Immanuel Sermon Audio
Luke 9:18-27
I will with you find the Gospel of Luke, chapter nine. Hope that somebody handed you a bulletin on the way in. There's an outline inside that bulletin if you want to follow along this morning. Luke chapter nine. Anybody memorized Luke 19, 10 yet? Anybody? Any volunteers? I hope you have. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. That's what we're talking about on Sunday mornings in the Gospel of Luke. That's the big idea that governs really every story in Luke. And if you've been here recently, you know that we're in a section of Luke that focuses on the identity of the Son of Man. Chapters one and two in the Gospel of Luke. Talk about how the Son of Man came. That's the story of Christmas. Chapter three up through chapter nine that we're in this morning. Talk about the who. Who is this Son of Man who came to seek and save the lost? And it's interesting. Every chapter, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Every chapter in that section has either a statement about who Jesus is or a question about who Jesus is. Just reinforcing the theme of that sort of clump of passages in the Gospel of Luke, who is Jesus? And so I'll run through these quickly if you want to follow along. You can flip around. Luke chapter three, verse 21. God, the Father speaks and he says, you are speaking to Jesus. You are my beloved Son. Chapter four, verse 22. Jesus is preaching in Nazareth. And the people of Nazareth asked the question at the end of the sermon. Isn't this Joseph's son? They're trying to figure out who he is. And the only category they have is, well, I think he's Joseph's son. Chapter five, verse 21. Jesus forgives the sins of a man and the Pharisees are outraged and the Pharisees say, who is this who speaks blasphemies? Chapter six, verse five. Jesus is explaining to people that he's teaching, part of his identity, who he is. And one of the things he tells them is that the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. That's who he is. Chapter seven, verse 16. Jesus raises the son of the widow and name at the city gates as they're taking him out to Barium. And all the people of that town say, a great prophet has risen among us. So their category for Jesus is he must be some kind of prophet. Chapter eight, verse 25. Jesus and the disciples out on the Sea of Galilee and he calms the storm. And you remember we talked about this just a few weeks ago. The storm is calmed and the disciples look at each other and they say, who is this that the wind and the waves obeying? Last week, chapter nine, verse nine, Herod is the one. Herod Antipas is the one asking the question, who is this about whom I hear such things? And he's trying to figure out exactly who Jesus might be. Luke nine is the climax of this section of Luke. Who is the son of man? And in this chapter, we've seen Herod ask the question, but we're about to get two definitive answers about who the son of man is. One of them is going to come from Peter, and we're going to look at it this morning when Peter says you are the Christ of God. The other is going to come in chapter nine, verse 35, where the father is going to speak and say, you are my son, you are my chosen one. And we'll get to that passage in a couple of weeks. This morning, our passage, if you're looking in your Bible, is Luke nine, 18 to 27. And here's the big idea of our little chunk of Luke this morning, you ready? The son of man who came to seek and save the lost was the long-promised, anointed one. Or you could say Messiah, or you could say Christ. And the reason I have you fill it in as anointed one is that the two words in parentheses, they just sort of get tossed around by people who don't know what the words mean. And when that happens, they become meaningless. We think Jesus Christ. Jesus is his first name, Christ is his last name. No, that's not what's going on. You read in the Old Testament, or you're reading books about the Old Testament, you hear about the Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah, and we just, we don't have a real solid category for that. So here's what the words literally mean, the anointed one. The Greek word is Christos, translated Christ. The Hebrew word is Mashiach, translated Messiah, but both of them mean the exact same thing. Jesus is, the son of man is, the long-awaited, long-promised, anointed one. And we're gonna unpack that this morning and see how Luke describes that and qualifies that, how Jesus himself describes that and qualifies that. So look in your Bible and let's read the passage. Luke chapter nine, verse 18, down to verse 27. This is the word of God. Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him and he asked them, who do the crowds say that I am? And they answered John the Baptist, others say Elijah, 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 answered the Christ of God. And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, the son of man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. 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. 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 in 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 word of God, let's pray. Lord, we come humbly. We come expectantly and we come asking that you would speak to us from your word, that you would make it real to us, that you would make it clear to us and Father, that we would understand how we ought to respond to you when we walk away from this passage this morning. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Passage begins with an interesting detail and at least I think it's interesting. Look at Luke 9, 18, it says that it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. One of the things you see in the gospel of Luke over and over and over again is that Jesus is praying. And you see it in Matthew, Mark and John, but Luke goes out of his way when the other guys don't mention it to tell us that Jesus was praying. So you can go back to chapter three, verse 21, Jesus is being baptized and only Luke tells us that he was praying at his baptism. You can go to Luke 4, 42, it tells us that as Jesus began to select his first disciples, not calling the 12, but just the first group of guys that would follow him around, he prayed about that. He mentions it again in chapter six, verse 12, that he spent all night praying right before he called the 12 to follow him. And so here he is, he knows that he's about to ask the 12, the most important question that anyone has ever asked them and before he asked them the question, he prays. And Luke doesn't tell us what he prays about. Is he praying about the situation? Is he praying for them to understand the answer? We don't know exactly from Luke's account, but we know that before he asked them the question, he's praying. And so he has a couple of questions. Question one, the lesser of the two questions, who do the crowds say that I am? Well, there's debate. Some think you're Elijah. Some think you're John the Baptist. Some think you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Really Jesus, the crowds have absolutely no clue who you are. We talked about this last week. Unbelieving people are generally confused about who Jesus is, that shouldn't surprise us. It was true in Jesus' day when he was walking on the earth looking people in the eyeball. They were confused. They had no category for who he was or what he was about. And then Jesus takes that question and he turns it. Okay, that's what they say. What do you say? Who do you say that I am? This is the most important question that anyone had ever asked these men or ever would ask these men. This is the most important question that you will ever be asked or you can ever ask another human being. Who do you say Jesus is? Who is he? You're gonna answer some important questions in life. When the police officer pulls you over and he says, do you know how fast you are going? That's an important question. Your answer matters. When you get called to testify in court, the bailiff comes up with the Bible and they want you to put your hand up and they're going to say, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? It doesn't matter if you've done anything right wrong or in the middle, that question matters. You better mean what you say. On your wedding day, you're gonna stand in a room maybe like this and somebody maybe like me is gonna stand up in front of you and in front of the folks and they're going to say to you and to your spouse, do you take this person to be your lawfully wedded husband or your lawfully wedded wife to have him to hold for richer or poorer, for better or worse, for sickness and health as long as you both shall live. Do you or do you not? The answer matters. If you answer in the affirmative husbands, you're gonna have more important questions. Questions like, honey, does this make me look big? (audience laughs) That's an important question. Your answer matters. You need to think about that before you just open your mouth. They all pale in comparison to this question and you know that. Who do you say that I am? How many of you have heard of a guy named Clive Staples Lewis? C.S. Lewis, you've probably heard of C.S. Lewis. He lived a ways back on the other side of the pond. He was an Englishman and at the age of 15, C.S. Lewis became an avowed atheist. He had done some reading and some studying and he felt like he had figured things out enough to just come out and blankly, flatly say, I do not believe there is a God, period. And he went through their equivalent of high school and he went through their equivalent of college and as a young man, he was still an avowed atheist. In fact, as a professor, that's what he did for a living, he was a literature professor at Oxford. He was still an avowed atheist. He did not believe that there was a God, period. But he had two friends and the friends were named J.R. Tolkien over there smoking his pipe on the right, author of "Lord of the Rings" and G.K. Chesterton, both Catholic men by chance. And I guess it was not cool to go by your real name. You went by initials so you had C.S. and G.K. and J.R. And these guys became buddies and they would get together and they would visit him and G.K. and J.R., they would talk to C.S. and they would say, look, you know, will you drop the atheism stuff? This is really silly. And they would argue and they would debate and they would go back and forth. And after several years of this, C.S. Lewis said, you know what, I cry uncle, there has to be a God. I believe that there is a God. You guys are right, I am wrong. And in that moment, he didn't become a Christian, but he became a theist. He moved from atheism to theism. Not a follower of Jesus Christ, but he said, look, I believe you're right, it makes sense. My brain won't let me deny it any longer. There is a God, period. And it was just a matter of months until he realized the light bulb went off again that he couldn't stop there. There was a nagging question that he had to answer. And the question is, who is Jesus? And he realized, he was honest enough, intellectually, to say, my response to that question means all the difference in the rest of my life. And later in life, he wrote a book called "Mere Christianity." And in the book, he has an amazing quote. I try not to give you quotes too often, but this one is too good not to give you. When you think about this question, who is Jesus? This is what Lewis said. He said, I am trying to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus. This is the foolish thing. Well, I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. He said, I'm tired of people saying this. Well, he's a good guy, he's a good teacher, he's a good moralist, he was a nice man, but I don't wanna believe that he really is who he said he is. He says, we can't do that. That's the one thing we must not say. 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 either a lunatic on level with a man who says he's a poached egg, or he would be the devil of hell. Make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a mad man 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. In other words, answer the question, who is Jesus? The light bulb went off for Lewis and he realized, look, not only is atheism foolish, but blind, vague, vanilla, generic, theism is equally as foolish. I have to answer this question about who Jesus is. Is he who he says he was, or is he a lunatic, or is he a demon from hell? Jesus looks at his best friends, 12 of them. Who do you say that I am? And for once in his life, Peter hits a home run. Peter struck out a lot. He said a lot of stupid things. He opened his mouth way too much, but on this one, probably because Jesus, more than likely, was praying for Peter that he would get this one right. Peter opens his mouth and he just knocks it out of the park. He looks at Jesus and he says, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God. You are the anointed one of God. Now to get that, to understand the fullness of what Peter's saying, you got to know a thing or two about the Old Testament. So in the Old Testament, you find three people who are anointed for their service. On the one hand, you have prophets who are anointed to serve as prophets. Then you have priests who are anointed to serve as priests. And then finally, you have kings who are anointed to serve as kings. That's little p prophets, little p priests, little k kings, all anointed by God to do what he wanted him to do. But there was also this idea that there was a capital A, a capital O, anointed one to come. Who would not only be a priest and not only be a prophet and not only be a king, but he would be a prophet, priest, king, all rolled into one. And Peter opens his mouth and he says, we know who you are. You're the one. You're the great prophet, the last prophet. You're him. You are the great high priest. We don't need any more high priest because you are the great high priest. You are the king who will one day rule all kings. Peter wraps all that together and he looks at Jesus and he says, who are you? You're the anointed one. You are the one that we've been waiting for. And when he says it, I listed a bunch of scriptures for you here. When he says it, these are some of the verses that Peter is thinking about. Genesis 3.15, the offspring of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Peter's saying, that's you. That's what you're here to do. Deuteronomy 8.15, God, through Moses, promised to send a greater prophet, the final prophet. And Peter says, you're him. You're the fulfillment. You are the one. Second Samuel 7.12, God tells David, I'm gonna put one of your descendants on the throne forever. And Peter says, that's you. You're the king who's gonna rule forever. Isaiah 7.14, the virgin will conceive and bury a child. And just two chapters later in Isaiah 9, the child will be called God in his rule, in his reign, will have no end. Peter says, that's you. We know it. The light bulb has gone off. Isaiah 53, God promised to servant who would die, who would be crushed for our iniquities. That's you. Jeremiah 23, a king who would bring justice and righteousness to Israel. That's you. Daniel 7, one, like a son of man, who will have a kingdom that knows no end and that includes all peoples and nations. That's you. You're the one. You're the anointed one. Micah 5.2, a king who would be born in Bethlehem. That's you. We believe that you are the one. Who do you say that I am? You are the anointed one from God. As soon as he says it, Jesus starts to explain. Yes, that's right. This is on your outline. God's people were looking for the anointed one, but Jesus refused to conform to their unbiblical expectations. Yes, Peter, you've got the answer exactly right. But as soon as he says it, Jesus makes it very clear, you have some unbiblical expectations tied up in this name, Christ, Messiah, anointed one. And Jesus refuses to go along with their expectations. So also on your outline, as soon as Peter confessed that Jesus was the anointed one, Jesus began explaining the reality of his identity and mission. It goes like this, who do you say that I am? You're the Christ. That's exactly right. Now let me tell you what that means because you have no idea. You've got the answer right, but you have no idea what you're really talking about. So I'm going to tell you the answer to your answer. I'm going to tell you why the anointed one is here. And Jesus explains it to them. First of all, he says the anointed one came to die for his people, right out of the gate. The Son of Man must suffer. Peter, when you say Christ, I know that you're thinking about a king who's gonna raise an army and kick out the Romans, but Peter, listen, Andrew, James, John, Bartholomew, Thomas, listen. I must suffer. You understand that God is holy, and you understand that you are sinful. You understand that that's a big problem. Isaiah says your sins have made a separation between you and God. So we're not just gonna pretend like that doesn't exist, Peter. Listen, I am here to die your death. He doesn't say the Son of Man is probably going to suffer. He doesn't even say the Son of Man is going to suffer. He says the Son of Man must suffer. Peter, there is no other way for you to be brought back into a relationship with God than if I suffer and die in your place. So yes, you're right, I'm the Christ, I'm the Messiah. I'm the anointed one. Here's what it means. Number one, I'm here to die for you. Number two, the anointed one demands allegiance from his people. He demands allegiance from his people. We have missed this in the Bible melt, missed it. We think Jesus came and we liked the first part. He died for us and we assumed that he came and he did that just because we were so lovable and he wanted us to be in heaven with him someday. So he came, he suffered, he died and we invite him into our heart, whatever in the world that means. And then one day when we die because we're all gonna die, we all go to heaven and we live with Jesus. That's the point. Jesus says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out. You missed it. Yes, the Son of Man must suffer many things. But don't miss this part. The Son of Man demands your allegiance now. Is he gonna take it to heaven someday? Yeah, is it gonna be great? Absolutely. But now he demands your allegiance. This is more than we want you to get baptized. We want you to be confirmed. We want you to go through this class. We want you to walk the aisle. We want you to get up here and do this stuff. Listen, it's more than that. He is calling for your life. And here's how Jesus himself describes it. What does it mean that he demands our allegiance? It means number one, that you deny yourself. Deny yourself. How do I deny myself? You just do the opposite of what the world tells you to do. The world tells you it's all about self. Self-esteem, self-worth, self-value, self-image, self-respect, self-self, self-self, self. You, the self, are the sinner. That's what the world says. Jesus says flip that around. Don't think less of yourself. Just think of yourself less. Deny yourself instead of putting yourself at the center. Jesus says take up your cross daily. Be crucified daily, every day, over and over, as long as you follow me. He is calling his people to die to themselves, to be rejected, to be humiliated, to be ostracized. He's saying take it up every single day. You say how in the world do I do that? You just do the opposite of what most preachers tell you to do. (audience laughs) Most preachers, a lot of preachers, health and wealth preachers say look, God wants you healthy, wealthy, happy right now. Really? 'Cause Jesus said he wants you to die every day. You mean physically die every day? No, it's worse than that. He wants you to die to yourself every day. Take up your cross. Deny yourself. Do it every day. You've got a bunch of preachers who laugh at the health and wealth guys, they say, oh, health and wealth. Joel Osteen, those guys are crazy over there. But then all they ever tell you when they stand up on the platform is how you can have a better marriage. Let me give you three steps, how to be a better parent. Let me give you four steps, how to be a better spouse. Let me give you five steps, how to have a better romantic life. On and on and on, better life, better life, better life. Really? 'Cause Jesus says take up your cross and die every day. So you just do the opposite of what a lot of preachers tell you to do. And then Jesus says follow me. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Again, I just say we've got it completely backwards. We tend to think of a profession of faith as the end, as the culmination, is something we really get excited about. Jesus thinks about it not as the end, but as the beginning. You wanna confess me as the Christ? It has only begun for you, Peter. You have now taken the first step in the right direction. This is not the culmination of anything, Peter. Now it begins. Deny yourself, take up your cross, daily and die and follow me. And listen, as Americans we listen to all that and we say, oh man, that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Jesus is really asking a lot. Is it worth it or is it not? Oh my goodness, I don't know. Deny yourself, take up your cross, daily and follow him. Can I please just pray the prayer and walk an aisle? Some fire insurance, it'd be so much better. Jesus says no, listen, deny yourself. Take up your cross daily, follow me. And if you think he's asking you to make a sacrifice, you miss the whole passage. There's no sacrifice on your part in denying yourself daily, taking up your cross and following Jesus. Jesus is not asking anyone to make a sacrifice. Look what he says in the very next verses. What is at profit if you gain the whole world and you lose yourself? I'm not asking you to sacrifice. I'm asking you to use your brain and make a smart decision. I'm not asking you to give anything up. I'm asking you to throw away something worthless to get something of eternal value. I'm asking you to make a wise decision, a reasonable decision. Look, you can chase the world and the health and the wealth and the better this and the better that all day long. You can get all of it. So what if you lose yourself? There's no sacrifice here. There is no sacrifice here. Deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me. Have you ever heard of Jim Elliot? Jim Elliot was a missionary and five Americans left the United States together. Jim Elliot is right there in the middle and I'm gonna try to do it without looking at my notes but I always forget one of these guys. I always get four out of five. Roger Euderian, Pete Fleming, Jim Elliot, Nate Sate, Ed McColy, got all five. Five Americans, they leave the United States, they move to the jungles of Ecuador and they're trying to take the gospel to the Alka Indian tribe in Ecuador. Alka Indian tribe are head hunters, they're cannibals. They're not very friendly. And these guys do different things to try to make contact with the Alkas and eventually they say, you know what? We just gotta jump in. We can keep putting our toes in the water all day long. We just gotta go and we gotta talk to these people. We don't know their language. They've never seen white people. We gotta go. So they fly their plane. They landed on a beach on the curve of a river. They get out and they're murdered. All five of them killed, dead on the beachhead. They all had families. They all had people back at the mission station, wives, kids, all murdered. And when the news about these five missionaries got back to the United States, you started hearing stories about sacrifice. What a sacrifice that they made. What a sacrifice they made in leaving what they had and going and doing that. What an amazing sacrifice. Even this week when I did some online research and looked up some stuff about these guys and read some stuff, stories about sacrifice, missionary sacrifice. Can I tell you something? At least Jim Elliott, we know, would have none of this talk about sacrifice. None of it. Jim Elliott kept a journal. Here's what Jim Elliott put in his journal just days before he died. He is no fool who gives up what he can't keep to gain what he can't lose. I'm not making a sacrifice. Are you kidding me? I'm giving up something that I'm not gonna be able to keep anyways to get something that I won't ever be able to lose. I'm not talking about sacrifice. Can we talk about sacrifice? Talk about what Jesus did. Son of man came to seek and to save the lost and he sacrificed his life on the cross for us. That's the sacrifice. No one else needs to make a sacrifice. From here on out, all Jesus is asking us to do is to give up what we're not gonna be able to keep anyways to get something that we'll never be able to lose. We're not talking about sacrifice. Here's the last thing Jesus says to his buddies. He came to die, he demands allegiance. Number three, the anointed one will return to judge the world, Luke 926. Whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him, will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in glory and the glory of the father and the glory of the holy angels? If you're ashamed of me now, if you would rather have the world now, I will be ashamed of you later. He said, "What does it mean for Jesus to be ashamed of me?" Do you really wanna know? I don't know that I can give you an exact textbook dictionary definition of what that's gonna look like and be other than to point you to some other passages that promise horrible things for people who don't love Jesus more than anything else. And Jesus goes on and he talks about, there's some people standing here who are not gonna taste death until they see the kingdom of God come and that ties in with the passage next week. Peter, James and John go up and they see Jesus in all his glory. And we'll talk about that next week, but this morning we leave it right here. A very, very simple truth is Jesus is redefining to his friends. You're right, I am the Christ. Here's what it means. It means I came to die for you. It means I demand your allegiance. And it means once the son of man came to seek you and to save you. That's what I'm here to do. But one day I will come again. And when I come again, it's not to seek and to save, but it's to judge the world. Who do you say that Jesus is? Let's pray. Father, we're amazed that the son of man came to seek us and to save us. As we have done several times this morning, we confess our unworthiness, we confess our sin. We're blown away by the grace that you have poured into our lives in sending your son. Father, I pray for every person in this room. Father, I pray that they would wrestle with the question of who is Jesus. I pray that there would be no confusion about what he came to do, about what he is asking of us and about what he is promising us. Father, for those who are here who need to enter into a genuine relationship with the son of man, I pray that they would do that this morning before they leave. I pray that they would do it right now. Father, as your people, we're gonna take a minute to sing and to worship. And we want our minds and our hearts to be focused on you and who you are and what you've done for us through your son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one. Father, be honored as we sing in our worship. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.