Who Is This Jesus? Series

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: March 22, 2007

Date Preached: March 25, 2007

Church: OZHBC (AM)

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Series Title: Doctrines of the Faith

Sermon Title: Jesus Christ – Who Is He?

Sermon Text: Matt 16:13-16

“…13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets…” 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God…"

INTRODUCTION:

Just who is this man we have heard about called Jesus of Nazareth, a man we so often hear called Jesus Christ? Who is He and what has He done that He is so prevalent in today’s culture some 2000 yrs after His life here on earth.

With all the technology at our fingertips today, I thought I would try an experiment. I went to Google and googled the name Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ.

• Gandhi 1,470,000 different sites

• Martin Luther King Jr. 9,930,000 different sites

• Thomas Jefferson 15,600,000 different sites

• Jesus 23,800,000 different sites

In looking at this I saw that this simple man who was born into simple and plain surroundings has more written about Him than 3 of the most famous men in the history of the world.

Jesus was a man of lowly birth and not of privilege. Jesus was Christ was born the small Jewish town of Bethlehem. The literal meaning for the name Bethlehem is "The House of Bread."

He was not born in the house of royalty, or the house of riches, or the house of a celebrity.

Jesus was not born in Jerusalem, or in Rome, or in Athens or Alexandria.

Jesus was not born in any political, commercial, cultural, educational, or socially significant city of the day.

When Micah, the OT prophet, foretold the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, he emphasized its lack of significance to the world.

2 “ But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”

Micah 5:2 (NKJV)

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, "The House of Bread" because bread is one of life’s most common things. God wanted his Son to be "common" in one sense. God wanted Jesus to be available to all!

SOURCE: Brian Atwood in "Why Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem, The House of Bread" on www.sermoncentral.com. Edited by SermonCentral Staff.

Today we have much controversy over this man we know as Jesus. There are those who seek Him and seek to serve Him and live by His teachings.

There are those who seek to destroy His name and eliminate anything history has written about Him, in fact there was even a law suit in Italy recently where a man was suing the Catholic Church for false teachings and his claim was that Jesus was NOT a real person!

And then there are people who fall in between these two positions. But regardless of where you may find yourself this morning, I want you to know that Jesus is a man that must be reckoned with and dealt with… You cannot ignore the man known as Jesus Christ!

With that said I want us this morning to look at Jesus thru the eyes of the world, the eyes of other religions, thru the lens of God’s Word and finally we are going to look at Jesus through YOUR eyes!

First of all this morning I want us to look at and try to answer the question…

1. What Does the World Say About Jesus?

I know this is sort of outdated information, but in reality this information represents a time in which our society was much more in line with God than we are now.

In a 1983 Gallup poll Americans were asked, “Who do you think Jesus is?”

• 70% of those interviewed said Jesus was not just another man.

• 42% stated Jesus was God among men.

• 27% felt Jesus was only human but divinely called.

• 9% states Jesus was divine because he embodied the best of humanity.

• Also, 81% of Americans consider themselves to be Christians. Gallup Poll

I recently was speaking with a friend of mine who was raised in South Louisiana in the Catholic faith. I asked him what his view of Jesus was and what he thought about Jesus.

He told me that he thought that the teachings of the Bible were great, but that he believed that Jesus was basically something like an urban legend.