Get behind me Satan

Summary

Have you ever had it all figured out? Now what I mean is, specifically figured out with God’s plan for your life. Where for some reason you seem to know exactly how things should go down in your life, and what God is doing in it.

Well, there have been times that I figured, yep, this is exactly how it should go… and then it doesn’t.

Back in 2002, Emily and I had interviewed at a congregation near the North Shore of Lake Superior. It’s the biggest lake in the world, and is beautiful! It seemed to me, to be the congregation to where God was calling us. I really felt as if everything was going to happen just as I had it planned. We were going to be in the woods, close to the Big Lake, near some family and in a place that I had always dreamed of being. I was so confident this was God’s plan that I could see it as clearly as the proverbial writing on the wall. Of course, I was looking at the wrong wall, for it wasn’t to be… it wasn’t God’s plan for our lives. Instead God called us in another direction. We ended up moving out West to Washington State and a great call, and then to the Iron Range of Minnesota, and now here, to you wonderful people in Oslo. Our journey has been one that I had never imagined, but am so glad to have taken. As I look to the future, I can only imagine what might lie ahead upon this road called life, that I walk in faith.

You see God usually does things differently than we might think God should. Sometimes it can be so plain to us, that this, our plan, is what should happen that we can end up becoming upset, or even angry with God when he has other plans for us.

This is what happened to Peter in today’s scripture. He believed that Jesus was the One sent by God. He had faith that Jesus was going to free God’s people from their bondage. Peter knew what Jesus should do, and dying at the hands of the religious leaders and the Roman authorities was not part of Peter’s plan for Jesus.

So when Jesus told his friends that it, Jesus’ death was God’s plan, Peter lit into Jesus. We don’t use the word ‘rebuke’ much anymore but it means to, “scold, or find fault with.”

Peter was scolding Jesus. Peter was finding fault with God’s plan, for he had a better one!

But Jesus wouldn’t have any of Peter’s nay saying. We see a flash of righteous anger from Jesus in his reaction to Peter’s rebuke when he shouts, “Get behind me Satan!”

Peter’s plan was not God’s, and in scolding Jesus, Peter was tempting Jesus with the possibility of not following through with the acts that he needed to undertake. You see, Jesus needed to suffer and die, so that God’s people might truly be set free of their bondage, to sin, forever.

Peter’s plan was an earthly one. God’s plan was a divine, eternal one. Peter could only see and imagine freedom in a limited earthly manner, Jesus was able to see and know freedom as it truly should be, eternal with God.

How often is it that we simply concentrate upon living our lives solely within our limited plans and ways of doing things? How often is it that we never even talk to God about our day, nonetheless our way of living and our futures.

You see, when we only concentrate upon what we can imagine for ourselves, for our lives, for our futures we are in a way rebuking God and God’s desires and plans for us by never talking to Jesus about what he might want for us.

How often might Jesus be right about our lives if he spoke the same words to us that he spoke to Peter, when he said, “…you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Jesus wants the best for us in our lives. The problem is that Jesus’ best is different than the world’s best which we have put in front of us everyday a thousand ways by the T.V., the internet, the radio, our neighbors, our friends, even within ourselves.

The world’s best has to do with us being the first, the greatest, having the most, being the richest, in other words, in being the one who is on top!

Jesus’ best is almost completely the opposite!

All we have to do is look at today’s verses from Romans. I ask you to open your bulletins to the first reading, and look at them as I read through them again. In these verses we see how God’s way of life looks so different from the worlds’.

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I want each of you to take a moment and ponder upon these words that we have just read.  Perhaps, choose one of these marks of a Christian life to specifically think upon, and imagine how your life might be different in this coming week, if you found a way to live out that mark of the Christian life.

[Give them a couple minutes to ponder]

How might your life look different if you lived out the action you pondered upon, in your life this week?

How might we set our hearts, minds and our lives upon things of God, rather than on human things? How might we experience anew the blessings of Jesus’ gift of freedom by focusing upon the things of God in our lives in a new way? And how might we live out the blessings of God, in someone else’s life, that they might experience and know God through us?

Seek the things of God, that you might live anew, and in a new way.

Amen.

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