From Knowing About Jesus to Knowing Jesus

Jesus Asking: A Lenten Series by Seedbed

Matthew 16:13-20 (NIV)

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. 

Transcript
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The words in our scripture start with Jesus was in Caesarea Philippi, and we're like, great. I don't know where that is. Is it on like the South Carolina side of the CSRA? Is it closer to Atlanta? Uh, we don't really know where that is. Sometimes when we read the Bible, the towns mean nothing to us. And so I want you to bear with me for just a moment. I do want to tell you a little bit about this town, Caesarea Philippi. Another term for it is I might be saying this wrong, but we're going to go with it. Paneas, which is the same term we get for the Greek god Pan. Now the Greek god Pan is a satyr. He's half man, half goat, and Pan has come to mean many. It's also come to mean panic. That's the same word panic we get from that Greek god Pan, because he just tended to create panic according to the stories, he's half this and he's half that.

And this is the setting where Jesus talks to his disciples and say, who do people say I am? These people who are used to their God being half God, half goat, half man, half goat. What? Who do people say I am? Because sometimes, even in their day, people were thinking of Jesus as sort of God. Maybe. Maybe they weren't real sure about that part sort of man. I mean man, yes, but more but not. But is the Messiah but isn't but but but who is he really? This, this this leader who has come forth? Who is this person? And even now, two thousand years later, when we have the whole Apostle's Creed that tells us exactly who Jesus is. There's still people who don't quite Understand Jesus, and we tend to think that a relationship with Jesus isn't about giving our whole self to God, but is rather about making ourselves better. We think he's like, it's like a half relationship with God and half self-improvement. In fact, I included this image up here because I think it's a good example of what we tend to think about with who Jesus is and what our relationship with him means. It says devotionals. So, you know, spending time with Jesus and life helps. How often is the Christian section right next to the self-help section? So we go over there and we're like, okay, how can I become a better person? We're going to get this self-help book and we're going to get the Bible, and then maybe together I can finally become a good person. Maybe I can finally become the person I've wanted to be all this time. Jesus is half. It's half a relationship with God and half trying to make myself better. And this is it's hard because we all want to be good people, right? We want to we want people to think back on our lives and be like, wow, she was a really, like, good, caring and loving person. Or he was he really loved his family. And so we start to focus sometimes on being a good Christian instead of being fully saved by Jesus. And yes, there is a difference.

Now, I'm not here to knock self-help sometimes. Sometimes you'll hear pastors knocking self-help altogether. That's not me. I've read several self-help books. I like them, but they're not the same as sanctification. They're not the same thing as what Jesus is trying to do in me, because those self-help books are trying to help me go from, um, an okay person in, let's say, habit management, okay, person in habit management to a better person in habit management. I manage, you know, my daily life a little better. Now it's helping me go from, from good to maybe great in a certain area, or if it's something I'm really struggling with, maybe it's helping me go from bad to good. But Jesus's goal is not to make bad people good. It's also not to make already good people better. It's to make dead people alive. There's a pretty big difference there. You can't be good or bad if you're dead. It's our own little mini Easter when we become Christians. That moment. Maybe you have a moment. Or maybe it's just a series of moments where you begin to realize, wow, I have a relationship with Jesus. I'm not sure when that started. That's probably true for a lot of us that grew up in the church of when did I first have a relationship with Jesus? Like, I don't know. I did a profession of faith when I was seven. Uh, but I was baptized as a baby. But then I did confirmation class, and I was confirmed and joined the church. And then I have these other series of spiritual encounters with God that have deepened my faith. So when did I become a Christian? For the first time, I don't know, but there was a moment I don't have to know when it was, because God knows that's all that matters. And in that moment, I had my own Easter where I became alive. And you did too, if you know Jesus. But it is sometimes so much easier to say, I want Jesus to help make me a better person, because becoming alive after being dead, it feels it's going to feel a little weird. It's going to feel unnatural. You imagine how Lazarus must have felt when he was walking out of that tomb. Like, what is going on here? Like, this is very strange. This is not natural. Like, did he know that he was dead and now he's not? What must that have been like? It's harder to wrap our minds around than just. I want to be a good person. So this is a setting where Jesus says, who do people say the Son of Man is? And a setting where there have been all kinds of Jewish prophets, but now they're in this Roman land with this half god creature of panic.

So who is Jesus, exactly? Amidst all the other gods, amidst all the other prophets, who is Jesus? This is actually the the penultimate question, the second to the last question. We're going to we're going to come to today. This is part of a Lenten series called Jesus Asking. And we're going to be learning what questions Jesus is asking us, maybe what questions we should be asking ourselves and what questions we should be asking Jesus. So we're going to look at two questions today. And this is this is the first one, but it's the penultimate one. Who do people say that I am? And so I was thinking modern day, who do people say Jesus is now? And I thought, you know, what would be the best place to figure that out? Google. So I literally googled Who is Jesus? And you know, Google has started popping up with the AI summary, right? And so here I just copied and pasted the AI summary for us. Jesus of Nazareth was a first century Jewish teacher and healer that the Romans. I need to make my slides bigger for myself. Uh, in the Roman province of Judea, who became the central figure of Christianity. So you see, I underlined three words here teacher, healer, and central figure. And I think this does kind of tell us who people think Jesus is in our time. He was a teacher. He was a healer. Those are people who are not so spiritual. Might doubt that one a little bit, but they're like, yeah, I know that. The stories say he healed people and and he was a figure like a social organizer, a political organizer, somebody who really makes a difference in their community, the people that tend to end up on the news, where you turn on Fox News and they're they're talking about whatever it is that's so important to them in their life. And I think that's kind of how we tend to think about Jesus like he's important. He made a really big difference. But he's so much more than that. And it's funny because the penultimate question, there's a reason I didn't even make a slide for it, right? Because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who other people say Jesus is. If someone walks up to you and says Jesus was just a prophet. Jesus was just a teacher. Jesus was just a celebrity. And you go, um, he wasn't. But okay, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what other people think. It matters who Jesus really is.

And most importantly, this is the real question. Who do you say Jesus is? And that's the question he asked his disciples. He says, who? Who do you say I am? Or who do they say I am? And they're like, oh, some people think that you're Elijah. You're these prophets that have come back from the dead. Um, he's like, oh, that's interesting. You notice he didn't even, like, tell them they're wrong. He didn't bother because it didn't matter. He wasn't like, nope, that's not me. That's silly. I can't believe people are talking like that. No, he just moves on to the next question. All right, what about you? Who do you say that I am? And that is the big question. Not just for the disciples, but for you and me. Who do you say that I am? You know, we're walking through this season of lent together, where we're heading to the cross and we're heading to the empty tomb. Lent began essentially as adult confirmation class for adults who were studying the Christian faith were starting to to develop that relationship with Jesus. And they're like, okay, here's the most important things you need to know about being a Christian. And then those folks were baptized on Easter. What a cool day to be baptized right on Easter. And so it was like adult confirmation class. So in many ways, that's what we're doing here. How long has it been since you've had confirmation class? If you were in that at all. It's been a while. And so it's time now to to reconfirm our core faith. Who do I say Jesus is? The temptation here is to have bullet points of an answer to that question. Jesus is like Peter says, the Son of God. He is not half man, half something else, fully man, fully God. He is a second member of the Trinity. We know that he died on the cross, that he rose again. All of these things that are in our Apostles Creed and that, yes, we need to affirm those want to be clear, we affirm those, but just knowing the facts about Jesus is not the same thing as knowing Jesus. In James it says, oh good, you believe the basics of the faith. Even the demons believe that. Good job. Uh, we gotta know Jesus, not just know about him. It's the shift from knowledge to knowing, from information to revelation when Jesus says, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood. This goes to show Peter, who was named Peter in this instant by the way he was made Peter. And he knew this information about Jesus because it had been revealed to him by the father. So yes, that's information, but it only came by revelation from the Heavenly Father revelation. He's passed on to us now, and we have to be careful not to let it become just information about Jesus. It's got to be more than that. So what's the difference, then? How do you actually go from knowing about God to having an intimate relationship with him?

It's so much harder for us to comprehend that than, say, our human relationships shoot even our canine relationships. You'll have dogs and cats, I know it you love or horses and all kinds of incredible creatures that you love. And even though you don't speak the same language and you're not the same species, you have a relationship with them. I can't call my oldest child my first baby. She's my first human baby. But my fluffy one at home. Fudge. She was my first baby. We got her when we had just gotten married. We were moving to Texas. Everything was changing and I thought, that's a great time to have a puppy. Yeah, so we took her to Texas with us. She was fine, actually. She was one of the easier parts because puppies, everything's new and exciting, so it's no big deal. Her mom, who's my other dog, was very stressed the whole time about all the change. For a while, all we could get her to eat was hot dogs that we tossed under the bed while she was hiding. Um, yeah. It was so sad. She was not a fan. She's fine now. We've moved several times since then and she's just like, oh, okay, where do I sleep? Um, no. No big deal. And so we get to know these pets. I mean, what I'm telling you about them is what I've formed in a relationship with them. Fudge as a baby was a little more flexible. Now that she's gotten into her upper middle age, she's getting a little more stringent. She's getting grumpy, too. But anyway, I know that because of the relationship I have with a dog, how much more can I? Am I capable of having a relationship with God who made me and who knows who I was always meant to be? This isn't about starting out as an okay person and becoming a good person. This is going back to who God made you to be. If the sin nature had never been a part of your life. Everybody wonders, who am I really meant to be? Or looking back on your life? Have I really lived into who I'm meant to be? Have I lived my true self? And as long as we're walking with Jesus, the answer is yeah. A little more every day, a little more every day.

Now, I just talked about my dog. So I'll talk about another relationship that's almost as important. My relationship with Phil. Um, I'm just kidding. I love you more than the dogs, I promise. He's laughing. Um, and I do share this with permission. So what's the difference between knowing about Phil? We've been married about ten and a half years and knowing Phil. Knowing him having a personal relationship. Well, here's some facts about him. He was born in nineteen ninety. He was mostly raised in the state of Florida. He had a dachshund named Tootsie, who is also the relative of the dogs I've already mentioned. But those are just facts. Those are those are facts we probably talked about on a first date or before when we were just talking. These are just facts about Phil. But now that we've been married for ten and a half years and we have two kids, two dogs, a lot of life we've lived in just ten and a half years. I know that when I go off to do whatever I need to do, and he's left alone with the kids at home, that it's going to be fine. He's a good dad. He's a really good dad. Some people think it's odd that, that he tends to be more of the, uh, the parent at home. But no, he's a good dad. He's a really good dad, and so I can trust him. That's something. When it comes to knowing someone, you you trust them, you learn the ways you trust them. Or if I'm sick, I know he'll be able to take care of me. I also know that when he wakes up in the morning, he doesn't want to talk. He wants to stumble towards the kitchen and make himself a cup of English tea. Not coffee, English tea. He's got a teapot he got from some of our relatives who are English, and we have a tea cosy that fits over it. Who is made by his grandmother, who is also English. And it's just it's a whole. It's a whole morning ritual. And I know that about him. I know when he heads to the kitchen in the morning, he's grabbing the kettle. He's putting water on so he can make his English tea. I also know I cannot ask anything of him until that cup is empty. I've learned that too. I also know that if he's having a busy day and he's really excited about something and he's really focused, I have to make sure to feed him. Oh God, I'm going to go out and I'm working at so-and-so's house all day and I'm like, okay, do you have food and water? Otherwise, you're going to come home and tell me, I don't know why I feel sick and I know that. And so I know that about him, and he knows as well that I will do my best to try to feed him. We rely on each other. We make each other better because of our relationship. Knowing about Phil, all those facts I shared is good. I mean, it's good information and some of them are a foundation for our relationship in some ways. You know, you learn about the fact that he had this dachshund named Tootsie, and then you learned the fact that we've got these two dachshunds at home who came from her down the line. Like, that's kind of special, but it's special because of the relationship that he had with his dog that I have with him that we have now with those dogs. It's a relationship. And so how? Do you deepen a relationship with God? Well, I'm going to come back to the question I asked. Who do you say Jesus is? Who do I say Jesus is? Is he just a good teacher to me? Is he just somebody I pray to when things go bad and we're like, oh no, it's time to turn to God in prayer. You know, you hear about people about there's no atheists in a war zone. Everybody's praying. You turn to God in prayer in those hard moments. But is it just that? Is he your is God just your get out of hell free card? What is God to you specifically? Who do you say that Jesus is? Who is Jesus to you? And this is going to be a bit of a banner, uh, for us throughout this Lenten study. Who is Jesus to you? There's a there's a space in your bulletin to be able to think about this. Who is Jesus to me? What do I try to tend to to blend Jesus with? Do I try to blend in with self-help or something else? Do I want Jesus to be a political figure? Who do I who do I tend to think Jesus is that he's not? And who is Jesus to me? Really? Who is Jesus to me? Imagine Jesus looking at you and saying, okay, who do you say that I am? What would you say? I hope you'll spend some time maybe talking with your your family and friends over lunch or journaling by yourself of who do I really think Jesus is? You can go back to this text, read it on your own journal through it. Who do I believe that Jesus is? And do I really know him? And I'm. Am I willing to accept that if he knows me and he knows what's best for me, then maybe it's worth giving my whole self to him and not just the parts that I'd like to be a little better.

So let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus the Jesus who showed us how to live this Christian life. We are little Christs as Christians and so we follow in Jesus ways. And in order to do that, we need to know more than just about Jesus. We need to know who he is, and even those of us who have been Christians for a long, long time. Sometimes it's easy to just know about him because that requires very little of us. So would you take us deeper? How can we know Jesus? Who is he to us? Help us to know that and guide us. Give us a revelation you gave Peter so that we can know Jesus. In Jesus name, Amen.