5/3/26 Matthew 16:13-16 “Who Do You Say I Am?”

30 Apr 5/3/26 Matthew 16:13-16 “Who Do You Say I Am?”

5/3/26   Matthew 16:13-16          “Who Do You Say I Am?”

I think that we often times miss what we should not miss.  What I mean by this is that often times we are in teaching moments and we get nothing out of them.  I know this because I used to teach the confirmation classes.  Now many years later I find that there were students who gave the right answers and gave their hearts to Jesus.  Of course, there were others who gave the right answers but never gave hearts to Jesus.  I know as I was the same way for about 40 years. That might have been the biggest thing that I missed when I was young.  But at least I finally found Jesus.  There are so many people in our world today who have never found Jesus.  My history and others are the reasons why I would always say that they should start the confirmation process earlier, say the 4^th or 5^th grade.  We really need to catch children before they get swallowed up by our wicked society.  We live in a world that really is a lot like the world where Jesus was in today’ reading.  Caesarea Philippi was at the edge of the civilized world.  There were many bad things there.  Jesus brought the disciples here to show them the bad along with the good.  But the most important thing He tried to show them was how to have a personal relationship with Him and what it would do for them during their lives.  In our reading today, Jesus asks the question, “Who do you say that I am?”  This is a question that we should all ask ourselves just about every time we go into our prayer time.  Let’s see if we can come to some sort of answer to this.

Jeff Strite tells the story of a warship that had just returned from a tour overseas where a young ensign had proven himself to be responsible and efficient.  Because of this he was given the honor and opportunity to take command of the ship as it went back out to sea again.  This young man was good.  He gave crisp commands and everyone knew what to do as they cast off all the lines and the engines ran just right as they headed out into the channel.  The crew was proud of its ensign as they set a new record for getting this great destroyer out to sea.  The ensign was glowing with pride as a seaman came and gave him the expected message from the captain.  It read as follows:  “My personal congratulations upon completing this exercise according to the book and with amazing speed. In your haste, however, you have overlooked one of the unwritten rules of seafaring – make sure the captain is on board before leaving the dock.”  This is the same way with us as far as Jesus is concerned.  Make sure Jesus is you with on your journey of life.

How is it possible for anyone to leave Jesus behind?  It is pretty easy in our world today where no matter what you believe, you are correct.  In other words, you leave Jesus behind by not believing in what the Bible says.  You leave Jesus behind when you don’t have a prayer life.  You leave Jesus behind when you don’t attend worship regularly.  Just think about these 3 statements.  Isn’t this what our society teaches us to do?  Satan is so intertwined in our world that we don’t even realize we are following the wrong person.  Satan is wrong.  I would say that at least 75% of what our society tells us is right, is absolutely wrong.  We are in trouble and we don’t even realize it.  We think all is well when we read about all the crime, murder and flat out lies we hear all the time.  It is getting so bad that we cannot even trust what our government says!  When many people answer the question, ‘Who do you say I am?’ they answer in some way that is following Satan and not God.

Here is what I mean.  Some people are somewhat thankful that Jesus has provided us another way to get to heaven. Do you see a problem here?  Jesus is the only way to heaven.  All other paths that you hear about or read about will lead to hell.  Scripture is very clear on this.  Oh, yeah, that’s right.  We don’t have to believe what we read in Scripture because all other religions are just as valid.  Here we go again.  There is no other religion that is valid except Christianity.  Once again, Jesus tells us this in Scripture.  All others are false gods.  We can allow these false religions to exist but we must never give them credibility.

I have studied Jesus a lot over the years and I found many reasons why we should not leave Jesus behind.  We start with creation.  Everything you see around you is a result of God’s love for you by creating all the things that we need.  In our lives, this is the greatest world, the greatest creation that there can ever be!  And all this pales, as this world is nothing compared to the life in heaven to come.  How can you leave this behind?  But many, many people do.  They have some goofy idea that they are smarter than God.  They will find out the hard way for eternity that the other place is far, far worse than anything they can imagine.

I studied and found out that God doesn’t put us in heaven or hell.  God has no control over where you spend your eternal life.  If you want to choose heaven, then Jesus will not stop you.  As a matter of fact He will help you all He can.  His arms are always open and He is waiting for you to come to Him.  However, Jesus will not stop you if you decide to choose hell for your final destination.  It is your choice and your choice alone.  I don’t know how many times I have heard “I can’t believe in a loving God who would send us to hell.”  This is totally false because you make the choice as to where you will go and no one else.  There are consequences for your actions.  This is why I often tell you that if you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, then confess, repent and ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.  This may be the best decision that you will ever make.

To find out who God is I studied the 10 Commandments.  You remember these.  I would be willing to bet if I wasn’t a good Methodist that is, that many of you can name 3 or 4 of these.  Well, many people have known them all at one point in their lives.  But I found out that God didn’t make these Commandments so that we would follow each one because it’s impossible to follow them.  God made the 10 Commandments so that we would see that we cannot follow them.  We need help in order to keep these commandments.  We need the help of Jesus Christ.

Then I studied God’s love as we read ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’  I studied the birth of Jesus in a wonderful movie called The Nativity Story.  I studied how knowing Jesus will make a better life for us, for you.  I studied heaven and what it might be like.  I can’t help but think of the sacrifice that Jesus made by coming to earth in His physical form.  Think about that for a moment.  Jesus had been in the perfect place we call heaven.  This is a place with no hurt or pain or sorrow or anything bad.  It is all good.  Jesus came from all this goodness to a world filled with all Satan’s badness.  Wow!  That is what I call a sacrifice.

Then I learned some of the things that Jesus tried to teach us.  I say some of the things because I believe that this is an ongoing process throughout our lives.  Plus, there is no way I can remember all of this all of the time.  I learned that we are all gifted in some way.  I learned about patience, humility and hope.  And I really had the most fun learning when I was trying to teach young people in confirmation or youth group.  They not only kept me on my toes but they probably kept me alive in some fashion.

But most of all I try to help most people to love Jesus with all their hearts, souls and minds.  Once again, this is a process and not a destination.  We are all on this road and sometimes we take a wrong turn.  I learned that no matter what we have done, Jesus will forgive us and help us to start again down the right path.  I have learned that there are many, many wrong paths in our schools, with our friends, in our communities.  I learned how hard it is to stand with Jesus when all our friends, all the people we know want to do what is wrong.  It’s not easy to be a Christian.

That is why we need to be in church every week with our fellow believers. We need to see you model Christian behavior.  We need to know that we can come to you for help when the occasion arises.  Notice that I said when and not if the occasion arises.  We live in a world that is dominated by evil so all of us folks will need help at some time.  Many of you made a vow at a baptism or at a confirmation to help these people who need it.  All of us will need your help at some time so keep your vow.

Then we try to love our neighbors as ourselves.  We do this by getting to know each other.  We do this by trying to help each other in school and at home.  We do this by taking part in several mission projects.  We do this by trying to be Jesus Christ for others who are less fortunate than us.

We want to do this because we find ourselves in a terrible predicament.  In England, they did a survey once on what are the biggest threats to young people today.  Some of the leading answers that they got and there were more, were as follows:  Welfare dependence, social exclusion, Lack of Fathers, Spending cuts, Weak Policing, Racism, Gangsta Rap, Consumerism, Opportunism, Social Networking and I will add social media.  I add that last one because I think that younger people of the internet generation have lost the ability to communicate.  This is because they are always on social media.  I have over 100,000 followers on social media and I see this problem daily.  But I shirk my responsibilities here because none of these things are the biggest problems we face in today’s world.  These are all problems but they all lead back to one root cause.  We have all our problems today because of sin.  If we could get rid of sin in our lives, then the rest of these problems would disappear.  And of course, the answer to all this lies in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  The answer lies in these wonderful attributes of Jesus but not limited to His omnipotence, His omniscience, as the eternal Savior, He is holy and righteous as our Savior and Redeemer. He is full of love for you, compassion, humility, patience, kindness and forgiveness.  He is the gentle teacher, shepherd and leader of all of us individually.  I could go on and on with these wonderful aspects of Jesus.  Please make sure that He is your Lord and Savior.

All this leads us back to the original question that Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?”  I could go around the sanctuary today asking this question.  I would get as many answers as we have people.  So, you see, there is not one definitive answer to this question.  To me, Jesus is the great healer of many of you people.  He is the great comforter as I have seen in times of death and hardship.  He is the great counselor when I go to Him in prayer with many of our problems.  I could go on and on for hours telling you about who Jesus is and you could probably do the same thing.

The reason we can do this is simple.  Jesus is all things in all places at all times.  When Jesus says “I am”, He says it all.  Jesus Christ is everything.  All good that you see is a result of Jesus.  He is not capable of doing bad things.  There is no place in this world that you can get away from Jesus and His love.  It is everywhere.  This is more than enough reason for us to shout out, “Praise the Lord!”  Praise the Lord.

He is all good.  He is everywhere and I love Him.  All I can do is try to help you to love Him too.  All I can do is tell you how Jesus healed our daughter from 35,000 heart episodes a day to one.  All I can do is tell you how a person with ALS could suddenly pay their April rent because of an anonymous donor from out east.  All I can do is tell you how many children came to our confirmation classes and today they are many young adults with varying degrees of love for the Lord.  All I can do is tell you that Jesus is everywhere and He loves you.  But don’t take my word for it.  Go and read your Bibles.  There is more proof of who Jesus is in there than in all the books of the world could contain.  We can see all the wonderful physical aspects of loving Jesus.  Now look at all the love that is contained in the people who do love Jesus.  This is a great love that is everywhere.  We don’t understand it but we can see and, more importantly, we can feel this tremendous love that He has for us.

So, let’s answer the question that Jesus has for you, “Who do you say I am?”  This is going to take congregational participation.  Please repeat after me; I believe (I believe) Jesus is the Christ (Jesus is the Christ) the Son of the living God (the Son of the living God).  Praise the Lord and thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.