Let's turn together to Matthew chapter 16. And verse 13, Matthew 16, 13, this morning. When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremias or one of the prophets.

Now God's condemnation in the scriptures against men is in Psalm 50 21 among other places but he says there thou thoughtest that i was altogether such in one as thyself When these men say he's one of these supposedly great, notorious men, come back, reincarnated, whatever you want to call it, we're thinking in earthly terms.

We're thinking that he's just a notorious man. And he deliberately uses the phrase, who do men say that I, the son of man, am? And they thought that he was one of these other notorious people But he says in Psalm 50, 21, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such in one as thyself, but I will reprove thee.

I will set this in order before thine eyes. The Lord Jesus is gonna show his people that he's not just a man, that he's not just a notorious example or martyr or whatever men say that he is. Who do men say today that he is? Well, he wants the best for everybody, and he's tried his best for everybody, and he's trying to woo everybody. You know what people say. Whom do men say that I am?

And that's the problem. We think that he's altogether such as we are, that he tries, that he wants to, that he woos, that he attempts to get people to do things. He said, I'll reprove thee of that. If he's going to save you, he's going to have to reprove you in that regard. He's going to have to reveal to you that he's not like you. He's not like you in that.

Here's the Son of God walking among these people in human flesh, and they begin to start thinking of great men, notorious men, religious men. He can do great things. This must be Elijah. He does miracles. He must be, he's Elijah. Come back. Our frame of reference is altogether earthly until the Lord reveals who he is. Nobody knows the father or the son until it's revealed unto them.

John 8 51, It says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that he has a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets. And thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.

Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? The implied conclusion there is that he's not greater than Abraham. They exalted Abraham above the Son of God because they were religious but godless. Abraham wrote of Christ. Abraham spoke of Christ. Abraham, the Lord said, saw my day and he was glad. Are you greater than our father Abraham, which is dead, and the prophets are dead? Who do you make yourself? Who do you make yourself? Who do you think you are?

People haven't changed. Religious people, who do they pray to? Saints, men, men and women, statues, the man in Rome. the reprobate, godless Antichrist in Rome, while hating the Son of God in our hearts. And then Jesus answered them, who do you think you are? They said, who do you make yourself? And Jesus answered and said, if I honor myself, my honor's nothing. If it's just me saying it against what you say. It is my Father that honoreth me, of whom you say that he is your God.

You say he's your God. But when your God is standing, your God is standing in front of you, you denounce Him, you reject Him, you despise Him. People love the idea of God, but their idea of God is somebody that wants to bless them all the time. If they'll just let Him, you know, let go and let God. That's the God that they love. The God that has mercy on whom He will, The God who chooses, the God who's God whether they like it or not, the God who's God of everything and everybody, people don't like him. People don't like him. He said, who do you make yourself? When he voiced his authority, when he asserted his sovereignty, that's when they bowed up. That's when they had a problem with him.

But you say that he's your God, but you have not known him. You don't know who God is, but I know him. And if I should say I know him not, I'd be a liar like you. You're saying you know him and you're lying. If I said I didn't know him, I'd be lying, like you. But I know him and keep his saying.

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. You're worshiping Abraham, but Abraham worshiped me, he said. Why are people praying to St. Peter when Peter worshiped Christ? When Simon was before the angel and he bowed, the angel said, no, no. No, don't bow to me. Let's both bow to God. Worship God.

Then the Jews said unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? And Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Am this is the I am that appeared to Moses in the bush that burned but was not consumed the one before whom Moses stood on holy ground not because it was any different than any other dirt, but because the Son of God was there You ever see him if we ever see him I and understand who he is.

And that's what this whole passage is about. Who do people say that I am? That's the heart of the issue. Not tell me your points of doctrine. Our doctrine is a person. Everything that comes out of his mouth is our doctrine. It's not some points that we, you can't have a condensed gospel. Here's the gospel in a nutshell, people say. You can't put it in a nutshell. The gospel is the almighty, infinite, eternal God the Son.

Isaiah said in 2.22 of Isaiah, cease ye from man. Cease ye from man. They said he's one of these great men. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils. And look to the one who made man, the one who rules man. And then the Lord Jesus said to his disciples when they told him what people were saying, Some people say, boy, you're so great that you must be one of these men, come back from the dead.

No, you're aiming too low. That's our problem by nature, is we think way too much of ourselves and way too little of God. Romans chapter 1, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. We talk about it all the time. The problem in the garden was who's God and who's not. The problem this morning as you sit there, the issue is who's God and who's not. Be still, he said. We sang that song this morning. Be still and know that I'm God.

That's all you have to know. everything else falls into place when you believe that what Simon's about to say, that this is the Christ, the Son of the living God, when you know who He is, everything else falls in place. Well, don't you have to believe in the doctrine of limited atonement? No, you have to believe on the Son of God, because when He dies for somebody in order to save them, they're saved because He's the Son of God. Bowing up at the doctrine of limited atonement is not that you disagree with a point of doctrine.

The problem is you don't know who Jesus Christ is. That's the problem. And we need to understand the problem if we're gonna be able to tell forth the solution to the problem. Somebody and not some point. We preach Christ and Him crucified for that very reason, because you need to know Him, that when He dies to redeem somebody, He redeems them. When He loves somebody in eternity, their love throughout without beginning or end, that He loves indeed, that when He lays down His life for His sheep, they shall never perish. That's not complicated. People just hate it because it takes all the glory away from the sinner and attributes it to him who alone is worthy of all glory. The son of man, the son of God, Christ, the son of the living God. And then in verse 15, he said unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And you think about what the Lord's doing here. We've talked about this several times. He is deliberately making a distinction He's pointing out a difference.

You remember the Lord said in the Old Testament that I do what I do to make a difference between my people and the people of this world, but not a dog will wag its tongue against my people. The Lord doth put a difference between his people and the people of this world, the sinners of this world who are anti-Christ. He puts a difference, and this is it right here. We're gonna see later why they were, that Simon was able to speak for them and say who he truly is. Because the Lord said, because it's revealed to you.

I've put a difference between you and them. And you see how he's starkly raising, he's pointing out and highlighting that difference. There's a difference. It says, when he spoke to the Jews, There was a division among the people. Do you remember the next words? Because of him, because of him, because of who he is. There's the division. And he's deliberately pointing it out right here. But who do you say that I am?

Our Lord never did or said anything just in random fashion without specific purpose. He's exercising their faith here. Religion says you just need to exercise your faith. No, that's God's purview. God will try the faith that he gives. That's not something you do. That's something he does. He will cause you not just to confess faith, but to live it. That's what he's doing right here.

He did everything he did and said everything he did in exactly the perfect way that would best accomplish the desired preordained effect and result. He deliberately establishes here a comparison, a contrast between what men in general think of himself and what his sheep confess concerning him. And it's all about him in both cases. What is it to be saved? to be able to confess who he is in truth. What is it to be lost? What is antichrist? To not know him, to not have him, to not be found in him.

The difference, the contrast is over the son of God. Points of doctrine, it becomes clearer and clearer to me. Points of doctrine are just footnotes to who Christ is. If your doctrine is wrong, it's because you don't know him. It's not because you haven't figured out the points correctly. It's because you don't know who God's son is. And if your doctrine is true, it's because you know him.

So let's find out who he is. Not what the fathers believed, not what the Philadelphia Confession of Faith says. Let's don't put that on the wall here. Let's find out by the grace of God who His Son is. God, teach us who you are. Reveal to us who you are. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

It's that simple. There's a marked and vital contrast. And our Lord, rather than playing down differences, you know, religion wants to bring everybody together. Let's just all have one big, we're all just go on different roads to the same place. No, no, our Lord didn't see it that way. He didn't see it like that. We want people to know who he is. We don't want to just get together. We don't want to cry peace, peace, where there is no peace. We want people to know the peace that's found in Christ alone. Everybody should, we should respect each other's, you know, this and that. No, no. No, there's one way, there's one truth, there's one life.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." He's not encouraging discord in the family. He's simply stating that the issue has nothing to do with blood ties.

The issues of life and death Family is something bigger than that. Who is my mother? Who are my brethren? And a man's foes shall be they. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Well, I'm a Baptist because my daddy was a Baptist. That's not a good reason. Do you love your heritage? You know, your grandpa was a Baptist preacher.

We're gonna have to fall in love with God's son to the exclusion of everybody else in that regard when it comes to the truth, when it comes to who's to be glorified, when it comes to who he is. He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. Why did the Lord take up a cross? Because people hated him. You've got to be willing to take up that cross. Well, everybody hates me. Well, you're in good company, though. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say about the Son of God. You're in good company.

He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it. He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. So he makes this division between what everybody's saying and what the disciples say. And there is division all the way down between our earthly relationships with our family sometimes and our brothers and sisters and children.

And that's tragic. But Christ is all. Christ is all. And rather than love your family so much that you bend to them, love the Savior so much and them that you do everything that the Lord, every opportunity the Lord gives to witness of Christ. and see that maybe someday the Lord will save them, maybe someday the Lord will have mercy on them, pray for their souls.

And again, this thing of referring to men, when you're identifying God's son, refer to men that you respect. Our generation, you can see that, isn't it? And not only do we worship other men, we worship ourselves. We exalt ourselves as men, as sinners over God, in whose will is supreme, whose way is supreme. whose work is worth something.

In verse 16, Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ. You know, Simon said a lot of stupid stuff in the scriptures. You know, that's true, don't you? He's going to in the very context of this. But this wasn't one of them. You know why? Because God revealed this to him. God revealed it to him. Again, what's the difference between the religion of this world and what this world says? And all that matters is what you think of Christ. That's it. What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Whose son is he? Well, he's the son of David. If he's the son of David, why did David call him Lord? Why did David bow to him? He was the son of David in earthly terms.

They didn't get that. It was all about their religious heritage. It was all about their own identity as Jews, as the chosen people of God, and not about Christ. Paul renounced all of his earthly heritage and all of his works and everything he knew and everything he was and everything he had done when he met the Son of God on the road to Damascus.

Philippians chapter three. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. There's just one God that's alive, that's living. The living God. Everything else falls into place when the Lord reveals that to you. Everything. All of the five points of Calvinism Every truth in scripture, all of your religion and all of your understanding, your very life, does and shall boil down to who do you say that I am. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Every cult, every false doctrine, every heresy begins and ends with error regarding the person and the work of the Son of the Living God. If you know who Christ is, everything else will fall into place.

That's why we say our doctrine is a person, not points of intellectual understanding. Of course we understand some things intellectually, and we understand them because we know Him, not because we've compared those points to bad points and said those ones are better. No, because God has revealed his son in us. And anything that dishonors him, we can no longer abide it. And that which glorifies him, we rejoice in it.

Because of who he is and what he did on the cross and right here, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus. Now listen, how is a sinner saved? People will preach hour and a half long sermons this morning and never tell a sinner how a sinner is saved. But listen to it. The Son of God is fixing to tell us who he is and how that alone is salvation.

Knowing him, listen, Romans 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus. Not Jesus or Jesus. Again, I encourage you to look up that word, Lord, in the New Testament In Strong's Concordance, you can look it up online if you don't have a Strong's Concordance. It means he who decides. Now you tell me religion is not anti that. They are anti Christ. And that's it now.

We don't say that with any kind of pride. We can't say that with any kind of pride. We're more ignorant than they are without the mercy and grace of God. We don't want religious people to go to hell. We deserve to go to hell. God have mercy on them, but the mercy is found in Christ, not in convincing them that we believe something that makes more sense than they do. We preach the person of Jesus Christ because it's by that means that he said that he would save them that believe.

But listen to how a person say, confess with your mouth the Lord, that the son of God is the one who decides. And I'm bowing before him like the publican in the temple and saying, Lord, have mercy on me. I'm bowing before him like the leper and saying, Lord, if you will, You decide this. You see what the word Lord means? You decide my case. But have mercy on me. Have mercy on me if it pleases you. That thou shalt confess with thy mouth a person, the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead. In other words, the power of Christ. Paul said in Philippians 3, I believe, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. What's the power of his resurrection? That tells us who he is. He said, I lay down my life and I take it up again. No man taketh it from me.

The cross wasn't him saying, this is how much I love you, or doing his best as a martyr to get people to feel sorry enough to come down an aisle. It was His purpose of grace from the beginning. He came into this world in order to be nailed to that cross, to accomplish redemption for His people. And He did it. He said it's done when He had done it. Thou shalt be saved. That's how sinners are saved. God reveals in your heart who he is and what he did, that he died for my sins according to the scriptures, that he rose again for my justification.

When God teaches us that, when he shows us that, when he reveals that to us, we'll be able to say, and again, remember when Simon confessed what he's about to confess that we're gonna talk about in the next hour, The Lord said, you're blessed of God. You didn't figure that out. Flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you. My father revealed that to you. If God has done that for you, you're saved. You're saved. What's the result of God saving you? I know him in the power of his resurrection.