Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ." The primary text for today, the second Sunday in Lent, is the Holy Gospel from St. Mark chapter 8. The title of the sermon is, With Purpose on Purpose. Jesus is moving with purpose toward the culmination of His earthly ministry so that we would be saved. I'm a person who likes to move around a lot. I like to move around a lot. In fact, my wife sometimes tells me at home that you're like a cage liar because I'll just be like walking around the house, you know, facing around. When I get up in the morning, I'm not really the best morning person. So it takes my brain a little while to get going. So sometimes I find myself just kind of like wandering around like, okay, what do I need to do to get ready? Where's the coffee pot? I'm always moving around. You often probably see me at church, especially sometimes for service on Sunday or Wednesday. I'm like moving really fast from point A to point B because I've got to get everything ready. I got to get everything. so we can have our service and fellowship. At work, my co-workers notice this as well. I'm moving really fast through the halls. Just last week, I had one of the teachers say, Mr. Rankin, you're moving too fast. I can't keep up with you. And I'm just going down the hall. Well, part of that is, I guess, my personality. But also, I am so busy, I have to move quick. I have to move quick, often from point A to point B. to get where I need to be at the right time. And in fact, I don't like to waste time either. If I ever stop moving or I stop talking, I have been known to fall asleep pretty much anywhere. I do. At night, I like bleaching late at night. I like to unwind a little bit. I'll watch TV, sit on the couch almost every time I go to sleep. Sometimes even like two minutes. My brother once described me and said, Aaron, you're like a shark. You're either moving or sleeping. So usually when I'm headed somewhere though, I'm heading there with a purpose, on purpose. There's a reason why I'm moving from point A to point B. But what about you? Do you have a purpose? Well, oftentimes when we have a specific goal, we do move with a purpose. Because if you want to get to that goal, if you want to accomplish something, it requires action. If you want to get somewhere, well, you have to get up and you have to get there. If you want to get in better shape, well, you have to exercise. If you want to gain more knowledge about a topic, you need to study it. If you want to make more money, you've got to get out there and work. And so on. To fulfill your purpose, you have to do something on purpose, right? Now, as I've mentioned a few times already in this church year, we're in series B of the lectionary, so we hear a lot from the gospel of Mark. And I've told you already two or three times, the gospel of Mark is a gospel of action. It moves very quickly. Jesus has a goal, He has a purpose, He has a destination, doesn't He? And in today's Gospel reading, we see Jesus bring that purpose forward very clearly. And actually, it's from this point on in the Gospel of Mark, in chapter 8, these verses in chapter 8, we see Jesus moving toward that purpose, on purpose, very diligently and directly. And how did verse 27 of the reading begin? It began with Jesus moving. It says He went out that Him and His disciples, they come into these towns of Caesarea Philippi. They are on the move. And when they get to these towns, the Bible tells us that He asks His disciples a couple of questions, doesn't He? And the first question He asks them is, Who do men say that I am? Who are people saying that I am? Well, the disciples respond by saying, John the Baptist. You see, many people, including King Herod, were worried about that. They believed that Jesus was John, come back from the dead. They also tell them, while others are saying, and prophets who have come back to give us an important message. So they tell Jesus what they've been hearing, that people are saying who He is. But then in verse 29, Jesus makes the question more direct, doesn't He? He makes it more personal. He says to His disciples, But whom say ye that I am? Who do you say that I am? Okay. They have been relaying to Jesus what others are saying, but what do they think? Well, they have been hearing Jesus preach and teach. They have been seeing Him perform incredible miracles for some time now as they followed Him. But just who do they think Jesus is? Well, it's not a surprise, but it's the bold one. It's the one that Jesus called the Rock. that answers the question. In fact, in our text for today, we see that Peter speaks up for the group twice, but he gets very different reactions from Jesus, doesn't he? With each thing that he says. Well, Peter gives an answer to Jesus' question, who do you say that I am? He gives a very powerful confession of faith. Pretty short and simple, but very powerful in that statement. Peter is saying that Jesus is the Messiah. He believes that this is the One that they have been looking for. The Promised One that was promised to Abraham and even back in the Garden of Eden and through the other prophets. This, you are the Messiah. You are the Promised One. All of this is being fulfilled. that to be the Hebrew. And there's a parallel account of this in Matthew's Gospel. And in Matthew's Gospel, God makes it clear that Peter did not just come up with this statement on his own. Matthew's Gospel tells us that these words that Peter spoke were given to him, were revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. And thus it is, whenever someone makes a confession, it is not done by their own power or intellect. It can only be done by the power of the Holy Ghost. But then, in verse 31, Jesus grows His disciples for a bit of a loop, doesn't He? He tells them, and He began to teach them, the Bible says, that the Son of Man must And after three days, He would rise again. What? What? If Jesus is the Messiah, why must He suffer? Why must He be rejected by the leaders of Judaism, who should be the very ones who recognize when the Messiah shows up? And the Messiah would be killed? Well, that doesn't sound too victorious, does it? That's not what people are expecting out of the Messiah, that He would be rejected and killed. They thought He would liberate, free, He would prosper Israel. But notice that Jesus also said that He would rise again after three days. But in reading this text, whenever I read it, it's just like the disciples didn't even really hear that part. They only heard the first part about It's almost as if they were so shocked by that, they just totally missed their rabbi telling them the rest of it, but I'm gonna rise again in three days. And when Jesus tells them this, once again, it's Peter who speaks up again for the second time in our text. But what does Peter do to what Jesus has said this time? He rebukes Jesus, it says. He rebukes Jesus. Essentially, what is Peter doing? He's saying, Oh no, Jesus, You are the Messiah. I just said that. We're not going to let it go down like this. We're not going to let this happen to you. And what is Jesus' response to Peter? Get thee behind me, Savior, for thou savest not the things of God, but the things that are of men. Now this rapid turn of events in these few verses, it's almost comical, isn't it? I mean, this is kind of humorous, because in just a few verses, Peter goes from being commended by Jesus to being called Satan and said, Get behind me, Satan! Get behind me, Jesus! Get out of my way! Quite a dramatic turn. Why? Why did Jesus say that to Peter? because Peter, by objecting to Jesus suffering and dying and His rising again, but he seems to completely miss that part, he is trying to thwart the purpose of Jesus' coming. Peter, nor the other disciples at this point, they don't understand fully what the mission of Jesus is all about. His purpose was to come and fulfill the law, suffering at the hands of sinful men. He must suffer, bleed, and die to save people from their sins. He would make the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, that would pay the ultimate price and make atonement for the sins of the world. This was Jesus' purpose, and Jesus is moving on purpose Now, of course, Peter is not literally Satan. Jesus is not saying literally Peter is Satan. But what he is saying is that by Peter wanting to stop Jesus from his purpose, he would be doing exactly what would benefit the devil, by stopping the salvation of humankind. Now, we should also note, again, I said there's a parallel account of this made clear that the confession of faith that Peter made of Jesus as Messiah is the work of the Spirit. He can only understand and confess that truth by the work of God. And when Peter rebukes Jesus for saying that he will suffer and die, how is he speaking? He is speaking from his own sinful nature, Peter is. So this is a very important lesson for us. We can only have faith by a work of God the Holy Spirit. And we are only lost by the works of our sinful and fallen nature. If we're saying, thinking, doing dumb things, that's our sinful nature. If we're saying the proper confession of faith, that is a work of God. And we see that very clearly in this text. That's why Peter is commended, but to later condemn. Because one time he's speaking what God the Holy Spirit has given him, the other time he's speaking from his own sinful flesh. And in fact, in the very next chapter of Mark, what will happen? Peter, along with James and John, they are going to experience a transfiguration. I preached about that two weeks ago. And everything that Jesus had said and done up to that point is validated by that mountaintop experience, which will include the voice of God the Father proclaiming that Jesus is His Son and doing pleasing work. Jesus had a purpose. and He was fulfilling that purpose on purpose with a purpose. Now let's return for a moment to our purpose. Are we, I would ask generally, but then I would also, as Jesus did ask personally, are you moving with a purpose on purpose? Of course, as believers in Jesus Christ, our purpose is to have saving faith and to worship and glorify God forever. In this, we move toward our eternal home of heaven. And along the way, we are to preach the gospel to a lost and a dying world. But what about before we reach death? Or we could be here at the second coming of Jesus Christ. But what about before either we physically die or Jesus returns and we transition to that eternal kingdom? But we don't want to be so single-minded on reaching eternity with all of its great blessings and freedoms from suffering and pain that we miss those along the way that God has put in our path. And our traveling along the straight and narrow is not always going to be easy, is it? What did Jesus say in the Gospel text? Verse 34, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow him. Verse 35, For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake in the gospels, the same shall save it. And then verse 36, What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul? We are not to be ashamed of Jesus, but to proclaim and live for Him with a purpose. During this season of Lent, on fasting, giving up something they like or they find pleasurable. There is a lot more focus on increasing our time in prayer, of a deeper repentance. There is even a focus on how we can help the less fortunate among us. But I think we all know that we should not only be doing those things during Lent, not for only 40 days every year. So our purpose, our mission as we move forward towards eternity is to love our neighbor as ourself. As Martin Luther famously said, God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does. To really follow Jesus, to really take up our cross involves loving and serving our neighbor. Now, how can we do that? Of course, we can serve in the church. I mean, just about every Sunday and Wednesday, I'm saying, hey, there's all these things to help with in the church. Please sign up, help out our local congregation, right? But we also know that there are many outside of these walls. get phone calls, I've got several phone calls, I got another message this morning, you know, people call and say, hey, we need help with this, we need to get out of the cold tonight, or we have a bill we can't pay, we have an alms fund, we can't, we don't have an unlimited supply of money, but we do have a fund that you all donate to that we are able to help some of these folks with some of these needs. So whether it be help with food, shelter, medical care, donating blood, teaching an English class to a new arrival to our country, speaking up for those who need an advocate and can't speak for themselves. We could go on. The needs out there are endless, aren't they? And God has called you to serve. Now you may or may not get accolades for what you do, but you can be assured that God knows. God knows if you are serving A research firm did a very interesting study. Over the course of a few months, they ran through over 2,000 obituaries of people that died. maybe a little bit of a dark academic exercise, reading through all these obituaries. But what they were doing is they were looking for common words that were put in these obituaries, usually by their families. You know, after they died, sometimes people write their own obituary, but many times it's like your family saying, okay, what do we say about them? And they were looking, what are common words that we found in those obituaries about people? And of course, you know, when someone dies, we always try to make them sound good, right, usually? And you know what the most common word they found through these 2,000 obituaries that loved ones wanted to describe their past loved one, make them sound like a nice person? Guess what it was? It was the word help. It was the word help. It seems that people wanted their loved ones who had passed on to be most remembered as people who helped others. That was the most common thing they saw in these 2,000 pictures. They were a person that helped their family, they helped other people, they helped in their church, they helped in their charity work and all these things. It's very interesting, as Christians, We should be people who help. We should be remembered as people who help in many ways. Now, Jesus helped people, but he did a whole lot more than that, didn't he? Now, Jesus is the best example for us to follow, of course, how he loved and helped people, but unfortunately, some people stopped there because Jesus did a lot more than just help people. you and me." Because He did what no one else could do. He kept the law perfectly in our place. He suffered and died as the payment for our sins, and then He rose from the grave in victory over sin. We don't want to miss that part like the disciples did. I know it's Lent, but Easter is coming. Even in Lent, we can talk a little bit about the resurrection. He saved us from death and the devil. that He did. The peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.