Our reading from Matthew is another one of those scriptures that can lose its impact because we’ve heard it a lot of times. Jesus asks the disciples who people are saying he is, the disciples give him various responses, he asks, “Who do you say that I am?”, and Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We hear that, and we think, “Okay, good for Peter. He got one right. I’m sure Jesus was happy that at least someone gave the right answer for a change.” Then, we move on, ready for the next scripture. We know that, as Christians, we’re supposed to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and so Peter’s statement does not make much impact on us.
That’s too bad, because it was a pretty bold statement that Peter made. It took a lot of courage. There’s a reason that, when the disciples told Jesus who people were saying he was, the word “Messiah” doesn’t show up on the list. There’s also a reason that, when Jesus asked the disciples who they said he was, only Peter came up with the word “Messiah.”
In fact, how many of us really know what the word “Messiah” even means? What was Peter saying, and what are we saying, when we call Jesus the Messiah?
Well, in Jewish tradition, the Messiah was and is the promised deliverer of Israel. He was the one who would establish God’s rule. We’re talking about God establishing a literal, physical kingdom on earth. In Jesus’ time, we were talking about God rescuing the Jewish people from being ruled by the Roman government, giving them their own country, and protecting them from everyone who would try to conquer them.
The Roman government did not like hearing people talk like that. The Roman government had every intention of continuing to rule Israel. It did not want to hear about some Messiah, someone who was going to come and defeat them and give independence to Israel. The Roman government was determined to squelch any rumors about a Messiah, as well as anything else that might encourage the Jewish people to think about independence.
That’s why I say that Peter made a bold statement. That’s why I say that what he said took courage. Saying that Jesus was the Messiah could get both Peter and Jesus himself in a lot of trouble. If the Roman government found out what Peter said, both Jesus and Peter could’ve been killed.
By now, though, some of you are probably wondering, “So what?” I mean, maybe you find this interesting and maybe you don’t, but what’s it got to do with anything? Maybe it was courageous to say that Jesus was the Messiah two thousand years ago, but it’s not courageous now. We say it all the time.
That’s really the point. It does not take much courage to say that Jesus is the Messiah. We do say it all the time. The question is whether we live in a way that shows we actually believe it.
Remember what we read from Paul’s letter to the Romans a couple of weeks ago? Paul wrote, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Saying that Jesus is Lord, saying that Jesus is the Messiah, is the first step, but it’s not enough. We need to do more than just say who Jesus is. We need to truly believe it in our hearts.
That brings us to our reading from Romans for today. Paul tells us that we need to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Paul is not just talking about physically presenting our bodies to God. What Paul is saying is that we need to give everything of ourselves to God. Everything we have, everything we do, everything we are, is to be given in the service of God, with nothing held back.
That sounds pretty hard. I’m not going to tell you that I always do that, because I don’t. Still, that’s what we should always be working toward. It’s what we need to do if we truly believe that Jesus is the Messiah and if we truly want God’s kingdom to come on earth. And it can be done, if we take the right attitude toward doing it.
It’s really interesting how Paul says we should go about doing this. Listen to what he writes:
For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us; prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Think about what Paul is saying here. He’s not just saying that each of us has different gifts, although that’s part of it. He’s also saying that those gifts can take a lot of different forms. They don’t necessarily take years of learning and study. They don’t necessarily take physical strength. They don’t necessarily take a lot of money. Encouragement is a gift. Diligence is a gift. Compassion is a gift. Cheerfulness is a gift. There are all kinds of gifts, and each of us has at least one of them. Most of us have a lot more than one.
Paul says that not all the parts of the body have the same function. Here’s what we sometimes miss, though: that also means that each part of the body has some function. Each part of the body is important. Each part of the body needs to do its job properly if the whole body is to function properly. If any part of the body is not functioning properly, for whatever reason, the whole body is affected.
Let’s look at that in terms of the mission statement Jesus gave us: to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded us. If we’re going to fulfill that mission statement, each part of the body of Christ is going to have to do its job. In other words, this is not something that just some of us are supposed to do. It won’t work if just the pastor does it. It won’t work if just a few people do it. Each one of us is going to have to do our part to bring the love of God to others if we’re going to do make disciples the way Jesus told us to do.
See, when we say Jesus is the Messiah, we’re actually challenging ourselves. We’re challenging ourselves to do everything we can so the kingdom of God can come on the earth. We’re challenging ourselves to give ourselves completely and totally to God, making everything about ourselves a sacrifice to God. We’re challenging ourselves not to hold anything back.
So, what are you going to do? What am I going to do? After all, none of us is exempt from this requirement. Nobody gets a pass. The question each of us needs to ask himself or herself is: how am I going to use the gifts God has given me to spread God’s love throughout the community in which I live?
Well, I don’t expect anyone to come up with the answer on the spot. We’ll talk about it some more in the days and weeks to come. Here’s what I’d like you to start thinking about, though.
Think about something that you get really enthusiastic about, something that you really enjoy and that gets you fired up. It could be anything. It could be what you do to make a living. It could be a hobby. It could be something that involves a lot of people, or it could be something you do alone. It could be farming, it could be working with animals, it could be fishing or hunting or camping, it could be sewing, it could be crafts, it could be sports, it could be music. It could be a hundred different things. It’ll be a lot of different things, but each of us has something in our lives that we love to do more than anything else.
Once you think of it, find a couple of other people who enjoy that same thing. Then, get together with them and think about how you could take something you love to do, something you want to do anyway, and turn that into a ministry.
Maybe you start a fishing club, and have a time of devotion and prayer as a part of every outing. Maybe you start a sewing club and make clothes or quilts or something to give to people who need them. Maybe you put together a talent show and raise money for a worthy cause. I’m just throwing these things out as examples: the things we can do are limited only by our imagination. The point is that God gives us passions for a reason. There is a way each one of us can take the things we love to do and use them to serve God, if we just pray and ask God for help in seeing that way.
See, that’s what it really means to give everything of ourselves to God. It sounds hard, but it does not have to be. God wants our service, but God does not want our service to be drudgery. God wants us to love serving. That’s what we’ll do, if we find ways to take the things we love and use them to serve God.
Let’s start thinking about how we can take the things we love to do and use them to serve God. If we do, we will begin the job of making disciples of all nations. Then, we will show that we don’t just say with our lips, but truly believe with our hearts, that Jesus is the Messiah.
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