Building an Authentic Faith - Profession

Mark 8:27-38

One of the most important questions we must answer in our lives is the one asked by Jesus in this passage from Mark: Who do you say that I am? How we identify Jesus not only gives shape to what we believe, it needs to give direction to how we live. An authentic faith not only knows that God loves us but it understands what it means to profess Jesus as our Savior and Lord. But before we look to answer Jesus’ question, let’s first look at where and when and how he asks the question.

It says Jesus and disciples were travelling into the region of Caesarea Philippi. This was an area several miles north of the Sea of Galilee and it was ruled by Philip who was the brother of the Roman governor Herod. Since it was an area with very strong Greek and Roman influences it was not a place often visited by Jews, and this is the only account we have of Jesus ever travelling in this region. What is important for us to know about Caesarea Philippi is that this was an area linked to visions and epiphanies in Jewish tradition. During the time between the end of the Old Testament and birth of Jesus, what is know at the inter-testamental period, this area was where the Jewish leaders Enoch & Levi experienced visions, and so Caesarea Philippi became known to the Jewish people as a holy place. Even though by the time of Jesus it had come under Greek and Roman dominance, the Jewish people still thought of it as holy ground where people were more closely connected to God and where people received messages from God. I think Jesus wanted his disciples to be in this holy place when they first answer this question because he wanted them to be confident that what they were seeing in Jesus and what they were saying about him wasn’t just their own opinions, who they professed Jesus to be was truth coming from God.

It’s not an accident where Jesus asks this question, he specifically takes them there for this reason, and it’s not an accident when Jesus asks. Jesus asks the disciples to profess who he is only after they have taken part in some significant activities with Jesus. In Mark 6 we see that Jesus included his disciples in the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and again the disciples were included when Jesus fed the 4,000 in Mark 8. What’s significant about these 2 feedings is that the disciples are not just passive observers to the miracle of Jesus, they become active participants. They aren’t just listening to Jesus teach or watching him heal and perform miracles, they are involved in the actual work he is doing. In the feeding stories Jesus instructs the disciples to tell the people to sit down in groups, and then Jesus has the disciples distribute the food, and it’s as they are giving out the food that it is multiplied. The disciples are working alongside Jesus in performing the miracle, they are part of it and so they get to experience for themselves Jesus’ power. It is this kind of experience that helps the disciples understand who Jesus is and it helps them profess with confidence that Jesus is the Christ.

Now let’s look at how Jesus asks the question. Notice that he starts by asking a rather general question, Who do people say that I am? What are other people saying about me? What Jesus does with this question is give the disciples an opportunity to just talk about who he is, after all Jesus already knows what the people are saying about him. He doesn’t ask this question because he needs to know the answer, Jesus knows the answer, he knows what people are saying, he asks the question to give his disciples an opportunity to talk and to begin to wrestle with their own questions, and you have to believe they had questions. They have seen Jesus feed the multitudes twice, walk on water, calm a storm, heal the sick, and he just restored sight to a blind man and as he does all these amazing things, you know they have to be asking themselves “who is he?” In fact, in Luke’s account of Jesus calming the storm the disciples do ask themselves, who is this that even the wind & the seas obey him? They have lots of questions and now they have been given the opportunity to talk about it all with Jesus.

So they tell Jesus that the people are saying he is John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the other great prophets. While it’s all an interesting conversation, Jesus ultimately isn’t interested in an interesting conversation about what others are saying, he does all of this to provide an opportunity for his disciples to profess their faith, so Jesus then turns the question back to his disciples and this time makes it personal. What about you? Who do you say I am?
And that’s the question we all have to ask ourselves. Who do we profess Jesus to be? While it is interesting to talk about Jesus and what he has done, and while it is fascinating to have theological debates about what we know of Jesus from the Bible and other historical materials, the real question we need to come to terms with is who do we say Jesus is? Forget about what someone else says, forget about what we read in commentaries or hear in Sunday School, what is it we profess? Who do we say Jesus is? The answer to this question makes all the difference.

While the Bible is full of titles given to Jesus, and we saw again this morning the great video about who Jesus is, what I want us to do is look at just 2 titles, for me the most important 2: Savior and Lord. In many ways these 2 titles help us define Peter’s profession of Jesus as the Christ because the Christ means the Anointed One. The Christ, or Messiah, was a leader who one who was coming from God to save the people of Israel & set them free from oppression. So in many ways the Christ was coming to be a Savior & Lord. What do we mean when we call Jesus our Savior and Lord?

Let’s start with Savior – Jesus is our Savior because he is the one who saves us from sin. Sin separates us from God. God has called us to live in relationship with Him and we fail in that relationship every day. Paul says in Romans that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and then he says, the wages of our sin, or the consequence of our sin, is death. The death we are talking about is not a physical death - it is a spiritual one, our sin cuts us off from the source of all life which is God and there is nothing we can do to restore that relationship on our own. Through Jesus, however, we can be brought back into a relationship with God. The message of the cross and then the empty tomb is that through Jesus we are forgiven and we are raised with Christ to a new & eternal life.

That’s the message of John 3:16 we heard last week, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sin and when we believe in him, when we trust in the work of Jesus on the cross, we will not die in our sin but experience forgiveness and eternal life. When we accept the work of Jesus for ourselves, when we place our faith and trust in the cross – we are professing Jesus to be our savior. Making Jesus our Savior really is as simply as saying, God I trust in the work of Jesus on the cross to forgive me of my sin &I trust Jesus to restore me into a right relationship with you. If you have never asked God for this forgiveness – you can do it today and profess Jesus as your Savior.

Jesus has come to be our Savior, but he also comes to be our Lord & this is where what we profess needs to give shape to what we do and how we live - because we can’t call Jesus Lord and then keep on living our lives as we did before. Professing Jesus as Lord means being willing to allow Jesus to give direction to our lives. A lord is someone who has authority over other people and when a lord gives direction – people follow. So calling Jesus Lord means we need to give him authority in our lives to guide us & direct us & then be willing to follow wherever he leads, but let’s be honest, this is not easy. Look back at Peter. He called Jesus the Christ, but then he wasn’t willing to follow Jesus when he explained what it meant for him to be the Christ. For Jesus, being the Christ was going to mean suffering & death, to which Peter says, no way, this will never happen to you. Peter didn’t want to go where Jesus was going, he didn’t want to do what Jesus was going to have to do.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t just rebuke Peter, he shows him, and he shows all of us that if we are going to call Jesus our Lord then we must be willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. Calling Jesus Lord means being willing to sacrifice what we may want in order to do what God wants, and this refocusing of our lives on the will and the way of God needs to penetrate every aspect of our life. From our relationships with family and friends, to our need to forgive, to the service we offer to those in need, to the use of our resources and money, our time and talents – everything we do needs to be shaped by what it means for us to call Jesus our Lord. Calling Jesus Lord means going where Jesus goes and doing what Jesus does.

If you still have doubts about who Jesus is, or if you are struggling to be able to call him Savior or Lord, then think about putting yourself into a position where you can make that call. Remember, the disciples weren’t able to profess Jesus as the Christ until after they had worked with Jesus. It was because they had spent time with Jesus and had even been part of his miracles and experienced his power that they were able to make the profession they did. If you are still struggling with what to call Jesus, don’t turn away from him, turn towards him & walk along side him and do the things that Jesus is doing. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, nurture the children, care of the sick, join a Bible Study, commit yourself to the 60/60 experiment where you reorient yourself on the will and the way of God, like the disciples, step out in faith in some way and allow yourself to experience the power of God. Knowing Jesus as our Savior and Lord doesn’t come by being a passive observer and no amount of knowledge will give us the assurance we need. Authentic faith that proclaims with confidence that Jesus is Savior and Lord comes by being an active participant with Jesus.

Who do you say that I am? An authentic faith says Jesus is Savior not because we read it in a book or heard it in a sermon; we profess it because we have experienced the saving power of Jesus for ourselves – we know we are forgiven. An authentic faith professes Jesus is Lord and then works hard to go where Jesus goes and do what Jesus does – even when it means that we deny ourselves and take up a cross.