“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”” (Matthew 16:13)
Who is Jesus? This is a question that has been asked for two centuries. Who is he? He’s the most controversial person in history. And everyone seems to have an opinion about him. Everyone will take what information they have in order to reach a conclusion about him. Some of their information may be wrong. Some of it may be biased. Some of it may be incomplete. So don’t be offended, but your opinion of who Jesus is just may be wrong.
The disciples answer Jesus’ and note that the folks in Israel had varying incorrect answers to Jesus’ question.
So then Jesus asks them: “Who do you say I am?” The answer: “The Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
There are two points to that answer…Jesus is King and Jesus is God. As God, he deserves our worship and devotion. As King, he deserves our obedience and service.
You can’t have one without the other – Jesus is both. We humans tend to camp out on our favorite of Jesus’ attributes: He’s a teacher, he’s a prophet, he’s a community activist.
But if we are to remain true to the Scriptures, we must let Jesus define himself. And here’s the definition he chose: God and King.
Perhaps C.S. Lewis said it best: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Let us worship him as God and serve him as King.
See you Sunday!
