15. Who is Jesus?
November 28th, 2010
Who is Jesus
We are continuing on in our series through the Gospel of Luke asking the question: Who is Jesus? This is the most important question we will ever answer in our lives and this is what we see in our text today. Just because we know Jesus identity does not mean we understand who He really is and how that should affect our lives. We are in Luke 9:18. This is well into the third year of Jesus ministry and the disciples still do not fully understand who Jesus is.
Due to political pressures and rising opposition against Him from the religious leaders Jesus has been staying on the outskirts of Jewish territory for some time. Now He abandons Galilee altogether and travels twenty five miles north of Capernaum into the middle of Gentile territory. They are at Caesarea Philippi which is at the base of Mt. Hermon. The town sits at 1,150 ft above sea level and on a clear day you could see as far as Nazareth. This is a big moment for Jesus and the disciples.
The Jews have tried to force Jesus to become Messiah and He managed to get away from it but it has started really raising the question: who is Jesus? People are starting to talk about who He is and speculate about Him. They have made some good observations about Jesus but have not accurately discovered His true purpose or identity. So Jesus needs to make some corrections to their understanding of His mission and purpose. He is with the disciples and He wants to make sure they are on the right page. Notice it is not until after Jesus has sent the disciples out that they truly start to understand who He is and that He reveals this part of His identity. Jesus doesn’t reveal Himself to just anyone. There is so much about Jesus that we cannot understand until we take the step of becoming servants in His kingdom. The more Jesus becomes central to our lives the better we can see and understand who He really is. Verse 18:
Lk 9:18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” Lk 9:19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” Lk 9:20 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
Jesus starts off the moment by praying. This is His standard operating procedure for important events. Jesus doesn’t wait to pray until after a crisis He prays before the important events in His life. His focus is on syncing Himself with God in everything He does. Jesus prays then He asks the disciples two questions: who do people say that I am and who do you say that I am?
The Jews did not believe in reincarnation but they did believe that departed souls could possess or empower living people and give them special power. Some Jews thought Jesus was John the Baptists, some Elijah, and others that He was empowered by different prophets from their history. When they look back at their great leaders and prophets they see similarities to Jesus. Associating anyone else with one of these men who spoke the truth in the face of persecution and lived with a passion to do God’s work would be a great compliment. It is inadequate however to offer these answers to the question who Jesus is. They are seeing Jesus as empowered by someone from the past when those in the past are shadows pointing to Jesus.
Honestly, Jesus isn’t so concerned with popular vote. His identity is not defined by democracy. The reason He asks the disciples about the crowd’s opinion is to get them to start thinking about it. The real question is: who do you say I am? This is the most important questions we will ever be asked to answer.
Peter speaks for the whole group. Now Peter is a hit or miss guy. Sometimes what he says is really stupid, and sometimes it is brilliant but there is not a lot of middle ground with Peter. This is a hit moment for Him. Peter’s answer is that Jesus is Christ. Peter is not repeating information he heard somewhere else, this revelation of Jesus true identity is from God Himself. His confession of Jesus as the Christ is dead on. He is recognizing that Jesus is the king sent by God to do His work.
The title: “Son of the living God” was a Jewish title for Christ. It came from the idea that the Jewish God is actually living unlike the dead idols of the pagans. In response to Peter’s confession Jesus declares that Peter will be the foundation of the church.
Lk 9:21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. Lk 9:22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
The Son of Man is Jesus favorite title for Himself. It is used 81 times in the Gospels but only by Jesus to refer to Himself. This title was often used in the OT to show the ‘humanness’ or limitations and shortcomings of man. Jesus being God connects Himself to humanity even with the title He uses for Himself. Jesus is a man doing what only God can do. With all His miracles His title is to remind us that Jesus is human: He has felt betrayal, loneliness, temptation, hunger, and pain just like wee have. Jesus understands us and our struggles because He has endured them Himself.
God has revealed to Peter Jesus true identity as the Messiah. Just because Peter understands who Jesus is does not mean He understands what Jesus must do. Now that the disciples understand that Jesus is the Messiah Jesus has to remold their understanding of Messiah. Even though they have been closer to Jesus then anyone else they are still expecting the Messiah to be a physical leader with a physical army. They are expecting liberation from Rome not liberation from sin. The freedom that Jesus offers is far greater then what they expected. It will just take them some time to understand it. The same is true for us. A lot of times what we want from Jesus is far less significant then what He offers us. But if we don’t understand who Jesus is and what He is really offering then we can actually feel disappointed that Jesus doesn’t do what we want.
The kingdom the Jews wanted is not the kingdom that Jesus came to give. The Jews wanted a savior but not one who had to suffer. They wanted a political king not a spiritual one. They wanted Jesus to conform to their agenda rather than to have to conform themselves to His agenda. They want Jesus to be their genie in a bottle not their Lord on a throne. They hoped Jesus would give them what they wanted not what they need. Their goal and their faith is placed not in the man but in their desired outcome. This is exactly what we do with Jesus. We often want Jesus to be something He is not. We come to Him for what we want not for what He offers. Too often our faith is not in Him it is in what He can do for us.
Jesus predicts His death. His death is the end of His mission. It is the ultimate purpose of His coming to earth. Sort of a buzz kill moment here. Everyone is excited, Peter just declared Jesus is the Christ and then boom: I’m going to die soon.
Lk 9:23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Lk 9:24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Lk 9:25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
Discipleship is not easy. Following Jesus may cost you your life. Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily and follow Him. A lot of us love Jesus enough that if someone threatened to kill us for our faith we would gladly stand up and proclaim it. Dying for Jesus is easy. Living for Jesus everyday is hard. Living for Jesus means you have to learn to deny yourself. It means when you want to say something that might hurt your spouse even if you feel like its true or right, you don’t say it. It means guys you man up and you take care of your wife, you romance them, love them, and put their needs before your own. It means you teach your kids proper values, you spend time with them. You spend time with your family doing things together, loving them. It means you build one on one relationships with people in your life and you show them Jesus love in how you live and act every day. It means you help others in need and put their needs above your own. Dying to yourself means learning how to stop being so selfish and how to start caring about others just as much as you care about yourself.
Living for Jesus is not about doing the easy thing. It is about building relationships with people and bringing them closer to God. If you think that is always easy then you haven’t done for very long. If you don’t have several people in your life who you are building a relationship with who do not know Jesus then you need to go out and find them and start showing them Jesus love. Whether you are new to the faith or a mature disciple of Christ there is someone in your life who is further from Jesus then you are and you can help mentor and disciple them to grow closer to Him. We are inviting people to Jesus not to an expectation of what He can offer. That is what Jesus does, He is all about discipleship and that is what we should do.
Following Jesus means you stop living as the king of your own lives. You make Him the king. He gets to make the call. He sets the priorities. You seek Him and His decision on everything. It means you take the ‘I’ out of your life and make it about Him.
There is nothing in this world worth not following Jesus. You can lose your life to get stuff or you can lose stuff and get life. Jesus doesn’t want us to go after the benefits of Him: His blessings, healings. He wants them to come after Him. Following Him may bring blessings or it may bring suffering. The point is are you willing to follow Him whatever comes your way. If your life leads to a cross are you still willing to follow Jesus? We cannot answer the question: who is Jesus without changing your life. Either you radically follow Jesus whatever the cost or you miss Him altogether.
Lk 9:26 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Lk 9:27 I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
What we do in this life has eternal consequences. If you stand with Jesus now you can stand with Him at judgment. If you reject or ignore Him now He will reject or ignore at judgment. Even if following Jesus costs you everything in your life: if your friends abandon you, if your family hates you, if you lose your job or even your life it is still a wise investment. Jesus is worth following without any of the other stuff. Without miracles, without healing, without blessings, if you are never rich, if you are constantly ill Jesus is still worth following. You have to be willing to step up and follow Him.
Eternal life begins now. Either you chose to live for the kingdom of God or you live for yourself. Right now you are setting the foundation that your life is built on. Is your life built around stuff or is it built around Jesus? Is your life centered on Jesus or on your own hopes and dreams? This is not a question you answer with words or ideology. The answer to this question is revealed not in what you say but in what you do. Ultimately it is a question of who sits on the throne of your heart. Is it you, or is it Jesus? If Jesus is not inside your life then you have the wrong life. If He is in your life it doesn’t matter what your life looks like it is the right life. Either you are following Jesus or you are using Him to get stuff. Our understanding of a relationship with God needs to be built around Jesus not on our expectation of what we get with that relationship. Living for God is learning to live with a self sacrificing love. It means you make Jesus king and you live under His authority. His decree: go make disciples, and share my love with the world. Don’t just bring them in, build them up. Raise them to be leaders that they can go get others. We are sent out to show this world the love of Jesus. Our king has given us a task. Let’s go do it.
