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All right, good evening, everybody. (audience chattering) Let's take a moment to gather up, bow our heads for a word of prayer. For prayer, I'm gonna take a moment to read yet another Psalm, expressing the kind of attitude and the heart that we wanna have as we approach each Bible study.

The scripture is in Psalm 19, verse 33, says, "Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, "and I shall observe it to the end. "Give me understanding that I may observe your law "and keep it with all my heart. "Make me walk in the path of your commandments, "for I delight in it.

"Incline my heart to your testimonies "and not to dishonest gain. "Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity "and revive me in your ways. "Establish your word to your servant "as that which produces reverence for you. "Turn away my reproach, which I dread, "for your ordinances are good. "Behold, I long for your precepts.

"Revive me through your righteousness. "May your lovingkindness also come to me, O Lord, "your salvation according to your word." Heavenly Father, when we take time to study the Bible, it is our prayer that you help us learn, give to us fortitude of mind, but please, God, help it not to be just an intellectual exercise.

Let it be thoroughly spiritual. Would you, God, refresh our hearts? Would you make it strong so that, God, we would not live according to sight and according to the wisdom of this world, but rather according to yours? So we thank you this evening, and again, we lift our voices to you in praise.

It's in Christ's name, amen. (gentle music) ♪ Speak, O Lord, as we come to you ♪ ♪ To receive the fruit of your holy word ♪ ♪ Take your truth, plant it deep in us ♪ ♪ Shape and fashion us in your likeness ♪ ♪ That the light of Christ might be seen today ♪ ♪ In our acts of love and our deeds of faith ♪ ♪ Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us ♪ ♪ All your purposes for your glory ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Teach us, Lord, full obedience ♪ ♪ Holy reverence, true humility ♪ ♪ Test our thoughts and our attitudes ♪ ♪ In the radiance of your purity ♪ ♪ Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see ♪ ♪ Your majestic love and authority ♪ ♪ Words of power that can never fail ♪ ♪ Let their truth prevail over unbelief ♪ ♪ Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds ♪ ♪ Help us grasp the heights of your plans for us ♪ ♪ Truths unchanged from the dawn of time ♪ ♪ That will never go down through eternity ♪ ♪ And by grace we'll stand on your promises ♪ ♪ And by faith we'll walk as you walk with us ♪ ♪ Speak, O Lord, 'til your church is built ♪ ♪ And the earth is filled with your glory ♪ (gentle music) (gentle music) ♪ Father of kindness, you have poured out grace ♪ ♪ You've brought me out of darkness ♪ ♪ You have filled me with peace ♪ ♪ And giver of mercy, you're my help in time of need ♪ ♪ Lord, I can't help but sing ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ How faithful forever you will be ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ And all your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ And beautiful Savior, you have brought me near ♪ ♪ You pulled me from the ashes ♪ ♪ You have broken every curse ♪ ♪ Blessed Redeemer, you've set this captive free ♪ ♪ Lord, I can't help but sing ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ How faithful forever you will be ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ And all your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ How faithful forever you will be ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ And all your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ I will rest in your promises ♪ ♪ My confidence is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ I will rest in your promises ♪ ♪ My confidence is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ I will rest in your promises ♪ ♪ My confidence is your faithfulness ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ How faithful forever you will be ♪ ♪ How faithful you are ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ All your promises are yes and amen ♪ ♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Morning by morning new mercies I see ♪ ♪ All I have needed thy hand hath provided ♪ ♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ Great is thy.

♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Great is thy faithfulness ♪ ♪ Lord unto me ♪ Father, you are worthy of praise, worthy of all glory and honor. Lord, you have given promises and you have kept every promise. Lord, we thank you that you have given us your word, a word that revives the soul, a word that makes wise the simple, the word that rejoices our heart.

Lord, we thank you that your word became flesh and we have the gift of Christ, the gift of knowing Christ and the gift of being redeemed through Christ. I pray, Lord, as we sing, we pray, we discuss your word. May we continually intake your word so that when it goes forth to each and one of us, it would not return to you void.

May it apply deep and root deep in our hearts and through it, may it result in doxology. May it result in praise and worship and honor to you. We thank you in Christ's name, amen. >> Amen. All right. Well, I do wanna highlight a few announcements for everybody for stuff that is happening in the coming weeks at church.

This Saturday, there is a Q&A on autism spectrum disorder and there'll be good information about the resources that are available, especially for children. So if you're interested to find out more about how to minister to loved ones, et cetera, please make sure to attend and it's gonna take place this Saturday, 10 a.m.

in the Youth Group Chapel, okay? Also, please note that there is a child safety training this Sunday from 1.30 to 2.30, currently held in the main sanctuary. For anybody who is a member but would like to help out with the childcare for Bible study or for the summer events like BBS or even retreat, et cetera, at any time you are ministering to the children in that way, you do have to be safety trained.

So please make sure to sign up for that. We'd really appreciate that. For all of you guys who are really new to the church, there is a newcomer's lunch taking place on Sunday, March 2nd at 1 p.m. in the Youth Group Chapel, okay? So if you also are a member and you're bringing out a friend and they're new to the church, please let them know about this event.

We'd love to sit down, get to know them and tell them more about the church. FAM 245, again, for those who are recently married, maybe in the last three years, there is a hike and a time to learn on biblical manhood, being a husband and a good leader. So that's a men's hike and seminar.

So please make sure that you sign up for this. It's taking place on March 15th, okay? And then finally, there is a dating seminar also Saturday, March 15th from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. There's actually gonna be two full sessions of teaching and also a Q&A. So please make sure you sign up for that.

Pastor Peter has mentioned on Sunday that it is open to anybody, not just like the singles ministry, et cetera, but for the married, if you wanna know just more about the topic, how to counsel people, that is open to you. So please make sure to register. We would wanna make sure that we have a proper headcount.

So for the rest of the announcements, please make sure you guys are on the app or the website looking at the upcoming events. Please go ahead and get into your, or have a time of discussion. I just wanna make note of one thing is, you know, when we look at the passage, I do realize I'm giving you a pretty large chunk.

So you guys may have felt like, wow, that was a lot, okay? And I apologize because you know I'm not gonna get to all of it. But please make sure that when you are discussing, don't just discuss the observations and questions you have, but more specifically try to identify what principles of doctrine or faith can you draw from this New Testament passage, okay?

What principles for doctrine or life can you draw from this very important gospel passage, okay? All right, we'll be back at 7.50. Please have a great discussion. 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(audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) Now we'll get situated.

Really cool passage in the Gospels, right? You know, I picked a pretty hefty text, and obviously I'm not gonna be able to cover everything. And the purpose, as a reminder to you, the purpose of the study of this series is actually to learn both the rules and also the good common practice of Bible study, right?

And I hope that by going over some of these things, you guys are continuing to practice, you know, good habits in exegesis, whether it's for your personal devotion or in preparation for the discussions in your small groups, okay? So let me go ahead and take a moment. I apologize, I should have actually done this before.

Go to number two. To say to you guys, if you guys, I realized even last week, ideally there could have been a time for Q&A, but if you want to, let me see, there we go. There's my phone number, right? Some of you guys know I am horrendous at email.

It's a minimum of two day wait for that. But text-wise, I try to reply by the end of the day, okay? So if you have questions, please know that you can text me, and then what I'll do sometimes is, I may not be able to cover it within the session, but on the following week, I may have a quick follow-up or even post some of the answers to your questions, okay?

All right. Let's take a moment to pray and then jump into the study tonight. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your grace, and we're asking, Lord, that your Spirit would minister to us, helping us, Lord God, to glean. Lord, I may definitely fumble in trying to articulate the right rules or how to apply, but at just the simple process, Lord God, of saturating our minds with your word, let it be fruitful.

Help us, Father God, to truly make wise and keen observations by applying ourselves to your text. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Okay. So just as a quick review, remember that it's so important for us to understand the authorial intent of a passage. Like, we're going to say that till we're blue in the face, okay?

There are so many ways by which we jump to conclusions, whether it's by word association, whether it's by stuff we've heard, whether it's by something we read, et cetera, and we draw lines. But remember that the key idea is, I want to arrive at the author's intended meaning, his tone, his focus, his everything, okay?

And one of the first ways we do that is to make sure that we understand the genre and the flow of thought. The interesting thing is, we have this huge chunk of the New Testament Scriptures, and it actually runs from Matthew all the way through to the Book of Acts, okay?

The Book of Acts reads essentially like the Gospels in that it starts off by saying, "This is an official account," so to speak, right? To Theophilus, this is an account. And so what's really interesting about the Gospels and the Book of Acts is that, in the most simplest sense, it is a bunch of stories.

It's narrative, okay? And it's teachings, collections of teachings from either Jesus Christ, the apostles, et cetera. And the thing about it is, you guys have probably felt it. You're reading, reading, reading, and then you get lost in a teaching moment. Let's say you're stuck in, like, Matthew 5 through 7, and you forget the fact that this is actually a story, a narrative, okay?

But another way to look at the Gospels is to remember that this is complementary testimony, okay? It's not just story time, but it's more of the personal account and eyewitness story of the people who saw. Okay, why am I talking about this? It's because sometimes when people look at the Gospels, they come at it with different expectations, right?

Sometimes, because you're reading Matthew, you just wish that Jesus said more in His sermon to give us more about the end times, to give us more about how to do church, to give us more about all this kind of stuff. But what we're gonna say is, it's a tough, tough way to study the Bible when you come with expectations on the text.

One of the primary ways that I've heard both non-Christians and liberal Christians attack the Gospels is to expect the Gospels to be like courtroom testimony. Have you guys heard that? You guys have heard of, like, oh, the Gospels, it's like courtroom testimony, and it should uphold to the scrutiny of the courtroom testimony.

And it's like, no, we're saying that these are more like, yes, eyewitness personal testimonies, but it shouldn't be read like that, why? Because the Gospels primarily are giving the story of Christ as the good news of the Gospel to all, right? And when we do that, the news editor, he's not writing like he's gonna get grilled by the prosecutor, right?

And so sometimes when, let's say, a counter argument from an atheist say, hey, how come the Gospels are inconsistent? How come the Gospels are out of order? How come the Gospels don't hold to chronology? You can say, I don't think you understand the genre of the text. I wouldn't read Psalms like that, would you?

I wouldn't read the Gospels like that either. Why? Because you thought you could be the prosecutor and start demanding that there be such chronological accuracy when the author actually is more making a focused thematic presentation of the good news. Does that make sense? So I hope that I'm trying to draw a line between why it's important for us to know the genre of a text is because there are people who will read it with false expectations when they don't understand that.

Okay, so then when thinking about the genre of the book of Matthew, which is our text, we're gonna do a little bit of introduction, okay? So if you take a class on New Testament introduction, you'll go through every book and look at what are the overarching themes, what are some of the ways the author is speaking, et cetera, and remember that each Gospel writer, if you just read the text and it's full, and I wanna encourage you guys, sometimes, let's say you're doing your devotions and you do your devotions where it's kind of like Bible through the ear, three chapters of the Old Testament, one chapter of the New, and you're reading the Gospel like that, that's great because you're getting through the Bible.

But at certain moments, you actually wanna sit and read the whole story. Why? Because the author is moving you. He wants you to actually come to a certain conclusion about Christ. Sometimes he wants you to feel the movement of the story and you will see that the story moves really different from book to book.

You will see that the book of John, it moves really fast into the early portions of his life, stops at certain very key moments to define who Jesus is and his divinity, and then it takes a screeching halt and it goes slow through the last week of his suffering.

Well, for the book of Matthew, the author is highlighting Jesus as the Messiah and the King. And so you'll see this regular focus at identifying Christ. And in that endeavor, he highlights so many fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. The author, actually, a lot of people believe that it's primarily written to a Jewish audience, in a sense, because there are so many references to Old Testament names, Old Testament prophecies, without explanation.

It just assumes you know. And so in that way, the book of Matthew is connecting the dots and saying, this is the fulfillment of the Messianic promise. Even when you go to the beginning genealogy, the stuff that we just like blow past really fast, you will see that there is a direct line to the Davidic Messianic promise.

And so it emphasizes Jesus' role as the Messianic King from David's line. What's more, the book of Matthew, in its structure, focuses not the movements of like miracles that happen. There are for sure some there. But those of you guys who have studied Matthew, you know that the book has been structured by way of the discourse, the teachings of Christ, the authoritative teachings of Christ.

For example, the huge chunk at the early onset, in Matthew 5-7, the Beatitudes, the words of Christ are recorded that way, and that's how it's structured. So here, the reason why I'm saying this stuff is because when we want to appreciate our text, here in Matthew 16, I know we kind of did a dangerous thing by just jumping down and then start reading.

But you already see all this stuff pop up where when Jesus starts asking the question about who do people say the Son of Man is, the good inductive student will ask like, the Son of Man, why does he keep referring to himself like that? That's weird, right? I mean, there is nobody else who refers to themselves as like the Son of Man.

And you guys know it's a rich, rich title that comes from Old Testament prophecy. But then, actually, you look at every other guess and a lot of the major terms, and you would kind of have to know, right, why did they start thinking that it was John the Baptist?

Why Elijah? Why Jeremiah? Why one of the prophets? Because we know that there is prophecy that when the Messiah comes, there will be a forerunner. And that forerunner would be in the spirit of Elijah. So again, knowing that this book has this kind of thematic or repeated idea of fulfillment of the Old Testament, it behooves us to kind of be ready to know like, oh yeah, there's a lot of terms like this.

Okay, so you don't have to jot this down, but again, there are themes for each gospel. And you will see that when you do full read-throughs, that they move so differently. And again, as just kind of an encouragement to you, when you go through the gospel and you walk through Jesus' life and His miracles, and you're reading the entirety of the gospel in one sitting, sometimes you get to Jesus' crucifixion and you're already an emotional wreck because you've been walking with Him.

But imagine if you're just reading one chapter a day, and then, you know what I mean, you just chop that up, and then you all of a sudden break into His suffering. Sometimes there's just a disconnect. Why? Because we will talk about this later when we talk about Old Testament narrative, but narrative has people, place, scene, all the things that you know of good stories, but it also has incredible movement of plot.

You have to follow that, and the only way you can do that is to read it in whole. Okay, please note that obviously the gospel sometimes is difficult in interpretation because there are different features, unlike a lot of the other texts. We have both narrative and episodes, almost like, you know, sitcom episodes where like this happened and that happened.

For our purposes, we have important dialogue embedded into the narrative. He's moving, He's going, and as He's going, He looks to His disciples, and He has a teaching dialogue. Who do people say the Son of Man is, okay? And then from that, we have various teachings, so what do we do?

So this is both a hermeneutical principle, but also good practice, which is we have to learn to draw biblical principles from narrative texts. We have to learn to draw biblical principles for our faith and our sanctification from dialogue that Jesus is having with His own disciples, okay? If you guys are frantically trying to take this down, reminder, we're gonna send the PowerPoint to you, and a lot of this is intuitive.

It's kind of repetitive, but keep this in mind that whenever we're studying the gospels, we're always gonna be thinking, how did the original audience take this, okay? For example, when we asked the question of who do people say the Son of Man is, we're gonna be thinking from the perspective of the disciples, right?

And when Apostle Peter says, "You're the Christ," we have to be thinking of from the perspective of the disciples. Why? Because for them, they have been in such a tradition. They've been looking for the Messiah. They've been looking for the Messiah, and we recognize in one part how it should be, is they should be elated if Apostle Peter says, "You're the Christ," and Christ essentially confirms it as, "I am the Son of Man.

"You're blessed. "You're right." Can you imagine? Like, can you imagine the scene, right? We always have to be putting ourselves into their shoes and thinking, how did they take this? And it helps us appreciate the text so much more. Obviously, we start thinking, how are we different, though? And there's gotta be some interesting thought through this, is in some sense, there's a lot of difference, incredible amount of difference.

In some sense, there isn't. I mean, people have all sorts of ideas of who Jesus is to them. People have used Jesus for whatever purposes in their life. None of these opinions are very strong, but everybody has one. And the important thing is we are asked, who do we say Jesus is, right?

Number three, what are the theological principles that are primary? Even if it's a narrative, there is typically an emphatic point from the author. Where is that? How does this theological principle fit with the rest of the Bible? We're gonna be doing cross-references. And then, how should individual Christians today live out the theological principle?

And this is where, yes, the meaning of the text is one, but its implications for you, you have to meditate. You have to slow down. So, I just walked through this with you guys, and I'm gonna just take a moment to say, this is a lot. Here's my encouragement to you for your Bible study.

When you come across a passage like the one we studied today, it's not only okay, but I recommend you do that passage for devotions the whole week, every single day, right? You read the big chunk, and you meditate. You read the small portion of Jesus' question, and you meditate.

You read a phrase that you know so well. "Jesus is Christ, the Son of God." You know that. You sing it every time you come to church, right? But then you start meditating, thinking, "But in what way do I not live this? "In what way do I not recognize this?" And then you start thinking through the response and how this story has such a ride, right?

You go from like, "Blessed are you, Peter! "Now get behind me, Satan!" It's like the worst rollercoaster ride ever. It just goes, "Choo!" You know? And you start meditating. I was like, "Why? "Why does that happen to Peter "in the moment of his greatest confession?" All right, so let's get into some of the nitty-gritties of the text that we have for today, okay?

In thinking about drawing theological principles, please know that this is where sometimes the danger of interpretation comes out, but the hermeneutical rule is that when the Bible has implied biblical principles, they are valid insofar as the rest of Scripture affirms it. Okay? So that's why we're gonna do drawing biblical principles from a book like the Gospel of Matthew and then confirming it with cross-referencing and making sure that it fits in the context of the rest of the Bible.

Okay, so verse 13. "Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, "He was asking His disciples, "'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?' "And they said, 'Well, some say John the Baptist "'and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah "'or one of the prophets.' "He said to them, 'But who do you say I am?' "Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, "'the Son of the living God.'" Okay, so when we look at this, we start making some observations.

So clearly, Jesus, what is this? Hold on a second. This is Jesus' time with the disciples and in His means of teaching them, He actually starts to draw stuff out of them by way of this kind of questioning and prying. And it is interesting that He begins with this generic question of, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And I think we can learn a lot from comparing and contrasting the two questions.

One, we recognize the contrast A, that at first, He wants to know what people are saying and how the disciples perceive it, right? And then in the second question, in verse 15, He says, "But what about you?" Okay, I hope that you guys made that observation, right? Second, oh man, second, contrast B.

Within the question, it is interesting that He uses the question, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" using, again, a theologically rich title. And then later, He says, "But who do you say I am?" What's really interesting about that then is that Jesus is already giving us a theological equation.

The Son of Man is already a prophecy of the One who would come, okay? Of the Messiah who would come. Bring deliverance, bring power, bring peace. And then when He asks the question, "Who do you say I am?" He's already making that question, or making that connection. And then, within the final comparison I want to make, it is the comparing and contrast between the answers.

They say John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Again, I hope you guys ask the question, "Why? "Why did the disciples guess these guys?" You know, "Why did the disciples guess these prophets?" But in the midst of Jesus' questioning, remember, Jesus was, if you kind of picture the scene, He was asking all of His disciples, and Simon comes out and volunteers.

He raises his hand. "I've got something to say." "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God," right? It's pretty, like, in my eyes, I picture it as quite the dramatic scene, okay? Because there's this kind of drama of, like, Jesus revealing Himself, revealing His powers. And as you know, as you walk through the Gospel, it's like, "Could this be?

Could it be Him? "Who is this? How could He do this?" You know? And when He meets, like, the woman at the well, it's like, "If you knew who I was," and all that kind of stuff, the drama is the revelation of who Jesus is. And here, Simon's like, "You're the Christ!" And then Jesus is like, "Blessed are you, Peter!" You know?

It's a dramatic moment. Now, my question to you is, how do you draw principles of that? Do you just go, "Okay, good story," and then you move on? Well, I think that you can draw principles from these three, comparison and contrast, because Jesus is using it clearly as a teaching moment.

And because Jesus has asked the question, I could ask you the same questions, right? Let's talk about principles. Let's talk about principles of faith, principles of our practice, principles of doctrine. And when Jesus asks, "What do you people say?" I want to ask you a question. Are you satisfied that other people know about who Christ is, but you don't have your own conviction?

Right? Can we say that a principle for life is that it's not enough? And we've been saying it so long here at Brain, it's not enough for you to be around people who have convictions you have to have your own? Of course it's legitimate to say that. Much of the scriptures tell you, "Stop having so much confidence in your heritage "because of my forefather.

"Stop having so much confidence "because you're part of this Jewish sect," right? "Stop having so much confidence "because you're a part of this group," or whatever it may be. And here's a question to you. There are times in the Christian life where you get so drifting in your faith that you don't realize much of your faith is propped up by your community, right?

There is no private spiritual activity. You don't pray on your own. You don't read on your own. The only time you do is right here. And Jesus is gonna say, "That's not enough." What about your convictions? What about your, "I got something to say. "I think I know," right?

And that's so important for us to understand. Next, the Son of Man versus I Am. This conviction is the conviction of good news. The focus on the identity of Christ is huge here. The emphatic point of this story is the confession, right? And that, to the Jewish people, that's like the boom.

That's like the mic drop. That's whatever analogy I can give. I can't think of any more off the top of my head. But that's the great reveal. That's the grand entrance. They've been waiting for this Messiah all their lives, all their grandparents' lives, and all their forefathers' lives. This is it.

This is the great shebang. So to them, the objective identity of Jesus Christ, this is the highest level of good news and the highest level of doctrine. And that's what Jesus is gonna say. There's nothing that's gonna even come close. I mean, you have various theological doctrines in the church.

Last week, we talked about spiritual gifts, and we talked about what is the perfect or something like that. Was that two weeks ago? Whoa, okay. Last week, we talked about women in ministry and gender roles, et cetera, how God provides instruction on that. And the previous week, we talked about spiritual gifts.

None of the other doctrines come close to this highest doctrine, who is Jesus Christ, okay? And then, in thinking about this idea of the, comparing here real fast, the prophets and Christ the Son, we recognize that to Jesus, if somebody were to say, can you just imagine for a moment, are you one of those guys?

How offensive it would be to him, right? The emphatic point, actually, also, is that, yes, there were many prophets, but all of them combined are inferior to Christ. He is the Christ. And there's this question and point for us to take. When there is such a emphatic point, that it's definitive that he is the anointed one, Christ means anointed, right?

That he is the Messiah, and he's the exclusive Messiah. Why? Because one of the contrasting ways that we can read that is this. Think about what it would mean if we said Jesus is a child of God. Jesus is a deliverer. The difference between the word a and the is one is an indefinite article, and the other is definite.

Does that matter in Bible study? Absolutely, absolutely. Why do I say that? Because, real fast, for us, we've been learning that in good exegesis, the good practice of hermeneutics is that we're gonna go and take a look at the biggest and highest level of genre, just picking the whole style of the book.

Then we're gonna look at the book's context as a whole and its general content. Then we're gonna look at the paragraph and its full of thought. We're gonna look at the sentence and its structure. We're gonna even look at one single word because it matters. Jesus is the Christ.

You know, in really pushing this point, I remember a long time ago listening to a sermon. This was back in like 2010 by Paul Washer. Do you guys know who that is? He's like this very serious preacher. He never, no, I never, he rarely ever cracks a joke in a sermon.

I try to stick in at least one, okay? He never cracks a joke. He was preaching the gospel and he was looking so seriously. He looked at a group of, not like non-Christians, but Christians, and he said, "Let me show you a way "to avoid all persecution, "to go unscathed in this world, "to be safe, to be healthy, to be well." He said, "All you have to do is change one word." In an act of humility say that Jesus, to me, just to me, is a way.

Jesus is a savior. Jesus is a good God. But just don't say he's the savior that I surrender to and you need to too, right? You just change that one word and all of a sudden the whole world is your enemy. And I remember thinking, "That's right." The rub, the controversy, the in-your-faceness about Christianity is when we say he is the Christ, the Son of God, and there's no other.

And in the same way I repented to him and I put myself underneath him, you have to too 'cause there's no other way. The exclusivity of this statement is quite profound. So I wanted to share with you guys that when I build my sermon, this is what I do.

I observe a passage, I observe a passage, I think about its breakdown, I think about contrasts and comparisons and is Jesus, what is he doing with his questions and clearly his comparing, what is the general opinion of me? What do you say? And then it's like the revelation of God is this.

And once I've come to some of those conclusions, then I build my sermon. And I would entitle it The Lord's Q&A, The Identity of the Son of Man. And then I would have three headings because great sermons come with three points. And the first would be, have you made the objective confession about Christ?

And his identity, 'cause you have to. There is no subjective, like, who is Jesus to me? And then you're in a circle and you want to say something different and profound, it's like, what about to you? And then, no, there's none of that, there's just one objective identity of the Son of Man.

But what's more, have you made a personal confession of who do you say? And then finally, have you made such a loyal, exclusive confession? Rather than out of fear, taking the logical implication, if you believe that he is the only way, you should have courage to say, then I guess all of you are wrong.

Yes, even if your parents worship ancestors, they're wrong. Your parents worship Buddha, they're wrong. Your parents go to the Catholic Church and they pray to Mary, they're wrong. And you say that because you have made the exclusive confession that there is no name under heaven given to man by which we must be saved.

And you know the cost of saying that, that yes, you will incur the persecution that Christ said will come. Is this supported in the rest of Scripture? Absolutely. 1 Peter chapter three, "Who is there to harm you "if you prove zealous for what is good? "But even if you should suffer "for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.

"Do not fear their intimidation. "Do not be troubled, "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart." Amen. What a challenge. That was the finger, like who do you say? That was the encouragement to us, to sanctify Christ, which means set him apart completely as holy. There's nobody who comes close.

Christ is not common like everything else. He has to be preeminent in our hearts. What a challenge. In moments like this, it is good practice of Bible study to stop and meditate. It's good practice for us to sit down and start thinking through like, dang, how many times do I say like, Christ is the Son of God?

Or even just that idea of Christ, you know? I mean, just as a quick meditation thought for you, if one of our youth group students came over to you and was like, "Dude, we use that term all the time." He's like, "Is that his last name?" You know, that funny moment, it's like somebody doesn't know that like, is Jesus his first and Christ is his last?

And you're like, "No, no, no. "Christ is not his last name." But what does that mean? Christ. You have to sit there and meditate, right? Christ is the one who is the yes and the amen to the promises of old. Christ is the one. I wanted to show you a beautiful passage.

Sorry, I'm doing stuff a little out of order here. Daniel 7, verse 13. "The Son of Man. "I kept looking in the night visions, "and behold what the clouds of heaven, "one like the Son of Man, was coming. "And He came up to the ancient of days "and was presented before Him.

"And to Him was given dominion, glory, "and a kingdom that all the peoples and nations, "men of every language might serve Him. "His dominion is an everlasting dominion "which will not pass away. "And His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." Wow. And what does Jesus say in Matthew 24?

"And then the sign of the Son of Man "will appear in the sky. "And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, "and they will see the Son of Man "coming on the clouds of the sky "with power and great glory. "And He will send forth His angels with the great trumpet, "and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, "from one end of the sky to the other." We should have like a robust picture.

That title is so packed with meaning, you know? And so we want to appreciate that and take time to meditate. It's good practice within our study. Okay. With that said, I want to wrap up by saying obviously we don't have time, I apologize, to go through the rest of the text, but we have other sections that talk about first was the identity of Jesus.

Then from that, we have Him saying, "I'm gonna build my church," and then blessing Peter, giving him authority. And then it moves to Peter getting rocked, okay? It moves to Jesus actually saying, "Don't tell of this news. "I'm going to suffer," radically disappointing the disciples. Peter getting like, "But you're my bro, you know?

"This is not gonna happen to you." And then Peter getting rebuked and saying, "Your concern is for man's and not God's." Now, in the midst of that then, there is an interpretive difficulty. And the interpretive difficulty that is really, really common, part of the reason why I selected it, is that there are a lot of people within that middle portion.

Sorry, I should've moved to this. In the middle portion, in verse 18, when Jesus says, "I say to you that you are Peter," it's kind of weird that He does that, right? Peter is like, "You are Jesus. "You're the Christ. "You're the Son of the living God." And then Jesus is like, "And you're Peter," you know?

It's so like, wah-wah, you know? In my eyes, it's so wah-wah. Anyway, sorry, sometimes I have, you know, like I read in between the lines and imagine the scene, and it's just funny. But within that, it says, "And upon this rock I'll build my church," okay? So, if you guys either looked at a study Bible, or you guys looked at a commentary, or you guys just looked at your, like, reference columns, for those of you guys who have references in there, they'll probably have a number, and it'll say, "And Peter's name means rock." So, what's interesting is, to me, Jesus definitely is doing something, and the good student of the Bible is asking, "What?" I'm not gonna be able to expound on it for you today, but he calls him Simon Bar-Jonah, which is his previous name.

That was his original name, Simon, son of Jonah, okay? But it was Jesus in John, I believe, like 114, he named Peter, Peter. He said, "You're Cephas now," right? Which meant rock in Aramaic. And Peter, Petros in the Greek, means rock. And then it says, "Upon this rock, I'll build my church." And so now we have an interpretive difficulty, where a lot of people believe that Peter has the blessing of being the foundation, or at least the bedrock, of the building of the church.

And then the extreme version of that is the Pope, okay? Catholics believe this is an evidence of the fact that Peter was the first Pope, Pope, whoa, sorry, was the first Pope and was given the undue authority in which he is going to be the person who is delineating where to draw the lines of truth and falsehood, and where to draw the lines of salvation, okay?

So the interpretive conclusions are pretty simple in the sense that clearly Jesus is saying that he is building his church. And yes, he says, "Upon the rock, Jesus will build," but what is this rock? And the other question is, does this text support the idea that Jesus will use Peter to build his church and will give the apostles great authority?

That's all there. It's not incorrect to be like, "Wait a minute. "I remember reading that the church is founded "on the teachings of the apostles." And the answer is correct. That comes from Ephesians chapter two. But then what is this rock? Well, this is where I want to say we have to do good cross-referencing, okay?

So going back here, remember the hermeneutical rule that before we look at commentaries and before we look at other pastors' sermons, we have to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. Scripture is the best interpretation of Scripture, and because Scripture was meant to complement, we're gonna find that the Scriptures actually do tend to clarify for us these interpretive difficulties.

So going back to here, in 1 Corinthians chapter three, verse 10 and 11, we know, Apostle Paul says, "According to the grace of God which is given to me "like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, "and another is building on it. "But each man must be careful how he builds on it, "for no man can lay a foundation other than the one "which is laid, which is Jesus Christ," okay?

So Scripture is like ridiculously clear in this passage, and Apostle Paul is explaining the very thing we have a question about. And he says, "There is no other foundation "than the Lord Jesus Christ." What's more, in Ephesians 1, 22, 23, we know that Christ is everything in the church.

"He put all things in subjection under His feet "and gave Him as head over all things to the church, "which is His body, the fullness of Him, "who fulfills all in all." Christ is the head, right? Christ is the foundation, and Christ is everything in between. He is, okay, He is going to be the sustainer, the perfecter, the groom.

Every analogy you want to give, Christ is the pinnacle foundation of the church. So what could this mean? What could this mean? Well, just by reading of it, it's very interesting how this direction goes. He says, "You are Peter," which, yes, He is blessed because He's been given the grace of revelation.

And then, in the Greek, He says, "You are Peter," which is a masculine name, nominative, noun. And then He says, "Upon this rock," which is a feminine noun, singular, "I will build My church." But what is He saying? There could be two interpretations. He could be saying, "You're Peter, "and upon this revelation, this truth, "and the identity that you have now confessed," or He can straight be pointing to Himself, right?

But it would be kind of essentially one and the same thing. In this passage, I think it's quite clear He is pointing to the idea that what is going to be the foundation but also the success of the church is going to purely be the identity of Christ. Take a moment, then, to reflect on this.

For so long, so many people have tried to make the church something else. Have you? Where people wanted this to be the best form of a social club possible. This is the best community. This is where we have great friends. The foundation will be Christ. The expression of the church will be Christ.

The success of the church will be Christ. People have tried to use the church for social empowerment. People have tried to use the church for political movement. People have tried to use the church. You name it, there's been everything. Just pure experiences, finding a mate. I don't know, you can just go down the list of whatever it may be is on the agenda of our heart.

The Scripture is very clear. Christ is building His church. And praise God, it's none of those other things which are our agenda, but our hope for unity, our hope for success, is that Christ Himself is the foundation and He never changes, amen? Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You, God.

In moments like this when You're teaching Your disciples, You do it in such a profound and wise way. And we know from Scripture, Lord, You have said that You love Your disciples. And in this way, You reveal to them and You show them just how important it is for us to wash away and remove all the different noises and voices of the world and to focus on this truth.

We have the Savior who is the Son of God. So we thank You and I pray that that would impact us. It would cause us to appreciate You more and more and to think about what we have in the Lord. God, we again want to thank You for this Bible study and pray for a fruitful discussion.

It's in Christ's name, amen. Okay, so next week the study is going to be parables because we mentioned that the Gospels is, you know, quite, has such dynamics. And one of the most commonly misinterpreted genres of the Bible, there are parables, okay? So please study Luke chapter 12, verse 13 through 21.

It is the parable of the land of the rich when the person has great produce. And then the article that's going to go out is called The Sufficiency and Clarity of Scripture and it's just a one-pager, one article, okay? And then here are the discussion questions. You guys can go ahead and read it, take a snapshot of it on your own time.

Please go ahead and have your discussion now. Have a great night, okay. 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