Amen. Have you ever tried to help a child and maybe the child had a splinter in his foot, or you had a wound that had to be cleansed and washed out, and they fought you when you were trying to help them? Or maybe a pet? You're stuck in a trap, they're in this precarious situation, and you're trying to untangle them, you're trying to help them, and they're trying to bite you, stop you from helping them. Well, did you know that God wants to help you today? And there's things that he wants to help us with, all of us. He wants to help us with them. You know what happens in our lives many times? Because we don't understand and we don't like the pain, we block and we try to block Jesus from what he's trying to do and trying to accomplish to help us in our life. And in this passage, this is one of the most dramatic turning points in the Scripture. Up to this point, the disciples have followed Jesus. They've called Him Master. They've called Him Lord. They've called Him the Son of God or the Son of Man. But even though there were hints of it, they weren't 100% settled all the time that this was the Messiah. John the Baptist said, are you the one that we seek? Or do we look for another? When they were in the storm, they said, what manner of man is this? But now all of them are together. And Jesus asked them as a group, who do men say that I am? And they say, some say this, and some say this. He said, well, who do you say that I am? And look at what Peter answers for the group there, all of them together. He said, thou art the Christ, in verse 16, the Son of the living God. You're the Messiah. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. So at that moment, Peter is speaking divine revelation, something that he got from God, something that he did not get just from human reasoning. And they're all finally clear, nobody's asking any more questions. But as soon as this happens, Jesus brings something else up. And also for the first time, very clearly, He's telling them in no uncertain terms about the cross. And it says in verse 21, from that time Jesus began to show His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem. Another passage says He set His face to go there. To accomplish His mission. and how he must suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed. And I think this is where they stopped listening. You're gonna suffer? You're gonna be captured? You're gonna be killed? No. I don't even think they heard, and be raised again the third day. They just stopped listening. So with the first unmistakable revelation of this is the Messiah, also comes the first unmistakable revelation of the cross to them. And also, the clear thing of what that means for His followers. Discipleship. You lose your life. You follow Him. You take up your cross as well and follow Him. And they're shocked by this. They don't like it. They do not like it. And so what does Peter do? Is he immediately begins to try to save Jesus. Okay? And he begins to block Him and get in His way. And you know what? You and I do this too. We try to get in the way of what God's doing in our life. We try to block them because we don't want the cross. We don't want the pain. We don't want suffering. We want a throne without a cross. We want a crown without a cross. We want beds of ease. Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease and Jesus bear the cross alone? Well, that's what we want. And we're very unrealistic that in this fallen world, it includes suffering, we're gonna have to go through it, and we do not like that. And we try to avoid it. So we get in the Lord's way. So the first point I have this morning, number one, is how did he get in his way? Well, I think if you read here, Peter took him, in verse 22, and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. And so he got in his way through ignorance. He didn't understand what he was doing. And he didn't trust Him. And when God reveals something to you that you don't like, when you begin to experience something in life that you don't like, That's a very dangerous place to be. When you don't like what is happening, when you don't like what will happen, when you see some things in the future that you're scared of and you want to avoid, when the path that God has revealed for you is one you don't like, that can be a very dangerous place. And that's where Satan comes in and he begins to influence you. And the reason you don't like it is you don't see the whole picture. You only see what you don't like. You only see the pain of the wound being cleansed or the pain of the thorn coming out. And you don't see what the results of that will be. And you just don't like that the will of God can include suffering. So because of ignorance, He didn't understand the cross. He didn't get the plan of redemption. And he did not see that suffering was necessary for salvation. Now he did know Isaiah 53, but he didn't know how it applied. He knows Psalm 22, but he didn't know how it applied. He knew about Genesis 3.15. that he would bring forth a seed and it would bruise his heel and thou shalt bruise his head. He knew about that prophecy, but he didn't know how it would unfold. He even read the story about Abraham and Isaac. And when they went up to Mount Moriah and the Lord said, don't, no, I will provide myself a lamb. This sacrifice is not sufficient. He knew what it was like to year after year bring the animal sacrifices that could never take away sin and they were never good enough. But he did not understand and he was ignorant of the fact that salvation required the Messiah to die as a sacrifice on the cross. And so he gets in front of them. And he said, stop, this will not be unto thee. Now if you think about that, if he was successful, he wouldn't have ended up in heaven. If he was successful, none of us would be born again and saved today. He was fighting. against His own good. And we block Jesus when we act without understanding. We assume we know God's will and we begin to resist without understanding His words. And we let our assumptions of what the truth is override what he's revealing to us. We go on our immature understanding of scripture. And we think, you know, if I understand this wrong, then that means I'm less. Instead of God, give me a more perfect understanding. Help me work this out. Help me understand what this means. Lord, teach us. You know, the Bible says that the path of the just is a shining light that shines more and more into the perfect day. Even the simple truths of scripture, we will never plumb the depth of them. And as we gain more understanding, and it brings more revelation, that begins with trust. And that begins with God show me and God teach me not, I already know about that. Well, I've already read about the Messiah. I already know about this. I read Isaiah. I know you're supposed to rule and you're gonna get rid of these Romans and we're gonna rule and have these thrones and the Gentiles are gonna come and we are going to be number one. I know all about that. The lion's gonna lay down with the lamb. There are streams in the desert, let's go. Can we do it today? Well, you don't understand how those things unfold, Peter. You just think you do. And when we come to pain, sometimes we resist it because of ignorance. Look at this mark of ignorance. He said in verse 15, who do you say that I am? And now he gives you this profound truth here that he gets from God in verse 16. He says, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And where did he get that truth from? He got it from his Father in heaven. And then he says, Peter, I'm gonna take this truth that I'm the Messiah, and I am going to build my church on this truth, that I'm the Messiah. Upon this rock of me being the Messiah, I'm gonna build the truth. And guess what, Peter, I'm gonna give you keys and you're going to preach the gospel and people are going to get saved, they're gonna enter into this. How do you go from this wonderful truth that's been revealed and this wonderful promise that's given that you're gonna be a part of what God is doing to then, in verse 22, rebuking him In verse 23, he said, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense. How do you go from revelation and knowing truth to now blocking redemption? How do you go from speaking for God to now be in the mouthpiece of Satan? within just a couple verses. Just a moment of time. You went from speaking for God to speaking for the devil. What's the problem? The truth that God revealed to him did not shape his action. It didn't shape his response to pain. It didn't shape his response and lead to when God told him something he did not like. And the gap between knowledge and obedience is where Satan sits. He knew, God showed him, this is the Messiah, this is God. I'm gonna go, no. Listen, truth should change our actions. It should change our response to God. When we know who he is, why should we not trust what he tells us? The knowledge that he received had not yet transformed him. And he said, be it far from thee. Wow. Nothing about his theology changed. He still believed he was the Messiah. Nothing about his confession changed. Nothing about his love for Jesus changed. But his operation did not change, and it should have. He responded the same way as he would have before he got the revelation. Some of us learn things from God. We learn wonderful truths about God, and the next day when something happens in our life, it does not do anything to change how we respond to that which we do not like. And we block the Lord through ignorance that way. He steps in right there. When knowledge, the devil steps in when knowledge stops producing obedience. He knows the Bible backwards and forwards. He's not worried about you knowing something. He's worried about you acting on that which you do know. You block the Lord through ignorance, not knowing what he's doing in your life and your only focus on the presence. You block him by physical and verbal resistance. Look at verse 22, he took him. and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee this will, this shall not happen to thee. Now I want you to picture this moment. I mean, you're God. You're the Messiah. Now what if you were just here, And you're watching Jesus walk by with his disciples and you hear this man say, oh, you're God, you're the Messiah. They walk a few steps forward and then Peter grabs him, gets between him and Jerusalem and him and the cross and said, now God, we have to have a talk. You are wrong. I did not expect this from you, Jesus. You know, I've read Isaiah, and I know what's supposed to happen. And you have this all wrong, and I'm not going to let this happen under my watch. You're not going to the cross. You're not gonna do that. We have a kingdom to build, and this is not what I have expected, and I'm not comfortable with this. But don't we do the same thing when we resist God in our life? You know, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of uncomfortable when people say, you know, I get angry at God. And you know, I say this to him and I say this to him, I'm like, okay. Or worse, when they're mad at God, and they don't even talk to God about it, but they come tell me about it. And they say, you know, God did this, and he did this, and he's not doing this, and I'm like, hey, he's listening. He's listening. And, you know, he kind of like determines what can happen and not happen tomorrow. You know, also I work for him. and he's my friend, and he's not like that, but, I mean, we are talking about God. Can we just go with that, he's right? And he knows what he's doing, and we, why are you gonna argue with him? He's going to the cross for you. He died for you, do you not think he had Peter's best interest in mind? What in us does not believe that God does not have our best interest in mind? What right do you have to get mad at God and think God is wrong? You know, the problem is not that Peter did not know who he was, the problem was that he still believed he was right. And God was wrong even after knowing who He is. That hits pretty close to home, I think. Have you rebuked God? What are you doing? This is how you block God in your life. By resisting, and arguing, and I don't think God should have let that happen. Where was He? We physically block Jesus when we won't go where He tells us to go. We physically block Jesus when we don't read what He tells us to read. When we don't spend time with Him. When we don't show up when He wants us to show up. When we stay home when He calls us to serve. We avoid people that He sends for us to love. We refuse the places of obedience. We fill our schedule so full that God has no place where He can fit in. And we physically block Him. Now, number two. This begs the question, why did he get in this way? Why did he block him? And it says in verse 22, Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord. This shall not be unto thee. And he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan, for thou art an offence unto Me, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Why did He block him? Because what he savoured And what he relished, and what he loved, was not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. He loved earthly things more than heavenly things. He valued human desires over God's purpose. His inner leaning was towards comfort, not obedience. His emotional preferences were earthly, not heavenly. His mindset was shaped by instinct, avoiding pain, and not by the revealed revelation of God's will. He thought more like a human than God. His desire outranked God's will. His emotional desires outranked God's will. His natural instincts blocked God's plan. To savor it is to lean towards something, to desire it, to take its side. He was leaning. to comfort, not to the cross. And now here's the crazy thing. The Lord calls this satanic. I mean, I think we should let the, this is a shocking, uncomfortable statement. Get thee behind me, Satan. Now here's the part that makes it even more uncomfortable. Jesus identifies Peter's well-meaning affection as a place where Satan was influencing. Peter's heart was burning. It was sincere. It was full of love. I can't imagine this life without you, Jesus. I don't want you to suffer. I don't want you to go through all that. You're my, I follow you. I love you. You can't, I don't want this to happen to you. He probably had tears in his eyes. And his heart was overflowing and he was so sincere and so well-meaning. And Jesus identified the most sincere, caring part of a person with their good intentions as being satanic at times. Ugh. Your most caring, protective influences and impulse oppose God's revealed will and become tools of Satan. When our desire for safety or comfort or affection or company oppose God's revealed will, they're tools of Satan. His emotions may have been sincere, but they were out of alignment with God's will. And his desire to protect was blocking what God wants. Now, I'm a parent, and I don't want my children to suffer. You know that? I want things to be easy for them. And many times, unfortunately, I've made decisions on what avoids suffering. Not on what brings transformation. And if I circumvent the law of sowing and reaping, and their ability to learn from that, it becomes satanic. And there's just something in me that just doesn't want them to have pain. And I've experienced this as a pastor, where you see the people come and you begin to teach them how to live for God and you get to the point about giving. And you see this family start to give and it's starting to affect them. And it's starting to affect their finances and it's causing a little pain. Obeying God. I want to give them a pass. I want to say, well, you know, and I just... But that's satanic. That's like Judas. Why wasn't this sold and given to the poor? And who am I to make the path of Christianity with no cross, with no suffering, in a bed of ease? One time there was a man coming here and he was dying of cancer and Pastor Meadors got up and preached about the rose and the bottle and man, the Holy Spirit was here and it was moving and about giving to the Lord. And this man didn't have much longer to live. He would be dead within six months. And he comes weeping. And he said, I had this money, and I was gonna take my family to dinner. But God said to give it to him. And I wanted to say, hey, just take your family to dinner. You don't have much longer. Like, go spend time with your family. And the Holy Spirit said, who are you to rob that sacrifice from me? Who do you think you are? That's mine. And it will far more abound to his account in glory than the temporary ease. And I'm telling you, the Christian life includes a cross. And any attempt to avoid it and give people a pass and make the Christian life a bed of roses is satanic. Even if you have good meaning, sincere intentions, And boy, that is, that's tough. And you see that in Paul's life. He said in Acts chapter 20 that I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem. And he says, I don't know what's gonna happen to me there, but I just know that the Holy Ghost is witness that sufferings and afflictions bite in me, but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear that I might finish my course. with joy, and the course that God gave him from the moment of salvation is, you're going to bear my name to Gentiles, to Israel, and to kings. And he had still yet to bear his name to kings. And he said, I'm going pressed in the spirit. And then later there was a prophet that named Agabus, and he said, the man that wears this girdle shall be bound. And the next verse says, all that we that heard it said, don't go, don't go, don't go. And Paul said, what do you mean to break my heart? I'm ready to be bound and go for the name of the Lord. And then after he was arrested, God came to him in that jail cell and he said, fear not. Because you have to go to Rome and you have to stand before this man. And on the ship in the storm, God came to him and said, don't be afraid. We're following the same plan since the beginning. And you know why people tried to stop Paul? They didn't want him to suffer. They didn't want him to be bound, and they didn't want him to die. But you can chase it all the way through the book of Acts, where Paul was set to go that way, and Paul followed the Spirit, and when the Spirit told him not to go somewhere, he said, don't go there, and he took this offering, and he had to go and seal the thing to the saints, the fruit to the saints. God wanted him to go. But people wanted him to avoid the suffering. So don't make your decisions and resist God because your version of the plan you think it's better than His. Because God's version of the plan is always better than our version. So how do you get out of His way? Peter's plan was the Messiah conquers and reigns and destroys Rome and builds a kingdom. God's plan was the Messiah suffers and dies and rises and the Messiah saves. And he'll come back and do that later. So how do you get out of his way? Well, look at verse 23. He turned around to Peter and said, get thee behind me. Let me ask you, are you in front of Jesus? Or are you behind Him? Are you trying to lead Him? Then you say, isn't that the Christian life, the whole thing, follow me? If you're going to follow Him, He has to be in front. You don't have the map. He does. Follow His leading. Stop advising him and correcting him and blocking him and just get behind him and follow him. And don't be a roadblock. He said, thou art an offense unto me. Verse 23. You're an offense, you're trying to stop me. A stone of a stumbling, a rock of offense. You know what the devil told him? Hey, you see all these kingdoms? Just have it right now. You know, the Lord said, get thee behind me. Get out of my way. Stop trying to block me. Get behind me. Just go with what God has in your life. That's the safest position. How do we get out of His way? Look at verse 24. He said unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. And whoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. Our goal should be losing. You know, and I'm tempted. Missionaries, I talked to one the other day, the heartache and the malaria and the sickness and the trouble among the brethren and the lack of fruit. I said, it sounds like you're losing your life. So that's good. It sounds like it seems like you're just doing this for God and you don't see any earthly rewards and all that you see down here is suffering. And as much as I wanna say just come home, just don't worry about it. Just save your life and don't risk it. I said, no, one day you're gonna stand before the Lord, okay? And you're gonna be so thankful that you lost your life for the gospel. So have a goal of losing your life. Let go of your script, your expectations, your timing, your comfort. Embrace the cross and die to yourself. And most people hear that and they just hear die. But live unto God. Don't just stop with the dying. Continue with the living unto God. And he says in verse 21, From that time, verse 21, he began to show his disciples how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things of the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed. And look at this, raised again the third day. And then look at verse 26 and 27, for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his fathers with his angels. He shall reward every man according to his works. So how do you get out of His way? Focus on the eternal. Focus on the resurrection, the reward, when the Lord comes back. Don't focus on what goes into the grave. Focus on what comes out of it. I'm going to live with God forever. So you're either behind Jesus, following Him, or you're in front of Him, blocking Him. He loved the Lord. He believed in Jesus. He confessed Him. But when the will of God crossed His will, He stepped out in front and said, no, you shall not pass. We're not going further. So let me ask you this. Are you behind Him? Or are you in front of Him? I'm going to have the piano player come forward And if you realize you've been blocking Jesus and your decisions and your emotions and your plans and your comfort, the altar is open for one purpose, to get out of His way and follow Him. The altar is open for you today to surrender your script and embrace His life and say, Lord, I will follow. You are the Lord. Let's pray. Lord, come before you. Lord, I pray, Father, that you speak to every heart this morning. And God, you show people if there have been places where they've been blocking you, where you're trying to help them, if they've been in front of you instead of behind you, arguing with you, angry at you, thinking that you have it wrong, Lord, If they've just been focused on the pain instead of the glory that will follow, Lord, I pray they would fall in front of you this morning at the cross and say, Lord, you lead. I'll follow. I know you have my best interest. I love you. And I pray that we would get behind him, follow him again. Let's pray. you All right, everyone, if you'll stand with me, please. We'll be singing him 105, All That Thrills My Soul. True and tender, pure and pure. ♪ Blessed Lord I see ♪ Love of Christ so freely given ♪ Grace of God beyond degree ♪ Mercy higher than the heavens ♪ Deeper than the deepest sea In my blessing, Lord, I see. What a wonderful redemption! Never can a mortal know how my sin, the red light ♪ He is more than life to me ♪ ♪ And the fairest of 10,000 ♪ ♪ In my blessed Lord I see ♪ ♪ Every need His hands supplying ♪ ♪ Every good in Him I see ♪ and in my blessed lord i see by the crystal flowing All that knows my soul is Jesus. He has shown himself to me, and that there is truth in housing. In my blessing, Lord, I see. where they had snow. Anybody here grow up with snow? I remember going outside with my dad when I was just a little guy, and we had about three foot of snow, and I got ahead of my dad, and man, it was work, a lot of work. And so what I do, I figured out as a four year old real quick, if you walk in the steps that your dad walks in through the three foot snow, it's a lot easier. Right? And man, why do I say that? Because I'll tell you in my life, when we get ahead of God, when we start going against God, it is exhausting. And some of you here, you kind of know what I'm talking about. But once you submit and you stop fighting God on whatever it is, even though it might be painful, it's not what you desire, but you're like, you know what, God, I'm tired. Uncle, right? Remember if you've had brothers, uncle, and you just submit and you surrender and you get behind him, man, you don't realize how sweet and restful life is because that's how God has designed it. So if that's you here this morning, don't keep fighting it. God didn't design this life for you to tell Him what to do, amen? Just go with the program, and a lot of times God makes it clear, doesn't He? He made it clear to Peter. He's making it clear to us, just follow what He's giving you and submit to it, and I promise you, His no's lead to better yes's than you could have ever imagined in your own program. His no's, his cliffs, his nope, if you'll submit to those no's, they lead to a better yes than you could have ever expected. The Bible says that he answers exceeding above we are able to ask or think. Just surrender and submit to His will. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this clear example with Peter on how we fight you, on how we go against you, many times because of pain, many times because of our ignorance. And Holy Spirit, bring up to the surface areas in our life where you have been trying to lead us, where you've been trying to teach us, where you've been trying to go, And we've been saying no. Help us to surrender to those. Help us to submit to those. Help us to not leave this place without remembering and thinking clearly what it is we're supposed to get behind you on. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. You are dismissed.