Studies in Identity - Jesus- What Did the Religious Crowd Say About Him 04-21-24

Overview: Pastor Williams discusses the importance of understanding the true identity of Jesus. He highlights the question Jesus poses to his disciples about who they say He is. Pastor Williams then shares a personal story about getting lost due to wrong directions, comparing it to how some people arrived at the wrong understanding of Jesus' identity. The religious crowd accused Jesus of being a lawbreaker, specifically in breaking the ceremonial and tax laws. Pastor Williams emphasizes the need to evaluate traditions and prioritize leading others to Jesus over strict adherence to rules. He discusses the importance of recognizing that we belong to God and should prioritize our relationship with Him over worldly possessions. Transcription: We have been going through a series on identity. We looked in weeks past the identity of God, the Old Testament names of God, who He is. We have begun to look on the identity of Jesus coming out of Matthew chapter 16, verse 13 and 14. One of the two most important questions, I think, are posed here in Scripture. One being here and the other when Pilate asks Jesus, what is truth? We will get to this question in verse 15. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? A question that all of us must wrestle with. Who do you say that I am? I would say a question that all of us wrestle with continually. But before I get ahead of myself, I want to come to another important question that Jesus asks right before that question. As He's teaching and guiding and leading His disciples to that question, He asks them in verse 13, when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples saying, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? So they said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And so when we hear that response, we dove in a couple of weeks ago on all of those names, all of those identities, and how they could be tied to Jesus. But I believe that was the destination that many landed on or arrived at because of some bad directions. Several years ago, I was going to school at Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And I was part of the college ministry at a church there. And one of the guys that was in that ministry went to North Greenville, which was not far from Hendersonville. You jump on 25, 26, you're there in 25 minutes. He looks at me one Wednesday night and he says, hey, I can't remember if it was Beach Mountain or Sugar Mountain, one of those mountains up there in North Carolina, does a college night ski. And you can get rentals and a slope pass, I forget what they're called, ski lift ticket for, I don't know, 25 bucks. Would you be interested in going? I was like, yeah, when is this? He says, tomorrow night, we'll come pick you up. I said, okay. They came by, they picked me up. We were ready to go. We jumped on the interstate, went up 26, went up through Asheville. We come up to where 40 is and we keep on trucking. And we're laughing, we're cutting up, three college guys just having a good old time. But something went wrong because we saw a sign that said, welcome to Tennessee. We're like, now wait just a minute. Something ain't right about this. Well, it comes to find out we should have got on 40 East. You see, we left with great intentions. We left with good directions. We had everything that we needed to arrive at the destination that we should have arrived at. But somewhere along the lines, we took a wrong turn. Well, but that's how those landed on that Jesus was John the Baptist. That Jesus was Jeremiah, Isaiah, or one of the prophets. You see, they had been given all the information that they needed to arrive at the destination that they should have arrived at. But somewhere, they took a wrong turn. And they arrived somewhere they should have never arrived to. And beloved, we need to realize and recognize that many of those today have arrived at a misconception, a misunderstanding of who Jesus is because somewhere in their life they took a wrong turn. And beloved, that's one of the callings that we have on our life as a believer is to give them good directions. Here's where we should go. And this is how we should get there. You see, they went the wrong direction. And so what I want to dive into this morning, we'll be in the Gospel of Matthew, but we're using this thought, who do men say I am, to dive into the identity of Jesus and what the religious crowd says He is. Where they landed because they made a wrong turn. One of the accusations that's brought against Jesus, the identity that they plaster Him with, the destination that they arrived at, is they called Him a lawbreaker. They called Him a lawbreaker. And this showed itself in really three areas. They accused Him of breaking the ceremonial law. In Matthew 15, verse 2, why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. Now, any good mama in here, any good grandma in here is going to look at that and say, that's right, you should wash your hands before you eat. I don't know where this came from and I don't know why this happened, but whenever I'd stay at my grandma's house, we'd get ready for bed. We'd say our goodnights and we'd hug and kiss and do all that stuff. And she would tell me, go wash your feet. I'm about to get in bed. Of course, she didn't want to get your dirty, grimy feet in her clean sheets, right? But that was her tradition. You go wash your feet. Every night, if you spent the night at her house, I don't care who you were, me as a young grandchild, or my aunts and uncles as grown adults, before you got into any of her beds in her house, you're going to wash your feet. If you didn't, she'd wake you up out of that bed. Do you wash your feet? No. That was a tradition that for some reason in her back, she came up with it. That had to be done out of respect for grandma. What did you do? You washed your feet. So somewhere through the history of the ceremonial law with the religious crowd, you had to go in there. And it wasn't just get under the water or dip them in the bowl for a quick second and shake them off and be done. Right? You wash your hands and you wash them off in your dirty clothes. Is that what we do now? No, no. There was a whole ceremony that was involved and they would wash from the elbow down and it would be this whole big thing that you had to do before you could partake of a meal. And the religious crowd said, look, they're breaking our tradition. They can't be right with God. You're leading them. This is not the way it has ever been done. This is not the way it's supposed to be done. Beloved, I'm not saying that we should do away with our tradition. But sometimes if our tradition gets in the way of us leading someone to Jesus, then we need to evaluate that tradition. Just because we've never done it that way before doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it that way now. That starving person in this day and age that hasn't eaten in days and all of a sudden, they get the opportunity to eat, you think they're going to pause for a second and wash their hands? Someone who has never heard of Jesus, who has never accepted Jesus, they walk in off the street, you think they're going to look like someone who's been saved 20 or 30 years? Hopefully not. So we can't expect them to come in and keep all of our traditions and all of our rules and all of our regulations and we put them down and beat them over the head over that instead of saying, come on in, welcome home, we love you and Jesus loves you. And I want you to know that. And we need to evaluate some of those and understand what's more important. Accuse them of breaking the ceremonial law. They accuse them of breaking the tax law. Matthew 17.24, there was a temple tax. The religious crowd would tax the people for the running of the temple. Matthew 22.17, there's an income tax. That the religious crowd comes and says, is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar? I mean, we're Jews, right? We're not Romans. Why should we pay taxes? That was kind of the mindset of that crowd, but really, it wasn't the mindset because if you back up a few verses, what it says was the religious crowd was trying to trap Jesus in His teachings. So they were leading Him on questions that even they didn't necessarily believe, but they were trying to lead Him to get Him to say something that He would get into trouble for. They didn't really care about what was right. But in both of those areas, they accused Him of not paying taxes. Both those areas. Tax. Y'all remember this story. The temple tax, Peter comes to Him and says, well, what are we going to do? He says, go out, put a hook in the water, catch a fish, open the fish's mouth, pull out the tax money and go pay the taxes. Now, I don't know about you, but if somebody told me to go catch a fish, that there'd be money in its mouth, I'm going to be like, that's weird. That's strange. But he did it, and the money was there. Fast forward to income taxes. They're trying to trap Jesus. And He calls them on it, but then He says, bring me a coin. He says, whose image and inscription is on this coin? Well, that's Caesar's. He says, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's. And this was one of the first really biblical truths that God smacked me over the head with. Because when I was reading and studying this, during my personal quiet time, this was the thought that hit me in the head that Jesus was getting across to the religious crowd at that time. Whose image was on the coin? Caesar's. Whose image is on you? Whose image is on you? We are created in the image of God. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Render unto God what is God's. What Jesus was doing was pressing into the heart of this matter. The things of this world become less important when we draw closer to the Lord. What's important to us when we're young? Building big bank accounts. What do we hear from the younger generation? Oh, I want to be rich one day. I want to be famous. I want to have a big house. I want to drive a Lamborghini or a Lexus or a Mercedes. I want to have 26 horses, 35 great whatever. I want all of this. But I want all of these things. Beloved, if we gain the whole world, but lose our soul, what does it profit a man? Jesus is pressing into this heart of the matter with the religious crowd. We need to give to God what is God's. And beloved, what is God's in this sanctuary this morning? You are. You are. He wants you. He doesn't want your talents. He doesn't want your money. He doesn't want your possessions. He wants you. And the reality of this, when we get to that point where we surrender it all to Him, the big thing is, not only does He get us, but we get Him. But then He gets the rest of us. He gets the talent. He gets our money. He gets our possessions. He gets our families. He gets our hobbies. He gets our jobs. He gets it all. When we get to the point that He's pressing into right here, He wants you. All of you. He even wants your sins. So that He can take it, remove it, cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and throw it into the sea, to the depths of the sea, to remember it no more, as far as the east is from the west. He wants you. Rachel, He doesn't want me. There's no way He could want me. Yes, He does. He proves it. How does He prove it? John 3.16 For God so loves the world. And when He says the world there, He's not talking about the planet. He's not talking about the oceans and the trees and the flowers and all the beautiful things, the birds and the bees and the lions and the tigers and the bears, oh my, He's not talking about that. He's talking about you. He loved you enough to lay down His life. Lay down His body. To be beaten, to be bruised, to be crucified, so that you could be the righteousness of God. He wants you. Then they accuse Him of breaking the law as far as going to treason. Now even to this day, that's one of the worst crimes that you can commit against your country. That to this day, if they suspect you of treason, they could bust in here, lock you up, throw away the key, and never answer for it. That's how serious it is. In Matthew 27.37, they put up over His head the accusation written against Him. This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. We realize there's some truth in that statement. As a matter of fact, you go to Revelation, it says He's going to return and what's going to be written on His thigh? King of kings and Lord of lords. So is He King of the Jews? Yes. Is He King of the Gentiles? Yes. Is He King of you and me? Yes. One hundred percent. Yes. But from them, it was an accusation. No, He's trying to overthrow society. He's trying to overthrow the Roman government. He is committing treason. You see, they're accusing Him of challenging the authority of those in charge. But what He was trying to do is establish the authority of God in one's life. Beloved, if we're honest with one another, that's where we struggle with our faith the most. Because when God looks at us and says, I want authority over that area. Well, God, I gave You this 90%. Let me keep this 10%. No, no. I want authority over that area. I want authority over that addiction. I want authority over that relationship. I want authority over that job. I want authority over all of your plans for your future. I want authority over your life. I want authority over the music you listen to, the things you watch on TV. I want authority over all areas of your life. And many of us are like, now wait just a minute. And in that moment, what we're saying is, God, You are committing treason in my life. You are trying to overthrow the authority that I have put in place. And the reason we do that is because we somewhere have made a wrong turn. We have arrived at a destination that we shouldn't have arrived at. And we don't understand that His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And any plans that He has for us far supersede any plans we have for ourselves. The promises that He gives us are far better than any promises that we give to ourselves. The future that He has written for us is far better for us and those around us than anything that we can accomplish on our own. And so, if we truly want to experience the best life that we can live, it comes in the form of submission to the authority of God in our life. Not just in parts and pieces, but in every part. We live in a great time. You see, in the Jewish time, they were forced to submit to the authority of the government. Forced to submit to the authority of the church. Forced to submit to man. And that's how they were considered to be right with God. God says you don't need any of that. You say, now wait a minute. No, listen. God says we submit to His authority. The rest of it will take care of itself. Because in submitting to Him, we will learn to live at peace with all men as much as it's our responsibility. When we submit to His authority, we treat each other with love and kindness and grace and mercy. When we submit to His authority, we will love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and we will love our neighbor as ourself. All the law of the prophets hang on these two commandments. And when we submit to His authority, everything else takes care of itself. And that's what Jesus was trying to establish in the hearts of the religious crowd. They accused Him of being the lawbreaker. They accused Him of being immoral. First of all, they called Him a deceiver in Matthew 27. Saying, sir, we remember while He was still alive how that deceiver said, after three days, I will rise. What is a deceiver? A liar. A manipulator. Someone who leads others astray. They called Him a deceiver. But we have the great benefit of knowing the full story, don't we? That Jesus did just as He said He would do. That He came back again. A deceiver. A blasphemer. Matthew 9, verse 3, "...and at once some of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemes." Matthew 26, verse 65, "...then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, he has spoken blasphemy." What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, now you have heard his blasphemy. That chapter comes at the trial of Jesus before the high priest, and it says that they had brought together many false witnesses to try and accuse Jesus, but they couldn't because the testimonies of these false accusers didn't line up. They didn't match. They weren't truth, and they could be disproven as truth. Nothing was working until someone came and makes the blasphemy. Look at Matthew 26, verse 60. They tried to get the false accuser in verse 60, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. There was nothing that they could hang their hat on. There was nothing they could prove. There was nothing that would get them to the destination that they were trying to get that would be crucify Christ. But the last two false witnesses came forward and said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. And the high priest arose and said to him, do you answer nothing? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest answered and said to him, I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, it is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven, speaking of His return. Then that's when the high priest tore his clothes and says he has spoken blasphemy because he revealed who he was. And they couldn't handle it. Theologically, blasphemy means to assume of oneself the rights or qualities of God. To call oneself God. And that's what Christ did. Why? Because He was God. And He had spent His entire ministry proving that, showing that, revealing that to people. And yet, somewhere they made a wrong turn. They knew the prophets. They knew the prophecies about the coming Messiah. And they thought in their mind they made a wrong turn to say, well, He's coming as a military leader. And so when He steps on the scene and fulfills all of those prophecies in a way that they didn't understand, in a way that they didn't expect, in a way that they didn't foresee coming, their plans, they wrote them off. They wouldn't even listen. Wouldn't even hear Him. Blasphemy. They accused Him of being demon-possessed. Twice, Matthew 9.34 and Matthew 12.24 talks about casting out demons by the power of demons, by the power of Satan. And of course, we know this teaching well because we know how Jesus responds to that, don't we? You say, I'm casting out demons by the power of the devil. We had this conversation in my house the other week. We think Jesus was a little sassy. That when somebody said something that wasn't quite right, that He maybe perked up like... They say, you're casting out demons by... What kind of sense does that make? A house divided cannot stand. If I'm casting out demons by the power of Satan, that's a house divided. That's not going to work. It's going to fall. It's going to fail. He's working against Himself. Think about that a little bit. Now, in my sense, I'll be like, really? Really? A house divided cannot stand. Sometimes our house falls because we're divided. You are Lord, but not of everything. What is that? A house divided. Jesus puts it this way in another Scripture. You cannot serve two masters. Why? Because that's a house divided. And a house divided cannot stand. Parents, let me press in a little bit here. Mom and Daddy, a house divided can't stand. If you show division in front of your kids, it will not stand. Students, let me press this principle into you. You're schooling. School matters. Popularity matters. Jesus is Lord of my church life, but not my school life. That house is not going to stand. A house divided cannot stand. Beloved, the church needs to put Jesus back in His proper place as Lord of all, because we cannot stand if He's not. Not programs. Not performances. Not personalities. Jesus. Lastly, they accuse him of being a teacher. And I'm going to run to the end with this one. So I'm going to go ahead and tell you to turn to Matthew 27.54. That's where we'll end this morning. Matthew 27.54. But they come and accuse him of being a teacher. And on the surface level, we would say, amen to that. He is a teacher. But not in the way that they were saying. Matthew 12.38 and some of the scribes and Pharisees say, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. He gives this very big teaching right before that. And the Pharisees, they raise a ruckus, and then all of a sudden, it's like they try to swoon him a little bit. They try to fluff his feathers for y'all chicken people. Try to make him feel, oh, teacher. Oh, teacher. Won't you show us a sign? And essentially, this is my words. Jesus says, I'm not giving you another sign. You've had all the signs you need. Look at Jonah. He was in the belly of the fish three days. I'll come back again after three days. And he uses some other examples from the Old Testament. He says you've been given every bit of the information that you need to get to where you should be going, but you've not gotten there. Me doing something else is not going to change that. Call him a good teacher. So they even take it a step further. Matthew 19. Now behold, one came and said to him, good teacher, right teacher, teacher of things that are good and right, teacher of things that help me live a good life, teacher of things of behavior modification. Good teacher. What good things shall I do that I may have eternal life? Jesus walks him through all of the commandments. I've done it since I was born. I've done it. Well, this thing you lack. This thing you must do. Go sell all your possessions. Give to the needy and follow Me. He went away sad because he had many possessions. It wasn't about his possessions. It was about where his heart was. He was divided. Possessions. Holiness. Jesus says you've got to get rid of one and completely submit to the other. It was about his heart. You see, in that process, what we understand is that Jesus helps us to understand the things in our life that must be dealt with. You realize that Jesus will pinpoint your sin so that you can deal with it? Not because He wants you to feel guilty about it. He'll bring conviction so that you will get right with Him, confess it so that He can cleanse it and make you in a right relationship with Him. That's the purpose of conviction. He doesn't have to make us sit here and say, oh, Gloria, I'm such a bad person. I messed up. I failed. And just wallow in our guilt. A little country word right there, right? Waller. Y'all know what that means. Like a pig in mud. Oftentimes, that's what we want to do under the guilt of our sin. But what God says, no, I revealed this to you. I showed this to you so that you can deal with it. Because listen, He will forgive it. Whatever that filthiness is that's in your life, He will forgive it. He will cleanse you from it. He will make you right with Him. Because He wants to get to the heart of the matter. But then, we see the destination that God is trying to get everyone to. That some of us in this sanctuary have arrived at and others have not. You see, some of us are sitting in these pews this morning and think that's what makes us right with God. Some of us put a check in that offering plate that came by just a few moments ago and think that's what makes us right with God. Some of us sung these songs and maybe even sat up there in that chair and served the Lord in the choir thinking that's what makes us right with God. Beloved, hear me, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you gave. I'm glad you served. But none of that makes you right with God. So where is God trying to get us to? Look at Matthew 27.54. Matthew 27.54, and I'll close with this. Jesus dies on the cross. The world has gone dark. The veil in the temple has been torn. So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that happened, they feared greatly saying, truly, this was the Son of God. Where is God trying to take us? Back to Him. Trying to get us to understand who He is, who Jesus is, and what He's done for us. I've said this a lot recently, but this is truly where I want to be personally and where I want us all to be. You know, the woman with the issue of blood that tried to get to Jesus and touch the hem of His garment? I wish I could go. I just read it. I believe it was sometime this morning in preparation for today. But do you realize she wasn't the only one that had that attitude? There was another section of Scripture that said the multitudes were pressing into Him thinking if they could just touch the hem of His garment, and even the shadow that passed by that fell on them, they were healed. Beloved, if we could just get into His shadow. If we just desired God to the point that we were willing to forsake it all to press into Him and just get into His shadow. I was telling you, press in. Touch the hem. Get into the shadows. Lay it all before Him. Press in to Jesus. Touch the hem of His garment of who He is. Experience His presence. Will you press in this morning?