Who do you say I am?

The feeding of the 5,000.

· The people were running after Jesus, they were lost sheep with no one to shepherd them. So Jesus took pity on them because God the Father sent him to be their shepherd.

· Jesus wanted them people to really know who he was, which was the Son of God. So he made a direct connection to something the people would understand. He started to do miracles. He broke bread and provided the people with food when there wasn’t any. Just like God did when Moses brought them out of Egypt and they walked the desert, God gave the people mana for heaven to sustain His people. Jesus also broke the people up into groups of 50 and 100. When the Jews came out of Egypt, they would camp in groups of 50 and 100. Jesus was making a connection to the people, to show them He is the Son of God.

· Jesus demonstrated that God has authority over everything, and as we trust (place our faith in) He can expand our every resource. Its not easy all the time. Even Jesus’ own disciples, who just first hand witnessed this miracle, still couldn’t understand or apply His all-sufficiency to their own needs. In fact, after this miracle, many disciples left Jesus.

Jesus Walking on Water

· Why do you think Jesus let the disciples get into a storm? Why let them fear for their lives? We know that God, and His son, have the power and authority over all creation including the weather. So why let this storm take place? Because Jesus wanted and needed to show his disciples who He was. So they knew, God/Jesus was there to fight their battles for them. He did it in a very dramatic way too. Walking out to sea, in a storm. It scared His disciples, they thought He was a ghost. But Jesus said “Take courage, for I am here”. In other words, have faith in me, have faith that I am who I say I am.

· Another correlation between Jesus walking on water and God bringing His people out of Egypt is here. Coming out of Egypt, God demonstrated his power in front of all his people, he demonstrated his power over the elements and all creation through Moses by parting the Red Sea.

Impure food doesn’t make a impure Heart

· This is a huge couple of versus. The pharisees, after hearing all that Jesus had done, feeding the 5,000 and walking on water, start to complain that his disciples don’t follow the Jewish rules of washing your hands before you eat. You see, this was not a law from God, but something man came up with because they thought that if dirt entered the body if would make you unclean. But Jesus corrects them and says it doesn’t matter what you eat, or if you wash your hands, for all the evil and uncleanliness comes from the heart. Impurity comes from sinning and not having the Holy Spirit and Jesus in your heart. Letting Jesus work on your heart is the only way to freedom and being clean. We are all human and fall short, but we cannot simply keep Jesus out of our heart and expect all to go well.

Faith of a Gentile Woman

· Pretext: During this time, the Jews were the chosen people of God and Gentiles were know as people “not belonging to Israel”, therefore not of God. So the Jewish community would refer to the Gentiles as dogs, beneath human race and the Jews.

· So when this woman approached Jesus, she fell on her knees (sign of deep respect and reverence) to beg Jesus to heal her Daughter. Surprisingly Jesus response did not come across as loving, even though this woman was showing she had faith. Jesus used a metaphor stating he needed to “feed his family first before the dogs”. But what Jesus was really doing was testing her faith, He was drawing her real faith out of her, and her response was yes, but even the dogs get to eat the scraps from the childrens plates. Jesus then healed her daughter.

Feeding of the 4,000

· Identical to the story of the 5,000 people. What is most shocking about this story isn’t about Jesus preforming yet another miracle, which alone is amazing, but the reaction of his disciples. Yet again they have no faith, and you would think that the people who are with Jesus every day, and witness every one of his miracles, they would have the most faith. But when Jesus tells his disciples they need to feed these hungry people, their response is, how are we going to do that. Jesus doesn’t even acknowledge their lack of faith, his concern is to be the good shepherd for everyone who came to hear Him speak.

· This speaks to Jesus’ patience with all of us, and He will continue to show who He is, even in times where our faith is lacking.

Pharisees

· Jesus will not be put to the test to prove others unbelief. The pharisees had no faith in who Jesus was claiming to be, therefore no miracle or miraculous sign shall be given.

· When Jesus got on the boat, the disciples forgot to bring food, and they started arguing. Jesus was looking at them like, are you guys kidding me!? Did you not just see me feed 5,000 and 4,000 people with a couple loaves of bread!? Do you still not get who I am after everything I have done!? And finally, at the end of the chapter, Jesus asks them a question at Philippi. “Who do people say I am”, and they all responded with different answers, from a prophet to Elisha, but no one said Son of God. Then Jesus asked his disciples who they thought He was, and Peter finally got it, he said you are the Christ, Son of the living God.