Who Do You Say That I AM?

Expectations.  You have them, I have them.  We all have them.

Christmas is less than 2 mos. away and already the stores are gearing up with EXPECTATIONS of pre-Thanksgiving Christmas sales.

Kristen, my wife, has EXPECTATIONS that I will participate in the hanging of the greens around the house, and I hate to let her down.

My kids have EXPECTATIONS that they will get what they want for Christmas, I have no problem letting them down.

EXPECTATIONS...

People had expectations regarding Jesus as well.  Some never thought he'd amount to much "What good can come out of Nazareth."  (John 1:46) "Is not this the carpenter's son?  Is not His mother called Mary...?" (Matthew 13:55)  Others held a higher view Him - "Some say [you are] John the Basptist; and others Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." (Matthew 16:14)

C.S. Lewis had this to say regarding man's expectations of Jesus: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the devil of Hell. 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, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 

Jesus left no option with regards to "who I AM"; or what He came to do.  He said on more than one occasion that He was and is the Son of God and that He and the Father are one.  He said, "[I have] come to seek and to save the lost." (Luke 19:10)  Even with these clear statements, his disciples were looking for Jesus to use His miraculous power to establish His kingdom here on earth, but that was their EXPECTATION, not His (nor the Father's) plan.

In preparing the Twelve for His true reason for being here (the redemption of man), Jesus questioned them asking, "Who do the people say that I am?"  and followed up with the most important question every individual must answer, "WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?"

For the full message shared on 11-04-12 at First Church of God, Racine, WI go to: 
Who do you say that I am?