Who and What

Luke 9:18-27

Title: Who and What

Date Preaching: January 19, 2025

Luke 9:18–27 ESV

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Introduction:

A.W. Tozer is well known for saying that "what a man believes about God is the most important thing about him.”

Who do you say that Jesus is? What do you believe about Jesus? The answer to this question is the most important thing about you.

There are lots of opinions today on who Jesus is...

Liberal theologies try to reshape and recast the image of Jesus.

People consider Him a man of profound wisdom and insight or a supreme ethical or moral teacher.

Some think he’s the model of existential man...The model of finding personal meaning in life.

Some think of Him as an archetype of aspirational living.

But there is a difference between the Jesus in human opinion and the real, true, Biblical, Jesus.

In today’s passage we see Jesus pressing a little on who His disciples say He is and then He goes on to explain what it looks like to follow Him. My goal is that today you will see Christ Jesus for who He is and will be deeply surrendered to the life of a true Christ follower.

As we come to this passage you’ll notice the first words.

Luke 9:18 ESV

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

In Luke, the immediate preceeding passage is the feeding of the 5,000. However, we know from looking at other gospel accounts that there were other significant events in Jesus’ ministry that happened between these two events. So why does Luke record them differently? Well, there are a couple of explanations that scholars have offered. First, writers did not always arrange their work chronologically. Sometimes it was arranged topically. Luke never says anything that would make us think it was the very next event that happened. Secondly, writing in that day would have had some limitations on the production process. For example, there would have been space restrictions. Parchment that they wrote on was expensive and they would often organize for the maximum use of the space. To help fill in some of the gaps there, we can draw on Matthew’s account so that we know what happened between the feeding of the 5,000 and Peter’s good confession.

You may remember that I mentioned last week that for the first eight chapters, Luke has been giving a rough outline of who Jesus is and who His people, the church would be. As we move through chapter 9, the outline of that picture gets colored in a lot more for us. It helps us nail down more certainty about the identity of Jesus. In today’s culture, and even in some churches, people have a distorted view of both who Jesus is and who we as followers of Christ should be.

Let’s first look at who people say Jesus is.

I. Who do you say Jesus is? (v. 18-20)

Luke 9:19–20 ESV

And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

Jesus is out praying alone and the disciples were with him.

He asks them who people are saying he is.

They give him answers that mirror those answers to this question that Herod had pondered when he was wondering who Jesus was.

Options: JTB, Elijah, one of the prophets of old

The people don’t know who Jesus is but they do recognize that He is different. He’s extraordinary. He’s doing things that they have never seen before. But they don’t believe Him to be the Messiah because He doesn’t fit some of their expectations of the Messiah. They also aren’t following Him because of the desire to know Him as Messiah but because of the miraculous things He was able to do. They wanted the show. They wanted the bread He could provide miraculously. We can say that at the very least they believe Him to be a prophet.

Jesus flips the question from the people to the disciples. No more is the question who do those people say I am but now it’s who do you who follow me, who are the closest to me, say that I am?

Of course, Peter, who has a reputation for being a little brash, is the one to speak up. Peter’s answer: “The Christ of God.” This is christos, the coming annointed one, the messiah. He’s confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. He’s confessing that Jesus is who He claims to be. The promised one from God coming to save the people from sin.

Peter’s confession was not merely human opinion. It was revealed to Him by God. You may say, “okay Pastor but how do we know that?” I’m glad you asked. I have verses. Look at

Matthew 16:16–17 ESV

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

This is key. It was upon this confession that Jesus is the Christ that Jesus builds the church upon. So this confession is very important.

You see, as far as it matters to your eternity inparticular, what others say about Jesus isn’t really what matters. But what do you, who claim to follow Him, who do you say that He is? We all must decide what we are going to do with that. Do we take Him at His Word or not? The rest of this message today isn’t going to matter much to you if you haven’t decided about Jesus.

We tend to think that if I don’t think about something or if I am undecided about something then that thing doesn’t matter now or it isn’t true until I believe it’s true but that is not how truth works. It is an objective truth that Jesus is Lord, King, and Savior of Sinners whether you believe it or not.

So who do you say Jesus is?

II. What Jesus would do. (21-22)

Jesus tells them what is coming to Him. He will suffer and be killed.

Luke 9:21–22 ESV

And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Why would Jesus tell them not to tell anyone about this? Wouldn’t you want everyone to know? This is what we refer to as the Messianic Secret. Jesus would often tell people not to say anything among the Jews about Him being the Messiah.

You see it in other places in scripture. One of those is back over in Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession. In chapter sixteen, verse twenty it says:

Matthew 16:20 ESV

Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

The people wanted to take Jesus and make him a political king. They did not understand what it meant to be Messiah or what the character of the Messiah was all about.

Even Peter, who had a divine revelation of Jesus being the Christ and had just confessed this truth did not understand the suffering that Jesus must endure.

Stay in Matthew chapter 16.

Matthew 16:21–23 ESV

From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

The idea that Jesus would be killed was too much for Peter.

To suffer and die and rise is what it meant to be the Christ, the Messiah. A Christ without suffering is not Biblical and cannot save. Our King came to earth and lived among us. He was tempted like us but knew no sin. And just as He said He would, HE died via crucifixion, and then rose from the dead to live again. That is the Christ who saves. It is so vital that we come to a proper understanding of the identity of Jesus as Messiah.

And bless Peter, he didn’t realize that and he tried to stand in the way of the very thing that would save his soul. He did so out of ignorance of course, ignorance and good intentions. But how many times have we tried to stop the plans of God in our lives out of ignorance of what He might be doing with us? Sometimes even our good intentions can get in the way.

So this Jesus, who had been having them go out and do the same ministry He had been doing, was going to go to the cross and suffer for the sake of sinners, as a substitutionary sacrifice.

And now Jesus draws His followers into the mission of suffering and death.

We see that as we get to verses 23 through 27.

III. What Jesus’ followers would be like. (v. 23-27)

Luke 9:23–27 ESV

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus had just told them what was coming for Him: suffering and death. And now He tells them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him.

As one man said, Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to believe in themselves. Self denial is so counter intuitive in our culture and yet, self denial is part of following Jesus. You want to come after Him? Deny yourself. Now, we don’t need to go to the places that some have done and say that you can’t have anything or enjoy anything. That would be to misunderstand. What it means is that you will put the Lord and others before yourself. Instead of working for what you want as your primary goal in life, everything about your life becomes oriented around Christ and what HE wants as laid out in scripture. It’s a cross made for each of us. Every Christian. So deny your desires that are contrary to the Lord’s. Set aside your thought that your life is your own. You have been bought with a price. I’ve told the story of an evangelistic conversation I was having with a non-Christian. She was talking about how she really had a problem with the church because of their stance on same sex issues. I told her that as a follower of Christ, I am a citizen of a kingdom and I have a king. I live at the pleasure of the King. I serve the King and do and believe as the King has established so what the King says goes in my life. I don’t have a right to decide to do something that goes against my King because it is the King who establishes what it looks like to live in His Kingdom. We deny what we want when it is in conflict with what God has said in His Word.

There is a great difference between denying yourself things and denying yourself.

Adrian Rogers

Jesus tells his followers they have to take up their cross daily.

Bearing one's cross has become a way of describing any type of suffering in our culture… "that's just my cross to bear..." But this is not what Jesus is talking about. This is not just normal suffering but a sharing in the particular suffering of Christ.

And we are promised great joy. But, as Sproul notes, we must be willing to participate in the humiliation of Christ. And if we refuse to participate in his humiliation then we have no part in HIs exaltation.

You can not live a compartmentalized Christian life.

Explain.

Taking up your cross is not for Sundays only or for just at the gathering.

The cross was an item of torture and death. IT was well known at the time as this symbolism. They had likely seen someone that had been captured and sentenced and made to carry their own cross. (Horrors of crucifixion) So the thing you must daily pick up and carry as you follow Jesus, might be the very thing that kills you. Would you still come after Him?

This starts to sound a little different than the easy believism that gets preached in a lot of churches and on tv and social media. This sounds harder and like maybe not everything is sunshine and roses when you come to know Jesus. It sounds like your life might even be difficult.

Shane Pruitt -

“Lukewarm Christianity has become so normal that Biblical Christianity seems radical. - Shane Pruitt

We have done a disservice to the lost out there by not living truly Christian lives. We have given the outside world a wrong view of what it means to be Christian because so many people claim the name and the eternity of a Christian but want nothing to do with the self denial and suffering that come along with it. In fact, according to Jesus, we need to be willing to lose our lives.

Luke 9:24–25 ESV

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

Desiring to save your own skin and actually losing it.

Where would they be when their moment of truth comes and they have the chance to save their own skin or give their life for the gospel.

Gaining everything in the world would be meaningless if ultimately your soul is lost.

When I think of this verse, I am reminded of the story of missionary Jim Eliot who believed himself called to reach a tribe in Ecuador. He was warned about how dangerous this particular tribe was and yet he and his coworkers decided to go ahead with their mission to take the gospel to these people. Eventually, they were killed by the very people they were there to minister to. One of Jim’s quotes is very familiar. He wrote,

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

The eternities of many throughout history have been changed because there were Christians who declared with their lives that Jesus was worth more than their personal comfort.

Living in this way is like the missionaries that would go overseas long ago, knowing that they wouldn’t return to America so they would pack all of their belongings in their coffins to be shipped over to their place of mission. It is this attitude that says, I’m following Christ and I’m never going back to how I used to be. I’m landing on shore and burning the ships because I serve Jesus. I live in His way, for His glory. And I don’t make not denying myself an option for myself.

Conclusion:

I read you that Shane Pruitt quote earlier about lukewarm Christianity being so rampant that real, Biblical Christianity seems radical to the world. Here’s the truth of the matter:

There is no radical Christianity. There is Christianity and then there is everything else.

One man said that much of his learning to follow Jesus is unlearning to follow himself. Today will you unlearn following yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Christ?

Repent and believe