Who is Jesus?

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you please open in your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 8.

Mark chapter 8. And in the previous story, Jesus has just healed a blind man, put the mud on his eyes, and He restored his sight. Before that, He's given hearing back to a man who is deaf. And now in Mark chapter 8, Beginning at verse 27, we find somebody else's eyes are opened. Mark chapter 8, beginning at verse 27, and we'll read the four verses there, 27 through 30. Brothers and sisters, hear now God's perfect word, Mark chapter 8, beginning at verse 27.

Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road he asked his disciples, saying to them, Who do men say I am? So they answered, John the Baptist, but some say Elijah, and others one of the prophets. He said to them, But who do you say I am? Peter answered and said, you are the Christ. Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him.

Prayer for Illumination

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. And we pray now that your Holy Spirit might care for us this morning. Lord, we plead with you that these would not just be dead letters on a page, but you would have them truly be your living word. Father, we pray that you would instruct us in our faith this morning. Teach us, Lord, what we are to believe. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

Well, for a couple summers during college, I used to clean carpets, make a little bit of money during the off months in the summer, and the first day I was introduced to my co-worker, I got in the van with him, and with a cigarette in his mouth, we started talking about religion, and he said, well, I'm a pagan.

Wow, I've never met anybody who just outright said it. All right, this is going to be a fun friendship. It's going to be a good couple summers. Here we go. And so we talked a lot. As I talked to Jay, come to find out, he called himself a pagan, but he was really more of a buffet religionist. Kind of whatever he liked from different religions, he would just kind of pick up and do whatever he wanted with.

And so he would never speak bad against Jesus. Jay would just say, well, you know, he was a really good teacher. I admire him for the morals he instilled. Not that he actually wanted to pick up the morals that Jesus taught, but that he at least respected him for. But what he didn't realize was that that was deeply insulting to anyone who's read the words of Jesus.

Jesus is much more than just a great teacher, moral philosopher, preacher, or even prophet. He is the Christ. He is the Son of the Living God. And so if you walk out of here this morning with anything, I need you to remember that the Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus is the Christ.

For the entire first part of Mark, we're really at a pivotal part. The story's going to start to change. This is the middle of Mark and it's the hinge. Things are going to start to change. People have been wondering, the disciples have been trying to figure out since chapter 4, who is this man? What type of man is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? And here, Jesus starts to truly lean in and teach them. He's not just some miracle worker. He's not just a teacher, but he is the Messiah. He is the Christ. But notice first where they are. Notice where Jesus decides to ask them this question. Verse 27. Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi. They're 25 miles north of Galilee. They're way up in what's not a Jewish area.

Now this town of Caesarea Philippi was originally Panion, which is because it was a center of worship for, at first, the Canaanite god Baal. And then after that, it's a pagan site for Pan. This half-goat, half-man type pagan god that's supposed to watch over the flocks and the sheep. This is a city and an area that is filled and surrounded with shrines and idols. Even in Caesarea Philippi, Herod the Tetrarch had actually made a shrine for the emperor himself for people to go and worship at.

And so it's in the midst of all this pagan environment and atmosphere of all this worshiping of false gods, Jesus asked his disciples, Who do people say I am? Am I just part of a buffet here? Am I just one of many different options, or who am I? And notice what people were saying about Jesus in verse 28. So they answered, John the Baptist. But some say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets. Jesus wants to know what's the word on the street. What are people saying? Who am I? And they come up with a list amazingly similar to what Herod had said.

Some people think that he's John the Baptist, a preacher of righteousness and of repentance all over again. Other people think that he's Elijah. Elijah was taken up in 2 Kings up into the sky by a fiery chariot. He didn't taste death. And so some Jewish people thought Elijah was going to come back again. That he had been almost like God's vice-regent and watching over.

I'm just going to let you know there's all sorts of Jewish writing. It's not in the Bible because it's not scripture. It's just made up stuff. It's kind of like those books people write about what they think heaven's going to be. you know they have these near-death experiences and they write about their own imaginations what they think heaven is like many Jewish people wrote books like that also and so they thought oh Elijah's like up in heaven and he's watching over the affairs of man and someday God's gonna send him back down so some people thought that Jesus was just that he was a prophet and other people thought he was like one of the prophets of old he's like Jeremiah or Ezekiel He's going to do wonderful signs and he's going to preach to kings.

He's going to pronounce repentance and salvation. But that's not the point of what Jesus wants to get at. Notice, he asks broadly, who do people say I am? But that's not really what he's interested in. He narrows in on them. And in verse 29, And he said to them, but, and if this was to be a more literal translation of the Greek, it'd be you all. Who do you say I am? He wants to know if they've got it. He wants to know if the disciples understand. Do his followers, do his students know who Jesus is? He wants to pose the question to them. They have been entrusted with the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and the question is, do they even understand that Jesus is the answer to that mystery?

And in this moment of Holy Spirit given clarity, Peter answers, You are the Christ. Fueste o Christos. You are the Christ. He is the promised one. He is the one that they had been waiting for. And Peter speaks up as the spokesman for the group of disciples, and he tells them, you're the one Ezekiel prophesied about, that we read about here.

See, the Christ They're literally just translating that letter from letter from Greek into English, but that's a Greek word describing a Hebrew word. Messiah. So what does Messiah mean? I'm sure you've heard the word Messiah before, and you've heard of Christ before. Maybe some of you have been confused and thought Christ was Jesus' last name or something. It says title. It says office. It says position. He is the anointed Messiah, or Christ means anointed.

See, in the Old Testament, what they would do, is if you were going to be a prophet, or if you were going to be a priest, or if you were going to be a king, someone would come to you, typically another prophet or a high priest, and they would come to you, and they would take a jar or a container of oil, And they would take that container and they would pour it on your head. And the oil would drip down on you. This is what we sing about in Psalm 133. About the oil dripping down from Aaron's head, down upon his beard and on his garment spread. Right? This is what happens to David when Samuel anoints him to become king. He pours the oil upon David's head. as a sign that He is God's chosen one for that role.

And brothers and sisters, what the Bible teaches us here when it says Jesus is the Christ, He's that promised one that all of Scripture has been looking forward to. God had promised to Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 18 that a new prophet would come who would be greater than Moses. Jesus is that prophet. God had promised to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7 that David would finally have a son and that son would sit upon his throne and reign forever. Jesus is that king. Jesus is the high priest who would come without any sin and would put an end to all the sacrifices. He would be that high priest.

This is what the book of Hebrews teaches us. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 2 teaches us that He is God's prophet. And Hebrews chapter 1 says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers and by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things. It is Jesus who is our prophet, the Christ. It is Jesus, our priest, who is the anointed of God.

Hebrews chapter 2 verse 17. Hebrews 2, 17, Therefore in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of his people. It was Jesus who was made like us in every way, yet without sin, that He might be the best High Priest, the anointed Christ. But He was also the King of Psalm 2.

Psalm 2, God tells, Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Messiah, saying, Let us break their bonds and pieces, and pass away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, and the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. Yet I have set my king on my holy hill, Zion." See, when Peter says, you are the Christ, he's saying, you are the promised prophet. You are the great king. You are our high priest. He's saying, you are the fulfillment of all these things.

So, this is a moment in Israel as a community, that they have been waiting and longing for a Messiah. Prophecy stopped with Malachi, and for 400 years it seems the Lord has been silent. There have been people during Jesus' days who are longing for freedom from the Romans. Even up in Caesarea Philippi, in one of those villages nearby where Jesus is asking this question, there are dagger men. Men who are joining the zealots, ready to be assassins in Jerusalem at the moment's notice that the Messiah returns, that they might be able to kill the Roman centurions, overthrow their Roman rulers. And so it's no wonder why Jesus gives his next command in verse 30.

Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him. See, we're gonna find out As we continue to go through, especially the next two sermons, as we go through, we're going to find Jesus reveals more about Him being the Anointed, Him being the Messiah, Him being the Christ. But as He reveals that, the disciples are going to misunderstand Him. They want to pigeonhole Him into being a political revolutionary. But they are going to misunderstand what His office is as Christ. And so he tells them, don't tell anyone about this.

He's going to speak plainly to his disciples about who he is. But it's not until he goes before the high priests in Mark chapter 14 that it will be Jesus who declares himself as the Christ. It will be Jesus who stands before the political and religious leaders and authority of his day, under oath, and declares in Mark 14, 61 and 62 that He is indeed the Christ. So what do people say Jesus is now? Who do people say Jesus is now?

I brought a whole stack of books with me and then I thought, well it's not exactly show and tell, I'm not going to do that. But I thought about opening up my copy of the Quran to you and reading what Muslims say about Jesus. They say, He is not the son of God, He is just a prophet. They say, you cannot profess the trinity. I'm not, like, go to, if you want, I literally have a pink post-it note in there. I can show you where they say this. He's not the son of God, He's just a prophet. You cannot say that there's a Trinity.

Or you can go talk to your Mormon friends, and they'll tell you that Jesus is the Son of God. And they'll tell you God has many different sons. Many different lower gods, and Jesus is just one of them. You might go and talk to your Jehovah's Witness friends, maybe they're some of your family members, and they might tell you Jesus is just the Archangel Michael. He's the Christ, but he's not actually the incarnate Word of God.

Or you might go on a trip. Maybe you go out to Charlottesville, Virginia, and you go to Monticello, where our third president, Thomas Jefferson, once lived. And there, when you go into Monticello, you'll find Thomas Jefferson's Bible. And as you go to his Bible, you'll open it up, And, well, you'll read verses 27 through 30, but you won't read the passage before this where Jesus heals a blind man.

Because Jefferson couldn't deal with a Jesus who could violate the laws of nature. And so, with a razor blade, he cut out different passages and took them out. Is Jesus like that? Can we just take away his miracles and just be left with his ethical and religious teachings?

But you might say, well, that's like, okay, you're talking about people out there and stuff. No, I'm talking about even people in churches today will try to make Jesus into whatever they want to make Him. Again, I have a whole stack of books here. Like I said, I thought about doing show and tell. But I literally have a book over here that's talking about white women's Jesus and black women's Christ. About saying that there's communities and they just make Jesus into whatever they want Him to be.

This is one of the reasons why there's so much fighting over pictures and images of Jesus, because there's another book here called The Color of Christ, in which it shows how in America people have used the image of Jesus to try to mold Him and make Him into whatever they want Him to be, rather than what the Word says He is. People will try to use Jesus. Feminists will try to make Him into their own image. Black liberation theology will try to make Jesus into their own image of Jesus. Neo-Nazis and straight-up Nazis will try to make Jesus into some whitewashed, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan.

But that's not the Jesus of the Scriptures. That's not the Christ that Peter confesses. There's moral Jesus. We find this in Christianity all over today, where people are uneasy with the divinity of Jesus, but they think of him more like Gandhi and pacifistic than they do of the one who will flip over tables. There are people who just think of Jesus as spiritual. People who go to all sorts of churches. And for them, Jesus is no different than going down the streets in Sedona and buying a rock that they think will bring them more spiritually close to God. But that's not the Christ that Peter confesses here. Even within Evangelicalism and Reformed Christianity, there are people who hold to a non-powerful Jesus. They lean heavy into Him being their Savior, but being Lord is something that needs to be kept out there. All sugar and no meat. All forgiveness and no duty. All the good and none of the repentance. There's even songs on Caleb about it. It's got to be more than just an allegiance. It's got to be a relationship. But the problem is that type of shallow Christianity often leads to rocky Christianity. But then there's another. There's another danger. I'm telling you of all these false Christs that are in the church because we need to guard it.

Because these things are things that our hearts are attracted to. There's another type of legalistic Christ. A type of Christ that I see more and more in Reformed churches. It doesn't even have to be the Westboro Baptists who are totally against everything culture and Jesus is just commanding you to live an absolutely perfect life. But we see this. When people in the church want nothing to do with, nothing to do with the disciplines of grace and showing gentleness and meekness and kindness and humility, but they want a robust, manly, masculine Jesus. And they're willing to trample over people in the midst.

This is the type of Jesus where it's just everything's, the world's going to hell in a handbasket and you need to fix your moral life and show the world a better way. Both of them take their eyes, whether it's the sugar Jesus or whether it's the uber masculine Jesus, neither of them are the Christ that the scriptures give us. The Westminster is short of catechism.

I love question 86 when it says, what is faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him as he is offered to us in the gospel. Where do we go to make sure that we are actually reading the right Christ? Not a Christ of our own wanting, not the Christ of our own making.

I have been so encouraged by some of you. I love that some of you, as we've been going through the book of Mark, have said, this is really messing up how I've thought about Jesus. Some of you have told me, this makes me really uncomfortable how he talks to this person or to that person. Thank the Lord.

That means you're coming into contact with the Jesus of the Bible. Because the Jesus of the Bible isn't predictable. The Jesus of the Bible confronts us with things that we don't want to hear. and says things in ways that we don't like. He does it for our good. So the question I have for you this morning is who do you say Jesus is?

One commentator, James Edwards, he writes on this passage and he says, faith and discipleship cannot be rendered from the sidelines. Removed from risk. Jesus asks for a judgment about Him from the midst of the journey, not at the end of it when all the questions are answered and proof is finally at hand. Faith is a judgment about Jesus and a willingness to act on the judgment in the face of other possible judgments.

If you're waiting until You die and just find out at the end of the story whether Jesus is the Christ. The game's over. Jesus is calling his disciples here. I don't care necessarily what everyone else is saying. I want to know what you believe. Who do you say I am? I pose the same question to you this morning. It's not good enough for you to say, well, my parents taught me this is who Jesus is. It's not good enough for you to say, this is what Pastor Brian says that Jesus is.

Who do you believe Jesus is? Is He your Lord? Is He the Christ that you would bow your knee to? that you would obey, that you would follow, that you would keep His commandments, that you would live a sacrificial life, that you would lay, that you would bear your cross and lay down your life. Is Jesus the Jesus of Scripture or of your own making? Who do you believe Jesus is? Is He the Son of the Living God? Is He the One who has become propitiation, your redemption, your only hope in life and death.

See the one that you follow because you love and you believe. This is what the scriptures demand of us. Who do you say I am? Father, You have given us Your Word, but it is Your Spirit who regenerates. It's only You who can take out a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. Lord, we pray that You might do it. Lord, we cannot bring light to our own eyes. That's up to Your Holy Spirit. So, Father, I pray that You might open our eyes and truly see who Christ is. that we might not make an idol in our own hearts of our own imagination, but that we might truly follow the Christ, the Son of the living God. Lord, please give us faith. In Jesus's name, amen.

And thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.