Jesus' Identity

For us here, let's turn to the gospel according to Mark, chapter eight. So the Gospel of Mark, chapter eight. And once you found mark eight, go ahead and stand for our gospel reading this morning.

00:00:25

As you know, and as we've been saying, we've been in year, or we are in year b, which deals with Mark. So, A, Matthew, B, Mark C, Luke. Right. Makes sense, doesn't it? With the gospel of John interspersed through all three of the years.

00:00:41

Okay, so it's a three year cycle of scripture readings. And today the readings have already been great. But catch this one. This is one of the most important, if not the most important section within the gospel of Mark because it is a turning point. There's a pivot here.

00:00:59

This is Mark, chapter eight. And we'll start reading with verse 27. Notice these words here this morning. This is the word of God. Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.

00:01:15

And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they answered him. John the Baptist and others, Elijah and still others. One of the prophets, he asked them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are messiah, you are Christ.

00:01:39

That's the terminology there. And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the son of man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed. And after three days, rise again. He said all this quite openly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

00:02:14

But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it. And those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life or their soul?

00:03:01

Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of them, the Son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Lord, we thank you for this reading from your holy word. Would you now, O Holy Spirit, come and enlighten us and teach us? Just as Jesus taught these first disciples, we pray in your name.

00:03:40

Amen. And you can be seated.

00:03:47

Today's readings have a thread, and they often do. If you look through the Old Testament into the psalm and into the epistle reading or the New Testament reading, and then into the gospel, there's often a thread that will hold these four readings together. One of those threads is the idea of teaching. If you can remember, in the Isaiah reading, we're being taught about the suffering servant, as Derek pointed out, this suffering messiah. Okay, keep that in mind.

00:04:21

The psalm reading also speaks of teaching and teaching us again with its understanding of how God is actually full of compassion, and that when we call upon him, that he hears us and that he's merciful, and we must call upon him as if we were the student and he the teacher, not vice versa. Never vice versa. In fact, he helps me. Okay. And then finally, in the James reading, of course, it begins with many of you shouldn't be teachers, because teachers are held at a stricter judgment than everyone else.

00:05:04

It's a warning for teachers, and all teachers ought to heed that warning. And ultimately, we all are teachers to some degree, aren't we? We really are. Whether we're teaching our children by our actions, day in, day out, and day out, or we're teac

Transcript

For us here, let's turn to the gospel according to Mark, chapter eight. So the Gospel of Mark, chapter eight. And once you found mark eight, go ahead and stand for our gospel reading this morning.

00:00:25

As you know, and as we've been saying, we've been in year, or we are in year b, which deals with Mark. So, A, Matthew, B, Mark C, Luke. Right. Makes sense, doesn't it? With the gospel of John interspersed through all three of the years.

00:00:41

Okay, so it's a three year cycle of scripture readings. And today the readings have already been great. But catch this one. This is one of the most important, if not the most important section within the gospel of Mark because it is a turning point. There's a pivot here.

00:00:59

This is Mark, chapter eight. And we'll start reading with verse 27. Notice these words here this morning. This is the word of God. Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi.

00:01:15

And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they answered him. John the Baptist and others, Elijah and still others. One of the prophets, he asked them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, you are messiah, you are Christ.

00:01:39

That's the terminology there. And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the son of man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed. And after three days, rise again. He said all this quite openly, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

00:02:14

But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan, for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things. He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it. And those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life or their soul?

00:03:01

Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of them, the Son of man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Lord, we thank you for this reading from your holy word. Would you now, O Holy Spirit, come and enlighten us and teach us? Just as Jesus taught these first disciples, we pray in your name.

00:03:40

Amen. And you can be seated.

00:03:47

Today's readings have a thread, and they often do. If you look through the Old Testament into the psalm and into the epistle reading or the New Testament reading, and then into the gospel, there's often a thread that will hold these four readings together. One of those threads is the idea of teaching. If you can remember, in the Isaiah reading, we're being taught about the suffering servant, as Derek pointed out, this suffering messiah. Okay, keep that in mind.

00:04:21

The psalm reading also speaks of teaching and teaching us again with its understanding of how God is actually full of compassion, and that when we call upon him, that he hears us and that he's merciful, and we must call upon him as if we were the student and he the teacher, not vice versa. Never vice versa. In fact, he helps me. Okay. And then finally, in the James reading, of course, it begins with many of you shouldn't be teachers, because teachers are held at a stricter judgment than everyone else.

00:05:04

It's a warning for teachers, and all teachers ought to heed that warning. And ultimately, we all are teachers to some degree, aren't we? We really are. Whether we're teaching our children by our actions, day in, day out, and day out, or we're teaching our coworkers around us. Everybody to some degree is a teacher.

00:05:26

Some of us professionally, some of us ecclesiastically, like in the church, for instance. But all of us have some responsibility to teach the gospel. Okay, so with that in mind, though, rabbinic teaching, that is to say, the teaching of a jewish rabbi, right, which is master or teacher, is kind of unique. It's not how we often do teaching. For instance, if you were to come to one of my classes, I'm gonna have a PowerPoint and sort of just be telling you.

00:06:00

We call it even lecturing you on this or that, right? And that's the way most of our western teaching goes. However, rabbinic teaching had to do with questions. You know, Jesus does this often, doesn't he? He's asked a question, hey, what about this?

00:06:19

What about John the Baptist? And how does he answer with another question, doesn't he? Not with just a straightforward answer. And that might be frustrating to some of us, because we're just thinking, hey, why don't you just, like, tell me what it is, okay. Rather than, like giving me a question and giving me work to do, you're supposed to be the expert.

00:06:39

So you tell me, right? And that kind of frustrates us a bit. But there's another teacher that came after sort of the rabbinic way of teaching, which was Socrates. You remember him, right? And of course, the Socratic method.

00:06:52

Anybody who's ever studied different pedagogies or different styles of teaching know this. The Socratic method is a way of question and answer, isn't it? Right? So if you want to know something, then it's going to be through questioning, not just through answers alone. Now, you say, well, why does any of that matter?

00:07:11

Well, here's why it matters. Because when we actually follow the question and do the work, so to speak, we come to a better, stronger, firmer if you will answer than if someone just tells us. And you know how this is. You ask a question, somebody tells you an answer, it may or may not stick, depending on how much you trust them, right? But if you can come to that conclusion through a series of steps, right, this is what we call logic, actually.

00:07:43

It's following the truth through a series of steps. Okay? You actually have come to it yourself. It's a self discovery rather than someone just simply telling you. Maybe the best illustration of it I thought about was this.

00:07:58

If you were to tell me, like, hey, I say, hey, where do you live? You know, you say, well, you go down here, take a ride. Then at that store, you're going to take a left, and then you'll pass this big oak tree, and after that you'll take your next left. Okay? Well, that's really abstract, isn't it?

00:08:13

You haven't given me anything physical, so to speak, like handed me anything, right? It's all got to be in my head, and I got to keep that there. How many of us are really good at doing that? Not many. Not many.

00:08:23

Some of us, maybe, but a lot of us would have trouble. But notice if I say, well, just follow. Follow me. And, you know, that way you can get to my house, right? Well, then you follow me.

00:08:35

And by following me, you're doing it. You see the difference, right? One is somebody's telling you something, and you got to either believe that or not, just kind of off the cuff trusting them. The other, you actually go down that path. Now, it takes more.

00:08:51

It costs more to do the socratic method or the rabbinic way, right? It does. It costs more because it involves your mind. It involves questions that you then have to think about, okay, and come to a conclusion on. Do you see the difference there?

00:09:07

Somebody got it. See? Bing. It must be a way of teaching, right? That works.

00:09:12

In fact, in fact, get this. Get this. We often talk about truth, don't we? As if it was light. You know what I'm talking about.

00:09:21

We even say things like this. I'm still in the dark on that. I don't quite understand. It hasn't. But even cartoons won't.

00:09:27

They. They'll have that little light bulb that goes off, you know, ding. You know what I'm talking about. Think back when you watched cartoons, right? Does anybody even watch cartoons anymore?

00:09:35

That's a sad thing, isn't it? I just realized that. Thank you. Yes. We need to revive, you know, make cartoons great again or something here.

00:09:43

Goodness. Cartoons illustrate for us certain things. One of them is, the idea is when we get. It's like light. All of a sudden we have more light.

00:09:52

Here's what Jesus comes to do. He comes to teach, doesn't he? And in our text today, he's teaching, but he's teaching through notice questions. And in fact, there's two questions here, but one is preeminent. One question among all questions is the most important question that could ever be asked.

00:10:15

And that is, who do you say Jesus is? Who do you say? Notice the personalness of this. Who do you say that I am? That's the most important question that could ever be answered.

00:10:33

And it's because Jesus is the most important person ever to walk on our earth. Because Jesus is not just a man, but he is God in the flesh. And if God is walking among us, he automatically is the most important person in the room, isn't he? You know, I've met some famous people from time to time. I could go through that list.

00:11:00

One of the guys that I met recently, it's a funny story that I really is not really appropriate for me to tell here. I met this dude on a plane, and everybody else knew he was famous except for me. And so I went up there and got a picture with him and then found out later who he is. And it's not a great thing, like what he does exactly, but he's famous and he's rich, so to speak. He's 21 years old.

00:11:24

And I've met these famous people before. But you know what? We have. And sometimes we get all nervous when we get around. In fact, here's how people are walking by this person on the plane.

00:11:34

You know, they're walking to their seat, taking a video of this dude. You know, he's a rapper, okay? So don't think anything worse than what. Sometimes our mind can go wild. So he's a rapper, okay?

00:11:45

And everybody. And so I went up there and just, hey, can I get a picture? You know, because I don't care. I'm old now, you know, nothing scares me as much as it used to. You know, I remember when, in fact, Justin and I and our family, we took a vacation to Atlanta, see Atlanta Braves, and went to a water park, whitewater, I think.

00:12:02

And my favorite picture was laid up in the kiddie pool. Greg Maddox, one of the best pictures to ever. You know, don the mound. And there he was. And I was so stupefied by seeing him from a distance in person that I couldn't even go over there and meet him as a kid.

00:12:26

I seriously was that scared. Justin got to meet him. He went over there and talked to him, you know, and it was another relief picture. I can't remember his name, but I just had to sit over there and watch. And it was a sad moment because here's my favorite picture, but I was too nervous to go up and say anything because he's this important person, right.

00:12:43

Well, can I tell you this? Jesus is the most important person in human history, period. And in fact, if we had time, I could historically prove that he is okay. We actually have historical proof that Jesus the most important because he's one of the things he's most written about. There's nobody else even close to being written about more than Jesus Christ.

00:13:08

But you know what some of us misuse. Remember the warning here in our text about our tongue? Very small, very small part of our whole body, and yet very powerful, can get us into a lot of trouble. Can I get an amen there from your tongue? You know, because haven't we all gotten ourselves in trouble with our tongue?

00:13:32

Yeah, absolutely. But get this, get this. Here's what's crazy. If it's exponential, if it has the potential to be exponentially bad, think about this. It has the potential to be exponentially good, truly.

00:13:46

And that's the power here of our tongue is it also can confess not just sin, okay? But it can confess Christ, just as St. Peter did here, saying one of the most true statements that could ever be said. You are the messiah, the Christ, the expected one.

00:14:14

And, you know, through prayer, we have access to God more than and listen of celebrities. He's the biggest celebrity ever. Again, we kind of forget this. And yet we have access to him through our tongue, through prayer, because that's what prayer is, talking to Jesus Christ.

00:14:37

And some of us do not even use that ability, use that potential, and we ought to. The scripture says, pray without ceasing, never endingly, as if the conversation never stops. The amen is agreement, but not an end. The conversation continues throughout the day. And so on and so forth.

00:15:00

So the wise person would do well to seek the truth and follow the truth and at whatever cost, seek to know who Christ is. Who do you say that I am? And let's just be honest. Christianity in America has often got Jesus confused. And in fact, the first question dismisses all the confusion around Jesus.

00:15:26

You remember, the first question is, who do people say that I am? Jesus asked. Now, Jesus is not learning anything here. Let's go ahead and remove that from the table. He is God who can't learn anything.

00:15:40

Hear me? God cannot learn anything. God has no potential, okay? Strictly speaking, if God had potential, he wouldn't be perfect because he had to grow into something. Everybody with me still.

00:15:52

It's a truth. God can't learn anything. Therefore, he knows all things because all things emanate from him and he would know them. And he knows all potentials of everything that could be. And plus, he's not within time.

00:16:04

So he sees all things as if they're present now, okay? That's a God. That's why we call it a God view, right? Is because it's an all encompassing view that none of us possess. Not one of us do, okay?

00:16:18

We're in time and space and we're limited and so on and so forth. God has no potential. He cannot learn anything. And yet, I just had a friend, actually, last night who sent me an article about the text that I preached, and he said, hey, I listened to your sermon, but I had read this other guy who said something very different, and that was that Jesus learned from the syrophoenician lady that the jew's mission was greater than Judaism, that Jesus learned that from her, okay? And that he learned not to say derogatory things to her, such as calling her the puppy or the dog, as we talked about parabolically, dear friends, Jesus is not just a man that comes teaching and pointing to the truth.

00:17:09

Jesus himself is goddesse, who is the truth. All truth comes from him because he is truth itself. So that the truth of DNA or mitochondria, as I often say, even though I don't quite understand all of it, the truth of physics, the truth of the health of the body, all of this comes from God and is only true because of Goddess, because he is the truth. God cannot learn anything. No one is teaching him.

00:17:44

He's always teaching us so that when he asks the question in the garden, where are you? It's like the father who sees his son hiding behind the chair and says, where are you, buddy? I'm looking for you. Right. Here's the point.

00:18:01

We're supposed to learn, not God. God's not being taught here. All right, let's get that. That's heretical to say such a thing, okay? Because in Christ, yes, his human mind has to learn.

00:18:13

But he's not just human, he's God. At the same time, his human brain is learning to speak from his mother Mary. His human body needs the milk of his mother Mary. At the same time, he holds the whole universe together because he's God. That is the mystery of the incarnation.

00:18:32

That is the mystery of who Christ is. And a lot of Christianity has gotten Christ wrong, and the world gets Christ wrong. And we need to get Christ right. We need to know who Jesus is above everything else in our life. It's good to know what the saints are going to do this year or your favorite football team.

00:18:55

That's good. That's great. It's good to know about your work and this and that. But if we miss Jesus Christ, we miss everything. Not just something.

00:19:03

We miss everything because he is everything to us. He is our all in all, as we would say. He is life itself. He is the good that we all pursue so that we will never be happy in this life or the next if we never find him. We must find him and the true Jesus.

00:19:25

Not one made up in our head, not one made up by our culture, not one hammered out through metaphysics or any other way. It's only through meeting the person of Jesus Christ. Notice the living person of Jesus Christ, because he's not just a historical figure, although he was a historical figure, he's also living now and accessible. If we would but call on him, if we would but call his name from our heart, he would hear as the psalm said, and he would respond. And do you believe that?

00:20:08

Yes. Do you believe that we have that kind of access to God? What a thought. What a thought.

00:20:18

Now, we talked about the questions and leading to an answer. And it's interesting what Jesus does here next. He says, once Peter makes his confession, rightly, you are the Christ. What does Jesus tell them to do? He sternly ordered them not to tell anyone.

00:20:37

And you're thinking, what? But he just got something right. When you get it right, then you can tell it right. Just like the guy from last week. Remember, the mute guy?

00:20:49

Once you can hear, then you can speak properly. Well, why so many times? Why so many times? In mark particularly, is Jesus constantly telling them, hey, hey, hey, don't tell anybody. Don't tell, you know, keep this to yourself.

00:21:07

He heals a guy, keep this to yourself. Of course, none of them do. Why is he saying it? And sternly ordered. Think about that.

00:21:14

It's even more powerful than the other instances that we're talking about. Why? Why? It's because they don't yet truly hear this, know fully who the Messiah is. He's standing.

00:21:29

Listen, he's standing right in front of them, and they still don't fully know who he is. Why? Well, the second part here of our text tells us why Jesus, after this confession and after he orders them, he began to teach them. What did he teach them? I'm going to conquer Rome.

00:21:51

We're all going to go train here in a second on AR 15s. No, I'm going to teach you how to throw knives so you can take care of these, these stupid Romans so we can finally be back on top as a superpower. Absolutely not. What does he teach them? What does he teach them?

00:22:08

Look at it. The son of man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, scribes, and be killed. And after three days, rise again, you see, until the Messiah. Until they can see the Messiah rejected, suffering, and ultimately hanging on what they called a roman giblet, Roman crossed, naked, dead, until they saw that they would never understand who the Messiah truly is.

00:23:05

And until he rose again, they would never know the end of the story, would they? You see, it's a truncated Jesus. It's one that falls short of the fullness of Christ, because the fullness of Christ. Hear me, brothers and sisters, this is important. The fullness of Christ is his suffering and death on the cross for us.

00:23:32

If you don't look at this, if this is shameful to us, then we'll never understand the true Jesus, the messiah, God in the flesh, the suffering servant. And if we miss the cross, we miss it all because we too are called, aren't we? To deny ourself, to take up our cross and to follow him.

00:24:12

Do you have a three fourths Jesus, one that you just see as prosperity? The prosperity gospel is heretical. That is to say, a gospel that thinks that Jesus is here just to make my life better. No, Jesus came to do away with sin. And if we are filled with sin, then there needs to be quite a surgery on us, doesn't it, in order to save us.

00:24:43

And he's willing to be that great physician to put the knife to us. And to the untrained eye, to the foolish eye, it would look like if you walked in on a surgery that something really bad was going on. In fact, I've actually seen a surgery as just, like, a layperson, you know, not a medical person at all. I watched my brother's, a part of my brother's knee surgery, you know, so this was years ago when I was in college, and he was like, hey, you can actually come through this viewing window and watch my, you know, watch my surgery. I saw this knee splayed open, like, in all these.

00:25:24

I looked at. I spent about 30 seconds. I'm like, okay, that's cool, whatever. He's like, you didn't stay longer than that. He got mad at me.

00:25:31

You didn't stay longer than that. It was an awesome thing that was going on. Like, to me, it just looked like a bunch of blood and gore. To the untrained eye, you'd think, this is a disaster. Nothing good is happening here.

00:25:48

And sometimes in our life, when we look at it, it looks as if there's just blood and gore everywhere. It looks like nothing good could ever come from this, all of this. But to the trained physician, the great physician, he knows what he's doing. He's going to surgically take us where we need to go in order to remove the sin that keeps us from true happiness and true holiness, because those two things go together.

00:26:28

He's making us like himself. We're made in his image and after his likeness, not our own. He defines us, not we ourselves. This is why, if we want to follow him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross to do so.

00:26:54

There's an ancient way that I want to teach you here briefly this morning. And it's through a fish that we can know who Jesus is and kind of remember it. Now, you know this fish? It's the Jesus fish, as some people would say. Or properly speaking, it's called ichthuse.

00:27:15

You know, it's that little two line that crosses at the end that makes a little fish. Right. This is an ancient symbol in the church. Some of the earliest markings in the catacombs, in the tombs were this sign of the ichthyos. And in fact, it's actually an acronym.

00:27:35

So if we. You know what an acronym, right. Like, you put fish and, like, the f means something. Ah. Means something.

00:27:40

Right. Okay, well, in Greek, it's ichthus. All right. I. Asus christos.

00:27:46

Right. So you're dealing with those, which oftentimes we have the mark of that thing. Well, there's the iasus right here. The eye is showing that. Is that the kairos?

00:27:57

I can't see well, yeah, we don't have it up here. Where is it? Oh, it's not here anywhere, I don't think. Maybe somewhere. But you've seen it before, the Chi and the Rho, right?

00:28:05

It's two first letters of Christ, right? Christos. Okay, it makes that k sound, right? Ichthus, you see? And then son of God, savior.

00:28:15

That's the rest of it. So God. So it's Jesus Christ, God's son, savior. That's the acronym part of it, of Ichthus. And that's a great way to remember who Jesus is.

00:28:26

Jesus personal name. Okay? He was an actual man, born of woman, conceived by the Holy Spirit. His human life begins at conception and ends at his last breath on the cross. All right?

00:28:41

Jesus Christ. Christ has to do with Messiah. It's what Peter confesses, which is the term for Christ, messiah and Christ, same word, which is the one who brings the spirit, in short. Okay, so Jesus Christ, then God's son. Now, this now involves the holy Trinity, doesn't it?

00:29:00

For us Christians, there's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one God, one God in three persons. All right? And so we're not jewish in that regard, of that type of monotheism, nor are we Muslim in that regard. And by the way, Muslims reject the cross.

00:29:17

They think that Allah switched out Jesus for another idiot, and he died on the cross, and he saved Jesus the prophet, and took him into heaven. That is heresy point blank. Okay? It's one of the oldest things, is to avoid the cross, remember? Is to avoid Jesus.

00:29:33

To disconnect Jesus from suffering is to miss Jesus completely. All right? So Jesus Christ, God's son, savior. Soter. Soteriology is where we get the term from, and that's salvation.

00:29:50

It's our understanding of salvation. He is the savior, okay? He is our rescuer. So that's ichthus. So every time you see that little Jesus, that's actually.

00:29:59

Cause, you know, early christians would have. Would draw it in the sand, one of the lines, and say, like, you come to Boeing to work or whatever, and you're like, oh, I'll complete that. And that's how they would know you were christians. Secretively. Okay?

00:30:13

But they also, you know, we find it in art as well. Now, the other way is this, through icons. And if you'll bring that up, Jackson, the first one there is the Holy Trinity. Now, icons are just paintings meant to teach us not to be worshipped, but to teach us, okay? And this is obviously the Holy Trinity here.

00:30:32

And listen, we could spend 45 minutes explaining this. I'm not going to. So, you know, you can thank me later, but it really would be a wonderful thing for us to do. But the Son. Okay, so the second person of the Holy Trinity is actually in the middle.

00:30:47

And you can tell this for several reasons. One, both the Father and the spirit of on each side of the Son are nodding in his direction because the Father sends the Son, and the Holy Spirit points back to the Son, who is Jesus. Of course, the other way you can tell is that Jesus is elevated above the others. Because the scripture says this, he gets the preeminence. It's not that he is above in order of the others, because he comes from the Father eternally, but he is given preeminence by the Father and the Son on purpose.

00:31:26

That's why his name, remember, is the name that is what? Above all names. Right. That's why when we speak his name, it's a holy thing. We should never flippantly just say Jesus in some derogatory manner.

00:31:40

Why? Because he's an actual person that we could be cursing. We don't want to curse him. We want to bless him. We want to receive him.

00:31:48

And the other reason why is because he's in the middle. And when we say father, son and spirit, he's in the middle. But also notice he's throwing up a peace sign, right? Not really. Not really.

00:31:59

It's not really a peace sign. In fact, that has to do with his two natures. All right, so go to the next slide there, Jackson, and you can see the icon of Christ. He's doing the same thing here. Two natures, three persons.

00:32:15

And when you do the symbol of two. Right. And all kind of just watch my hand real quick. So. Because this is what I taught our youth in catechism.

00:32:22

Right? So now you're getting taught, and I'm gonna. I'm about to ask you to do it. Okay, so you do like two. Right.

00:32:27

Two natures. He is both God and man. One person. That's who Jesus is. He's both God and man.

00:32:34

All right? The son of God assumes human nature so that he has a divine nature and a human nature in one person. All right? So. But then notice three persons.

00:32:43

Okay, now do it like the picture. And you see this again. Three persons, two natures. Just do that. Come on.

00:32:49

Don't be afraid. There you go. Throw it up. We're not doing gang signs in here, okay? These are christian signs.

00:32:55

These are christian gestures. Okay, so two natures, three persons. Right. The other way to do it is this, just like an. Okay symbol.

00:33:03

Right again. Two natures, three persons. When we went to Greece, I took a picture beside St. Paul who was doing this, you know, because, again, three nature. Sorry, three persons, two natures.

00:33:15

All right. That's a great way to remember who Jesus is. He is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity who is sent to become man. And now he notice, he draws all of humanity into the very godhead. So he lifts humanity up by becoming one of us.

00:33:34

And so that means that now our work is to join into him by participation, by his grace. All right? And then the other way would just be the sign of the cross, right? We say you could do it like this where you put your three fingers here together. You know, Father, son, Holy Spirit.

00:33:53

Right? So, Father, son, Holy Spirit. The Catholics don't own that, nor the orthodox. We Protestants, we can do that, but do it as a holy thing, because, again, you're marking your own city with the sign of a death tool. In other words, I'm willing to take the cross upon myself.

00:34:12

What do we do when we remember our baptism but put the sign of the. Why? Why? Because we're crossing out. I notice if it stopped there, it's just all about me.

00:34:23

I. No, no, no. Cross it out. It's not about me. In fact, what Jesus says here is upside down to the world.

00:34:33

The world says, yeah, go find yourself. Go explore and seek for yourself, to find your. You'll never. You can search the world over 20 different lives and you'll still never find yourself, because finding yourself means losing yourself. That's what he says.

00:34:51

And he's the smartest person to ever teach. Okay? And so we can trust what he says. And I would just ask you this. Have you tried that way rather than trying to take it all in and keep it for yourself?

00:35:05

What if you had an open hand? What if you gave up your life? What if you denied yourself? What if you detached from this world, the things of this world, so that then Christ could fill you completely? And the truth of the matter is, when we go through times of suffering, not just physically, I mean, in here, it gives us almost as if it etches in us a greater capacity to receive Christ.

00:35:45

I often talk about a difficult time that I went through. You know, it was a very dark time, truly. I mean, I felt it was the darkest of times. And yet coming out of that, I have more capacity to love. Not less, more.

00:36:02

So when we're hurt, don't close up shop. Don't pull everything. I'm gonna protect myself now. Never doing that again. No, no, no.

00:36:14

Because here's the thing. If this is our posture to others. This is our posture to God. And we'll never receive this. This.

00:36:26

This is the posture of a Christian. It's a cruciform life. One not lived grasping and grabbing, but giving. A and the only way to give is, if we received, we must receive Christ. This happens by his holy spirit.

00:36:53

So today, don't be ashamed of him. Don't be ashamed of his work. Because in the end, if we're ashamed of him, in the end, if we don't know him. It's the worst thing that could ever happen. We'll live in eternity without him, continuously seeking ourself.

00:37:09

And that's no life. It's not eternal life. Instead, embrace Christ today and be transformed. Today, Christ brings to all of us a proposal.

00:37:26

Who do you say that I am?

00:37:31

You know, the thing about a proposal is this. And if you've ever been proposed to, you know this. Once that happens, once that person drops on their knee and proposes, there's really no way out of that, is it? You know, when this happened, I dropped at dad's church in the gymnasium. I remember I dropped on a name.

00:37:54

Jessica Lee. Her middle name, you know, pretty Lee is what I called her at the time. I said, will you marry me? Okay. Now, when you do that, you really put yourself in a big way, right?

00:38:07

Because, you know, whatever she does at that point is an answer, isn't it? Well, let me have a little more time. That's not good. Let me just tell you, okay? What if she's just silent again?

00:38:22

Not good. Not good. I don't know. Not really. Not a good thing.

00:38:29

The only good thing that could happen in that moment is to say yes. Who do you say Jesus is? Is he the son of God, the savior of the world? And not just of the world, but of your life? Whatever you do today as you leave this place is an answer to that proposal.

00:38:51

Is he the Christ? As Peter said, anything less than that is satanic. That's hard words, isn't it? But Jesus, as soon as Peter bucks against the suffering of Christ, says, get behind me, Satan. Any answer, less than God, less than the messiah, less than our savior, is satanic.

00:39:20

And as John would say, you know, good old John, who is the apostle of love, he says this, don't be children of Satan, but rather children of God.

00:39:31

Strong word. We don't feel like we're children of Satan. And I get it. But the scripture says we all are until we're made. Sons and daughters of Christ.

00:39:42

Sons and daughters of the high king. Have you been born again? Do you know Jesus.

00:39:50

Now just one that's made up in your head. Have you met the risen Christ? If not, what better day than today to do such a thing? He's here. If we would but call his name.

00:40:02

So call on him. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.