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[0:00] But back to the book of Mark. We're in the gospel of Mark and today we're going to be looking at kind of two accounts here, two separate accounts. One is another healing that Jesus performs, this one on a blind man, and then Jesus takes some time to pull his disciples away and talk to them privately. He starts, we'll be looking at several different things that he talks to his disciples about, but today we're looking at a question that he asks them, who do you say that I am? We've talked about this before, but we're going to, since we're going over this specific passage, we're going to review it again. So we're in Mark chapter 8 verse 22 and we're going to read first the whole passage, Mark chapter 8 22 through verse 30. Then he came to Bethsaida and they brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, I see men like trees walking. Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up and he was restored and saw everyone clearly. Then he sent him away to his house saying, neither go into the town nor tell anyone in the towns or in the town.

[1:28] Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi and on the road he asked his disciples saying to them, who do men say that I am? So they answered, John the Baptist, but some say Elijah and others, one of the prophets. And he said to them, but who do you say that I am?

[1:46] And Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him. So Jesus had been, if you've kind of noticed in this chapter 8, he's been going off to try to avoid some of the crowds. He's been going off into the edges of the different areas of Israel, northern Israel anyway. But this time he's back at the Sea of Galilee, which is where most of his ministry has been up to this point. It's been in the surrounding areas around the Sea of Galilee, which was a big population center for the Jews. You have up north around the Sea of Galilee, right there is where a lot of the Jewish population was. And then down south, you had Judea, Jerusalem was the center. There was a lot of Jewish people down there. Up to this point, he's mostly been in the north. He was only down in Judea really at the very beginning of his ministry.

[2:54] That's where John the Baptist had his ministry and where Jesus appeared and where Jesus was in the wilderness. It was down in that southern area. But since that beginning time, and he started gathering his disciples, he's been up north around the Sea of Galilee. It says here in verse 22 that he came to Bethsaida. And they brought up a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. Bethsaida is just another one of those towns. It's on the northern side of the Sea of Galilee. And we actually know that there are three of Jesus's disciples that were from Bethsaida. That was their hometown. In John chapter 1, verse 44, it says this, now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. So it mentions the three disciples, Philip, Andrew, and Peter were all from Bethsaida. So they're in the hometown of these three guys. The other thing to point out about Bethsaida is that earlier on, before this time, earlier on in Jesus's ministry, he actually proclaims something about Bethsaida. He actually mentions three cities. And it's not a positive proclamation. He speaks of a town called Chorazin, another one Bethsaida, and then Capernaum. And this is one of those woes. And if you see the word woe in the Bible, especially in the gospel, it's not good. Woe is a term of negativity.

[4:28] And so in Matthew chapter 11, 21, this is what Jesus said about Bethsaida and some other towns. He says, Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Jesus was not very pleased with the outcome of his preaching and his miracle ministry in these specific towns.

[5:01] His experience was that he went doing two things. One, preaching, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Turn back to God. And then two, having a miracle ministry in which he demonstrates that he is a legitimate prophet, that they need to be listening and paying attention to the words that he says. But his experience was they didn't repent. They didn't turn to God. And he even uses a Gentile, pagan, idol-worshiping nation or group of cities, Tyre and Sidon, which is really just north of them. In fact, if you remember, it says he went into the region of Tyre and Sidon. I think that's where he came across the Seraphonician woman. He said that if the people in those towns, if they would have seen the miracles that Jesus had done in these three cities, Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum, they would have turned to God. Quite a condemnation.

[6:10] While he's here in Bethsaida, some people, it says they, we don't know who that is, brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him, to touch the blind man. So he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. Why lead him out of the town? What's going on there? I imagine he's trying to keep things somewhat discreet. At this point, we kind of see Jesus, he's getting pretty popular and he's starting to get the attention of the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders who are already plotting how to kill him. And so I think what he's doing is trying to avoid this premature conflict and increasing the intensity of that conflict. And so he's going to take this guy out of the town, out of the, you know, away from the population center.

[7:05] And then it says this, and when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands on him, he asked if he saw anything. This is another spitting miracle. We looked at the miracle with the deaf man where Jesus did the same thing.

[7:19] And so we can ask the same question, well, what's up with the spit? It's kind of gross. Bye, buddy. And so it's possible that this was a way to, you know, to be kind of a sign to a man who couldn't see that he could maybe feel the spittle, as they call it, on his eyes as he was interacting with him.

[7:53] He couldn't see what Jesus was doing. So maybe this kind of, the spit was a physical indication of Jesus's intention to heal him.

[8:05] You know, spit does have some kind of healing properties, and I don't know if that was something that the people of that day would have understood, but that is a possibility.

[8:18] The other thing it says is that he laid hands on him, and it doesn't say here how he laid hands on him, but in the next verse, it actually indicates, or in, I guess, two verses later, it does indicate that he, when he laid hands on him, he laid hands on his eyes.

[8:33] He touched his eyes. Verse 24, well, and then he said, and then he asked him if he saw anything.

[8:45] He asked the man, so he spits, he puts his hands on his eyes, and he asks the man, do you see anything? And the man looks up, verse 24, and he says, I see men, but they're not coming through clearly.

[9:04] He describes them like trees walking. Now, we don't know if this man had ever been able to see before. Did blindness come later in life? Was he familiar with what trees look like? I know he probably sat under a tree and knew what a tree kind of was like.

[9:18] You know, it's just kind of the tree trunk. It's just a very bare form. And so he's trying to get the idea across that I see, but not very clearly.

[9:30] Just very indistinct forms. And so we see here this miracle that Jesus performs that starts off with just a partial healing.

[9:45] This is a progressive miracle, one that happens in a couple of different stages or a couple of different steps. So we ask the question, well, why is that the case?

[9:57] Why not just an instantaneous miracle like we've seen with all Jesus' other miracles? You know, some people might say, well, maybe he just didn't have enough power this time.

[10:10] I don't think that that's the case at all. Jesus had, you know, all the power that he needed from the Father through the Holy Spirit. So I don't think that that's the case at all.

[10:28] There is one theory that I read from others was that this was an opportunity for Jesus to teach a spiritual lesson about spiritual blindness and using a blind man who was blind physically to teach a spiritual lesson about spiritual blindness.

[10:45] And they point back to the previous verses that we talked about last week where Jesus was interacting with his disciples about their lack of ability to see spiritually.

[10:56] If you look back at verse 18, Jesus asked the question to his disciples when they were thinking about their belly, having eyes do you not see? And so they point back to that verse and think, well, this was an opportunity for Jesus to use a physical miracle of healing blindness to teach a lesson about spiritual blindness.

[11:17] But what's the lesson? The lesson offered was that, you know, spiritual blindness is restored gradually. That you have to keep coming back to Jesus to receive full spiritual sight.

[11:34] I don't know about that. Those things may be true, right? That Jesus gives us spiritual sight and as we continue to seek him, we'll continue to grow in our spiritual insight.

[11:46] But I don't know if that's what's going on here. We'll continue on and maybe look at a different theory in just a second. Verse 25, Then he put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up.

[11:58] And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. This time he made him look up. Now the first time when he laid his hands on him, he just asked a question.

[12:14] He asked him if he saw anything. This time he didn't ask the question, right? He could have done the same thing. The first time he said, do you see anything? And then the man said, well, I don't see quite clearly.

[12:27] And so Jesus would put his hands on him again. Well, how about now? Can you see now? What's that? Is that a Verizon commercial? Can you hear me now? You just keep asking, you know, is it getting any better?

[12:41] But this time he doesn't ask a question. This time, what does he do? He says, look up. And, you know, that can be, maybe it's a way of Jesus just saying, hey, it's finished.

[12:55] It's complete. Look up. You can see now. So another theory of what is going on here is it's possible that Jesus is using this as an opportunity to teach his disciples, to demonstrate to them how to have a miracle ministry, how to have a faith healing ministry, and how not to.

[13:24] So Jesus, he had a miracle ministry, right? But Jesus also taught his disciples that they were to have a miracle ministry as well.

[13:39] Isn't that true? Jesus sent them out to do miracles. He sent them out to the different villages. And he was expecting them, even after his ministry on earth was complete, to have a miracle ministry later as well.

[13:58] And when he sent them out to do miracles, he didn't tell them necessarily to just pray and wish for the best, right?

[14:11] And that's something that we're pretty familiar with. You know, we'll pray. Sometimes we'll have somebody who is sick in need of healing, and we will pray and ask God, would you heal this person?

[14:24] And we just leave it in the hands of the Lord, right? And many times we don't see a healing come to pass. Occasionally we might see something.

[14:36] But one of the things we see in Jesus' miracle ministry is he does not pray and ask the Father to heal somebody.

[14:49] He gives imperative commands. He says things like, take up your bed and walk. Right? He says, go your way. Your child is made whole.

[15:00] When it came to the multiplication of the food, he gave thanks for the food. He didn't say, Father, would you please do a miracle now?

[15:15] He didn't say that. He just gave thanks for the food, and then he says, pass it out. Pass it out. When it came to the winds and the waves, he spoke to them.

[15:30] Peace. Be still. He didn't pray to the Father. Father, would you please give peace in our circumstance here? He commanded these things.

[15:42] The miracle ministry that Jesus had required acts of faith, words of faith. And I think Jesus explicitly taught his disciples the same thing.

[15:58] And so this is the only time that I could see, and somebody correct me if you see something else, but where Jesus went to perform a miracle, and he asked the person that he was performing a miracle on, did it work?

[16:13] Right? Because that's kind of what's going on here. Jesus asks the man the first time, do you see? He's asking, did this work? And we saw that there was a partial improvement, but it wasn't complete.

[16:28] And so maybe, and again, this is a theory, conjecture. This is Jesus teaching his disciples how not to do their miracle ministry that he had given them.

[16:42] Consider a lesson that Jesus teaches, actually a couple chapters later in Mark chapter 11. Jesus, at some point in his travels, curses a fig tree. And when they come around and they come back to that fig tree, it says this in Mark chapter 11, verse 21.

[16:58] And Peter, they see that the fig tree that was cursed has shriveled up. Mark 11, verse 21. And Peter, remembering, said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered away.

[17:13] So Jesus answered and said to them, have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

[17:34] Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them. I think this right here is an explicit teaching on how the disciples were to perform miracles.

[17:49] The signs and wonders that he was intending for them to perform, just like him. You are to command the mountain. Speak to it.

[18:00] And you expect that whatever you say will come to pass. That is how you have a miracle ministry. So along with them preaching the gospel of the kingdom, they were to do it with signs following.

[18:17] Preach, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. And Jesus said, you are to do it with signs following. We see this happen later on. After Jesus ascended, the disciples, the apostles were on their own.

[18:31] Remember Peter, when he, Peter and John went to Solomon's porch and there was a layman, right? He was looking for a handout. This is in Acts chapter 3, verse 6.

[18:43] Peter says this, silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

[18:55] He gives the man a command. And then he takes action. The next verse, and he took him by the right hand and he lifted him up. This is a man that cannot walk.

[19:06] And I think, if I remember correctly, he had never walked in his whole life. Take my hand, get up and walk. And he pulls him up. That is an act of faith, isn't it? It's not, well God, I hope you'll maybe heal him.

[19:22] Because, you know, this would be really cool if you would. This was an act of faith. And this is what Jesus taught his disciples to do. Don't pray and ask. I'm giving you power to do these things.

[19:36] And I want you to use your faith. It says, he took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. Notice when his ankle bones and feet gained strength.

[19:49] It was after he said, get up and walk. After he lifted him up. That act of faith. We see the same thing with Paul and his healing ministry. Acts chapter 14, verse 9. It said, this man heard Paul speaking.

[20:01] Paul was preaching. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, stand up straight on your feet. He gave him a command.

[20:12] Stand up and walk. You're ready to be healed. And he leaped and he walked. Now, there are people who will take these passages of Jesus teaching his own disciples to have a healing miracle ministry and the kinds of things that they were to do.

[20:35] And they will consider, well, hey, we are disciples of Jesus as well, right? Maybe we should also have a healing ministry. And I think they make the mistake of applying these things that Jesus taught his own disciples and apply them to us today.

[20:53] And so, there are churches out there. There's one out in California that I can think of off the top of my head that I'm fairly familiar with that teaches people, well, you need to have a miracle working ministry as well.

[21:05] And I think that's a mistake. Like, this was a ministry that was specific to that time. This was the kingdom era, the time of the kingdom being at hand in which the disciples were given a miracle working ministry.

[21:23] In fact, if we go back, we can look and see when this specifically happens. When Jesus sends out the 12, this is, we find this in Mark, but in Matthew 10, verse 8, when Jesus first sends out the 12 as missionaries to all the towns and villages, Matthew 10, verse 8, he says this.

[21:44] He tells them, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

[21:57] I am giving you a miracle working ministry, a ministry of healing and deliverance and even resurrection power.

[22:09] I'm giving it to you for free. I want you to receive it. This is my gift to you. And you are to freely give. You have the freedom to give this healing power out.

[22:24] And we see in these other places where he tells them how to use that gift that he's giving them, to mix their faith, to believe they have received the thing that they asked for or that they're looking for.

[22:40] So we have healing ministries today in which people are at least claiming to do some of these same things. But I think people are making a mistake and taking these verses out of the context in which they are intended to be.

[23:00] There is faith healing in the Bible, but it is specifically in this ministry of Jesus and we see in the early part of the church. I think it, though, in the future, God will return to a kingdom ministry with Israel.

[23:15] And we should expect to see this same thing pick up when the church is raptured and we're taken away and this whole thing is restarted back up.

[23:28] This kingdom program is restarted back up. And we'll see similar signs and wonders and I think they will be done in the same way through acts of faith, believing that you have received the things that you have asked for.

[23:40] We're actually going to talk more about this when we look at Mark 9 where Jesus' disciples failed to cast out a demon and he rebukes them for their lack of faith.

[23:53] And then we'll also look more closely at that cursing of the fig tree in chapter 11. But then he tells the man, back to Mark 8, verse 26, then he sent him away.

[24:04] So he heals the man of his blindness and sends him away to his home and he says, I don't want you to go tell what happened to you back in the town where we came from, back in Bethsaida.

[24:15] Don't go there and don't tell anyone in the town about what happened. Now, why is that? And this has happened before and we've talked about it before. I think Jesus is preparing, you know, he wants to spend some alone time with his disciples.

[24:27] He's about to have this long, he's about to go find a private place and spend some alone time with his disciples and he doesn't want a crowd of people coming after them. I think that's maybe part of it.

[24:39] The other thing to consider is that Jesus has done lots of miracles here in Bethsaida and he hasn't seen very much fruit at all.

[24:50] We read that quote from previously in Matthew where he says, woe to you, Bethsaida. You see all these miracles and you didn't repent. It could be that he was just done with them.

[25:02] And, you know, we see this with the, some of Jesus' teaching. He says, don't cast your pearls before swine. Hey, if people, he tells his disciples, when you go into a town, if they won't listen to you, then just wipe the dust off your feet and keep on going.

[25:22] They don't need to see anymore. If they're going to reject you after you do some miracles and preach the gospel and they just reject you, wipe the dust off your feet and move on. He could have just been done with this town, Bethsaida.

[25:34] They wouldn't repent, so he's not going to provide any more light to them. Now we're going to transition over to this next part where Jesus takes his disciples to a different area.

[25:49] It says this in verse 27, Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi. Now where is Caesarea Philippi? They're at the Sea of Galilee, which is in northern Israel, but there's still more parts of Israel north.

[26:03] Not a lot, but Caesarea Philippi is about 25 miles further north of this area of the Sea of Galilee. Caesarea Philippi was the very northernmost part of Israel.

[26:15] Even to this day, if you look at a map, Caesarea Philippi, it's right there at the northern edge. It's right on the border. It's a town, and notice how it mentions towns of Caesarea Philippi.

[26:30] So it wasn't just a town, but towns of Caesarea Philippi. There wasn't a lot of people up there. It was kind of more of a wilderness area, at least the surrounding regions. But Caesarea Philippi is actually where the source of the Jordan River is, or the primary source, because there's many sources of the Jordan River that all kind of feed into each other.

[26:54] And there is, there in Caesarea Philippi, this huge rock that the major town is built on. And we won't talk about this here, because it's not mentioned in Mark, but in the same account, if you look in the account in Matthew, Jesus tells Peter that on this rock, I will build my church.

[27:16] He uses that phrase. And people have pointed out that it was here, there's this huge rock that's, I can't remember how tall it is, a dozen feet tall.

[27:30] And out of that rock actually comes the source of the Jordan River. So he takes them to this area, and we're going to see here, from this point on, a little bit of a ministry transition.

[27:46] Jesus is going to take some time, some private time, with his disciples to teach them some new things, things that he hasn't really talked about before. And this is in preparation for him about to go down to Judea, to Jerusalem.

[27:58] And we're getting fairly close to him kind of completing his ministry with his crucifixion and resurrection. So he asks the question, who do men say that I am?

[28:16] You know, asking questions is a really powerful teacher. You know, when you have a class or you're teaching your children, you might give them some instruction. You might say, I want you to go, you know, clean the bathroom.

[28:33] Right? And how many times have you told one of your kids, I want you to go clean the bathroom, and half an hour later, oh, I didn't hear what you said.

[28:44] Right? Or, oh, I forgot. But a lot of times, especially when it comes to teaching children and training children, it's good to ask them to repeat back what you said, or to ask them a question.

[28:58] Now, what is it that I asked you to do? And that helps it stick in their memory, right, in their mind, what it is that they're supposed to learn. And so asking questions is a great teacher.

[29:09] But Jesus asked two questions here. This is the first one. And I think the first one is intended to really get to the second one. He asked them, well, who do you say that I am? Or who do others, who do men say that I am?

[29:20] Who do others say that I am? You know, it's interesting to note that Jesus has never explicitly said who he is. Especially when we see what Peter says here finally.

[29:34] He says, well, you're the Christ. Jesus has never said up to this point, I am the Messiah. He's never said those words. He's made inferences. He said things like, I and the Father are one.

[29:47] He's saying, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. He said, before Abraham was, I am. He said things like, I am the Lord of the Sabbath. He said things like, I have authority to forgive sins.

[30:02] Yes. But even here, he doesn't state, I am the Messiah. He just asks them the question. But he wants to make sure that they clearly understand who he is.

[30:18] There's a reason I think he's avoided being too direct. Again, I think he's avoiding this premature conflict. And we're ultimately going to see that the primary reason Jesus is put to death is because of his claim of being the Messiah.

[30:36] Next verse, verse 28. So they answered and they said, well, people say you're John the Baptist. Some say Elijah. Others, one of the prophets. So John the Baptist, you know, we actually saw that with Herod, right?

[30:49] Herod thought that Jesus was John the Baptist, you know, come back from the dead to haunt him like a ghost. And so maybe there were others who thought the same thing, maybe because of Herod.

[31:01] What's up with Elijah? Why would they think he's Elijah? Well, the prophets had said that Elijah would come back. And we'll read about that more as we go through Mark. Because the prophets ask him specifically, ask Jesus specifically about, well, who is Elijah?

[31:17] What's that all about? But we'll just reference this verse really quickly. This is in Malachi chapter 4, verse 5. And there's a few places in the prophets. But this is just one of them. Malachi chapter 4, verse 5 says this.

[31:29] Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. I'm going to be sending Elijah again. So this actually comes up not too far in chapter 9.

[31:45] So probably in the next few weeks we'll be looking at that further. And then they say, or one of the prophets. And that could be one of the two things. Maybe it's one of the other prophets who's also kind of come back.

[31:59] And, you know, it probably wasn't clear whether come back like literally, like he's literally risen from the dead and come back physically. Or maybe symbolically, like one like Elijah.

[32:10] Or one like one of the other prophets. Or the other thing that they could mean by one of the prophets is, well, this is a new prophet, you know, similar to the other Old Testament prophets.

[32:23] So really, all of these kind of equate to, well, people think you're a prophet of some kind. That's what men believe.

[32:37] One thing to note is that they didn't say, well, mostly people think that you're a fraud. That isn't what people believe. There was evidence right in front of their eyes that he was somebody important, somebody special.

[32:53] And that's why they pointed to a prophet. It was prophets of old that performed miracles as well. But not really anybody, not many considered him to be a fraud.

[33:05] They knew he was somebody special. And then verse 29, he said to them, What about you? Who do you say that I am? And that's the most important question.

[33:18] And that's not the most important question just for his disciples. That's the most important question for any of us. Who is Jesus? Because when it really comes down to it, it doesn't matter really what other people say.

[33:32] I mean, it matters that, you know, everyone should give testimony to what they've seen and heard. Like, that's us reading the Bible. We're reading the testimony of others. So it is important that they give their testimony to who Jesus was.

[33:46] But when it comes to us individually, you know, we can read all day long about what others have said about him. But what do we say about Jesus? Who is he?

[33:57] Peter says, he answered and said to him, you are the Christ. That's it. In Matthew's account of this same event, he also adds, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

[34:17] You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. But let's just focus this morning on Christ. What does that mean? You know, a lot of times we mention Jesus Christ, right?

[34:27] And people who may not be familiar with the Bible may think, well, maybe that was Jesus' last name, right? Jesus Christ. But that's not what that means at all.

[34:40] Sometimes we will say Jesus the Christ, right? And that helps us really understand a little bit more that it's not a last name, but it's really talking about who he is.

[34:54] So Christ is the Greek word for Messiah. And so Messiah is an English transliteration of the Hebrew word for Messiah.

[35:07] And Christ is the English transliteration. Transliteration just means where you try to take all the letters from one alphabet and transform them into the letters of your alphabet.

[35:19] And so Christos, Christos in Greek. And in Hebrew, I'm not sure, what is it? Mashiach, I think, is Messiah. And so they both are the same thing.

[35:30] And they mean literally anointed one. That's what they mean, anointed one. It's a reference to kings. Kings were anointed, and we see that throughout the Old Testament. But that was the name given by the prophets to the one that was coming.

[35:45] The one that would save Israel and rule over Israel one day on the throne of King David. Peter knew what the other people didn't.

[36:02] He knew who Jesus was. We'll talk about this more in a second, but let's finish this passage, and then we'll talk more about it.

[36:13] Verse 30. Why is this? Doesn't Jesus want everybody to know who he is?

[36:25] Why is it that he doesn't want people to know about him? Well, two things. One, again, as we've talked about several times already, to prevent this premature conflict with the Jewish leaders in Rome, which will come to a head eventually.

[36:44] We'll read some of the passages where this really comes to a head. But then the second thing is to really, this was one of those things that I think was similar to the parables.

[36:57] Remember when we talked about the parables? Jesus told his disciples, To you it has been given the mysteries of the kingdom, but to those who are outside, it's kept hidden.

[37:09] Jesus was looking for, hey, for those who want to know who I am, if you come and investigate, you'll find out.

[37:20] But if you're too busy, if you're not really interested, then I won't tell you who I am. That verse, Mark 4, 11, he says to them, this is talking about the parables, To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things come in parables.

[37:45] In this same account in the book of Matthew, this is Matthew 16, 17, Jesus answers and said to Peter, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

[38:01] Remember, Jesus taught, whoever seeks, he'll find. Whoever knocks, the door will be open. Do you want to know who Jesus is? If you seek to know, you'll know, you'll find out.

[38:14] The Father will reveal it to you. There will be no doubt in your mind, if you want to know, if you're interested, if you're not too busy. Some have claimed, skeptics we'll call them, that, you know, skeptics about Jesus and who he was, they say, you know, Jesus actually never claimed to be the Messiah.

[38:43] If you read through the scriptures, he never claimed that I'm the Messiah. That was something that was kind of foisted upon him. He was just trying to be a good teacher. And so, the people kind of took him as a prophet and ran with it and made this big deal about Jesus that they never really probably should have.

[39:03] And they say that because there are no words in the Bible where you say, Jesus says, I am the Christ, I am the Messiah. You won't see that. Yet, really, you have to have darkened eyes to read the Bible and not see that it was obvious that Jesus, not only others, but Jesus himself was claiming to be the Christ.

[39:31] First of all, we see with the coming of Jesus and his birth, we just celebrated Christmas. What did the angel say who came to Mary? This is from Luke 1, verse 32.

[39:47] He will be great, talking about this son she's going to bear. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. Well, that's kind of clear.

[39:59] That was what the Messiah was supposed to be, the one who would take over the throne of King David. What about the angels who came at his birth? What did they say?

[40:11] Luke 2, verse 11. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, Messiah.

[40:23] There's coming to you a Savior born in Bethlehem, and his name is Messiah, the Lord. Later on, and again in Luke, his parents, Mary and Joseph, take Jesus to the temple, and there's a guy named Simeon.

[40:42] It says in Luke 2, verse 23, it had been revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ, before he had seen the Messiah.

[40:56] And he took him up in his arms and blessed God, and he said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people to Israel.

[41:14] There were also wise men from the east, and they saw a star, and they came out, and they started in Jerusalem. It says in Matthew 2, verse 1, Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who is born king of the Jews?

[41:39] For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was supposed to be born.

[41:55] And they told him, Well, the prophets say it's Bethlehem. They knew the king of Israel, the king of the Jews, this is Christ, the Messiah.

[42:10] Jesus himself even, later on in his ministry, not to this point, but Jesus becomes much more explicit later on in his ministry. In Matthew chapter 24, he gives a warning to his own disciples.

[42:25] He says, For many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, the Messiah. And they will deceive many. Then if anyone says to you, Look, here is the Christ, or there, do not believe it.

[42:38] He's saying, There are going to be some who say that they're me, the Christ. Don't listen to them. And then, finally, and this is where he gets into real big trouble.

[42:53] This is kind of the final straw. This is what seals his condemnation with the Jews, his judgment. In Mark chapter 14, verse 61, he's standing before the high priest, but he kept silent and answered nothing as they're questioning him.

[43:14] And again, the high priest asked him, saying to him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am.

[43:28] He said, I am. I am as you say. It's true. So for those who say, well, Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah.

[43:39] Baloney. He certainly did. And, you know, I think it's, for those who want to be confused, there it is.

[43:50] There's your confusion. Jesus never actually said, I am the Christ. So, there you go. If you want to be confused, you can be confused. But for those who are interested to what is really true, it's right there.

[44:03] Right there in the scriptures. You know, the most important thing about Jesus and what he did is not his moral teachings, what he taught, how we should live, but it is his identity, who he is.

[44:23] It's not just sufficient for Israel or for us that Jesus is the Messiah. What's important is that people believe that he is the Messiah, that he is received as the Messiah.

[44:40] In John chapter 1, this is the very beginning of the Gospel of John, verse 11, John 1.11, it says this as a summary of Jesus' ministry. It says, he came to his own, he came to Israel, to the Jews, and his own did not receive him.

[44:56] They didn't receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave right, he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name.

[45:14] The most important thing for us is that we receive him for who he is, not as a fraud, not even as a prophet, you know. You should receive a prophet. Jesus said you should receive a legitimate prophet.

[45:27] but you receive them as a prophet. We shouldn't receive Jesus as a prophet or as a good teacher. Those are not sufficient. In Philippians chapter 2, verse 9, it says this, Therefore God also has highly exalted him, talking about Jesus, and given him the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus, the Christ, is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.

[46:14] The Jews, it was important for them to receive their Messiah. Jesus is not technically our Messiah, right? He is the Messiah of Israel. And He will be the king over Israel.

[46:31] But, will He just be just the king over Israel when He comes and returns? Or will He rule the whole earth? The Bible says that He is king of kings.

[46:45] and He is Lord of lords. King over all kings. Lord over all lords. And the most important thing for any one of us is that we receive Him as such.

[46:59] For the Jews, they were to receive Him as their Messiah. And on the whole, they did not. And so their kingdom was taken away.

[47:09] And we won't get into the details of that. We've talked about that many times. But not permanently, right? There will be coming a time again when the kingdom will be offered again. Where that kingdom will finally be established.

[47:24] But for now, especially for us Gentiles, we need to recognize Jesus as our Savior, as our Lord, as our God. We can read about Jesus all day long.

[47:40] We can know what others say about Him. but have we proclaimed Him and confessed Him as our Lord. And if that's something that you've never done, that's imperative for all of us to do, to proclaim Jesus.

[47:56] You are my Lord. You are my Savior. You are my King. I'm going to make you the King over my heart. Because eventually, the Bible says that all will bow down before Him. Let's bow down now.

[48:08] Amen? Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank You so much for Your Word. I pray that if there's anybody here that has never done this, has never made You king in their heart, that they would take that opportunity to do that even today, even this morning.

[48:28] Thank You for showing us who You are, that we might receive You, that we might have eternal life, that we might, as it says in the Gospel of John, be made Your children. There's nothing more important in life than that.

[48:42] We thank You for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, what do you think about singing that song again? The one we bow down? Right? Doesn't that seem fitting?

[48:53] What's the number? 154? And we can just do this a cappella. The hard part is getting the key.

[49:06] You are Lord of creation and Lord of my life. No. Lord of the land and the sea. You were Lord of the heavens before there was time.

[49:23] And Lord of all lords You will be. We bow down and we worship You, Lord. We bow down and we worship You, Lord.

[49:37] We bow down and we worship You, Lord. Lord of all lords You will be. Is He your King? You are King of creation and King of my life.

[49:54] King of the land and the sea. You were King of the heavens before there was time. And King of all kings You will be.

[50:09] We bow down and we crown You, the King. We bow down and we crown You, the King.

[50:20] We bow down and we crown You, the King. King of all kings You will be. Amen.

[50:33]  Thanks, everybody. Amen. Amen.