Jesus Didn’t Come Just to Make Your Life Better
Jesus Is Not a Cosmic Therapist: What Peter Got Wrong About the Messiah
A sermon on Matthew 16:21–27
From that time Jesus began to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
— Matthew 16:21–23 (KJV)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today's reading from the Gospel of Matthew is an interesting contrast for our friendly Peter — the one that everybody loves to see what he's going to say next, the one who hopped out of the boat when he saw Jesus walking on water, who cries out at the top of the mountain, "Hey, it's good that you're here, Jesus. Let's build some tents so we can stay here with Moses and Elijah." He's the one who says what everybody is thinking, even though nobody else is willing to say it. You've got to love Peter, because he's the brash and outspoken one, and Matthew, I think, uses him as the spokesman for the disciples over and over and over again.
Last week we saw Jesus go to Peter and say, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." And he was honored because of this confession. But the funny thing is, as soon as Jesus begins to teach the disciples what that confession means, Peter says, "No way."
Here's what it says: 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.
We who go to church all the time are used to that. We confess that Jesus suffered and died and rose from the dead every single Sunday when we say the Creed. But can you imagine how shocking it would be for Peter to hear this from Jesus — for the disciples to hear this, kind of for the first time in the story? They're like, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," and he says, "Yeah — and I'm going to die pretty soon." And they go, "What? How is that a good idea?"
So Peter goes to him and rebukes him: "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you." But Jesus turns 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."
Poor Peter — who goes to Jesus and just wants to love him, who just doesn't want to see his friend suffer and die. He doesn't understand the mission, the reason why Jesus came. He doesn't understand the proclamation of the gospel that you can only get after Jesus dies on the cross and rises from the dead and proclaims it to the disciples, who then proclaim it to the church. There's simply no way he could understand what Jesus was doing, even though Jesus teaches it straightforwardly. How could they get it? The mission of Jesus is to suffer, die, and rise from the dead, so that all who believe in Him, even though they die, will live forever — so that when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead, we will have eternal life and live forever with our Savior.
We, the Church, also proclaim the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, that He is Lord. We proclaim this gospel message when we go out into the world and tell everyone that they should believe in Jesus. But I think one of the challenges we often face is trying to think about how we should package that message. What is the way that we should share the gospel with the world, especially with people who don't already believe it? We who are in the church get used to talking about Jesus — but for those who are outside, what should they hear?
I think many times we want to talk about Jesus in ways that would make sense to people outside the church. We'll talk about the effects He has, the things He does for us, and think about what other people might want to hear. What we end up doing sometimes, I think, is proclaiming Jesus in terms of the things of man, rather than the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't worry — I'm going to explain what I mean. Let's look at what Peter might have been thinking.
What Was Peter Really Expecting?
We don't actually know what Peter was thinking the mission of the Christ was, but we could take a guess. The messiahs of the past — the ones in the Old Testament, the kings, the judges, all the way back to the Maccabees in the intertestamental period — they were all military leaders. They would come and kick out whoever was conquering, whether it was Gideon and the Midianites, David and the Philistines, or the Maccabees and the Greeks.
When you see a powerful, God-fearing leader come, you say, "Great! The Romans are gone — and better yet, this is the righteous one, the true King of Israel, who will be on the throne of David forever. He's even going to get rid of that bad guy Herod, take over the kingdom, and rule forever in this amazing kingdom. After that, he'll conquer the rest of the world, so that we can all live under our great King, the one true God."
We don't know if that's exactly what Peter was thinking, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility, given the Old Testament promises and the way messiahs had raised armies over and over and over. That's certainly putting your mind on the things of man, and not the promise of everlasting life that Jesus gives — because He explains: 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.
See, the mission is not conquering armies, but resurrection from the dead — suffering, death, rising from the dead, and eternal life for all who believe in Him.
Four Ways We Still Misunderstand Jesus' Mission
Peter's misunderstanding makes me think about the ways we sometimes think of Jesus in our world as well.
Jesus as a political tool. Many people present Jesus to non-Christians as a way to change the culture, as a way to bring order to the disorder we see. Lots of people look around, look back into the past through their nostalgia glasses, and say, "Back when we were a Christian nation, everything was amazing, and the way to get us back there is for Christians to take over all the institutions and have a revival of Christianity." And this is why people should share the gospel — why everyone should believe in Jesus. But this is just using Jesus for your political purposes. Whether it's to restore some old nostalgia or to free the people who are oppressed today, that's not the mission of Christ. Jesus did not come to change a culture; He came to die on a cross and rise from the dead to give you eternal life. There is sometimes a side effect of that — that those who believe in Jesus have a renewed heart and a renewed spirit, and we desire to obey Him — but it doesn't mean that God is out to take over any kind of political movement or to make any certain country great. The kingdom that Christ brings is a kingdom that is not of this world; it outlasted the Roman Empire, even conquered it after a little while. It outlasted every nation. Cultures rise and fall, nations come and go, but the kingdom of God lasts forever — a kingdom that is carried in the message of the gospel for a people who will die and then rise on the last day, and when Jesus comes, He will judge the living and the dead. This is the heart of the message.
Jesus as a life-lesson dispenser. Sometimes Jesus is turned into a Jesus of life lessons — a Jesus who is there to give us good principles to live our lives by, so we can be happy, successful, and wealthy, or maybe just better than we used to be. This idea is not new; it goes back a long way. The age of rationalism came out of the Enlightenment, and many people looked at Holy Scripture, especially in the 1700s and 1800s, and said, "We have grown past this superstition, this spiritualism of the old religion. What's really at the heart of who Jesus is, is that He teaches us to be good people, that He gives us good rules to follow."
Great thinkers of the day — including people like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin — were all influenced by this idea of rationalism: that really, at the heart of Christianity, is obeying God's moral law so that we would all be good people. The philosophy was simple: the miracles and spiritual teachings of the Bible were there for people long ago; today, what we really need is to do the right thing.
Now, that idea of rationalism and moralism has passed out of fashion, but the idea that life lessons from Jesus are the primary thing we learn from Him is still going on today. It's a new kind of rationalism, where Jesus is someone who gives us principles for a good life. You've probably seen books on leadership talking about "servant leadership lessons from Jesus," how to be a good CEO. You may have even heard sermons on "seven biblical lessons for being a good parent." I remember watching a video of a Sunday school class that talked about the story of Elijah going out into the wilderness and receiving a promise from God — and the life lesson was, "If you just trust God, you can be like Elijah too. If you just do the right thing, God will bless you."
Sometimes, when we go out into the world, we tell people that Jesus is there because He gives us a better life — that when you follow Him, you might love better and serve better, that you'll have a new perspective on your relationships. And all that does is turn Jesus into a tool for a better life — Jesus is there to make me into a better person, rather than to raise me from the dead. Because the mission is just that: Jesus came to die on a cross, rise from the dead, ascend into heaven, and He will return to raise you from the dead. That is the heart of His mission, and it's only through faith in this gospel message that Jesus changes our hearts so that we can be servants, so that we can love like He does. But we don't lead with that. We share the gospel message because salvation is at the heart of it. Sometimes it doesn't work out that your life gets better when you have Jesus. Sometimes you end up being persecuted, like Jeremiah the prophet was in our reading. Sometimes you end up kicked out of your home, arrested by authorities. Sometimes you suffer and die — which is why Jesus says, "For anyone who would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?"
Jesus as a cosmic therapist. I think just as often, though, we think about Jesus as being a cosmic therapist. When we say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," we point to the comfort we have in Jesus — that He is always with us, we're never alone, that coming to church makes us feel better, that when I pray to Him, I feel good. And this is true — we actually do receive comfort from Jesus. The great gift of the gospel helps us in every single situation. He promises He is with us always, to the very end of the age.
But why do we have this comfort? Why is it that we can turn to Jesus in any situation and be comforted, no matter how bad or good our life is? Christ is with us because He came to suffer and die on a cross and rise from the dead, so that no matter what happens to you, you have eternal life.
If Jesus is only about making us feel good, He might as well be ChatGPT. Because when you go onto these AI platforms — you can go to Claude or ChatGPT — they are extremely accommodating, and we see people getting into relationships with these chatbots because they are always happy with you. No matter what you say to them, no matter what you do, you are the most brilliant person on earth, and they will tell you that, and they will encourage you and "love" you, and there's no accountability. They never say, "I'm sorry, I'm a little tired today — can we try that next week?" They never tell you that maybe what you're doing is wrong, or a sin. Most importantly, the relationship is just kind of fake.
We can get comfort from a lot of places, but the real comfort — the only comfort Jesus gives us — is that no matter what we face, on the other side of the grave is eternal life in our Savior. It is not a fake comfort that we get just from praying or from chatting with a chatbot or a therapist. The comfort of Jesus Christ only exists because He came to suffer, die, and rise from the dead, with the promise that you too will rise just as He did. That is a sure and certain comfort you can cling to — just like Peter did.
Peter's Comfort, and Ours
Peter, like most of the apostles, didn't have an easy life after Jesus ascended into heaven. His life ended — legend has it — when he went to Rome and was crucified upside down. I bet that didn't feel very comfortable. And yet he did have comfort, because he knew that even though there was pain and death in that moment, the grave was not the end, but a doorway to everlasting life — that just as Jesus died and rose from the dead, Peter would follow the same path when Jesus returns.
So whether we are speaking to one another or sharing this gospel with the world out there, let's remember: Jesus is not a useful tool for our worldly goals. He is not something that points us to bettering society, or bettering our lives, or even being some sort of cosmic therapist. Jesus is someone who came to die and rise from the dead, so that you too will rise on the last day. And whatever comfort or benefit we get from Him always flows from His death and resurrection — that is the center of His promises.
In Jesus' name. Amen.