The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
31 “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. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’ 34 And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.’”
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish economist, philosopher, a pioneer of political economic theory, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment in the 1700s. He is known as the “’The Father of Capitalism.”
This quote and capitalism itself contains two underlying suppositions. 1. When it comes to serving others, human beings don’t engage in labor and industry out of the kindness and purity of their own hearts toward their neighbors. They engage in industry and labor to serve their own self-interest and that of their own families.
2. This philosophic approach assumes that the one providing the goods and services for sale to their neighbor knows what’s in his or her own self-interest and once knowing will act in accordance with that knowledge.
Up until the rise of socialism, communism, and the welfare and nanny state those suppositions were pretty reasonable to make in civilized society. While Adam Smith articulated these suppositions and conclusion in direct referenceto an economic system, they suppositions and conclusions weren’t new with Smith.
These suppositions and observations were foundational to the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and are foundational to the modern the philosophy of Ethical Egoism.
This school of thought believes that a once a person discovers or is taught what is in his of he self-interest, said person will act accordingly and be a healthy and contributing member of society. While containing a element of truth, on a theological level these philosophies (both ancient and modern) under estimate the effect sin has on human nature. Still in a civilized society that is based on some notion of decency, political and economic theories that are designed to take self-interest into consideration basically work. This morning we consider Jesus, Peter, God’s interests, the devil’s interests, and sinful man’s self interest.
Up until Mark 8:31 in the Gospel of Mark Jesus’s ministry seemed to be primarily about preaching, teaching, and working various miracles. Jesus was the embodiment of the Gospel. He preached against works-righteousness and called people to repentance and faith in Him. He tended to people’s spiritual and physical needs. He worked the miracles and did so for three reasons.
1. Jesus is a compassionate God. He saw the suffering of His people and was moved to forgive their sins and relieve their suffering.
2. Jesus forgave people their sins and worked miracles as a demonstration of His divinity so they would believe in Him.
3. Jesus performed miracles as a way to show us our future, which is a future without sorrow, pain, sickness, and death.
From Mark 8:31 the focus of the Gospel record is on Jesus’s rejection, suffering, and death in what could be rightly described as a long Passion narrative that takes us to the end of the book.
Jesus taught that He must suffer because as He said, “It is written.” It was God’s plan and promise that He would send His Son to Suffer and die for the sins of the world. That plan and promise had been revealed to the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. Jesus’s suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection had a two fold purpose: to serve God’s interests and man’s interests.
Jesus’s earthly ministry had been about the forgiveness of sins and the restoration of life. From the moment He emerged from the wilderness temptation Jesus had been His preaching, teaching and working miracles directly. In this way Jesus was dispensing the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. By calling and teaching disciples, He was making sure the same work would continue after His death, resurrection, and ascension.
Verse 31. Jesus “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. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
Verse 31 and following stands in sharp contrast to what had just happened in the four previous verses. Jesus had asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?’ The disciples answered, ‘some say you are John the Baptizer, others say you are Elijah, and still others one of the prophets’. Then Jesus asked them, ‘Who do you say that I am.’ Peter answered and said to Him, ‘You are the Christ.’”
Peter gave a clear confession of faith, then immediately thereafter got confused over what the Christ had to do. He got confused over what interests they were all suppose to be serving. He got confused over what was really in his own self interest.
Jesus stated the matter plainly. He made it clear that He was going to “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.”
Up until this moment, Jesus had largely spoken figuratively about what was going to happen. Jesus had said things like, “Tear this temple down and in three days I will build it up,” or “The Son of Man is going to be lifted up and when He is lifted up He is going to draw all men to Himself.”
Here He used the words “suffer,” “rejected,” and “killed” and that got the disciples’ attention. “He was stating the matter plainly.” One translation says it this way. “He was speaking this fact quite frankly.”
There could be no question in the minds of the disciples. Their beloved Jesus, their Christ was going to be rejected, mistreated, and killed if things continued on the current trajectory. Someone had to do something to change course.
It did make sense to them. How did a dead Christ serve their interests? How did a dead Christ serve Jesus’s interests? If Jesus dies, the hope of a new kingdom of heaven come to be? How can they sit at the right and left hand when Jesus comes into His kingdom, if there is no king and kingdom?
Peter thought he was serving Christ’s interests. In his mind he was acting out of love for his teacher and friend. He thought he was acting out of good intentions. But Jesus understood. Peter was acting out of his flawed thinking and passions. Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked Him. Peter took Jesus aside perhaps to spare Jesus public humiliation.
Jesus saw the thing for what it really was. Peter, along with everyone else needed a theology lesson so He drug them all into the classroom. 33 “Turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter, and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
Jesus teaches here that no matter how sincerely motivated you may think you are; no matter how pious a word or action may appear; no matter who says it or does it, anything that gets in the way of Christ’s Word, Christ’s mission, and Christ’s in the church and in the life of Christian, your life does not serve the interests of the Lord God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus started the lesson with the strongest rebuke in the New Testament, “Get behind Me Satan.”
Anything that comes out of the natural mind that gets in the way of Christ and Him crucified serves the devil. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality. It is not as if there is God on the right, Satan on the left, and the natural man in the middle. We are conceived and born into this world in opposition to all that is holy and good; to God Himself and His interests.
Paul wasn’t confused about this when he was given to write in his Epistle to the Romans (5:8-10), “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
When Peter tried to stop Jesus from taking the path of suffering, rejection, and death Peter thought He was doing a good thing. What he was really doing was replacing the theology of the cross with a theology of glory. The problem with theologies of glory is that they are all about temporal glory, circumstantial glory, sinful man’s idea of glory.
The church has always been filled with people who have their own ideas. It makes little difference to them what the Bible teaches. They think they know what’s in their self-interest and in the interest of the church. Peter thought he knew. All Peter was doing was following his natural inclinations.
But if Peter had had his way, Jesus would have never gone to the cross and there would be no forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Peter was essentially asking Jesus to do what the devil had tried to get Jesus to do in the wilderness temptation. They both wanted Jesus to exchange the true work of the Promised Messiah for the pursuit of selfish self-serving temporal purposes, food (hedonism), self centered disciple of position and authority (egoism), and the earthly wealth of kingdoms (materialism).
Christians too are to be about the business of serving God’s interest and in so doing they serve the interests of their neighbor. And here the deep secret. When they are about the business of God (that would be true faith) and their the business of their neighbor (that would be works of love), they also serve their own self-interest because all three of those interests for the Christian end in the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
That is the purpose for which He came into the world. A sinless life without suffering and death, requires a life of suffering and death. 34 “And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.’”
Peter was asking Jesus to take the steps necessary to save His own life. Jesus teaches here that we must place the sinful interest of self, behind the will and way of God who is working through the person, life, and work of Jesus Christ for our ultimate interest.
Jesus did the very thing He commands us to do. “He deny himself, took up His cross, and follow the will of His Father. He lost His life so the sake of the gospel.”
Remember what Smith wrote? “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard of their own self interest.” That is a realistic and workable theory for a political and economic system in a fallen world where trade offs are always required.
But in the economy of God’s salvation it was from God’s pure benevolence, more commonly called “grace” that He worked out our and gives us the forgiveness of sins and salvation in the Word and sacrament ministry of the church. It was His denial of His own self interest that caused Him to take on flesh, suffer, be killed, and rise on the third day. It is because He took up His cross that we can now expect to be partakes of the diner of His body and blood for the remission of sins.
Jesus lost His life for the sake of gospel to save your’s in your interest.
AMEN.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus. Amen.