Luke 9:18-22
Please make your way in your
copy of the Word of God to Luke’s Gospel, chapter nine. Our reading
and study and sermon today is verses 18 through 22. You can
find that in the Pew Bible on page 867. Luke chapter nine, verses 18
through 22. Here, the Word of God. Now it happened that as he was
praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them,
who did the crowd say that I am? They answered John the Baptist,
but others say Elijah and others still that one of the prophets
of old has risen. And Jesus 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. This is the word of the living
God. Pray with me. Our Lord, our God, our Savior,
we come before you today. Recognize that this is your word,
that this is your law. This is your gospel to us. sit
under it. And we pray that as we hear your
word, both read and preach, that we would understand more and
more who you are and what you have done. We would understand
more and more who we are and what has been done for us in
Christ. And we pray that we would understand more and more our
duty to know the details, the theology, the person, the work
of the glorious Savior, Jesus, who loved us with an everlasting
love. and with whom we will spend eternity,
worshiping night and day forever and ever. It’s in his name we
pray, amen. A year ago, we embarked on this
study of Luke’s gospel. And a year ago, we learned that
Luke, the medical doctor and travel companion of the apostle
Paul, compiled this gospel account, as well as the acts of the apostles,
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because he was an
eyewitness to the account of Jesus fulfilling the scriptures
of Almighty God to do the work of the Savior, the work of the
Messiah. And as we’ve made our way through
this gospel of Luke, we have studied Jesus’ birth. We have
considered his growth as a little boy, and we saw his coming out,
as it were, as the Savior of the world. We saw his coming
out in glimpses in the temple when he amazed the teachers.
when he was in the wilderness and fought off Satan and when
he was baptized and the spirit of God descended on him like
a dove and proclaimed to the audience there that day that
this was the beloved son of God with whom he was well pleased. And then we’ve spent the last
many months studying the Galilean ministry, Jesus ministry in and
around the region of Galilee. in Capernaum and other cities
that surrounded the Sea of Galilee. We’ve seen Jesus choose his 12.
We’ve seen him in prayer and ministry. We’ve seen him heal
the sick, cast out demons, teach the word, preach the kingdom,
and show the world what the kingdom of God is like. The next phase
of Jesus’ ministry is gonna move from the area of Galilee to the
area we called Perea. We’ll see Jesus’ Perean ministry,
and then we’ll see him move toward Jerusalem and toward the week
of his suffering and death. and resurrection. But we come
to a brief, maybe couple months section in the gospel study where
we call it Jesus retirement ministry, not that he is retiring and hanging
up his his Torah, so to speak. No, it’s his it’s his period
of rest, his period of preparing his disciples for what is ahead. And so in the next couple studies
in Luke, we are going to see Jesus begin to move towards Jerusalem
by way of his Parian ministry. But we’re going to see him teach
his disciples some serious things about his person and his work
and Jesus. is with, in our passage today,
he’s with his disciples. They’re alone. They’re in private.
They’ve taken a retreat. They’re in a secluded place that
the crowds this time have not followed them. The crowds this
time have not trekked along with Jesus and have not pressed him
to do more ministry. They’re alone, they’re in private,
they’re secluded. Jesus is with his disciples.
And in this retreat, in this period of retirement, he is praying
to God the Father that his will would be done. But he’s also
teaching his disciples specific things. And anytime Jesus gets
alone, anytime he is alone with his disciples and he’s in prayer
with the heavenly Father, something big is about to take place. And
so we’ve come to a place in Luke where it’s sort of an interlude
and something big is about to happen, which we’ll see in the
coming weeks. But as Jesus is praying with his disciples, as
he’s teaching them during this several month period of time,
he does a couple of things that astound us. We’re going to see
in a few weeks the transfiguration of Jesus. We’re going to see
next week, I believe it is, the call to deny ourselves daily,
take up our cross and follow the Lord. But today we come to
a pretty monumental moment. This is the moment where Peter
professes that Jesus is the Christ, that he is the Messiah. And so
we begin our study by first looking at a question. And the question
is this, we find it in our passage. Jesus, well, he asked them two
questions. The first question he asked,
who do the crowds say that I am? That’s not the real question
though, is it? That’s the warmup. That’s the softball question.
The real question Jesus is gonna ask is, who do you say that I
am? Who do you disciples say that
I am? Now, most of the time, we think
when the word you is used in the Bible, it’s talking about
me personally. And we have come to this belief
because, well, it’s a self-centered culture we live in. We think
everything is about us. But we also have come up through
the last 50 years of Christianity where we have these daily devotionals
and they’re not a bad thing. But the question that we seek
to answer in these daily devotionals is this. What does the Bible
mean to me? But what we need to understand
is that the you in most of the New Testament occurrences is
what we might say here in the South. It’s a y’all. This is
Jesus saying to you, the church, who do you say that I am? Who
do y’all say that I am? This is Jesus saying to Peter
and the other 11, who do y’all say that I am? This is not about
Peter or John or James or Brian or name one of your names. This
is about who do you, the church, say that I am? And so we begin
our study with a question. Good teachers ask questions.
As you know, it’s the Socratic method. A good teacher draws
the information out of a student. And Jesus says, who do the crowds
say that I am? Who do you say that I am? He
teaches by asking questions. Who do the crowds say that I
am? Jesus asked. What’s the word on the street?
What’s the the scuttlebutt? What’s being said through the
grapevine or the back fence gossip? In the disciple’s answer, some
say you’re John the Baptist raised from the dead. Remember, John
had lost his head. He was dead and gone, but some believe
that John had been risen from the dead and Jesus was he. Some
say Elijah, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Others
say a prophet of old who has come alive. Some of you, I know,
watch that television show Water’s World where Waters, the news
man, follows a camera around and he asks people questions.
And his goal is to see how ignorant people are. That’s what I think
his goal is. He asked people who’s our president.
Sometimes they know, sometimes they don’t. He asked them about
a current social or political concern. He asked them why they
believe what they believe. And in the same way that Waters’
world goes around and ask questions, you could go around the country
and you could pick a select group of people and say, who do you
say Jesus is? Now we’ve seen as maybe back
at Christmas when we looked at the Ligonier statement on theology
or the state of theology, we looked at that survey of a handful
of questions. We took it in Sunday school and
y’all passed with flying colors, which means you’re well taught
and you’re listening and you’re reading your Bibles. That’s very
encouraging. But as you watch a video of these
folks going out and asking questions like, who is Jesus? What did
he do? Did he die for your sins? Basic biblical. things. Most
people, including Christians, can’t answer these things. And so Jesus is saying, what
do the crowds say? And why might we not know? Why
might people not know who Jesus is, who he is and what he’s done?
Well, it could be they’re not paying attention. It could be
that they’re not under the discipleship ministry of the church. Remember
the Great Commission go into all the world, preach the gospel,
baptize and teach the people all that I’ve commanded you.
It could be that ignorance of who Christ is means that people
are not sitting under the ministry of the word. It could be that
they’re not paying attention and it could be, and this is
probably very true in 2019 in American Christianity, it could
be this, that the church is failing to do the work of the Great Commission.
And even worse, the church, when they are attempting to do the
work of the Great Commission, are distorting the word of God
by teaching what they want to teach and not what the word teaches. Friends, Satan loves to confuse. He loves an untaught church.
Satan loves a mistaught church. Satan loves a church that preaches
and teaches heresies. Satan loves television ministry. Satan loves the books that adorn
the bookshelves of our Christian bookstores. But let me encourage
you in this way. God is ordained in his ministry
through Christ. Ephesians chapter four says this,
when Christ ascended on high, he gave gifts to his church.
And he gave the apostles for the early era of the church.
He gave pastors and teachers and elders, and then he gave
gifts to the people. And so there’s this sense where
in the local church, under the ministry of your pastor, under
the ministry of your elders, and under the ministry of those
gifted to teach, we should sit with open Bible, notebook open,
pen ready, and we should learn of Christ. So that when someone
says to you, who do you say is the Christ? You can be ready
to give an account of the hope that is within you. We should
not be mistaught or untaught or even believe in heresies.
So our passage begins with a question. Our passage moves on to teach
us about an answer. An answer. And the answer comes
from none other than Peter. Peter says, you are the Christ
of God or you are God’s Messiah. Sometimes we ask when we are
sitting under teaching, is this on the test? And of all questions
in the Bible, this one is on the test. Who do you say Jesus
is? Because eternity. And where you
will spend eternity with whom you will spend eternity is the
test. Who do you say Jesus is? If you’re
like the crowds in the world, you say that Jesus is something
that he’s not and you will not enter into God’s eternal joy
and presence. But if you understand who Jesus
is, that he’s died for your sins and offered forgiveness. Yes,
it is on the test. It’s the most important question
Jesus could ask. And Peter, who seems to be the
ringleader of this band of fishermen and tax collectors, you can imagine
he probably blurts the answer out without thinking. And they’re
all amazed that he’s right. It’s a surprise. You are God’s
Messiah. You are the Christ of God. Now,
recognize what Peter is doing. Jesus has asked two questions.
Who do the crowd say that I am? Who do you say that I am? And when you, dear brothers and
sisters, just as Peter has done, confess the truth of who Christ
is and what he has done, and in particular, As it relates
to your salvation, you are standing what we call contra mundum against
the world. You are standing on your own
two feet saying to the rest of the world, I don’t care who you
are or what you believe. I believe that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Messiah. And there’s
some sense every Sunday when we say a creed. Whether it’s
the statement on Christology or the Athanasian Creed or the
Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, or one of our other confessions
that we use, we’re doing a bunch of things. One is we’re worshiping
God by telling him who we think he is based on the scriptures.
Number two, we’re kindling in our own hearts and minds what
our faith is, going back to our first profession. Third thing
we’re doing is we’re telling each other, this is the Jesus
we’re here to worship and learn from. But there’s a fourth and
even a fifth thing we’re doing. We’re telling Satan, buzz off,
we love Christ. Take your falsehoods with you.
But we’re also telling the world, this Jesus, the Jesus of the
scriptures is our God, is our savior. And dear brothers and
sisters, in a day and age when it is unkind and unpopular to
claim something so exclusive as the person and the work of
Jesus, that Jesus alone saves. Jesus alone is the way to God
for salvation by faith. You are standing against the
world. but stand against the world we must, and Peter here
has done it. In a few verses on down in our
study in Luke, we are going to see Jesus say this about his
disciples, blessed are the eyes that see what you see. And dear brother or sister, if
you are able to identify who Jesus is, according to the scriptures,
blessed are your eyes and that you see. Because spiritual things
are spiritually discerned without the Holy Spirit coming into your
life and opening your eyes and softening your heart and helping
you to understand that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity,
the eternal son of God, savior of men and women and boys and
girls who put their faith in him. Unless you have eyes to
see, you cannot understand that. And so blessed are your eyes
that see what you see. But if you can’t give the answer
that Jesus gives, Jesus speaks of that later in verse 26. He
says, whoever is ashamed of me and whoever is ashamed of my
words of him, will the son of man be ashamed when he comes
in his glory and the glory of the father and the glory of the
holy angels? See, friends, this is a question
that is on the test. This is a topic that is going
to be tested and your answer depends or your eternal destiny
depends on your answer. Now, Peter later is going to
deny Jesus. Peter later is going to deny
the Christ. But Peter, when restored by God
through Christ, he will be the preacher of preachers who preaches
repentance and baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus. And so
there’s a question in this passage. There’s an answer, but there’s
also a warning. Notice the warning that Jesus
gives in verse 21. It says, and he strictly charged
and commanded them to tell this to no one. He said, the son of
man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and
chief priests and scribes and be killed on the third day and
be raised. Now, isn’t this a little bit
strange that the greatest question is given a great answer. And this great answer is the
gospel. It ought to be told. But Jesus says, I can’t tell
this. My time is not yet. If you go
telling the world that I am Messiah, they’re going to kill me prematurely.
They’re going to put me to death prematurely. There is an appointed
time for my suffering. There’s an appointed time for
my rejection. There’s appointed time for my death. And there
is an appointed time for my resurrection. In fact, Peter’s going to preach
that later in the Acts of the Apostles. He’s going to speak
of Jesus dying by the definite plan and foreknowledge of Almighty
God. But here the disciples, once
they understand the revelation of who Jesus is, once they put
the pieces together, they’ve seen the miracles, they remember
the scriptures. They’re about to see his transfiguration.
They’re about to hear him foretell his death. And Jesus is saying,
hush, I’m charging you. I’m warning you. I’m commanding
you. I’m instructing you. Tell no one. Why not? This is
the gospel. I mean, isn’t he later after
his resurrection going to say, go into all the world and tell
everyone about me? Well, at least not now. The time
for Jesus to be suffered and rejected and killed and raised
is not yet. And Jesus will announce himself
at the proper time. You see, the Romans were trigger
happy. The Jewish authorities were on
edge. And a word too soon about Jesus’
real identity could make matters worse. So there’s a question. There’s an answer. There’s a
warning. And finally, there’s a prediction. We see the prediction
at the end of our passage in verse 22. The son of man must
suffer many things. The son of man must be rejected
by the elders and the chief priest and the scribes. The son of man
must be killed. and the son of man on the third
day must be raised. Can’t you imagine in their little
retreat, in their little get together out in some remote place
where they’ve been praying and learning, this is quite a balm. This is quite a backwards prayer. statement for Jesus to make. Here’s our Messiah. Here’s our
king. Here’s the one that we have been
longing for for generations and centuries. They’ve been singing,
come thou long expected Jesus come to set us free. And here the son of man says,
and I’m going to die. After I’ve been rejected. After
I’ve suffered, it doesn’t make sense. But if you think about
the Old Testament, the prophets, the writings, the the word of
God over and over predicts the coming of one who would suffer.
The coming of one who would die, the coming of one who would rise
and the coming of one who through his humiliation would be exalted. And so the story of the scripture,
the prophecy of the scripture speaks of Jesus suffering, his
rejection, his death and his resurrection. He’ll suffer, he’ll
be arrested and mocked and accused. He’ll be found guilty of something
that he did not do. He’ll be beaten. He’ll be rejected. He’ll be denied by the apostles.
He’ll be betrayed by Judas. He’ll be asked by Pilate, are
you the son of God? He’ll be asked by Herod, are
you the king of the Jews? He’ll be mocked and mistreated
by the Roman authorities, the council, Pilate, Herod, the apostles,
the chief priest and the scribes, they will all reject him. And
he will go to the cursed cross and die a heinous death. Cursed is the one who hangs on
the tree, says the Old Testament scriptures. But Jesus will be
raised. Jesus will suffer and then enter
his glory. Jesus will be delivered over
for our trespasses, but raised up for our justification. And who do the crowds say he
is? He’s just Elijah. He’s John raised from the dead.
He’s just a prophet. Who does the world say Jesus
is? Well, Jesus is to be ignored by the world. Jesus is irrelevant
to the world. Jesus is to the world just a
way to get to heaven, whatever that is. And if you live in 2019,
which we all do, and we live in this culture, we call this
phenomenon being woke and being woke means being awake to the
needs of culture, which is a wonderful thing. But it’s reduced Jesus
to a social gospel. Friends, Jesus isn’t interested
in your social life. He’s interested in your eternal
life. And he and he alone can help
you in that way. Who do you say that I am? Who
do y’all say that Jesus is? Who does the church throughout
the centuries and throughout the Christian era say that Jesus
is? Well, the church has creeds.
The church has catechisms. The church teaches the Bible.
It teaches the whole counsel of God’s word. We have Christian
education. We’ve not been studying Christ
in Sunday school, but lately we’ve been studying the third
person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And it’s been a blessing
to those who have attended. Christian education is meant
to teach us who Jesus is so we can better articulate who he
is to ourselves in our time of need, but to others in their
time of salvation. The church has her hymns, her
psalms, her theology. One of the reasons a year ago
we picked a new hymnal is because we wanted to sing the psalms
like Psalm 22. We wanted to sing the great hymns
of the faith that speak of the person and the work of Jesus,
not in a sentimental way. I’m so glad that Jesus loves
me. but we sing how Jesus did love us. And those points of
theology help us answer the question, who do you say that I am? We move from sentimentality to
theology, and then we can worship God better. Some people say this,
theology doesn’t matter. Why study theology? That’s for
the theologians. That’s for the ivory tower. Friends,
theology matters. Everybody has a theology. The
question is whether it’s a good one or a bad one. Theology does
matter. And each of us, every one of
us as Christians should know who Jesus is. We should know
that he’s the eternal son of God. He is the Messiah of God.
He is the one who took on our sins. He is the sin bearer. He’s
the prophet. He’s the priest. He’s the king.
He’s the scapegoat who, when the sins of the people were placed
on him, he went outside the camp and he did not wander in the
desert, but he died. And if we come to him by faith
and receive the forgiveness of sins, we not only have the perfect
righteousness of Christ, God sees us as if we’ve never sinned,
but he sees us as if we’ve always obeyed. And so here’s the question
of the day, the question of the ages, the question for eternity.
Who do you say that Jesus is? My prayer is that you say it
with full meaning. He is my savior. Pray with me. Our Lord and God, we thank you
for this challenge from the master, from the savior, from Jesus to
put the question to us, the question of all questions. Who do you
say that I am? Lord, we do not want to be ignorant.
We do not want to be. weak need in our profession of
faith, but help us to boldly stand to our feet and say, this
Jesus is my savior. He has bought me with his precious
blood. He has redeemed me from myself
and my sin and my misery. He has fattened the calf. He
has put shoes on my feet, a ring on my finger and a robe of righteousness
upon my back. And I will be with him forever
and ever in eternity. But until then, Jesus is my Lord,
my master, and I will follow him wherever he leads. May this
be our confession, our creed, our answer to this great question.
We pray with all our hearts that this would be so in Jesus name.
Amen.