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 “Who do you say I am?”
Matthew 16:13-21
1. Who do people say that Jesus is? (Matthew
16:13-14)
In 21st Century America, we have a number of opinions about every issue. As we watched the
2004 elections unfold, we listened to the candidates offer different opinions on the issues of our day.
People have different opinions about politics. That’s okay. That’s what makes a democracy tick. We just hope that people offer
informed opinions on key issues, not just simply repeating what they hear on radio talk shows or on Saturday Night Live or from 10-second sound bites and 30-second commercials.
If people take the time to look carefully at what the issues really are and how we can tackle these issues in our country, then we can make
informed decisions. Who is John Kerry? Does anybody really know yet? We
had to investigate. It would not be fair to Senator Kerry or President Bush to presume to know them
and their views on the issues based on insufficient information!
They used to say that there were two things that one should not speak of in polite company: politics…
...and religion!
People also have different opinions on religion as well. That’s okay too. That’s what makes faith real and authentic. People must not be coerced into believing something; they must come to their own faith. They must weigh the facts and decide what they will believe. We just hope that when people offer their opinion on things religious, that they offer informed opinions, not just simply repeating what they hear on radio talk shows or on Saturday Night Live or from a sound-bite on some network special or from some one-liner from a movie.
If people take the time to look carefully at who Jesus really is, then they can make
informed decisions. Who is Jesus Christ? Do you really know? We must investigate. It would not be fair to Jesus to presume to know him based on insufficient information!
Take a look with me at Matthew 16, starting at verse 13.
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
(Matthew
16:13-14).
We are well into the timeline of Jesus’ life here—chapter 16! So, Jesus asks those men 12 men who have been following him, “Who do people say I am?” The answers are familiar to us, in a way—“Maybe he’s John the Baptist, or one of the prophets…”
All they could do was to fit Jesus into categories of thought that already existed. The popular ideas in Jesus’ time all were just that: “Well, let’s try to cram this Jesus into our already-formed categories for such things. So, he must be a prophet…or HEY! Remember that John the Baptist? He was a weird one! Maybe he’s John the Baptist again!”
That’s what we do today with Jesus as well—there are many opinions of Jesus today, and they all fit into our preformed categories…
Who do we say that Jesus is?
“Okay, Jesus was a great religious leader.
He was a prophet.
He was an incredible man who was more enlightened than most.
He was an ancient Jewish version of Gandhi.
He was a political radical.
He was a religious zealot.
He was a magician—his miracles were all tricks.
He was just a normal man that the apostles made too much of.
All these answers to the question fit into our predetermined categories, rather than letting Jesus Christ Himself
redefine our categories by His true identity.
Like bad journalists, we fail to go to the sources. We rely on hearsay, on uncorroborated evidence, and anything that sounds “juicy.” It’s not that we have no interest in Jesus, every Christmas and Easter all the main news magazines run cover stories on Jesus, and the TV networks run specials on Jesus. But most of what is said is uncorroborated hearsay and really “juicy.”
Who do people say the Son of Man is? Could be almost anything today.
2. Who is Jesus? (v.
15-16)
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
(Matthew 16:15-16)
Jesus says, “Okay, that’s what the people all around us say. What about you guys? What do all of you say I am?” (The “you” there in verse 15 is in the plural form in the original language).
Peter steps up, and speaks for the apostles. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Peter breaks through with the right answer. Peter somehow understands Jesus as He really is. The title, “Christ” is the Greek form of the ancient Hebrew word, Messiah. The Messiah is another word for the special “anointed” King of God’s People.
The prophets pointed toward a time when the Kingdom of God would come in splendor, with the Messiah as the King of kings and Lord of lords. God would be God of the People in this perfect kingdom—He would be their God, and they would be His people.
But what’s really interesting is that the Jews of Peter’s time were looking for the Messiah to come in power—that he would rule as King in such a way that the table would be turned on the Romans. They thought the Messiah would kick the Romans out of land and in turn that the Israelites would rule over
them!
This Jesus did not fit into any pre-conceived notions. We cannot push a
cross-shaped block into a round hole. He was God in the Flesh, the Perfect
Revelation of God. He is the Christ, the Messiah, the King. Yes, Peter has that right.
And Jesus is about to explain what that means. But before he does, he congratulates Simon Peter—
3. Yes! This is the FOUNDATIONAL revelation! (v.
17-19)
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
(Matthew 16:17-19)
Simon knows who Jesus is—but how? It wasn’t discovered by listening to all the clutter in the culture in which he lived. If he had listened to that, he too would have started to think that Jesus was just a mere prophet or some other established category. No, God the Father has revealed this to Peter.
This is the foundational revelation from God! If you miss this, then you have
no foundation on which to build your faith! Jesus is the ONE! He is the Messiah! He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God! There is none like Jesus, the Christ. There are all these other religious leaders throughout the ages—great men in the eyes of the historians and of those who follow their teachings. But there was only ONE Christ, only ONE Son of the Living God.
It’s the truth revealed in that wonderful verse that I hope most of us have memorized:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16)
He is the monogenes (the Greek word there), the “unique one, the one (mono) of a kind
(genos), the one and only.”
This is also the foundational revelation that Jesus builds his church upon. All that talk that Jesus will build his church upon the rock and that the keys of authority are given is difficult for us to understand in our culture. Suffice it to say that Jesus tells Peter that the church is going to be built, that the power of Hell itself will not thwart Jesus in
the building of his people into a genuine community of faith!
And Jesus speaks of keys. Keys open locked doors. And carrying keys symbolize the authority of the person who has them. Supervisors carried the keys to the temple courts during these days, and if they did not open the doors, people could not meet with God.
Jesus says, “Here, Peter. I give you and the apostles and those who also confess that I am the Christ the Keys to the Kingdom.” This is in marked contrast to what Jesus said of the Jewish religious leaders of his day—Jesus pronounced a “woe” on them:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”
(Matthew 23:13)
In contrast to all the rules and religiosity of these religious leaders, Jesus metaphorically gives the keys of the Kingdom to Peter and the apostles and then to all who follow in their lead, so that
we can open the door to God’s Kingdom through proclaiming the truth of Jesus to people—
That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God!
The authority of the keys are yanked from the Pharisees’ hands and placed in the hands of those who will proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
And the Good News is that this Christ is King not through power, not through coercion, not through manipulation. No, He is King through His Suffering.
4. The Cross is central to the Christ’s mission
(vv.
20-21)
Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
(Matthew 16:20-21)
It was not until after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ that Jesus “began to explain” his plan to die for the sin of mankind. He warned them not to tell people that He is the Christ
because their preconceived notions of what the Christ would do (that is, be the great military/political revolutionary leader) did not match up with his divinely appointed task.
The apostles themselves didn’t get it until after Jesus died! After his death, they are all depressed and scared and bewildered. It wasn’t until the tomb was found empty that they “remembered Jesus’ words.” He had been telling them: “I must be killed and on the third day be raised to life!”
The gospel message, the Good News, is not complete without the cross.
Recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah was the crucial first step.
But the disciples’ concept of Jesus as the Messiah was very different from Jesus’ own. Jesus busted up their preconceived notions, their man-made ideas of who He is. He explained to them that His Messiahship meant that He would die.
What are your preconceived notions of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah? Are you willing to allow God to reveal to you who He really is? Are you willing to allow God to radically change your ideas about Him? Are you willing to let Jesus be Jesus, on His own terms?
I am not interested in religiosity. That was the problem with those Pharisees. I do not want to be a hypocrite. I want to humbly submit to the real God as He reveals Himself to me. I may not, at first, like what I see. I want a God in my own image. I want a God with my priorities and opinions. I want a God who would do things the way I would.
But then, I probably would not die for the sins of the world, would I?
This Jesus did that. Strange…
 “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8)
That is what the “Christ, the Son of the Living God” did for us! That is the Good News that we proclaim as His Church. And when we proclaim
that to people, we take the key and open the door to them, allowing them to enter into the Kingdom of God!
Will you not enter on this day? Here, let me open the door for you. Trust that Jesus did in fact die on that cross for your sin. Yield to Him as your Lord as a subject in His Kingdom. Commit to following the King—learn from Him, follow Him, trust Him each and every day.
For Jesus is not what you have conjured up in your mind, based on all the crud that this world says He is.
No.
He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God—the One and Only who died on the cross for your sin in order to open the door to relationship with God in His Kingdom!
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