Who Do You Say I Am, Part 2: Jesus The Sage Series

Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 13. This is page 769 in the Pew Bibles.

We are continuing our series within the series called “Who do you say I am?” The title comes from something that happened in Matthew 16. Jesus was with his disciples in a place called Caeserea Philippi. Here’s what it looks like today. You see this flat area with this big cave. That cave was called the gate of Hades, and it was a place that had been known for child sacrifice. And at the time of Jesus, this area was like a strip mall for idolatry. You had a temple to Augustus, built by Herod the Great, you had a temple to Zeus, you had a shrine to the god pan—take your pick.

This was where Jesus asked his disciples “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” and they reply, well, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Jesus looks at them and asks, “Who do you say I am?”

In other words, right here, when you have so many different options for who or what you are going to give your worship to, who am I to you?

And I bring this up, even though we aren’t looking at this passage today, because it’s the same question we have to deal with today, and it’s very similar circumstances. There are just as many if not more things competing for our attention. And Jesus is asking you the same question. Not “who do your parents say I am, or who does Glynwood say I am, or who does popular culture say I am, but who do YOU say I am?

Last week, we were in Mark 1-2, looking at Jesus as the Sovereign authority. This morning, we are going to look at Matthew for an example of Jesus the Sage (or, if you don’t care about alliteration, Jesus the teacher. We talked last week about how Mark emphasizes action. His favorite word Is “immediately,” and his focus is on what Jesus did. Mark wants us to see Jesus as the Son of God.

Matthew has a different focus. Matthew presents Jesus as the Promised Messiah. There are 130 direct quotes or references to the Old Testament. Matthew’s favorite phrase is, “This was done to fulfill what was said in…”

But another one of Matthew’s emphases is on Jesus as the New Moses. Moses was the Lawgiver. The one who went up on a mountain and brought back God’s law and taught it to the people. The first five books of the Bible are also called the Five books of Moses.

And so Matthew has more of Jesus teachings than any of the gospels. And he deliberately organizes Jesus’ teachings into five sermons or discourses:

• The Sermon on the Mount (5:1-7:28)

• Teaching about missions (10:1-42)

• Teaching in Parables (13:1-53)

• Teaching about Community (17:22-18:35)

• Teaching about the end of the World (24:1-25:46)

Now we obviously don’t have time to deal with all of these this morning, but I wanted to put these up here to show you how Matthew emphasizes Jesus as “Sage” or teacher. And we are going to look in depth at two of Jesus’ parables as just a sample of his teaching. So if you have your bibles, we are going to look at Matthew 13:44-46. It’s a pretty short passage, so if you would, please stand as we honor the reading of God’s Word:

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God. [pray]

These two stories are examples of Jesus’ favorite teaching method, which was to teach in parables. Just a few verses before this, Matthew tells us that Jesus

34 said nothing to them without a parable. 35 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:[e]

“I will open my mouth in parables;

I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

What’s a parable? It’s an earthly story with a heavenly point. The Greek word parabola means “to throw alongside,” and that’s what a parable does. It takes an everyday, earthly event, like farming, or fishing, or shopping, and it matches it with a heavenly point—The kingdom of heaven is like a man. The kingdom of heaven is like a net. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure. You get the point.