Going Public, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Jesus never said that when we came to him, he would end all the problems in our lives. In fact, he indicates that a lot of times when we come to him, they intensify. His promise is that in these problems, he will work to produce life, both in you and in others. So here's the question. When you figure out that Jesus may not save you from all earthly pain, are you going to keep following him? Welcome to another day of gospel centered teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Have you ever noticed that people tend to be a lot more honest about their opinions when voicing them through an anonymous email or online profile? Take one look at social media these days, and that would be the mantra for sure.

Lots of keyboard warriors, wouldn't you say? It's easy to be bold when there's nobody really holding us accountable for what we said, especially when we're talking with complete strangers. But today, Pastor J.D. is challenging us to take a bold public stance for our faith. He's calling us to step out of our comfort zone and to make our private faith known to the world. It's time to stand up, say what we believe, and invite the world into a conversation personally. Let's join Pastor J.D.

for a message he titled Going Public. Matthew chapter 16, if you got your Bible, look at verse 13, and let's walk through this story together. When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the son of man is? Verse 14, they replied, some say that you're John the Baptist, others say you're Elijah, and still others say you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Verse 15, but what about you? He asked, who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you're the Messiah, you're the son of the living God. Verse 17, Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood.

It was revealed by my father in heaven. Verse 18, and I tell you that you are Peter, in Greek, that's the word petros. You are petros, and on this petra, it's a Greek word for rock, on this petra, I'll build my church. When Jesus says, upon this rock, I will build my church, the question is, is he referring to Peter, or is he referring to the confession of faith that Peter just made?

And the answer is, it's both. The confessing Peter is the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Listen, this is a prediction, a prophecy, that through the apostles, Peter, the chief among them, Jesus would write the Bible, which is the record of their confession of faith, and on that Bible, the record of their confessions of faith in Jesus, God is going to build his church, and the gates of Hades, the Greek word for hell, will not overcome it, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. What that means is that they're going to be his representatives, accurately recording the way that people can find salvation. It simply means that they are going to lay out, as Jesus' representatives, the boundaries of the faith, and the way that they lay out the particulars of who goes to heaven will be an accurate reflection of what Jesus thinks. Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anybody that he was the Messiah.

Now, why would he do that? Because to claim that you're a king in a world that already has a king, especially an insecure king like Caesar, was treason. Jesus is not ready to die yet, so he doesn't want them out there claiming that because what he means by Messiah is not what they mean. So, verse 21, from that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples what he meant by Messiah, 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, that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Verse 22, another great verse. At this point, Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said, never.

This will never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. Jesus continues, verse 23, you were a stumbling block to me. You do not, Peter, have in mind the concerns of God. You've got in mind merely human concerns. Peter, you're thinking about victory. You're thinking about vengeance against the Romans.

You're thinking about prosperity on earth. I'm thinking about something different. I'm thinking about something much greater and more eternal than any of those things. And so, verse 24, then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. All right, let's stop right there and let's look at what we can learn about the importance of public confession from this. When I use the word confession, I'm referring to the public confession of what you believe. I'm not talking about confessing your sins. That's a different use of the word confession than what we're going to use. Okay, so publicly professing what we believe, the importance of it.

Here we go. Number one, we see from this passage that confession of truth is the rock upon which Jesus builds his church. Did you see how Jesus ties all of his power, all of it, to the confession of faith? When Peter makes this confession, verse 17, Jesus tells him, man, these things are not revealed to you by flesh and blood.

Peter, you didn't just figure this out. Only the Spirit of God can give you this kind of vision. Only the Spirit of God can give you spiritual sight. Furthermore, verse 18, Jesus says upon this rock, I'll build my church. Jesus takes the confession of faith and he uses it as the conduit through which he unleashes his power in the church. When you confess faithfully, you gain the power of God. The power of God, the power that gives sight to the blind and heals the leper and makes the lame walk and raises the dead begins to flow in the church and in your life. Number two, if we confess faithfully, we are unstoppable.

If we confess faithfully, we're unstoppable. See verse 18, on this rock, I'll build my church and the gates of hell itself will not overcome it. People usually treat this verse like it promises that Jesus will protect us from all of Satan's vicious attacks on us. But this verse is about Satan's inability to keep us from plundering his kingdom. Let me ask you, are gates an offensive weapon? Do you beat him over the head with a gate? No, gates are a defensive weapon.

Gates are designed to keep people out. Jesus is saying that when we confess faithfully, not only will he preserve and protect our church, he will enable us to advance God's kingdom into Satan's most well fortified strongholds. Jesus did not promise that he would enable us to survive a slow retreat in our culture. He promised us that if we'd be faithful in our confession, he would let us advance deeper and deeper into enemy territory. Jesus is not content to simply be Lord of the church.

He died to be Lord of the whole earth. There are still 6,400 unreached people groups in our world with little to no access to the gospel. There are parts of the triangle itself with no real credible witness to the gospel. We got a new generation of college students that comes in here every four years from all around the world that needs to be reached with who Jesus is. We got communities of refugees displaced around the globe, many right here in Raleigh-Durham that need a gospel witness.

We got populations of prisoners, foster kids to be taken care of. So hear me say it very clearly, Summit Church. I confess that and I hope you would confess with me that Jesus is the Lord of the whole earth. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, not Caesar, not a Democrat, not a Republican. Salvation doesn't come in on the Republican platform or the Democrat platform.

It doesn't come in riding on Air Force One. It comes in as the Messiah, which is Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. I confess that just like He said, He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the one way of salvation for all people, the one name under heaven given among men, the only name ever given among men, whereby we must be saved and that whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved because there's no difference, like Paul says, between the Jew or the Greek or the black or the white, the rich or the poor or the poor or the Republican or the Democrat, the same Lord is Lord over all and richly bestows His blessings on all who call upon Him. There's only one race of human sinner and there's only one salvation and that's found in Jesus. He is not willing that any should perish, that He wants all to come to repentance. And I confess this because the Bible that Jesus authorized teaches it and I believe that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and that whether this confession is unpopular or not, I know that it comes with the power of God, which is the last thing that I ever want to lose. And some of it, because of Jesus' promise that He puts on this confession here, we're never going to be satisfied when there is such lostness in our community and in our world because the whole country is His territory. Jesus died to be Lord of the whole earth. People say, well, isn't the summit big enough already?

When are you guys going to stop growing? My answer is when Jesus comes back or the last person in Raleigh-Durham gets saved. Hell doesn't rest and so neither will we. Third truth about confession, number three, we see from this passage that Satan tries to get us to reshape Jesus according to our liking. The strongest rebuke ever given by Jesus recorded in scripture was the one he gave to Peter here. And it was instigated by Peter trying to force Jesus into the mold of what he assumed the Messiah should be. Verse 22, as Jesus begins to explain what the Messiah is going to do, that Peter begins to say, no, no, no, that's not what the Messiah does. This is what the Messiah does. This is still Satan's greatest temptation to us to reshape Jesus according to our expectations. Now, we don't do it in exactly the same ways that Peter and his generation did it, as most of us don't grow up dreaming of war with Rome, right?

Unless you play all kinds of video games, but then that's just weird, okay? We grow up in our society in a me-focused culture that's swimming in consumerism. And so we reshape Jesus into an Americanized Jesus who is one part genie, one part fan club, one part financial advisor, one part American patriot, and the rest therapist. Or we like to think of Jesus as the great comforter who is progressive and morally permissive like we are approving of all the things that we approve of, a big cosmic blanket you curl up and just find yourself in.

That is satanic distortion. You got to let Jesus be who he is, which means that sometimes he contradicts you, sometimes he confuses you, sometimes he makes you mad, and you don't rebuke him or the guy who's telling you what Jesus said just because you don't like it. I think I've told you before I was watching one of these talk shows and he had two people on the talk show who were debating some moral issue. And one person, I mean to his credit, was trying to explain what the Bible said.

And the other person who was more, shall we say, I guess, free thinking, kept looking back and saying, well, I'm religious too. And my Jesus would never do that. And I'm in the living room shouting, you don't get your own personal Jesus. There's like the real Jesus and then there's the fake one that you made up. He's not a Burger King Jesus where you have it your way or a Build-a-Bear Jesus where you assemble the deity that you like the best.

There's a real Jesus and then the fake ones that you make up that are really just a deified reflection of you. You ever see how, you ever notice how weird the concoctions people put together like a golden corral buffet line? You ever look at what you come back from the line with? I mean, they come back and you've got like a yogurt parfait, spare ribs, a waffle, four cookies, and an egg white omelet. That's not a meal, right?

No chef would ever put that together and say, this is a good meal. It's just whatever struck you at the moment when you were going through the line. See, I look at people as a pastor and I talk to them, I'm like, this is what they've done with Jesus. They got this obnoxious concoction of Jesus.

They've pulled together from various things. Oh, I like that. Oh, I don't like that. I'm leaving out.

I'm putting this there. And it's as obnoxious as a meal that you're putting together a golden corral because there's the real Jesus. And then there's the Jesus that you and I make up.

And you've either got to accept him for who he is, which means sometimes he contradicts you and makes you mad, or you at least got to own it and reject him and say, I don't believe anything he says, and he's not who he says he is. Number four, Satan's biggest distortion is a Jesus who keeps us from suffering in this life. You see in this passage, probably Satan's biggest distortion is a Jesus who keeps us from suffering in this life. Specifically, Peter objects to the concept of a Messiah who suffers.

And y'all, even though we're in a different time and place, that's still the substance of his biggest distortion today. Peter expresses what I would call the heart of Christian immaturity. And that is the belief that Jesus Christ came so that I wouldn't suffer. And Jesus says, no, Peter, I'm not going to save you from suffering. I'm going to save you through suffering. I'm going to save the world by going to a cross. And then I'm going to work out my salvation in you. And then through you to others by means of a cross too. So I'm not going to stop your pain. I'm going to redeem your pain and I'm going to give your pain meaning.

And I'm going to work through that pain and I'm going to use it to bring life to yourself and to the world. And by the way, Jesus tells Peter, verse 23, that until he understands this, he should stop speaking for Jesus. Get behind me, Satan, means Peter shut your mouth until you understand this. You see, there's a lot of immature Christians today and a lot of them have radio shows and TV ministries who teach that Jesus is some kind of ultimate good luck charm. And if you walk with him the right way, he's obligated to remove any bad things that would ever happen to you.

Financial hardship, health problems, challenges with your kids. He promises to make all your foul shots go in and to make your stock soar. And so what happens when people believe this, when they go through bad things, they think that God is somehow not keeping up his end of the deal. Jesus never said that when we came to him, he would end all the problems in our lives. In fact, he indicates that a lot of times when we come to him, they intensify. That's what carrying a cross means, doesn't it?

That's a problem. His promise is that in these problems, he will work to produce life both in you and in others. So here's the question, when you figure that out, when you figure out that Jesus may not save you from all earthly pain, are you going to keep following him? When he disappoints you in some area, are you going to keep following him?

To Peter's credit, he doesn't go away. I mean, you got to respect a guy that gets called Satan by Jesus and says, I'm not going anywhere. It doesn't record this here, but there was another time when Jesus made statements like this one and a bunch of the followers of Jesus are like, what? Like we were all into you when you were talking about healing and bringing our lives together and restoring the missing piece and giving us solid families and fulfilling romance.

But all this suffering for me stuff, that's not what we signed up for. And they all quit following Jesus. And Jesus turns to the disciples and Peter, and he says, are you guys going to go away also? Peter says, Peter's response is not inspiring.

Peter's like, where else are we going to go? I got nothing else to do. I seriously got nothing else to do. You're the only one with the words of eternal life. And Jesus, I don't like what you're saying. And it's making me mad. And I don't agree with it, but you obviously have the words of eternal life. And so I'd rather be here with you, even when you make me mad than I would be anywhere without you.

Ultimately, Peter passed his test. Are you? Cause here's what I see. There's a new show on the TLC. How does he know? How does he know?

You ask, I'm not answering that question. It's called 90 day fiance. And it's totally unoriginal. It's not a good, I mean, it's, I wouldn't recommend it to you by any means, but the basic gist is this. You fill out these applications and they match you up with what is an ideal fiance. And then you got 90 days that you guys are together. And during those 90 days, you got to decide if you want to be with the person that you thought you wanted to be with, because you know what happens is there's a lot of things that when you're dealing with a real person, don't match up with the resume. And all of a sudden you're like, well, they, I didn't know they did that. And I didn't know they think that.

And I don't know what they, you know, and so you got 90 days. I see that premise of that show. And I'm like, that's what I feel like I watch sometimes as a pastor, people do with Jesus. They come in with this idea of who he is supposed to be. And then inevitably something happens and he disappoints you. He doesn't work something out the way that you think he's supposed to work it out. Or he says something in the Bible and you're like, Whoa, I had no idea that was in there, man.

I didn't know about that. And now you're in that point where you're in the middle of a test. The question is, are you going to walk away?

Are you going to pass your 90 day test? So to speak, are you going to let Jesus be who he is, or are you going to force him to be who you want him to be? Which leads me to number five. Jesus seeks committed followers, not anonymous consumers. Jesus seeks committed followers, not anonymous consumers.

He ends this whole discussion, verse 24, by saying, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. I've explained to you before that in those days they would not have regarded the cross as a piece of sentimental jewelry or a cool tattoo you put on your ankle. I had a friend who collected ornamental crosses from around the world and she displayed them on her living room wall. And that's cool.

There's nothing wrong with that. But nobody in those days would have done that. Wearing a cross around your neck would be like wearing a necklace with little electric chairs dangling from it. Or like having as the lock screen on your phone, the picture of a picture of a beheading or somebody being hung or being shot. Now the idea of the cross as kind of an ornament, a sentimental ornament wouldn't come for hundreds of years later in the church.

For them, it was a horrific, evocative symbol of death and shame. And Jesus was telling them that if we're really going to follow Him, sometimes our obedience to Him is not going to feel like abundant life. Sometimes our obedience to Him is going to feel like death. That's what carrying a cross means.

Write this down. Salvation is free. It costs us nothing. But following Jesus will eventually cost you something.

Maybe everything. Salvation is free. It's a gift that He gives.

It doesn't cost you anything. But following Him will eventually cost you something. You see, there are all kinds of things that Jesus provides for you when you follow Him. He gives you the assurance of heaven. He puts stability in your family. He gives you the promise that He's working in all things for your good. But at some point, faithfulness to Him is going to feel like death. That means your desires are going to go one way and He's going to tell you to go the other. For example, He's going to tell you to end a relationship that you don't want to end. He's going to tell you to uproot your life and go with one of our church plans, even though it wasn't part of your 10-year plan. He's going to tell you to make a financial sacrifice that's totally going to alter your lifestyle. He's going to tell you to forgive somebody that you don't want to forgive. He's going to tell you to deny your desires and submit to His vision of sexuality. He's going to tell you to take a stand on something.

It'd be much easier for you just to be silent about. He's going to tell you to take somebody into your home that you don't really want to. He's going to tell you to speak the gospel to somebody that you're intimidated by. For some of you, it's simply the call to be baptized.

It's like I often say, if you can't get wet for Jesus, are you really ready to carry the cross? At some point, obedience to Jesus is going to take you in a direction 180 degrees opposite of where you want to go. And when that happens, you're going to have to answer the question, why are you following Jesus? Are you following Him because of something you think that He can do for you? Or are you following Him because you want Him more than anything, and you'd be willing to give up anything and everything just to have Him? You see, a consumer is somebody who follows Jesus to get something from Him. A follower is somebody who would leave anything else just to have Him. And what Jesus says to Peter, He says to us, I'm not going to tell you, Peter, that if you follow Me, you'll avoid pain.

In fact, it might intensify. But what I'm going to promise you is that I'll always be with you in that pain, that I'll never leave you or forsake you in that pain, and that I will be using and redeeming all that pain for my good purposes. Is that enough? Is that enough?

Is He enough? Are you a consumer looking for something from Jesus? Or are you a follower who is content with Jesus? In fact, to get up all in your business here this morning, let me give you, I just made a little list of a few indications that you're a consumer, not a follower, right? I'm not your judge.

I'm not your judge. But these are indications that you're probably a consumer, not a follower. You have areas of your life where you know that you are not in alignment with what God wants.

Maybe they're small areas, but they're just not convenient for you right now. And so you're like, I really want God to be a part of my life. I certainly don't want to be apart from Him, but I'm not ready to bring this part of my life in alignment with Him, so I'm just going to postpone obedience right there. You're a consumer, not a follower. You've never offered your career or your future to God.

Hey, I got news for you. God wants more than Sunday morning. He wants the other six and a half days also. Have you ever offered your full career, your future to God?

You've never offered your possessions to Him to ask what He wants to do with them. You don't spend time with God daily. Your attendance at church is sporadic.

And when you come, you sit on the sidelines. You don't volunteer. You're not involved in ministry. Your kids are not involved in student ministry. You're not involved in a small group. You're a consumer, not really a follower.

How about this one? You've yet to act on Jesus's first command to be baptized as a public confession of your faith. You're like, well, it's just inconvenient.

Jesus said, I didn't say it's inconvenient. I said, follow me, which means that you begin to obey and not postpone to tomorrow what I tell you to do today. You see, Jesus asked us like He did Peter for a confession. He says, I don't want you to be anonymous. I want you to own it publicly. I want you to declare to others that you're not ashamed of me, that you're willing to boldly confess before others who I am and that you're ready and you're willing to go all the way with me. He wants you.

He wants you to own it personally. Owning our faith publicly can be intimidating, right? But the result can also be rewarding, and the kingdom will benefit greatly. This has been a challenging message called Going Public here on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. We love equipping you to make your faith your own and to help you grow in your knowledge of who God is. So we've picked out a great resource to go along with this series. Can you tell us a little bit about it, J.D.? So full disclosure here, Molly, and you don't have to agree.

In fact, you can just sit there silently if that's less awkward. I think of all the message series I've ever done at the Summit Church, I think this whole story was my personal favorite because just something about seeing the arc of scripture and seeing how from start to finish, there is one story that's being told and that every single page of your Bible points to Jesus. This resource that we're providing, a custom Bible in partnership with a great Christian publisher called Crossway, is going to help you as you read the Bible to see that arc. No, we didn't edit the words of scripture.

This is not the J.D.V., you know. It's just the ESV version of the Bible, which I've used for many years. So you can pick up where we are in the series at that very spot in the Bible and get some of the context around it. You can give it to somebody that you think might need encouragement and reading their Bible. You've heard me say this, Molly, but one of my favorite ways of seeing what I do is helping people read the Bible better. It's not what you get from me when you're listening. It's what you get when you're sitting there in your favorite chair with your light on.

That's where I feel like, man, if I could help somebody interact with God one-on-one, that would be a success in my book. So it's got a blue leather cover. I think you'll love it. Molly, it's got great curb appeal.

Feels good in your hands. You can get a picture of it on our website at J.D. Greer dot com. And so we're excited about it. We will also include an insert at the front of this new Bible to give you one of our custom Summit Life reading plans for 52 weeks of Bible reading. We'd love to get you a copy of this Summit Life Bible today. It comes with our thanks when you donate to support this program. Summit Life is kept on the radio and online by listeners like you.

So when you tune in, you've got another listener to thank for the message. And you can extend that gift to someone else by doing your part to keep this program going. Give today and remember to ask for your custom blue leather Bible.

Call 866-335-5220 or you can donate and request the Bible online at J.D. Greer dot com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us again next time when we turn our attention to Jesus' final prayer for his disciples before going to the cross. That's Friday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.