[RECAP]  You see, Reality #4 means that left to ourselves we will pursue our will in the Name of Jesus because we seek the interests of man rather than the interests of God.  And so we ask ourselves, ‘What is God forming in us?’

What is God forming in us?  The answer is:  Through the cross, Altared Hearts.  And we see these Seven Realties.  The first one:  You must do what you cannot do with what you do not have for the rest of your life.

The second one:  I will do what I can do through you.  I’ll take what little you have and I will multiply it and I will do it through you and I will involve you with Me and I will give you this place of opportunity.  You will be able to do what only I can do because I’m going to do it through you.

But you have to remember this.  You have to deal with the hardened heart.  Because, you see, a hardened heart is a heart that says the right thing but totally misses the point.  Peter, you’re right, He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (ref. Mt. 16:16)…Peter, you think like Satan! (ref. Mk. 8:33)  Why?  Because of this hardened heart our minds are misfocused, we pursue the interests of man rather than the interests of God in the Name of Jesus.  And left to ourselves, we will pursue our will in the Name of Jesus because we seek the interests of man rather than the interests of God. 

Like Peter, we may have a basis for some of our thinking.  He had prophecy.  He had history.  He had reality that gave him identity and that meant there’s a crown.  But Jesus brought Peter into what we can think of as a cross/crown decision.  Because Jesus said to Peter, ‘You must take up a cross.’ (ref. Mk. 8:34)  And this raised a great question mark in Peter’s mind. 

Let me help you understand what was going on inside of Peter.  Peter had established knowledge.  He had established knowledge based on the Bible.  All of his thinking was biblical in its foundation.  The problem is, it was distorted.  And his established knowledge, as we have said, spoke in terms of prophecy, history and reality that gave him a crown and that meant his identity.  So he had this established knowledge but his established knowledge ran into new information.  Brand new information.  And the new information was the cross. 

But you know what?  In the ancient world, the cross was an obscene word.  There’s a great quote from Cicero that says don’t even let it enter your mind, don’t even ever say the word, it’s an obscene word, let no one even think about, talk about, ever discuss the cross.  That’s Cicero.  It’s repulsive!  Just say one big ’No!’ 

So Peter had established knowledge, new information and his established knowledge ran into his core expectations.  His core expectations were a crown, not a cross.  And Peter stands there with this crown and this cross in his mind and this question - ‘which will I choose?’  Crown/cross?  Crown/cross?  Crown/cross?  I don’t know if that’s a very hard choice at all.

So we see him with his established knowledge, his new information and his core expectations.   We can see exactly what happened.   He went through the whole sequence and he goes right back to his established knowledge.  Why?  Because that’s how we work. 

See we have core expectations and when the Lord gives us new information - maybe it’s new information about me as a husband, and maybe the Lord is using my wife to say to me, ‘You have some needs, you’re doing some things, you’re hurting me.’  Then I go to my core expectations and I look at that and I think, ‘Well, that’s the way it ought to be.’  And I go right back to my established knowledge and I’m basically saying to my wife, ‘Adjust, live with it, I want my crown.’  That’s what Peter did.