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by Pastor Harris Hwang

August 27, 2017
Sermon Topic: Confessing Jesus as Christ
Scripture Reading: Matthew 16:13-20
NIV text | MSG text

​Good morning Church!, que a paz esteja com você, peace be with you.
 
During Sunday morning Bible study sessions, I have asked participants to share their experiences of God in their lives. Some members said that God had guided them to the United States to have a prosperous life. Others said that they felt alone as if they were outcasts, even at a Church. However, they were all comforted by the means of God's grace. They confessed that they are not alone, when they have Jesus. Some of them experienced that all things worked together for those who love God. Whenever I listen to their life-stories, I feel grateful because I can experience the various faces of God. But at the same time in front of their confessions, I at times wonder whether or not I truly deserve to share the word of God. These stories would remind us of the very own stories of how God has been working in every life of each one of us.
 
 
From Matthew's Gospel Chapter 16 today, I invite you to ask yourselves:  Who do you think Jesus is? 
 
[What are people saying?]
Jesus asked his disciples, “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?” There are some opinions and rumors about Jesus. The disciples replied, “Some think Jesus is John the Baptizer, some say, Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.” Each and every one of them considers Jesus as one of the prophets.
 
When reading this verse, one question came to my mind. In modern society, how do people think of Jesus? How do they assess Jesus? I think people come to know Jesus through Christians. Through Christian example such as their words, attitude, and life, people come to understand who Jesus is. 
 
I heard that in most Christian churches, the younger generation does not attend church. Some people say it's a crisis of the church. Some scholars researched why these young people do not attend church anymore. There are a lot of possible explanations. The most common answer is that they say they are spiritual but not religious. They might think that religion itself is not that attractive and no longer seems to manifest Jesus as much as they had expected. They might be frustrated when they see and hear the stories of corruption within the Church. For whatever reason, they decided to withdraw from religion and no longer give trust to the Church. These explanations are what people outside of the Church say about the Church and Jesus in modern society.
 
[What are you saying?]
Then, what about us? We are the inner group of this Christian religion. Jesus pressed disciples, “And how about you? Who do you say I am?” And, Simon Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is not just a saint nor a prophet. Jesus is more than just that. Jesus is Christ. He is the Messiah whom the Jewish people have been waiting for. The Messiah was the Son of the living God.
 
Jesus is asking disciples not because he is looking to test and drop behind the disciples but because he makes them discern their lives and leads them to know how their lives should look like. Indeed, this passage invites us to rethink about who Jesus is. In other words, when most people say, "they are spiritual, not religious", when younger generations do not attend church anymore, we should not be asking them why they lost faith, but rather why we here attend this church. What make us come here every Sunday?
 
We need to ponder Peter’s confession. "You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God," Not everyone can confess this. Only those whose eyes have been opened by God can faithfully confess it. 
 
I have talked about how churches in Korea are. There are a lot of small churches. Unfortunately, they have financial difficulties. More than 70 percent of pastors are under the poverty line. People call the churches that are financially weak as "dependent churches." The churches are categorized depending on whether or not the churches are insufficient in finance. But it is not fair to call the Church as financially dependent because I believe the Church is God's. We should not see the church through the lens of money. This money-driven perspective easily constrains us. We need to see how distorted and blind our eyes are even when we see our churches.
 
Jesus always says, "listen and understand." Or "Are you still without understanding?" Jesus wants us to look beyond the superficial layers of our lives and look for the deeper truth behind it.
 
[“You’re the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”] 
After this great confession, (17-18) Jesus came back and blessed Simon. Jesus gave him a new name Peter, which means rock. Jesus promised that this confession was the rock on which he will put together his church. A church that will bustle with energy such that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. I believe that the church has sustained and expanded over a long duration of time not just because of miracles, but also because there have been faithful sacrifices and confessions of Christians.
 
A couple of weeks ago, I was at a global leadership conference, where the topic was on how to bring more people into the church. There were a lot of reputable speakers and professionals of leadership that I met. Although it was a great experience seeing such a wide pool of astounding people gathered all at one place, I had one pressing concern that lingered in my mind. Many people seemed to only focus on how they could gather more people and maintain their organization. It’s a popular theory that Christianity is in crisis because as the average attendance decreases money does as well. Sometimes, churches merge because they are unable to deal with their finances. Some churches even disappear. 
 
In this vein, two questions from Chapter 16 struck my mind. “What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?” "how about you? Who do you say I am?” If you are worried about the church in today’s society, we need to check how we confess first. We need to see what the fundamentals of our church are. We need to rethink about whether our church is built upon a solid confession. I believe these two questions invite us into the essentials of the Christian life. This confession looks to connect our life with Jesus's life. If the foundations of our confessions are sturdy, not even the gates of hell will be able to keep the Church out.
 
Lastly, why did Jesus swear the disciples to secrecy? He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah. At the very last page of Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus left disciples, he gave them the great commissions. Making disciples is our mission and so we would rather tell the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. But if we go outside and tell the pedestrians, "Jesus is our Lord, our living God," they might embarrass us with a cynical face, and mandate that we validate the true meaning behind the confessions. Delivering words is not sufficient to show Jesus. Our lives will speak louder, more truthfully, and more effectively than our words.
 
If we want others to believe in Jesus, we need our life-experiences to show Jesus to others. We might think it would be better to persuade others in an eloquent manner or with logical validity. It is not through our knowledge but through our changed attitudes, where our transformed life can reveal Jesus. It is only through our life where I believe Jesus the Messiah, the true son of the living God, will be revealed. I now invite Community UMC to participate in this solid confession. I believe that the Church's mission is to embody the confession into our world. Amen.