The One Who Took Up His Cross For Us

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew 16 -28.

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do people say the

Son of Man is? They replied, Well, some say John the

Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. But what about you?

He asked. Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the

Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my

Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

And then He warned His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ. And from that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. Never, Lord, He said. This shall never happen to you.

Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to Me.

You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples,

If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow

Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then

He will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth. Some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the

Son of Man coming in His kingdom. This is the gospel of the Lord. Jesus has taken the disciples north.

He's taken them out of Israel to a pagan Gentile city known for its pagan worship of many different deities.

The city had at one time been named for the pagan god Pan, but recently at the time of Jesus, its name had been changed by Philip II in honor of Caesar Augustus, hence the name

Caesarea Philippi. It's named after Caesar, and then in the Greek, Philippi is of Philip.

So that way people can distinguish it from the other Caesareas because cities wanted to be named after the

Caesar. So Caesarea Philippi is its new name. And you could literally say that Caesarea Philippi was a city with many gods and many lords.

So it's here that Jesus chose to press the issue and to answer once and for all the burning question,

Who is Jesus? Now up to this point that Jesus has been doing things that make people go,

Hmm, this guy's more than meets the eye, right? And at one point, just a couple chapters earlier, remember when

Jesus was walking on the water, the disciples realized that they're dealing with God in human flesh, and they worshiped

Jesus and proclaimed him truly to be the Son of God. Well, there's a little bit more going on here. So Jesus asked his disciples kind of the opening question,

Who do people say the Son of Man is? Now he's not exactly directly asking them who he is.

In fact, in Jesus' day, Son of Man was kind of this messianic code word, okay?

So there was messianic implications, and so the rabbis and the different sects within Judaism would talk about this.

Who do you think the Son of Man is? And this is a reference back to Daniel 7, verses 13 through 14.

Let me read from Daniel's prophecy. Daniel writes, he says, In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a

Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the

Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. Now the Ancient of Days is God the Father, right? So here we've got this one like the

Son of Man, and he's approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. And listen to this.

The Son of Man was given authority, glory, and sovereign power over all peoples, nations, and men of every language.

They worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So Jesus asked the question, Who do people say the Son of Man is? Well, this is the code word at this time.

And theologically speaking, people kind of do this today, not regarding the Son of Man, because we now know who the

Son of Man is. It's Jesus. But in our day, we like to play what I call the game of pin the tail on the

Antichrist, right? We want to pin the tail on the lawless one. I remember years ago when I was working at a bank in Seattle, we had a

Vietnam veteran who would come in, and he was disabled. And every month he would get his disability check from the government, and he'd come in to cash it.

And I remember one day he looked at me and he says, Hey, Chris, do you think that Nancy Reagan is the

Antichrist? I thought that was a bizarre question. Anyway, so, you know, when people kind of, the way we speculate regarding the

Antichrist is the way the people back then were speculating regarding Messiah. Keep in mind, they didn't have the New Testament at the time.

So, well, some say, well, John the Baptist. Others, Elijah. Still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

No consensus, right? So now Jesus turns the tables a little bit. But what about you, he asked.

Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the

Christ, the Son of the living God. Now there it is. A few chapters earlier, the disciples had confessed that Jesus, after Jesus walked on the water and calmed the storm on the

Sea of Galilee, that he was the Son of God, they worshiped Jesus as God. But now the other shoe drops.

Peter confesses that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Messiah, the anointed one, the promised one, the one who would redeem and save Israel, the one promised in the garden who would be the seed of the woman, and the one who would crush the head of the serpent.

That's who Peter is confessing Jesus to be. So this is the pivotal moment in Matthew's Gospel. Now before you give

Peter props for his shrewd insight, keep in mind, Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my

Father in heaven. This is direct revelation from God the Father. So it's not that Peter is so smart. It's that this was revealed to him.

So now this was not because Peter was so clever. We got that part. So what

Jesus says next has come to be one of the most abused and misapplied scriptures in all of Christendom.

And here's what it says. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades, or you can say the gates of hell, will not overcome it.

So here's the question. Is Jesus here saying that he's making Peter the foundation of the church? Is Jesus separating

Peter out and sending him in a special office as the chief of the apostles? And does this office continue to this day?

Answer, no. And the Greek makes this very clear in a way that gets lost in our English translations.

Now, a little bit of a Greek lesson, and I apologize for the nerdiness of this, but I hope you'll make sense. Greek is an inflected language, unlike English.

English is not inflected. And in Greek, nouns have genders. They can either be masculine nouns or feminine nouns or neuter nouns.

And so in that sense, Greek is similar to a lot of languages on the earth, including

Spanish. Now, any of you know just a little bit of Spanish just to be dangerous? I do too. If I'm lost in Mexico, I can ask where the bathroom is, and I can also insult your family.

That's about all I can do in Spanish. Talk to my wife if you want the details on that.

Now, in Spanish, the word for amigo or friend is amigo, or it's amiga.

So, Scott Erickson, you're my amigo. Judy Sanis, you're my amiga.

So that's the idea. If we're talking about a friend, depending on who the friend is, male or female, it's either amigo or amiga.

That's the big language lesson. Now, if I were to say this sentence, listen carefully.

Scott, you are my amigo, and on this amiga, I'm going to build a doghouse.

Okay? You hear the sentence? Let me read it again. Scott, you are my amigo, and on this amiga,

I'm going to build a doghouse. Well, y 'all immediately know that because of the change in gender, that I wasn't planning to build a doghouse with Scott, but was planning to build a doghouse with a female friend of mine, right?

And this is what I said, okay? So, a similar use of words is used in this text in the

Greek, and here's what it says. Jesus says, You, you are Petros, and on this

Petra, I will build my church. Now, notice,

Jesus did not say, You are Petros, and on this Petros, I will build the church.

He says, You are Peter, you are Petros, and on this Petra, feminine,

I'm going to build my church. So, what is the Petra referring to?

Well, answer, it's Peter's confession. That's the referent in the text. Peter has confessed that Jesus Christ is the son of the living

God. So, those people who are saying that this text is saying that Peter, Jesus is going to build his church on Peter, well, they're not paying attention to the

Greek. You are Petros, and on this Petra, I'm going to build my church.

Yep, so the church is not built on Peter. It's built on the confession that Jesus is the

Christ, the son of the living God. And then Jesus continues, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Notice I'm using, putting in the perfect passive. Same thing with the

Gospel of John chapter 20, okay? Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. This is what the text says. So, this is referring to what is called the office of the keys, and this is the church's unique authority to forgive as well as retain sins.

And then Jesus does this, something weird. He warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the

Christ. Now, the Christ means the Messiah. So, Christos is kind of like the Greek word of Messiah.

The Hebrews say Mashiach, the Greeks say Christos, but they're synonymous.

It's the anointed one. So, Jesus then makes it clear that the thing that has just been revealed to Peter, that he is the

Messiah, Jesus is the Christ, he doesn't want them telling anyone yet. Why?

Well, because the people of Jesus' day had all kinds of ideas regarding the Messiah, but none of them understood that the

Messiah's mission was not to conquer like a king, but to die a shameful death for the sins of the world.

What Peter does next actually bears this out in no uncertain terms. The text continues. So, from that time on,

Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

So, now we know who Jesus is. He's son of God. He's the Messiah. And Jesus, from this point on, explains what his mission is, the mission given to him by the

Father, and his mission is this, to go to Jerusalem and die on the cross for our sins and then be raised again on the third day.

This is the mission of the Messiah. Now, Peter has nothing to do with this. He's scandalized by the thought.

So, Peter took Jesus aside. I mean, wow, the audacity here.

He takes Jesus aside and rebuked Jesus. Never, Lord, this shall never happen to you.

Yep, so here we have Peter, who just earlier it was revealed that Jesus was the

Messiah, and now the true mission of the Messiah is also being revealed to Peter through Jesus, and Peter's scandalized by this.

Think about it. Peter here is rebuking the very God who made him. That's who

Jesus is. And in some senses, he's becoming a tempter, just the way the devil tempted

Jesus in the wilderness with power. So he says, I'm not going to have anything to do with this. Yep, think about it.

Peter knows what Jesus can do. Jesus heals the sick. He multiplies loaves and fishes and feeds a multitude.

He gives sight to the blind, and Jesus can walk on water and calm a storm with a word.

Imagine what Jesus could do to the Romans. Imagine what

Jesus could do sitting on the reestablished throne of David. Imagine Peter as Jesus' right -hand man.

Talk about power. Talk about authority. No nation in the world would be able to defeat the armies of Israel.

Once and for all, idolatry and perversion and wickedness could easily and decisively be dealt with, and Peter would be

Jesus' right -hand man. Nations would stream to Jerusalem to see

Jesus, and Peter would be Jesus' right -hand man. Kings would come and pay homage to Jesus, and Peter would be

Jesus' right -hand man. Peter would never be in want of anything ever again and would have a position of privilege and power within Jesus' administration in Jerusalem.

Think about it. But Jesus reveals for the first time what the true mission of the

Messiah is. It's not to slaughter. The mission of the Messiah is not to conquer and to judge sinners.

His mission is to die for them, to redeem them, and reconcile them to the Father. And the death chosen by the

Father is the most horrific, ugly, painful, scandalous death that you could imagine.

Crucifixion. It was a terror technique used by the

Romans to keep those whom they've conquered in submission. The Romans used crucifixion to basically say, you oppose us, this is what happens to people that oppose us.

Terrible. It's scandalous. It's unthinkable. Yes, it's all of those things, and the cross reveals

God's love and His mercy towards us, miserable sinners. To kind of get a glimpse into the scandalousness of the cross,

I think a good cross reference here is 1 Corinthians 1, starting at verse 18. Here's what it says.

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, writes, he says, For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, the cross.

It's the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent.

I will frustrate. So where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know

Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Now Jews demand miraculous signs, and the Greeks, well, they look for wisdom. But we, we preach

Christ crucified, and it's a stumbling block to Jews, and it's considered foolishness to Gentiles.

But to those whom God has called from both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than men's strength.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards.

Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before Him.

It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus. Did you hear that? It's because of God that you're in Christ, who has become for us wisdom from God.

That is, He is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written,

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. So when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

For I resolve to know nothing, absolutely nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Hear those words again. I resolve to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

As John says in his gospel, chapter 3, verse 17, For God did not send

His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

That's the mission of the Messiah. So are you looking for a Jesus who will be your life coach, who will train you to be at the top of your game so that you can be successful?

You've got the wrong Jesus. Are you looking for a Jesus who will help you find your purpose, give you health and wealth and worldly accolades?

You've got the wrong Jesus, if that's what you're looking for. There is no Jesus except for the crucified

Jesus. For I resolve to know nothing while I was with you except Christ and Him crucified.

So now that we've got this, the mission of the Messiah is to save us, to die for us.

He has set His chin like flint to go to the cross for us because of God's great love for us.

We are in Christ and we are His disciples. We have been baptized, cleansed, washed, fed with His body and blood, here to hear

His word. We've had our sins forgiven. We are in Christ. So then Jesus talks about how this then plays out in our lives.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. So if you are in Jesus, then you are already

His disciple, and that means you are a dead man or a dead woman walking. The one who's taken up his cross, this was the parade that the

Romans would put on. Those who were sentenced to death, they'd make them carry their cross and they'd march them through the town.

Look, these are the ones condemned to death. Jesus says that's you.

Jesus says that's me. Why? Because that was Him, right? Whoever wants to save his life will lose it.

Whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good is it for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?

Think about it. Billions upon billions of dollars sitting in your bank account.

Maybe you can become the most powerful man in the world by becoming the President of the United States. All of this is for nothing, and it can't save you.

And these things cannot. They're only temporal anyway. Your life is a vapor. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?

Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? The answer is you can't give anything in exchange for your own soul. But Christ, the very

Son of God, exchanged His life for yours. That's the good news. So we are sojourners here in this life.

Sojourners. Carrying our crosses, dead people walking, knowing that we're sentenced to death.

Hebrews 11 kind of talks about this and the hope that we have. Chapter 11, verse 13, it says,

All these people, all the people mentioned in the great Hall of Faith passage, who did all these great things by faith, all these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been looking, if they had been thinking of the country that they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their

God, for He has prepared a city for them. That's right. If anyone would come after Jesus, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow

Jesus. Now you may be asking, what does that look like? What does it look like to deny yourself and take up a cross and follow

Jesus? Well, remember, you are forgiven. You are washed in the waters of your baptism.

You are buried with Christ in His death, and you are raised with Christ in His resurrection. God has regenerated and saved and redeemed you, and you are in Christ.

Because of that, you are now free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil. And our epistle text this morning from the book of Romans gives us a glimpse of what life looks like for one who is carrying a cross and following Jesus.

Here's what it says. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil.

Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Because we are forgiven, we can forgive. Because we are forgiven, we can devote ourselves to one another in brotherly love.

Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the

Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Here's the fun part.

Bless those who persecute you. Jesus was persecuted.

The only sinless man who lived among humanity, He was persecuted and crucified on a cross.

And when He was crucified, He did not defend Himself. He called out from the cross, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

And you too can share that same love, even when you're being persecuted, because you have been forgiven.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless, do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice.

Mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.

If it's possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is mine to avenge.

I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

Is it me, or does anyone else have a hard time with this? Our first inclination when we have an enemy is to get back.

They've hurt me, I'm going to make them pay. This is not the way of the cross.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross. You're already dead in Christ. If your enemy is hungry, you feed him.

If he's thirsty, you give him something to drink. We don't fight people, we fight for people.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battle is against the spiritual powers and authorities of this dark world.

And if Christ has bled and died for them and forgiven them, then who am I to not forgive? If your enemy is hungry, you feed him.

If he's thirsty, you give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That's exactly what Jesus did. The most notorious, sinful act ever performed by humanity was the crucifixion of the only innocent man who ever lived among us.

And yet God took that crucifixion, the most evil thing ever done on this planet, and he flips it.

And he flips it so that that becomes the very means by which we are all purchased, redeemed, forgiven by God.

Jesus himself did not overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good.

This is what it means, and this is what it looks like now to take up your cross and follow him.

So how do we do this? Hebrews 12, 2 -3 gives us the answer.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him he endured the cross and scorned its shame.

And now he's seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

In the name of Jesus. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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