"Who Do You Say That I Am?"
When we can confidently declare who Jesus is, it opens us up to and invites others into all that Jesus does.
“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Matthew 16:15–16).
If I asked you, “What does Jesus mean to you?” I suspect that after a pause to gather your thoughts, you would begin to tell me what Jesus has done in your life, how he saved you, how he comforts you. You might struggle for words because how can we sum up what Jesus means to us? You might conclude with a statement something like, “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Jesus; my life would be a disaster.” I know I would.
And that is all exactly right. Because what Jesus means to us as Christians is so magnificent and profound and personal and timely that we ought not to be able to help but gush and get flummoxed and stumble around grasping for the right words. Jesus means a billion little things, and he means everything to us.
But if I asked you, “Who is Jesus?” I would hope that a succinct answer jumped readily to your lips, as it did for Peter. He is the Christ (that means “anointed one”), the Son of the living God. Or you might say the Son of the one true God. This is it. A brief, clear proclamation of who Jesus is. And wrapped up in those simple phrases is a universe of saving, sustaining, redeeming, rescuing, ransoming reality. When we can confidently declare who Jesus is, it opens us up to and invites others into all that Jesus does.