From Pastor Andrew’s Desk
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Greetings FCCB family,
I hope you are well and enjoying a nice week as we lead up to the Memorial Day Weekend.
Speaking of Memorial Day, just an important reminder that we will be meeting at Second Congregational Church of Boxford this Sunday at 10:00 am. After the service there will be a time to honor the fallen at the cemetery across the street. I hope that you can attend this service as it is so important in the life of our community as we honor this vital and solemn holiday. Also, this is a unique time for the only two churches in the town to gather for worship. I know there are many competing events for your weekend, but I hope you can join us to worship the Lord and maybe even invite a friend. I’d also just appreciate the support of our congregation as I preach at Second Congregational Church. Speaking of preaching, this Sunday I am preaching on Luke 9. In this exchange with his disciples, Jesus begins to reveal His true identity as the Son of God. He reveals His identity via some important questions He asks His disciples. The first question – “who do the crowds say I am?” Luke 9:18.
In modern day slang it could be translated as something like,”so what’s the word on the street about me?” Jesus is seeking to get a pulse from His disciples as to what people are saying and processing about who He is. The disciples respond –
“some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago.”
John the Baptist and Elijah had such strong messianic connotations so it seemed possible that Jesus was the fulfillment of these men. We see there were a lot of interpretations about Jesus at that time…..sound familiar? Today there are so many different ideas as to who Jesus is – a good teacher, a prophet, a healer, a fraud, a holy man, etc.” Jesus elicits such strong responses across the board both then and now. Now Jesus is about to go a little deeper with His disciples and with us.
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Now the question has moved from the general (who do people say), to the deeply personal (who do you say I am)? Jesus is now asking His disciples to speak for themselves. They’d been walking with Him for a few years now. They’d seen Him love, teach, rebuke, heal, etc. That is all fine and good, but now it was time to come to a conclusion. Who is He? Many people have been “around Jesus”, but do they really know Him? This was as they say, “the moment of truth.” And Peter who is known for some big blunders in blurting out to quickly, ends up blurting out the full revealed truth about Jesus. Peter answered, “The Christ of God” Luke 9:20.
Christ is not a last name for Jesus. Christ actually means ‘Anointed One’ or ‘Messiah.’ Christ means an ‘Eternal King’ whom Jesus is. Peter speaks correctly about the identity of Jesus and this response means everything. What about you? Who do you say that He is? The response to the question means everything for every person who ever lived.
After Peter’s response, Jesus then delineates what will happen to Him –
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” v. 22.
This is the Gospel. Jesus has just shared the reality of everything that must occur so that the full redemptive plan of God would be fulfilled. To the disciples this must have all seemed so ethereal at the time as they had a problem grasping what Jesus was describing. It would all be revealed in time and at this point they were getting a real glimpse. The Big Idea of my sermon is this;
we will never understand our mission, until we understand the Mission of God. Knowing the fullness of this changes everything in our lives and the lives of others.
After Jesus describes His mission, He describes the implications of His mission for their lives. Please check out v. 23-27 and meditate on these words. Essentially our mission is to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel. And in doing so, we gain everything. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it” (v. 24).
When we decide He is Lord over all, we lay it all down and watch His unbelievable work in our lives and the lives of others. We must rightly understand and surrender to Him to fulfill the true mission of God. Lets do this!
After all this powerful dialogue you would think that the disciples would be all in and ready to go. But they, like us, were ‘works in progress.’ In my message, I’ll skip ahead to v. 46 where an argument has broke out among the disciples. The argument is about which one of them would be the greatest. Wow!! For real?! After all that Jesus has shared, they are now playing the ‘one up’ game with each other. We serve a gracious God. Jesus in response to this ridiculousness takes a little child and has him stand beside him. Children in that culture (like women) were viewed as second class citizens. They had no rights and very little value at the time. So for Jesus to take a child as an example of greatness in the Kingdom is an extreme step. Human ideas of greatness and God’s ideas are often completely at odds. We tend to look to the rich, the powerful, the good looking, the athletic, etc. to define greatness. However God looks to the humble, the down-trodden, the unlikely….ultimately those who know they need the Lord. This is why Christianity is often referred to as the “upside down kingdom.” We must understand His mission to understand our own. I’ll preach up to v. 62 and so I would encourage you to read the rest of 50-62 of the amazing teachings of Jesus about who He is. Praise be to God! The Lord will have a Word for all of us (First and Second Church) this Sunday. Please join us! Also, please join us after to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom this Sunday.
Blessings,
Pastor Andrew |
