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Scripture Reading: Matthew 16:21-23
This sermon was recorded on Aug 2, 2026.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find [email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: It is so good to be here with you today. As I consider the close of this past summer, there's a lot of things that I'm thankful for. But what I'm especially thankful for this morning is I'm thankful for our adults in this congregation who invest their time in the spiritual lives of our young people. You see the value in it, and so I'm thankful for our school teachers, our Bible class teachers, our fam group leaders, our parents, all of those people. I'm so thankful for you because you see the value of investing in the spiritual lives of our young people and that gives us hope. The more that we invest in the spiritual lives of our young people, we have hope for a future of growing the Lord's congregation, the Lord's church. And so I'm super thankful for that opportunity, for that blessing.
For a moment, I want you to reflect on your time as a high school student.
For some of you, that's really easy because you're in the middle of it. There's some of you who are going to have to have a little bit of work to remember your time in high school. But for a moment, I want you to think about what life was like whenever you were a high school student. Maybe there are some of you this morning that whenever you were a high school student, you had a great deal of school spirit. You were all in. You went to all the football games. You wore all your team's colors. You were in all the clubs. You loved your school so much that you wanted to invest your time into it. You were all in. On the flip side, maybe there are some of you this morning where you didn't really have a great deal of school spirit. You clocked in at the beginning of the day. You went to all of the classes that you needed to and you clocked out and you called it a day. And there's nothing wrong with that that was the kind of high school student that I was. I only went to the football games that the marching band required me to go to, and I only went to the prom. Those were the only things that I felt obligated to.
And so I didn't have a great deal of school spirit. But whenever I became a freshman in college, I immediately fell in love with Freed Hardman University. I fell in love with the Bible faculty. I fell in love with the social life. And so I immediately started investing my time in a lot of things. I invested my time in homecoming, in making music and intramural sports. I mean, I was all in. And so whenever I compare my high school experience to my college experience, they were two very different things. And the reason is because, to be honest with you, I didn't really care a whole lot about Green Hill High School, but I cared a whole lot about Freed Hardman University. And I cared about it so much. I wanted to tell people about how great Freed Hardman was. I wanted to persuade upcoming freshmen to become students at Freed Hardman. And so whenever I was a junior, I decided that I was going to be a member of the campus delegate team. As a campus delegate, I was a representative on behalf of Freed Hartman University.
I gave tours, I wrote letters. I did everything that I could do in order to persuade upcoming freshmen to apply to Freed Hardman. And so the very first week of school, I did all the training sessions that my bosses required me to do. And I turned in my class calendar to let them know, hey, here's whenever I'm available to give a campus tour. And so I gave them this class calendar. And the reason why it was a really bad schedule was because I had one class before chapel and two classes after chapel. Those three to four hours were the most popular times to give campus tours. So I was unavailable, I think, out of my entire semester of being a campus delegate, I think I was only available to give one tour. And I wasn't available to go to any of the youth conferences and talk to the youth groups about Freed there, because I was always doing stuff with my youth group with Madison, with Savannah, with. With Mount Juliet. And so I was always unavailable to do these things. And so as I reflect on my time as a campus delegate, I realized that I was a terrible campus delegate.
And it wasn't because I didn't like Freed.
It wasn't because I didn't want to persuade people. It was because I never intentionally pursued an opportunity to promote Freed to people.
And the thing is, embarrassingly so, I Reflect on this. And I realize that there is probably not a single person who decided to be a student at Free Hardman because I was a campus delegate and it was because I didn't intentionally pursue opportunities to promote Freed to anybody. And so what I learned from this is that you may want something to happen, but if you're not intentional about it, it's not going to happen.
You may really want somebody to become a student at Freed Hardman, and you may really want to persuade them to become a student at Freed Hardman, but if you're not intentional about it, it's not gonna happen. And we know this, we understand this. Dave Ramsey said this. He said it about, oh, bye. He said this about the idea of financial success. But I think it applies to a lot of areas of success. He says no one accidentally wins. And that's true, isn't it? I want you to imagine that you go to the super bowl and you have a conversation with one of the guys who has just won the super bowl, and you walk up to him and you say, hey, man, that was an incredible win that you had today. And tell me, how were you able to have such an amazing accomplishment?
That athlete will never respond like this.
Well, I'm not really sure. I just kind of got out of the bus and I didn't really know what I was doing. Every single hour. For the past several, several years, he has been training himself, intentionally spending time getting better, training himself. He's so incredibly intentional so that he can achieve success. Such a success.
I think some of us have heard of the 10,000 hour rule that it takes 10,000 hours to intentionally practice and become a master at something. It takes 10,000 hours. In fact, I think some people say that it's actually less than 10,000 hours to become a master at something. But what we notice is that if we look at the most exceptional people in the world, we realize that they are incredibly intentional people.
Whenever I think about incredibly intentional and successful people, I think about these guys. Stephen King, he's one of the most successful horror novelists of all time. And the reason is because he claims that he writes around 2000 words every single day and he reads around 80 books every single year. He does this so that he's constantly getting better, so that he's constantly becoming more successful. I think about guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, how they used to wake up every single morning at 4 o' clock in the morning, put up around 500 to 1,000 shots, and they would train and they would eat well and they would do all of these things so that they would become more successful, so that they would become better athletes because of it.
They were incredibly intentional people.
But what about Christians?
Are we being incredibly intentional people? Are we the kind of people who are intentionally pursuing opportunities to promote Christ to people? Are we the kind of people that, day in and day out, we are pursuing opportunities to grow in Christ, to grow in our relationship to God, to grow in righteousness? Because the fact of the matter is, if we're not intentional about it, we can want those things, but we're not going to get it accidentally. We're only going to be able to get those things intentionally. I think about Galatians, chapter 6, verses 7 through 9.
Paul says this. He says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.
Paul is saying here that you can want eternal life. I mean, you can dream about it, you can want it with your whole heart. But if you're not daily, every single day, putting in effort, putting in attention, putting in your time, then you're not gonna get those things because you're not going to receive salvation accidentally. You're only gonna receive it intentionally. You are never going to reap something that you don't also sow. John C. Maxwell, he's an author. He once wrote this. He said, an unintentional life accepts everything and does nothing. An intentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance. In other words, an unintentional life says, you know what? I'm just gonna sow what I wanna sow whenever I feel like it.
If I feel like sowing love today, then I'll sow some love.
But if I feel like sowing some drama, then, man, I'll sow some drama. But if I don't feel like it that day, then I'll just wait for another day. Or maybe there's some things in this person's life that they think, you know, maybe there's some things I need to cut from my life, some sin that I need to get rid of, some weeds in my life that I need to cut out of my life. And they think, you know, I could do this today, but I'll just wait until tomorrow. Paul Says that's not gonna work.
He says an intentional life goes every single day. I'm going to pursue an opportunity to. To fit in some love, to fit in some peace. Every opportunity, every second that I can, I'm going to try to bear fruit, and I'm going to try to do it intentionally. I'm going to try to pursue opportunities to sow the fruits of the Spirit. Now, Paul says that we do this because of what we want to receive in the future, but we also do this because of what we've already received.
What we've already received.
If you would turn your Bibles to Second Corinthians, chapter 5.
Second Corinthians, chapter 5, we'll be reading verses 17 through 21.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake. He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I want you to look at verse 21. Here is what Christ has intentionally done for you. He. He says, for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is what Christ has intentionally done for you. Sometimes, whenever I feel like we read verses like this every day, these verses become stale and they lose their power. Man, don't let this verse lose its power on you, because here is what Paul is saying. He made him to be sin who knew no sin. Think about this.
There was not one moment where Jesus had an ill thought about somebody. There was not one moment where Jesus even considered to do something sinful, where he even considered to do something that wouldn't please God. Every single day of every single hour of his life, he was trying to be completely and holy, righteous. And he was.
Every single thought, every single action, every single word was spoken in. In complete holiness.
Can we even imagine living a life like that? Can we even imagine considering. Not even considering doing something sinful. Not even considering doing something that would be displeasing to God. And yet Jesus calls us the righteousness of God so that we can be reconciled to Him. Do you realize how Intentional God is in your life.
Here is what Christ has intentionally done for you.
He has reconciled you.
Now, how do you intend to respond?
How do you intend to respond? I'll tell you how Paul responds. He recognizes that God entrusts him with a responsibility and he makes it his identity. He says, God has given us this ministry of reconciliation. He's entrusted me with a message of reconciliation, and I'm making it my identity. I'm going to become an ambassador, an intentional ambassador. Now, why does Paul use this specific term here? It's a very political term. Why does he use this term? I think it's for several reasons. There's some things that we notice whenever we look at this word ambassador. The first thing to notice is that an ambassador is a position of honor. It's kind of a big deal to be an ambassador. It's a big deal because the king or the emperor decides who the ambassador is going to do, who he is going to be. He gets to choose because it's somebody that he trusts. It's somebody that he respects. And so Paul recognizes here that the fact that he gets to be an ambassador not just for a king, but the king, the king of kings, man, that's a big deal.
That's pretty awesome. But he's. But he doesn't get lost in the fact that this is a really cool opportunity. He understands that this is a really big responsibility.
The second thing to notice is that an ambassador is a wanderer. He's a wanderer. He leaves his country in order to interact with people that are not his people, in a culture that is not his culture. And his goal is not to be changed by the culture, but to be a light to the culture so that he can be faithful to his own culture. And the same goes for being a spiritual ambassador. Our citizenship is not on Earth. Our citizenship is in heaven. And so our goal is not to be changed by the world, but to transform the world. That's what it looks like to be an ambassador. The last thing to notice about an ambassador is that an ambassador is a representative to the king. He speaks on behalf of the king. He acts on behalf of the king. In other words, he does not speak on behalf of himself. He doesn't act on behalf of himself. What the king says, he says.
What the king does, he does. Whenever I think about this idea, I think about this guy. Some of you may know who this is. This is Carlos Hernandez. The very first time that I met Carlos, I was on a mission trip in Panama, and he was my translator. I was Teaching a Bible class for some teens there. And he was translating for me. And after the Bible class, I approach him and I say, carlos, man, you are a fantastic translator.
It's like every single time I raise my voice, you raise your voice. Every single time I walk over here to make a point, you walk over here to make a point. Every single time I do a hand gesture, you do the exact same hand gesture exactly as I do it. You're a great translator.
And this was his response. I'm paraphrasing here, but here's how he responded. He said, thank you very much.
I try to accurately portray every preacher that I translate for because he has prepared a whole lot of time into this message. And so if I'm not an accurate portrayal of the preacher, then the message is going to get lost.
Isn't that a super powerful point? If we are not an accurate portrayal of Christ, the message gets lost. The gospel gets lost if we are not accurately portraying Christ.
Jesus was the perfect example of an accurate portrayal, wasn't he?
I think about John, chapter 5, verse 19.
It says, so Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing from his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does that the Son does likewise here, Jesus kind of looks like a translator, doesn't he? Whenever God speaks, Jesus speaks. Whenever the Father acts, Jesus acts. Whenever the Father raises his voice, Jesus raises his voice. Do you see how in sync Jesus is? Jesus is so in sync with the Father because him and the Father are one. And God wants that relationship with us. But the problem is our life doesn't really look like this.
Whether it is because of distractions or busyness or carelessness, we forget to intentionally represent Christ. And there's consequences to that. There's consequences to that. If you would turn your Bibles to Matthew, chapter 16.
Matthew, chapter 16.
In this chapter of Scripture, Jesus is talking to his apostles and he asks them a question. He says, who do the people say that I am? And they give them a couple of answers. They say, well, some say the prophets. Some say Jeremiah. Some say Elijah. And Jesus says, all right, who do you say that I am?
And Peter kind of has this really cool moment. He decides to confess the identity of Jesus. He says, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, you are blessed because you have said this. And so Jesus and Peter have this really cool moment here. But I want you to look at the very next paragraph. What happens here? We'll be reading in verse 21.
From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that. That he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you. But he turned to him 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 the things of. Of man.
Whoa there, whoa there, Jesus. Don't you realize that you're talking to Peter here? Don't you realize that just a paragraph earlier you had this amazing moment with him, and now you're calling him Satan? How in the world could you say this to Peter? Doesn't that sound a little bit harsh?
Let's look a little bit deeper in verse 21. In verse 21, Jesus is sharing with his disciples the more frightening details of the gospel.
He says, I'm going to suffer. I'm going to die, and I'm going to be raised on the third day. And whenever the disciples are hearing this, they're not hearing good news.
They're hearing a horror story. Their friend, their teacher, suffering. They can't even imagine it. And I'm just thinking about Peter, how he's hearing these words, and he's probably just cringing at these words that Jesus is saying. And he gets so angry that it says that he rebukes Jesus, not that he has a casual disagreement with him or. Or a loving disagreement with him. It says that he rebuked him like a father scorning a child. He says, this will never happen to you. Absolutely not. I won't let it happen. And Jesus also has a pretty intense response. He says this. He says, get behind me.
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. Why in the world would Jesus say this to Peter? I think he says this for a couple of reasons. First, whenever we look at the name Satan, it comes from the Hebrew word hasatan, which literally means adversary.
So in a way, Jesus is saying that Peter is a sort of adversary to him. Well, how in the world is Peter being an adversary? Well, if you remember what happens in Matthew chapter four, Satan is tempting Jesus, and he's behaving very similar to how Peter is behaving here. Every single temptation that Satan is sending Jesus way, it's a way for Jesus to escape the Cross. And that's what Peter is doing here, isn't he? He's saying, no, no, no, you're not gonna be crucified.
I won't let it happen. I don't want you to suffer. He's trying to get Jesus to escape the cross. So in a way, both Peter and Satan are adversaries to Christ.
But how are they different?
There's one way that Peter and Satan are different. Satan was an intentional adversary, while Peter was an unintentional adversary.
Wait a minute. You mean to say that I can accidentally be an adversary to Christ?
Absolutely. How? How can I be an unintentional adversary to Christ? The same way that Peter was. Jesus says, you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but the things of. Of man. Peter had been following Jesus for several years now. He ate with him, he talked with him, he traveled with him. Yet in this moment, Peter's mind was on anything but Jesus.
He wasn't thinking about the things that Jesus wanted him to think about. He wasn't seeing the situation from a heavenly perspective. He was seeing it from an earthly perspective. He wasn't noticing what Jesus wanted him to notice. That Jesus needed to suffer, that he needed to be crucified. Peter didn't notice it.
I'm terrible at escape games.
Absolutely terrible about it.
I'm not very observant. I'm kind of like an oblivious person. And so whenever I go to escape games with a couple of my buddies, they realize that I'm not gonna be very helpful because I'm never looking in the places that I'm supposed to look. I'm not noticing the things that I'm supposed to notice. In fact, whenever I do notice something that I think is gonna be a really important clue, I say, hey, guys, look over here. This is an important clue. It's actually just a distracting thing that has nothing to do with the escape game. And so I'm very unhelpful whenever I'm not looking in the right place.
Peter wasn't looking in the right place.
Peter was looking for an earthly king, but he didn't notice that he was standing before the eternal king.
He was looking for an earthly kingdom, but he didn't realize that he was a part of a kingdom that. That has no end, an eternal kingdom.
And Peter isn't the only one who didn't notice these things. All throughout the Gospels, Jesus says, there are going to be people who are going to hear who are going to love me, but they're not gonna notice the big picture. He says, many will hear my words, but few are gonna obey them. Many are called, but few are chosen. Many will hear my parables, but few are gonna actually get the point.
Many will see my signs, but few will actually submit to the one who does them. Many will go through the broad road that leads to destruction, but few will enter the road that leads to life. Many will say to me, lord, Lord, but few will actually demonstrate righteousness before me. And so here Jesus is saying, there are going to be so many people throughout life who are going to love me, who are going to talk about me, but they're going to miss the point and, and they're not going to notice what I want them to notice.
What about me?
Are there things in my life that I just can't seem to notice?
What I've been trying to get across this morning is that every day each one of us is given an opportunity to choose either being an intentional ambassador or an unintentional adversary.
An intentional ambassador or an unintentional adversary. And I think there's a couple of differences between the two.
The intentional ambassadors of the world, they look for opportunities. They look for opportunities to pray to God, to read God's word, to grow closer with him. They look for opportunities to promote Jesus to somebody, to plant seeds, to evangelize, to have Bible studies with people. They see opportunities.
Intentional ambassadors keep God's plan in mind. Whenever they come up with the decisions and choices that affect their relationships, their schools, their jobs. They keep God's plan in mind. They notice the kid who's sitting by themselves at lunch, the kid who doesn't seem to have any friends.
They notice the co worker who just lost a loved one or a spouse who's having a terrible day at work. They notice things. They notice the same thing that Jesus notices.
What about an unintentional adversary?
Well, these people are very different.
An unintentional adversary misses their opportunities.
They miss their opportunities to bear fruit, to plant seeds. They don't take God's plan into account whenever they make choices or decisions. They don't desire what God desires. They don't pursue what God wants us to pursue. They don't notice what God wants them to notice.
That's what it looks like to be an unintentional adversary.
During this school semester, you have an opportunity.
Are you going to be an intentional ambassador or an unintentional adversary?
Are you going to choose to notice the people who need encouragement?
To notice the people who need to hear the gospel? Are you going to choose to pursue opportunities to study with people, to love people, to encourage them.
Are you going to take the time to think about and to notice the things that. That God wants us to think about? Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely. Are we intentional about the things that we think about? We all can think of somebody that has been intentional in our lives. People who have written us cards, people who have encouraged us at just the right time. Are you going to be that person?
This morning we have an incredible opportunity to get backpack tags, to get cards, and to pray for our students.
There's a lot of opportunities that we have to be intentional ambassadors, to seek people, to see souls and to notice what God wants us to notice. The question is, what are you going to choose? Are you going to be an intentional ambassador or an unintentional adversary?
This morning, maybe you hear about this ministry of reconciliation and you say, man, I need to be reconciled to Christ.
Maybe you come before this morning and you want to begin your journey with Christ in the waters of baptism. We would love to do that with you. Maybe you come here this morning and you say, you know, I did have a relationship with Jesus, but lately I haven't been very intentional. We would love to encourage you. We would love to pray for you. If there's anything we can do for you, please come forward as we stand and as we sing.
