Who Is Jesus? - Luke 9:18-36

We bless your name.

God, thank you for this incredible community of people that you've brought together, that you've built over the last two and a half years.

God, thank you for our kids.

We don't take them for granted.

I pray, Lord, that you would uh give our church a culture of um just delight and adoration and desire to make disciples of our wonderful kiddos.

Pray that you would protect them and raise them in the faith.

Holy Spirit, we invite you in to speak to us about the text today.

We love you.

We need you.

Jesus' name, amen.

Well, welcome to Skyline Church.

My name's Adam.

I'm one of the pastors here today.

Um, like Jeremiah said, we're gonna be in an abbreviated sermon.

Um I'm gonna be in Luke chapter 9, but actually to start out, I I actually want to share with you guys when I was in my early 30s, late 20s, I got exposed to this uh YouTube influencer, we'll call him, guy named uh Alex O'Connor.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

He started making videos, I think, when he was a teenager.

And, you know, he's he's basically a convicted atheist.

And I found his videos helpful because I was having a lot of conversations with people about faith and objections to Jesus and reliability of the Bible, and I appreciated his videos because they helped me understand where a lot of these people were coming from.

His gamer tag, if you will, was the cosmic skeptic.

That's what Alex called himself.

Now he goes by his regular name, and he would regularly challenge Christians and and and challenge uh, you know, if Christianity was reliable, but as time went on, like he started making videos as a teenager.

But you know, as you might imagine, when you're a teenager, your views change over the next decade.

And what happened was he he began to soften on Christianity a little bit.

He's definitely not a Christian now, but for a while he was kind of uh excited about what was called the New Atheist Movement, which was basically this movement in the early aughts, you know, early thousands, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, um, Sam Harris, who were popularized atheists, and their their their kind of um candor, their um their their posture was really kind of aggressive towards Christianity, and they wouldn't um they they honestly at times it it felt like they didn't even feel like Christianity was worth debating because they looked down on it so much.

Alex O'Connor was kind of a part of that.

Um if you want to go to the pick of him, Alex.

Um but as time went on, he began to shift.

Alex Alex's the way he talked about Christianity began to shift.

And eventually he did this interview with this guy named Bear Grills, famous nature man, if you know him.

I saw this recently, and and he says in the interview, you know, Chris Christianity is actually more plausible than I originally gave it credit for.

And, you know, he even says in the interview, in fact, if I could go back during one time, I'd go back and meet Jesus just to see for myself who was this guy that seemed to change a lot for a lot of people in the first century.

And the reason that I appreciate Alex so much is because he's asking this question, who is Jesus?

A question that I would argue is the most important question that somebody can ask.

And so throughout his whole life, I think Alex is only in his late 20s now, um, he's been asking this question, and he's certainly not a Christian now.

He still releases videos, you know, basically trying to persuade you the opposite.

But I appreciate him at least seeking.

Because I would argue that this question, who is Jesus, is the most important one.

And in our text today, Luke, the Gospel of Luke, Luke, its author, is gonna answer this.

You know, we we've seen before people like in our Gospel of Luke so far, people talk about Jesus and who he is, but today it really is a turning point in the book.

So if you if you would like to open with me to it, I'll be in Luke chapter 9, verses 18 through 36, but first I'm just gonna read 18 through 22.

Luke 9:18–36

I'll have it up here on the screen.

Luke chapter 9, 18 through 22.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

We're gonna see an answer to this question.

Who is Jesus?

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him.

And he asked them, Who do the crowd 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?

Peter answered, The Christ of God.

And he strictly charged them, or 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 the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

So, this is a huge moment in the Gospel of Luke.

Look, we've seen the author, Luke, say that Jesus is the Christ.

We've seen demons say that Jesus is the Christ, we've even seen Jesus say it himself, but now his disciples finally know.

They finally understand.

You are the Christ of God.

And here's the thing: we've talked about this before, but the word Christ is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah.

What does the word Messiah mean?

Well, technically it means anointed one or king.

Now, in the Old Testament, you know, things get anointed, the temple gets anointed, you know, it's a dedication to God, prophets anoint people, priests do anointing and are anointed.

But probably the most important thing and person that gets anointed in the Old Testament was kings.

And anointing just means to smear with oil.

So what we're saying, when we say Jesus Christ, we're not saying first name Jesus, last name Christ.

We're saying Jesus is the Christ.

It's a title, which means Messiah, which means anointed one.

Anointed for what?

Kingship.

Jesus King is what has just been said.

Make no mistake, Jesus is the king.

And the Jews, you know, the Old Testament writes about the Messiah.

It writes about what he's going to do.

And the Jews rightfully expected that when the Messiah comes, he's going to be a king like David.

David, the most famous king in the Old Testament, grew Israel's borders, brought peace, brought prosperity.

God provided for him, God loved him.

The country thrived under his kingship.

And the promise is made that the Messiah will come who will sit on David's throne forever.

And now they've just called Jesus the Christ, aka the Messiah, aka the King.

But the thing about this is Messiah is also described as doing some other things in the Old Testament besides establishing a kingdom.

Which is why maybe you notice that Jesus immediately describes what he's going to do.

Because he knows that in their head, they're thinking King David, this guy's going to rise up, we're going to get out from under Rome's thumb, we're going to be a kingdom again, we're going to thrive again.

But notice what he immediately says.

The Christ will suffer, the Son of Man, will suffer, be rejected, die, and then rise again.

Which, I mean, if it's if that's a king, that's a losing king, at least in their minds, right?

Like, what kind of this is terrible.

What do you mean the king's going to suffer, be rejected, and die, and then rise?

Like, this is not, this is not a winning king.

And so, in fact, not in this gospel, but in other accounts of this same scene, it's when Peter takes Jesus aside and goes, no, no, no, no, don't say that.

But then Jesus rebukes Peter and he's like, No, you don't understand.

You don't have in mind the things of God, you have in mind the things of man.

And so this is a crazy moment where Jesus immediately, after his identity is confirmed, seeks to shape their expectations.

So what do we see here?

What we see, this is the first point, is that Jesus wants to be understood on his own terms.

Everyone's bringing thoughts and expectations and understandings to what the Christ is, what the Messiah is.

But Jesus wants to be understood on his own terms.

He's not a Starbucks order with a hundred million combinations.

He's a very specific thing.

He's a Messiah, he's a king that he gets to define.

Even if all around culture around us, TV, even TV about Jesus, books, even books about Jesus, people that you talk to, culture at all times is trying to define the Messiah for us, which maybe in some ways is helpful, in a lot of ways is very unhelpful.

So what that means for us is we have to constantly remember that Jesus gets to define himself on his own terms.

And the terms that we find are in the scriptures.

The infallible, eternal, reliable scriptures.

Look, it's good to read books about Christianity.

It's good to read, to, you know, watch videos of Alex O'Connor, if you're ready for that, to think about how people are coming up with objections.

Great.

But at the end of the day, do you let Jesus define himself for you on his own terms?

Because you're constantly going to be pulled by a center of gravity towards all kinds of crazy Jesuses.

I mean, we could just spend the next whole spend the rest of the sermon talking about the crazy Jesus' we've seen through history.

So what might it be for you?

What has really shaped to characterize Jesus for you, maybe in a negative way, outside of the scripture?

Are there certain images and certain expectations that you have of Jesus because of the way that things, you know, inescapably have influenced us, whether it's TV or books or whatever it may be.

Point number one is we must understand Jesus on his own terms.

Point number two, verses 23 through 27, we must follow Jesus on his own terms.

Look at what it says.

And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it.

But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in glory, in his glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

But I tell you, truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

Point number one was we must understand Jesus on his own terms.

Point number two is we must follow Jesus on his own terms.

So what happens here?

Did you notice that the audience expands?

And he said to all, and if you look at the parallel accounts in the other gospels, it says he calls the crowd to himself.

He's saying this to a broader audience.

Because he wants to talk about what it means to come after him.

What do we mean come after him?

When Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, what's he talking about?

He's talking about being his disciple, being a learner under him, being submitted unto him.

He wants to tell people what that's like.

And he gives three things.

Thing number one, deny yourself.

At the heart of denying yourself is laying down your ambitions before Jesus.

Laying down your motivating desires before Jesus.

That's what it means, that's what I think he means to deny when he invites us.

If we're going to come after him, we must deny ourselves.

You know, back when, in the early days of Netflix, it used to basically just be all documentaries because they couldn't afford real movies.

And there was this amazing documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

It's a story about really the most celebrated sushi chef probably in history.

This guy in Japan, he's 100 now, he's still alive.

But this doc basically talks about him and his restaurant, and it talks about what it means to apprentice under him, to disciple under Jiro, if you will.

It's a 10-year process.

You know, and you can imagine all these people wanting to come and learn under Jiro, what does it mean to make the best sushi on earth?

And basically, the first thing he says is, you're gonna have to be an apprentice for a decade.

I mean, talk about denying yourself.

I mean, one of the things that they literally have to do is make rice for three years.

Imagine joining a job and being like, man, I'm gonna get through a portion of this decade just making rice.

Like, it's crazy.

They're like toast and seaweed, but this is what it means.

You want to be one of the, for Jiro anyway, you want to be one of the greatest sushi chefs on earth, you must deny yourself and come under my teaching.

That means making rice for three years.

I don't know.

Maybe they need that, maybe they don't.

I don't know.

He's I'm not the best sushi chef on earth, he is.

Deny yourself.

For an extended period of time, people had to do this, right?

And this is what Jesus is asking us to do lay down our ambitions, lay down our desires before him.

Number two, take up your cross.

So, you know, in church, we talk about crosses all the time.

You can't drive five minutes any direction and not see a cross.

Some of the great global cities have giant crosses on the hill.

It means all kinds of things to us as humanity, right?

But but look, Jesus hasn't died on the cross yet.

This is not a thing yet.

This is the first time in Luke that he says the word cross.

And for them, it's like a torture, punishment, conviction under the state, you've been incarcerated and are gonna die symbol.

And so for Jesus to be like, you must take up your cross, I mean, you have to imagine that they would have been like, What?

What do you take up your cross?

I mean, like, imagine if Jiro, when he was recruiting apprentices, was like, you must sit in the electric chair.

Like, people would be like, What?

I don't know if I want to do this, you know.

This is what, this is the initial impression of what this means.

And and what he's talking about is really relating it to what he just said about himself.

He's gonna experience pain, he's gonna experience rejection, he's gonna experience death.

You must yield to that daily.

That's what he means by take up his cross, what he just talked about with himself.

You're gonna have to do the same thing, he's saying.

But it also symbolizes something else.

With the cross, you know, if someone carries their cross, they've been convicted under the state, under the law, and they're bearing the state's consequences.

It's a really image of submission.

Like you are bowing to the will of the state.

And so for Jesus to use this imagery, he's not only talking about stepping into the life that he is going to live, he's talking about submission too.

But not to the state.

Although there's a place for that.

We can talk about that later.

He's talking about to him.

Submission unto him.

You're not just denying your ambitions, your desires, you're picking up his.

You must carry your cross daily.

This is something that, because again, he's clearly he's not talking about necessarily death, although it could mean that, because if you're picking up your cross daily, well, there's something that you're submitting unto every day, which means things other than death, too.

The hardship that Jesus is talking about in coming after him.

People who come after him will experience hardship.

Number three, deny yourself, take up your cross.

Number three, follow me.

So what this means is going where he goes.

We don't just hear about him and then walk a different direction.

We follow him, we listen for his voice.

When we hear it, we don't ignore it.

And look, Jesus leads people differently.

Right?

Like at some level, for all of us, following Jesus means the same thing.

Denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily, but the specifics of the lives that he calls us to vary dramatically.

The life that God assigns to us varies dramatically.

And we must follow him wherever he leads.

With all the 12 apostles that are following him, almost, pretty much all of them, it ends in martyrdom.

They die for him.

But not all of us are going to do that.

And so following him means going where he leads.

And then he concludes by saying, look, in seeking to save yourself, you actually lose yourself.

Only in living for me do you receive your life back.

What he's talking about is eternal life.

That's what he's talking about.

In living for me, you receive your life back.

Look, everyone who follows Jesus, and everyone who's considering following Jesus, not sure yet, all of them, following and considering following, will face this temptation to follow him for comfort that he brings.

To follow him for the good things that he brings.

And make no ascent, he make no mistake, he does bring good things.

He does bring comfort, he does bring healing, he does bring joy.

We've read nine chapters so far, and he's bringing gallons of that, setting people free, healing them from illness.

The kingdom of God does bring that, and also it brings this.

Must deny yourself, pick up your cross daily, and follow me.

We're following a guy who is going to be rejected, tortured, and killed.

And then he says, follow me.

Think about the implications of that.

The kingdom does bring incredible things, got benefits that nothing else can touch.

And it also brings self-denial.

It also brings a cross daily.

This is what it means to follow him.

It's worth asking right now.

When you talk about the good news of the gospel to people, that Jesus died for sinners to bring them home, that Jesus died for sinners to reconcile them back to God, that Jesus died for sinners to heal your relationships and one day give you a resurrected body in the way that it was meant to be, with no pain and no tears anymore.

This is true.

And also what's true is there is no half measure.

Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me.

Both of these things are true.

When you talk about the gospel, when you share the good news of who Jesus is, do you bring up this part that he also wanted to bring up?

Because if you don't, you're leaving out something that was important to him.

Teaching people that you don't just become, if you invite Jesus into your life and follow him, he doesn't just become a nice little mantelpiece trophy that you reference every now and again.

He becomes the center of your life.

He becomes the one we follow.

Does this description of the Christian life deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me?

Does that describe in any way your expectation?

Because again, the Christian life is a balance, right?

It does bring peace, it does bring joy, but it also brings self-denial.

And when you think about the Christian life, is this at all a part of the universe of your characterization of it?

Like, take up your cross daily.

Is this a thought that crosses your mind daily?

Point number three.

First, we must understand Jesus on his own terms, then we must follow Jesus on his own terms.

And three, he is more than my idea of a Messiah.

The last part, verses 28 through 36.

Now, about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.

And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep.

But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.

And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good that we are here.

Let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, not knowing what he said.

As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid, as they entered the cloud.

And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone, and they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.

So you see the way that Luke is connecting this?

This is called the transfiguration sometimes when you're studying the Bible.

Eight days later, you see how he wants to connect what happens on this mountain to the things that Jesus just said and what it means to follow him?

Peter's declaration of his identity, you are the Christ, you're the Messiah, you're the King.

Peter and the apostles affirm that, and now someone way more important is affirming that.

They go up the mountain to pray just before Jesus has said, hey guys, there's some of you right here who are going to see the kingdom of God before they taste death.

He's talking about these three who just went up on the mountain with them, and boy, do they see it.

And what happens here, what Luke is beginning to show us here is look, while they understand the idea to some extent of what the Christ is, the Messiah is, they really don't fully yet.

Because as it turns out, Jesus, the Messiah, has two natures: fully man and he's fully God.

And that is part of what I think is being revealed here: his divine nature and his human nature.

His face changes.

What does that even mean?

His clothes transform into dazzling white.

Two famous Old Testament characters show up and discuss the work he's about to engage in.

What we're seeing here, you know, if you've been with us in the Gospel of Luke so far, people keep saying, Who is Jesus?

Is he John the Baptist?

Is he Elijah?

Is he one of the other prophets of old, like Moses?

Well, what we see here is he ain't Elijah.

John the Baptist is dead.

He ain't him, and he's also not Moses.

Luke is answering this question for us.

Jesus is different to them.

He is the one whose face transfigures and is glowing, while these other two guys who had passed away from the in the past in the Old Testament show up.

And then a cloud comes.

And if you know your Old Testament, when a giant cloud rolls in on the top of a mountain, the very presence of God is here.

The cloud comes and a voice speaks out of the cloud.

And what the voice says is, This is my son, my chosen one.

Listen to him.

Identity confirmed.

When a voice booms out of the sky about who you are, you better listen.

Jesus is the Messiah, but he's more than what they had in their mind.

Because only a Messiah who is fully man who represents us.

Humanity sinned.

Humanity failed.

Humanity needs to be reconciled back to God.

Well, okay, why don't we just put a sacrifice?

Why don't we just put a raccoon up on the cross?

They don't represent us.

But he's also fully God, which means he has the authority to make the call.

If he created us, then he has the authority to forgive us.

Fully man, he represents us.

Fully God.

All the authority to forgive sins and save humanity.

This is starting to become clear.

Listen to him, God the Father says.

This is a similar emphasis to what we've seen previously.

If anyone would come after me, you gotta deny yourself, you gotta take up your cross, you gotta follow him, and all that means listening to him.

Look, only in the gospel, only in the good news of Jesus, can we deny our wants?

Can we pick up difficulty and hardship and expect it?

Can we submit our lives to another, namely Jesus, and in doing those things have more joy than we ever could possibly imagine?

Only in the God, only with following Jesus does that happen.

Any other person, any other thing that you look to for peace, that you look to for meaning, for joy, for salvation, doesn't bring it.

But when you do that with Jesus, you get it all.

You get your life.

And not just any life.

Not only do we get to live this life with Jesus, where he walks with us through suffering, where he heals us, where he restores us, where he builds us up, where he directs us, where we feel his presence.

We get all that in this life and an eternal one with all brokenness removed.

But what he asks us to do is to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow him.

And we'll see at the end of the gospel just where he was willing to walk.

And he asks us to follow him into it.

And in doing so, we save our very lives.

We receive something far greater than what we can have here in this earthly life.

Let's pray.

Lord.

God, such a satisfying moment.

Where your followers finally begin to understand who you are and what you came to do.

Lord, you are the Messiah, the anointed one, the king, the king of kings who came to reestablish the kingdom of God.

It breaks into our lives now and comes fully at the end of all things.

Heavenly Father, help us to heed your encouragement.

Teach us to listen to the Lord Jesus.

He reveals you, He manifests you, He He He brings understandability to you in ways that nothing else could.

God, may we cling to the Scripture.

May we cling to the Scripture and let it define for us who Jesus is.

Let it define for us what following Jesus means in the midst of noise, in the midst of other voices.

And I pray, Lord, for all those who are considering faith.

I pray that nothing would deceive them about what it means to really follow Jesus.

That no one would sugarcoat it in a weird way, make it something other than what Jesus intended it to be.

An incredible life with the God of the universe and denying yourself.

God, I thank you for this passage.

As we come before you, Lord, I pray that you would bless this time.

I pray that you would fill this room with your Holy Spirit.

We love you.

We bless you.

Jesus' name, amen.