SERMON OUTLINE
Sunday, January 13, 2008

Cornerstone Baptist Church
Dr. Charles Michael Blizzard, Pastor

THE NEWNESS OF LIFE IN CHRIST


“WHAT DO YOU REALLY THINK OF JESUS CHRIST?

The Broad Biblical Context = Matthew 16:13-29

The Specific Biblical Context For Us Right Now = Matthew 16:13-18

An Extended Study

copyrighted

This sermon mini-series was begun on January 13, 2008

at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia

Dr. Charles Michael Blizzard, Pastor

Introduction:

The context of our church ministry is the Bible Belt of America.  The southeastern states have a long and enriched heritage of believing that the Bible is the Word of God and that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever among us believed in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.  Even though many parts of our professions are spurious and we have a double standard when it comes to believing versus behaving, our faith is a critical part of our heritage.  In more recent times, our belief system has been assailed by more “isms” than we can wish to recall.  In the age of political correctness the national religion has become secular humanism.  We don’t need God.  We can achieve whatever we want to.  As humans, the sky is the limit.  A recent survey result published in Leadership Magazine revealed that over twenty percent of professing believers in America do not believe that  Jesus Christ is a major player.  And in no serious sense do they give credence to the New Testament doctrine that clearly says “No one comes unto the Father except by Me!”  This eclectic, cultural theology is going to be the bedrock of America’s decline and fall as well as the ultimate relegation of naïve and unthinking adults to the eternal isolation of Hell.  The Bible is absolutely replete with affirmations that Jesus “is the Way, the Truth and the Life!”

At a time in our history when the Ten Commandments are treated like optional suggestions, when seventy percent of young people walk away from church, most  never to return, when the popular teaching that tithing is not actually Biblical and the average of all Protestants give a meager two percent of their incomes to churches, we are truly just one generation away from paganism.

The Explanation

Jesus took His entire band of twelve disciples to a district known as Caesarea Philippi,

twenty-five miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee.  The population was mainly non-Jewish and here Jesus could peacefully teach His twelve followers.  He would soon be headed to Jerusalem and in the scheme of things would soon afterwards be executed as a common criminal on a Roman cross.  He needed to check out the strength of their followship.  He needed them to know Who He really was and what it was that His Heavenly Father had sent Him to do.  If He was truly about to leave them to carry out His work, He needed some assurances that they knew what His work was about and what it would require of them to be faithful.

There was a gnawing and troublesome question in His mind.  Was there anyone who really understood Him?  Did they really know Who He was and beyond that, what He was?  Could any of this group carry on His work?  In a terse and troubling word, the very survival of the Christian faith was at risk.  Jesus had to pose the tough questions and find out what His disciples actually and truly knew.

Why did He bring them all the way to this region?  Maybe it was because of all the religious roots that sprang up here.  Temples of Syrian Baal worship abounded.  One source reported that there were fourteen of them in this immediate region.  Greek mythology was pungent and pervasive.  One of their pantheon of gods, Pan, the god of nature was reputed to have been born in a nearby cave.  The headwaters of the Jordan River, so key to the rich history of the Jews, were nearby.  And beyond all this, the influence of the Roman emperor worship was evident all around.  Of special note was the white marble temple built by Herod the Great to the godhead of Caesar.

At any rate, here He brought these twelve ordinary men to ask the question of questions

“Who do you say that I am?”  And of all possible responses, He expects them to say

“You are Christ, the Son of the Living God!”  It was as if the great religions of the day were competing in comparison and a conclusion was demanded.  More than most times in Scripture, the God-ness of Jesus shown forth in the best fashion of shekinah glory!  This is in that respect a truly remarkable passage.

Two great questions form the foundation for this inquisition.  First, in a very cursory manner, coming at the issue rather obliquely, Jesus asked, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”  The responses resonate from an uncertain recollection of random street talk.  “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or at least one of the prophets.”  Most likely any of these titles would have been a great and inspiring compliment.  But Jesus was not after compliments.  He had a more pressing question to ask.  “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter, of all the possible respondents, never wavered at this point like he would waver hours later in his infamous denial of Christ.  He emphatically announced, “You are Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

Two tremendous initial truths are thrust forward in this scenario.  First, it became quickly evident that the very best of human terms and descriptions are hardly sufficient to describe Jesus.  The four previous options were not a motley crew.  They were heroes of Israel.  But the comparisons paled when held up in the light of reason, intellect and spiritual power.  There is no one like Jesus.

He is the only person like whom there is no other!

The second truth was the clear principle that whatever discovery we make of the truth and spirit of Jesus Christ is a purely personal discovery.  There is a vast, vast difference between knowing about Jesus and in knowing Jesus .  When we pass judgment on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, it is a one-man verdict!  If we make the right call, the result is Heaven.  Make the wrong call and it is Hell.

Jesus was ecstatic.  Someone got it!  He really got it!  And the getting of it was a tremendous spiritual blessing.  This revelation came from God in heaven!  Jesus went on to affirm who Peter was, the “rock man”, Petros, a masculine nominative form which acknowledged him as an autonomous human being of great integrity.  When Jesus said “Upon this ‘rock’ I will build my church”, the word for rock was an entirely different and separate word with an entirely different and separate meaning.  It was feminine and it was not a name.  Jesus was not saying that He would build His church upon Peter or upon his successors. 

Rather, Jesus was saying that He would build His church upon this rock…this divine revelation and profession of faith in Christ.

The Illustration

The Roman Catholic Church went forward with doctrine built on this obvious pun or play on words.  They built their worldwide church on men and made Christ marginal and incidental.  They made their adherents confess sins to a mortal man and then pay for forgiveness.  They relied wholly on their men to tell everyone else what the plain truth of God’s Holy Word really meant.  This church today is extremely complex, ornate and absolutely wealthy and self-sufficient  but lacks the evangelistic drive and fervor and quest for a personal, Spirit-filled relationship with Jesus Christ, which is the only way to have an authentic, Biblical connection with the Jehovah God of the Bible.

The Application

If you make this confession, that Christ is the Son of the Living God, you are saying that He is the long-awaited Messiah and He has come into your life to save your eternal soul.  That’s what every rational person wants to see happen.  But the Scripture clearly quotes Jesus in another site where He says,

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

You can be a Christian upon the moving of God’s Spirit within you and upon you…you can be baptized in all honesty and truthfulness…you can align yourself with a body of believers somewhere.  You can be a saved sinner, living in grace and you can watch grace happen in your life probably every day.

But what you cannot possible be when you make this confession is:

1---haphazard and lazy

2---double-minded and wishy-washy

3---deliberately two-faced and deceitful

4---sloppy in your attitude and your service to the Lord and His church

5---neglectful of holy things such as the Bible, the Church, prayer, praise, worship, assembling and serving with the brothers and sisters, giving, caring, sharing…and on and on

6---segmented in your living, living for the Lord supposedly on Sunday and then like the Devil and his crowd the rest of the week

7---more interested, concerned and invested in worldly things than in the things of God

8---lax in your convictions

9---a stranger to God’s house or to God’s people, just to illustrate some of the pitfalls.

If the Son of the Living God lives within you, then you are a new and different person.  The Scripture says, “Old things are passed away;  Behold, all things are become new.”

Just as with Peter, God must reveal the revelation to you.  But for that to happen, you must have a spiritual relationship with Him.

Our church theme for this new year is being prayed over and determined by a committee of the whole. 

But it will have the word “Spirit-filled” in the title of the theme.

This is because:

1---when you get saved, God seals you with the Holy Spirit of Promise.

2---When you get saved, you get all of the Holy Spirit there is to get.

3---The big question then is “How much of me will the Holy Spirit get?”

4---And when He gets all of you, He gets all you have…your total life.

5---You can grieve the Holy Spirit, and quench the Holy Spirit, and hinder your fellowship with God in doing so.  But if you are truly saved, you have the Holy Spirit inside you.

6---People with the Holy Spirit of God within them love His Word, His Church, His people and they practice a life of trust and obedience.  If the Word says to make corporate worship a regular discipline,

a Spirit-filled Christian seeks to do just that…not some time but as often as possible.

7---People who have the Holy Spirit within themselves are never out of touch with God nor out of His sight and watchcare.  They  let God produce the fruit of the Spirit within them and are not dogmatic or legalistic.

8---Spirit filled Christians know that God is in the lifelong business of sanctifying each believer.  Therefore, they are not blown around by every weight of doctrine and every new religious fad that comes along.

 They become more and more grounded in the faith.

9---Spirit filled Christians are led into specific places of service in His church and they learn how to love the task, learn the task and they are not quick to leave the task.

Jesus told Peter that He (Jesus) would build His church.  May it be so at Cornerstone.  He is the very Cornerstone.  We are lively stones built upon that foundation.  We don’t give God orders. 

We just report for duty.

More than anything else in the life of our church right now, we all need to examine our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and if necessary get right, and then get with the program.

If not us, then who?    If not now, then when?    If not here, then where?

May He help us to be Spirit-filled and alive in Jesus, all to the honor and glory of God Himself!

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