Luke: Who Do You Say that I Am? (9:18-27)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Luke chapter 9, beginning at verse 18.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and Jesus 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?

And Peter Peter answered, The Christ of God.

And he strictly charged and 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 scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And he said to all, If any one would come after me, let him deny himself, 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 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 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.

This is the gospel of Christ.

Um Heavenly Father, we just come before you as um beggars looking for bread.

Father, um, sometimes the text that we look at that we read in your Bible is hard.

Um, it's hard to hear, it's hard to read, it's also hard to tell other people of it.

And so, Father, um help us instead of running away from it to run towards it as a congregation.

Um, I pray for those who are in the room with me that, and also for those online and those who'll be watching in the future, that you would touch our hearts deeply and our minds deeply, that we would become more gripped by your gospel and lift Jesus high.

I praise in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So in our world and our culture and our society, um, there's many questions that are thrown out into just into the void, could be online or into groups of people within our society.

But no question or two questions are more prominent and important to the human heart at this present moment.

And that is who am I?

And who do you say that I am?

Now, these are questions that actually be going on for a long time.

Philosophers of old have been questioning this.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

What do other people perceive me to be?

But behind all the glamour of our modern society right now, all the glamour and facades, this is the drumbeat of advertising slogans, social media, and academic thought.

You can even get t-shirts now that say, I am who I am, meaning that I define my own path.

I choose who I want to be.

I can choose online a different presence as I am in person.

This is what that shirt would mean.

And it's gotten to the point that if you disagree or get wrong what someone someone perceives themselves to be, they'll get very offended.

And in some cases, you can even go to jail for it now.

So we have to ask the question, why?

Why is this the case?

Why is it like this?

One argument is that from a young age, we've been taught we can we can be whoever we want to be, from a very young age.

And as we as we age and um mature and these certain moments in our lives come up, we have to make decisions that feed into these questions of who am I?

Who do you say that I am?

We have to choose which friends we want to be friends with.

We have to choose that.

And depending on their social status within the school, that deems how people will receive us.

Or maybe it's what school we want to be at, we want to go to when we're older, when we go to college or university.

It could be where should I live?

How should I dress?

Should I get married?

And if yes, who should it be to?

What career should I choose?

Where should I retire?

These questions that we ask ourselves have deep meaning to us in our inner heart, in our inner being, because they create this identity that we create within ourselves as we go through this world, through this life.

And the text we're looking at this morning, Jesus is asking the question, Who do the crowd say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself.

Who do you say Jesus is?

Even Herod, in the earlier in the chapter that we're looking at, was perplexed about Jesus.

He heard all these things about Jesus and what he could have been, or what he could be, what he perceives he is.

And this question is in Luke's gospel leading up to this moment many times.

Pretty much in every chapter leading up to chapter 9, this question is asked: Who is this?

Who do people think he is?

And in this sermon, we'll be looking at three things.

Who is Jesus?

How does he prove it?

And what does it mean for me?

So let's look at the text.

Please turn to Luke chapter 9, verses 18 to 27.

Luke 9:18–27

If you do not have a Bible here, there's Bibles on the other side of the door, I believe.

Feel free to get up at any moment and go get a Bible.

So let's begin.

Verse 18 of chapter 9.

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

And he asked them, Who do the crowds 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?

Then Peter answered, The Christ of God.

Now, oh I'm a sorry, I just got lost in my notes.

Yeah, so as I said, this question is asked every chapter.

And then the crowds, then he asks the crowds, Who do you say that I am?

Who do the crowds say that I am?

He asked his disciples.

This is a very important question.

Interestingly, around Christmas time and Easter.

If you go into a grocery store or shopper's drug mart or anywhere that sells magazines, you'll see on the covers about uh you'll see pictures of Jesus or paintings of Jesus, and it'll always be who is this?

New insight into Jesus or the historical Jesus, new insight into this.

We're always asking who Jesus is.

It's always a huge thought of our day.

Who is Jesus?

And of the in the text that we're looking at, everyone's questioning who is Jesus, and they have different understandings of who he is.

Some say John the Baptist, Elijah, prophets of old.

These people that they're naming have been named in other parts of the Bible or Luke's gospel leading up to this.

And they're talking about who is this?

Do we think he could be the one that is preparing the way for the Messiah to come?

See, they have it wrong.

And if you ask secular friends, you may have some secular friends here, those who wouldn't call themselves follower of Jesus, they they might mostly, they'll mostly say he is Jesus is a crazy person.

How could someone think that of themselves, that he was sent by God?

How could you think that?

Others believe he was just a made-up fictional character.

Others say he was a good moral teacher, like Buddha or the Dalai Lama.

But Jesus doubles doubled down on his disciples.

He asks them directly, Who do you say that I am?

And Peter amazingly says, You are the Christ of God.

Now you might be thinking, well, it's only chapter 9, and he's already the story's already over.

They say he's the Christ, he's God.

All this Jewish hope leading up all through the um the Old Testament right to now, Peter declares that he is the Christ.

Story over.

But that's not the case.

There's still fifteen more chapters to go.

Why is that?

If if he's the Savior, if it's declared right now, why do I need to read the other the other chapters?

Well, look what Jesus says next in verse 21.

And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be dr be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Now, why would he say this?

If Peter just declared Jesus as the Christ, the one that they've been hoping for, the Jewish people have been hoping for for hundreds of years, why would he want them not to say anything?

So, what's going on is that Jesus, he knows that his disciples aren't ready.

Um, his time hasn't come, Jesus' time hasn't come.

They don't fully understand who Jesus is yet.

They still think that Jesus is going to be this great king that's gonna lead the people of Israel out and conquer everyone around them, get them out of oppression.

But Jesus knows that's not the case.

He has to continually train his disciples.

His moment on the cross has to come and he has to rise from the dead.

He has to continue in training.

It's kind of similar in a certain way that um I'm in a curacy right now.

I'm a curate of this church.

I'm in a training, almost in a sense, in a training program to learn how to become a rector, the one who leads a church.

It's a very wise thing that I don't just go straight from school into being a rector.

Some people do, and that's great, and it works for them.

But for myself, it would not work well.

I need the training.

Um then you see it said in chapter 22, Jesus predicts his death.

And then we read later on in the later chapters of 23 and 24 that Jesus dies on the cross and he is risen from the dead.

He predicts what's going to happen in the future.

In Deuteronomy, it says, The way you test a prophet is by if what they say comes true.

So Jesus here, it has been declared who Jesus is.

We've seen that in the right in the beginning of the verses.

And now we see that Jesus proves his legitimate ability because he says that this is gonna happen in the future.

And as we continue reading, as we'll continue on in Luke, we'll come to the point where you see it actually happen.

It happens.

There's eyewitnesses to it.

And now we're gonna see what that means for us.

Jesus now says something so counter-cultural, so very uncanadian, that we can't help but ask questions about it.

So let's see what he says in verse 23.

And he said to all, now he turns away from his disciples and he looks at everyone around him, and he says to all, to everyone there, If you 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.

See, Jesus asks the asks us two questions.

He asks his disciples and everyone around him two questions.

Who do you say that I am, and will you be my disciple?

And Jesus says that you have to take up your cross.

To them, in this context, this would have been such a countercultural thing for them.

Because they live in a society where the Romans would crucify people at a whim.

They would crucify people who steal, who um rise up against people, against the status quo.

They would just crucify them.

The be crucified in their minds is the lowliest, harshest kind of death that you could have.

It means you are just scum of the earth.

And then Jesus says that you need to take up your cross daily, you need to crucify your own self.

Why would he say that?

If Jesus is a good moral teacher, as we hear often, as you may think so yourself, then you just have to live in this world as the world deems fit, that what is what makes a good person.

And there's lots of good people who don't follow Jesus.

Um at times.

But what Jesus says is something so radically different.

Jesus says, if I am the Messiah, if you say that I am the Messiah, the Savior of this world, you have to live a completely radically different way than what we've been taught.

Are you the world's disciple or are you Jesus' disciple?

Jesus is speaking directly towards identity here.

And what do I mean by this?

So when we think about identity in our minds right now, we think about ourselves, how we deem ourselves to be in this world.

But in the context of then, when he says self in um in the verses, he's talking about everything.

So when we think about we have to deny ourselves, instantly we come to our minds, we think of our hobbies, things that we hold dear to us.

Like um it could be we maybe we like hanging out with these certain people.

We think of that right away, things that will affect us to our personal self.

Maybe it's our money.

Oh, you think, oh, I have to give away money.

But what Jesus is talking about, he's talking about the social self all around.

In the context of this, he's talking about anything that holds you back from me, you have to deny it and crucify it.

That is what he's saying here.

It is something that is so radically countercultural in his time and in our time.

You have to give up everything to follow me if it hinders you from following me.

That is what he's saying here.

And it comes heavy, it's a hard thing to hear.

But that is what Jesus is saying.

Now you may be thinking right now, you say Christianity is a great thing and it allows you to be a free person.

It allows you to be one who you can be what one with God, whoever you want to be.

God loves you.

But to me, you might be thinking, those online or in person, that this seems like it just wants to control me.

We hear often around us that you need to be true to yourself.

It's the slogan of our day, as I said earlier.

You can't be free unless you're your true self.

You make your own rules, you do what you want, you discover who you are as you go off on these journeys.

I work a lot in coffee shops.

And that is the anthem of the place.

You hear it, um, you see it in the decor, you see it in the food advertising, you deserve this.

You worked hard, you deserve this.

You see it in the music, you see it in everything.

It's we're surrounded by this thought, this we're taught that you have to be true to yourself.

But the thing that's interesting about identity, when you really start to pick it away, pick at it and look at it deeply.

I don't know if you've noticed, but it tends to be companies that tell us we have to be true to ourselves.

Like clothing companies, you have to dress a certain weight, and you'll be your next true self.

You're the best person if you wear clothes, if you drive this car.

Um, it could be it could be the any anything that tells you you're true to yourself.

Everyone, and also there could be times where you see a bestseller and it says you'll be your best person if you read this book, you're the next best self.

Even social media tells you you need to be your best self, you need to post your best images of yourself.

But identity in these contexts, in our world's context, is packaged and sold to us, and then it's sold back to us.

It's never free, it's just disguised as free.

We often hear if he who loses his life will lose it.

She who saves her life will save it.

We hear that all the time.

That you need to look out for yourself in order to help your life.

But Jesus' words are directly against this.

So countercultural.

Let's hear them again.

And he said to the crowd, If anyone 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.

Jesus says something so different here.

He doesn't say whoever loses his life will find it.

He says, Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

That is a key thing here.

And like if you have a pad and underline that in your Bible, for my sake.

The focus changes from the inward to the outward.

It's no longer about the individual, it's about Jesus.

He switches it.

Now the question, it changed that with this, it changes everything.

It's no longer who am I?

But who whose am I?

Augustine says this.

I'm just quoting Augustine here because he's just the man.

Um anything he says is good.

Um so it's it switches from who am I to whose am I?

Are you the Christs?

Are you his, his disciple?

Or are you the disciple of the good moral teacher that the world teaches who Jesus is in the National Geographic or in the magazines?

This is a very important thing that we have to consider.

Is he the Christ?

Who do you say that he is?

Jesus commands his followers to deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow him.

Now, this is significant because he says daily.

This would be a scene, as I said earlier, would be very familiar to them.

People be going out to be crucified.

That they they go and they die, they're executed, they are on the cross for many days.

It's a horrible death.

It's horrible.

But he says daily.

So the thing about crucifixion, it's horrible what happens, but they make the person carry the cross to where they're going to be crucified.

They have to take on the burden of their death.

So this is what he's saying.

Daily, you will experience rejection when you follow me.

To accept, you have to accept a death-like crucifixion where you'll be mocked, ridiculed, laughed at, pitied as you carry your cross daily.

It is a hard thing to hear, but there is hope.

I'm not done the sermon yet.

Um The Christian walk is not easy.

We all know that.

If you're here and you've put your faith and trust in Jesus, you know it's hard.

Um people will ridicule you, laugh at you.

You may have to give up certain things.

It's hard.

Um there's people around the world who face death if they hold the Bible in their hands, like what I'm doing right here in public.

They face death.

See, but Jesus doesn't stop there.

He continues.

So let's let's look at the text.

Verse 25.

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 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.

What he says in verse 27 is just talking about what's going to follow next.

That's that's what it means there.

See, there is assurance when you follow Jesus, when you daily deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus, when you become his disciple.

You may be thinking you can't do this, or maybe you you verse 25 really speaks home to you that you feel like you've didn't you've been ashamed to tell people of Jesus in times, and now you're worried about.

Is this saying that Jesus is going to be ashamed of me now?

Is that what it's saying?

The Christian walk is one of grace and mercy and so much love by God.

Paul in verse in Galatians in chapter two, verse 20, he says, I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

See, Jesus has already paved the way forward.

He has already carried the cross, and he's already gone to death to face it for us.

See, when we walk this life, we are not walking towards a death when you put your faith and trust in Jesus.

There is a hope.

The famous quote by C.S.

Lewis in his last book in the book of Narnia, he says, further up and further in.

You see, as you take the cross and you carry it and you deny yourself things that take you away from following Jesus, and you continue on, there is so much hope.

There's so much more as we go further up and further in.

We are able to keep our eyes ever on the goal that awaits us: union with God.

That is the hope of the Christian walk.

That Jesus died for us, he rose again from the dead.

For when we put our faith and trust in him, we will not perish.

That is the call that Jesus is doing here.

Are you my disciple?

Or are you the disciple of the world?

Whose are you?

That is the question to ask yourself.

If you are unsure, press into God, come and talk to us so we can pray for you.

Keep going forward in this Christian walk.

It is one that is so hard, but there's so much grace and mercy from God.

The world promises freedom, but sells it to you.

It marginalizes the poor, the weak, the destitute, because they can't afford to have the identity of the world.

But Jesus Christ, are you Jesus Christ?

This grace is freely offered to you, and that's through the cross.

It lifts up the poor, it lifts up the weak, the destitute, the broken, and it's freely given the gospel to all those who cry out to Jesus.

So I leave here just asking, who do you say that Jesus is?

That is the question we all need to ask ourselves.

Let us pray.

Father, sometimes your word is heavy and it comes on heavy, and it sometimes it leaves us just grasping for straws or something to hold on to.

But Father, please help us to never forget the gospel as we read these texts, that the work has finished.

It is finished as Jesus cried on the cross.

Help us, Lord, to be gripped by the gospel, to cry out to you in times of hardship and in times of joy.

Help us to constantly be looking to you, Lord.

And I pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow Him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

Newsong Church's mission and ministry is one hundred percent funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.

If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit newsongportperry.ca slash giving for more information on how to do that.

May God bless you and keep you today and every day.