Matthew 16:15-16..Ready

Matthew 16:15-16..Ready

16:15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” (Some assume Jesus is preparing them for His departure. What will they say about Christ if they are interrogated? What will they say about him when they are asked about him after His death?) 16  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Peter often gets in wrong, he’s the disciple we often find putting his foot in his mouth. But here he gets it exactly right-(New)  (For Complete Expository See Book)

Extended Sermons 

“Teaches how faith in Jesus is a personal decision and not on what your mom says about Jesus. What your small group says about Jesus. What your traditions say about Jesus, but what you say“⇒ A decision for Christ is more than agreeing with church doctrine. It’s more than a code of conduct. It’s more than repeating what others say. It’s more than reciting the Catechism. It’s more than a confession of faith to get you in the door. You can’t get into heaven riding on the coattails of their parents faith. Your Pastors faith, your small group bible study faith. You have to make your own personal faith confession of Jesus. When you get to heaven Jesus isn’t going to ask you what church you were a member of. He’s not going to ask you how much money you gave. He’s not going to ask what title, office. or position you held in the church. He’s not going to ask you how long you served in the church. He’s going to ask you who do you say “I Am”. Your parents can’t answer that for you, Your church can’t answer that for you. Your youth pastor can’t answer that for you. Only you can answer that!  You might have a mother who’s a faithful believer. But that does not automatically make you a child of God. You might come from a long religious heritage, growing up in the Church, but that does not make you a believer. When you stand before the Lord you can’t say “My mama knew you, My daddy knew you, My grandma knew you. But have you personally known Jesus yourself!  That answer will be the difference between life and death. Salvation and judgment. Heaven and Hell.

“Teaches a true confession of Christ that’s put into action is where the rubber meets the road” → The term where the “Rubber meets the road” means when an idea, theory, or a plan is tested in practice. It’s all theory up to that point and then it’s put into practice to see whether it will work or not. Where the Rubber meets the road  is a phrase that signifies the point that contact in which a abstract concept is put into action or tested in real life. The term “:Where the rubber meets the road”. originated in the automotive industry for the moment of contact between a vehicle’s tires and the road surface where the theoretical potential of the tires is translated into actual motion to ensure the best performance and safety on all road conditions and in all weather conditions. At the end of the day, it’s to see how will the tire performed. Metaphorically it implies the transition from mere talk or planning to take a concrete action. An athlete can train all day, but the race is where the rubber meets the road and they’ll know how good they really are.” Today, the idiom is used as an analogy for an important  moment in one’s life that requires skill, tenacity, focus and smart choices. If one were to say, “This is where the rubber meets the road,” they are saying “This is the moment of truth” or “This is where it really counts” or “This is where it matters most”. As Christians it’s the place where the rubber meets the road in our lives, in our belief’s and actions. Christianity is not just a theory or philosophy. It’s real, it’s dynamic, it’s to be put to use. It’s not enough just to know truth about Christianity. Practical Christian living is where the rubber meets the road. It’s not about winning theological arguments, but about living out our faith daily. Putting it into practice through obedience is where the Christian life is live out.  For Christians, “Where the rubber meets the road” refers to the practical application of their faith in daily life by putting biblical teachings into practice through active, obedient choices rather than just knowing them. Particularly in acts of love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, towards others. For believers where the rubber meets the road has nothing to do with how much you go to church, how loud you sing or how high you raise your hands. Instead, it has everything to do with how you treat the people around you. In your own life where does the Rubber meet the road for you? When cut off in traffic what comes forth? Do you curse, or do you let it go? When something doesn’t go right, do you go to pieces. or do you give it to God and trust Him. When life hits hard do you keep the faith, or do you give it over to God to get you though?

“Calls for putting a stake in the ground in our unwavering allegiance and commitment to Christ.”→ To “Put a stake into the ground” is a Native American term.  When they were under attack and it looked like they were going to be defeated, they would “drive a stake into the ground” and actually to tie a person by the leg to it so that they would have to stay there and defend that piece of the ground to the death! For believers putting a stake in the ground is declaring your allegiance to Jesus, that your drawing a line in your life and taking a definitive stand for Jesus Christ, publicly declaring your hope and dependence on the Lord. Putting a stake in the ground also signify a point of no return, where you commit to a new course of action guided by God’s Word and will. It is a landmark to help you stay on course when you might otherwise be tempted to drift back to old habits. The book of Joshua provides a powerful illustration. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua addresses the people of Israel and challenges them to make a choice: “Choose this day whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” For Christians, making a similar, definitive choice is the spiritual equivalent of “putting a stake in the ground” for Jesus Christ.  We need to “Put a stake into the ground” concerning what God’s Word says.  We need to put a stake in the ground by sharing the good news of the Gospel with others, telling them of God’s love and goodness. We need to put a stake in the ground when it comes to our Christian principals, values, and beliefs. We need to put a stake in the ground.

“Teaches how confessing Christ is not a one-time decision but a daily decision and moment by moment decision.”⇒ A genuine confession is an ongoing confession. Or to say it another way “Your greatest confession of Jesus, is your latest confession of Jesus.” A genuine confession of Jesus is not saying how I accepted Jesus into my life at an early age. I genuine confession of Jesus is not saying my name is on the church board. I genuine confession of Jesus is one made out of your personal conviction about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done . Confessing Jesus is something that grows deeper and greater, and stronger as the years go by. A confession that is lived out in who Jesus is now. Who Jesus is in this challenge. Who Jesus is in this situation.

“Teaches who we believe Jesus is will shape the direction of our lives, the choices we make, and the road we walk.” ⇒  The authority we give Jesus effects everything else, how we pray,  how we worship, how we witness, how we love, how we meet challenges, etc. If we believe God is distant, and simply watching events unfold in our world with little participation or influence, then we won’t spend a lot of time asking Him to change the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Your belief about Jesus and the authority you grant Him shapes the very foundation of your life. If you declare Jesus as Lord and give Him the highest place in your heart, it transforms your perspective, decisions, and actions. His authority becomes the guiding light that directs your path, brings hope in uncertainty, and strength in weakness. When you truly recognize His power and love, you begin to see yourself and the world differently. You understand that your worth isn’t measured by others’ opinions or by achievements, but by the love and grace He offers. So let this question echo in your heart: Who do you say Jesus is? Allow your answer to shape your destiny. Choose to let Christ lead you, even when it means standing alone or taking a step of faith that challenges your comfort zone. Grant Him authority over every part of your life, and watch how everything else falls into place with purpose, peace, and meaning. Your confession isn’t just a moment—it’s a journey, and it’s where true transformation begins.

“Who you say Jesus is will be the most important question you will ever be asked. Because the answer you give will determine the course of your life and the eternal destiny of your soul.” ⇒ We can make all kinds of sloppy mistakes with our lives. We can make bad decisions. We can make a fool of ourselves a thousand different ways. But there’s one place we can’t afford to be wrong and that’s the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s a question sooner or later all of us will have to answer for ourselves “Who do you say that Jesus is”?

“Confessing Jesus does not mean you come to it suddenly or perfectly.  It doesn’t mean you have no doubts. It doesn’t mean you have all your questions answered. It doesn’t mean you do things perfectly. But what It does mean is that you come with what little faith you have and place it in Jesus as Lord & Savior however weak and faltering it may be, and then watch God grow it.” ⇒ We have to assume that Peter’s faith wasn’t perfect when he said this. He probably had little sense of the magnitude of what he was actually confessing. We know this due to the fact that just a short time from now we will find Peter renouncing knowing the Lord three times at His trial. In fact one can argue that the rest of Peter’s life would be one of learning what the words he spoke at this moment actually meant. To confess faith in Christ doesn’t mean you got all the nuances of Justification, Sanctification, Redemption, Election, Predestination, etc. worked out. To confess Jesus doesn’t mean need a lot of information to put your faith in Jesus To confess Christ doesn’t mean you’ll live a life perfectly submitted to Him at all times. (No Christian is perfect all the time) Confessing Christ is more about what’s on the heart than what the mind can grasp in the moment. Not fully understanding something doesn’t’ make it any less true.  We can accept something we don’t yet fully understand. That’s what we call faith. Maybe your at this same place. You confessed Jesus as Lord & Savior, but there’s so many things you still struggle with. But we take comfort in knowing just as the Lord would work in Peter’s life in becoming a bold preacher of the Gospel and leader in the church. The Lord is at work in our lives as well. Like Peter we will one day come to understand that transforming grace is not an event, it’s a life long process.

Additional Notes & Applications

Displays how best questions are the probing question that move people to ponder and think.

Displays how every encounter we have with Jesus is getting us ready to answer this question.

Teaches how we should be able to go to our closest friends for support and the honest truth of what others think of us.

Calls for letting the world think what the world will think and do, but where do you stand when comes to Jesus!

Teaches how Jesus demands exclusive rights, It’s either Him or nothing.

Calls for a confession of Christ that will talk about Him with others when He comes up in a conversation.

Teaches how we don’t have a God that is distant, but a living God that is active and present.

When faced with the question of who Jesus is? We have only two options. Either He’s a Lunatic and Lair, because He claimed to be God. Or He is God. The first option we would immediately have to take off the table. Jesus can’t be a lunatic. Lunatics don’t heal sick people and cast out  demons. Lunatics don’t speak the way Jesus spoke, think the way He thought. Lunatics don’t say the most pro­found and wisest words ever recorded. Lunatics who are out of their mind could not be right about so many other things. Lunatics don’t have followers who are willing die for someone they think is crazy and off their rocker. Lunatics aren’t marked by kindness and compassion. Jesus can’t be a liar. Liars don’t teach ethical truths or live morally upright lives. Liars don’t suffer and die, especially death on a cross for what they know is a lie. Very rarely will someone keep up a lie if they knew it was going to get them in trouble, let alone get them killed. Liars don’t expose hypocrisy and false error by their teachings. Liars don’t say seek truth in the scriptures. Liars don’t live poor and humble lives, they lie and cheat to get power, riches, and fame. Liars don’t die, be buried, and come out of the grave. So that leaves only one option, and that is Jesus is who He claimed to be; God!

When Jesus raised this question He had not yet died on the cross or raised from the dead. So the disciples would have to give an answer without having all the evidence. So too with us this is not just an academic question to be answered, but a call to faith.

Notice how Jesus didn’t say; “What do you think of my teachings Or what do you think about my miracles. Or what do you think about my commands.”  All of these would have been a great questions. But it wouldn’t have demanded a deeper personal response. Jesus made the question of who He was absolutely central to His miracles, to His teaching, and to His commands, and to everything that He did and said on this earth. As someone once said, you can remove Mohammed from his teaching and you would still have the basic tenants of Islam. You can remove Confucius from his principles and you would still have Confucianism. You can remove the Buddha from his instructions and you will still have Buddhism. You can remove almost every great philosopher in history from his or her philosophic principles and you would still leave their philosophic system intact. But if you remove Christ from Christianity, you will no longer have Christianity; because Jesus made His own identity the central theme of all that He taught and did and commanded.

When it comes to confessing who Jesus is, or if He was even a real person. What do we have to go on. They didn’t give people birth certificates in those days. There’s no DMV records, He didn’t have a drivers license. We don’t have His social security number. We don’t have His Facebook or Twitter profile. So how do we know Jesus was an historical figure. One way we can know is that people who lived during Jesus’ time wrote about Him. Cornelius Tacitus, a contemporary Roman historian wrote of the crucifixion of Jesus by Pontius Pilate. Mara Bar-Serapion, a Syrian historic philosopher. Wrote a letter around 70 A.D. to His son from prison. Mentioning Jesus as a “wise king” who was unjustly executed, which led to the fall of Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus Flavious, in His book “Antiquities of the Jews”-(93-94 A.D.) Described Jesus as “a wise man who performed miraculous deeds who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. But those who loved him did not forsake him, and that he appeared to them alive on the third day.”  And Christians, who were named after him, still exist to this day.”-(Ant. 18,3) Josephus also mentions John the Baptist in Antiquities 18.5. Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian, mentions Jesus’ execution by Pontius Pilate.  Pliny the Younger, a Roman official and governor of Bithynia. In his letter to Emperor Trajan. Describes Christians as meeting before dawn on a fixed day to sing hymns to Christ, and to bind themselves by oath, not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery. The Talmud,-(4^th century) a collection of Jewish writings, contains references to Jesus, although often in a negative light, which still indicates Jesus’ historical existence and the impact of His teachings. Even today there’s no legitimate historians who disputes the existence of Jesus. Therefor we have ample proof that Jesus was a real historical person. But what about when it comes to who Jesus is and who He claimed to be. What do we have to go on. For that we have to look to the Gospels. The Apostle John, one of the Twelves disciple and part of inner circle of three closest to Jesus. In the beginning of his Gospel. John declares Jesus as God; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.-(John 1:1-3) The disciple Thomas, who at first doubted Jesus resurrection. But then after seeing Jesus said; “My Lord and my God!”-(John 20:27-29)  Peter when asked by Jesus ,who do you say I am. Responds “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”.-(Matt. 16:15)  In the Gospel of John when Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus responded “If you have seen me you have seen the Father. For me and the Father are one”.-(John 14:8-9. 10:30, 8:58, ) Then we have the Apostle Paul in His letter to the Colossians church declares Jesus as; “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.-(Col. 1:15-17. 2:9, Cf. Phlip. 2:5-7, Heb. 1:3) The Gospels also recount numerous miracles performed by Jesus, such as healing the sick, calming the storm, and feeding thousands, which  demonstrate divine power. Not only that, but one of the strongest evidence for the truth of Jesus is prophecy and the predictions of God. The Gospels also recount numerous miracles performed by Jesus, such as healing the sick, calming the storm, and feeding thousands, which demonstrate divine power. Did you know there are over 400 prophecies in the Old Testament that have been fulfilled in Jesus. Many of these prophecies are very specific. Such as the place of Jesus’ birth being Bethlehem,-(Mic. 5:2) and the events around His birth, being born of a Virgin.-(Is. 7:14) His miracles in opening the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind.-(Is. 35:5) His crucifixion, that He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver.-(Zech. 11:12) that He would be crucified with thieves.-(Is. 53:12) That He would be buried in a rich man’s tomb.-( Is. 53:9) Isaiah prophesied Jesus as; “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.-(Is. 9:6) All of theses things are not something a person could control or force to come true about themselves unless they were God. The ability to foretell the future and precisely orchestrate events is seen as a divine attribute, further supporting the belief that Jesus is God! The last and greatest evidence we have to go on that Jesus is who He claimed to be is the convicting work of the Holy Spirit on a persons heart. As Paul proclaimed in his letter to the Corinthian church; “Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.-(1-Corn. 12:3)

WHAT CONFESSING CHRIST MEANS 

• It means seeing Jesus as Lord & Savior

• It means giving up any hope of Saving yourself to trusting Jesus to Save you

• It means confessing Jesus’ divine rule & authority over your life

• It means confessing Jesus’ sinless nature and character, having lived a perfect life

• It means giving all worship, devotion, and glory to Jesus

• It means confessing Jesus openly and publicly before others

• It means a committed to follow Christ

• It means you serve Jesus as King who rules over your life

• It means fully submitting and obeying Christ

• It means you follow and obey Jesus’ teachings

• It means giving up your right to run your own life to letting Jesus rule it

• It means following Jesus no matter the hardships or sacrifices

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