Now if you would all please stand and I will read our call to worship out of Psalm number 8. Here is the word of the Lord, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens, out of the mouth of babes and infants. You have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under His feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. You give us another great day, Lord, to come in to Your house at Your invitation, Lord, this Lord's Day where we gather to receive your blessing and your goodness and to praise you for all you have done for us at all times throughout this last week in our lives and what you are going to continue to do in, by, and through us for your glory. We pray this in your Son's name. Amen. Let us now turn in our in our Bibles to Psalm 22 and we're going to read verses 1 through 17, page 457. And this will be a psalm which we will also reference in the proclamation of the word. So Psalm 22, to the choir master according to the dough of the dawn, the psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry day by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breast. On you was I cast from my birth. and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, accompany of evil doors, and circles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing they cast lots. So is the reading of God's holy, perfect, inerrant word. Now, brothers and sisters, let us lift up our voices to proclaim our faith. Now if you would turn in your few Bibles to page 844, if that is the Bible you are using. We will read God's Holy Word, the passage which we will be studying this morning. Chapter 8, verse 31. We've last read Peter confessed Christ. It was a great moment. And also, just previous to that, Jesus had healed a blind man. And we saw and spoke about how difficult it is to see physically and even spiritually. And we see that we believe that Peter has had the eyes of his heart open, the eyes of faith. And now we'll take a look at verses 8-31 through chapter 9 verse 1 and see just how well Peter actually is seeing Let us read the fully inspired and always preserved word of the Lord. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples He rebuked Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. And he called to him the crowd with his disciples and said to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but 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 and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words and this adulterous and sinful generation of him, will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. And He said to them, Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the power of God after until they see the Kingdom of God after it has come with power. Let us pray. Your Word, Lord, is honey to our souls. We pray that You would allow it to work in us and that we would understand about Your death and burial and sacrifice for our sins. and Your great resurrection power and the purposes of the Son of Man and what You have done for us and are doing for us and what You will finish for us at that last day. Be with the proclamation of Your Word, with the hearing of Your Word and bless it to our hearts. In Your Son's name, Amen. So Jesus has been preparing His disciples for this day. For three years He's taught them about the coming of His Kingdom. And just when you think they've grasped what He's been teaching, they fall flat on their face. Yet, in His grace, Jesus is not done with His disciples. And the hard truth of His true purpose is finally revealed. He will die for the sins of his people and be raised from the dead. And Peter does not understand this and seeks to rebuke Jesus, but Jesus turns the tables and rebukes Peter and then explains what true discipleship looks like. Then finally we'll see that he promises that. That some of them there on that day We'll see Him in all His glory. So, we see that the Son of Man came to die and rise from the dead. According to verse 31, He began to teach them that He, the Son of Man, must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. the Son of Man that we read about in Daniel 7 who will come on the clouds at the end of the days. This is the Son of Man that Jesus has been talking about previously in this Gospel. In Daniel we read, I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man. And He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him, and to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is neverlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. In chapter 2 of Mark, we've already seen Jesus call Himself the Son of Man twice. First, when He forgave the paralytic of his sins, And he knew that the Pharisees were grumbling in their hearts. And so he said, so that you know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, I say to you, take up your mat and walk. So the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins as Jesus has taught. And later on in chapter 2, when speaking of the Sabbath, he let the people know that that He, the Son of Man, is the Lord of the Sabbath. And then we'll read at the end of this book where Jesus talks about the Son of Man coming on the clouds, coming in His glory, much like we read in Daniel 7. So we see that this Son of Man is the King of glory, the forgiver of sins, the Lord of the Sabbath, just from a brief look in the Gospel of Mark. And yet, Jesus fleshes out a little bit more concerning the Son of Man which He hasn't done yet. This is the first time that Jesus will proclaim the true purpose for why He came in such stark terms. And we read in Psalm 22 that this was in case, in fact, the case for what the Messiah would do. Psalm 22, in intimate detail, speaks of the suffering of the Son of Man. The very first verse, if we recall the last, or I should say the first words from Jesus on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? In verse 16, we see Jesus, or we see the psalmist say, for dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircle me. They have pierced my hands and my feet, which we'll certainly see happens at his crucifixion. Verse 17 speaks of the disfigurement of his body. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. And verse 18, we see that they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. The soldiers gamble for his clothes, and he was also numbered with the transgressors. Verse 53-12 out of Isaiah. So the suffering of the Son of Man And his mocking and his scorning was well preserved in the Old Testament. Just waiting for this day for Jesus to come forth and proclaim it. And so we'll briefly look at Mark 15 verses 24-35. And they crucified Him and divided His garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified Him, and the inscription of the charge against Him read, The King of the Jews. And with Him they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left. And those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads and saying, Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, He saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So we can see what happened in Psalm 22 is what Jesus is predicting will happen later on at His crucifixion. Ultimately, the Son of Man came to die for our sins and to be raised from the dead. And this would have been a strange teaching still to Peter and the disciples. They've been raised all their life to revere the elders, the scribes and the priests. They've been raised up in the idea from these men that the Christ is going to liberate them from their political and the foes that are before them, the Romans. The temporal victory of the Christ is what they would have heard of. The then and now of the Christ coming and defeating the Romans and then reigning from Jerusalem and all the nations coming before them. There may have been a little bit of teaching about the Hebrews truly turning back to their Lord, but their focus was on the new kingdom coming through the Christ's defeat of the evil Roman Empire. And so to hear Jesus speak like this. That the elders and chief priests and the scribes are going to murder him. Peter was still blurry eyed. This would still be unbelievable to him. Even after being with Jesus for three years and seeing the treatment that these religious leaders and just the basic leaders of the Jewish people were doing to Jesus. Even after seeing that, Peter was still dumbfounded. How can this be? And yet, he should have known. The scribes, the chief priests, and the elders represented the leadership of the Jewish people and they were seeking Jesus' destruction. And while Peter saw and confessed that Jesus was the Christ, he still didn't quite understand what that meant. And so we can see when Jesus told Peter after his confession, shh, be quiet. This is why he still didn't understand completely who Jesus was. Peter still saw things in shadows like the blind man who when Jesus touched him saw men like trees walking around and he needed another touch. He needed more miraculous power from Christ to see clearly. Peter is still seeing not through the eyes of faith, but through the eyes of man. For what does Jesus say to him? Turning aside and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter. He said, Get behind me, Satan! For you are not set in your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. So he glances around at the disciples And he puts Peter in his place. And that place is right behind him, by the way. He's telling Peter, you're not to follow the scribes, the chief priests and the elders. You follow Me. Get behind Me. Hear My Word. Understand what I am saying. Because Peter was still seeing things through the lens of the scribes and the priests and the elders. And they were in league with Satan. He needed to quit following after them and their evil teaching, the leaven of the Pharisees. He needed to get rid of that and get behind Christ and follow Him. Peter still has much to learn like all of us do. The teachings of Christ and our knowledge of Him are never going to end for all eternity. We're going to be learning about Christ. Yet here at this time, Jesus needed to rebuke Peter. It's interesting that when Peter goes to rebuke Jesus, it just says that he started to rebuke Him. That he began to rebuke Him. Before he could get too far into rebuking the Lord of the Universe though, Jesus turned around, looked at the disciples, and he fully rebuked Peter. And was determined to set his mind right on who the Son of Man is. and about the truth that the Son of Man did not come at this time to set up His Kingdom as just a political realm. No, He had other plans in mind. The Kingdom was going to be planted like a mustard seed from which all the nations of the earth would come and nestle in its branches. So Peter still has much to learn and Jesus gets right in to teaching what Peter and all of us need to hear. And it's interesting because now Jesus calls the crowd to be with Him and His disciples and He says to them, if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life, for my sake, and the Gospels will save it. Just as Christ is going to give his life sacrificially for his people on the cross, we need to live a life of sacrifice as well. We need to deny ourselves and take up this cross. Now what this does not mean is, and throughout history this has been misused, where people would basically starve themselves. They'd go into the desert and get away from everyone and live lives like hermits and completely apart from everyone. One man for two years just stood and never sat down. And we don't need to seek out martyrdom. We don't need to seek out persecution as many have done throughout church history. And we also don't need to carry an actual cross or cross beam around with us wherever we go. And I've seen that gentleman in our neighborhood that will do that sometimes. I pray that he loves the Lord. But we don't need to do that. What we do need to know as Christians, how we need to deny ourselves, is we need to repent of our sins. We need to live lives of repentance We need to lose the old man, to cast off the old man through our repentance in the power of the Holy Spirit. And we gain our life by trusting in Christ alone, by apprehending Him in faith, putting on the new man, putting on Christ, having a true faith, a sure knowledge, and a hearty trust. We are a new creation. And we deny ourselves and we now hunger for Christ and His righteousness. And we realize that the treasures of wickedness profit nothing. For righteousness delivers from death. The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish, but He cast away the desire of the wicked. as Proverbs 10, 2 and 3 say. So we deny ourselves in the fact that we understand that Christ is our King, He is our Savior, He is our Lord. And we don't strive after great riches, wealth, fame, fortune. We don't seek to build a futile little kingdom of our own. But we seek to be soldiers in the army of Christ, pushing forth His kingdom. And we do see that the world's greatest riches pale next to Christ's great rewards. And it's interesting what Peter missed In verse 31, when Jesus first spoke of the Son of Man suffering many things and being rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and being killed, He seems to forget the last phrase of that proclamation. What happens after that? And after three days, the Son of Man rises again. Peter focused upon the death of Christ, not upon His resurrection as Lord and King of the universe. It's so easy to do that, to focus on our sin and misery rather than focusing upon Christ and His power and His reign and His goodness. And we see that in financial Terms it speaks of what does a profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life for what can a man given return? for his life We invest our life If we do this according to to the goodness of Christ we invest our life, which is but a vapor as Scripture teaches us We may live 30 40 60 80 years and we're gone. And we invest that in Christ, trusting in His death, burial and resurrection and we reap eternal life. This is like giving a dollar to your investor one day and then the next day reaping billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars, reaping all the riches of the earth. And just the opposite at the judgment, if all we're offering to God is our paltry riches on this earth and the things we claimed for our kingdom. That won't buy us even one minute of heavenly bliss. The Father will not be impressed by our so-called righteous deeds done in our flesh. No, Christ tells us that For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Christ will be ashamed of those who do not stand for Him. I mean, consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who stood before the great statue of Nebuchadnezzar. And everyone was told to kneel and worship. And these three stood. They stood for for righteousness, for the true faith. They were cast into the burning oven. If you remember correctly, this oven was heated so hot it was burning the men who were feeding it and devouring them. And yet when Nebuchadnezzar looked inside, what did he see? He saw what appeared to them as the Son of God, Jesus Christ Himself, was in the midst with those who had stood for Him. And Peter and John, when they were told by the leadership of the Jews to just quit preaching, this is creating issues in the city. People are turning to Christ. And what did they do? Did they entertain this whatsoever? No. They said, no, we must preach the truth of the Gospel. So, every day we're not faced with decisions like that. Ours are much simpler and easier in many ways. We're not faced with having to go before tribunals at this time, and emperors, and judges, and told to be quiet, but we can still stand for Christ through our lives submitted to Him in all reverence and truth and love, being a blessing to our families, raising our children, catechizing them, raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that they would be like arrows that we could shoot out into the world advancing Christ's kingdom. And we'll be different at work. We're not going to necessarily be all about the greatest next promotion or whatever. Not that those things are wrong either. But people are going to see that we're not driven by greed, by envy, but that were driven by Christ. And Jesus, getting back to the text, ends this section by telling them, Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God, after it has come with power. The Son of Man will display His glory to those He chooses very shortly. And you notice verse 31 begins mentioning the resurrection. Verse 1 chapter 9 speaks of kind of a prelude to what the resurrection is going to be. This transfiguration that we'll get into sometime in the future. And then in the middle it's punctuated, speaking of the resurrection a couple of more times. The centrality of the resurrection should be our greatest hope. And Jesus tells them that the Son of Man will display His glory, His resurrection glory. One like a Son of God will be shown. to some of them. And we know it will be soon. How soon? Some people think it's referring to the resurrection. So, you know, a few weeks, a few months down the road, however long it is from here to that. Others believe it refers to Christ's second coming, which makes no sense because here we are waiting on the second coming and all these folks are dead. So it can't be that. But Mark makes it obvious even for those who like to come up with these different theories. He makes it obvious that Christ is speaking of the immediacy of this event. He's speaking of the transfiguration which we'll read of next time when he will show Peter James and John, all his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. And it will be with great power. Peter speaks to this in his epistle, 2 Peter 1, verse 17. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased. Yes, the Son of Man came to die for our sins and to be raised again. That is our great hope. That is the Gospel we will proclaim every Lord's Day until He comes. And so let's see how this applies to us What is the truth of the purpose of the Son of Man? Well, the truth of the purpose of the Son of Man, it is a difficult teaching. You can see why Peter and the early disciples couldn't wrap their brains around it right away. The world still does not comprehend the truth of Christ as a suffering Savior. There are Christians, professing Christians I should say, who don't understand it. They still think it's all about health and healing and lots of money and cars and fame and fortune. TV stations are full of those proclamations of false Christianity. And Islam rejects Christ because He dies. A holy prophet like that should die. This offends them greatly. And so while the Koran mentions Christ quite a bit, He's not the one who dies on the cross. They don't have Him dying on the cross. That is offensive to them. It is offensive to our sensibilities. But it is our way It shows us how Christ had to suffer for our sin to save us. It is our truth. Paul tells us we don't need to know anything else but Christ crucified. It's a stumbling block to Jews who want to live and be saved according to the law and it's foolishness to Greeks. They just don't understand the resurrection of the body. But it is finally our life through which we are saved from our sin and misery unto Christ who is our life for all eternity. And these applications are mostly applications that we are to understand and to grapple with in our souls. Number two, we are privileged to partake in furthering Christ's purposes. Knowing this, that our life itself is hidden in Christ, we are privileged to walk in the works that He has created for us. We have to remember this, Christ does not need us to further His Gospel. He could do this all on His own. But He chooses us. He empowers us. And He privileges us to do His work for His glory. And we, out of a thankful heart, gratefully walk in these works. And it's said that by Luther, and I believe I've said this before, I'm sure I'll say it again, that God doesn't need our works, but our neighbor does. And so we thankfully walk in the Spirit for His kingdom, His glory, to bless our neighbors. And finally, just as Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of the glory of Christ, or we'll be getting a glimpse six days later of the glory of Christ. We will see Him in all of His glory. Coming on the clouds, He is our great reward. We will see Him as He truly is in all His glory and we can allow this truth to encourage our faith. to grow us in our hope, to give us endurance for the difficult days that we all have, and to help us in our daily walk wherever it may take us. So, in conclusion, the death of the Son of Man on the cross for the sins of His people and His resurrection, through the central event in the history of the world, What we believe about this literally separates the sheep from the goats. Because of this gargantuan miraculous event, we even record our time according to the life of Jesus Christ. It is the year 2024 AD, the year of our Lord. This is why we meet every Lord's Day declaring that the Son of Man's purpose has been fulfilled. All who believe that He is the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world and that He is the way, the truth, and the life will be saved and will continue to fulfill His purpose, the continuation of His Kingdom throughout the whole world. We meet this day because Christ has fulfilled His purpose. and is continuing to fulfill his purpose in and through us. Our worship of the Son of Man every Lord's Day is a gigantic total victory against Satan. This is the day of the Lord, friends, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. Let's pray. Thank You, Jesus, for being that Son of Man, giving Your life for Your people, giving us direction, helping us to understand that our life needs to start and finish with You and be centered around You, that we are to take up our cross, we are to live a sacrificial life, not beholden to our whims and desires, but beholden to You who is our Creator and our Redeemer. Bless the rest of our worship that we would truly seek Your face and love You with all of our heart, mind, strength, and soul. Give us wisdom, courage, and love, and the power of Your Spirit. Amen.