Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as president of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: I'm excited to continue this series on road trips in the Bible. Now, as I said at the beginning of the series, we've actually moved through these journeys chronologically. So we started in the Old Testament, we're moving through now. We've made our way to the New Testament. This is from the life and ministry of Jesus. So turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter 16.
We're going to talk today about the journey to Caesarea Philippi. So the journey to Caesarea Philippi. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 16, looking at verse 13, Matthew 16:13.
Jesus is traveling with his disciples as he did. Remember, they were on foot. They weren't riding horses or driving a car, any of those things. They were on foot traveling around Israel.
And so they find themselves traveling into the region that is known as Caesarea Philippi. So we pick the story up in Matthew 16:13, when Jesus came into the region, or when Jesus traveled into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, who do men say that I, the Son of man, am? So he says, who do men, women, who do people say that I am? Let's pray.
God, we ask in the next few moments that you will speak to each of us, all of us, we want to hear your word for our lives. So clearly this morning. God, move in this place, continue to move in this place. Speak to each of us in Jesus name we pray. Amen. On every journey, not a short journey, if you drive 15 or 20 miles down the road or 15 or 20 minutes down the road, you're not going to have this. But on every journey, every road trip that is long, you've been in the car 7, 8, 10 hours, whatever it is, there comes a moment where you just don't want anybody to talk anymore. There's always, if you've ever taken a
[00:02:34] Speaker C: road trip with children, you know exactly
[00:02:36] Speaker B: what I'm talking about. Where, especially if you're driving, where you just want everybody to be quiet, just like nobody talk anymore. I Remember years ago, when I was in high school, my family had relocated to Central Florida and. And the youth group at the church that my dad was pastoring was making a road trip. It was summertime and we were making a road trip up to the Atlanta area. The youth group was from my church, and we were going to drive from Orlando to Atlanta, and we went to Six Flags and went to Stone Mountain and all that kind of stuff. And so I, we. We took a bus, they rented a charter bus, and we left late on at. In the evening, later in the evening, and we drove all night to Atlanta and got there and immediately like, went to Stone Mountain or Six Flags or something, and we just went for two or three days. And of course, when you're a teenager, you don't get any sleep and you're in hotel rooms and all of that. And so on the drive back to Orlando, we had taken a guest speaker with us and we had done a couple of services in the evening on the drive back to Orlando, Everybody's exhausted, like 72 hours of just non stop. And our youth pastor says, hey, our guest speaker is going to be willing to answer questions that anybody has on the drive home. So he's going to answer any questions you might have about the Bible or life or just things in general, going through stuff as teenagers. So if anybody has any questions, just raise your hand. He's going to answer questions on the way home. And it was the most amazing thing I ever saw. Like, none of us kids, none of us students were mad. Wasn't like open rebellion or anything like that. Everybody just like went to sleep.
Like, nobody could care less about asking a question at that moment.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Like, literally no one's hand went up. And so the guy, you know, he had a little microphone on the charter
[00:04:18] Speaker B: bus and he was like, all right,
[00:04:19] Speaker C: anybody have any question?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: And nobody raised their hand.
Everybody just started sleeping, put their head up against the bus window, and he
[00:04:26] Speaker C: kind of talked for a couple minutes
[00:04:27] Speaker B: and then he realized, and he just turned the microphone off and sat down and we all just were quiet the way home.
That is what happens in this moment.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: They're walking, they're trudging along.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Thirteen guys, Jesus and the 12, they're walking and they're walking, and they get to Caesarea Philippi, and nobody's saying anything and nobody's talking, talking, and nothing's happening.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: And all of a sudden, out of
[00:04:47] Speaker B: nowhere, Jesus turns to the 12 and he goes, hey, who do people say that I am?
Who do people say that I am?
And that is the question.
[00:04:58] Speaker C: That is the question.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: It is the most important question in the New Testament. And I can make the argument that that is the most important question ever recorded in the Bible. Who is Jesus?
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Jesus says, who do those people say that I am?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: And that is what we want to talk about for just a couple of minutes this morning, is that idea. So right back where we were, if you will, I'm going to read 13 again. 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? And they said, well, some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
So the first thing about this encounter is this.
Who does the world say Jesus is? Who does the world say Jesus is?
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Jesus says to the 12, who does everybody say that I am? And do you see the answers that they provide? They go, well, maybe you're John the Baptist. By the way, John the Baptist is
[00:06:02] Speaker B: dead at this moment.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: So John the Baptist, reincarnated, resurrected, brought back from life.
They say, well, maybe you're. Maybe you're Elijah, maybe you're Jeremiah.
It's the most odd response to a perfectly logical question.
He says, who do people say that I am? And they name three people that are dead.
Think about how difficult that is.
So what you might say to yourself is, no, they didn't want to say he was Messiah because they thought he couldn't be Messiah because that was too hard or that was too difficult.
But that can't be true, right? Because he may name three people who are dead. Jeremiah has been dead for 5, 600 years.
Elijah's been dead longer than that. John the Baptist just had his head cut off.
So all of the people are guessing the names of people who have been dead for a long time. So it must not be that they think it's too hard for them to be resurrected. So why do they say that?
Why do they say that?
[00:07:00] Speaker B: This is what the world is about.
In the late 1990s, there's a group, they're still around now called PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They're very odd and very aggressive animal rights group, very aggressive animal rights group called PETA. They're still around. But in the late 1990s, because we were living there at the time, they bought billboard space in a number of cities around America. And one of the cities that they bought billboard space in was Orlando, where Courtney and I and the kids were living at the time. And they bought this billboard space around Easter time, around Easter time to try to inspire people to become vegetarians, to not eat meat, chicken, you know, beef, pork, whatever.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: So they. They.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: They created billboards around Easter time specifically to appeal to Christians. This is what their billboards look like.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Jesus was a vegetarian.
Do you notice that the halo around
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Jesus head is an orange peel, by the way?
[00:08:08] Speaker C: You see that Jesus was a vegetarian, right?
There's no evidence whatsoever in scripture that Jesus was a vegetarian, but that. This is the billboard that they created in order to appeal to. In order to appeal to Christians, right? So if Jesus was a vegetarian, then you should become a vegetarian, too.
Except all the people that created this billboard are vegetarians.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Obviously.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: They work and volunteer for PETA, the
[00:08:36] Speaker B: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: If you eat barbecue, you cannot work at PETA.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:08:41] Speaker C: I don't know a whole lot of rules in life, but that's right at the top of the list. Okay? You eat ribs, you don't get to work at PETA.
So I want you to keep in mind everybody that designed that billboard is a vegetarian.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: And the billboard says Jesus was a vegetarian. All right, let me give you another one. If you haven't caught on yet, There is. He's still living. He's not much older than I am. A pretty famous theologian and Christian author named Bart Ehrman.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Bart Ehrman grew up in the Episcopal Church.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: He went to college, seminary. He became a theologian. He became a professor. He's written a number of books. But over time, Bart Ehrman became more of what we would call or deem a liberal theologian. So over time, his belief system transitioned from one of believing in Christ, believing in God. And Bart Ehrman now would. Would tell you, if he was here, he would freely admit to this, that he is sort of an agnostic atheist.
But he's still a theologian. He still teaches at divinity schools. You see. You see the disconnect there?
[00:09:53] Speaker C: So a number of years later, Bart
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Ehrman wrote a pretty famous book, and
[00:09:57] Speaker C: this book is called How Jesus Became God. And in this book, Bart Ehrman makes the claim that Jesus never recognized himself as God.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: He was not divine. He was not part of the Godhead. He's not part of the Trinity.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: That Jesus became God over the centuries following his death, that the church then
[00:10:20] Speaker B: began to reimagine Jesus as the third part of the Trinity, that he was
[00:10:25] Speaker C: fully God, fully man.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: And that wasn't anything that Jesus claimed.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: So he's claiming that Jesus wasn't God. Right.
What an amazing coincidence that a guy
[00:10:36] Speaker B: who is an agnostic and atheist theologian would make the claim that Jesus wasn't God.
You see where I'm going? You see what's happening?
I'll give you a third one.
I struggled back and forth whether to include this one or not, but I wanted to make the point, because the point is you can almost make any claim you want about Jesus depending on. On your worldview.
So last night, to test my theory, last night I googled, was Jesus transgender?
Was Jesus transgender?
And the first thing that comes up is an article written by a woman
[00:11:18] Speaker C: that says, and the title of the article is Jesus the First Transgender Man.
Jesus the First Transgender Man. Now, you're going to be shocked to hear this. I want you to stay with me
[00:11:29] Speaker B: because this is not old angry guy saying, stay off the grass.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: I want you to understand what the world is saying about Jesus, because that's the first question. What does the world say about Jesus? And we have to have this clear in our mind. I'm not mad. I'm not angry. Look at me smiling, right?
See, when you say difficult things, you have to stay super calm and super happy because otherwise it comes off as very angry. I'm not angry at all.
But I know you'll be shocked to hear that the woman who wrote the
[00:11:57] Speaker B: article, Jesus, the first transgender man, she is a woman married to another woman
[00:12:03] Speaker C: who claims to be a transgender man.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: You see?
[00:12:07] Speaker C: So what is happening? What does the world say about Jesus?
What the world says about Jesus is that Jesus must resemble what we want.
Do you see that? The world remakes Jesus in their own image.
Who I am is who Jesus is. And therefore, if I. If I make Jesus look like me, then I don't have to experience any life change. I don't have any need of because I am forcing Jesus to look like me. The goal is not for him to look like us. The goal is for us to look like him.
Right? But if you're a vegetarian, Jesus was a vegetarian. If you don't believe in God, then Jesus wasn't God.
Do you see how it spins out? And then what happens is we have this thing in our life.
We have this sin, this problem, this thing. And so what we do is we convince ourself that Jesus is okay with that thing. And then it keeps us from having to take ownership of the thing that our life that's keeping us from a full relationship with Jesus.
What does the world. What.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Who do men say that I am?
[00:13:16] Speaker C: What do they listen?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, none of those bad.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Why do they list those? It is not because they don't Think
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Jesus could be the Messiah?
[00:13:27] Speaker C: It's actually much harder for me to
[00:13:29] Speaker B: believe that John the Baptist, who just
[00:13:31] Speaker C: had his head chopped off, could be resurrected as Jesus since they were alive at the same time.
John the Baptist baptized Jesus.
How could Jesus be John the Baptist? They were alive at the same time. They were talking to each other.
Do you understand what I'm saying? So it wasn't that they thought being Messiah was too difficult. What did they think? We like John the Baptist. We liked it when he baptized us. We liked what he was preaching on. So we want Jesus to what, Be the guy that we like.
We liked the miracles of Elijah. We talked about it last week with the Journey to Jezreel. We liked when Elijah called down fire from heaven. So what do we want? We want Jesus to look like Elijah.
We like the prophetic writing of Jeremiah. We like the poetry Jeremiah writes during the siege of Jerusalem. We like the book of Jeremiah. So we want Jesus to look like Jeremiah.
Do you see it?
What does the world say Jesus is? The world says Jesus has to look like us.
Our problems, our issues, our stuff, our wants, our desires, whatever it is that we are. We are remolding, remaking Jesus in our image.
We are making the Creator look like the created.
Do you see?
[00:15:01] Speaker B: So.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: So he says, who does the world
[00:15:02] Speaker B: say that I am?
And the disciples say, they think that you're the people that they want to see again.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: They think that you are the people that they want to hear again. They think that you are the people that they like.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: They don't care whether you're Messiah or not.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: They want you to be Jeremiah and write another book of Jeremiah. They don't care whether you're the Son of God. They want you to be Elijah and pray down fire from heaven.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: The world forces Jesus to look like the world instead of vice versa.
Now, it's not included in this dialogue, but there is a second group of people that we want to talk about that weren't here on the trip, on the journey to Caesarea Philippi, but they were certainly around. They were part of Jesus's life and ministry. They were constantly asking questions. So they're not part of this, but they're certainly there.
And that's the Pharisees.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: So the second idea, when he says,
[00:16:01] Speaker B: who do men say that I am? The disciples say, this is who the world says you are.
Second question then becomes, who does the legalist say Jesus is? Who does the legalist say Jesus is? And we find this in John, chapter eight.
Turn, if you will, to this conversation. Between Jesus and the Pharisees In John, chapter 8, John 8 and 19, they is going to be Pharisees. Every time we see they in these verses, it's Pharisees. Then they said to Jesus, where is your father?
Jesus answered, you know neither me nor my father. If you had known me, you would have known my father also.
Want to stop right there? These are the highest levels of religion in Israel at the time. Okay, so they are the highest level of religious leaders.
And they ask Jesus, who is your father? And Jesus says, you don't know my father or me. It's a pretty shocking thing to say to the highest levels of religious leaders at the time. You don't know who I am and you don't know who the father is. Why?
Look, if you will, Same chapter, verse 39.
They answered and said to Jesus, abraham is our father.
Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
But now you seek to kill me. A man speaking of himself.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: A man who has told you the
[00:17:33] Speaker B: truth, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father. Then they said to him, we were not born of fornication. We have one father, God.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: So first they say, okay, Abraham is our father.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: And he says, you're not doing the
[00:17:48] Speaker C: deeds of your father. And so then they up the ante, right? They play their trump card, which is, no, our Father is God.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: First they say, our Father's Abraham.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: But that's not sufficient to.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: To satisfy Jesus.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: So they say, okay, no, our father isn't Abraham anymore. Forget about that now. Our Father is God.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: How does Jesus respond?
Look at verse 42.
[00:18:09] Speaker C: And Jesus said to them, if God
[00:18:10] Speaker B: were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Nor have I come of myself, but
[00:18:18] Speaker B: he, God, sent me.
Why do you not understand my speech? Because you're not able to listen to my word. You are of your father, the devil and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: But because I tell you the truth,
[00:18:45] Speaker B: you do not believe me. All right, so let's stop for a minute. Then.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: What truth is Jesus giving to them?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Obviously the big picture truth. He's saying that he is the son of God.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: He is both fully man and fully God.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Regardless of what Bart Ehrman thinks, he is fully man and Fully God.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Okay, so that is the truth that
[00:19:04] Speaker B: he is speaking of.
[00:19:05] Speaker C: But that's not all the truth that
[00:19:07] Speaker B: he is speaking of.
Previously in this chapter, and we didn't read it.
[00:19:11] Speaker C: He says, you shall know the truth
[00:19:13] Speaker B: and the truth shall set you free.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: You shall know the truth and the
[00:19:17] Speaker B: truth shall set you free.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Okay, what is the truth? The truth is that he is the Son of God. Fully man, fully God, sent to die for the sins of humanity. His blood on the cross redeems all of us from our sin and mistakes and stuff that we have done. We are justified back to the Father through his sacrifice. Right?
That is truth. But make it simpler.
What is the truth that the Pharisees hate?
Grace.
The grace of God. The grace of God. That the Father would send his Son to die in my place is exactly the grace that will set you free. Understanding the truth of the grace of God will set you free. Free. It will redeem you. What does it set you free from?
Legalism. The law. The law says you're never enough. The law says it's insufficient. There's all this stuff you have to do and all these things you're not supposed to do, but none of that is ever going to measure up. Remember the. They were constantly doing sacrifices. The sacrificial system never ended. It never stopped. Every time you made a mistake, every time you committed a sin, there were sacrifices that you had to bring to the temple in case you had done a sin that you didn't realize was sin.
Do you understand that? You're just living in condemnation. You're just living under levels of condemnation. Oh, I might have said something. I might have done something. I didn't think it was a sin. I wasn't even consciously trying to sin. But because maybe I did something, I've got to bring this sacrifice to the Temple and that sacrifice. And the writer of the Book of Hebrews tells us the blood of bulls and goats will never take away the sin of the world.
Do you see this? That you shall know the truth that is the grace of God. And that truth will set you free from the bondage that is legalism.
It will set you free from the bondage of the law. You don't have to be under it anymore. Again, the writer of the Book of Hebrews says that Jesus, our ultimate high priest and our eternal sacrifice, who shed his blood once and for all, once and for all, we are all redeemed by the shed blood of Jesus.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: But what does the legalist say?
The legalist says Jesus is not sufficient.
The world Says, jesus has to look like what we want. Jesus has to look like us.
The legalist says, jesus is not sufficient.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: The grace of God is wonderful. The grace of God is great and magnificent.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: The legalist says, yes.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: Yay, grace of God.
But let me tell you all these
[00:22:04] Speaker B: other things you have to do.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Let me tell you all this other stuff.
Why were the Pharisees angry with Jesus?
They were not angry because he was claiming to be Messiah.
Not really.
They were angry with him because he was claiming to be Messiah. But he wasn't looking like what they thought Messiah would look like they wanted. Messiah was obviously going to be the most pious, the most religious.
He would do everything right. He would make all the sacrifices. He wouldn't do anything on Shabbat. And instead Jesus is hanging out with a bunch of commercial fishermen and eating food and working on Sabbath.
Do you see that? And he says, the reason that you hate me is because your father the devil hates the grace that I am offering.
You see, law puts us under condemnation. You can never do enough. You can never be enough. The law forces us to try and manufacture our own salvation and we are incapable of it.
But that's not bad news. This is good news. Because you shall know the truth of the grace of God, who died, who sent his son to die for every single person. No matter the sin you've committed, no matter what you've done, no matter what you did last night or 50 years ago, the grace of God covers your sin. You shall know the truth. That is the grace of God. And it sets you free.
Do you see that?
It sets you free. You no longer are under the lash of condemnation of the law.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: What happens with the law?
[00:23:43] Speaker C: Because we say, I know you're sitting
[00:23:45] Speaker B: out there thinking to yourself, I haven't made a sacrifice in a long time. Travis, right?
[00:23:50] Speaker C: You're thinking, I haven't made a animal sacrifice in quite some time.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: I'm not sure that this applies to me. But legalism is always with us.
Legalism is always with us. First church ever pastored.
We had a totally and completely dysfunctional Sunday school. When I got there, there was nobody coming. Nobody wanted to come to Sunday school. Nobody wanted to participate, nobody wanted to teach.
So I gathered of like handful of teachers we had. I said, what do we want to do about Sunday school? When I'd been there for a while, six months or so, I said, what are we doing about Sunday school? They said, we need to try something else.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: I said, okay, what about small groups
[00:24:25] Speaker B: that meet in homes? The church was highly relational for Whatever reason, they didn't want to come an hour before church on a Sunday morning. But they wanted to meet in homes.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: We have a great Sunday school.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: We have great discipleship here. They meet at 9:30, great classes, great teachers.
[00:24:40] Speaker C: They meet in homes other times.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: I highly encourage you to get involved in discipleship. But our Sunday school program at that church wasn't working.
So we decided to transition to home groups.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: And it was great. Tons of people signed up, tons of home groups were happening. We were still doing discipleship.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: We were no longer doing Sunday school, you understand?
I had a guy that came to me, wanted, made an appointment to talk to me in my office.
And he was furious.
He was so mad.
Why? Because we had canceled Sunday school.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: And I kept saying to him, yeah, but we're still doing discipleship.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: But see, he didn't care about discipleship. He only cared about that idea of Sunday school. He cared about that.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: And he said to me at one
[00:25:29] Speaker B: point in the conversation, he said, I
[00:25:30] Speaker C: just want you to know I'm going to be embarrassed to tell my friends
[00:25:35] Speaker B: I go to a church that doesn't have Sunday school.
That's what legalism does to you.
It fries your brain.
[00:25:44] Speaker C: You understand?
Legalism is this.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Let me shrink it down to you. Legalism is this assigning spiritual value to non spiritual things.
[00:25:55] Speaker C: That is what legalism is. The grace of God has redeemed you. The grace of God has redeemed you. Balcony people that I cannot see. The grace of God has redeemed you. I'm going to assume there's a thousand of you up there.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: By the way, add a thousand to the count, Tim.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: The grace of God has redeemed you, right? So you encounter God and salvation and it's wonderful and it's magnificent. And then somebody comes along and says, yeah, that's good.
I'm glad you got in on that. But let me tell you about this
[00:26:29] Speaker B: thing that's going to make you a better Christian.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: It's going to make you a better Christian.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: What does Jesus say you are of your father, the devil and the desires of your father. You want to do he does not stand in the truth, verse 44. He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.
Switch that out for the word we've been using. He cannot stand in grace because there is no grace in the devil, the
[00:27:01] Speaker C: fruit of the spirit.
The devil cannot be peaceful or patient. The devil has no self control. He cannot exhibit love or joy. Therefore he cannot have any grace operational in him.
And that's what legalism is it robs us of the grace that is the shed blood of Jesus Christ and it replaces it with things that don't have a spiritual value in order to trick you into thinking that the grace of God is not sufficient for your life.
Because what you remember is all the stuff you've done, all the sin you've committed, and the devil says, do you really think you can pray one time and you can be forgiven of all your sins? Let me show you all the other stuff you got to do in order to get into heaven.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: His grace is sufficient for you.
[00:27:52] Speaker C: You say those six words over and
[00:27:54] Speaker B: over and over again. His grace is sufficient for you.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Right?
That's what we hold onto. That's what we have.
The legalist says Jesus is not sufficient.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: It can manifest itself in any way.
Now I understand I'm taking my life in my hands when I mention certain things, okay? So stay with me. I'm not calling anybody out, all right?
[00:28:22] Speaker C: But we have to be sure that
[00:28:24] Speaker B: we're not assigning spiritual value to non spiritual things.
For example, the idea of being in debt.
Okay, let me give you a thought on that.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: There are all kind of people in the Christian world that write books and have podcasts and have built a whole career on the idea of Christians not being in debt. I think it's great, wonderful. If that is the focus that you've had for your life is to not be in debt, then awesome.
Not me, I'm in hock up to my eyeballs. So.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:02] Speaker C: But everybody, do what you want to do. But do you understand what if you assign a spiritual value to a non spiritual thing, debt is not great. Especially, you know, debt on a depreciating item.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Listen, I understand all that kind of stuff.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: I get it, I understand all of it, but don't.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: If you make the legalism your God, then you worship that instead of the grace that has redeemed you.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: You understand what I'm saying? There's all kinds of things.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: There's all kinds of stuff with it.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: I just want to encourage you. Don't worship at the altar of whatever that law or rule is.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Worship at the altar that is the grace of God.
[00:29:46] Speaker C: You shall know the truth, which is
[00:29:48] Speaker B: that you have been redeemed. You were purchased at a great price. The shed blood of Jesus Christ for your sins. Worship that. Don't get caught up in the legalism and the law. Okay, now back to where we were in Matthew.
He says, who do they say that I am? And John the Baptist.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: We read that.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Look at verse 15 now this is the question.
Then Jesus said to them, Matthew 16 and 15. Then Jesus said to them, but who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
Who do you say Jesus is?
That is the question.
That is the question. It's not just the question in the New Testament, it is the question in the entire Bible. Who do you say Jesus is?
[00:30:56] Speaker C: Jesus said, who does the world say that I am?
[00:30:59] Speaker B: The disciples tell him.
[00:31:01] Speaker C: Jesus has all these conversations about who
[00:31:03] Speaker B: the Pharisees and the legalists say that he is.
[00:31:06] Speaker C: But then Jesus turns to them, as he turns to us still 2000 years later, and says, who do you say Jesus is?
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Who do you say Jesus is?
[00:31:16] Speaker C: That is the question. It's the only question. It's the most important question and it must be answered by each of us. Who do you say Jesus is?
[00:31:28] Speaker B: And what is that?
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Answer
[00:31:31] Speaker B: the first question in the Bible we talked about it, actually touched on it when we started this series, the Journey east of Eden. You remember Adam and Eve are in relationship in the garden.
They're in communion in the garden, and then they sin.
And the first question in the Bible, God says, where are you?
That's the first question in the Bible. Not to indicate that God didn't know exactly where they were physically.
It is to indicate that the sin of humanity has created a barrier between sinful humanity and a holy God.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Right?
[00:32:09] Speaker B: We are all born with original sin.
How do we get back to the Father? How do we reconnect with the Father?
That happens through Jesus Christ. We've already talked about that. His grace, the grace of God for us, his bloodshed.
So who do you say Jesus is?
The answer has to be this. Jesus is Lord.
Who do we say? Who do you say? Who do I say Jesus is? The answer must be Jesus is Lord.
It must be that and that alone.
Who do you say Jesus is?
[00:32:51] Speaker C: This is the question.
You can read the Bible and read Proverbs and go, man, that's some wise parables. That's some wise sayings. You can read the beautiful writings in psalm and you say, wow, David was a genius. You can read the history of the Jewish people in the Pentateuch and go, wow, God really provided for them. You can read the writings of Paul
[00:33:15] Speaker B: and his travels in the Book of Acts.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: All of that's great. You can even read the sayings of Jesus and go, man. He was a really wise teacher. He was a really amazing guy. There is nothing about the life and teachings of Jesus that would offend any person ever on planet earth. Jesus says the most amazing things. He says the kindest thing. He just goes around healing people and setting people free. And he says, oh. And he says awesome stuff like turn the other cheek, right? He says, be kind, be nice. He teaches them. There's nothing about that.
But all of those things are not the thing.
Who do you say Jesus is?
[00:33:55] Speaker B: He must be Lord.
[00:33:57] Speaker C: That is the answer.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: And it's the only answer. Jesus is Lord.
I've shared this before, but C.S. lewis, one of our greatest Christian authors and theologians.
[00:34:09] Speaker C: C.S. lewis said this.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: When it comes to Jesus Christ, he said there are only three solutions.
He said Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic or Lord.
He said those are the only options you have.
[00:34:24] Speaker C: He said if Jesus, he said he either deceived humanity by conscious fraud, a
[00:34:31] Speaker B: liar, or he said Jesus himself was deluded and self deceived, a lunatic. He thought he was the Son of God.
Or he said your final option is simply this. Jesus was divine.
Liar, lunatic.
Lord, who do you say Jesus is?
The answer must be Jesus is Lord.
The world will lie to you say he doesn't have to be Lord, just make him look like you.
But the world is wrong.
The legalist says, well, yeah, grace of God is great. What you really need to worship is this rule, this law.
That's what will make you the better. That's what will make you superior.
Who do you say Jesus is?
Jesus is Lord.
So let me close with this.
I want to challenge you this morning.
Is Jesus Lord of your life?
Now we could be talking and are talking about that initial idea of making him Lord of your life, as in the idea of salvation, right? We know salvation. You pray, you ask Jesus to become. I say it whenever I lead someone in the sinner's prayer, right? I always say, make them the. Make Jesus the Lord of your life, right? He. He informs your actions, your attitudes, your thoughts. He's forgiven you of your sins. You're making him Lord of your life.
So there is that initial step into salvation.
Jesus is Lord.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: You have to have that initial moment
[00:36:11] Speaker B: of encounter with Jesus Christ. Jesus is Lord.
But I want to challenge you this morning.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: For most of us showing up at
[00:36:20] Speaker B: 10:30 on a Sunday morning at Liberty
[00:36:22] Speaker C: Square, you've probably had that moment of salvation.
What I want to challenge you with
[00:36:27] Speaker B: this morning is, is Jesus Lord of everything?
[00:36:32] Speaker C: Is Jesus Lord of everything?
Is Jesus Lord? Because if There are elements and aspects
[00:36:39] Speaker B: of our life where he is not Lord.
[00:36:41] Speaker C: Then what we will do is make him look like that stuff that we're keeping from him so we don't have to experience genuine life change, transformation.
Right? We do what the world does, or we keep something back from Jesus. We don't make him Lord of our life in a certain area, we a certain aspect, we keep it back from Him. And then we wholeheartedly embrace legalism in order to prove to ourself that we're doing okay knowing we have a thing that we have not given to Him.
Do you see this?
[00:37:13] Speaker B: But is Jesus Lord, Lord of everything?
Is he lord of your relationships?
Is He Lord of your finances? Is he lord of your thoughts, your actions?
Is Jesus Lord of your Internet history?
Is Jesus Lord of everything?
Is he lord of how you talk at work when you're not hanging around with your church friends?
Is Jesus Lord of everything?
Who do you say Jesus is?
Jesus.
He's there, he's here. Jesus. Who do you say he is?
You can refuse to give him everything in your life and instead begin to mold him to look like your belief system.
That's what the world does.
You can begin to worship at the
[00:38:14] Speaker C: idol of a rule or a law
[00:38:17] Speaker B: so you don't have to give him everything and get in on the grace, and that's what the legalist does.
Or you can simply throw yourself down before the throne of God and say, I am a sinner, saved by grace.
And his response is, my grace is sufficient for you.
All of the 12 called him Lord in recorded passages throughout the four Gospels. All of the 12 disciples called Jesus Lord. Except for one.
You probably know it.
But Judas Iscariot never refers to Jesus as Lord.
He only calls him Rabbi.
Simon Peter over and over again says
[00:39:04] Speaker C: Lord, Lord, when shall we do this, Lord, when shall we do this? John, Matthew, Thomas, all of them say lord.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Any recorded conversations between Judas and Jesus? Judas says, rabbi.
And I think that was his undoing.
There was just other stuff that Jesus loved that Judas loved more than Jesus. He just refused to make him Lord.
That's what I want to challenge you with this morning.
Jesus, Lord of your entire life.
Who do you say he is?
It is the question, who do you say Jesus is?
And we must respond, jesus is Lord.
Let me pray.
I'm not gonna do an altar call.
This is between you and Jesus.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: Imagine it's the same moment that was
[00:40:03] Speaker B: on that road to Caesarea Philippi when Jesus turns to the group and asked
[00:40:07] Speaker C: them, who do you say that I Am. Who do you say that I am?
[00:40:12] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you two questions
[00:40:14] Speaker C: very quickly, very briefly.
One is, you may not have ever made Jesus Lord. You may not have ever had a salvation encounter. You may be here this morning because your grandma invited you or because your friend begged you to come.
Have you made Jesus Lord of your life in a real and tangible way?
Have you had a salvation moment, an encounter with Jesus?
It's going to be super simple. I'm not going to ask you to come to the front or stand up. I just want you to raise your hand. If you say, this morning, I need Jesus to be Lord. I need to be saved, to be redeemed by his grace. The truth that is the grace of God must become operational in my life. I need salvation. If you'd say, that's me, I want you to raise your hand and put it right back down.
I want you to raise your hand. I see hands. So many. I see those hands.
In this moment, you are making Jesus Lord over your life. You are accepting his shed blood. You are receiving the truth. That is the grace of God that redeems you, that brings life change, that sets you free, that restores you. Those that the sun sets free are free indeed. And I'm going to pray over you in just a moment now for many, many, many of the rest of us.
I'm asking you not if you've encountered Jesus as the Lord of salvation, but have you made him Lord of your entire life? Because there's a bunch of stuff that you may have been keeping from him.
Are there ways that you have not allowed him to be Lord of? Whatever it is, fill in the blank. It's unique for each of us.
Is Jesus Lord of your entire life?
I'm going to give you an opportunity again just to raise your hand and put it right back down. You say, I have something that I have kept from Jesus. I need to make him Lord of my entire life. If that's true for you, I want you to raise your hand and put it right back down.
So many hands. Again, so many hands.
As I pray over both of these groups, I want you to pray even if you didn't raise your hand. I'm going to pray first for salvation. For those of you that raised your hand, receive the salvation. Then I'm going to pray that Jesus is Lord of your life. Receive that God. You've seen these hands. You've seen hands that weren't raised. God, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, I pray over those that want to receive salvation that want to be set free from the past, that want to be set free from their sin, that want to be redeemed by the truth. That is the grace of God.
You shall know the truth, and the
[00:42:40] Speaker B: truth shall set you free.
[00:42:42] Speaker C: Receive the grace of God for your life in this moment. Make him Lord of your life over everything you're ever going to be. Your future, your destiny, your actions, your thoughts. You receive the blood of Jesus shed for you for forgiveness of your sins.
You make him Lord of your life.
Now, for many of the others, other hands that were raised, there are things you're keeping back from Him. In the name of Jesus, I want you to see that thing. I want you to see that action, that attitude, that addiction, whatever it is, that thing you're keeping from Jesus, that thing that you've been unwilling to give Him. In the name of Jesus, I want you to see it in your hand. And I want you to see yourself opening your hands and surrendering that to God. Whatever that thing is, whatever that thing is that you've been keeping from him. In the name of Jesus, in this moment, you give it to God. And you make Jesus Lord over everything in your life. Lord over every relationship, Lord over every thought, over every action, over every decision. Lord over your future and your calling and your destiny. In the name of Jesus, make Him Lord of all, no matter what it is, holding nothing back from Him. We give it to Him.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: And those that the sun sets free are free indeed.
In the name of Jesus, as you make Him, Lord, receive the freedom that comes from only Him.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland.
