121. Beginner Bible Course: Who do YOU say Jesus is? (Lunatic, Liar, or Lord?)

EPISODE 120:  A simple Bible overview...WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS? (LIAR, LUNATIC, OR LORD?)

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For following Jesus around as his apprentices for almost three years, Jesus asked his 12 disciples, who do people say that I am after they rattled off answers? Jesus made it personal, but you, who do you say that I am? We looked at this in episode one Oh five. We've just spent 42 episodes studying the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that clump of narrative. It's intended to introduce to us Jesus who claims to be the savior of the world while Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus on the story of Jesus. John does a shift. He tips his hand at the end of his gospel of what he's up to. He writes this Jesus said, and did many other things not written in this book, but these things have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God.

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And that believing you may have life eternal life in his name. John believes in his gospel. He's given us sufficient evidence to answer that, that question of Jesus, to his apprentices. Who do you say that I am? We noted in John's gospel. The key word is believe it's used about 80 times in the gospel of John. It's important that we really know what that word believe means in the gospel of John first, we should answer what it is not in our culture to believe might mean to Nively embrace. What is obviously not true. Kids believing in Santa Claus. For example, when I was a kid, there was an old guy in our little town who believed it, rained worms, no kidding.

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Every time you went outside, after a rain, he saw worms lying on the roadways and sidewalks. He concluded it rained worms. I mean, he really believed that belief in the Bible is not Nively embracing what is clearly not true, but there's another definition of believe in our culture to mentally agree with the facts. That's not what John means by the word. Believe we learned in the gospels, the demons believed in the facts about Jesus on numerous occasions, demons, and people would cry out. We know who you are. You are the son of the most high you're the Messiah. You're the son of God. They knew precisely who he was.

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This is backed up in the letter of James. He says this, you believe there is one God. The demons also believe in tremble. John doesn't want us to mentally agree with the facts about Jesus. Like the demons. He means something more by belief. A third definition in our culture is to have confidence in the existence, truth or reliability of something. Even though you don't have absolute proof, you're right in doing so. As we used to say in a find it game, we played as kids. You're getting warm, but that's still not quite what John means by the word. Believe we're almost, but not quite. The word John used for believe means to go all in on something you trust.

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I gave you an example of this back in episode 26 regarding Abraham. If you haven't listened to that, please do. After taking Abraham outside and telling him to look up at the stars. God said Abraham, one day your descendants will outnumber. Those stars. Problem is Abraham and his wife were beyond childbearing years. The passage tells us, Abraham believed God and God said to Abraham, we're good. It's now right between you and me. I gave the example on that episode of a launch. That's what my two little boys seven and three did with me, their daddy, when their mama was at work, they ran full speed across the family room and launched themselves off the top step landing, 13 steps below in their daddy's arms.

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That is the biblical definition of believe to go all in and trust in a trustworthy object. Both parts of that are critical to go all in and trust and to do it in a trustworthy object. I'm a teacher. So I want to give you an assignment. Please do this. I want you to search on Google or Wikipedia. The following person, Charles blond and B L O N D I N. Let me give you the 32nd teas. This guy lived at the time of Abraham Lincoln. He was a French Daredevil who grew up in the circus. He clearly is the greatest tight rope Walker who ever lived.

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This guy could do on a four inch rope. What I'd struggled to do in my living room, you'll see pictures and articles on this guy, particularly his feats over the Niagara falls Gorge. You'll see grainy photographs of him carrying a man across the tight rope. The man on his back was Harry call chord. As best we can tell Harry was the only one who agreed to ride on blonde twins back across the falls. He was the only one who would go all in because he clearly believed Blunden and could get it done. The disciple Peter writes in his letter, Jesus, the Christ died for our sins once for all the, just for the unjust that he might carry us to God.

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John believes he's given us sufficient proof that Jesus is the son of God, the savior of the world, the one who had substitute for our sin and by clinging to him, we would be brought back to the God who made us and wants to spend forever with us. John doesn't want us to leave his gospel without answering Jesus question. Who do you say that I am? I want to briefly summarize what the gospels teach us that Jesus said about himself or actions he did to communicate who he believed he was. And at the end of that, I want to ask you that question one more time. Here's what the gospel writers have told us. Jesus was supernaturally born without a human father.

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He grew up in a poor blue collar home. He was tested and tempted in every way we are. So he could relate to us at his baptism. God broke over 400 years of complete silence to declare Jesus was his beloved son who pleased him. Jesus was moved with compassion for the lost the least and the left behind all those damaged by the sin, infecting our world. He demonstrated power over nature, over sickness and disease over demonic forces and death itself. He never did this to show off, but use this power either to relieve suffering or a signpost to point us to who he was and why he came.

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He told us he was the King, but his mission was to come and serve, not to be served and then to give his life to pay in full the sin debt of many. He confronted the religious bully leaders who were oppressing the poor and distorting the way back to God telling people do chores rather than come to God for his grace and forgiveness through the lamb who would take away the sin of the world. His favorite name for himself was the son of man. The term used in Daniel seven for the one God, the father would give all authority and dominion to. He claimed to exist before Abraham and to be one with the father. And at both times his audience picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy, to have the goal to claim, to be God.

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He told people, your sins are forgiven again, causing critics to react blasphemy who can forgive sins against God, but God alone, though. He told Satan in the temptation, you shall worship the Lord, your God and serve him only yet. He received and even encouraged it. When people worshiped him, he fulfilled numerous prophecies about the Messiah of the old Testament. The son of David, the son of God who had come to die for our sins and rule his righteous King and some of these prophecies, he fulfilled on purpose. He wanted us to believe he was the Messiah. He claimed we needed him to live. Like we need food and water.

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Then he backed it up, feeding over 5,000 with food from a kid's lunch pail. He claimed he only could bring light to all of us in complete spiritual darkness. Then he backed it up by healing. A man born blind. He claimed he was the one who resurrected people and gave them eternal life. Then he backed it up by raising Lazarus, a man dead four days and stinking up his crypt. He said he was the good shepherd one who had laid down his life for his sheep. And he laid it down intentionally on a cross on good Friday, dying on that cross. He prayed forgiveness for killers, promise salvation to the thief who trusted in him and provided for his mama standing there in the dark hours of the afternoon.

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He declared God had forsaken him. As he carried the sins of the world. Then with God satisfied, he cried out, paid in full, over and over. He promised he would rise from the dead. On the third day, he pulls it off appearing to multiple people in groups over a period of 40 days, he promised he would not leave as disciples alone then or now he would send the Holy spirit to live in and through as apprentices until he returned. He promised he would return to do Messiah part to reign as righteous King. And he would return in the same way he left. Then he left our planet by ascending to the father in the clouds.

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And that's not all John and the other gospel writers report. But John claims these things are enough for you to answer the question. Who do you think Jesus is during world war two, an Oxford literature professor CS Lewis, also the author of the famous book series, the Chronicles of Narnia, challenged people to answer this question of Jesus. Who do you say that I am? He developed an argument called the tri lemme a dilemma is putting you in a position to make one of two hard choices like being between a rock and a hard place in a trilemma, three choices are presented. Each of them have consequences that are difficult or unfavorable based on the claims of the gospel writers.

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CS Lewis said, we only have a choice of three answers to Jesus' question. Who do you say that I am? Those three choices were this he's a liar, a lunatic or the Lord, or even more simple. He's bad. He's mad or he's God. He explains in his quote from his book mere Christianity. I might add a must read if you're still a skeptic. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say a man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

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He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he's a poached egg or else. He would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice either. This man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut them up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He's not left that open to us. He did not intend to, as we went through the gospels, people concluded three of those things. Some thought he'd lost it.

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Even his own brothers felt that way until they met the risen Lord. Some called him a Samaritan devil and some like Thomas declared my Lord and my God. So as we leave the gospels, who do you say that he is? If you like, my little boys have launched and gone all in, I invite you to join me for the last 23 books of the new Testament. They're going to teach us how to live life all in until Jesus comes. If you can't go there, would you read John's gospel beginning to end before you do, what'd you do this? Would you write this down or whisper it?

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God, if you exist, if Jesus really is your son, and if there is this helper, this Holy spirit who can help me understand you and have sufficient confidence to go all in. I want you to do that with me. As I read, would you do that? Of course, you're invited to tag along with us through the last 23 books. And speaking of those 23 books next up is this the book of acts, the four gospels introduced Jesus, the savior and the salvation he claims to bring acts gives us the fascinating historical account of how the news of Jesus spread from Jerusalem to the ends of the Roman empire will be introduced to Luke's account the acts of the apostles in our next wordpicture.