A couple weeks ago, there was a video that circulated the Internet called, I'm a Christian, but I'm not. And then there were various fill in the blank answers in this video, a company. had released a video of a group of women and a man who all claim to be Christians, and their statement, I'm a Christian, but I'm not, that admission was followed by some fill-in-the-blank answer. Fill-in-the-blank answers like this. I'm a Christian, but I'm not homophobic. I'm a Christian, but I'm not perfect. I'm a Christian, but I'm not closed minded. I'm a Christian, but I'm not unaccepting. I'm a Christian, but I'm not uneducated. I'm a Christian, but I'm not judgmental. I'm a Christian, but I'm not conservative. I'm a Christian, but I'm not ignorant. And the longer this video goes on, just a couple of minutes in total length, You get the sense that these are people who are understanding Christianity in a certain way, inconsistent with church history, and certainly out of line with what the scripture would say one should define and understand a Christian to be. Later in the video, the participants, for example, are asked, what do you want people to know about Christianity? You claim to be a Christian. What do you want them to know? They say things like, at its core, Christianity is really about love and acceptance and being a good neighbor. And another answer is, I don't think Christians should judge people for who they are or what they do. I think everybody's in a different part of life on their own path to wherever they're trying to go. We're all people and love is the most important thing. A takeaway from the video is to note that nobody, in claiming to be a Christian and what they want people to know about Christianity, ever mentioned the name Jesus. In the whole video. In the whole video. No one mentions faith and belief. No one mentions repentance. No one mentions sin. No one mentions obedience. If anything, you get the sense that what they understand to be a Christian is not really to call anyone to account or call anyone to recognize a greater authority than themselves, but to rather let everyone go along to get along and to be themselves and please be affirming to everyone. That's how they understand love. An important thing to consider in light of this kind of theme for the culture's view of Christianity is how last Sunday morning's passage, Jesus said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. But we recognized in the message that we have to define loving God and loving each other on the terms God has given for us, not in a sort of open-ended way to where we can make loving God and loving neighbor be anything we'd like it to mean. Once it's redefined, well then all of a sudden everybody can love God and everybody can be loving their neighbor. If love is a very fluid, dynamic concept that has no objective, God-revealed nuances and truth. In fact, the people in the video take the love your neighbor as yourself to basically mean whatever promotes the comfort of your neighbor, whatever supports their desires, and whatever helps them find themselves, be themselves, or embrace themselves for who they are. What you find out is when you carry this sort of Christianity and this self-professed, I'm a Christian, but I'm not so-and-so, the various denials, they seem very concerned with the very conservative, taking the Bible seriously, recognizing God as an authority, and in fact, God the moral arbiter of truth and error and right and wrong. The sort of claims made in the video are very bothered by an orthodox biblically authoritative, grounded in church history, Christianity. The Christianity of the video is a Christianity without a cross. You don't need a savior for such an understanding of Christianity. You don't need an empty tomb on the third day. Being nice and being accepting. That's basically what they say that is. Well, couldn't you say the same thing about Buddhists? I mean, really, what is it that sets this apart? What is it that makes this confession and this faith and the revelation of God in Christ? What really sets this apart? Being nice and being accepting. The idea and the culture is, well, that's Jesus's message. An honest reading of the Gospels. I'm talking about all the chapters of all four of them. I mean, just setting aside those four for a moment, you could even go into the epistles in the book of Acts before that and the rest of the New Testament. But just taking the four gospels, you would find out that an honest reading of them comes to a far different conclusion about who Jesus is and what it means for us. Jesus talked about repentance in the kingdom of God. He talked about a future judgment for all nations. He talked about eternal life and eternal punishment. He talked about denying yourself, taking up your cross and following him if you want to be a disciple. which is what a Christian is, a disciple of Jesus. He talked about and commanded his disciples to make other disciples and to teach them to obey everything that he has commanded them and what he says. Jesus taught that if you love him, you will obey him in John 15 and in John 8. Jesus claimed to reveal God the Father to sinners, that a way had been breached because of sin, And so he says in John 14 6, I am the way, the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through me. Jesus claimed to be the only way to know God. He explained his mission in terms of a redeemer coming to give his life as a ransom for sinners. Jesus said that he would die and on the third day rise. If we want to understand Christianity, the question is not going to people in the culture and saying, what do you think Christianity is? What does it mean to you to be a Christian? Because that doesn't matter what they think in terms of being a decisive definition. If we want to understand what Christianity is and what it means to be a believer, we must look into Scripture and specifically the claims and teachings of Jesus. You must start there. Jesus claimed certain things. If we don't look to Christ to understand what it means to follow Him and what He understood Himself to be and to do, then we will end up with a Christianity of our own invention and a Jesus in our own image. And that's called idolatry and idols don't save anyone. In fact, our prayer should be, Oh God, when we open this book, will you teach us about Christ? God, would you teach us about Christ? I'm a sinner. And on my own, I'm not inclining toward truth and what is pleasing to you. I need I need your word speaking to my soul and mind. Our prayer should be God teach us about Christ. The identity of Jesus is a major theme in the Gospels. When Jesus asked, who do you say that I am? He wasn't confused. So who am I? When Jesus said, who do you say that I am? It's also not as if any answer to the question would be correct. Well, to me, Jesus is so-and-so. Let's just all put our valid truths on the table. When Jesus said, who do you say that I am, it's not as if any answer would be correct. When we understand who Jesus is according to his own claims and his own word, well, we face an important moment. What will we do with the claims of Christ? Will we believe them, embrace them, delight in them, and worship him, following him, obeying him, proclaiming him, and hoping in him? Or will we reject his claims, downplay his bold statements and end up diluting the message of Christianity, which is the same thing as rejecting it altogether, diluting the message of Christianity and removing from it the claims of Christ and making it seem as if he's any other noble moral teacher. And we don't want to say anything more than that is to end up losing the entire message of Christianity, for it says that Jesus is unlike anyone who has ever come into the world. He has been sent by God for a reason, for a mission, for a purpose. And in Jesus's earthly ministry, the Passion Week, which is the week we are on in our study in Matthew, the Passion Week was a perfect occasion to revisit the question. So who is Jesus? And who exactly were the people expecting this idea of the Christ? It's Tuesday of that week, and it's been Tuesday for a number of passages in Matthew as various disputes have unfolded. Five in number. We saw the first in Matthew 21, 23, and they've continued. And the fifth and final one is seen this morning. We conclude Matthew 22 in the outer court of the temple with this final dispute that Jesus provokes. We can see the passage in two parts. Each part, Jesus asks two questions. In verses 41 to 42, this is the first pair of questions. Jesus asked them, what do you think about the Christ and whose son is he? And then they have an answer, the son of David. The second part of the passage, two more questions in verse 43 and verses 43 and 44 is that beginning of the second pair. It's a long question. How is it then that David and then he even quotes what David says in verses 44 can say this. And then the second of the second pair in verse 45, if then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? Now, previously, the first pair of questions had an answer. He's the Christ. The second pair of questions is followed by this statement. No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare answer, ask him any more questions. So verses 41 and 42, the first pair of questions and their answer, And then verses 43 to 46, the second pair of questions and their silence. You're meant to see a contrast between the very quick answer they gave and then how once he created a certain tension and their understanding about who the Christ would be, they didn't know what to say. In fact, they felt it was a good idea that they all stopped trying to ask him any more questions. So with these two parts, we begin with the first pair, and the scene is set in verse 41. Pharisees have gathered together. They've been in the scene prior, haven't they? We saw them in verse 34. A lawyer from them was dispatched to test Jesus. Well, the Pharisees are still there at the outer court of the temple on Tuesday of Passion Week. And they're gathered together ominously. Their group huddle has a malicious intent because they want to trap Jesus, test him, expose him, embarrass him, humiliate him in front of the crowds, and therefore hopefully turn the tide of the people that are so intrigued by someone they proclaimed just two days earlier to be the son of David. They're very bothered by all of this. So this son of David title has to hang in our minds. because it's gonna reappear in this passage. It tells us in verse 41, Jesus asked them a question. This is the twist in the story. Up to this point, everybody's been coming to Jesus. Hey, what about this? Hey, what about this? Well, he has silenced everyone. The Herodians, the Sadducees, the Pharisees. But while he has them there, he has a question of his own. And in verse 42, it's given in a pair of questions, what do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? And they said to him, the son of David. The word Christ means Messiah. The word Christ means anointed one. So the Old Testament hope for the Messiah is brought over as the Christ in the New Testament. It's the same concept, same idea from Old to New Testament. The anointed one is also what Messiah means, someone who is going to be set apart for God. But not only that, an anointed one, it seemed to remind people of a king because kings were anointed for the position. And the son of David in 2 Samuel 7 would be David's offspring raised up by God, who would rule and reign forever. So this anointed one, this deliverer, this Messiah, this son of David, this was going to be a king who would come. The first century believed various things about this king. They believed it was rooted in the Old Testament. They believed he would come from the line of David. They also had a very nationalistic and militaristic picture of the Messiah. They believed that when he came, he was going to liberate Israel from Roman oppression, which meant Jesus dying on the cross was a kind of disqualification in their view. How if the Romans kill Jesus, well, surely this can't be our long for Messiah because when he comes, he's going to overthrow them. They went and overthrew him. So disqualify. In verse 42, this is the concept that's introduced by him. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? Notice the questions here are assuming that the Christ, this Messiah, is going to be someone who's going to come into the world through a lineage, a birth. He's going to be someone's son. This is because at the beginning of Genesis, in Genesis 3, a promise is made to the serpent that the seed of the woman is going to come and crush the serpent. And Jews, looking back into Genesis and other early Old Testament books after Genesis, were very concerned about tracing the line of hope and descent. Genealogy was very important. Because not only were they a family through which all families of the earth would be blessed, but a promised one was coming through a line of Abraham, and then ultimately through David's line, as Matthew shows us in Matthew 1. Why does Matthew's gospel begin with a genealogy? Not because Matthew wants to bore you with a lot of names that we can be easily unfamiliar with, because they're not major Bible stories, many of these names, but they're along the line of descent. After all, Matthew 1.1 tells us this in the beginning phrase. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The importance of whose son Jesus is appears in the very first verse of Matthew's gospel. Now, when you see Herod and the Magi talk in Matthew 2, Herod hears that somebody has been born, a king of the Jews, and people want to go worship him, these Magi do. Herod is troubled, and he asks in verse 4 of Matthew 2, where was the Christ going to be born? Because you see, the idea throughout the Old Testament, as it's organically and progressively revealed and unfolded, this deliverer is going to come through a line and be born and even be born somewhere, according to Micah 5. Like David, this Christ, the son of David, would be born in Bethlehem. And so that's what the scribes tell Herod the Great in Matthew 2.5. In Bethlehem of Judea, for that's what's written, you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And so that's why Herod sends them to Bethlehem, these soldiers, to kill all of these babies, because he doesn't want any competing king. The idea of the Christ being born is something everybody who was agreeing with the conservative, traditional way of Jewish interpretation in Jesus' day, because there were some pockets of exception, like the Sadducees, they would have very different things to say. They didn't accept the authority of the whole Old Testament. But the Pharisees would say, and the scribes would say, He's going to be born in Bethlehem. This is the Christ. He's going to be someone's son. He's going to be David's son. When we look at this conversation then, in verse 42, Jesus probably knows that's what they're going to say. This isn't going to be a surprising answer. In fact, let's just acknowledge it's a correct answer. It's not that they've misidentified whose son Jesus is. Whose son the Christ will be. The Bible in the Old Testament does teach that he would be the son of David. So what do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David. And this is correct. However, it's not all you can say. That's the problem here. The problem Jesus wants to introduce in their thinking, he wants to create a kind of tension between who they think the Messiah is and something else that there's this other text, Psalm 110, that makes you wonder, well, wait a second then. If he's gonna be born and he's gonna be somebody's son, what about what this text over here says? How does this fit? So Jesus is gonna introduce what seems to be a tension and a problem. Now there is a very clear way this is resolved and answered. But for them, they have to think through how these things can be true if he's going to be born and come from David's line. So here's the second pair of questions. Verse 43. First question, he said to them, how is it then that David in the spirit calls him Lord, saying the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet? That's the first question. And the second question of the second pair, if then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? Jesus is introducing an Old Testament psalm. And it's Psalm 110, and this psalm is so important in the New Testament, it's quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament passage. And the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament a lot. That just gives you a sense of the importance of this Psalm to the Gospels, the Book of Acts, the Epistles, and the Book of Revelation. They all use Psalm 110. It's massively important. And he quotes here from verse 1. And he tells us that David is the author here. It tells us, how is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, which means what we read in Psalm 110 is from David. Now, how does Jesus know this? Look in Psalm 110 with me. Psalm 110, right above verse 1, you see something that's in smaller letters. Not every psalm has a claim of authorship, but there are some that do have a claim of authorship. And right above verse 1, there's something that is in the original manuscripts, and so in many ways should be considered part of verse 1, because it's part of the psalm. It's not something incidental or irrelevant. It's called a superscription. And it tells us a psalm of David. Do you see those little words? A psalm of David. And then it's followed by the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. So David is a king and he's writing. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool under your feet. I put your enemies under your feet. In verse 43 and 44, this use of Psalm 110, we want to say several truths about this Psalm. David writing it. Truth number one, I want to give you seven observations about Psalm 110 here, quickly. Observation number one, the author is writing about two persons. The author is writing about two persons. So notice here, David is writing and David is saying, the Lord said to my Lord. David is not writing himself into the psalm. David is a king and he has a covenant with God about a future offspring. And David is writing about someone else. David is writing about someone else. He is writing about two persons, not himself, two persons. Number two, both persons are called Lord in Matthew 22. The Lord said to my Lord. So both persons have this title that is appropriate. In Psalm 110, it's most clear that the original word LORD that's used first is in all caps, which is a clue that the word Yahweh is being used. And the second word LORD is not in all caps in Psalm 110.1, and that's the word Adonai, which also means LORD. But both ascriptions or titles for deity. These are going to be important. So, truth number one about this psalm. The author is writing about two persons. Number two, both persons are called Lord in Matthew 22. Number three, one person makes an invitation and a promise. Notice what he says. The Lord said to my Lord. So this first speaker is giving an invitation and a promise. The invitation is, sit at my right hand. The promise is, until I put your enemies under your feet. This is a grand scene here, right? Invitation and a promise made by one person to another. Number four, the instruction sit at my right hand is an invitation to exaltation. My right hand. If Yahweh is saying, sit at my right hand, this isn't to say, OK, because the people currently at my right hand, their time is almost up, and now whoever's going to take the next spot. This isn't something that anyone was on a rotation for. The right hand was a place of privilege and honor and equality with God. There was no one at the right hand of God. This is God. To be at his right hand would be to share his place and authority and power and glory. No one was at the right hand of God. Yahweh says to this person, sit at my right hand. It's an invitation to exaltation. Truth number five, the promise is total victory. The language says, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. In other words, there are no more enemies to be dealt with. Total dominion is achieved. Where are the enemies? They're under your feet, which is a picture of being conquered. It was not uncommon in the ancient world for a king and his army to besiege a particular city, to conquer a particular ruler, for someone who is a leader of that besieged city to be brought out in humiliation, and for the king to put his foot on the neck of the one conquered. So to be under the king's foot was this graphic picture of defeat. And that's what's pictured here. This fifth truth is the promise that's after this invitation to exaltation. This promise is about total victory. Number six, the phrase, my Lord means the victor is greater than David. The phrase my Lord means the victor is greater than David. David is saying the Lord says to my Lord, someone greater than David. Greater than David. So it's introducing this tension of someone who is David's son. And yet this son is greater than David. David's greater than David son. It's a weird way of thinking about it, but this is the tension Jesus is introducing. So truth number six is, the phrase, my Lord, suggests that the victor is greater than David himself. Number seven, Jesus interprets Psalm 110 as referring to the Christ or the Messiah and son of David. So Psalm 110 is relevant to the discussion. So let's back up a moment. In verse 42, Jesus says, what do you think about the Christ? OK, so that's the person they're talking about, the Christ. Whose son is he? So then they say the son of David. So the Christ is going to be somebody's son. In fact, it's going to be the son of David, they say in verse 42. So the son of David is the Christ. And in verse 43, then how is it that David calls him Lord? Who's the him? How is it that David calls the son of David Lord? How is it that David calls his offspring Lord who is invited by God to be at the right hand under whose feet will be all enemies? How is it that David in the spirit calls him Lord? The phrase in the spirit there means an inspired song referring to In principle, how Jesus and the apostles viewed the whole Old Testament, to be given by God's Spirit. And it's saying here that the same thing is true. Psalm 110, microscopically. If we just zoom in on a psalm, here's a psalm given by the Spirit of God, through David. And David calls the Christ, David calls the Son of David, Lord. When he quotes this phrase in Psalm 110.1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put all enemies under your feet. So this seventh truth, Jesus interprets Psalm 110 as referring to the Messiah, the Son of David, who is given this grandiose, exalted title and position. Verse 45, Jesus now asks in this second pair of questions, the second question of the pair. If then, she's trying to follow a logical argument here. If David calls him Lord, how is he his son? You see, a king never had a son and called that son Lord. It was always the reverse. It was the son toward the father that viewed it as one to the superior. It was the father that was given the title of Sir, or Lord, or Master, if someone was under that. And someone's son toward a father would never expect to be called by that king, Lord. No. So how is it that David calls the son of David in Psalm 110, Lord, when he's quoting Yahweh's words? Because the Christ is the one that's in view there, who's receiving the title Lord, who's receiving this invitation to sit at my right hand, God says, who's given this promise that all enemies will be under his feet. No patriarch, no king would ever call his son Lord. It would be the other way around. The question then is, if David is in the most important city on the planet Earth, when he's ruling, which is in Jerusalem, because this is where the Ark of the Covenant would be, this is where the Temple would be built by David's son Solomon, this was the place of God's presence, and it was the capital and the promised land. This was the place. And in this most important city, David's the most important figure. Because he's the king of Israel, he's from Judah's tribe, and he's the first king of Israel who's from Judah's tribe. Previously was Saul, but Saul was from Benjamin, not from Judah's tribe. So David is the most important person. And David is referring to someone in Psalm 110 who is, my Lord, who is more important than David? And as one scholar put it, who else under God would be above David. This seems to suggest that the identity of this Messiah who would be born and who would be the son of David would be greater than any human king in Israel. He seems to be here more than a human descendant of David. The answer to the enigma is that in Matthew's gospel, there is a dual answer to the question, whose son is the Christ? And in the answer of Matthew's gospel, you get it in Matthew chapter 16 with Peter's words. Matthew 16, 13, who do people say the Son of Man is? Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Jesus says, who do you say that I am? Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is saying something more than son of David. And Peter and the disciples had been with Jesus long enough to recognize that there is a God sentness about Jesus that makes Jesus different from every other king that ever crossed Israel's stage and ruled from Jerusalem. If then David calls him Lord, how is he also David's son? The answer is because he is God's son also. He is both God's son and the son of David. You get a sense in the Old Testament that the coming ruler would be great in these respects. Isaiah chapter nine is one place that you could look. Isaiah 9 is talking about this promised son who is going to be born. And in Isaiah 9, 6, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it, to uphold it with justice, with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. One of the questions that has to be asked is, this son who's going to be born is going to rule forever. How are you going to rule forever when death is our common problem? I mean, you've got to introduce the question into Isaiah 9. How is it that somebody is going to be born whose rule is not going to be compromised by death? Isn't that the problem every king of Israel ever faced, is that they had to have offspring so that when they died, the next person who was their descendant would take their throne? In the Old Testament, in Psalm 45, we won't look there together, but that's another example, Psalm 45, Jeremiah 23, Isaiah 11, they are Old Testament promises that seem to suggest that when the Messiah comes, there are truths about this Christ, truths about this anointed one that make you wonder, but how will just a mere man accomplish this? How's a mere man going to rule forever? David dies, David's son Solomon dies, the kingdom splits under Solomon's son and all those kings that ruled in the north and south ended up dying. How is it that a king from David's line is going to come that's not going to die? If death can be defeated, the rule will be secured, which is why the third day for the Christian faith is all important or the rest of it's in complete vanity. The answer to the question, how is it that Christ is David's son and David's Lord? The answer is the incarnation. The answer is the fact that God sent his son into the world to be born of a woman. The answer is the supernatural event of Mary overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, Luke tells us, to birth a son nine months later, who would be the one on David's throne. This would be no mere man. He is someone who is more than a human descendant. And this tenant, my friends, is absolutely crucial to the Christian faith. The identity of Jesus Christ is the starting point for what all hangs on it. And a denial that Jesus is anything more than a mere man It is to undercut Christianity entirely. The whole hope of the Gospel is that what God was doing on the cross through His Son was because this Son was no mere man, but a man who could die and bear the sins of the world, Himself having no sin. What mere man could do this? And then to be raised on the third day and to ascend on high and be at the right hand of God and to be king over all. This is no mere man that we can make these claims about. Now, verse 46 tells us that no one was able to answer Jesus a word. But in the unfolding of the story, and given the preservation of the epistles, and the book of Acts before that, and the book of Revelation at the end, we understand that the identity of Christ is more than a mere man. And if we fail to confess and believe all that Scripture unfolds Him to be, we cannot claim to be Christians, because we cannot just decide on our own what we want Jesus to be. Look at the claims Jesus made! This was really befuddling to C.S. Lewis when he considered Jesus would say to someone, your sins are forgiven when that person hadn't even sinned against Jesus. Like in that moment, like it was somebody else that had had this person sinned against. Who is Jesus in assuming that he could forgive sins as if any sin that someone commits against another is something that would be committed against himself and therefore need to be forgiven? Who is Jesus to talk like that? You know, it's one thing for you to commit a sin against someone else and for a third party to come along and say, OK, so you sin against this this person, then you forgive this person. They've repented their turning from it. But for people to go about their sinning and Jesus come on the scene and be able to pronounce forgiveness of sins is something God would do. Because as David shows us in Psalm 51, when we are sinning, we are sinning against God. Who is it that Jesus thinks he is? The disciples have to face this question on the scene when the storm is still in Matthew chapter 8. And they say, who is he that the winds and the waves obey him? When the demons encounter him, they say, what do you want with us, son of God? Have you come to torment us before the time? An honest reading of the Gospels, friends, doesn't wind up at this answer that Jesus was human like all the rest of us and a great moral teacher and philosopher, so we would be wise to adopt his ethics because we'll all be in a better world if we just do that. Jesus's claims demand something more because why would we follow anything else he said if he said things that a crazy man or someone who's truly God would say? This is the point we have to come to, looking at the claims of Jesus Christ. Peter brings these ideas together in what we read a moment ago in Matthew 16, 16. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now, did Peter believe that the Christ would be the son of David? Well, sure, that was the common understanding because of what the Old Testament taught. This covenant with David would have an offspring raised up who'd rule forever. But Peter believes that there's something more about Jesus that must be said. He's not just son of David, he's also son of God. And that means that not only is he the promised one, but he's greater than we imagined him to be. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says, among these Jews, there suddenly turns up a man talking as if he's God. He claims to forgive sins. He says he's always existed. He says he's coming to judge the world at the end of time. Lewis says, I'm trying to prevent everyone from saying the really foolish thing people will often say about Jesus. I'm ready to accept him as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. Lewis says that's the one thing we mustn't say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He'd be a lunatic. On a level with a man who says he's a poached egg, Lewis says. Or else he would be the devil of hell, wanting to deceive the masses. Lewis says you must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, spit at him and kill him as a demon or fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let's not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us and he did not intend to. I think Lewis is absolutely spot on decades ago when he wrote this one of the most famous quotations from the book of mere Christianity, because Lewis puts us in this place where we must look at all the claims of Christ and not stop short of what the Bible says he is in all of his glory. Jesus is son of David and son of God. He is worthy of our worship and worthy to be followed, and they left. not answering a word, nor from that day asking any more questions. We need a better response. We need a different response because we know the rest of the story and we know the significance of the cross and the third day where Jesus has died for our sins and born them on his own head. He who had no sin made to be sin for us. So that on the third day he proves all of these claims true, defeating death itself. How is the Son of David ever going to live forever if death is a problem? Well, what if death could be conquered by the Son of David? What if the Son of David would defeat death and be at the right hand of God and subject all enemies under His feet and reign and rule? Then this government on His shoulders, these claims and this rule would never need to end. It could never be compromised. Not someone of that authority and power. Oh, that God would help us in opening his word to see who Jesus is, who we claim to be, and who the apostles proclaimed him to be. Jesus has not left it up to us, says Lewis, to conclude such nonsense of him only being a great human moral teacher. Do you believe, friends, that he is not merely the son of David But the Son of God, the Promised One, the One who would deliver, the Redeemer, the One who would bear our transgressions upon His head, the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world, the victorious King who rules over all things and has commissioned us to make disciples, this means our proclamation must be one that proclaims the identity of Jesus Christ in a culture that wants a Christianity without a cross, that wants everybody to just be nice and accepting and affirming, and that does not want to talk about sin and judgment and the redeeming power of Jesus Christ over sinners. We need to be those who say, well, let's start where we must start if we are going to understand who Jesus is. We must look at what He has taught. We must look at what He has proclaimed. We must behold what He has done. And we should repent from our sins and we should turn and follow Him in wholehearted obedience and worship. More than the Son of David. He's the Son of the Living God.