Confession of St. Peter

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Acts 4:8–13; 2 Pt 1:1–15; Mk 8:27—9:1; Ps 118:19–29; antiphon: v. 26   –     1/18/26

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the course of preparing the text for today, I learned that we ought to be holding the feast of the Confession of St. Peter on the 22nd of February, were it not for Lent. It turns out that historically, the 22nd of February was the stronger traditional day until Rome, in response to the Lutherans restoring the feast, moved it on their own calendar to today. Humorously, pope John XIII in the 1960s undid that move just in time for much of Western Christianity to have already adopted the wrong date. So, depending on the start of Lent next year, we might celebrate this feast on the correct day.

Our readings provide two lessons I would like us to understand today, that of faithful confession and that of faithful living. Previously, when we had this text last, my first year here, I believe, we would have looked at the Matthew reading: Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:15–19) And we would have considered what Jesus meant by saying, you are Peter, which means little rock, and on this rock Petra, which means large boulder, I will build My Church. If we follow the use of the term rock, whether the Greek Peter or Petra we find that Christ and the confession of Christ are what Jesus means: Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon a rock a Petra, in Matthew 7:24. And St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:4, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock Petra that followed them, and the Rock Petra again was Christ. Still we also see in the New Testament that the little rocks, Peter in the Greek, are built into the Church upon the foundation of Christ.

A faithful confession, then, is one that confesses as St. Peter did that Jesus is the Christ, that is, the Messiah and God who has come to save mankind from sin. Any other confession is unfaithful and unsaving. This is why we repeat the creeds of the early church every Sunday and require our confirmands to memorize one of them, so that we are all faithfully confessing alongside St. Peter and the church throughout the ages that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. This is also why, though we disagree in matters of doctrine, we do not deny that true Christians can and are also found in the other denominations where the creeds are confessed.

However, we must also be careful to read and understand all that God has said in this book He has given us. Repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments God instructs His people to keep all of His commands, His Word, such as in Exodus 20:5–6, I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. And John 8:31 and 14:21, So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,” … Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Thus when God says something like, Baptism now saves you, as He did last week, we must separate ourselves from those who deny that forgiveness and regeneration are given us by God in Baptism. Or when Jesus says of His Supper, take, eat, this is My Body… take, drink of it all of you for this is My Blood, faithful confession of God’s commands would require that we not commune with any who deny those words, for we are in communion with God and all the faithful Church throughout the ages when we receive the Lord’s Supper here, but when we go among those, some or many even genuine Christians who have been incorrectly taught, who deny Baptism, deny the Supper, deny justification, if we were to commune with them we would be confessing that their false doctrine is also ours. We cannot know their hearts, but we can know their public confession and so, without denying earthly friendship if it is offered, for Christ’s sake and the faithful confession of His Word refuse spiritual unity. As St. Paul says, there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. (1 Cor 11:19)

The unbeliever will see our divisions, not understand, and think Christianity is made up. Thus we must make faithful confession of all that the Scripture says so that the unbeliever will see the truth in God’s Word. Faithful confession is to confess Christ crucified for the sinner and to take Him at His word in all that He says to us. Unfaithful confession is to change or deny that Word, to scratch itching ears (2 Tim 4:3), to suit one’s own desires and opinions, as we see Peter do soon after He confessed Christ, And Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Peter does not want to see Jesus suffer, and yet denying Christ’s death dooms humanity, thus Jesus rebukes his false confession. Any confession which shifts the Church and Christian away from Christ crucified for sinners, is a false one and one that cannot lead sinners to repentance and faith. Thus the prosperity gospel preachers, the liberation preachers, the progressive preachers, the evolution preachers, the good works preachers, all mislead their people away from Christ and His Word. Rather, preachers and Christian confessors ought to listen to those Greeks who approached Philip and said, Sir, we wish to see Jesus.

What then of faithful living? First see what Jesus Himself says to the people, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Making a faithful confession also involves all of our life and possessions. As I have often warned you, when persecution comes, you may be asked to give up not only your possessions but also your life for Christ. Therefore Jesus warns, For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. What does it mean to give up your life for Christ and for the Gospel? It means to suffer even death rather than deny what you confessed in the creed today; to die rather than say Jesus did not become man; to die rather than say Jesus did not cover all your sins on the cross; to die rather than say that Jesus is not God. And if you die in such a confession you will find that you have not lost your life but gained eternal life. But if you deny any of the creed and then die, woe be to you for Jesus warns, For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Therefore, any who are weak in the time of confession or persecution and deny Christ’s commands, His Word, the creed, of such a faithless false confessor Jesus will be ashamed. How indeed will unbelievers turn to Christ if Christians don’t value faithful confession more than life?

How we prepare to endure under persecution and make the faithful confession of Jesus the Messiah, St. Peter tells us: through strengthening our faith in good works. First, St. Peter explains how God saved us through the death of Christ, and gives us as a result these goods: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, those being forgiveness, life, and salvation, covered by the waters of holy baptism and sprinkled in the blood of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. But St. Peter has more to say. God gave us these gifts so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. The human nature we have inherited from Adam reaps only death, so to partake of the divine nature in Christ means the overcoming of sin and its consequence: death. As you heard last week, when you are baptized God puts His name upon you, you bear Christ on your person and so are freed from the corruption of the world and equipped for good works. Thus St. Peter continues by urging you all on to practice your faith through virtue.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is through good works that God has called us to live, as St. Paul says in Ephesians 2:10: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And St. James reminds you that our faith is shown by your works, and thus through virtue and good works the truth of God’s Word is shown to the unbeliever, as Jesus says, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (Jn 13:35) Yet you do not do good works to earn God’s favor, because you already bear Christ in your bodies you already have God’s favor, but you do them because they are pleasing to God and are how He exercises and strengthens your faith in His Word, and though the exercise of faith you confess Christ by your very actions to all the world.

But there remains also a warning to us all, For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. While you cannot know the state of the heart of another Christian, you can know your heart and examine your own practice of virtue. If you see you lack virtue, if you see you do not engage in good works, then your faith is weak and failing, you must repent your sloth and at once go to your brothers in Christ that we may pray for you and help you make these qualities part of you. Come to me, your pastor, that I may give you Christ’s forgiveness and the comfort of His holy Word through the work of the Office of the Keys. Otherwise the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh will have and own you once again. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.

Thus St. Clement writes to you, “This world and the next are two enemies. The one urges to adultery and corruption, avarice and deceit; the other bids farewell to these things. We cannot therefore be friends of both; and it behoves us, by renouncing the one, to make sure of the other. Let us reckon that it is better to hate the things present, since they are trifling, and transient, and corruptible; and to love those which are to come, as being good and incorruptible. For if we do the will of Christ, we shall find rest; otherwise, nothing shall deliver us from eternal punishment, if we disobey His commandments. For thus also saith the Scripture in Ezekiel, ‘If Noah, Job, and Daniel should rise up, they should not deliver their children in captivity’ (Ezek 14:14, 20). Now, if men so eminently righteous are not able by their righteousness to deliver their children, how can we hope to enter into the royal residence of God unless we keep our baptism holy and undefiled? Or who shall be our advocate, unless we be found possessed of works of holiness and righteousness?” (7.518)

Who indeed, will be your advocate if you rely on the strength of your own sinful flesh? But we have an advocate with the Father (1 Jn 2:1), and further, St. Paul offers you this encouragement in Philippians 1 and 2, And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (1:6) … for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (2:13) Thus you need not worry about what you will say or what you should do For God will both provide the words and the deeds that you are to do to witness to the unbeliever. Your task is simply to accept the work given and, As St. Paul says, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8) And think especially on the crucifixion, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Christ. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen