Face2Face l Turning Point l Pastor Jamie Kemp

Welcome to IS Jakarta.

I'm Pastor Jamie, and I'm excited that you're joining us for this week's message.

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Thanks for listening.

Well, let me begin by saying thanks to so many of you who uh sent such nice notes and comments regarding last week's consecration service.

It was a great time.

Uh Tasha and I felt such love and appreciation from so many of you as we kind of were prayed over and committed ourselves to being your pastors here at IS.

It was just an incredible time last week.

And I'm excited to jump back into this series that we're calling face-to-face, encounters with Jesus, that that um that force a decision, that demand a decision.

Because it seems like every time someone meets Jesus, uh, man, they never leave the same.

Something transforms, something changes in their life.

And uh, I'm excited about next week's sermon because I'm gonna I'm gonna wrestle with the verse.

Uh you know that Bible verse where the guy says to Jesus, he says, Um, um, I believe, but help me with my unbelief.

So that week next week we're gonna do that sermon, all right?

So you're here this week, you picked the wrong week.

All right.

So uh so next week you wanna make sure you're here next week to hear that sermon.

This week you get this sermon.

All right, we'll see if this one's any good.

All right.

So uh last Friday, a week ago Friday, my wife and I had a rare day off together with both the kids away.

All right, they were away at a school activity, and suddenly we had a Friday free where I didn't have any meetings, she didn't have anything planned, and we're like, well, what are we gonna do with this with this opportunity?

So, of course, I'm thinking, well, this is great.

Let's go golfing, all right?

And so that would be great, all right?

And so, and Tasha, she's like, Well, why?

Let's go hiking, all right?

And so I thought, so we thought, well, let's compromise, and we went hiking.

All right, so um, I think I've said this before.

Um, Tasha loves the hike.

I love Tasha, so we go hiking.

All right, that's kind of the way our marriage stays together.

Now I thought it was so funny because now I I'll go hiking with her, but um uh we did this thing last week called uh they call it TikTok, where we went, you know, hiked up and down, just one hike, and it was uh eight kilometers up, eight kilometers down.

And I remember uh uh so like when I go hiking, my whole goal is to get it done.

All right, that's what I'm like, I'm trying to make good time.

Uh you know, but Tasha, she's got a totally different perspective on hiking.

She wants to stop and enjoy it and look around and like take pictures, and I'm like, hey, if we keep going, we'll be done by lunchtime.

You know, like that's like my goal, let's get it done.

She wants to stop and enjoy it.

For me, the enjoyment is when it's finished.

All right.

So, so but here's what I found um that there are different like turning points in in marriage and in rate relationships where you get to learn more about each other, and you you almost like define the role uh uh in your marriages.

And so uh so for for me, uh uh I promised I'll always go on a hike with Tasha if she plans it, all right?

And then I plan and then I agree to have a good attitude when we go.

All right, so so of course these roles can change in marriages and in relationships.

Like when Tasha and I first got married, I handled the finances, and that was a disaster.

All right, so now she handles the finances, all right.

So there's all kinds of turning points in life.

We have things like graduations, first job, marriage, birth of a child, the death of a parent.

These are the moments of life that kind of change the trajectory of our life.

And that's what we see happening in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

When we read through the gospel of Mark, we see that for seven and a half chapters, Mark has been moving us towards this moment.

Jesus has been healing, teaching, casting out demons, calming storms, feeding crowds.

And now in Mark eight, he essentially stops and asks, After everything you've seen, who do you say I am?

This is what it says.

Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went to the villages near Caesarea Philippi.

As they were walking along, he asked them, Who do people say I am?

Well, they replied, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the prophets.

Then he asked them, But who do you say I am?

And Peter replied, You are the Messiah.

Who do you say I am?

Here's the thing that's not just a question for Peter 2,000 years ago.

It's a question that eventually all of us have to ask ourselves and to wrestle with.

There comes a time, there comes a moment when faith has to become personal, when when you have to decide who is Jesus for me, not my family's faith, not my katepe, not my religious background, who is Jesus to me?

So here's what I want you to see.

Peter's answer becomes the turning point of the gospel.

Up until this point, um, Jesus has been leading his disciples to this moment, and then after this moment it turns, because now all the focus starts to move towards the cross, towards Jerusalem, and towards the resurrection.

And here's how Matthew records it in his gospel.

Says this in Matthew 16.

Now, when Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is?

And they say, Some say uh John the Baptist, others say uh Elijah, others Jeremiah, andor one of the prophets, he said to them, But who do you say I am?

Simon Peter replied, You are Christ, Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered them, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven, my father who is in heaven, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Now being a disciple of Jesus must have been terrifying at times, exhilarating, and it was definitely demanding.

They were following a rabbi like like no other they had ever known.

And the thing is, thing about following Jesus is they never knew what their rabbi would do next.

One minute he was healing somebody, the next minute he was confronting religious leaders, one day he was feeding thousands of people, another day he's walking on water, he's touching lepers, he's casting out demons, he's forgiving sins, he's calming storms, and the disciples are just they're just trying to keep up with him.

They don't always understand what's going on or where they're going.

Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples, they're they're they're going to the villages near or the villages around Caesarea Philippi.

And that sounds like a small detail in the Bible that we usually overlook.

That they're traveling from Galilee to Caesarea Philippi.

Most of the time when we read that, we just kind of overlook it.

But what does it say?

What's that famous business uh catchphrase?

Um, how do you succeed in business?

Or uh it's about location, location, location, right?

Location matters, even in the scriptures.

Caesarea Philippi was about 26 miles away from the Sea of Galilee.

All right?

That's about 42 kilometers.

Now, for some of us, when I say something like 26 miles or 42 kilometers, that means something to some of us.

For some of us, we know a thing or two about it.

That's the distance of a marathon, all right?

So when I hear that Jesus went from Galilee to to Caesarea Philippi, we gotta realize that's not that's not just moving from one kampoom to the other, right?

He's going, he the he and his disciples have just walked a full marathon, all right?

We're talking 42 uh kilometers, right?

And and and it was just oh just under a year ago that I ran my first ever marathon.

Training for it felt like a part-time job, all right?

Uh, those of you who trained for something like this, uh for four months, uh I was running almost every day, one to two hours every day.

And then on my long runs, it'd be some it'd be three to four hours.

Now, some of you might even know the history of how a marathon began.

Why why why is a marathon 42 kilometers and why is it called a marathon?

Well, it goes all the way back to ancient Greece, right?

Um in 490 BC, there was a uh the the Greeks and the Persians were at war and there was an upset victory.

The Persians were coming in, and the Greeks defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.

And so what happened is after the victory, after the war, um they wanted the Greeks wanted to get word back to the city of Athens, and so they sent a messenger, and his name was, and I'm gonna totally destroy this name.

I'll try it anyway.

Fidi Pedes.

Alright, alright, sorry if that's your name in here.

All right, so we'll just call him the messenger, all right, the runner.

So what happened is they get this, they need to send the message from Marathon to Athens that they won the victory.

And so they send this messenger, and he runs all the way from Marathon to Athens, and when he gets there, he announces the victories that the Greeks we've beaten the Persians, and everybody celebrates.

It's a moment of victory, it's a moment of celebration.

Now, how long do you think the distance was between Marathon and Athens?

42 kilometers.

So that's where we get the distance for running a marathon.

Now, here's the crazy part of the story, all right.

This is maybe you already know this.

Do you know how the story ends?

For uh uh is after running the 42 kilometers and delivering the message, the guy dies.

Alright.

So, what I want to know is this.

I want to know this is now it's thousands of years later, who comes up with the idea like, hey, why don't we run a race that's 42 kilometers and let's see who lives at the end of it, right?

Like, who comes up with this idea, right?

Let's see who survives.

All right.

So here's what we have happening, all right?

Jesus and his disciples, they're walk- they just walked 42 kilometers.

Jesus and his disciples, they arrived at Caesarea Philippi.

Now, this was not just another ordinary Jewish village.

This was the center of pagan worship.

There were temples, sacrifices, and idolatry.

And at this place there was this uh massive rock, uh, this massive rock cliff that kind of, these two rock cliffs that kind of came together that formed a cave, a small cave at the base of this rock cliff.

And the people believed that that as these two mountains, as these two rock formations came together, um, this is where the the supernatural world met the earthly world, where the spirit world met the physical world, and where the and in that cave, they would call the front of that cave the gates of hell.

So imagine being one of Jesus' disciples.

You're a good religious Jewish boy, and you've you've grown up knowing that there's just one God.

You've been taught to stay away from pagan worship, and then one day your rabbi says to you, Hey, we're going to Caesarea Philippi.

And you're thinking, We're going where?

Because your parents would have never taken you on vacation to a place like that.

I mean, this is the center of pagan worship.

This is a place where people are worshiping a God who who who who who looks nothing like or acts nothing like the God Yahweh.

But Jesus takes them there, and they arrive, and they see this massive cliff and this cave, and they see all these pagan shrines and temples and places of worship.

They see that people have come from all over to worship this false God.

And they're probably thinking, Jesus, what are we doing here?

And in the middle of all this spiritual darkness, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, right here, in the middle of all of this, this is where I'm gonna build my church.

And the gates of hell, they cannot prevail against it.

Right here, in the middle of all this darkness, this is where I'm gonna build my church.

I can't help but get excited when I think of uh of IS and kind of that that in the middle of Jakarta and all the chaos and and craziness around us that God has said, hey, I'm gonna build my church.

I'm gonna establish IS in the middle of all of this for you to be a light and the darkness of the world all around us.

I still don't think we we totally grasp the prophetic and strategic nature of God's plan for our church.

I wonder what the disciples were thinking at that moment.

Here?

This is where you're gonna build your kingdom?

With these people?

Among all those who are worshiping a different God?

Among those who who don't believe what we believe?

Uh Jesus, are you saying that that these people are gonna become a part of your church?

And the answer is yes.

And that's the point.

Jesus doesn't take his disciples uh out of the darkness, he doesn't say, say, come to this nice, safe place, and this is where we're gonna start our Bible study.

This is where we're gonna where I'm gonna build my church.

No, he steps into the darkness and says, right in the middle of all of this, this is where it's gonna start.

This is where I'm gonna build my kingdom.

My kingdom is coming here in the midst of the darkness.

And I love this because oftentimes we think of church as we're the ones who are under attack, right?

We we think, oh, oh, uh, the the devil's really coming after me today.

Sometimes as Christians, we uh we can kind of over-spiritualize things, all right?

Like um, let me tell you what happened.

This past Thursday, um, we had a prayer meeting in the chapel.

It was an incredible time of prayer.

We had about a hundred we had 120 people at our prayer meeting.

And um, and so afterwards someone asked me, they said, uh, one of the prayer ladies, she said, Hey, how many people did we have here?

Um and I said, Oh, we had 120, and she goes, Oh, 120, just like the day of Pentecost.

All right, so I was like, no, it's just a number.

So I get over.

But sometimes we do that, right?

We get like we over spiritual, we're like, oh, that's good.

Like um, sometimes if I uh if I if I meet one of you out in public, you know, we're at the mall or the grocery store, first thing you say is, What is my pastor doing there?

You know, uh, but then the second thing you think, so if I ask you if I'm out in public, I'll say, um, hey, how you doing?

A lot of you will be like, I'm blessed.

You know, like, you know, like you'll use that.

Or if you're feet really feeling good, maybe you say, I'm blessed and highly favored, right?

You know, uh so we can spiritualize our words.

Sometimes we'll even over-spiritualize uh uh so that we don't have to take responsibility uh for ourselves.

I have a friend of mine, he loves to say this.

He loves to say, Man, the devil's busy.

Uh and I'm like, no, you're just lazy.

You know, like that's what I want to say, you know.

Like, like the other couple weeks ago, I was like, I was trying to text him and call him.

I had to get a message to him, and so I'm sending him WhatsApps and it's not going through, it's not going through.

I try to call him, I'm trying to connect with him, and he's and the phone's not going through.

And so finally he shows up at church, and I'm like, bro, where you been?

You doing okay?

He's like, Man, devil's been busy.

And I'm like, man, uh, the devil don't work for Telcom Cell.

Like, pay your bill, all right?

Like, so I can get in touch with you, all right?

Get some pulsa, please, all right?

And so, well, Jesus turns this whole thing upside down, right?

He says something totally different, something they're not expecting.

Because you see, gates don't attack, gates defend.

Gates keep people out.

And Jesus says, the gates of hell, they're not gonna win against a forward-moving church.

A church that's on the offense, not on the defense, a church that's going into the enemy's territory and rescuing those who are in spiritual darkness.

And that's what I want us to get today that the gates of hell will not win against a forward-moving church on the offense, going into the enemy's territory and rescuing people from spiritual darkness.

That's the image I want you to see today.

Darkness is not gonna win.

Fear is not gonna win, sin is not gonna win, the powers of evil are not gonna win because Jesus is building something that they can't stop.

What then shall we say in response to all these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Who will bring any charge against those who God has chosen?

It is God who justifies.

Who then will is the one who will condemn no one?

Jesus, uh, Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who has been raised to life and is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall trouble or hardship, persecution or famine, nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, for your sake we face death all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor neither angels or demons, neither present nor future, nor any power, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord.

All right, somebody, somebody say something in here.

Alright, coming after you today.

This is the 11:30.

You've had a lot of coffee already, hopefully.

All right.

Jesus then looks at his disciples and asks them a question.

He says, Who do people say that I am?

And I love their response.

They say, some say, turn to the person next to you and say, some say.

Yeah, they say, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the other prophets.

And and here's what I've noticed is everyone's got an opinion about Jesus.

Everyone's got an opinion about Jesus.

Some say he's a great moral teacher, some say he was a prophet, some say he was a revolutionary, some say he was a myth, some say he was a good man, some say he was the son of God.

And that's not just true about Jesus, it's true about the church.

Everybody's got an opinion about how church should be done.

Some people like the new songs, some people like traditional songs, some want more preaching.

I wish that was true here.

Um, some want shorter preaching.

That is true here.

Um, so some want more programs, some want fewer programs, some want more children's ministry, some want adult ministry, some want more missions, some want their pastor to dress up, others want them to be more casual, some want the church to say exactly as it is, and some want it to change faster.

So let me take a moment and just kind of step into a place as your pastor here at IS.

Man, I know there have been some changes here at IS.

Uh uh most significantly, pastor, the retirement of Pastor Dave and Gigi.

And that brought about a change in preaching and in style.

Then with Pastor Misha's new assignment in Singapore, this brought about a change in worship much quicker than anticipated.

So I get that.

And now some of you are are loving the changes.

I'm getting DMs from Instagram or WhatsApp messages saying, man, you enjoy the changes.

And and some of you, I get it.

You're you're not sure about some of the changes.

So that's why I appreciate the private conversations I'm having with so many of you.

That no one's going around gossiping or trying to cause division, to cause division.

I I appreciate the maturity of IS, that I'm not seeing anyone trying to cause division during this time of transition.

Because I know some of you are probably thinking, Pastor Jamie, could you just stop?

Could you please just stop changing things?

And some of you are thinking, Pastor Jamie, could you please make changes quicker?

All right.

So I feel like I'm kind of living in these two worlds.

And so I understand where a lot of you are coming at.

So I want you to hear my heart today.

I don't want to lose any of you.

I don't want anybody to walk out of IES during this season of transition.

Every time I get news, or every time someone tells me they're leaving IES, man, my heart grieves.

Not because you're a number, not because they're just filling a seat, it's because they're part of the family of God, part of the body of Christ.

And I and I care deeply about them.

And I know that change can be difficult.

So I'm asking you for something here today.

Can you give it a year?

Can you give me a year?

Can you can you give us a year?

So don't make a decision about IS where we're going just based on one month or one sermon or one change or one decision.

I want to invite you to come on this journey with us, to pray with us, to talk with us, to ask me questions, to show us grace.

And then, after you've journeyed with us for a while, then make your decision.

Because I don't want anyone to jump off this journey because you're uncomfortable with the road.

I don't want anyone to jump off this journey because you're uncomfortable with the road.

I want us to discover where the Lord is taking IS.

I want us to discover this together.

Now, listen, I'm not saying, hey, trust me, I'm the path.

Or trust me.

No, I'm saying let's trust the Lord together.

That's the invitation that I want to give you.

Because Jesus then turns to his disciples and he says, This who do you say I am?

Who do you suddenly?

This isn't about what other people think or what other people believe or what other people feel.

Suddenly this question becomes really personal.

For faith to be meaningful, it has to get personal.

For faith to be meaningful, it has to get personal.

Who do you say I am?

Not who does your mother say or what does the church say or what does the culture say or what does my life group say?

But who do you say that I am?

C.S.

Lewis famously argued that Jesus doesn't leave us with the comfortable option of simply calling him a great moral teacher.

If Jesus made the claims recorded about himself, then we have to reckon with who he actually is.

Jesus doesn't give us the option of simply saying, oh, he was just a nice guy or a great teacher.

So who do you say Jesus is?

Here's what I've experienced.

Jesus is patient with people who are Ote Wei.

Jesus is patient with people.

Do I have some Ote Wei people here?

This is one of the things I love about reading Mark's gospel.

Those of you who are doing the soap reading, you you realize that the disciples they don't understand everything, right?

They misunderstand Jesus.

They ask dumb questions, they argue about who's gonna be the greatest, they panic, they doubt, they fail, and Jesus doesn't abandon them, he keeps walking with them.

Jesus reveals himself progressively, not because truth is relative, but because relationships take time.

You don't have to understand everything about Jesus before you begin to follow him.

So Jesus takes these disciples out to Caesarea Philippi.

That's your cue.

Alright, I gotta, like I said, I told the earlier service, I gotta give these guys some hope.

Alright.

And you see the keyboard player coming, you know, lunch is coming.

Alright, so but you should also know that my conclusions, they're not short.

Alright, so don't get too hopeful.

All right, we're not going anywhere just yet.

Alright.

So here we go.

Jesus takes these disciples way out 26 miles to Caesarea Philippi and says, what does he say to them?

Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail.

Or some translations even say, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

I mentioned this earlier that Jesus takes them to the to this this cliff of a this base of a mountain where these two rock formations kind of come together to create a cave and that that they called the gates of hell.

Now remember, this is first century Greco-Roman Empire with all of the Greek gods and with all of the Roman gods.

And this place in Caesarea Philippi, it was famous for worship of the Greek god Pan.

He was known as the God of fear or the God of the wild.

And so it was known, it was thought that that uh that when this when the wind came out of the tunnel, out of the out of the cave, out of the what they called the gates of hell, when that wind came out, uh there was a spirit of fear that came out and overcame people, and it was almost like they became uh possessed with an irrational fear, and they would start to panic.

And that's where we get the English word panic.

It actually derives from that Greek that Greek God Pan, and we now get the word panic.

So there's this this sense in that area of panic when the God showed, when got the God Pan arrived.

So now, if I'm reading this passage correctly in its context, Jesus is following that brilliant rabbinic teaching or that principle that you never teach somebody something without showing them something.

So Jesus, uh so for for centuries we've argued, when Jesus says upon this rock, what does it mean?

In the Catholic tradition that I grew up in, when we we were taught that that when Jesus said upon this rock, he was talking about Peter, that Jesus will build his church upon Peter and the Catholic, and so there is some truth to that because we know that Peter was a leader in the early Christian movement.

Protestants or Christians have argued that the rock was the truth of Peter's confession.

And obviously there's some truth to that.

But both of these answers ignore the cultural setting of Caesarea Philippi.

Jesus says, this is the place on this rock.

Remember, he's pointing at all these rock formations and all the fear that people have of the Greek God Pan.

He says, right here, uh where you've built idols and temples and places of worship to the God of fear, this is where I'm going to bring my peace.

And the gates of hell will not prevail against what I'm doing.

What Jesus is saying is the God of Pan, the God of fear, he's not gonna win.

Why?

Because the Prince of Peace has come.

You will no longer be controlled by a spirit of fear, but about a spirit of love, power, and strong mind.

This was one of the first Bible verses I ever memorized as a kid.

My mom made me memorize it, 2 Timothy 1:7, right?

2 Timothy 1:7

That says that you have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love and strong mind.

Maybe that's something you and I probably maybe need to memorize even as adults.

That man, this is the promise of God for you and I today.

Let's stand together.

Because I wonder how many of you came into church today, wrestling with panic, wrestling with fear and anxiety and doubt, and you're thinking about your marriage, you're thinking about your health, uh, your family situation, man, the economy and the finances all around us.

You're worried about these different areas of your life, because there's so much in life that's out of our control, right?

That we can't control.

So I want you to hear what Jesus is saying.

The God of panic does not get the final word because the Prince of Peace is here.

Not because everything is going good, but because I can trust God.

Even in the midst of all the darkness around me, the Prince of Peace has come.

So, what does the Bible say?

Don't be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, with prayer and petitions and thanksgiving, now I repro I present my request to God.

And what happens when I do that?

The God of peace, the peace of God, which transcends all of my natural understanding, it now begins to guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.

And some of y'all need to know that today.

And you've come in anxious and worried.

And today we're gonna take a moment to present our requests to God, to bring these needs before God.

And with thanksgiving in our heart, we're gonna trust that that the peace of God that that's supernatural, I can't describe it other than it's gonna, it's gonna uh be it's gonna transcend our understanding, it's gonna guard our hearts.

Some of us, man, we've allowed anger and bitterness to creep into our hearts.

Some of us, our minds are just racing, man.

We haven't had a good night's sleep in forever because man, we're just worried about so many things.

And today we're gonna ask the peace of God that transcends all our understanding to guard our hearts and our minds.

Would you pray with me?

Father in heaven, I pray now.

In this moment, let this be a turning point in our lives as we learn to trust you today.

Hallelujah.

I hope you enjoyed today's sermon.

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And until next time, may God bless you and keep you.