Well, I know that it is December 20th, Sunday before Christmas, and there will no doubt be many sermons today on the birth of Christ. The Lord's directed our heart today, though, to continue through where we have been in Luke. We've taken a couple of weeks off from there, but we want to return there, as God would direct and has directed, and speak to you today from a passage of Scripture that's well known to most. I believe that it is a passage of Scripture really speaks to the heart of Christianity, the heart of human existence. To be able to say what Peter says here in Luke chapter 9, we'll be reading verses 18 through 22. To be able to say what he says and confess what he confesses and believe what he believed, I believe is the essence of what it is to be a human being. Or at least we can say I think it is the purpose for which we have been created. to acknowledge and to know this one Jesus, the Son of God. And we wanna read that, the passage today, and then we'll share what God's placed on our heart about it. Now it happened that as he, that is Jesus, was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, who do the crowds say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others that one of the prophets of old has risen. Then he said to them, But who do you say that I am?" And Peter answered, the Christ of God. And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. The title for the message today, you might have already guessed it. Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? a question of the Lord Jesus asked to his disciples some 2,000 years ago. Galilee here, I believe, if memory serves. Yet I believe because he is risen today, the book of Acts we read this, the book of Hebrews we read it as well, that Jesus, when he ascended and he left the earth, by the way born witness by many who saw it as he ascended into heaven were told that he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God and I believe that he is there today this one who was born in Bethlehem this birth that we're going to celebrate this week and consider and think upon very carefully this one who was born there lived some 33 and a half years by the best estimates that we seem to be able to confirm. He died as he said and prophesied that he would and foretold that he would, and the Old Testament foretold that he would, but he rose again on the third day. Some four or five hundred people bore witness to seeing him after his death. Many instances of it and No doubt you've heard of the book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel and others who have laid out the facts of the case and there is as much evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ as there can be. And yet we must believe it by faith. But this one, this Jesus, I believe today, I met him when I was 11 years old. the Spirit of God convicted me and let me know that I was lost. And then I was, even that very day, I had heard the message I'd heard many times that Jesus died, that God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And I went that day and I bowed and I prayed to the Lord and I sought him and confessed and repented with the help of the Holy Spirit and I met the Lord, and I know that he's alive today. I know him, and I would answer, I hope, in the same way, if not the same words, but the same way that Peter answers, you're the Christ of God. But I do want us to think about this question. Who is this baby that's in the manger? Who am I? Jesus is asking. It's the question that matters And we talked about this a little bit Thursday evening. It's the question that matters most. It's not merely academic. It's not merely something about which we can disagree and still proclaim to be of the same mind about what life is about and about what eternity is going to be. It's the question that matters the most. There are a few questions that define Christianity, and certainly one of them is this one. Who do you say I am? But he started by asking, who do others say I am? Who does the crowd say I am? What do they say about me? And there were several answers given. Jesus asked, who do the crowds say that I am? And in verse 19, we read that there are at least three ideas among the crowd. They said, some think you're John the Baptist. One wonders, why would they think that? Well, from a distance and from reputation, he might have sounded very similar to John the Baptist. There's a preacher out in the wilderness and preaching and proclaiming incredible things and preaching with power and authority like none that we have heard to this point. And so there may have been, by reputation, some may have thought, is this that John the Baptist that I've heard of? And so the disciples say, well, Jesus, some people think you're John the Baptist. And we said, but others, they think maybe you're Elijah, because the Old Testament had said before the Messiah come, Elijah would come. And an understanding of what that prophecy was about was something that many didn't fully understand and really couldn't yet. But they thought, well, he's Elijah. Others said, no, he's not Elijah, but he's some prophet. There's some prophet of old that has risen, and that's who he is. Who do the crowds say I am? Now, I find it one thing of note that I thought of is these are honorable answers. These are positive things that the crowd thought about Christ. This was company that in their minds was a positive thing. These were not insults. But notice what's missing from that list. He's the Messiah. He's the Son of God. Good men, John the Baptist, Jesus said, there's none born among men who are greater than he. Elijah, an incredible prophet from the Old Testament, took on the prophets of Baal on his own with the help, of course, of God, and was bold. And yet at the same time, we also find him less than bold thereafter, but a man of great influence in Israel, or one of these prophets. This was not an insult. Crowds though they never seemed to consider, according to the testimony of the disciples, they said, none of them say you're the Christ. None of them voiced that as an option because Jesus did not meet their expectations of the Messiah. I believe that a lot of people don't have the right answer to the question that Jesus asked, who do you say that I am? Because they've got expectations of him that are their own and not from scripture. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit today, comes to us, and often he comes to us in ways that we're not expecting. And because we're not expecting it, we don't see him. But the crowds answered these things, or when Jesus asked, who do the crowds say I am? These were the answers that the disciples gave him. And we read this elsewhere in the New Testament. John 7, 12, we read this. much muttering about him." Again, that's Jesus among the people. While some said, he's a good man, others said, no, he's leading the people astray. Those who looked at Jesus said, no, he's a good man. It's a respectful thing to think about somebody, but it's missing it, isn't it? It's just, it's falling short of the right answer to the question. He's a good person, Matthew 21, 46. They were seeking to arrest Jesus, but they feared, this was the officers of the Pharisees, they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet. So this was clearly in the minds of the crowd, who is Jesus asking his disciples, who does the crowd think I am? They had these answers, some think you're John the Baptist, some Elijah, or some think that you're a prophet risen from long ago. Respectful opinions about Jesus, but opinions that fall short of his true identity and thus miss him entirely. There are many who have a high regard for Jesus, but do not see him the way Peter did. They see him as a good man. They have a high regard for him, but do not see him as the Christ of God. And so they miss him as a result. And they think that by thinking positively about Christ that they somehow are a Christian or they are covered under the umbrella of God because they will acknowledge he was a good man. His teachings were good and powerful and influential. Thinking, though, thinking highly of Jesus without seeing him as the Messiah falls short of understanding who he is. He's not just a good man. He's the only good man, but he's not only a good man. He is more than that. The issue of properly identifying Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world, Listen, in the mind of God, that's a non-negotiable answer. God is not pleased if you think good things of Jesus without acknowledging Him as His Son and as His Christ. And by the way, the word Christ and Messiah, they are the same word. One's Greek and the other's Hebrew. It's the anointed one of God, the chosen one, the one God prophesied back in Genesis 3, verse 15, and that all of the Old Testament was pointing toward. But this issue, for you and for me, the issue of identifying Jesus as the Son of God, this is a non-negotiable answer in the mind of God Himself. You'll not be able to stand before Jesus when you leave this world and look at him and say, but Lord, I thought good things of you. I thought that you were a good man. I thought your teachings were good and helpful and they led to life and a society that was built on truth and ways in which human beings can flourish together. I thought good things of you. But if you did not acknowledge him as Peter does here as the Christ of God, It's not going to be sufficient. It's not enough. It's not the message of Scripture. We're not here to merely admire Christ. We're here to bow before Him and worship Him as the Son of God, the Anointed of God, the Christ of God. And merely affirming good things about Him or attributing to Him positive thoughts. Well, He's like John the Baptist. He's a good man. But failing to acknowledge Him as the Christ is not enough. Listen, Jesus either is the Christ in your mind, or He isn't, no matter what else you may think about Him. He's either the Son of God incarnate among men, took upon Himself flesh, became a man and walked among us. He was that baby in that manger was either the child of the Son of God and the child of Mary as he took upon himself humanity so that he might take away the sins of the world just like John the Baptist said he would. He is either that. That is your answer or it isn't. Whether you think well of him or ill of him, your answer is not what Peter's was. It's lacking the full reality of who he is. In these people's minds, Jesus didn't match what they were expecting, and these preconceived conceptions of God and Christ, I believe they've caused many to misunderstand and miss who he is. So we know now who the crowd thinks he is, who others think he is. this question and I've preached upon it and referred to it in so many different sermons over these years trying to preach the Word of God. This question that is turned now from, who do others say I am? Put yourself there with the disciples when Jesus changes the question and he looks you in the eye and he says, who do you say I am? Think for a moment, I don't know how much time passes and we might say more about Peter in a moment, whether it was instantaneous or whether there was even a few moments, but just imagine as that question hangs in the air, that's where we are today, right now, with you and me. Jesus, looking at you, you're celebrating my birth this week. Who do you say I am? Who am I? I know you know what others say about him. I know there's lots of opinions about me in the world. I know that you've heard a preacher preach about me. I know you've heard a skeptic and an atheist proclaim that it's nothing but wishful thinking and weakness of men and their mind and heart. I know that there's a lot of opinions about me, but I'm not asking the crowd anymore. I am asking you. because this Jesus who left heaven, the angel said, is going to return like he left and we're all going to stand before him and he is going to say, who do you think I am? How did you live your life based upon the answer to this question that I asked my disciples and I had Luke record it, I had Matthew record it, I had Mark record it, and I had John record it. Who do you think I am? He's asking them as a group. And by the way, when he asked the crowd, did you see what it said? Who do the crowd say that I am? Verse 19, and they answered. In other words, multiple disciples answered. Doesn't name them, but multiple. They answered. We can hear, he doesn't say which one. One of them, maybe John, maybe Andrew, I don't know. One says, well, some think you're John the Baptist. And another one pipes up, maybe it's James. He said, well, I've heard some of them out there say that you're Elijah. And then maybe Luke says, or not Luke, but one of the other disciples says, well, some just think, you know, you're a prophet risen of old. But then when Jesus asked this question, who do you say that I am? Who answers? Our beloved Peter. The one who is bold, the one who's brash, whose personality is a strength and a weakness, depending on how it's being directed. Because it doesn't say they answered in verse 20, when he said, who do you say that I am? It says, Peter answered. You're the Christ of God. This question is now shifted from the general opinion of others, and it demands a personal response. This question now has changed. Jesus does not say, who do they say I am? He says, who do you say I am? There's no more hiding behind the crowd. There's no more safety in numbers. No matter what anybody else on the face of the earth says, who do you say I am? And may the Spirit of God enable every one of us to, from the depth of our heart, say, Jesus, you are the Christ of God. You are my Savior, my Lord, my King, my Guide, my Master, the One who created me, the One without which nothing was created. You are Him. Peter's answer is that. In as succinct a way, perhaps, as it can possibly be said, four English words, the Christ of God, the Anointed One, not just the Anointed One, but the Anointed One of God. You are come from Him. You are the one we have been waiting on. His confession, Peter's does, declares Jesus as the one that men are to seek and to worship and obey far, far more than merely say good things about. Far more than just celebrating His birth. Far more than just saying, I think that living the way Jesus commanded us to live, I believe that His principles and His teaching are the best way that man has ever come up with on how to live among one another and live in a society and prosper. It's far more than that. It's, you're the Christ of God. Because to say that you're the Christ of God demands something of an understanding of what that means. How can you call someone the Christ of God without at least having something of an understanding of what the Christ of God is? And his understanding was far from complete at this point, we know this. But Peter's boldness, brash personality is shown here in its positive application. It is interesting to me that they answered, the whole set of disciples seemed to be participating in the answer to his first question, but it's Peter alone who answers the second one. And this second question is a much more intense question. It's a much more personal question, obviously. I wonder about that moment when, as I've said already, that question hung at least briefly in the air. The scriptures don't tell us what was going on in the minds and the hearts of the others, we're not told how long. And I guess my thought on the matter is that Peter, being as bold and brash as he is, he probably left very little time for anybody else to say anything. But I do wonder if any of them paused, thought about the question, who do I say Jesus is? Who is this one that I am following? Who is he? Maybe there was just even the slightest hesitation. Maybe they held the same view, but just weren't bold like Peter to proclaim it, because this was no small matter. Don't misunderstand. To proclaim Jesus the anointed of God, the Christ of God, was to say, I am giving you my allegiance. You are not a good man. You are my God. You are the one through whom I can find fellowship again with God. You're the Christ of God, the divinely appointed, anointed Savior. Romans 10 verse 9, that well-known scripture. Listen to what Paul says to the Romans and to you if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Personal confession of Christ being who he is and acknowledging Jesus as Lord is the hinge upon which salvation is hung. It's what is essential to that idea and that reality. John 1, verse 12, But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. Faith is an individual reception of God and Christ. It is not an inherited belief. There's not a single person in heaven today who is there because they inherited the belief from somebody else. They believed it. And there will never be a single person take one step in heaven who believes because somebody else said about who he was, they're going to take a step in heaven because they, they answered this question. You're the Christ of God. Faith means a personal belief and trust, not and obedience, not second-hand belief. You must answer for yourself. In the end, for you and me, it doesn't matter what the crowd says, as we've already mentioned, whether they're right, by the way, or wrong. You know, you can be in the midst of a bunch of people that said, Jesus is the Christ of God, and they're right. But it doesn't matter what the crowd says. It matters what you say. It matters what you believe. You know, I think that there's something, too, here to think about with Peter. Because you know the story. You've read the New Testament. You know the Gospels. You know that Jesus is going to die on the cross. He's going to be in the tomb for three days, and he's going to raise again. And you know John and Peter are going to be standing in his tomb, initially confused. And throughout that three days where Jesus was in the grave, confused. Yet, here he is. acknowledging you're the Christ of God. I believe it, I know it. You know, you may have questions about Jesus that you can't answer. Jesus was doing things that, to Peter, didn't make sense. Do you remember he's also going to say, far be it from you, Lord, to go this path. And Jesus is gonna say to him, get behind me, Satan. But Peter is still, I believe, rooted in the fact and the belief you're the Christ of God. You may have questions about Jesus that you don't know the answers to, and Peter no doubt did as well, and yet he fundamentally placed his trust and his faith in Christ, and that's what you must do as well. Questions will all be answered by and by. The question is, who is he to you? What do you know him as? Now Jesus is going to tell them, and this is a Confusing command, I think, to us as we read it on the surface. He strictly charged them. He was emphatic about this. Don't tell anybody. To you and me, that's odd, right? It seems opposite of what we feel like we are supposed to do. And I want you to fast forward to the book of Acts, and we read that the time of this ignorance God winked at, but now commands men everywhere to repent. We are now past the fulfillment of Jesus' death and resurrection, and we are to proclaim it as far and as wide and as publicly as we possibly can. But at this moment in his life, he tells the disciples, don't tell anybody. It wasn't to hide his identity. It was because he knew that they His own disciples still had something of an unclear idea of what it was that he was going to do, and their misunderstanding could lead to others' misunderstanding. The disciples knew Jesus was the Christ, yet they were still under the influence of popular Messianic expectations that he was going to come and deliver them from Rome, he was going to be a warrior king, he was going to re-establish the throne of Israel forever. He was going to be a king that sat on Israel's throne, but this is not at all what Jesus was projecting. Peter confesses truly, but didn't yet fully understand what it fully meant when Jesus said, you're the Christ of God. Mark 9, verse 32, they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him. This was after Jesus said, I'm going to be betrayed. I'm going to be killed, I'm going to die, I'm going to be delivered over, and I'm going to be treated this way. The disciples were afraid to ask him, what are you talking about? You ever had a question that you wanted to ask somebody you were afraid to ask, because you were afraid of the answer? John 16, 12, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. And the very next words of Jesus explain why the silence was necessary for a time. Verse 22, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and in the third day be raised. He must. It's a divine necessity. My Father wills it. It's not an accident or an action merely or activity of man, though man was volitionally involved in what happened to Christ. It was something that must happen. This three-fold rejection of Israel, of Christ in the offices of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, the entire Sanhedrin, all of those responsible for pointing people to God, had turned everything upside down and were misunderstanding. And Jesus says, don't tell anybody. They won't understand yet. Because I'm going to be turned over to them. I'm going to be killed. And on the third day, I'm going to be raised. This announcement of Jesus, and we pointed this out in the past as well, this announcement of Jesus comes at the time of His popularity, that He's going to be rejected, this moment of strong momentum in the movement, we might say. And here Jesus is projecting, or proclaiming, I should say, His death. People today, they still miss Jesus because He's not acting the way they would expect Him to. Some people expect Jesus to just kind of come and make their life better, multiply their bank account. take away the pain of life. They expect him to be more like a genie in a bottle than the Son of God who created the world and us and all things that we see. And because they have that expectation of him and he doesn't perform to their expectations, they miss him. That's why it's so dangerous for a church, a minister, a preacher, a book, any proclamation that Jesus is merely a good man that will allow you to live a good life here is one of the worst lies men can tell another man. Because the answer to the question is, he's the Christ of God. And if he's the Christ of God, it means that we're all sinners and we all need to be saved. You can't believe that he's the Christ of God and not believe that he died for the whole world and not then, as a result of that, believe that he died for the whole world because the whole world is in sin and in need of a savior. We can't rightly celebrate this birth of Christ if we don't remember who He is. And He says to them, not only is He not acting in the moment like the Messiah that so many were expecting, He's projecting out into the future and He's kind of painting a picture that is completely opposite of what people would expect. And yet, the Old Testament clearly identified that this would be the role, the lot of the Messiah. Isaiah 53 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. Acts 2 23. This Jesus, by the way, this is the same Peter. who confesses boldly and rightly you're the Christ of God, the same Peter who's gonna deny Him, the same Peter who's gonna be confused and perplexed for a while, but in Acts 2.23, the same Peter says this, this Jesus, speaking to a great crowd, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and you killed by the hands of lawless men. He preaches on that day a truth that in Luke chapter 9 he doesn't fully understand yet. But what does he understand? What does he believe? You're the Christ of God. I don't have all the answers. You're not acting the way that I expect you to. We're not traveling this road that I expected we might be traveling. I figured we'd be making our way to Jerusalem and gathering an army. That's what the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests and the elders, this is the picture they've been painting for us. It wasn't not a hundred years ago, Lord, that Maccabeus was able to overthrow their oppressors at that time, and I thought that's what you were going to do here, but that's not what you're doing, and I don't understand it all, Lord, but this I do know. You're the Christ of God. That's the answer that's needed in our hearts, beyond our own ability to fully comprehend even all that this Christ of God of ours is doing in our lives or the lives of others. Jesus didn't come to overthrow Rome. What a small thing that would have been compared to what He did overthrow, death in the grave itself. What a small thing it would have been to overcome the Romans next to that. But this is what the Christ of God did. So today, as we close that question, it hangs in the air today before you and before me. From Jesus himself to each of us, who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? I pray that you will confess him as Peter did, that you know him, that you follow him into the mission, that even if you don't fully understand why it's going the way it is, you in your acknowledgement of who he is, you follow him even through the suffering. Is that who he is to you? Is that your answer? Or maybe you're like some in the crowd. Jesus is a good man. He was a good man. His teachings were good. I fall short, I fall short. I pray that you're not as one who's not even present in the text here, but except by extension, the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes who openly rejected him. You're the Christ of God is one answer. You're a good man is another answer. You're a phony is the third answer. Two of the three of those are lost. You're the Christ of God. You've taken away the sin of the world in your blood on the cross as you paid the penalty of man's sin. Oh, you're far more than just a good man. So I ask this as we close. Once again, the title, Who Do You Say I Am?