Sermon July 17 2022

Who is Jesus?

What makes a good drummer?

It could be you!

If you will humor me for a moment this morning, I’d like to give you a quick drum lesson.

Step 1 - RH pat head. LH rub belly

Step 2 - RH rub head. LH pat belly

Step 3 - RH rub belly. LH pat head

Step 4 - RH pat belly. LH rubhead.

Now why did we just do that this morning?

You could do those exercises perfectly this morning, but never try to play the drums.

This is true of any skill we learn.

Do you realize that?

I can read about drum theory all day long.

- familiarize myself with techniques and patterns…

But if I never sit behind the drums and try to play them, I’m missing the entire reason I’ve been studying!

I don’t study for the knowledge, I study to enjoy the instrument!

Here’s where this matters for us this morning, Who do you think Jesus is?

You may have been to church all your life.

You may have heard hundreds of sermons about Jesus.

But what if you who you think He is is off?

What if my idea of Jesus or who I want Him to be isn’t who HE actually is.

How would that affect you and me?

I think that would be like studying an instrument your whole life, but never actually playing it.

And as we will find out this morning, that’s exactly how it went for the Pharisees.

TRANSITION:

1. Who do you think Jesus is?

Well let’s start with who we think other people are.

We treat people based on what we know about them?

Think about it…

We may ignore the homeless person near I-26 or walmart/dorman center because

We don’t know them.

We don’t trust them.

We may think if we give them money they will misuse it.

Because we don’t know them, we don’t trust them.

What you think about someone may determine how you treat or respond to that person.

What people thought of Jesus in the first century certainly resulted in how they treated Him.

2. Who did Jesus claim to be?

In luke 4, Jesus opens up the scroll of Isaiah and reads from Isaiah 61.

Luke 4:16-21 “16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.””

3. Who did people think Jesus was and who was He really?

A. AT HOME

Luke 4:28-30 “28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.”

Who did His hometown think Jesus was?

not God!

A liar. blasphemer. one worthy of death.

Something you may not realize here is this reading in the synagogue is literally the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

In the beginning of Luke 4, Jesus is tempted in the wilderness.

Then he is going into synagogues reading about the coming messiah.

Luke 4:15 “15 He was teaching in their synagogues, being praised by everyone.”

But at home…

His hometown didn’t believe He was God.

They tried to kill him!

Why?

They didn’t believe He was who he claimed to be.

In their culture, claiming to be God (and not being so) deserved death.

So what did they try to do? Kill Him!

The question I ask when I read this is why did Jesus keep going? Why not close up shop, enact Noah’s flood part 2, and start over with us?

If his own hometown was rejecting Him, why continue?

Isaiah 53:3 “3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

What fools our intelligence in the present, is God’s divine plan being unveiled.

Though rejected at home, Jesus continues, gentle and lowly of heart to give rest to weary souls.

B. Outcasts

Mark 1:40-45 “40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.”

Who did the leper think Jesus was?

The healer!

Why did Jesus tell him not to tell others about him?

Because Jesus didn’t come to redeem the political climate of the day.

The reason Jesus sought anonymity early in his ministry was not because He was trying prevent the spread of the gospel.

It was to prevent a political uprising!

Rome was the prevailing power of the day.

many Jews believed that the predicted messiah would come to save the Jews from their oppression with Rome.

Much like God sent Moses to save Israel from Egypt, God would send a messiah to save Israel from Rome.

But this missed the mark.

Now maybe we can show the leper some grace here that He didn’t fully understand the consequences of his actions.

Yet at the same time, the healed didn’t follow the words of the healer.

He missed Jesus message to Him.

Jesus didn’t come to be elevated as a political leader.

But that’s exactly what they wanted to make Him…

C. The King!

John 6:14-15 “14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”

In John 6, Jesus has just fed the 5000.

People were amazed and wanted to make Jesus a king!

Who did they think Jesus was?

The one to save them from Rome!

He makes food from a few fish and some bread in a kids lunch!

He fed thousands

He healed sick men

He preached incredible sermons to silence even the most educated religious.

But people were interested in Jesus for the show…

They were entertained by the stories about Jesus and by what they saw.

But they didn’t believe…

________________

In John 11, Lazarus dies. Jesus’ friend.

Jesus shows up and raises Lazarus from the dead!

He shows his power over life and death!

Who could bring a dead man back from the dead but God?

You see, the question we’ve asked all morning is

“Who did they think Jesus was?”

But at the start we clarified who Jesus is!

He is God!

The right question really isn’t, Who is Jesus?

but the right question is.

4. “Do I believe Jesus is who HE said He was… DO I believe He is God?”

Right after Jesus brought Lazarus back to life in John 11, The Pharisees and chief priests say this about Jesus in

John 12:9-11 “9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.”

And here is where we will close this morning.

The Chief Priests rejected God even after seeing a dead man come back to life.

Can we repeat that…

After everything else they had seen, they rejected Jesus as God after seeing a man dead for days walk out of a tomb.

These men who knew the scriptures should have been able to recognize the messiah in front of them.

Yet like a student of an instrument,

they had practiced and practiced, yet never sat down and actually played the instrument itself.

They missed the point.

When you reject Jesus as God, sin owns you.

When sin owns you, you are far from God

When you are far from God, you are hopeless, empty, dead…

Pharisees and chief priests had great power.

They used religion and jewish tradition to leverage power among the Jews while turning around and doing everything that Rome asked them to do.

Jesus, the outcast, has accumulated many followers from feeding 5000, healing the sick, and now raising a dead man back to life.

The Pharisees might lose their political power if the Jews make Jesus King

If Jesus is here to overthrow Rome, by association, the Pharisees would be overthrown as well.

And what is their answer?

We’ve got to quiet the crowds, so let’s kill this guy Lazarus again!

As if killing a guy who was just dead… again… is going to calm things down…

Men who are religious, study God, suddenly find themselves far from God.

Owned by sin.

hopeless, empty, and dead. Craving the death of another.

This is evil.

This was the last thing Jesus did before he goes back into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

Jesus has now been an outcast for most of his ministry.

Working on the outskirts of towns, but never in them directly.

As we have seen this morning.

Many people missed who Jesus is.

People loved the show

People love what Jesus could DO, but they didn’t know or love WHO HE IS!

They didn’t know or love Jesus who would give all of Himself.

The one who would take all their sin so that they could be righteous.

The outcast Jesus:

the healer

the provider

the one who fed thousands

The one who raised the dead.

Still had one more thing to do.

The most important thing.

Destroy sin and death.

Isaiah 53:10-11 “10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”

Through His grief, his being crushed, His offering himself, He would take our sin so that we could be considered righteous.

He didn’t come to make bad people good.

He came to make dead people come alive!

APPLICATION:

Do you know Jesus?

At least when Jesus was entertaining, people were still looking to Jesus.

Sure some walked away, but some didn’t! Some stayed, and believed.

How do we miss Jesus today?

It’s said now days that the average attention span of a person is less than 10 seconds…

Less than 10 seconds…

Now days, our world is so flashy and wild.

Consider the miracles of Jesus we heard this morning

What was your mental response to them?

Jesus is so familiar you read about Him bringing Lazarus back to life and we just shrug it off.. “I’ve heard that one before.”

Friends, if that’s you this morning.

If we are quick to shrug off Jesus because he’s familiar

Does Sin own you? Are You far from God.

Don’t be Hopeless, empty, and dead.

Jesus didn’t come and enter that city on palm Sunday so He could make you feel better about yourself.

He came so that you would die to yourself and live for Him.

So that you would reject everything in this world that rejects Him and that you would believe in Him.

Let’s not be so quick to focus our attention somewhere else that we miss the tender mercies of Jesus today.

Let’s not read our Bibles just to be familiar with the content within, but

let us read our Bibles to know the heart of God who gave us the words within.

Who is Jesus to you?

Do you believe He is who He says He is?

If not

What’s holding you back from living for Him today?