He made it pretty clear this is what is about to happen. Now Jesus is responding to His Father's will. This is what the will of God is: I go to Jerusalem, I be put to death and rise on the third day. Now immediately Peter began to take Him aside and tell Him off. Now here's Peter, he just said - now this is the Lord. Oh! Ooh! You're the Christ, the Son of the living God! Then next minute he says excuse me. Now I don't want to disturb all the other apostles but I don't like what You're preaching. Forget this cross stuff. Forget this having to lay Your life down stuff. We're having a revival here. And it says this is what he said to Him. Now I'll get this and we'll finish. He said to Him pity yourself. Let this be a long way from You. Don't do this in other words. What You should be doing is looking out for Yourself. Now Jesus immediately reacted with an immense confrontation. Get behind Me Satan! You're an offense and a stumbling block to Me.
What - now anyone looked at that and thought boy, that's pretty tough? He's one of the apostles and now He's giving him a slap like - that's a big slap isn't it? That's a big slap. In anyone's terms that's got to be a big slap. You know, blessed are you Simon Bah-Jonah. You've had Holy Ghost revelation. Next thing, slap, slap, slap! You devil! That's a pretty big shift. What brought the change? Why did nice gentle Jesus turn into slapping Jesus? [Laughter] Come on, ask yourself what it was. There was something in what Peter said that fundamentally opposed the kingdom of God and it was this. Peter was wanting to use Jesus and His position to advance himself. Simply he's saying if you go this cross route - he didn't even hear about the resurrection. If You go down there to Jerusalem and they kill You and You get put to death, what will happen to the dreams of a kingdom? What will happen to my position? What will happen to my ministry? What will happen to me? It's all about me.
See people don't mind acknowledging Jesus is Lord, but you see what they want is a nice, a watered down Jesus, you know, a Jesus that's easy to take. But actually Jesus is the Lord, and He calls us to align with His purpose for our lives; not to just take what we like and use Him to get what we want. See that is offensive to any person. You imagine having a relationship with someone and all they want is to use you to get themselves ahead. You can't believe how offensive that is. It's incredibly offensive. It's offensive because you are devalued by their selfish motivation. Everyone picks it quite quickly. Now somehow as Christians we think I can use Jesus; Jesus, bless this. Jesus, bless that. Jesus, bless this. Jesus, bless - well listen. What are you doing to align yourself with God's plan in that area?
He doesn't just bless your plans because you planned them. He blesses what He initiated through you that's right with His purpose. So He gave him a huge slapping, notice here. Now Jesus Himself, so his mentality is preserve yourself, look after yourself, get yourself ahead. Jesus said listen, if you're going to serve in My kingdom you've got to understand you have to be a person under authority. You actually don't do what you want, you actually act as an ambassador for another person. And sometimes when you act as an ambassador for God you will lay your life down to the things you like and love and want, in order that He can be honoured and He in turn will bless and ensure that what you need is met - an amazing thing, see? Jesus wanted to confront him over this issue. You can't serve God and just do your own thing. He said I'm a man under authority, I don't even do what I want to do. I do what I see the Father showing Me to do. I'm a man under authority.