What Say You?

Matt 16:13-15 NLT- 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” 15 Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

We’ll get to that answer, but today our message title comes in the form of a question, “What Say You?”

In a time when we have messages coming to us from all different places, from many directions, from numerous people and from multiple mediums; if you don’t decide who you are and what you believe you will be so confused that you’ll start believing that up is down, in is out, right is wrong, and wrong is right.

We are constantly bombarded with information, through television, radio, the internet, email, snail mail, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, snap chat, and even people knocking on our doors, that sometimes we don’t know who to believe or what to think and so we become paralyzed by information overload. Everyone wants you to believe their message is the right one, their product is the best one, that their message is the correct one and that their method is the sure thing.

Even in church, as I stand and preach, my goal is to convince you that what I’m telling you is an accurate, factual, helpful, uplifting, life altering, and soul saving message that will cause you to be able to handle anything this world throws at you; to be able to discern the truth, and to know where you can go when you can’t handle the pressure and even when you think you can.

As this 16th chapter of Matthew begins we have yet another confrontation between the Pharisees, Saducees and Jesus. The Pharisees and Saducees were not friends, they didn’t believe the same thing. The Pharisees were prideful hypocrites who were imposters of the traditions of the elders, they held others to a standard they didn’t keep. And the Sadducees denied the existence of spirits and a future state, in other words, they didn’t believe in everlasting life.

But, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so they banded together and came to test Jesus, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

It was like a dare, like if you want us to believe that you are who you say you are, you have to prove it to us. When I read this, I think, perform for us, put on a show, dance monkey, dance. If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself dancing to the beat of another’s drum and the more you dance, the faster the beat until you collapse from exhaustion or you trip over your own feet in an effort to satisfy their whim.

But can I tell you this, they will never be satisfied, you’ll never be good enough and you’ll never have all the answers. So be careful when someone wants you to prove something to them.

Ask yourself why are they asking you the question? Do they really want to know the answer? And are you the one who should even be answering the question? Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with you. Nevertheless, they have set their sites on you, in an effort to put you in a lose/lose situation.

Jesus had already performed many miracles, the Pharisees and the Saducees had seen them, but they’re acting like, if they see one more miracle, they’ll believe Jesus is who he says he is. Or a certain type of miracle, then they’ll believe. Of course that wasn’t true and Jesus knew it. It’s like I said last week, sometimes we see something so often, we forget that it’s a miracle, like childbirth. Of course they had not forgotten, simply put, they just didn’t like Jesus and they would have done anything they could to discredit him.

Jesus response to them is, “Only an evil, adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign”. When someone is challenging you on your faith, you don’t have anything to prove, God didn’t say you had to prove your faith to others, he said if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. You may not be able to rattle off 10 verses of Scripture, but at a minimum you ought to be able to tell someone who may ask, why you believe what you believe.

Jesus is not going to dance. Know when you’re facing a lose/lose situation and have the courage and faith to walk away. To know you have nothing to prove or that you’ll be able to prove in that situation.

Jesus leaves the Pharisees and Sadducees to their own devises and moves on with his disciples. These are men who have also seen the miracles he’s done, and they’ve seen them up close and personal, yet they too quickly forget.

What has God done for you that you forgot when trouble came? Or what have you seen him do for someone else but when you had a similar situation, you doubted He would or may be even that He could do it for you, that he would act on your behalf.

You thought your issue was so special, or so difficult, or so unique, or so bad that God would not even address it. But as Elevation Worship sings, if he watches over every sparrow, how much more will he bless you, if he dresses the lilies with beauty and splendor how much more will he clothe you.

When they forgot to get the bread and began to argue about it, Jesus had to remind them about when he fed the 5,000 and the 4,000. Up close and personal.

So now it’s Jesus’ turn has a question