The Christ of God

Shall we read a paragraph from the Gospel according to Luke and chapter 9, the Gospel according to Luke and chapter 9, and we'll commence to read at verse 18. Luke chapter 9, commencing at verse 18. And it came to pass as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him, and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist, some say Elias, others say that one of the old prophets is risen again.

He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. And he straightly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing, saying, The son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the third day. And he said unto them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. And that's as much as we read, we trust the Lord's blessing upon his word.

The Christ of God. So said Peter, Thou art the Christ of God. The girl had said to Peter and about Peter, Jesus of Galilee.

But Peter was on better ground here. The Christ of God. You'll not find that title anywhere else just as unique as Jesus of Galilee.

This great and grand confession of Peter, the Christ of God. What did Peter mean? What does scripture mean? What does it mean to us? As we have remembered the saviour today, partaking of the Lord's Supper. And we can all unite amidst the confusion of the crowd and amidst the indifference, the apathetic indifference of the multitude.

We can all unite in the presence of our risen saviour just now and fully identify with Peter's confession, Thou art the Christ of God. He's God's Christ. The closest that we get is, of course, what was said about Simeon earlier in this very gospel.

He should not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ. Maybe when Peter made this confession, there was still echoing in his mind the first message that had been carried by his brother Andrew. You remember when Andrew and John had been introduced to the saviour, they went each in turn to find his brother and Andrew said to Peter, we have found the Christ, which is being interpreted Messiah.

Well, now there's a word, there's a word that's well worth investigating. We have found the Christ, which equals Messiah. What exactly does that mean? It's a beautiful Jewish term.

It's a term that's lifted right out from the Old Testament scriptures, Messiah. When it's translated into Greek, it becomes Christ. What exactly does it mean that our saviour is the Messiah? What is being communicated? What truth is being conveyed by this unique unparalleled title? It's a little expanded in Matthew, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

It's abbreviated in Mark, Thou art the Christ. Here we have it just in its essence, the Christ of God. One of the things, of course, about this confession and this beautiful title, we appreciate the clarity, the conviction with which Peter spoke.

When the Lord Jesus said, whom do people say that I am? Some say this, some say that, some say the other. Whom do you say that I am? And Peter answers, we say, no, no. He doesn't mention we say.

Some say this, some say that, some say the other. We say, no. When the Lord said, Peter, whom do ye say that I am? Peter says, the Christ of God.

He wasn't expressing an opinion. He was stating a fact. This person about whom so many people are in suspense and doubt and confusion, we don't have a quivering doubt.

Dear believers, we sit today in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, again taking assessment of the love that took unto the cross and the life that he laid down, and he has won our hearts forever and unequivocally, and without the slightest shadow of a doubt, we appreciate him just for what he is, the Christ of God. Of course, that's a question that has been hanging in the gospel of Luke for quite a while. As we have tracked our way through the gospel and we reach this point, we've been waiting, suspense has been gathering.

It's the question that the skeptics asked when the paralytic was led down through the roof. The Lord Jesus said, sins are forgiven. Take up thy bed and walk, and the skeptics said, who is this? Who is this that forgives sins? Who is this person that arrogates to himself the prerogatives of deity, and he speaks as only God can speak? And the skeptics say, who is this? That's back in chapter 5, and then you turn a page or two to chapter 7, and it's not now the skeptics, it's the supper guests, and again the Lord Jesus speaking about the same subject, the forgiveness of sins, and we have blessed his name today.

The great blessing, our sins are all forgiven, and they ask the question around the supper table, who is this that forgives? They said, we can't find a category in which to place this person. He doesn't fit any of the frameworks of our preconceived ideas, and the skeptics are puzzled, who is this? And the supper guests are puzzled, who is this? You turn another page, and they're out in the boat, and he rises still as a storm, and now the sailors say, well, you have it in our text here, what manner of man is this? That's Matthew. That's Matthew, for a particular reason, and I can't divert now, but look, if you look at the margin of your good Newberry Bible, it says, who is this that even the very elements of creation, oh, who is this? We never encountered the likes of this in a man before.

Five minutes ago, he was sleeping. Now he's standing in full command of creation. Who is this? So in chapter 5, the question, chapter 7, the question, chapter 8, the question, chapter 9, the old secular herald, and he hears about the miracles of the Lord Jesus, and he said, I put to death John the Baptist, and he said, I thought I'd got all that kind of a supernatural thing silenced, but he said, here's someone doing miracles.

And he must have come back from the dead. He said, he seems to have the powers of the other world. Who is this? John I beheaded.

But he said, who is this? And so the skeptics are puzzled, even the sailors are puzzled at times, the supper guests and the secular rulers, and the question of identity is pressing itself. Jesus of Galilee, who exactly is he? There's more to be said. There's another dimension to the personality of this great individual that we haven't yet quantified.

Now the Lord Jesus asked the question. It's the Savior's question. Whom say ye that I am? It must have been a refreshment to his soul.

It must have been a spiritual tonic to his spirit. Over against the back cloth of the unbelief of the nation, there stood before him a little cluster of men, and they didn't have to say, well, now Lord, can we think about it? Maybe will you give us, will you give us overnight to think about it? Maybe we'll talk about it. Give us a couple of days just to consider it and try and analyze it.

They didn't need to think twice about it. Just with instinctive reflex, spiritual reflex, Peter says, the Christ of God. He said, all that man has ever needed, all that God has ever wished for, and all that God has ever provided is embodied in you, thou art the Christ of God.

As I said already, it just calls. I cannot do it now, but you do it in your own little private meditation. You have all those of God titles.

He's the Son of God. He's the Lamb of God. He's the Holy One of God.

He's the Bread of God. He's the Chosen of God. In the book of Revelation 19, He's the Word of God.

And just in this particular text, He's the Christ of God. And 2 Corinthians 4 tells us He's the image of God. There's a deity, there's a divinity, there's a distinctiveness that resides in this person that leaves them superlative and incomparable.

And I say again, He has won our hearts, saved our souls, died for our redemption, united us to Himself in everlasting glory. What a Christ, the Christ of God. As I've already alluded to, it's the Old Testament Messiah, means the anointed.

Jesus is the name that tells me about the atoning one. When He hung upon the tree, they wrote His name above Him, that all might see the reason we forevermore must love Him. He's the atoning one who saved us because He died for us.

Jesus, the atoning one. Christ is the anointed one. Lord is the ascended one.

And it takes all three in this great triumvirate of titles so frequently imprinted on the New Testament. But just now, just now, He's God's anointed one. You know that in the Old Testament times, but I want to think a little bit about the context and the color that lies within this title.

There were those three special offices. There was prophet, and there was priest, and there was king. In fact, it was a very famous Bible teacher.

Some of you have the books by this author in your library. His name was Campbell Morgan. And he said that the Old Testament could be summarized in this way.

It was a sigh for a priest. It was a cry for a king. It was a quest for a prophet.

I think Campbell Morgan put his finger just summarized the sigh for a priest. And through those early books of the Bible, there's just that yearning after the priest the invasion and the interruption of sin is that anyone can put us back in touch with God. And at last one day, there was a man called Aaron stood out, decorated in the garments of the sanctuary, shining with gems and gold.

Oh, you see, here he is. Do you see him? Radiant and rich and resplendent. And the priest has arrived.

But Aaron failed. Oh, you see, we're going to need something more than that. And then they begin to cry for a king.

The centuries trickled by. Eventually, there's a man called David arrives. And that is good.

Then he has a son called Solomon. And then under the hands of Solomon, the kingdom flourishes and gold becomes as common as stones and the wisdom and the wealth and the wonder of Solomon's great kingdom. And he establishes a royal.

Will you say we've got the king? I know, but our hopes were raised only to be dashed. We got a glimpse, a little slice of what the king will be like for about 10 years. Just as Aaron, the priest failed, Solomon, the king failed.

So the sigh for a priest goes on and the cry for a king. It still rings across the centuries on the quest for the prophet. Even the faith, the last prophet.

You see the decadent days of Malachi. You get to the New Testament. In the Gospels and in the Acts, the Lord Jesus is frequently referred to as the prophet.

In the epistles, he's referred to as the priest and in the book of Revelation, he's the king. So that the cry for a king and the sigh for a priest and the quest for a prophet, which was never satisfied in Old Testament times. It did appear as if they'd almost reached the goal and then it disappeared.

Thank God, the whole of Old Testament revelation and expectation, it has all found its full expression in this person who is the Christ of God. You might ask the question, as I'm sure you have done, why in the Old Testament, in those preparatory centuries of redemptive revelation, why did God install those three offices and each one was anointed? The priest anointed, the prophet anointed, the king anointed. Why the three? And what was the point of the three? Well, you see, we need all of those.

We need them all. Because each one is going to repair the damage done by sin. And you'll need a prophet and you'll need a priest and you'll need a king.

The prophet is a man that will speak the Word of God. The priest is a man that will do the work of God. And the king is a man who will execute the will of God.

And you say, that sounds familiar right enough. You say, isn't that what went wrong? Yes. Then you get back to Genesis chapter 3. They didn't listen to the Word of God.

And they didn't do the work of God. And they disobeyed the will of God. And that happy relationship between the creator and the creature, it was sadly disrupted and damaged by sin.

And to get those three lines of communication open again, God's Word, God's work, and God's will, we're going to need a prophet. And we're going to need a priest. And we're going to need a king.

And we will listen. We will listen to the revelation of the prophet. We will appreciate the redemption of the priest.

We will wait upon the royalty and the rule of the king. I tell you, dear brothers and sisters, once we get to the New Testament, we don't have three offices and we don't have three men. Thank God we have three offices in one man.

He's the Christ. And He's God's Christ. And He's God's anointed prophet.

And He's God's anointed priest. And He's God's anointed king. You know that the human personality is made up of three different sectors.

Mind, and emotions, and will. And when it comes to salvation, God is going to restore the total personality. Sin entered into the world and our minds became darkened.

And our emotions became full of dread. And our will became distorted and twisted. And we became introverted and self-centered.

And is there anyone, is there anyone can get us back again to what we ought to be as human beings with a mind that has been cleared, with affections and emotions that are pure, with a will that is aligned with the will of God? You see, we need it. We need a prophet that touches our mind. He tells us what we need to know.

He speaks the mind of God. He lifts the cover from the things of God. He tells us that's the prophet.

We need a priest that can calm our feelings. That can take away our fears. And we need a will.

We need a king that can redirect our will and bring us again into conformity with the will of God. I tell you, dear Christians, everything that we needed in each department of our fallen being, it's more than matched by the fullness that we find in Christ. We sometimes sing, say in Thomas Kelly's hymn, though great may be our dullness, in thought and word and deed, we glory in the fullness of him who meets our need.

And we can say today, thou art the Christ of God. I hardly need to remind you that there are three passages in our Bible, our English Bible. Now I'm referring to three chapters in our English Bible where we have that beautiful word Messiah, which is the equivalent of Christ, Christos and Messiah, the great Hebrew and Greek joining together, two dispensations united in the eternal cosmic Christ.

Dear Christians, what a savior. Walk away from Guernevilla conference weekend, glad to be associated with a Christ like this, not something sham and something shallow. All the shadows of the ages fully met in him.

The difference lines of divine revelation, they all converge in him and every human deed is met in him. What a Christ we have. Those three passages.

Daniel 9, there were so many weeks on to Messiah, the Prince. John 1, behold the lamb of God. We have found the Messiah.

John 4, the lady at the well with all the emptiness and the brokenness of our life. As she talks to the stranger who sits in the well, she says, well, sir, there are a lot of problems and it's a very difficult area and we don't have all the answers for the enigma of life. But she says, sir, when the Messiah is common, he will tell us all things.

Messiah, the Prince, that's the king in Daniel 9. Messiah, the priest, that's the Messiah of John 1, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Messiah, the prophet, that's the person the lady spoke about. He will tell us all things.

We are glad, we are glad that before that day was over, she was talking to other people. Just come see a man. She says, I never met a man like this.

Come see a man. Told me all things that ever I did is not this. The Christ, so that he's the Christ of God and all the fullness of his being and all the completeness of his work.

Well, you say that's all very interesting. You've spoken about the clarity of this confession. You've spoken about the companions of this confession, those other great of God titles.

You've spoken about the color and the content of this great confession. I didn't say anything about the confirmation of it. Just a little bit later down this chapter, what Peter said was confirmed.

Only this time God says, this is my beloved son, hear him. He said, Peter, what you said was right. And he said, the people are all wrong.

But he said, I'm identifying with you and with your verdict. He said, this is my beloved son. What about the challenge of it? If he's the Christ of God, how should we live? How are we going to go away this morning from the precious remembrance of a savior like this? Are we just going to go away again to our small ambitions? Are we going to go away from this precious gathering, just chasing after our little agendas? Are we going to walk away from the claims of the Christ of God and just satisfy and gratify our materialistic aspirations? How should I live if I appreciate he's the Christ of God? He said, I'll tell you men how to live.

Take up your cross and follow me. He said, if you try to save your life, you'll lose it. If you lose your life for my sake, you'll save it.

Again, I speak to younger believers here. I remember when the challenge of the Lord's supper reached my heart. And as it reached the heart of that good man many years ago and the logic, did you see the logic of this all? You know, Christianity is not a surge of emotion where someone gets excited by some call for consecration and in a moment of emotion, there can be crisis, but in a moment of emotion, you're carried over the bar with just the effervescence.

Then the fizzle disappears and evaporates. There's logic in it all. For whosoever will save his life shall live.

For what shall a man be profited if he gains the whole world? For he said, think it through. He said, make your calculations. The price of life, the priority of life, the paradox of life and the prospect of life.

He said, keep all the... I tell you, dear Christians, I see the time. I'm just going to say this. If he is who he is, he claims the very best that we have.

We sang a little thing there this morning. You sang it well. I took a little glance around and I saw many of the believers sing it heartily.

When we sang that hymn, majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the saviour's brow. And we concluded in the final stanza of that hymn. Since from his bounty I receive such proofs of love divine, had I a thousand hearts to give, Lord, they should all be thine.

And we do feel like that as we sit and look upon the emblems on the table that symbolize the ultimate sacrifice of one who gave us all for us. And we should give our all for him and anything less is an insult to his sacrifice. But there's a problem with that hymn.

I don't like to criticize hymn writers. I never wrote a hymn, so I don't decimate hymns. But there's a practical problem, not a theological problem.

Had I a thousand hearts to give, Lord, they should all be thine. The problem is we don't have a thousand hearts to give. You just have one heart.

You'll never be asked, young man, you'll never be asked to give the Lord a thousand hearts. Is there a young man here that will say, I will give him the totality of my heart. Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my heart, my life, my all. It's sweet to be at the Lord's Supper. It has been a very precious time together.

I hope the Lord will help us to feel the challenge as we walk away and carry the savor of this with us. And the stamp of Calvary imprinted on our lives don't fritter away your time. Don't squander your days on basketball and baseball.

Don't pour your best energies into the empires of this materialistic world. If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, we ought to give the best response of our lives to him. He's worthy of it all.

Who is he? Thou art. Thou art the Christ of God. May God grant we love him more and serve him better until we see him face to face.

Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee again for the rich privileges of the Lord's day. How precious it has been to partake of the Lord's Supper and to gather with the Lord's people. We've been looking backward.

We've been remembering him and proclaiming the Lord's death. And we've been glancing forward to the glad moment of the Lord's coming. We're glad to be here in the circle of remembrance and amongst the circle of thy redeemed people.

And we pray that the sweetness and at the same time, the solemnity of it all will be registered in our souls so that our lives might register for the glory of the one who for us gave his all at Calvary. Take us away safely now into night fear and in the warmth of Christian fellowship. We think of the meal that has been prepared.

We thank thee for sacrifices that have been made by others on our behalf. We express our gratitude for physical food to meet our physical needs. And we commend to thee the spiritual exercises as the day goes on and pray that seasonable help will be granted to every servant for every responsibility.

We rejoice in Christ Jesus. We worship by the spirit of God. We give thee thanks another time in the Lord Jesus precious name.

Amen.