Matthew 16:13–20Scripture
Today I want to take a brief break from Romans, and I want to just visit with you a little bit on a Scripture that has become very important to me over these last several years. All Scriptures should be, but this one specifically has made an impact on my heart, and it really has been the cause of much of the changes that we've seen happen in our fellowship over these past five years. You can turn your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 16. We'll look at verses 13–20 this morning, and I'll turn there with
Point 1Easter is about Jesus, not the trappings
You. Pastor J.R. Posted a graphic this week that I thought was extremely fitting: Easter is about Jesus.
It is not about eggs or chocolate or candy, not about any of those things.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 0:59
Easter is about Jesus. My question has been, over these past five years, what happens to a church that removes all the trappings? What happens to a people when we make Jesus the source of our worship and not ourselves? And it has been an interesting evaluation over these past few years, for we have taken the opportunity to begin to strip away trappings, the things that distract from Jesus, those things that we actually believed were rallying people around him. We later realized that those trappings were things that prevented people from actually getting to him. And it is so easy at times to think that we're worshiping God, to think that we're worshiping Christ, and really we are engaging in self-worship. We want to be entertained. "Entertain me." We want preachers who can dance like monkeys and do a little jig and make people happy, because the simple proclamation of the gospel is not enough anymore. And this then runs counter, it's counterintuitive to what the Apostle Paul preaches and then all the other apostles preach, because they preach that the gospel is powerful enough to save on its own. Amen. And so if that's the case, then it is not, it is not, listen, I'm a creative, so it has been a very interesting journey. It is a journey that I feel like the Lord has me on, and I don't know where this ends and I don't know where this goes, but I believe that sometimes we use our passions, and we have the right intention, and art is my passion, and we get so creative that we bury the message of Christ in the midst of creative ambition, and he's forgotten. And the reality is what happens, and I love this song actually came out when I was younger, and it was a church, the story was that the church began to realize, as we have over the past several years, COVID was a beginning of us realizing that maybe it isn't Christ that people serve, maybe it's something else. Because around the world I'm privileged to be able to serve people around the world who volunteer their time and lay their very life down, whose wives and children are slain on rivers as they translate the Bible and then continue to go out down the same river to make sure that the Word of God is in the hands of people who don't have it, that it's sweaty work, that it's risky work, that people are thrown in prison and beaten and tor- tured and killed, and this is what's happening around the world. Yet in America we come to church and we want to be entertained, and if it's not entertaining enough, then just forget that. If the AC isn't working good enough, by the way, I did go back there and turn it on, I'm not anti-AC, but if it wears out, what happens to the attendance in fellowship? Is Jesus enough, or do you have to have AC for him to be enough? Are you with me today? What happens if all the chairs are gone and you have to come in here on Sunday? Would you worship without chairs, or is convenience a priority to you? How important is the fellowship and the body of believers that you've built your relationships with here in this fellowship? How important is that, or will you sacrifice them on the altar of your butt being comfortable in a seat?
The reality is Jesus didn't bail on you because it got uncomfortable. Why do we bail on his body when we get uncomfortable?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:24
Good questions, right? And many of us should be asking them. And honestly, this is going to be a very weird Easter message, go figure, but flattery is not the way we preach the gospel. We bring truth, and the truth sets people free, not flattery, not flattery. And the reality is, in our world people don't like questions, because questions make us have to actually consider a thing. Questions make us actually have to consider ourselves, why we think the way we think, why we decide what we decide, why we have opinions that we have. And the reality is, you throw a question out into the ethos of our culture and that is offensive to people, because people would rather have their mind turned off, and questions make them engage thought.
People would rather live in ignorance than be challenged.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:33
And Jesus understood this even in his time. Matthew 16, and I'm going to read, many of you have different translations. Many of those in the church that have been here any amount of time have taken it upon yourself to go get ESV. I know some of you read NIV, some of you read New King James, some King James. Today I'm going to read from the NASB, because I believe that it has the best, most effective and proper translation of this. There's something in here that I think is very important, and it will read a bit different than yours, and see if you can catch it. Verse 13: "Now when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, 'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, and others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.' He said to them, 'But
Point 2Everyone must answer who Jesus is
Who do you yourself say that I am?'" And that's the question of the day, isn't it? Who is Jesus to you? That's the question, more importantly, and we've got to be very careful with this wording in our culture today, because what Jesus is not inferring here is "who is he to you." What he's inferring here is, who is Jesus? Now, it matters who he is to you, in relation to the fact that Jesus can't be to you what he is to your parents, and Jesus can't be to you what he is to your pastor alone. It can be the same, but you can't be dependent on who Jesus is to your parents.
Everyone in this room and everyone in the world has to answer the question, who is Jesus?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:34
It's a question we don't like, it's a question we don't want to contemplate, and the reality is that, contrary to what the world says, that you have to take Jesus by faith alone, okay, we know it's by faith alone that men are saved, but that faith is void of intellectual thinking is a wrong concept, because the way he gets to your heart is through thought. The reality is this becomes very problematic in our culture, because we have divorced ourselves from thought, and there have been many things that have helped us get there: one, social media; one, just media in general; one, everybody, you know, having their own special truth, even in the church. We don't know what truth is anymore. The reality is, when a president puts out, and we just learned we should respect and honor our president, but when a president puts out that Easter is now Transgender Day to honor transgender people, that we should be able to think about that as believers and know that is not the truth. The reality is that many of us in here today, or a few of us in here today, are touched by this thing. You're touched by this thing and you're connected to a person whom you love dearly, so then the waters begin to get muddy, and you begin to try to, you want, as a believer, to turn off your thought life because you want your emotions to drive, whether you like this honoring of this thing or not. The reality is all of us have to answer who Jesus is. If Jesus is who he says he is, then this shapes the way we feel about the announcement yesterday. It shapes it affects it becomes problematic for us as believers. Who is Jesus to you? Who is he? "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you,'" notice, it wasn't his prowess, his intellect alone, but God revealed it. If not for God, no man would come to the reality that Christ is who he says he is. There are many people in the world today who do not know him.
They think of him as a great man, they think of him as a prophet, they think of him as something that is not normal, but they do not think of him as God. And this is the issue, this is the issue. "And I also say to you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then he gave the disciples strict orders that they were to tell no one that he was the Christ.
So if we go back to verse 13, it says, "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples." He had been asking, this is the way it's broken down in the Greek: he had been asking, he was asking, and he continued to ask. That's the tense. That this wasn't some one-off encounter. Now, this is important. This is not just some aorist activity. There is not just something he did once, he heard something and heard some sort of an answer and then let it go. He continued to ask again and again, "Who do people say that I am?" Now, this is important. Why is it important? Because everything, whether you want to believe me or not, everything, I will tell you that according to the Scripture, everything in your life and everything in eternity is determined by how you answer this question. Everything. That's what today's about, really. It is coming face to face with the question, who is Jesus to you? And the answer to that, your soul and your eternity hangs in the balance to that answer.
This is serious business. This is not about bunnies and eggs and candy. This is serious business.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:45
The reality is this question has set Christianity apart from every other world religion, and you have to answer that question. There is no room in Christianity to say things like, "There are multiple ways to heaven and there are multiple ways for my soul to be saved." That's why this is such a polarizing religion in the world.
There is only one way to heaven, and his name is Jesus Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:40
Now, there's something you need to understand about Scripture that's extremely important, something you need to understand about reality and about truth itself. Why do I say it that way? Because today in our culture, reality tends to be anything you want it to be. Just think for a minute, I don't need to go down the list of things that are going on in our culture, how people want to make their own reality, their own reality. I read an article the other day that the new thing they're trying to do to try to stay off hot topic subjects, because everybody will laugh at this, is that two plus two does not necessarily equal four. I mean, I wish that worked when I was in math class, because I would have straight up aced that test if I could just put whatever number I wanted in there. Boom, I'm a rocket scientist. "Hello, show Daddy the big paycheck." I'm going to be blowing up rockets left and right. But hey, you know, two plus two is 25, I'm smart. That's the new reality, that two plus two today can be five if you wanted it to be. This is for real. In our world, this is for real. Now, if we talk about other subjects, you're like, "Well, it's a gray area." Talk about that. I think you all would agree in here, it's a problem. It's a problem. And
Jesus is not who you want him to be. Jesus is who he declared himself to be.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:10
And that's the problem with the gospel, is that people want to make Jesus what they want him to be, and many people refuse to accept him for who he truly is. The question is not "who is Jesus to you." That's not the question. Or "who do you want Jesus to be," or "who do you make him out to be according to your convenience." That's not the question. The question is, who is Jesus? C.S. Lewis said something that hit me like a ton of bricks, and when he began to talk about it, what he talked about is referred to by many people today. He presents in one of his writings an issue called the trilemma. How many of you have ever heard of this? He presents one person, that's good. I mean, it's good that somebody has heard that. So good, so when I say it, you'll be like, "Yep, that's right, he ain't lying." Okay, so before we discuss that, I want to talk a moment before we go into this trilemma, or these three issues, what I believe is the three, the only three answers that you can give regarding who is Jesus, really posed by C.S. Lewis, and I think they are very fitting for us today. Before we go into that, we live, it's important for us to understand that we live in a world of anti-logic. Now, this offends both of my sons a lot. They're so annoyed by people who don't use logic, and honestly both of them are pretty emotional. Like my youngest son, we won't say his name because you don't, maybe you, anyway, you know which one's the youngest, so you know who I'm talking about. But my youngest son, Landon, all right, he is so emotional, in fact, that when he was younger, he didn't know how to deal with his emotion. It was like tidal waves of feelings that came over him, and like any good tidal wave, when the tidal wave hit, you go where it flows, and it takes maturity and time and strength to be able to get to a place where you can stand against the waves that come against you, and regardless of how you feel, begin to think through and use logic and not let feelings dictate what you do. How many of you know that this is a reality for many of us on some scale or another, because many of us are driven by emotions, and we neglect logic. This has become the heartbeat of our culture, where your emotions drive you, it's about how you feel. My oldest son, let's just crack on him a little bit, my oldest son was very much a feeler as well, however it manifested differently. Landon, when he would feel the tidal wave of emotion when he was little, would crawl up under a chair and go into a puddle, either by rage or by tears. My oldest son, however, sorry if you got, I'm not trying to pick on, love you anyway, so my oldest son, his way of dealing with emotions was not to curl up into a ball or have a demonstrative display as a reaction to that, but rather he would go and hide in his room and hibernate and turtle away from everything and shut down. Which one are you? The reality is we are shaped most often by emotions, but opposite of what shapes us in this culture, the Bible is trying to transform our mind. It requires logic. So then when we talk about Christ, the goal is not to make you feel something, rather it is to make you think something. And contrary to faith, we're in a world where even in the church we say, "Well, you just have to take it by faith.
You can't use your mind, you can't think, you can't consider a thing, you can't reason yourself there. That's not how you get there." Listen, I came to propose to you today that faith is not absent of logic. Logic is present. So I feel like in a world that says, "Your truth, whatever you feel, Jesus is whoever you want him to be," we should apply some logic, and I believe that the logical option is somebody's right and everybody else is wrong, or everybody's wrong regarding Jesus. Somebody's right and everybody else is wrong, or everyone is wrong. But everyone can't be right, because everyone is saying something completely different, and they're saying contrary things and making contrary truth statements. So that's something we need to realize. You can't just say, "Well, Jesus is right for you." No, he's not. He's either right or he's wrong. He is right for you and not right for them? He's either right or he's wrong, and there's no way you can dance around the subject. So C.S. Lewis then talks about the trilemma, and I'm going to give you the
Point 3Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord
Three points of the trilemma. Logic, he says, makes you face the, unless you have eggs for brains, scrambled eggs for brains, it makes you face the trilemma of these three things. One, he is a liar. One, Jesus is a liar. Who is Jesus to you? One, he's a liar. That's one logical option. That's using logic, that is one of the options. Jesus could be a liar, because he said he was the Son of God, and he purposefully, intentionally misled people to think he was the Son of God, or in a more exact way to put it, God the Son, God in the flesh, God who became man. That's the better way of saying it, because many people say he's the Son of God, but they don't believe he was God, and there's a difference. There's a difference. So one logical way to answer the question today, who is Jesus, you could answer it with, "He's a liar," and many people answer the question that way. And let me tell you, Easter is not a place where everybody walks out thinking he's not a liar. There will be people, in fact, today who walk out still believing that Jesus is a liar, and that's a logical way to approach it. Number two, another logical way to approach it is, he's a lunatic, because any person who sincerely believes they are God in the flesh and they're not, they're crazy. Brook told me a story yesterday, and I haven't had time to fully vet it, because, you know, people send me stories all the time and I'm not sure they're true, because you have to fully vet it to know if it's actually true. So, Brook, it's on you if it's false. But Brook told me this story yesterday, and whether or not this is actually depicted as a true story, there have been many times this has happened where somebody began to proclaim that they were the Messiah, they were Christ, they were God in the flesh, and then people wanted to crucify him so he could rise again on the third day, and he went to the police to help him. Is it amazing? How, right, is that right? Is that the story? Okay, anyway, it was Cameron. It wasn't Brook, so you can blame Cameron if it's not true. Neither here nor there. But here's the thing: many people have proclaimed they are the Christ, and many people have lied. So who is Jesus to you? Is he a liar? Does he fall in the category of those others who proclaim that they're the Christ? Is he a lunatic? Because I would propose that somebody that proclaims they're God in the flesh and they're not that person is a lunatic. So he's either a liar, or he's a lunatic, or he's Lord. He was and is and will continue to be exactly who he said he was: the Son of the living God himself in flesh. So there are the three questions, or three options, and today you have to walk out of this building and call him a liar, you will walk out of this building today and call him a lunatic, or you will walk out of this building today and call him Lord. But all of you will answer the question, not to me, not to your neighbor, but all of you will answer the question. There are only three options with answering the question, "But who do you yourself say that I am?" Am I a liar, am I a lunatic, or am I the Lord? Now let's look at liar. Let's just keep using logic, shall we? Let's look at liar. There's a bit of apologetics here, and I love apologetics, and I'm trying not to go too far down this. We'll keep this very simple. Let's look at liar. Well, liars, when they're caught in a ruse, they usually give it up, don't they? Especially when death is on the line, you know what I mean? They'll give it up, they'll fess up to get out of death. So when the ruse turns itself on its head, and instead of it getting all those things, you're being crucified on a Roman cross, tortured for hours on end, nailed there, stabbed through the side, I would imagine that if you were a liar, you would probably say, "Hey, I take it back. Stop. I take it back. I am not the Son of God." That really creates some problems for him being a liar, but it does not create problems for him being a lunatic, because a lunatic might do that. I mean, come on, right? You see where I'm going here? So I'm probably feeling, yeah, probably not a liar, because he'd bust out and get up out of there to save himself. But that doesn't really answer the question. Would a lunatic do that? And the answer is, yeah, a lunatic might. So then how do we deal with the fact that a lunatic might? Let's talk about a lunatic. Some of the greatest scholars that have ever walked this planet say that there is no, and we're talking about secular and nonsecular alike, say that there is nothing in all of literature like what we have in the simple three chapters of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Some say that even the first verse of chapter 5 were written in such a way that we have nothing that compares to them. The statements that he made confound the scholars to this day, and until today these statements cannot and are not contradicted. As a matter of fact, many secular psychologists use the words of Christ from this sermon and they apply it in a secular fashion from Christ. And let me ask you the question, why would we use the words of a lunatic to try to help people? So I propose to you today, I don't see him as being a liar, and I certainly don't see somebody who is so astounding to some of the greatest scholars in the world being a lunatic. So it only leads that he must be Lord. And this is simplistic in nature, and there's many other things we could talk about, but I don't have the time. And here's something else very important about our text. Look at what it says in verse 13: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they responded, "Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, but still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Now, these don't in themselves seem like bad guesses. So like when we go to church and somebody asks a question, you're like, "Moses? Jesus? I don't know, noah?" They seem like good guesses, but they're terrifyingly bad guesses, because they're actually something more dangerous than just outright saying Jesus Christ is a lunatic or liar. It's making him common when he is not. Making him like everyone else, and therein lies the danger, that he's like a prophet, he's like that prophet, that we can accumulate a whole desktop or bookshelf full of prophets and just put him up there with the rest of them. But I came to propose to you today, you cannot, for he does not give us that option. He speaks of himself as to what he is. So people can call him a prophet, but he did not call himself a prophet. He called himself the Son of God wrapped in human flesh. He is the only one, he is the only one who said, and I quote, "I'm not just a prophet. I am God who became man. I am the eternal Son of God who has robed himself in flesh and now dwells," or the proper way to say it, now tabernacles among men. Do you see that? Most of you, whether you're agnostic, atheist, Christian, or just sympathetic or whatever you are, you would have to acknowledge that media by and large is against Christianity. There's not a whole lot of positive stuff being said about Christians. I always love when they do a new reality show and they try to represent any kind of life course in the reality show, and they always pick the craziest Christians to put on there. Don't tell me there's not an agenda. They're not all that crazy, they're just not, well, I mean, some of you are crazy, but they're not all that crazy. I would propose to you that sometimes I'm a little crazy, but it is just amazing how they'll pick people that represent Christianity in the most negative fashion. If I was invited on a talk show, and I would never be invited on a talk show, I just won't be, but if I were, if I were to say that Jesus is the Christ, I'd be run off the stage. Jesus is the Savior, I'd be run off the stage. But if I said Jesus is a savior, I would be like many people who have large platforms on our earth today, who claim Christ as a savior, whose sanctuaries are packed to the brim because he's a savior, not the Savior, that there are multiple ways to heaven. Are you with me today?
He is not a savior, he is the savior.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:51
The reality is, Christianity would become totally and completely adopted by media today, scholarship, and even the ungodly. Why? Because the scandal of Christianity is not that Jesus is a savior, or Jesus is a lord, or Jesus is a prophet.
The scandal of Christianity is that he is the Lord, the Savior, the prophet, and anyone who contradicts him is wrong.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:22
That's what's so offensive about the gospel. He did not say, "I am a way, a truth, and a life." He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Now, if I pandered to popular opinion or the mobs that would shame me for my stance, I'd be giving you an option that would make you happy but would damn you to hell, and my calling is greater than your happiness. Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. He is not just a prophet, he is not just like others, he is God in the flesh. I want to quote somebody that's very popular, and I've got to read this, I have a few sections here, please don't check out on me as I read this, but I've got to read it just as it is. These are quotes, right? So I want to quote a very prominent theologian that I greatly respect, Loraine Boettner, and he says this: "In all the history of the world Jesus emerges as the only expected person, the only expected person to come. No one was looking for such a person as Julius Caesar or napoleon or Washington or Lincoln to appear at the time and place that they did appear. No other person has had his course foretold or his work laid out for him centuries before he was born. No other person in history, no one but the coming of the Messiah, has been predicted for centuries. In fact, the first promise of his coming was given to Adam and Eve soon after their fall into sin. As time went on, various details concerning his person and work were revealed through the prophets, and at the time Jesus was born there was a general expectation throughout the Jewish world that the Messiah was soon to appear." This is why Paul in Romans says to the Jews, "How could you not know who Christ is? The prophets foretold him, even the manner of his birth and the town in which he would occur had been clearly indicated centuries before."
Let me read something to you from historian Philip Schaff that I've always held dear. This is an amazing statement, I love this statement. Speaking of Jesus, he says, "A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human, and yet so high above all human greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction. The poet, as has been well said, would be in this case greater than the hero. It would take more than a Jesus to
Point 4Fulfilled prophecy points to Jesus as Messiah
Invent Jesus." That's how great he is. That's a good saying. Now let me share something else with you, and I'm going to read these so I don't get these wrong. I extrapolated these from prophecies that have been fulfilled prophecies pointing to Christ. Let us consider logic here as we reflect on them. Number one, and I read it to you: If Jesus of Nazareth is not the Messiah, then every promise in the Bible with regard to the Messiah has already failed, because it can no longer be fulfilled. Let me just read a few things that I've gathered over the years. First of all, just listen to this. According to Genesis 49:10, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes." Notice the markers here, this is a reference, an ancient reference to the Messiah, until he comes. Now what's he saying? The scepter shall not depart from Judah. It shall not, Judah shall reign until the Messiah comes. How many of you know it's not reigning? But here's the promise that a descendant of Judah would reign until the coming of the Messiah. And in 70 AD the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the political dominion and authority of the Jews was taken away, and the nation was scattered. For nearly two millennia there has been no ruler from the tribe of Judah. If Jesus is not the Christ, then God's promise in Genesis 49:10 has already failed, for the time is passed and it can no longer be fulfilled. Are you with me? It's there as plain as day. Another one, according to Daniel 9:24–27, the city of Jerusalem was to be rebuilt seven weeks of years, just so you know, that's 49 years, and after the end of captivity and the messiah would appear 62 weeks of years, that's 434 years after the rebuilding of Jerusalem. This prophecy coincides perfectly with the life of Jesus. If Jesus is not the Christ, then God's promise in Daniel has failed, because the time has passed, the days have run out, and there's no longer any opportunity for it to ever happen again. Both Malachi chapter 3 and Haggai chapter 2 teach that the Messiah was to come while the second temple was still standing. News flash: the second temple was destroyed in 70 AD. So if Jesus is not the Christ, the Messiah is never coming. The Messiah was to be the son or descendant of David, and he was to come at the time when the house of David was in a low estate and held in contempt, like a tree that had been cut off to its very roots. In Isaiah 11:1 the Scripture declared, "Then a shoot will spring up from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." Jesus appeared as the Messiah at such a time. If he's not the Messiah, then the Scriptures cannot be fulfilled, for even the root of Jesse now has been pulled up with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Are you with me today? At that time when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, all genealogical evidences were destroyed, and it would now be impossible to prove the Messiah's lineage. According to Daniel 9:27, the Messiah would confirm the new covenant and put an end to the sacrificial system under the old covenant. The sacrificial system ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. If Jesus is not the Christ, then the sacrificial system has ended without the Messiah coming. All the prophecies point to Jesus as the Messiah, and it is amazing that even the Jews do not see it. And finally, according to the prophet Isaiah, the Messiah's coming would be marked by an ingathering of nations, or the Gentiles. For nearly 2,000 years a countless multitude of Gentiles from every nation on the earth has identified themselves with the God of Israel through the so-called Messiah, just as the Scriptures prophesied. Jesus is the Messiah, and the Messiah was not just a man. Even the ancient Jewish scribes held him to be more than a man, that when he came the Son of David would be greater than David and that he would be Lord of David, that he would be divine, that he would be God that became man. And ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly what happened. So the question is, what do you say about Jesus? What do people say about Jesus? What do you say about Jesus, you personally? And if you're not a Christian, I hope that these words haunt you today as you eat your lunch, because your soul hangs in the balance by how you answer it.
Your soul hangs in the balance by how you answer.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:26
Now, here's something else that I want you to see as I close. It's very important. Look at verse 16: "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus said to him," listen what he said to him, "'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because you didn't conjure this up yourself in your own free will, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is
Point 5God reveals Christ, and a new life shows it
In heaven.'" Now, we spent the last several minutes, me trying to speak to your intellect and convince you that what was prophesied about Christ is actually true, but the reality is, something you must understand, that this work is the work of God the Father, not of a man trying to convince you. That's what he tells Peter here: "Peter, you didn't think this up. You weren't just convinced. This is something supernatural at work." In other words, God opened your heart and he revealed this to you, Peter. Now here's what I want you to ask. If that's the case, Shawn, then how can we know? How can we know what affects us in this way? How can we know? If I walked out on the street and I gave an interview, I'd find out all kinds of people who would say things like this: "Yeah, I believe he's a Son of God. I believe that he's the Son of God." Yeah, but then if I looked at their life, would I see evidence whatsoever that they actually believe what they speak? Honestly, I'll just interject right here, that's the point of the resurrection. It speaks of us spiritually, that those who believe move from death to life. Why? Because Jesus didn't stay in the grave, he came to life so that he could bring you from death to life, and if what you profess with your mouth is accurately depicted in your life, it will be depicted by a life that's come from death to life. There are many people who profess Christ but whose life still is wrapped up in death clothes, and the tomb is still closed on their life, because what they profess has not really happened in their life. There are people here today, in our world, who would acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah, and yet when they die, they'll stand before God, they will be judged, and they will not enter heaven but be condemned to separation from God for all eternity, to suffer in hell, even though their mouths will utter, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world." Does that concern you, parents? Does that concern you? We just want to be PC and we don't want to offend and we don't want to, the gospel is offensive on its own.
The gospel doesn't need you to team up to be more offensive. It's offensive enough.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:49
I had someone, I've been able to do a lot of flying around, I had somebody ask me recently when I was on the plane, "What are you reading there?" I was reading on my iPad that I just got, trying to decide if I like it, because I'm old school and I like paper, so I haven't decided yet, so I'll let you know. I was trying to decide if I liked it, and I was reading the Bible, and so I'm like, "Great," because I am on this plane for eight hours by this individual, and this always just, I mean, and then I'm always, you know, I didn't get a tattoo so people wouldn't engage me and stuff like that, but sometimes it does, because whenever you say you're a pastor, everybody gets squirrelly, and when you're on a plane with somebody for eight hours, it just makes for a weird ride. And I was like, well, I cannot lie, so I told him, aren't you glad, I said, "I'm reading the Bible. I'm reading the Bible." The man looked at me and said, "What does it take for an individual to get to heaven?" I was like, isn't it crazy? And I hate this, like, I apologize, because I should be excited about that. You should be excited about those conversations. What is wrong with us? And so I said, "Well, it's really easy. In fact, you have to never sin, never do anything wrong, never lie, never steal, never look at another woman lustfully, never talk mean to your wife, never talk mean to your children, never yell, never flip anybody off on the road. You have to follow all the laws of the land, you have to do everything right, you have to eat all the right things, do all the right things, say all the right things.
You have to do all the right things on Sunday, you have to make sure you're at church every Sunday, if you miss you're going to hell, you have to be perfectly righteous, perfect in every way, never make a mistake, never have a thought in or through your head that is mean, and you'll make it." And the individual said, "Say what? Say what?" And
That's the problem. That's the angst that's disturbing, and that's why God came wrapped in flesh, because you couldn't get to heaven.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 49:39
You couldn't get there. Isn't it funny how he asked, "What do I need to do to get to heaven?" Is that funny? Almost like we're going to partner with God and with our effort and his effort we're going to get there. Oh man, nope, because there's nothing good in you. That's what the Bible says. There's nothing good in you. There's nothing good in you. There, people say, "Well, I go to mass. Well, I take the Lord's Supper. Well, I do this, I go to church, I sing in the choir, I do this,"
But when you look at the inside of their life, there is no genuine love for Christ, and their lives are not transformed by him. He is not the center of their lives, he is not in their thoughts. He is part of a religion they've adopted and inherited to get access to something that they will never get access to that way. There's no living according to the greatest truth that's ever been given. I had someone, listen, I want to read this story that I read this week and then we'll close. I'm done after this. Reading this story, listen to this. But before I say this, I want to read this, I read this too, I read this and then I read this other little story. There's a lot of people who think that they and Jesus working together are going to get them to heaven.
That's why they ask, "What do I need to do?" You know what, that lets me know, that lets me know they haven't answered the question who Jesus is to them. Okay, all right, let me read the story. Say this person wrote this, said, say I'm the new pastor, and as soon as I come, my first Sunday, somebody walks up to me and says, "Brother Paul, there's a guy over there named Bill. He's over there up the hill at his house, and he hasn't been to church in five years and everything, and we can't get him to come back to church. He's a member here. Would you please go get him? I mean, that's your job, right? You're the shepherd, go get him." So I go, I knock on the door, and there's Bill, and Bill says, "Come on in," and I come in and I say, "Bill, you haven't been in church for five years." And Bill says, "You're right, preacher, you're right. You know, I just follow other things, I just have a love for the world, but you're right, I need to do the right things and I need to get back into church." How many of you have ever heard people say, "I just really feel like I need to get back into church"? Oh man, this is problematic. That's a problematic answer. "And Bill, I hear you've been walking around drunk, plastered quite a bit." "Oh, you're right, preacher, I've been drinking and stuff and just love drinking, but I need to put it away, I need to do the right thing, I need to get back into church, and it's what I need to do." The pastor says, "Okay, Bill. I hear you haven't been faithful to your wife either, that you're kind of a man about town." People say, "Oh, preacher, you got me there, you're right. I just need to let that go, as much as it pulls on me, I just love that kind of life. I just need to let it go though. I need to do the right thing. I need to get back in church. I tell you what, I'll see you Sunday." So next Sunday he comes to church and everybody says, "Pastor, that's incredible. A sheep has come home." This writer says, no, he hasn't. No, he hasn't. They're all looking at Bill and they're going, "A sheep has come home." No, he hasn't. A wolf has come back to the fold. Do you realize what Bill is saying? "You're right, preacher, I need to stop doing all the wicked things I love and start doing all the righteous things I hate in order to gain some entrance into a kingdom of heaven." That's religion, and that's not what we're talking about this morning. We're talking about a life that is completely transformed, a life that has answered the question that Jesus is Lord and throws themselves on the altar of Christ completely. That person is transformed from the inside out, and all Bill seemed to have was religion and ritual, and there's certain things that he needs to do, and he needs to get back into church, and hopefully if he does these things he'll make it to heaven. The question is not some religious exercise. As Paul says in the book of Galatians, the question is, are you a new creature with new desires and a new heart? Some are asking, "What am I to do?" I'll answer your question with the question: who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to you? Now I'm done. This is the time of the service where pastors feel obligated to twist arms and manipulate feelings and get people to respond to the gospel, but if God has determined that you will respond to the gospel this morning, you will respond to the gospel this, what about an altar call? Well, Shawn, are you going to have everybody close their eyes and somebody raise their hand and half of the people peek to see who's raising their hand or not raising their hand? Shawn, are you, like in the past when we first started the church, for the first eight years you're going to have people stand up, are we going to have 20 people stand up and then all of us applaud? You know how many people I've seen stand up five years later not even know who Jesus was to them? They could not answer the question. Guess what, if you answer the question that he's a liar, we're going to know. Your children will know, pastor will know, your friends will know, and your family will know as you sit around the table at lunch this Easter. They will know if your answer to the question was "Jesus is a liar." We're going to know. We don't need to raise hands, we'll know. Are you with me? If the answer to your question is "he's a lunatic," your children will know, your husband will know, your wife will know, and guess what, you'll never have to utter a word, they'll know that your answer is "he's a lunatic." They'll know. Are you with me today? If your answer is "he is Lord," without you ever professing, raising your hands, coming down forward to the altar, making a proclamation, telling someone else, we will know.
We'll know by your life being made new. We'll know your answer.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 57:31
So instead of us just trying to appease the rituals and the traditions of men to make us feel like this has been an effective Easter and do an effective altar call and really put the call out there, oh, like John said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is as close as your hand." It's important, but we'll only know whether repentance is your reality by the answer to this question. We'll only know by that.
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