examples, but Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and if we say he is the Messiah, the Christ, then we have to live this kind of life. There is no other way to live.