Who Do You Say That I Am?

Good morning.

Good morning, church.

How are you?

Morning.

Oh, man.

We're How are you this morning?

Yeah.

I love that.

It is so good to see you all this morning.

My name is Danny.

I get to be one of the pastors here at Camelback.

And uh I love that I get to come and be able to speak with you guys too um every once in a while.

I had an amazing Fourth of July.

I hope you guys did as well.

I got up early on Fourth of July and played a pickle ball for a few hours with some some good friends.

Then uh I went home, watched some soccer.

Have you guys been watching following any of the soccer that's been going on?

It's been been really great.

And then uh took naps during that time as well.

Uh which was so good.

Then went over to some family's house and we swam uh did some fireworks which is really really great.

Uh but honestly, this Fourth of July just kind of seems so much different than any of the other Fourth of July.

We're celebrating not just another, you know, uh, birth for uh, America, but we're celebrating 250 years, which is so cool.

Like never, no other American has ever celebrated that.

And I just think that is so great.

Um, dur I mean during the 250 years, so much has happened.

Families have just been uh, they fought and sacrificed, they built, they prayed, generations and generations started businesses.

So, it's so cool to see that. and and freedom has just been passed on from generation and generation.

And um and it's so cool to see that, you know, and so many of us, we did, you guys, we we grilled hot dogs and hamburgers.

We set off fireworks.

Some people blew things up in their driveways, you know.

I definitely did not.

We we wore like red, white, and blue.

It's so cool that we get this.

I'm so thankful for America.

Like I feel like we are so blessed and so thankful that, you know, we have America.

And uh like this morning because of freedoms, we don't have to worry about walking into church and get to celebrate Jesus and and know about him.

We can sing as loud as we want during worship time.

It's such a blessing, right?

That we could be as loud as we want because of our freedom.

And and we should never never take that for granted, right?

And and this week I've been thinking about that.

And here's what I've been thinking.

As much as I love America, America has never been the hope for the world.

You know, Jesus is.

And there's a difference.

Today, many people are going to be talking about patriism and freedom at churches and and founding fathers.

And those are all so good.

Those things matter so much.

But I think Jesus will be asking some different questions to us. you know, not what country you from, you know, what uh what who you voted for, what's your political opinion.

Jesus asks some questions are so much deeper.

And we're in this series about good questions and it's it's much more personal.

Jesus, when he asks these questions, they're so much more personal and important.

You know, you know, Jesus asked over 300 questions in the Bible.

And he asks these not because he doesn't know the answers to them, but he asks them for a different reason.

He asks them to because he finds out what was really revealed in our hearts, what we really think.

And he asks these questions because he wants to know what we truly believe.

And today he asks a question we're going to look at that's really one of probably one of the most important questions in the Bible.

And we're going to look at this question and it's going to be in Matthew 16.

And so if you want to open up your Bible to Matthew 16 or grab a Bible underneath the chairs if you don't have one or you can tap the seat back in front and you uh you seat back in front of you.

You can follow notes along.

You're going to open up your phones.

But we're going to be looking at Matthew 16 and we're looking at this passage from 13-20.

And Jesus is with the disciples and he's talking with them and he asks them this question and it's so great.

And so Matthew it says when Jesus came to the region of Cesaria Philippi he asked his disciples who do you say who do people say the son of man is?

Verse 14 says, "They replied, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Verse 15, he says, "But what about you?" He asks, "Who do you say I am?"

And so Simon Peter here answers.

He says, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God." I I love this setting here because Jesus asks him this question in Jer not in Jerusalem, not in the temple.

He asks him in Cesar Philippi because it was known as most one of the most pagan cities in Israel.

It was known for having idols, known for having a temple for Caesar, a a temple dedicated to Caesar. temples dedicated to different gods, Greek gods, and idols were everywhere.

People worshiped everything but the one true god.

And sometimes that might sound a little familiar to us and even in our culture and even in the world.

But standing in the middle of this culture full of competing gods and competing voices and competing loyalties, Jesus asks this question to his disciples.

Who do you say the son of man is?

They answer.

Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, Jeremiah, other prophets.

And then Jesus really just really makes it personal to them.

What about you?

He says, I know what the culture says.

I know what social media says.

I know what your neighbors say.

I know what your parents say.

But who do you say I am? church.

That's honestly the same question for us today.

Not what your wife says Jesus is, not not who your parents say, not who who the culture says Jesus is.

Who do you say he is?

Because your answer to that question, guys, determines every other decision you're going to make in life.

Peter answers, "You are the Messiah, the son of the living God." In other words, he's just not another teacher.

He's not just some another prophet, not another religious leader.

He says, "You are God.

You are king.

You are Lord." And everything changed for Peter.

When he answered that question correctly.

And here's what I want us to see is our answer to that question still changes everything.

Because if Jesus is only a teacher, we'll listen to him when he's convenient.

And if he's just a historical figure, we'll honestly just admire admire him from the distance.

But if he is Lord, everything belongs to him.

Our money, our marriage, our our our priorities, our future, our politics, everything.

And as I was studying this passage this week, I couldn't stop thinking about someone else in scripture, a person, a young man in scripture, and his name is Josiah.

And he was a young king.

Because although Jesus hadn't come yet during this time, Josiah had to answer the same exact question as Peter and same exact question as us as well.

Who is God?

Is he just Israel's tradition?

Is he truly king?

And everything in Josiah's story comes down to that one question.

Who is really on the throne?

And I encourage you guys when we leave here today, we're going to look at his story, but I really would love for you guys to go and read his story in 2 Kings because Josiah inherits something.

He inherits ruin the whole nation. his god, his his grandfather was uh Manasseh.

And the Bible says in 2 Kings 21:2 that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

And that's honestly putting it pretty mildly because Manasseh built all the pagan worship sites that his father Hezekiah had torn down in 2 Kings 21.

He filled temples with idols and he practiced witchcraft, witchcraft and sorcery.

He consulted medians.

He even sacrificed his own son in the fire.

The Bible says in 2 Kings that he shed so much innocent blood that it filer loose from one end to the other.

Think about that.

One generation, one generation removed and the nation completely shifted and drifted.

And then Josiah's father came in and you would think his name's Aman.

You think that he would have learned from this?

Instead, the Bible says the exact same thing in 2 Kings .

He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

And let me tell you, he only ruled it for two years before he was assassinated.

Josiah grew up in this nation in this time.

No godly dad.

He had no grandfather to show him the ways, to show him and teach him scriptures.

No healthy spiritual culture to be in and live around. compromise was normal.

That was just how life was.

God didn't matter anymore to them.

And and and have you ever felt like you're living in a culture like that?

That we're just heading into a wrong direction?

And he inherited this.

And here's here's such a great scripture in the Old Testament.

This is 2 Kings 22:2.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David.

This is King David.

So he his lineage goes back to King David where and where King David loved the Lord and and King David served the Lord so much and and and and now he's he's he's walking in the same way.

He's not turning aside to the right or to the left.

So, how does that happen?

Honestly, like I was reading through this.

I'm like, how does that how does that happen?

If he's living in this time, in this culture, there's no one showing him what's right, what's truth, how does someone raise, how in this darkness choose choose light.

You know what's so good?

Because your family history does does not determine your future.

Can I stop here and just encourage someone real fast?

Maybe your parents didn't follow Jesus.

Maybe maybe your marriage growing growing up was just unhealthy seeing that.

Maybe you've been in divorce.

Maybe maybe you've dealt with anger and your family issues or anger.

Maybe you didn't have someone praying over you nightly.

But listen to me.

Your past may explain you, but it does not define you.

Because here's the thing.

Through Jesus Christ, God specializes in writing new stories.

And Josiah, his story proves this.

So here's the question, like really, what changed?

What made the difference?

Because it wasn't a better economy at that time for him.

It wasn't new political parties or leaders.

It wasn't a better military leadership for him.

It was Jesus encountering God's word.

And when he encountered God's word, he encountered God himself.

Guys, when we encounter we God's word, it's a living word.

We encounter him.

We encounter himself.

We encounter truth.

And this here is church.

This is this is where Matthew 16 and Josiah meet up.

Because Jesus asks, "Who do you say I am?"

Because if he is truly Lord, there's only three possible responses.

The first one is return to his word.

You remove the idols in our lives and you repent.

Everything else flows from that.

And so, let's look at that first one.

Returning to God's word.

We're looking at Josiah's reign.

The years into Josiah's reign, he decided to re repair the temple.

Not because he knew change was coming.

He simply wanted to restore God's house.

And then while they were working and cleaning the temple, something incredible happened.

One of uh Hilkayiah uh the high priest found the book of the law, which is the first five books of the Bible because that's what they had at the time.

And think about how tragic that is that that God's people have become so disconnected from God that they literally lost his word.

Not because God stopped speaking.

It's because they stopped listening.

When the book was read to Josiah, everything had changed.

The Bible says that he tore his robes.

Why? because for the first time he realized how far they had drifted from him.

The farther we drift from God's word, the easier it becomes to drift from God himself.

There's Paul writes this in second Timothy about God's word. 2 Timothy says, "All scripture is God breath and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correcting, training in righteousness." The Bible isn't just information.

It's transformation.

Paul says this about scripture, about God's word.

The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.

Let me ask us a question.

What's shaping your thinking more this week?

Is it God's word or is it the news feed?

Is it what's getting more of our attention?

Is it Jesus's voice or the voices on Tik Tok and Fox and CNN or or Instagram?

You know, I I'm not saying that those things are inherently wrong.

I'm saying if we I'm saying if they disciple us more than scripture, we're listening to the wrong teacher.

Then, and I love what Psalms 1919 says. says, "I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands."

Because here's something I want us to notice as we're reading and going through Josiah's story.

And I'll tell you about Josiah just didn't hear God's word.

He responded immediately when he heard it.

Because if Jesus really is Lord, his word isn't optional.

It's authority.

Which which brings me to the next point is is is when he heard this, he immediately took down the idols that were in the nation in his life.

So removing the idols.

So as we're going back to Josiah's story after hearing God's word, he didn't just simply nod and hear here hear his head said to the to the to the sermon.

He didn't say, "Wow, that was so good." In 2 Kings 23, he says he began tearing down all the idols all across Judea.

Think about the order here.

First he heard God's word.

He encountered him.

Then he confronted the idols.

Can I tell you why?

Because you can never identify the idols in your life until you first see God for who he really is.

That's exactly what Jesus is doing in Matthew 16 as well.

Before he tells his disciples what he's about to do, before he talks about building his church, before he says, "Pick up your own cross," he asks one question.

Who do you say I am?

Because your answer determines what sits on your throne of your life.

We all worship something.

Every person worships.

Not everyone worships God, but everyone worships something because worship is simply giving your ultimate value to something.

It's whatever gets your highest affection, your deepest trust, your greatest devotion, your identity, your security.

An idol isn't just something you bow down to.

It's anything you look to for what God can only give.

Tim Keller has this quote that helps define define this.

It says, "An idol is anything more important to you than God.

Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God." So that's anything that takes place over that only Jesus deserves.

And so for modern day, what does that kind of look like for us?

I mean, money, success, power, pleasure, sometimes they're those are good things that become ultimate things in our lives though.

So we put family a lot of times there.

We could put sports there.

We could put careers and relationships there.

Even ministry can be kind of put there.

Anything that becomes more important than Jesus has become like an idol to us.

A lot of times we'll look to success, an idol of success.

Some some people build their whole entire identity o around achievements in their lives, promotions and income, accomplishments.

Nothing working with working hard.

The scripture celebr's nothing wrong with working hard.

Scripture actually celebrates that that excellence is great.

But when your worth rises and falls on that success then becomes your savior.

Only Jesus can carry that weight though.

And honestly in America comfort is something that we we ultimately love and and need and a lot of us we can't do without.

And that becomes an idol in so many of our lives.

We arrange our lives around to be comfortable.

So many times we don't like to be dis discomfortable, right?

Dis having discomfort.

But Jesus never called us to really be comfortable.

He called us to take up a cross.

Sometimes following Jesus means we have to be uncomfortable.

Choosing obedience over comfortable.

So what sits on our throne guys?

That's a question I ask myself too.

So what sits on our throne of our life?

And we think about Josiah.

The moment he realized who God is, everything completely changed in his life and it comes down to that question.

And so when he realized that realized who Jesus was in his life, he went and he tore down all the altars.

The altars came down.

The ashrales came down.

The false prom the false priests were removed.

The places of compromise were just destroyed.

Because when the one true king arrives, all the other counterfeit kings have to leave.

What would Jesus overturn in our lives if he walked in to your life today, man?

I I sit with that and I think about that too.

Peter looked at Jesus and this is what he said.

You are Christ.

Josiah looked at God's word and said that everything else has to go.

The question for us is honestly, will we do the same?

Because if Jesus really is Lord, we don't just simply rearrange the idols in our lives.

We have to remove them.

In order to do that, there's actually a step before we do that because it's impossible to remove idols if we haven't experienced Christ.

Something honestly has to change in our lives.

Our hearts have to change.

And that's where Josiah takes us next because the next thing you you see what happens is he repents because here's the third thing.

Repentance is the response of a heart that recognizes Jesus as Lord of our lives.

So, I really love what happens next in Josiah's story.

When the book of the law was read to him, the Bible says that he tore his robes.

Now, to us, if like someone in church just all of a sudden tore their shirt, like we'd be calling security on him, right?

Like, I don't know what that dude's doing, but we got we got to get him.

So, that sounds kind of strange to us, but if somebody did that, we would we would have to run to him.

In scripture, Terry Rose was an outward sign of an inward brokenness.

Josiah wasn't putting on a show.

He wasn't trying to impress anybody.

He had just realized how far they drifted from God.

He noticed what he notice what he didn't do.

He didn't go and say the king's before me.

That was the issue.

He didn't say the culture is the issue.

He didn't say the people are the issue, politics are the issue.

He honestly started with himself.

That's where every change in history begins, not with pointing fingers, but with humble hearts.

Repentance always starts with honestly the person in the mirror.

So what does repentance really mean?

The re word repent simply means to change your mind in such a way that it changes your total direction.

Repentance isn't merely feelings like feeling bad because there's many times that we felt bad about something and then we just do it again, right?

It isn't really crying even during like the worship service. repented is saying honestly it's saying Jesus because you are Lord I'm turning away from my ways and I'm following yours.

Repentance, real repentance is transformational, not an emotional.

This honestly it changes the way we speak to people.

It changes the way that we forgive people.

It changes the way we parent.

It changes the way we we treat our spouse, the way we work. the way we love our neighbor.

Why?

Because if Jesus is who he says he is, how could we keep living as though he isn't?

Acts says,"Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped away that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." That's such a great scripture there.

Refreshing may come from him.

I'm going to bring it back to Matthew 16 as Jesus is talking to the disciples because it's interesting.

Peter's confession comes before Jesus ever says, "Take up your cross and follow me." Why?

Because you because you can't truly follow someone until you've decided who they are.

Everything flows from this question, from Jesus's question.

He says, "Who do you say I am?" If you think he's a a teacher, just take his advice.

If he's a prophet, respect him.

But if he's the Messiah, the son of the living God, then he deserves your life, everything.

Not not just on Sunday mornings.

That means everything.

And so as I was preparing this message, I couldn't stop with thinking about Josiah because he was such a young man raised in the most wicked time of Israel's history.

A grandfather who filled the temple with idols.

A father who rejected God.

A nation had forgotten about God's word.

Everything around him said, "This is just the way things are." But Josiah refused that.

He refused to let the culture determine his convictions.

He recognized the lordship of God.

He tore down his the idols in the nation and in his life and he repented.

And so today guys, as we're celebrating this weekend 250 years of America, let's remember the greatest freedom isn't politics.

The greatest freedom is spiritual.

Jesus said, "If the sun sets you free, you'll be free indeed."