Who Is Jesus Really? Part 6 Series

Let’s see your bibles, let’s see our bibles, word. Let’s see your pens, bring out your pens and your lesson plan, lesson plan. Let’s turn to Matthew 26, Matthew 26.

Someone comes up with an idea and they go – Well I don’t know and they have 20 reasons why it won’t work. Now there’s nothing wrong with analyzing stuff. You have to analyze in order to strategize but you should analyze and strategize so you can get it done not so you can prove it won’t work. That’s the difference. And some people say they have all the details but great, tell me how to do it not why it won’t work. And then sometimes people hear stuff and they hear a somebody did something and they always think of the negative.

Like the other day I told someone my wife and I went to therapy and I’m thinking in my mind = I better explain what that is because they’re gonna think= Oh pastor Miles is getting a divorce. No it was physical therapy. Oh, they're having intimacy problems. No she has issues with her shoulder. It’s frozen and for 9 months she’s been in pain and we went to the SD Sports Medicine. They’re doing wonders for her.

So you always have to explain cuz people will always want to find the negative. You hear someone driving down the street and there’s loud music boom-boom-boom. Oh they must be listening to gangster rap. They probably have a gun under their seat. No it’s actually the Celine Dion Christmas hip hop remix with Celine and 40 cent ok? Not 50 cent, 40 cent. We always want to see something negative in everything.

Well Christ had those same people in His life, the people you just saw, the critics. They lived their whole life, the 3 years Christ ministered, Christ’s ministry was only 3 years and all they wanted to do was to prove Him wrong. They were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the scribes, the experts in the law. They didn’t necessarily agree with each other. They just agreed to disagree with Christ.

And just as you and I have critics, and by the way every single one of us in this room have people who all they think about is negative about us and the more people you know, the more critics you have. The more popular you are, the more known you are, the more critics you have. That’s just the way it is. So just deal with it. But guess what? Christ had them too and they had Him killed. They had Him, you haven’t been killed yet and you won’t be killed by your critics most likely. You won’t be but Christ had them.

What we’re gonna learn today is not only how He dealt with it but more importantly what His critics proved because if you, as we talk about who Christ is you can learn about His identity by what His critics said about Him because His critics did more to prove His identity as Christ as God than to disprove it. I’m gonna say that again. It’s very critical for you to understand. Christ’s critics did more to validate the fact that He was God than to disprove the fact that He was God. They defeated their own purpose and also they revealed their own insecurity.

Couple things you have to know about critics: Critics cannot define who you are. Critics do not and cannot, if you don’t let them, define who you are. You can have people talking behind your back everyday, it doesn’t change who you are. Critics cannot defeat God’s purpose in your life as long as you obey. Critics don’t even know you.

My wife and I have been together 25 years. We’ve been married 20 years and a half, it will be 20, thank you it will be 21 years in September and the other day we were having a conversation about my son. He plays football and she said, I don’t where this came from but she says – You know if Miles never played football again, he plays baseball now I’m just not a baseball guy. It’s just a very boring game. Believe me baseball’s a great sport and everything but it’s just like…… so he’s playing a baseball game you know it’s like, we just sit there and we go to the games 2 or 3 times a week and it’s just so, football’s like you know violent and you know just hmph. So she says to me – If Miles never played football again I would be so happy and I looked at her. I said – I don’t even know you. 21 years we’ve been married, 24 years we’ve been together, 25 years! I don’t even know who you are. If I don’t know my wife, we have to start our whole, it just rocked my, I have to start our whole relationship all over again. If I have to, if I have to….. If I don’t even know my wife how can you know somebody you don’t even know to know how you can talk about them? We don’t.