When you think of Jesus, what mental image or picture comes to mind? Do you see Him as this indescribable and unknowable figure who lives in the sky, or do you imagine Him as a very personal confidante that walks beside you wherever you go? We all have some mental image of Jesus. The trouble is having the right one. What we believe about Him will directly affect every aspect of our lives.
There are many viewpoints about Jesus. Some people deny He even exists while others try their best to just ignore the entire subject. Still others seem to hate Him with a passion, leaving some others to love Him with an ever-increasing passion.
Why are there so many different thoughts on who He is? Could it be that most of us form our positive opinions based on nothing more than that is how we were raised and those who have negative opinions have based theirs on how uncomfortable it would be to change if they were to have a positive opinion of Him? Remember that one of the things humans hate the most is changing something about ourselves.
If you were to walk down a city sidewalk and ask ten people who they think Jesus is, I believe you would get at least twelve different opinions. Some would say he was a good teacher; others would say they don’t really know much about Him; and still others would say something very demeaning about Him. But you would find the occasional person who agreed that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
We need to find out for sure who He is; and rather than use other people’s opinions, let’s use the available FACTS to find out once and for all if He is, or is not, God. We will start by comparing how we feel about Him today to how the people of His day felt about Him.
There is a passage where Jesus is talking to His own people, the Jews, and they are questioning Him about His true identity.
John 8:57–59 –
“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you say you have seen Abraham?” And Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”
There is another passage where we find Jesus being questioned by the ruling authority of the day.
Mark 14:61-64 –
“But when they demanded an answer, Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
“I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
It would seem that we have the same opposition today about Jesus as they did back in the days when He was upon this earth. But again, how much of these feelings are based upon fact? We are going to find out today that very little is based on fact.
Most people hear a lot and also talk a lot, but they do not investigate a lot. What I wonder is if those people who do not believe in Jesus, or who deny His existence were to actually investigate Jesus using all of the available truth; would they change their minds about who Jesus really is?
Many people think that it doesn’t matter whether we believe in Jesus as the Savior or not. They think the main thing about Him is His teachings. They think that if we just apply His teachings to our lives, then we will go to heaven. That is akin to depending on “good works” to get us into heaven; it does not work.
The only thing that gets us into heaven is believing in WHO Jesus is, not WHAT He taught. This is shown in Matthew 16:13 when Jesus was talking to His disciples. He asked them who people said He was, but He did NOT ask what people thought about His teachings.
Any good teaching can teach us very good lessons, but to have those lessons be able to afford us eternal salvation takes more than a good teacher; it takes someone very special – it takes Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
If we quit trying to pursue Jesus when we hear His lessons, we will end up ignoring everything else about Him. Who Jesus was is far more important to our salvation than what He taught.
Okay, so if we are going to investigate Jesus, we must model our investigation on how a scientist might start his investigations. I think he would most likely gather as much proof as he could. So, we will do the same thing. What better proof than hearing eyewitnesses, and the more eyewitnesses we have, the better our investigation will be.
One piece of evidence is how Jesus arose from the tomb. Ordinary people cannot do that. So, if Jesus really arose from the tomb, would that not prove He was who He says He is? But how do we find out if He really did that or not? Were there any eyewitnesses? Yes there were. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, it is recorded that over 500 people personally saw and heard Jesus after He arose from the tomb. And these were not unidentifiable people; many of them were credible people and were known by many in their community.
Let’s also look at historical records. Jesus is on record as declaring Himself to be God. Just a few days before He died, He was paraded before the Jewish “Supreme Court” of the day; the Jewish Council, where the High Priest asked Him if He was the promised Messiah. In Mark 14:62 Jesus is recorded as answering, “I am.”
Another piece of evidence is the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of them were written up to 300 years before Jesus was born. They were sealed in pottery jars and hidden in caves where they were forgotten about for 1900 years. Nobody remembered them and there they stay hidden and unread, until 1947, when they were found by happenstance.
Now remember, these scrolls were written before Jesus’ birth, some up to 300 years before, but when they were compared with the writings that were written 1100 years after Jesus’ death, they were found to be 95% identical; even word for word. The major differences were in spelling and grammar. How is it possible that these writings, some 1400 years apart and written by men who did not have the chance to confer with one another, be so identical in content? Could it be that the One they were referring to actually is who He said he is?
Many people scoff and say there has never been any physical proof about anything in the bible. Even a tertiary investigation would prove otherwise. Archeologists have found the very house that Joseph and Mary lived in while staying in Nazareth. They found shards of pottery and clay oil lamps and other things that experts say did belong to them.
All this leads me to believe that people have not studied and investigated Jesus as much as should have been done; mainly because we humans do not like to work when we could relax and play.
But, when we do want to learn something, we always look for a teacher who has experience and knowledge in the subject at hand. We look for someone who has a reputation for being a good teacher. So, let’s do that right now. Let’s use Benjamin Franklin. He had knowledge and he had experience. And, by all accounts, he was a very good teacher, too. What do you think he could teach us about God?
In 1787, at 81 years of age, Mr. Franklin said, “I have lived a long life, and the longer I live, the more proofs I see that there is most definitely a God, but that He governs over the affairs of man.”
The main issue mankind focuses on is life; our life. But the central issue of life is not, nor ever has been, the control we have over our own destinies, but that we follow the One who does have that control and that we are obedient to Him.
The central issue of Christianity is not, nor ever has been, the teachings of Jesus, but on the very issue that Jesus is Lord and He is the Son of God. Everything in the bible revolves around our eternal salvation as afforded through Jesus Christ. So the central issue of everything important is that Jesus Christ is who He said He was: The Messiah.
As He hung on the cross that fateful day so many centuries ago, He did not say that whoever believed in His teachings would receive eternal life – but He did say that whoever believed in Him as the Son of God would receive that life.
It was not His teachings that made it possible for Him to arise from the tomb; it was the fact that He is God that made it possible.
Okay, so we are left with this; Jesus claimed to be God. In John 8:58, Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I Am.” But just because He claimed to be God does not mean He really was God, right?”
These are the only options left when figuring out who Jesus Christ really is. Either He was a liar, or He was insane, or He was telling the absolute truth after all. And if His claims to be God are true, then the Bible that records His claims must also be true.
We were made to worship God, our Creator. It is our natural instinct. As it is written in Jeremiah 31:33, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
All of this leads us to see the need to make a decision, and if we are honest in our approach and have been diligent in our studies, our decision MUST be that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. How do I know this? Because it is written upon my heart.
C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1898. He was a very educated man and was even a professor at Oxford University. But as esteemed as he was, he was also an avid atheist. It was during the latter portion of his tenure at Oxford that he began studying the bible in earnest, trying to prove God was false. But during the studies, something wonderful happened. Mr. Lewis came to know Jesus Christ as his Savior. Later in life, Mr. Lewis was an outspoken Christian and even wrote several books about God and Jesus.
I’d like to paraphrase what he said in his book, “Mere Christianity” where he talked about who Jesus Christ was.
Either Jesus is the Son of God: or else he is a mad man, claiming to be something no ordinary man could ever be. You can try to ignore him, or you can try to kill him as they did centuries ago or, you can take another approach; an approach based on fact. And that factual approach will lead you to know that He is God and we need to fall at His feet and call Him Lord. If we are honest, there is no other approach available in which to view Jesus, but as the Christ.
Adding to the list of written testimony about who Jesus is, let’s see a few more examples of what the bible says about this subject.
Galatians 4:4 says that God sent His son; born of a woman, while Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was without sin. 1 Peter 2:24 tells how He took our sins upon His own body, and 1 Peter 3:18 tells why Jesus came in the first place: It says He came to bring us to God.
The Apostle John even tells us why these things are written. In John 20:31, he writes; “These things are written so you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing on them, you may have eternal life in His name.”
There is a story about a gift that a wife got for her husband for Christmas. He was a policeman and she wanted to give him something very special, but she was limited in funds. She talked to the store manager and he agreed to let her have it now as long as she agreed to make regular weekly payments until it was paid.
She had a problem, though. She could not keep a secret, and knew she could not wait until Christmas, si she wrapped it up that night and gave it to him, in the last part of September!
A week later, her husband was called to the scene of a burglary-in-progress at a local drug store. As he got out of his cruiser and began to enter the store, he met the robber face to face just inside the door. The robber shot him three times.
An hour later, the wife heard the inevitable knock on the door, only to find a policeman standing there as she opened the door. Her breath was taken away as she realized what it meant.
The officer told her that her husband had been shot at point-blank range three times in the chest and was in the hospital, but the good news was he only suffered very severe bruises. See, the Christmas present she gave to him early was a bullet-proof vest and it was that gift that saved his life.
That is the same thing that God has done for you and me. We were created to love Him, but we chose to walk away and do our own thing. The problem with that is our own way puts us in harm’s way. But God loves us so much, He gave us a gift. It is also based on love, and God didn’t make us wait for it, either. And just like the vest, our only real safety is in that gift God gave us. And like that policeman’s vest, God’s gift is very expensive, too. It cost the very life of His Son, Jesus.
Have you been living with a question mark? Are you uncertain as to what you should believe when it comes to Jesus? If so, maybe it is time you just made a decision: A decision to believe or a decision not to believe. But your decision must be based on fact and not on rumor or other people’s opinions.
When it came time for Pilate to decide on what punishment to give Jesus, he asked himself one question. In Matthew 27:22, he asked, “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?”
How do you make that decision when you aren’t really sure what to believe? All you need to do is ask God to tell you what you need to know. If you ask, He will answer. However, by asking God to tell you, you are obligating yourself to do something; and that is to listen to God as He speaks to your heart.
God is very much the gentleman. He will not force you to believe one way or the other. He will lay out all the facts for you, but you are the one who has to make the decision. It cannot be made by anyone else. But you need to know something first.
You need to understand what consequences are and how they work. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, the consequence for your action is that you will hurt very much for a period of time. If you don’t believe me, I invite you to go home today and try it.
And as far as making a decision for or against having Jesus as your Savior, there are similar consequences. If you choose to have Him as your Savior, the consequence is that He will bless you with eternal life in heaven. Likewise, the consequence for not choosing Him as your Savior is that your eternal life will be spent in hell. God wants everyone to have Jesus Christ in their hearts because God wants all of His creation to be in heaven, but at the same time He is a gentleman about it. He will not force you to make that decision. All He will do is put the evidences and proofs in front of you and then you alone have the privilege and responsibility of making your own decision.
Know this, though: In everything, there is something called “consequences.” That is the thing that happens after something is done. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, the thing that happens afterwards is your thumb will hurt very badly. Adam and Eve made a choice to disobey God and their consequences were that they were told to leave the Garden.
As I said before, if you choose to not receive Jesus as your Savior, your consequence for that decision is your eternity will be spent without God, or in hell. But make no mistake about it; God will not be the One who sends you there. You will send yourself to hell by the decisions and choices you and only you have made.
To blame God for where you are going to go without Jesus, is as ludicrous as blaming the judge for fining you when you choose to speed through town. It might make you feel better to blame somebody else for your actions, but the truth is they are not to blame, are they?
There you have it; a case for and against Jesus Christ. A case against Him built upon innuendo, hearsay, and the dislike of being uncomfortable by having to change something about ourselves, and a case for Jesus Christ built upon evidences and proofs that would be allowed in any courtroom in America.
In closing, let me present my final plea to you. If you are listening to this message and still do not know what to believe, let me encourage you to just ask God what you should believe. If you do this, and are serious about knowing, He will answer you. But you obligate yourself to do something in return; you must be willing to really listen as He speaks to you. Oh, by the way, He will probably not talk to you in an audible voice as others do. He will most likely give you thoughts to think about and feelings in your heart about those thoughts. Listen to them. Obey them. And then, you will finally find out what true peace and joy are.
A court of law would accept the evidences I have laid out to you, but the real question is . . . will you accept them?
In Luke 6:46, Jesus asked, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord’, yet refuse to do what I say?” We do the same thing. We want something in life, but all too often we are not willing to do the things necessary to really have it, so we deceive ourselves by thinking we have it anyway.
I would like to ask everyone to bow your heads and close your eyes for a moment. And I want you to repeat these words after me. You can say them aloud or you can say them silently, it does not matter. But what matters is your being totally serious as you say them.
Dear Lord, I am asking You to give me the information I need to make the decisions I need to make today. I desperately want and need the kind of joy and happiness that You promise.
I thank you for giving me this time to hear what has just been said, and I ask that You help me make the right decision in my life. Please forgive me for my tendency to be lukewarm and half-hearted in the things I have done and for concentrating more on my comfort than on my obedience to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
I will not give an altar call this morning, but I want you to know that if you need to talk to me, this morning or any other time, I will make myself available for you.
Let us close in prayer.
* This message was inspired by Sean McDowell’s “GodQuest” series, specifically lesson #5, entitled “The King”.
