Bible Passage: Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ – Matthew 16:13-23
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Amy Lively
Can I Borrow A Cup of Hope?
When the pain and problems of life barge in, hopes and dreams run out. In these uncertain seasons of personal crisis, national chaos, and global catastrophe, it’s easy to wonder if life will ever be anything but sorrow and despair.
The apostle Peter knows exactly what it’s like when hope is gone. He watched as the Messiah was arrested, crucified, and buried. And Peter himself failed almost every test of his faith, even with Christ right in front of him. But he also knows that God is faithful and true, carrying us through our harshest suffering and redeeming our heaviest regrets. Bible teacher, author, and speaker Amy Lively dives into Peter’s first epistle, a short letter with a lot of power, to light the way for today’s struggling Christian. In this daily Bible study, she guides readers through the beautiful story of Peter and shows how he embodies the way to set our hope fully in Christ alone. With gentle honesty and a touch of helpful humor, Amy helps readers understand that when it feels like the end of the world to them, it’s just the beginning of the power of Jesus.
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Episode Transcript
The following transcript is AI generated. Please excuse any errors or inconsistencies.
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Amy Lively, welcome to Live Like It’s True. Oh, so good to be here with you, friend. I so appreciate you. Now, we are friends in real life because of, where did we first meet? Was it Speak Up? We met in person at Speak Up, but my agent told me about your book and I loved your style, your perspective, your wisdom, your wit, and your haircut. And so as soon as I saw you, I was like, I need to be friends with this woman.
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And I thought, how can this ever happen? You just don’t pick up a book and then become friends with the author. And here I worked it out and we did. We got to meet in person. You invited me into your home and have been friends for years now. Yes, I have so enjoyed your friendship.
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And we do have the same haircut still, even after all these years.
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I love it.
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I hope I’ll ever change it.
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I know. It’s like at this point, I can’t go back. I try to make my hair look a little more, you know, like lay down, but it just does
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its own thing.
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So I might as well go with it, right?
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It has muscle memory, right?
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Yeah.
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Yes, it does.
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And it’s adorable.
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On you, anyway. You too. So let me read your bio for those who haven’t met you yet. Amy Lively is an author and speaker who teaches God’s Word as a how-to manual for loving him and loving others. Her new book is Can I Borrow a Cup of Hope?
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How to Find Faith for Hard Times in 1 Peter. I was privileged to endorse that book. It’s a great Bible study on 1 Peter, kind of a hybrid approach like my Comparison Girl and Control Girl books where you read the teaching part and then there are some Bible study questions at the end. I just love the way this book is put together, Amy.
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But you also wrote How to Love Your Neighbor Without Being Weird, and I love that too.
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That’s good.
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That one was harder to live and easier to write.
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The struggle is real.
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Yeah, in our world it is. It’s a hard message to live. But Amy, you are an Asbury Theological Seminary student studying biblical and theological foundations. You’ve been married 33 years and you and David live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and on the nature coast of Florida. So you’ve got two homes that you kind of toggle between, right? As MDs. Yes, and 34 years now. Just had an anniversary a couple of weeks ago.
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Congratulations. That’s fantastic. So we’ll send you some links to Amy and her ministry site. But I wanted to start, Amy, by telling you when my son Cade was about, I don’t know, six or seven or eight, he was always telling us that he wanted a rich house and a rich car and a rich everything. He would just put that rich word in front of all of his dreams. He just wanted a rich life. And then one day, we kept saying, honey, followers of Jesus may or may not be rich. You may, but it’s likely that
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if God gives you excess wealth, He’ll ask you to give it away. He didn’t like that at all. By the way, he has just accepted a job as a youth director, and I don’t think he’s going to get rich, but he is following Jesus. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. So the Lord has maybe fine-tuned his thinking about this. But I remember being at the home of someone who, to him, looked extremely wealthy.
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It was a really nice home that we were in. And he crawled up beside me on the couch and he whispered in my ear, and he’s like, Mom, these people are Christians. And look at all this. Like, I think you can be a Christian and be rich. I was like, it’s true, buddy.
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It’s true. But yet we don’t know if that means that for you. I don’t know. I wonder if sometimes we think of following Jesus as being blessed. You know what I mean? Like getting all the things that we want. And it’s when things go well, it’s when God answers my prayers and my
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family turns out the way I hoped and I’m financially secure and all of those things. And that’s the Christian life, right? And then we say, well, I’m not a Christian. I’m not that kind of Christian who goes through all that suffering stuff, right? Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that’s a lot of our motivation for making a decision for Jesus to be saved and to be rescued from hell and to have the promise of heaven. And then there is an unspoken, but sometimes very spoken, desire that then everything will go well with me. And we can lose sight of the suffering that Christ walked through, the suffering
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that we see other believers go through, and then sooner or later, I promise you will go through as well. Whether it is relational, spiritual, mental, emotional, national, global, or very personal. It gets hard. And if we have our hopes set on anything other than knowing Jesus, being with him, becoming like him, and enjoying him through eternity, if we have our hopes set at anything less than that, we’re going to be very disappointed.
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And a lot of people will fall away, whether it’s, oh, summer and I’m going to my cabin and I just don’t have time for that, or this is not what I thought, or this is hard, and I need to take back control and make things happen in my own way. So if we have our hopes set on anything less than enjoying Christ and knowing His presence
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is with us, we will be shaken.
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That’s so true.
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And there are many people who have the wealth and the prosperity and the health and the good marriage and the happy kids that we all desire for and admire and long for and strive for. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there is also, if you sit down with those people and hear the stories of their lives, there is always going to be an undercurrent of suffering. Sometimes that suffering is put on us from outside like it was with Christ. Sometimes it’s the suffering of our own bad decisions.
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Other times it’s suffering. To crucify ourselves and live for Christ is a kind of suffering. look at things on an eternal timeline and eternal perspective and Recognize that sometimes what we think is really good and wonderful and awesome It has come through a pathway of suffering and and that road is actually priceless and it is paved with gold It’s true Amy so good and we’re gonna see the the disciples of Jesus come to this realization
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In this story, I mean not a full revelation where they’re going to just start having their eyes opening to what their life of following Jesus is going to look like, right? When I invited you on the podcast, it was like in response to your brand new Bible study, can I borrow a cup of hope? I’m sorry, it’s not brand new. It’s been out for a bit. But I asked you, I’m like, you know, Amy, here on the podcast, we talk about narratives and 1 Peter is a letter, but Peter, there are so many stories in the Gospels about Peter.
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So is there a story that you’d like to talk about, like a backstory, that when you’re reading 1 Peter, it’s good for us to think about who was Peter and what do we know about him from the Gospels? And so you picked this story from Matthew 16. Why did you pick this one? What did you have in mind?
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Well, I so relate to Peter and there are so many stories about him. And when you read his letters, five little chapters, 105 verses, you think this guy’s got it all together. Like, oh, he’s giving sound advice. He’s got deep theology and practical advice all wrapped up in one. He, you know, he’s got it all together. But then when you realize that for every single thing Peter tells us to do in 1 Peter, there is a story throughout the Gospels and Acts of where he failed miserably to do just that.
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So encouraging.
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Yes, I know. It is for me because I happen to fail often. But so to understand the narrative of Peter and the life that he lived, Peter went from mountaintop highs, like quite literally, transfiguration highs of seeing Jesus in all his glory too. The very next scene, Jesus is literally calling him Satan. From these highs to these real lows.
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So how did he go from this place of sticking his foot in his mouth and being impetuous and not knowing what to say and falling asleep on the job, like quite literally, to being an apostle is because he learned to live like it is true How did he learn that and then the bigger question for me is how can I learn that? From from peter through jesus and then bring that into my own life and live like it’s true and this story I just i’m so with him right here in this little passage that we’re gonna break down
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So I I’d like for us to break this passage into two pieces. And we’re going to go from one of those mountaintops to a very deep valley, right, where Jesus says something really amazing about Peter. And then he’s going to say something really like not so amazing about Peter. So there’s this conversation Jesus is having with his disciples. And he’s asking them, what do people think? Who do they say I am? And they’re like, well, some
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say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah, others, you know, and Jesus says, yeah, but who do you say I am? And this is where Peter says something pretty magnificent. He says, you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And he kind of puts those two thoughts together. And here’s how Jesus replies. He says, you are blessed, Simon of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You didn’t learn this from any human being.
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Now I say to you, you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock, I will build my church and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. So Amy, what’s surprising about what Jesus, you know, his response to Peter here? Oh, so many things. The first is that, you know, Peter is putting all the pieces
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together. They knew he was the Messiah. They didn’t quite understand what that Messiah would mean. Was it a political thing? Was it a king or a ruler? But Peter gets it that this is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And so Jesus’ response to him is, you know, God hadn’t, the Father hadn’t really been talking to people for about 400 years. And so to have something revealed to Simon, who now gets a new name of Peter, is quite a big deal. And so Jesus tells him, you have a new name, it does mean rock, and then he uses a different
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word for on this rock, I will build my church. And in the Protestant tradition, we believe that rock is the confession of Christ as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And that is what the church is being built on. This is the first time the word church is used in the Gospels, and it’s only used twice in all of the Gospels. The rest of the use of the word church comes later in the New Testament. So, this is a whole new concept that I think with our 21st century Westerners, we just take it for
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granted. Church, church, church, it’s, you know, it’s a big thing, but this is, this is totally new. And then Jesus also grants an authority. I think we lose, like you just said, we lose the continuity of understanding how little they understood, right? So that, you know, the Bible has progressive revelation. Not everything is revealed from the beginning.
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There are hints that we can look back and they seem clear. But those who were studying the laws, the scrolls, you know, the prophecies, it was not clear like what Peter’s putting together here. This is a very novel idea. They knew that the Messiah was coming and that he would be born of the seed of a woman. Like that was revealed all the way in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve have sinned and God says,
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I’m going to send a Savior and this Savior will be born of a woman. So they’ve always known that this Messiah, this Savior, would be a human. But for him to say he’s the Son of the Living God, like, they had not put those two thoughts together. This is unique, right? Am I right on that?
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Yeah, it’s very unique. There’s so many different names and titles for Jesus. And we have such a hard time separating them out from what we already know to what they did not yet know. And then there’s a huge difference between knowing and understanding. And then, even then, the gap between understanding and living like it’s true. And so it’s all coming to them in stages. And Jesus, so I mean, in one
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sense, it’s amazing how he responds to Peter. But like what Peter has just said is pretty amazing. So it’s actually like maybe an appropriate response. He’s like, nobody told you this, Peter, this, this was downloaded to you from God, like God in heaven revealed this to you, open your eyes, because this isn’t no other human quite gets this and so now let’s though you were starting to say about his authority what is surprising about this authority that Jesus gives Peter? Well you know they um this concept of binding and loosing that was familiar to them
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because they had there were lots of rabbis and they had the pharisees and the shahaduses who were constantly permitting and restricting things. You may do this, you may not do that. They had law upon law upon law. But Jesus is saying that now this comes to, this authority comes to my church, my church, that he is going to build in a whole new different way. So it’s, they’re still kind of grappling with this. How does this new thing that we’ve been told fit into this old way of living? We get to make the laws now and then Peter right away is going to test this out.
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Yeah, we’ll see that here in just a minute. But so this authority, it’s like, you know, it says I’m giving you the keys of the kingdom, whatever you like, yeah, forbid on earth, it’s the binding and loosing like you’re you’ve got the authority. And it’s really like this authority, I think I read in a commentator, it’s the authority to communicate heaven’s terms. It’s not like it’s not like the church gets to decide who’s going to heaven or hell. No, the church gets to communicate the terms of heaven.
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Like that is our authority, right? Also revealed by the Father, not revealed by things that we make up and the way we like to do things, but revealed by the Father. And Peter would be the one who would get the message that all people are included in this, that this is for everyone. So they have the freedom to take this message from Jerusalem to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And so this is what they’re loosing.
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They’re loosing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world, all the way down to Shannon and Amy and the people of today. Yeah, we’re not Jews, right? And yeah, it’s going to be in Acts. Peter’s going to have that vision of the sheep coming down and the animals that, like the unclean animals.
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It’s like things are changing, Peter. And yeah, Peter’s going to be a part of all of that, like spreading, opening the doors, like the keys to the kingdom. He’s going to throw those doors to the kingdom open and invite all sorts of people that the Jews would have not really thought of as being welcome in this church. And I love that you brought up like this is the first time that
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word church is mentioned. It’s almost like he’s spreading out the blueprints. And it’s a completely different structure than anybody was imagining. And he’s not I’m not talking about a church building like I’m not talking right. Right. It’s the kingdom blueprint. Yeah, yeah. So it’s it is. There is an inside and outside of this kingdom. And, but the plan looks different. The former plan, what they were used to up until now
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was like this plan of you’ve got to be born in and you’ve got to conform to all of these rules and regulations for the Jews, these laws given by God. Like there were, you know, there was some, there were proselytes who entered, you know, like Rahab was maybe one of the first ones, I think, you know, because when Jericho, well, no, there
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were some before that even, like Moses’ father-in-law, you know, others who came and joined the Jews, like joined the Hebrew people.
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But you had to follow all those laws. Yeah.
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You had to follow the circumcision and all of the commandments, not just the 10, but the 613. A lot of them, right? Yeah. So this is going to look completely different than that people who are not born in and who do not come in by following laws, that the keys of the kingdom are, like the doors are loosed and open to them. This is very shocking. And so then, well, and let me just say this, what I think is so interesting about, like, why Peter?
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You know, why would Peter, why would the church, like, why would he be this rock, like him as opposed to maybe some of the other disciples? Really, what Jesus is reacting to is Peter knows who Jesus is. This is the first time that anybody has recognized you are the Messiah, the one promised from the beginning to be our Savior, and you’re also God’s son, all in one person. And so, Peter knows who Jesus is,
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and I think that’s a good word for us. Like, do we really know who Jesus is, right? And that’s, whether you’re on the inside or the outside, it starts with knowing who Jesus is, right? Yeah, it certainly does. And Peter was the first of many who would get that,
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and I think that’s why he got the new name. And it was again, it was not anything special about Peter. It was Peter’s confession that the church is going to be built upon. But you know, Peter goes on to extend that blessing to us, where he says in First Peter 2, you are like living stones who are being built up as the spiritual house. And so Peter was just the first rock built on the cornerstone of Christ. And then we all the saints throughout the ages are laid upon that foundation and row after row
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after row that we are the spiritual house of God where he dwells. That’s so good. Yeah, I like that distinction you made that it’s not built on Peter like a person. It’s built on his confession on the truth like that’s the church is built on the truth. And this is the truth that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. And I like to that you reminded us he got this new name, right? And in your book, did you call him Rocky?
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Just once, I don’t call him Rocky. But you know, it’s so interesting that Peter was not a name like we know it today is it as a as a person’s first name, last name, but it had never been used as a name before. It’s like us saying, your name’s gonna be Chair. You know, you don’t name people Chair.
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You don’t name, didn’t name people Peter or Rock or Rocky at that time like we do now. So it was a totally unique and wonderful thing. That’s really cool. Okay, so this is mountaintop experience. top experience and after that he warns the disciples not to tell anybody that he’s the
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Messiah. So this is not only like this big revelation, but it’s secret information, right? Jesus is doing things on his time. Yeah, his timetable. So okay, so then it starts in verse 21 with from then on. So can you read 21 through 23, Amy?
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Yeah. Yeah, so it says, from that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that it was necessary for him to 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. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, Heaven forbid, Lord, this shall never happen to you.
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But Jesus 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 mankind. Okay, so Amy, what’s surprising about this part? You know, we had the mountaintop where he’s like, you’re the rock, I’m going to give you the keys to the kingdom. Now what’s I don’t know what’s surprising here. Yeah, now it’s necessary that I’m going to go and suffer. And that’s just not what we expect. And I think at this point Peter’s like, wait a minute. I have the keys. I can bind and loose things.
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So I am going to put an end to this, which is our very, very natural inclination. I mean, it’s how God wired our brains. Something hurts. Stop doing that. Something is threatening you. Run away from it. And Peter is saying, no, I don’t want the suffering. I don’t want you to go and be killed. And, you know, this part on the third day be raised, we understand in hindsight was meant nothing to them at all, you know, in, in their context, when they’re hearing this for the first time. And so Peter steps in and says, Heaven forbid, we’re this is not how this is going to happen. Or far be it, get it away.
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This shall never happen to you. And Peter did not understand the necessity of Jesus’ suffering. Because if he would have been successful in forbidding the suffering, he would have forbidden the resurrection
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and forbidden the opportunity for those gates of heaven to be open to everyone forever. And so sometimes when we pray to avoid suffering, we just don’t really know what we’re asking. We don’t understand the glory and the power and the grace and the goodness and the new life that is waiting on the other side of that long, hard road of suffering.
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We just want the pain to stop. Yeah. So Christ’s suffering, though, is unique from all other suffering. And what I think is so interesting is that he’s so overt here. I mean, you know, you read these these texts that come afterward where the disciples are confused. They don’t understand like he’s going to Jerusalem and they come to arrest him.
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And they’re just like they’re blindsided. They’re not expecting it. They’re continually arguing about who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom. I mean, they’ve got the kingdom down. That picture is very clear in their minds that he’s going to be the Messiah. Like they’re thinking thrones and power and overthrowing Rome, you know, and Jesus setting up his rule here on the earth. And yes, all of those things
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are going to happen, but they’re going to happen after Jesus’s second coming, which we’re still waiting for. So this is just his first coming, and they’re kind of collapsing the two in their minds. You know, they’ve got all the prophecies, and they don’t recognize that there’s, you know, just like how it always is, Amy, consistently, if we read the Bible, what we see is there’s far more time lapses between, you know, when the prophecy is made and when it’s fulfilled than we first imagined. We’re just hopeful and expectant of it being immediate.
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And so I just find it surprising how overt he is. And Matthew, who’s writing this text that we’re reading right now, he remembers Jesus saying these very words that must have been after Jesus rose. They’re like, yeah, you know what, he did tell us this. He really, he was very plain. It says in our text right here, from then on, Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly.
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This was not, you know, hidden. This was not behind smoke and mirrors. He tells them three things, that he would suffer for many terrible things, he would be killed, and he would be raised. And so this is what Peter is referring to when he says this will never happen to you. This, this is suffering, killed, raised, like this is not going to happen to you. And yeah, and I completely agree with what you said about, you know, if these things didn’t happen, I mean, this would be the most devastating thing in the world. If Messiah, like there, it can’t be
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overstated, like for Jesus to not die, you know, if Peter got his way, this will never happen to you. All would be lost, right? Everything would be lost. Yeah, everything. Yeah, you can’t overstate it Good it all hinges on that, but I think that’s what happened with Jesus says to Peter You think differently than God thinks you are thinking about the human condition the temporal earthly things God is thinking about
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eternity and something much, much bigger than you can ever imagine. And this is a habit of Peter’s. You know, he does this continually thinking about the here and now instead of the heavenly later. Yeah. And it’s like what they’re wanting is for this, like it’s all the here and now and it’s
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all the prosperity, the health, the accolades, like all of the good things, like the good life. They’re thinking, hey, the good life. We’ve been living under this oppression for so long as God’s people, and we deserve, we have these prophecies, and we deserve to be freed. And let the good times roll is basically Peter’s hopes and expectations, and Jesus is like, uh-uh, suffering.
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And it’s like, what? This is so disorienting, right? Yeah, it is. And let’s not forget what Jesus says right after this, and this is in Matthew 16, 24. Then Jesus says to Peter and everyone else and to us, if you really want a life like mine, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.
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And if you want to save your life, you got to lose it. And if you want to lose your life, you’re going to find it. And Peter’s going to get this message. He is going to be able to live like it’s true after he walks out the rest of the story with Jesus. But this whole like we talked about this is the first time the word church is mentioned. How about the cross? The cross was a terrible instrument of torture. Wouldn’t work with this on your worst enemy. And Jesus is a take up your cross is something that, you know, we
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just we hear it with our ears of experience. But this was a whole new thing to have. This is what it looks like to be one of my disciples to really follow the Messiah is denying yourself and walking through this suffering of your own. For sure. So if we were to put that in today’s terms, maybe we would say, you know, strap on your electric chair and let’s go.
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You know?
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Yeah, no thank you. I’m good.
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It just doesn’t make any sense.
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Like what?
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You know, what kind of a, what kind of a savior is this? That a savior to die? Like, no, that doesn’t make sense. So it, it, it messes with us.
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Right?
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As, as it should, it should be shocking. It it’s not meant to be easy. To die to oneself and the cross always involves blood and sacrifice and pain. But it is so worth it. Jesus goes on to say in verse 27 there in Matthew 16, I am coming back with the angels and the glory of my Father.
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It will happen, just not on your timeline, just not as you expected. And like he says, and he will reward each according to what he has done, right? So there’s going to be rewards for this suffering. Okay, so Jesus is suffering. Jesus died once and for all for our sins. He suffered and died and it’s appropriate that, you know, all of the prophecies talked
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about him suffering. It’s kind of like they didn’t see it clearly. They weren’t expecting the suffering part somehow, but they’re in there, you know, Isaiah. I don’t think they expected it to be quite so literal. Yeah, maybe. Right. And like the cross, like this is probably the first time the cross was talked about as being part of the plan, right? Because cross is also shame, right?
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Yeah, it’s humiliation and absolute degradation. It’s a very public way to suffer. It wasn’t part of the equation, but like I said, Jesus suffered and died. His death on the cross wasn’t just a physical death. He was accomplishing this spiritual victory. He was dying in our place.
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You know, he took on himself. And I mean, listeners, like if you’re kind of vague on that. This is what this means. It’s like We have sinned against a holy God and and our offenses are counted against him Spiritually and the the penalty is eternal death eternal separation from God and so Jesus took that sin upon himself on that cross like There’s a verse that says our sin was nailed to Jesus’s cross, like nailed with him.
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That was Peter. Peter wrote that. Oh, Peter wrote that.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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You would know, wouldn’t you? Yeah, yeah.
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Nailed with his body to the tree.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So can we talk about how Peter eventually lived like this is so true? Let’s do it. Let’s do it. So if Peter hadn’t gotten it, if he hadn’t gotten over these mountaintops and valleys and been restored both in the eyes of Jesus and in the eyes of what would become this church. When they got his letter, they would have just thrown it away, but they knew that he
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lived like it was true, and that’s why we still have this letter with us today. And Peter uses the very same word that Jesus used in Matthew when Jesus said, it’s necessary for me to suffer. In 1 Peter 1, verse 6, Peter says, so now for a little while, if necessary, you are grieved by your suffering. He understands the necessity of it.
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But this verse is one of these verses that says, therefore, or in this you rejoice, in this suffering you rejoice. You have to look at what he said before that what what are we rejoicing about in the beginning of this chapter he gives this foundation of what it means to be born again through the resurrection of Christ and because Christ had this unique suffering and because he went in
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our place because of his mercy we are born again that that churchy word we hear all the time, I was born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And because of his suffering and his resurrection, we can rejoice, because when we suffer, we also bring glory to God. And it tests our faith, it makes it genuine. And it results in praise and glory and honor when Christ is revealed through our suffering. So Peter was able to preach it and then he lived it and he did take up his cross just like Jesus did in a very literal way as well.
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Yeah.
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Oh, that’s so good. So it brings glory to God when we suffer. That’s what I hear you saying. What about someone who doesn’t have a chance to suffer for God? Well, I would say that that’s an oxymoron. That is impossible.
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Well, I’m thinking like a child who dies or like the thief on the cross, you know, he was suffering, but he didn’t get a chance to suffer for the sake of Christ. Well, children is a different matter because we have what we believe is an age of accountability where they have not had the opportunity to deny Christ. And so there is a grace for children. But all of us, the way that we suffer for Christ is sometimes through persecution, like
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Christ received, but it’s oftentimes the suffering that we choose to enter into when we lay aside our rights for others, when we think of others as better than ourselves, when we love the unlovable, when we love our enemies, when we bless those who curse us, those are ways of suffering like Christ that may not involve the type of martyrdom and persecution that we see still happening around the world, but it’s our own personal suffering as we become transformed into the image of Christ.
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Yeah, that’s good. So, you know, there’s a suffering that happens to you, but there’s also a suffering that’s, you know, Jesus says, if anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself. So that is a form of suffering, right? And taking up his cross. So this is like a choosing to suffer in that I’m not just caving into myself and doing whatever I want to do, which is kind of what Peter is suggesting here in this Matthew text, like, this will never happen to you. It’s going to go the way we want. You know, this is like,
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we’re not going to deny ourselves, we’re going to like finally have all the things that we want. And Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan, you’re a dangerous trap to me. We’re not this is not what God would have God wants for me first, Jesus says to deny myself and then you as my followers to deny yourselves. And this is what brings God glory.
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So yeah, I think in that sense you’re right. None of us get to sidestep suffering, even if it’s not the suffering that happens to us. You know, I think Americans, we’re so, we have it so good and we have for so long. We forget all the suffering that people around the world have experienced and we kind of, I feel like we’re mushy.
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Yeah, we’re mushy.
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Yeah, we’re mushy.
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And we look at the tiniest little things and call them suffering. I’m like, I don’t know about suffering. Right. But I like this quote that you have in page 136. You said, suffering is more than what happens to you. It’s what happens in you when you give God his way in your life.
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And so there’s a way that we respond to suffering that transforms us that well it ultimately gives glory to God, right? It does it absolutely does I compare it to the suffering that happens when your house is ripped apart by a tornado unforeseen devastation and So many people go through that type of suffering whether it’s an illness or a divorce or
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Persecution persecution. So many people experience this suffering that they never saw coming and there’s nothing they can do about it. But then there’s also kind of suffering when we enter into our house and we decide to remodel and we take down all the walls and we strip it of everything that’s dated and ugly and it’s a hard living for a while if you’re in a house under construction but
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you’ve chosen it, you’ve planned it, you’re doing it willingly, even though it’s hard and costly. So the difference between a tornado hitting your house and choosing to remodel your house, they’re hard in different ways, but they both result in a devastation, a destruction, a demolition, and then a rebuilding, stone by stone, little stone by stone in the wall of stacking us up into that spiritual house. I love that, Amy. That’s so good. Thank you.
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So how can we live like this is true? Either we’ve just experienced the tornado, or we’re doing the demolition on our own volition, right? How can we live like it’s true that suffering will be part of our Christian life experience in the here and now? Well, I think that we can also again look back to Peter on this. Remember that Peter was the one who ran to the tomb on the first Easter Sunday and he looked inside and he saw the empty grave. And when Peter looked inside and saw the empty grave and then later met the resurrected Lord,
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it changed the way he faced his own suffering and his own death. And I think when we look into the face of the risen Christ and recognize that he has conquered everything for us, there is no fear of death and there is no fear of the things we face in this life. It will change the way we live our lives. Knowing how it ends changes how we are in the middle. That is how we live like it is true. And, you know, Peter’s death is foretold in the Bible in John chapter 21, where Jesus tells him, someday somebody is going to take you where you don’t want to go.
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But it is told in the history books. And so we can look to the history books of how Peter faced his own death. There was a historian named Eusebius, and he tells us how it happened. Would you like to hear how it happened?
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Yeah.
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I’m going to read you a quote from Eusebius. It says, When the blessed Peter saw his own wife led out to die, because that’s something we need to know that Peter had been, was married, and his own wife was martyred with him, he rejoiced, what he had just told us to do in first Peter one, because she was going home to the Lord. And he called out to her, encouraging her and comforting her. And he called out to her saying, Oh, thou, remember the Lord. Remember the Lord.
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And that’s how Peter and his wife faced the end of their own lives. And that is how we can face every single day. Remember the Lord. Remember his body nailed to the cross with all your sin out there with him. Remember the empty grave. Remember that suffering comes to bring glory and honor and praise to God. Remember that we are being called home. We’re not stuck
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here in this life and in this suffering. There is something so much more for us on the other side. And we remember the Lord. Man, that’s the kind of friend I want, isn’t it? Like if she has the same haircut, it’s a bonus. I want somebody who in those times of great suffering and confusion and pain will say to me, just remember the Lord. Don’t try to get out of it. Don’t try to heaven forbid everything, but remember the Lord and remembering Him helps me live for today. Like it’s true. Yeah, that’s so good. So the tornado comes, or there’s
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something that God has asked of me to lay aside my own desires, facing either one of those those the demolition or the feelings of in between and not feeling rested and settled and like this life isn’t my home and I’m not comfortable. I don’t like this. You know, mushy Christians, we might feel that more often than other Christians around the world.
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But, but facing that discomfort of suffering and saying, this is worth it. Remember the Lord. Remember what’s coming. Remember what what happened in the past and remember what’s coming. And it’s worth it. And I’m just going to, you know, one foot in front of the other day after day.
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That’s living like this story is true, right? It is. So, Amy, how are you taking up your cross right now? How are you setting aside, you know, the comfort of not suffering? How are you being conformed by, yeah, setting something aside and following Jesus? Oh, wow.
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That is a daily prayer that when things come into my life that are irritating to mildly annoying to utterly devastating, that I would remember the Lord and not have in mind the things of Amy, which are a good hair day, I’d like a new puppy, and life to be well. All of my people to know Jesus, world peace, gold medals, everything, and to say, you know what? Even if it doesn’t go like that, I am all in for following Jesus, no matter what that looks like. And asking Him moment by moment, what is the thing of God in this situation?
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Not the thing that I would desire, but what is it that you are doing in the lives of other people and in my community and my neighborhood and my home and my marriage and my family. And how can I cooperate with that? How can I excitedly look into what looks like a grave and know that there is resurrection life on the other side of it, if I will just suffer through it with Jesus? Yeah, so what’s our grave? You know, what’s the thing we’re dying to? Maybe our body’s dying, you know, little by little.
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Maybe some relationship is dying. Maybe there’s hope that’s dying, hope of something in the future. I can think of examples of each one of those in the lives of people that I love in my own life. And so, yeah, let’s go live like it’s true that Jesus himself said that we should deny ourselves, take up our cross, and that, you know, Peter was misunderstood and said, this will never happen.
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Well, no, actually it will. And Peter was transformed into somebody who encouraged all of us and even his wife there at the last minute, remember the Lord. So that’s how we can live it like it’s true today. Amy, thank you so much for joining me for just your deep study of the Word of God here in Can I Borrow a Cup of Hope? Where can people find you and find more about this book?
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Well, I’m easy, amylively.com, and they can find the book there. It’s on Amazon. Go to your local bookstore and ask them to order it. That’s the best way to support somebody, give them a little bit of hope. But I would love to connect with anybody who is walking through that suffering and just needs a refill of living hope in
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Jesus Christ. That’s so good. That’s so good. Thank you, Amy.