Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

Our text for today’s meditation is the Gospel reading.

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²² And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." ²³ But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." ²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. ²⁸ Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

Who are the winners and losers in today’s culture? One of the more obvious answers to this question is our sports teams. You have last year’s Super Bowl champions the Green Bay Packers as the winners and the Pittsburg Steelers, the losers. Some would argue the Steelers aren’t really the losers being the second best team in the NFL last year and the real losers were the Carolina Panthers with a regular season record of 2 wins and 14 losses, they are the real losers.

Some believe the car makes them a winner. Now who wouldn’t be a winner in a nice Jaguar? You can’t help but look like a winner in a car like that. The losers are the people that drive what some call a beater or a hoop tee. Who would want to be seen in a car like that?

Others believe the winner is being the wealthiest. The winner in this category this year is Carlos Slim Helu and his family from Mexico who are worth $74 Billion dollars. The losers are the homeless around the world forced to find what little food they can from trash containers.

The film world has its winners and losers also. Will Smith is the most sought after actor and is one of the top paid actors as well. He commands a salary around $80 million per film. This next actor has been both a winner and a loser. Charlie Sheen was the top paid television star until he self imploded into a loser. Even though he claims to be "winning" no one will touch him right now for a job as an actor. He now makes his money making fun of his dire situation and former employers.

Then there is the world scene. We have armed conflicts and wars where there are winners and losers. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history with the Allies capturing Berlin to defeat Germany and nuclear bombs dropped on Japan forcing their surrender. Those fighting the war abroad and those on the home front who made decisive material contributions to the war effort were coined the "Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw because they fought because it was the right thing to do not for fame. On one hand the winners and losers of this war are extremely clear; the United States and the Allies clearly are the winners and Germany, Japan, and the Axis forces are clearly the losers. I pose to you in this case the whole world was a loser with between 50 and 70 million casualties.

As you can see by the examples given, our cultural definition of winners and losers centers around prosperity. The one that prospers the most is the winner and those that don’t are losers.

In today’s text we again have Peter. He can’t help himself. In last week’s lesson Peter was the clear winner by being in the Spirit and confessing that Jesus was the Christ, the living Son of God. And today he falls away from the Spirit into himself and applies what looks like our cultural definition of winners and losers to what Jesus has to do. Peter wants Jesus to be an earthly king, mighty and prosperous for Israel. Peter wants Jesus to be a winner. Peter’s intentions are good; he only wants the best for Jesus but Peter is showing us a Theology of Glory where he is looking for prosperity because of his relationship with Jesus. Jesus told them he would suffer and die in a way that is for criminals, for losers and Jesus is not a loser; this is why Peter rebukes Jesus.

Jesus in turn rebukes Peter calling him "Satan." Peter goes from being a winner to loser in a very short time. Jesus sees Peter’s rebuke as a temptation from Satan to forgo the pain and suffering He must endure. Jesus must overcome all temptation just as He did in the wilderness. Jesus had described the Theology of the Cross to the disciples; that He, the Son of Man must be killed and raised so that the disciples and we may live daily under God’s grace and forgiving love. After rebuking Peter Jesus turns our cultural meaning of winners and losers upside down. He says whoever saves his life loses it and whoever loses his life for His sake will save it. Sounds like winners become

losers and losers become winners. He is saying if we live our life in a Theology of Glory where we emphasize that God’s will for Christians is for them to be healthy and prosperous, our focus is on things of man and we will lose our eternal life. He is also saying if we live our life in a Theology of the Cross where we live knowing we are both a sinner, because we daily sin, and a saint, because we live under God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ death and resurrection we will win our life, our eternal life with Him. We should live knowing God loves us even when we fail and fall. God’s love and forgiveness challenges us to live in our relationship with Him as the priority in our life and in service to Him. Jesus wants us to become losers for Him. He wants us to lose the earthly mindset and get a Heavenly mindset in order to win the eternal life He has prepared for us. In Romans chapter 8, verse 1 through 4, Paul says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." We are to walk in the Spirit with our minds on the things of God.

Jeremiah is a great example of living your life setting your mind on the things of God. In the Old Testament lesson the prophet Jeremiah is sent by God to proclaim God’s judgment on the impenitent nation of Judah. Imagine for a minute if someone came today proclaiming God’s judgment on our nation. We would call him a nut case and either ignore him or ridicule him. That is exactly what they did back then to Jeremiah but Jeremiah was strong because we was fed with the bread of life, the word of God. Jeremiah withstood all the lashing out and accusations that he was the problem in Judah and if he stopped preaching judgment they would have peace. The cross he was carrying got very heavy and he fell. He stopped eating the bread of life, reading the word of God, and started relying on his own strength which failed. In verse 18 he cries out "why is my pain unceasing, my wounds incurable, refusing to be healed." He goes on to equate God with a brook that doesn’t always flow. God does just what He says he will, He asks Jeremiah to return, in other words repent and return to the things of God and He will restore Jeremiah; and Jeremiah was restored. He returned to the things of God and God strengthened him so he could withstand all the ridiculing and accusations; God didn’t remove his cross, his burden, He made him strong enough to withstand it.

Today we have people preaching a Theology of Glory; Joel Osteen is quoted as saying, "Don’t just accept whatever comes your way in life. You were born to win; you were born for greatness; you were created to be a champion in life." We were born to win, we were born to win God’s grace and love and we were born to be a champion, we were born to be a champion in eternal life not necessarily in this life.

What is our cross? Life can be hard, we can face disease, loss of a job, deformities, disabilities, we can even face challenges because of our faith in Jesus Christ; these hardships are our cross, it doesn’t mean we have less faith because we have these hardships as some would lead you to believe. It is how we live in these hardships that proclaim that we live by dying for Jesus. God will give us the strength we need to keep our mind on the things of God and endure the hardships of life through the daily feeding of the bread of life, God’s word. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Paul says, "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. ⁹ But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." In our weakness we rely on God for strength which is much stronger than ours. We lose in weakness to win in eternal life.

God has defined your life with Jesus paying a significant price; he paid the ultimate price of His life for you. God defines your life with this salvation act. God has asked you to take up your cross and follow him. He hasn’t promised that you will be winners in the earthly sense with glorious things and an easy life. He wants you to be losers, to lose your focus on those earthly things and focus on the things of God. He wants you to take up the cross on which the salvation of the world was won. This is not an easy thing to be, but it is the highest and holiest and best thing to be. Defined by his great sacrifice for you, you proclaim his death by your actions and sometimes by your words. You can be a winner for Christ by being a loser as you carry on in God’s strength as Jeremiah did. Jeremiah suffered a great deal for God. Losing the earthly focus is like coming out of surgery to remove cancer. You don’t feel like a winner at the time but what you lost will make you a winner. The same is true about losing the earthly things. They are things we like. You don’t feel like a winner at the time without them but what you lost will make you a winner for Christ.

Amen