There are those who are convinced, those who will remain unconvinced, and others who just don’t know.  What’s the necessary element, the catalyst, for conviction, for belief?  In science, it’s repeatability or, at the very least, an explanation that appears adequately to account for and explain facts and observable phenomena.  Psychologically, the necessary element for belief is the personality.  Theologically and scripturally—what especially concerns us here today—the element necessary for belief is Spirit, which means God.  For centuries, the teaching that has troubled people is that belief and disbelief are in the hands of God.  What about freedom, will, choice, personal decision?  Belief and disbelief are in the hands of God.  Maybe that seems unfair.  Does God owe humanity something better, after all we’ve done for Him?

At the heart of Reformed theology—the point of view offered in this church—is the sovereignty of God.  Like so many church words, sovereignty is not one we use much outside of church—not even in church!  The term doesn’t just mean God is King, which itself maybe doesn’t mean all that much to us twenty-first century Americans, anyway.  The sovereignty of God means that all things, all things, all things, are in God’s hands.  The sovereignty of God means God owes no one anything, which is a stern way of saying that what God does for us is all grace, if God does anything for us, for people—like, you know, allow them to live and breathe and find happiness and productivity in life, to have food, love and friendship, success and growth, and to wonder about things.  All grace.

The sovereignty of God means that faith is a gift of God, not some random fluke or trait unique to a few, rare, lucky ones.  The sovereignty of God also means, no matter how kind and decent we believe we are, our kindness and decency do not and will not make us right with the Lord: no one is good, by God’s measure.  God doesn’t have unreasonable standards.  The sovereignty of the Lord means God, seeing and knowing all of us through and through, and not being in the least impressed with any of us, not remotely impressed with me—quite the opposite, actually!—still, graciously and freely chooses—chooses—chooses—to gather some to Himself.  Our election is never a call to pride in ourselves, let alone self-congratulation.

It’s not our surpassing excellence that caused God to choose us.  What caused God to choose us is the character of God.  Let our election in Christ always be for us a source of wonder, humility, praise, service, gratitude, sacrifice, love, and prayer.  And let us always pray that the Spirit would continue to call others to God.  May it please Him to employ us for that very purpose.

Jesus travels through the northern limits of Jewish territory, through Gentile towns and cities, which were not necessarily hostile to Jews but were alien to Jewish ways.  I wonder what it was like for Jews, who believed all that region was the land given to them by God—how difficult was it, to see how the land was full of all unrighteousness?  I’m not just talking about pork roast and grilled shrimp.  How much harder for Jesus, as he traveled, to see what people were doing without much guilt or remorse, to see how people treated one another, regarded one another!  And how difficult for Jesus also to encounter, again and again, what had been done with religion in the name of faithfulness to God!

In what we heard today, Jesus and those who choose to follow him—those touched, turned, by God’s saving grace—are on the road again.  Why is Jesus going here and there?  Is there a plan, a purpose, in his itinerary?  He will take a decisive turn for Jerusalem soon, but, before that?  Is he just sort of wandering?  I suppose, beloved, the best explanation is that he goes according to the Spirit.  Maybe he’s trying to show his followers what journeying that way looks like.  What does it look like, after all, really, to go according to the Spirit?  How do we know?  Are there any sure signs that we are?  And are there indications that we have gone astray, again?

Along the journey, up in the far northern stretches of the region, deeply pagan territory—within the promised land—Jesus asks a pointed question: “Who do people say I am?” (8:27).  What do they believe?  There are different responses, we know.  “They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets’” (8:28).  So, his followers are listening, maybe even asking, talking with people.  That’s good.  That’s hopeful.  Let us do so, too.  The answers the apostles are hearing are promising, hopeful: answers in the right direction.  What people say about Jesus, what they believe about Jesus, isn’t always so promising, as we also know: a great storyteller, a moral exemplar, an itinerant Jewish rabbi, the most misrepresented man of all time, a fraud, a lie, a fantasy, foolishness, weak, a doormat.  It’s not that people loathe Jesus, of course, they just hate what Christians have done to him, or, rather, what Christians have done to others because of what Christians have done to Christ—always wrestling Christ this way and that, to get him properly lined up with our hearts.

Apart from God’s grace, how would, how could our hearts ever get lined up with God’s Word?

Jesus, you know, he taught tolerance.  He taught God is love—if you’re going to believe in any God.  And if you don’t believe in any God, why Jesus is okay with that, because Jesus is loving tolerance.  And here I thought, and have taught, that Jesus was loving obedience.  But, obedience, what is that?  Listening.  Listening to God.  Listening to the god within.  The curious thing about that god within, I’ve always found, is that it sounds so much like me and what I want, like, and approve in any given moment: the appetites and desires that are uppermost—lowermost to be very candid.  That god within is the god of self-justification.

Jesus, you know, never condemned anyone—all he ever condemned was condemnation, which sounds a little odd to me, considering that Scripture makes plain that God condemns all kinds of things, and people—but that’s just it, isn’t it: God condemns but Jesus doesn’t, so who do you prefer?  Jesus loves the person and hates the sin, which sounds fine, which even I’m willing to allow, with qualifications.  Yet it remains strange to me how the one who loves the person and hates the sin will nonetheless condemn the sinning person to hell for all time.  But we don’t talk about that.  Why not just condemn the sin to hell for all time?  Except, can there be sin but no sinner?  What is sin when there’s no one to commit it?

But sin isn’t like a crime, to be committed—we’re so confused about that, and it sometimes seems we don’t have much interest in getting right about the matter.  Sin isn’t the mean, ugly things we do or say.  If that were the case, let’s just stop being mean, ugly people.  Sin is life our way rather than God’s way.  Sin is doing my will and calling it God’s will.  Sin is not much caring what any supposed God’s will might be.  Sin is life separated from God.

If God condemns the sinning person to hell for all time, how is that love?  Shall we really say, must we really say that God hates the sinning person?  Yet it isn’t as if God does nothing about our doleful state.  It is because God hates the sinning person that He sends the sinless person into this world, to call sinners to another life, another way of living, God’s way.  It seems the sinning person can be changed, and must be.  It takes a life-altering event for that change to happen.

A life-altering event.  Too often, perhaps, we think of that as a disaster: a terrible accident or illness, a ruinous misfortune.  In this world as it is, we are all too familiar with such sorrows.  But God comes to us from another existence, another life, to alter our lives.  God is always a life-altering event, and He is no disaster, for those who will receive Him, welcome Him, listen to Him, and follow the way He shows us.  Is His way so unappealing?

The sinless one comes to call sinners onto God’s way of life, God’s way to life.  This is a life-altering event.  How do we recognize that it is happening?  “‘But what about you?’ [Jesus] asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’  Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah’” (8:29).  It’s beautiful to me that this confession, this proclamation, this inspiration, takes place at almost the midpoint of Mark’s account, as though Peter’s wondering response were at the very heart of the Gospel.

People will say what people will say about Jesus, and each answer gives us something to think about and maybe elicit a response in our emotions: happiness, sorrow, confusion, hope.  But what matters most is what each of us has to say in answer to the question Jesus asks, because he does ask.  He asks each of us, personally.  The Church can’t answer as a whole, not even for the whole.  The Church lifts its answer, in Word, song, and prayer, in deeds of charity, compassion, kindness, and invitation.  But the Church can’t answer for you.  You have to answer for you, and Jesus is asking.  He knows our answer because he knows our heart, knows us through and through; he wants us to know.

People can think they know but don’t.  Sometimes we think we don’t know until we realize we truly do.  Peter suddenly realized he knew; he wasn’t even sure how or why he knew.  He just knew, and oh, how his answer filled, lifted him!  Peter wasn’t a man given to tears, and he wasn’t afraid to cry.  What he suddenly knew, fully, beautifully, life-alteringly—it put a crack right through him, and he almost showed it.  God, you’re here!  You’re really here!