Freak Out Moment With Jesus

Spiders freak me out. Running out of hot water in the shower tends to create an emotional response from me. Seeing a UT sports team lose a game doesn't always go over well. But when it comes to Jesus... I wonder how many of us are like Peter and experience a freak out moment. Maybe what I'm about to say will be your freak out moment with Jesus.

In Mark 8:31-33, Jesus is telling His disciples how He must suffer many things, die, and then rise back to life after three days. Just think about this for a moment. The disciples have been following Jesus on a daily basis. They've seen what He can do. Their lives are consumed by following Jesus. They've even began to experience the power to do some of the things He's been doing. Then, He tells them He must suffer and die.

While we don't know how all of the disciples reacted, we do know how Peter reacted: He freaked out. So much so that Mark says Peter "Took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him." Seriously! Peter is now rebuking Jesus. Peter has actually just went way beyond freak out. He's now correcting the plan and will of God in Jesus' life. Nevertheless, Jesus responds by calling Peter "Satan" and putting him back in his place.

Okay, so we look at Peter and realize he had a freak out moment and overreacted, but let me ask all of us this question... Why did Peter freak out? Maybe in that moment Peter realized that...

• Jesus would no longer be there for him to physically depend on.
• If Jesus had to suffer and die, perhaps he would to
• Everything was about to get very intense and serious

I don't know exactly why Peter freaked out, but immediately after this exchange between Jesus and Peter, Jesus turns to the crowd and says, "If anyone wants to follow Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." I think it's safe to assume Peter knew that in order to truly follow Christ, he'd have to experience to some degree the same thing that Jesus was about to endure.

For us today, I think this freak out moment of realizing that we can't have things our way and still follow Jesus must happen in order for us to experience salvation. Again, I'm just going off what Jesus says. The call to follow Jesus is to surrender to a lifestyle that continually responds to His Lordship; this includes dying to everything we are. Jesus had to die because through His death He was able to bring life for us. The same principal plays out with us... Unless we are willing to truly die to ourselves, we'll never start to live for Him!

This is scary. Surrender is so difficult, yet it's so freeing at the same time. I can understand why Peter had a freak out moment. Any true follower of Jesus must face this same reality check of surrender. What I can't understand is how so many people can profess to follow Jesus but show no evidence of dying to themselves and living under the Lordship of Jesus. Maybe it's because we focus way to much on "avoiding Hell" in our comfortable Christian American culture by simply praying a prayer to "get out of Hell." Regardless of what we've heard taught from the pulpits on Sundays, this conversation between Jesus and Peter reminds us that we can't afford to continue presenting and believing a half-gospel that focuses primarily on life after death instead of dying to self and living surrendered to Christ on a daily basis.

The great debate ends at affection!

There has always been a tension between the thoughts of when, where, and how to share the gospel. Some believers think that in all situations, in all times we should be talking about Christ and sharing the gospel. This thought drives us to programming such as tracts, visitation and evangelistic training that is script driven and word heavy. The other side in it's worry of offending people, believes that it is simply a lifestyle of being kind and courteous that will lead people to an understanding of who Jesus is. It's funny that in the extremes of these two thoughts they both ironically become exactly what they are trying to avoid. In the all talk approach they are trying to be deep and serious yet they come across as shallow and almost laughable because there is no relational or lifestyle foundation to give their claims any credence. How can one talk to a complete stranger with no foundation of respect about the most important and intimate topic they will ever be engaged about.  On the other hand the camp that is all life and no talk try to show love and not offend when all that happens is they watch people without hope walk straight into an eternity apart from Christ, which is the most unloving, offensive thing they can do.   There is not a simple answer to this dilemma and the cop out would be to say it is both ways. That is true but is overly simplistic. The problem is that we let our own personalities and preferences make us lean into one side or the other and once we are there we must defend it biblically and experientially until death. We preach sermons and invent programs that take us down the road of one of these two extremes and then you can't turn back without admitting that you were wrong. This topic came up because of a funeral I am preaching of a gentleman who lived out correctly what the bible presents as the gospel and it's advancement. I was praying for a word that would describe this person and God laid the word "affection" on my heart. After looking it up in my concordance, the passage that I was drawn to was Romans 12:9-21. It is a passage that I have read before but from this day forward I will read it everyday and make it my goal in this life to live it out. The subtitle over it is "Marks of a true Christian" WOW! That alone should make us study this passage deeply. I will end this blog by saying if you can read that passage and it doesn't move you, challenge you, inspire and motivate you then you are not living for Christ. It outlines our attitude toward God, toward other believers and toward lost people. It speaks of the beautiful blend of living the gospel out by caring the way Christ cared and sharing your faith by talking about it. To put it simply, the key to sharing the gospel is to be open about your affection toward God and your affection toward people. Talk without care is worthless and care without talk is worthless. I will not live the rest of my life being worthless! Peace with God and peace with men.