ENGAGE
I want you to imagine for a moment that Jesus was standing before all of us here this morning and that He asked us the same question that He asked His disciples on their way to Caesarea one day:
Who do you say that I am?
My guess is that even here in this gathering where most of us have placed our faith in Jesus, we would probably get a number of different answers to that question. And how we answer that question will reveal a great deal about what we expect Jesus to do in our lives.
TENSION
• If you say Jesus was merely a good teacher or a good man, then you’ll treat Him like Dr. Phil or Oprah or any other self-help guru. You’ll take the things He said that you like and try to apply them in your life and you’ll just ignore the things you don’t like or the things that seem too hard to do.
• If you say Jesus was merely a religious figure, then you’ll probably treat Him like Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius or the latest New Age guru and view Him as just one of many ways to God.
• But if say He is the promised Messiah, the Son of the living God, who came to earth to save us from our sins, conquer sin and death and rule over us as Lord, then that will radically transform every single area of your life.
What I’m going to attempt to do this morning is to show you why the event we celebrate this morning – the resurrection of Jesus – is absolutely crucial if we’re going to properly answer the question that Jesus poses to all of us this morning:
Who do you say that I am?
TRUTH
So let me take you back almost 2,000 years to about a year before the crucifixion of Jesus to a major turning point in the ministry of Jesus. I’ll read this morning from Matthew’s account of this event:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
(Matthew 16:13-17 ESV)
As Jesus enters into Caesarea with His disciples, he first asks the disciples who others believe Him to be. And based on what the people had seen Him say and do – His miracles, His healings, His preaching – they concluded that He was either a resurrected prophet of old or a new prophet of the same kind. So they basically believed Him to be a religious figure of some prominence and importance.
That is actually pretty similar to the way many Americans view Jesus nearly 2,000 years later. According to a survey completed last year right around Easter (Barna Group) 92% of Americans believe that Jesus was a real person who actually lived here on earth. But only about half believe that He is God, with about another quarter who say He was only a religious or spiritual leader like Mohammed or Buddha.
But the subsequent question Jesus asked His disciples, the one we’re focusing on this morning – But who do you say that I am? – reveals that the crowd’s conclusion that He was merely a religious figure fell far short of the reality of who Jesus is.
Not surprisingly, Peter is the first to answer. And from all appearances, He answers the question correctly. He first claims that Jesus is the Christ. I think sometimes we have a tendency to think of Christ as merely being Jesus’s last name, but it was not His legal name at all, but rather a title that described who he was. The Greek word from which we get our word “Christ” is the equivalent of the Hebrew word from which we get our word “Messiah”. Both words literally mean “anointed” which pointed to the fact that Jesus had been anointed by God and given a specific God-ordained purpose.
The Old Testament Scriptures consistently promised that God would send His “Anointed One”, His “Messiah” to deliver and redeem His people. But, as we’re going to see in a minute, not even Peter and the other disciples had a clear understanding of what kind of redemption the Messiah would bring. Many, if not most, of the Jews were looking for a Messiah who would overthrow the Roman Empire and establish an earthly kingdom.
In some ways, things haven’t changed a lot today. There are still a lot of people looking for a political Messiah who is going to come in and overthrow our current government and make life better for all of us. That hasn’t worked very well in the past and it’s not going to work in the future, no matter who we elect to office. Some are looking for a Messiah who is going to heal their disease or fix their finances or restore their relationships. While Jesus is certainly capable of doing all those things, that is not specifically what God anointed Him to do.
But not only did Peter identify Jesus as the Christ, he also called Him the “Son of the living God”. And Jesus praised him for recognizing that Jesus wasn’t just a religious or spiritual leader, He was in fact God in the flesh. Jesus makes it clear here that there is no way that Peter could have known that unless God had revealed that to him. It wasn’t something that he could have figured out on his own.
I have to think that Peter was feeling pretty good about Himself now that he had correctly identified Jesus as God in the flesh and as the Christ. But unfortunately Peter still has some very wrong ideas about what kind of Christ Jesus had come to be.
Right after Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah, there is a significant turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Up until that time, He had spent much of His ministry serving the needs of people – healing them, feeding them and teaching them about His kingdom. But now, for the first time, He reveals exactly the price that He is going to pay to carry out His role as the Christ and usher in that kingdom.
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
(Matthew 16:21-23 ESV)
Peter was fine with a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and establish physical kingdom right then and there, but he wasn’t willing to even consider a Messiah who was going to suffer and be killed and be raised from the grave on the third day. That just didn’t fit with his preconceived notions of the kind of Messiah God was sending to this earth.
I have to believe that Peter was completely crushed by the way Jesus responded to his rebuke. Peter had frequently seen Jesus rebuke the Jewish religious leaders, but the words He spoke to Peter here were much harsher than any of those reprimands. Although Jesus had, on one occasion, told some of those who claimed to believe in Him that they were of their father, the devil, He had never directly addressed anyone as “Satan.” Those words must have really stung Peter hard. I have to believe that Peter thought about that encounter often both before and after Jesus’ crucifixion.
And yet, we know that somewhere along the line, Peter’s thinking about what kind of Messiah Jesus had come to be was completely transformed. That is certainly evidenced by the letter he wrote that we just spent nearly 3 months studying. In that letter, Peter urged the Christians in Asia Minor who were undergoing tremendous persecution for their faith to follow the example of Jesus and to not respond to evil with evil but rather to bless people when they were persecuted for their faith. That was a far cry from Peter’s rebuke of Jesus over a year earlier when He tried to persuade Jesus not to endure the suffering that was part of God’s plan for His life.
We don’t know for sure the exact moment that Peter really understood what it meant for Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, but perhaps it happened something like this.
[Video]
Jesus was and is risen. And it is His resurrection that made it possible for Peter, and makes it possible for us, to understand what kind of Messiah Jesus is and allows us to give the correct answer when Jesus asks us:
Who do you say that I am?
It is the resurrection that confirms that everything Jesus told Peter and the other disciples that day that resulted in Peter rebuking Jesus was in fact true. Let me remind you of what Jesus had said to Peter and the other disciples that resulted in Peter’s rebuke of Jesus.
First, He said that He would go to Jerusalem and suffer many things form the Jewish religious leaders. That alone would not really differentiate Jesus from many others in that culture. We have enough evidence in both the Bible and from historical sources to know that those religious leaders delighted in interrogating and making things difficult for those who dared to question their authority or who failed to follow their manmade rules and traditions.
Second, Jesus claimed that He would be killed. Again, that would not have made Jesus unique. Crucifixion was quite common in the Roman Empire since the government used it as a means of sending a message to the citizens that no dissension would be tolerated. During the reign of the Romans, tens of thousands were killed by crucifixion, including the two other criminals who were executed with Jesus.
But when Jesus claimed that He would be raised up on the third day, that was a claim that nobody but the Christ, the Son of the living God could possibly fulfill. So once Peter finally came to realize that Jesus had indeed done what He said He would do and risen from the grave, he finally understood what kind of Messiah Jesus had come to be.
• He had not come to deliver people from the oppressive rule of the Romans although He will return one day to set up a physical kingdom here on earth.
• He had not come merely to be a good teacher and share some suggestions about how to have a better life, although applying the principles that He taught will definitely give us a more meaningful and abundant life right here on earth.
• He had not come to heal every disease or take away every trial, even though He is more than capable of doing that when He chooses to do so.
• Instead He came to do something far more significant and permanent. He came to be a Messiah who would make it possible for all mankind to be able to be saved from sin and guilt and death by taking those sins upon Himself, paying the penalty for those sins by dying on a cross and overcoming death by rising from the grave. And it was the resurrection that proved that His claims to be that kind of Messiah were 100% true.
APPLICATION
While all of those benefits are available to all, not everyone receives them. It is only those who correctly answer Jesus’ question – Who do you say that I am? – who have their sins forgiven, their guilt taken away and who get to experience eternal life in the presence of Jesus. That’s why I began this morning by asking you to think about how you would answer Jesus if He were standing here before us today and asking each of us personally:
Who do you say that I am?
So now that you’ve had a chance to think about that some more, how would you answer that question?
• Would you merely say that Jesus was an historical figure who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago?
• Would you say that Jesus was an important religious leader?
• Would you say that Jesus was a good teacher?
While all those things are true, they don’t begin to describe the fullness of who Jesus is. And even more important for you personally, none of those answers will do anything to change your life either right now as you live your life here on earth or for the much longer life that all of us will live after our time here on earth is done.
• Or would you say, like Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who came to this earth to live a sinless life, die on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins and then rise from the grave to conquer death so that you can live eternally in His presence? That is the only answer that can transform your life both in the present an in the future.
But merely being able to answer that question intellectually isn’t enough. We need to be willing to completely stake our lives on the fact that Jesus is that kind of Messiah.
Shortly before His crucifixion, Jesus got word that His friend Lazarus had died in the village of Bethany, near Jerusalem. He arrived there after Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. Before He raised Lazarus from the dead, He said this to Lazarus’s sister, Martha:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
(John 11:25-26 ESV)
The word that Jesus uses there for “believe” is a word that means more than just an intellectual assent to a set of facts. It means to believe in something to the extent that you are willing to act on what you believe. It conveys the idea of trusting in something to the point that you’re willing to stake your entire life on that belief.
After the resurrection, that is exactly what Peter did. Once he clearly saw for the first time exactly what kind of Messiah Jesus had come to be, he spent the rest of his life acting on that belief. He endured all kinds of hostility and hate. He was imprisoned as a result of his faith on multiple occasions and eventually he was killed because of that belief. Tradition tells us that he was crucified upside down because he did not consider himself worthy to die in the same manner as His Lord.
INSPIRATION
Wouldn’t you like to have the same kind of faith that Peter had? Wouldn’t you like to be able to live boldly for Jesus each day and to be able to endure and even triumph in the midst of your trials? Wouldn’t you like to know beyond a doubt that whatever trials you might face here on earth are only temporary and short-lived compared to the eternity that you’re going to spend with Jesus?
ACTION
The good news is that you can have all that today. But in order to do that, you have to do what Peter did after the resurrection. You have to give up your preconceived ideas about what kind of a Messiah Jesus came to be. You have to not only say, like Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, but you have to understand that means that He came to free you from the bondage and guilt of sin and to conquer death, not just to give you an easy, convenient life here on earth. And you have to be willing to have the kind of belief in which you stake your entire life on the fact that Jesus is that kind of Messiah.
That is such an important decision that we don’t want you to make that lightly. So as we close in just a moment, I’ll provide you with several ways for you to talk to someone more about all that decision entails and how you can personally make that decision in your life.
I know that many of you here this morning have already made that decision and for you my prayer is that as we celebrate the resurrection this morning and as we’re reminded of what that resurrection reveals about the kind of Messiah we trust in and serve, that you’ll be even more grateful for what Jesus has done for you. And I pray that gratefulness will result in a renewed commitment to serve Jesus, to obey Him, to minister to others in His name, and to proclaim Him to others.
Jesus is asking us all the same question this morning:
Who do you say that I am?
