The Rock That Doesn't Roll

The Rock That Doesn’t Roll

(Matthew 16:13-20)

Good morning! What a great joy it is to be with you this morning. I trust that you’ve come with an open heart and mind this morning and that you want to hear from God and not from just another preacher. I want you to know I’m not here to entertain you or to try to impress you with fancy words or just a bunch of bible knowledge this morning. I mean look at me folks; I’m as plain as they come and in my own strength what you see up here behind the pulpit couldn’t sell a glass of water to a man dying of thirst. But I’m not here to sell anything. I’m here to share something with you that’s free.

The word of God tells us in Isaiah 55:1, “If you’re thirsty, come to the water”. Jesus said, “If any man drinks of this water he’ll thirst again, but if he drinks the water I offer he’ll never thirst.” Folks in Jesus Christ we’re drawing from the well that never runs dry! So let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus this morning. He’s our stability in this crumbling world that we live in. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and it beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

The rock! Let me ask you something this morning, Is your life built on the rock? Is your marriage built on the rock? Is your home built on the rock? What about your faith? Is your faith built on the rock? I want to talk about that rock this morning. Turn to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16. We’re going to be looking at verses 13-20. I’ve entitled today’s message, “The Rock that doesn’t Roll.” As you’re turning there I want to remind us that the word of God is the ultimate source of truth in a world that full of false hope. The world will tell you it’s impossible, but God says, “All things are possible.” The world will tell you, “Nobody really loves you, you’re not worth anything.” But Jesus says, “I love you and I care about you, cast all your cares upon Me. Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are worth it.”

Friend, I want to tell you this, nobody ever loved you like Jesus does. And when the devil messes with you and you can’t figure things out and you don’t know which way to turn, God says, “Acknowledge Me in all of your ways and I’ll direct your every step.” Folks, when we read the word of God we read truth! I mean, we don’t just use truth as a theological term; His word is truth because He’s truth! Look with me at Matthew 16, verses 13-20. (Read Matt. 16:13-20/Pray)

You know, in God’s Word there are some passages that we are more familiar with than others and there are those that we use frequently to get our point across. One of those is what we call The Great Commission, where we are told to make disciples as we’re sharing the Good News. In this passage of scripture we see what I want to call The Great Confession because these scriptures tell us plainly who The Lord Jesus Christ is. And in verses 13-20 I also want us to see 6 things about this great confession. The first one is this,

1. This is not the Confession of the World (verses 13-14).

In verse 13 Jesus asked His disciples a very simple question, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man am?” Did you notice there that Jesus used the term “Son of Man” instead of Son of God? That’s not a denial of His Deity, that’s just a term that Jesus used to show His human side. I mean, we know from scripture that He is God. We’ve covered that before. But we also know that He was fully human too. So, this term “Son of Man” doesn’t take away from who He is. And let me say this, it’s important that we know who people think Jesus is, because what people think of Jesus determines their destiny. It shows us how we need to reach out to them. It also determines how a society is going to react and behave in reference to who He is. So it’s important for us to know who people think Jesus is.

Well, the disciples throw out some names in verse 14, and as you can see, these were some people who were heavy duty prophets. I mean these were some guys who were well respected among the Jewish people. If you remember from Matthew chapter 14, it mentions Herod hearing about Jesus and making the statement, “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.” And there were other similarities that Jesus and John the Baptist had; they both preached repentance and the Kingdom of God, both were doing a great work for God. Now, these people were really mixed up when you think about it because there were some that thought John the Baptist was the Messiah, Remember? But when John was asked about it he said plainly in John 1:28, “I am not the Christ.” And now we have people in this portion of scripture that think the Messiah is John the Baptist. But that’s not the only person they thought He was. Some people were saying Jesus was Elijah come back to the world. You see, Elijah was considered to be greatest of all the Old Testament prophets and Jesus was doing some of the same kind of things Elijah was doing miraculously. And it was believed among the Jews that Jeremiah would return right before the coming of the Messiah. But in all of these, Jesus was not who they thought He was.