Today we launch into a 7 week series that looks at 7 essential questions that answer the bigger question of what it means to be a follower of Christ Jesus and WHY a person would want to be a follower of Jesus.
There are good reasons that people come to faith in Christ, and there are good reasons why people continue to follow Jesus their whole lives.
Who would like to stand and briefly share, in just a sentence, why you follow Jesus?
So we follow Jesus on purpose, for good reasons. And the longer we follow Him, the more we have to testify about His goodness and faithfulness.
For this 7-week series that will lead right into Easter sunday or Resurrection Sunday, I thought it would be valuable to us to explore together some truly vital questions, and the implications of the answers to those questions.
Let’s plunge in: If I was to ask you about your identity, what would I really be getting at? I’d want to know how you see yourself. I’d want to know about your values, what makes you tick. Identity is huge. It is so incredibly important for us to understand who we are, if we’re adults. For youth, it can be a real struggle to figure out who they are apart from their parents.
Something goes wrong if we don’t do the hard work of figuring out who we are. Learning what matters to us, learning to accept who we are, learning our strengths and weaknesses and blind spots is critical to becoming a strong, emotionally healthy, humble and grateful person.
So identity...yours and mine is critical. All-round, it’s something worthwhile giving our attention to. It’s also worth giving our attention to, or occasionally rediscovering, who God is. Jesus gives us unique and wonderful insights into the identity of God. Jesus showed us that God is Abba, or Father.
Jesus showed us that God truly cares about all that He has created. Jesus showed us that God is concerned about justice and fairness.
Jesus showed us that God is not at all removed from His creation, but that He is intimately concerned about all living things, especially human beings.
But Who is Jesus? Who is the Christ? Why does He matter? Why does history seem to revolve around Him? Why does history divide at His birth between BC and AD?
Think of the year of your birth. Mine is 1962. What does that number mean? It’s the number of years from the assumed birth-year of the Saviour of the world, Jesus. Why does Jesus get to determine, get to be the way time itself is measured in years? And there’s other good questions. Why is a poor itinerant rabbi, from a backwater outpost of the ancient Roman empire in the middle East - why is He still known and worshipped all around the world today, 2000-odd years after his death?
Why do His followers still do things like run this very mission, Yonge Street Mission, that seeks to tranform people and communities with the love of God and the knowledge of Jesus Christ?
And why do so many today claim to have been changed by Him. Why do so many live better lives today than they would have without Him, because of Him?
These seem like questions that are worth exploring as we consider the notion of identity.
You know, as a young man I was familiar with a lot of important historical figures. High school brought me in the loop with important people who had shaped the way the world looked, and the way people thought. I knew about Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperors. I had learned about the ancient philosophers and why they mattered - Plato, Aristotle, Socrates. And I learned about more recent history, some of the great and some of the horrible leaders that had influenced the way the world is today.
But both the school system and life at home had left me completely ignorant of Jesus, even while both places encouraged me to embrace a worldview that did not include any notion of God. And, skipping a lot, by the time I was 16 I had come to believe that life was hollow and without meaning. I was raised in a home that never discussed God.
William Somerset was a British writer, among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the depression in the 1930s.
What he said and what another philosopher said summed up what I had come to believe by the tender age of 17. He said this:
“If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival afterlife as to doubtful... One has to make up one's mind as to the use of life. If death and all, if I have neither to hope for good nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in the circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer is plain, but so uncountable the most will not face it. There is no meaning for life, and thus life has no meaning”.
~ William Somerset, The Summing Up
Another famous philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, said this:
“It was true, I had always realized it-I hadn't any "right" to exist at all. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant, a micro. I could feel nothing to myself but an in consequential buzzing. I was thinking... But here we are eating and drinking, to preserve our precious existence, and that there's nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing”.
I had come to believe that life - my life - was without meaning. That led to 3 unsuccessful attempts to end my life. After the third attempt, I began to have reason to doubt the worldview I had been raised with. It began very generically, and quite strangely.
This young atheist would pour out his heart at night, in a little ritual I created...I would stare outside at night at a houselight across the alley from my home and talk for upwards of half and hour. I did this nightly for about 6 months, eventually ending my ‘talk’ with a saying: “I pray this to the Lord inside”.
I really had no idea what I was doing, and if someone had asked me I wouldn’t have had an answer. I didn’t know anything about faith in God or about Jesus Christ. But even as I did this little ritual, something like hope began to grow in me. That hope didn’t take any form or shape until I began to hear about Jesus.
And it was Jesus identity and His actions, and most importantly the love behind all He said and did, that demanded my attention.
Now the question of Jesus identity was not settled during His life time. In fact, people struggled with who He was... because of a number of things. There were strange and wonderful and intimidating things about Jesus: His teaching, the miraculous healings that He did, the way He bluntly opposed religious leaders and the way He embraced people who were poor and raw and hurting and needy.
So even as Jesus walked around during His public ministry, people scrambled to figure out who He was.
That’s not a lot different from today in many ways. We have this account from back then:
Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
So in verse 14 it’s clear that the identity of Jesus - who He really is - is not settled in people’s minds. But opinions are forming. People are taking their best guess.
Some guessed that He was John the Baptist. Why would that be?
John the Baptist preached to prepare folks for the coming of the Messiah, and much of his public ministry involved ritual cleansing - baptism - of mostly gentile converts to Judaism.
People wondered: Had John the Baptist, recently murdered by Herod, somehow come back to life?
Jesus’ sayings and His attitude and actions must have been like his cousin John’s.
Was it Jesus role to point to the Messiah and encourage people to get right with God?
Some guessed that Jesus was Elijah. Elijah was was a prophet who prayed down fire from heaven, proving the power of the living God and exposing the falsehood of other gods. His name meant: “"The Lord is my God".
Was Jesus Elijah the miracle worker? Elijah was militant...he killed the false prophets of the false gods. Was Jesus going to be a military leader who would assert the authority of God and violently overthrow the Roman oppressors? A lot of people were hoping so.
Other guess that Jesus might be Jeremiah. Jeremiah was another important prophet to the nation of Israel. An important thing in the teaching of Jeremiah is the establishment of a New Covenant. Jeremiah preached (and this is interesting):
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 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.
So...was Jesus going to start something new between God and humanity? Was He going to do something new to bring a change in the relationship between God and humanity? People were looking at Jesus and wondering...they’re wondering - Who might this be?
In our main passage today, Jesus Himself asks His disciples about the popular opinion of Him. “Who do people say the Son of man is”? Jesus referred to Himself very often as: The Son of man.
After listing the above popular opinions, Jesus asks His disciples who they think He is. Peter speaks first. Peter often spoke first. Peter says: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”.
And Jesus affirms that Peter is right, and that Peter was right not because Peter was smart and figured it out all by himself.
Peter was right because God had revealed this truth about Jesus to Peter. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God
Peter was the first. The first to understand, the first to express what would eventually become the confession of millions upon millions of people to whom also God would reveal the truth that Jesus is the Christ. There’s an important point here. Nobody figures out that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah, apart from God revealing it. It’s too great a reality for our minds to grasp.
And there’s too much in our fallen human nature that resists the revelation that Jesus is Who He says He Is.
That’s because if Jesus is Who He says He is, then not only is He the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God. He is actually God in the flesh. He is actually the Saviour of the world. He is actually the king of Kings and Lord of lords.
So what’s the problem here? Why do I mean by some problem with our human nature accepting Who Jesus is?
It’s simple. If Jesus is Lord, then I ain’t. If Jesus is God, then I am not. If I accept that Jesus is the Saviour, that means I have to let go of any illusions I might have that I can save myself, that I can earn God’s favour, that I can live best by being my own boss.
There’s a lot of reasons why ‘reason’ alone can’t break through to the understanding of Who Jesus truly is. There’s good news, though. What can break through is God. God can give us the revelation of Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit.
Just like He gave Peter, He can…and wants to…give this revelation to everyone.
What’s the substance of that revelation? Try as I might, I can’t put it better than Rev. S.M Lockridge. Play “That’s my King”. http://youtu.be/upGCMl_b0n4
So there you have it. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have a King. you have a king who is the King of kings.
You have a King like none other. You have a King who has drawn near to us with limitless love. Who identifies with us, who knows our weakness, who hears us when we call.
And if you don’t know Him as your King, if you don’t know Him as the Lord of your life; if you’ve wandered far off and, like the prodigal son you want to return but you’re not sure what His answer will be, you can come to Him now in faith.
You can confess Him as...Who He is...And Who He is is all important. Like Jesus asked Peter 2000 years ago, Jesus is asking you, right now, by His Spirit, Who do YOU say I am? Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am?
Will you confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God?
The Bible says to those who receive Him He gives the power and privilege to become children of God...saved, redeemed, rescued, adopted, sheltered, safe in Him.
Children who get to live their whole lives knowing that they are loved, knowing that their lives matter immensely to their Creator and heavenly Father. And He’s here. Today. Now. He stands at the door. He stands and the door and knocks. And guess what. “It’s for you!”. Perhaps there’s someone here today who is ready to confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Perhaps it’s you. If you believe that Jesus died for your sins, if you are ready to turn toward God and away from your sins, then I encourage you to pray with me now.
I’ll lead a prayer, sentence by sentence - thanking God for His goodness, telling Him you believe that Jesus died for your sins, turning from those sins and choosing instead to follow Jesus, and then receiving Him as your Lord and Saviour.
If you’re ready, let’s pray.
