Matthew 16:15&16
Who do you say I AM?
Start with a sermon spice video, that’s my King.
Follow up with-
A Friend to the friendless
Help for the helpless
Hope for the hopeless
Shelter in the time of storm
Light to those in darkness
Forgiveness to the unforgiven
Love to the unloved
Security to the insecure
Certainty in uncertain times
He was, He is and He always will be
He is the Alpha and the Omega
The Beginning and the end
The king of kings
Lord of lords
The healer to the hurting
He is the truth in an untruthful world
Jesus is all these things and more.
But who we say Jesus is, as 82% of Americans claim to be Christian,
(Fox news Nov. 11, 2005) does not mean as much as who He is in our lives and how He shows through our lives to the rest of the world is the most important thing. People want to see Jesus in our lives and then they will want to know all about him, who He is, what He wants us to do and be. Jesus must be real in our lives and relevant to how we live and act.
Some will say Jesus is----
1. ALBERT SCHWEITZER the famous liberal theologian and one of the 113 Swiss Nobel Prize winners:
“He was a deluded fanatic who futilely threw away his life in blind devotion to a mad dream. There is nothing more negative than the critical study of the life of Christ.”
Hardly a Christian answer!
2. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW – the famous atheist and writer who said
“Jesus was a man who was sane until Peter hailed him as the Christ and who then became a monomaniac…his delusion is a very common delusion among the insane…”
3. Ask the question to a practising MUSLIM and you will get the answer that Jesus was simply a great prophet , second only to Mohammed and that he was not divine.
But there have been other answers.
4. George W Bush - President of the United States
As God’s only Son, Jesus came to Earth and gave His life so that we may live.
5. CS Lewis
And in his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis made this poignant statement,
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a
man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be
the devil of hell.
You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."(the Campus Crusade website)
Will Campbell, the author, told this story about his conversations with Waylon Jennings, the country music singer. Campbell traveled with Waylon on tour, and served, unofficially, as Waylon’s pastor. He decided to talk to Waylon about his spiritual condition.
Will asked, "What do you believe about Jesus?’ Waylon said, "Uh-huh." A few weeks later, Will asked again, "What do you believe about Jesus?" Again Waylon said, "Uh-huh." A few weeks later he tried a third time, "What do you believe about Jesus?"
Waylon said, "Well, let me ask you – all of the books that have been written about Jesus – have they ever improved on Him?" Will said, "No." Jennings said, "Well, then that’s what I believe. I believe in Jesus."
WHO DO YOU SAY HE IS?
Do you say who He is or show who He is?
Problem is some don’t do either.
We can say anything but seeing is believing.
Beloved if we don’t have an active relationship with Jesus what we say does not matter as they are just words.
With a relationship with Jesus it shows all, who He is, our all in all, our completeness.
Dr. W. A Criswell, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas Texas, said on one occasion on an airplane flight he found himself seated beside a well-known theologian. He desperately wanted to start a conversation and they did get to talk. The man told Dr. Criswell about how he had recently lost his little boy through death. Dr. Criswell listened as he told his story: He said he had come home from school with a fever and we thought it was just one of those childhood things, but it was a very virulent form of meningitis. The doctor said we cannot save your little boy. He’ll die.
And so this seminary professor, loving his son as he did, sat by the bedside to watch this death vigil. It was the middle of the day and the little boy whose strength was going from him and whose vision and brain was getting clouded said, "Daddy, it’s getting dark isn’t it?" The professor said to his son, "Yes son it is getting dark, very dark." Of course it was very dark for him. He said, "Daddy, I guess it’s time for me to go to sleep isn’t it?"
He said, "Yes, son, it’s time for you to go to sleep."
The professor said the little fellow had a way of fixing his pillow just so, and putting his head on his hands when he slept and he fixed his pillow like that and laid his head on his hands and said, "Good night Daddy. I will see you in the morning." He then closed his eyes in death and stepped over into heaven.
Dr. Criswell said the professor didn’t say anymore after that. He just looked out the window of that airplane for a long time. Then he turned back and he looked at Dr Criswell with the scalding tears coming down his cheeks and he said, "Dr. Criswell, I can hardly wait till the morning." He showed his answer to that question, Who is Jesus, savior of souls, giver of life eternal.
"A college sophomore tried to prove how smart he was one day by asking his professor the following question, "Is the bird I’m holding dead or alive???" If the professor said the bird was dead, the boy was going to free the bird and let it fly away; if the professor said it was alive, the boy was going to crush the bird. The professor looked at the boy and said, "My boy, the answer is in your hands."
The common element with all questions is that the answer can and does lie with us.
I would like to illustrate with a story. " An organist was practicing one day in a great church in Europe. A man came up to the organ and asked if he could play. The organist looked at him and thought to himself. I shouldn’t let this man play, just look at him, he is unshaven, his clothes are soiled, he looks like a bum. So he told the man no. But the unkempt stranger asked again and again. Finally the organist let him play thinking he couldn’t play very long, for what does a bum know about organs. The bums fingers danced over the keyboard in a way the organist hadn’t heard in his lifetime. The stranger played on and on. The organist was spellbound. When the stranger got up to leave, the organist could not contain himself and shouted, "Who are you, what is your name??" As the stranger, who looked like a bum slowly walked away, turned over his shoulder and said, "My name is Felix Mendelsohn." The organist gasped. He said to himself, " I almost did not let the master play."
In the same way, do you and I see Christ in the kind deeds of others, do we see Christ in the words of comfort offered during trouble, do we see Christ in someone who we regard as less or not as good as we are?? Peter saw the divinity in the man Jesus and I wonder if we see and feel the divinity of Christ today??
The question still stands today who do you say Jesus is.
Just words? Just a description? Or a life lived to and for Him?
Beloved who do you say He is? Say it and show it!!
