Who do you say Jesus is?
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Open your copy of God’s word to .
(illustration) Commercial…stay in your lane bro…
In this passage, Jesus is saying pick a lane…pick a side of the fence…
Jesus was either a crazy man, or He is who He says He is.
Jesus was either a crazy man, or He is who He says He is.
23 “You are from below,” he told them, “I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 Therefore I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
34 Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.
john 8
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
23 “You are from below,” he told them, “I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
jhon 8 34
12 Jesus spoke to them again: “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
9 I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.
10 When Jesus stood up, he said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
36 do you say, ‘You are blaspheming’ to the one the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God?
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.
28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
matt 11
13 and told them, “Say this, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him while we were sleeping.’
18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
matt 28
There is a cost to believing Jesus
There is a cost to believing Jesus
18 While he was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
19 They answered, “John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, that one of the ancient prophets has come back.”
20 “But you,” he asked them, “who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”
18-2
Illustration: two people can say the same thing and yet mean two different things.
Two people may say: I love ice cream. First person means they love ice cream, and they eat it every single night before they go to bed. The second person means that they eat ice cream every once in a while and when they do eat it, they enjoy it.
Jesus didn’t ask do people believe in me? Because two people can say I believe in Jesus, I am mean to separate things.
The first person can say I believe in Jesus and mean: I go to church and expect Jesus to give me eternal life, but beyond that…my life is pretty much unaffected.
The second person can say I believe in Jesus and mean: I gave my life to Jesus…He is Lord of my life…my life is aimed at doing everything I can to knowing His word and learning how to obey it.
Jesus didn’t ask: do people believe in me? Jesus asked a question that cannot be confused.
Jesus asks two piercing questions here:
Who do the crowds say that I am?
Who do you say that I am?
The crowds wants Jesus to be anyone but God…anyone but the Messiah…anyone but Lord…anyone but the ultimate authority…anyone but the boss.
The crowds are saying that Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets risen from the grave.
The crowds want Jesus to be important…important enough to heal them when they are sick and feed them when they are hungry…calm the storm when they are in trouble.
But they don’t want Jesus to be important enough to be the master of their lives. They want to listen when they feel like listening.
Jesus could be a prophet…but He couldn’t be God…that would change everything!
The point is that the crowds are wrong. Jesus wants the disciples to understand the line Jesus is drawing in the sand: He is either God or He is not. He is either the Messiah or He is not.
When Jesus turns the question on the disciples, He wants the disciples to understand that there is a cost to believing Him.
Peter answers Jesus and says: You are God’s Messiah. You are God. You are both Savior and Lord. Peter is right!
And Jesus wants Peter and the rest of the disciples to know that there is a cost to believing Him.
What is this cost? If you believe that Jesus is who He says He is, not who the crowds say that He is, you must agree with Jesus…He is God.
If you believe that Jesus is God, you have to follow Him…you must obey Him.
APPLICATION
APPLICATION
Today in our culture…we understand this principal. People want to believe that Jesus will save them from hell, but they don’t want the cost of this belief.
They want say: “Hey Jesus, I want to be associated with you. I want to be called a Christian, but I don’t want you to mess with my life. I am not looking for a master. I am just looking for a ticket out of hell.
Jesus I want you to heal me of my sickness, but stay out of the rest of my life.
Jesus I know you said to abide in your word, to know your word and obey your commandments, but I want to change that around a little bit…I just want to go to church once a week or a couple times a week.
But you can’t call Jesus Savior without making Him Lord. If you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, it is going to cost you something…there is a price tag...everything!
You commanded us to make disciples
The cost of following Jesus
The cost of following Jesus
23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.
25 For what does it benefit someone if he gains the whole world, and yet loses or forfeits himself?
26 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and the holy angels.
luke 9 23-
If you believe that Jesus is Savior and Lord, then you must follow Him. Jesus explains the price tag on belief.
First, He says that if you want to follow Him, you must deny yourself. what sense does it make to gain the whole world, and forfeit yourself?
If Jesus is Lord, then you are not. You can’t say that you are following Jesus, if in fact you are not following Him. If you are going to follow Jesus, the first thing you have to do is deny yourself…you have to admit that Jesus is the boss and you are not.
(example) Who gets to keep their job if they do not do what the boss says?
What Jesus is telling his disciples is very hard for them to hear.
o are American ears, this doesn’t seem very hard. But I want you to feel the weight of what Jesus is saying. I want you to have an emotional response equivalent to what the disciples are having when they hear this. Do not miss this: Jesus is drawing a line in the sand. He is telling them that they cannot say they believe him without also committing to obey him.
To are American ears, this doesn’t seem very hard. But I want you to feel the weight of what Jesus is saying.
I want you to have an emotional response equivalent to what the disciples are having when they hear this. If you are wearing steel toe boots this morning…take them off!
Do not miss this: Jesus is drawing a line in the sand. He is telling them that they cannot say they believe him without also committing to obey him.
There is a cost to following Jesus (three things associated with the price tag to following Jesus). deny yourself and take up your cross daily…this is an example of what this means:
We must know His word
We must know His word
If Jesus is Lord, you cannot ignore what He says. This is why I always remind you that you must commit to read the Bible through over and over until Jesus comes back or until you die. This costs something…the one who follows Jesus makes knowing His word the top priority of their life.
If knowing God’s word is your top priority:
you might have to wake up a little earlier or go to sleep a little later.
you might have to pay a little less attention to politics
you might have to stop reading romance novels and start reading the Bible.
you might have to say no to something so you can commit to participate in a Bible Study.
if knowing God’s word is your top priority, you will have to deny yourself and reorder your life so that you make knowing God’s word a priority.
We must learn to obey His word
We must learn to obey His word
Jesus said, the cost of believing Me is that you must follow Me…you must obey Me. You must deny yourself:
We cant say that we are following Jesus if:
He says to forgive others, but we do not.
He says to pray always, but we seldom pray.
He says that we should fast regularly, but we fast so infrequently that we don’t even know what it means to fast.
He says that the sexually immoral do not inherit God’s kingdom, but we have sex outside of marriage, look at pornography, send snapchats of obscene pictures, cheat on our spouses, lust after people who are not our spouses, live with our girlfriends or boyfriends outside of marriage, do “everything but...” with our girlfriends or boyfriends, condone LGBTQ lifestyles, seek out entertainment from show and movies with nudity or anything else that has even a hint of sexual immorality.
He says that we must love others as ourselves, but we don’t love others.
He says that drunkards don’t inherit the kingdom of heaven, but we refuse to exercise self-control.
He says that we are to make disciples of all nations, but we don’t share the gospel with anyone.
He says that we should give to the government what is the governments and to God what is God, but we don’t pay our taxes and we don’t tithe to church.
He says that we should make a joyful noise unto the Lord, but we don’t sing or value worship together.
He says that we should confess our sins to one anther, but we go to great lengths to make everybody else think we are super Christians.
If He says that our speech should be wholesome, but we litter our conversation with curse words or dirty jokes.
If He says not to sin in our anger, but we go off on people in our anger.
He says that we should do everything in an effort to build of the church, but the church Facebook page could not repost our posts.
He says that we should seek peace in the church, but every time someone does something we don’t like, we have a bad attitude, or gossip, or cause disunity.
Did I miss anyone? If these or anything like these are the marks of your life, you might be asking Jesus to be your Savior…but you might be asking Him to not be your Lord.
You might say, wow Joel, where did you get a list like that?
9 Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males,
10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom.
1 cor 6 9-
I don’t want you to miss the hardness of what Jesus is saying to the disciples: If you believe me…you must learn to obey My word.
The point is not that Jesus requires us to be perfect…we will never be. But we cannot say that we follow Jesus is we are not actively learning what it means to deny ourselves.
We must reorder our lives to pursue others who do not know God
We must reorder our lives to pursue others who do not know God
23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.
24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.
25 For what does it benefit someone if he gains the whole world, and yet loses or forfeits himself?
26 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and the holy angels.
luke 9
When Jesus says that if anyone wants to follow Him, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross daily:
He wants them to understand the picture of His life.
He left glory in order to die so that we can be forgiven of sin.
He left glory to be spat on, beaten, argued with, trapped, falsely accused, murdered…to save sinners.
He left glory and lived a life of denial on the earth for one purpose…to save sinners.
Jesus is saying there is a cost to believing Him. It is a heavy price tag. If you believe Him you must follow Him—obey Him. If you follow Jesus, ultimately you must live your life for one singular purpose…that others might know Jesus through your witness.
Jesus is saying that if your life is not set on helping others know Him, submit to Him, and obey Him…then you can call Him what you want…but you are not following Him.
INVITATION
INVITATION
Regardless of what you believe about Jesus now, there will be a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ is Lord.
The promise is not that everyone on earth will say…Jesus is my Savior…There will be a great confession that Jesus demanded that we submit to Him as Lord, in order to be saved.
Has anyone ever told you the cost of believing Jesus? If not, there is good news. Repent…change your thinking…Ask Jesus to forgive you…commit to spend the rest of your life learning how to obey Him.
If you realize that you are not saved, it is because the Holy Spirit is helping you understand God’s word this morning…don’t ignore Him.
Let’s not be a group of people that goes along with the crowd…let’s be a church that submits to Jesus as Lord.