1. St. John’s University is apparently known for being a theological school where intellectualism is highly regarded. Someone wrote the following graffiti on one of the walls there:
Jesus said unto them: “Who do you say that I am?”
And they replied: “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships.”
And Jesus said: “What?”
Whoever wrote that graffiti was basically complaining about some of the names and expressions that men had invented to try to define Jesus.
2. It is difficult to come up with a one word description of Yeshua (Jesus) – Son of Man; Son of God; Messiah (Christ); Holy One; Nazarene; Prince of Peace; etc.
3. Matthew 16.13-20
4. Easy to criticize Church
Worship service; sermons; building; bulletin; leadership; programs
Church is not the place many want to go – bad impressions;
Christians see church as “their” organization – the Chi Omicron Chi fraternity
5. This Passage has real impact on our lives – climax of Yeshua’s teaching ministry; a type of final exam for the apostles (sink or swim – one question); our answer to this question is key – our eternal destiny centers on it;
I. A Key Observation
A. Looking Out to Others
The difference between a conviction and a preference, according to the U.S. Supreme Court:
A preference is a strong belief, but a belief that you will change under the right circumstances. Circumstances such as: 1) peer pressure; if your beliefs are such that other people stand with you before you will stand, your beliefs are preferences, not convictions, 2) family pressure, 3) lawsuits, 4) jail, 5) threat of death; would you die for your preferences? A conviction is a belief that you will not change. Why? A man believes that his God requires it of him. A conviction is not something that you discover; it is something that you purpose in your heart (cf. Daniel 1-3). Convictions on the inside will always show up on the outside, in a person’s lifestyle. David C. Gibbs, Jr., Christian Law Association, P.O. Box 30290, Cleveland, Ohio 44130.
1. There was Speculation about Yeshua (Jesus) – John the Baptist; Elijah; Jeremiah; a Prophet
2. View of Messiah as political
3. Observations of Yeshua (Jesus) – Rabbi; miracle worker; not politician
4. Today? – Good man; good teacher; ethical; ONE way to heaven (John 14.6); other views of Messiah – USF student – He will return as he came via a woman
B. Looking In to Self
1. Great Confession – “Messiah-God” (literal translation in Hebrew)
A very short boy wanted so badly to play basketball. He even told his Dad that he wanted to become a pro when he was older. Knowing that his son would never be able to play the game, the Dad asked the local coach if there was anything that he could recommend to make the boy taller. "You might take him down to the museum and put him on that old torture stretch rack," the coach said. Several weeks later the coach asked the father if putting the boy on the stretch rack had helped. "Well, it didn’t make him any taller, but he confessed to several things that I never knew he did," was the Dad’s answer.
[Inquisition/Modern Muslims
2. Incarnation – Atonement – 1 Corinthians 1.22-24
22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
II. A Key Inspiration
A. Encountering God
1. We are to KNOW God – not know about God – Jeremiah 31.33-34
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
2. More than mental knowledge
3. Enoch-Abraham-Moses-Yeshua-Apostles-Disciples-US?
4. Holy Spirit – John 14.15-17
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
B. Encountering God Brings:
1. Responsible Stewardship – Keys to the Kingdom
And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. Isaiah 22.22 cf. Revelation 3.7; Acts 2
Henry Blackaby - the author of “Experiencing God" writes: “We should attempt things so great that they are doomed to failure unless God intervenes.”
2. Reasonable Judgment
a. Bind/Loose – Idiom – forbid/permit – judgment calls for the gray areas
b. Gentile Converts – Acts 15
c. Paul’s comment on marriage – 1 Corinthians 7.10-13
10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband 11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.
12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. 13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
III. A Key Construction
A. The Builder is Yeshua (Jesus) – “I WILL build. . .” (not just future – fact)
1. HIS church
2. HIS initiative
3. We add by our intentional actions
[Training for Follow-up Surveys to Door to Door Flyers – February 25
B. The Building
1. Church = ekklesia (called out; Greek); kahal (community; congregation; assembly; Hebrew)
2. Living Temple – Ephesians 2.21-22
21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
3. Significant Stones 1 Peter 2.4-5
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
4. Purpose/Place
C. The Base (Foundation)
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. Matthew 7.24-25
1. Truth of Yeshua (Jesus) – Petros vs. Petra
2. Yeshua is the chief cornerstone – Ephesians 2.18-21
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
3. Apostles (2.20)
4. Quarry of Abraham – Isaiah 51.1-2
1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the LORD:
look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him,
that I might bless him and multiply him.
God does prefer one way of living over another. And that which He prefers is based on a bedrock commitment to His word and His ways. And the results are always supernatural.
A TV camera crew was on assignment in Southern Florida filming the widespread destruction of Hurricane Andrew. In one scene, amid the devastation and debris stood one house on its foundation. The owner was cleaning up the yard when the reporter approached.
“Sir, why is your house the only one standing?” asked the reporter. “How did you manage to escape the severe damage of the hurricane?”
“I built the house myself,” the man replied. “I also built it according to Florida State building code. When the code called for 2x6 trusses, I used 2x6 trusses. I was told that a house built according to code could withstand a hurricane. I did, and it did.”
One of the commercials that we see and hear a lot on the TV and radio right now is aired by the “Cable Lock Foundation Repair Company”. This company will come in, dig down and anchor your home on huge concrete pilings up to 90 ft deep and run huge cables under your home to lift and hold your foundation of your home. I wonder if they think that those pilings and cables will last forever? Sooner or later the pilings will sink more and the cables will rust away and break. Where does that leave your foundation?
• How are you doing on your own? Yeshua (Jesus) offers stability to your life.
• Death itself cannot stop your success – because of the resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus).
