Heidi Stacey invites us to reflect on one of the most important questions Jesus ever asked: “Who do you say I am?” Drawing from Luke 9, Heidi explores how Jesus uses questions to lead us into deeper truth, personal revelation, and daily commitment. Whether you’re feeling bold or uncertain in your faith, this sermon offers both comfort and a powerful call to respond.
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Scripture Reading – Luke 9:18–27
This morning’s Bible reading is in the book of Luke, chapter 9, verses 18 to 27. (If you’ve got the red Bible, that’s on page 1611.)
Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
This is the Word of God.
Introduction: The Power of a Question
Good morning everyone. I’m just going to get myself set up here. My name is Heidi. I have met many of you, but not all of you. It is a goal of mine to make sure I meet everyone by the end of the year. Consider myself challenged! Those in our growth group will know that it is something we are working towards at the moment, challenging ourselves to be like the church.
This morning I thought I’d start with just a quick question to get the juices flowing and get you thinking a little bit. How has your morning been? If you had to pick one moment that has happened this morning, how would you describe it? What is it about this moment that has stayed in your mind? If I asked you to turn to the person next to you and describe your morning, how would you tell your story? How would you engage me in that conversation? What kind of things would stand out?
Now that you’re thinking about that very rhetorical question, I wonder how it would feel, as a contrast, if I restarted this entire soliloquy and said:
“Good morning. I’m sure you can agree with me — mornings, am I right? I don’t know about you, but mine has been chaos. Everyone cannot regulate themselves at the same time for longer than a few minutes. Wow. Mondays are needed in our house.”
It’s quite a divisive statement, and I certainly hope it’s not true for the majority of us here! But what I have done in that example is taken an experience and worded it as fact. I’ve created a demand that you agree with me in my statement. I’ve left no room for personal reflection. I have spoken to the group as a whole and for the group as a whole as well.
This is why it’s important that we’re doing the sermon series on Questions in Luke. Questions are a way of engaging our minds, engaging each other, engaging the group. We also have an opportunity to answer those questions as well. And in doing all of that, we start to see that Jesus used this as a teaching style for his disciples — giving them time to reflect, time to respond, and asking engaging questions that ultimately led to personal revelation for them.
Setting the Scene
As with all things, we have a snapshot of Scripture in time. So let’s go back and set the scene together: what was happening before this conversation occurred?
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The disciples have been appointed.
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They have been chosen by Jesus.
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They are taught by him.
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They are encouraged by him.
And then he is sending them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. After their time out, he brings them back in together for a time of renewal and refreshment, which is interrupted by the crowds who are hungry — and the miracle of feeding the 5,000 occurs. When they are sent back out again, they are working, and then they are called back in again to have a time of infilling, refreshing, retreating, and replenishing in a quiet space.
I feel like in this “in and out” rhythm, we see some very subtle teaching that isn’t written down, but we observe it as a demonstration of how filling up our cup is needed before pouring out again. And as this demonstrates, it doesn’t always work perfectly. There isn’t always the perfect infilling before the outpouring. In this particular passage, we have the disciples starting the prayer process before being interrupted by the crowds needing to be fed. (Every parent can relate that sometimes people need to be fed, and are interrupted!)
I also want to draw particular attention to what else is happening in this moment: when the disciples are together and praying and spending time, Jesus himself takes that one step further — a more private moment of prayer with his Father. The disciples are present, but they’re not participating in it. I think it’s important to see that sometimes things are not just for the group. Doing things as a whole isn’t the only thing necessary in our walk with Jesus; sometimes we do need to take it that one step further into that private moment of prayer with the Father.
This context introduces us to verse 18, with Jesus asking the disciples, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
“Who Do the Crowds Say I Am?”
Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do the crowds say I am?” And they replied together, as a group — a broad, collected response from the people they had been talking to and ministering with. They say things like Elijah, John the Baptist, or a prophet. They are literally answering the question, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
Do we think that Jesus is asking this question to seek knowledge? Or do we see that he is asking the question to reveal truth? The W–questions are always popular: Who, what, where, why? They’re engaging; they steer the conversation. He’s leading them towards some personal reflection. But in this moment, we know that Jesus actually didn’t need the answer for personal affirmation — He knew who He was.
Matthew 3:16–17 gives us that confirmation:
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”
And that’s confirmation for us of Jesus’ identity. Who do the crowds say I am? — Jesus asks this not because he needs validation, but to prompt his disciples’ thinking. With this broad, crowd-level perspective in mind, Jesus now moves on to a more refining question.
“But what about you? Who do you say I am?”
There are no wrong answers. Jesus is not looking to be defensive or offended. What he is doing is starting to illuminate evidence that the disciples have seen for themselves, through a approach we might call Narrative Questioning. I’d like to expand a little bit on what the subtext of this looks like. I imagine the disciples to be quite a chatty bunch, but what we’re seeing recorded here are just really short sentences summarizing their answers. The subtext behind Jesus asking “Who do you say I am?” might have been questions like:
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When did you first notice something different?
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What evidence supports this belief that you have?
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How did you feel about that?
This example of taking one question and stepping it further and further is something that we have been doing in our growth group over the last couple of months. We’ve been looking at what the church looks like in Acts — so, big broad picture: What do we see revealed in Scripture? Then take it a step down: How does that apply to our church? And another step down: How does that apply to us as individuals within the church? We’ve spent a good amount of time debating and engaging in conversation to wrestle with what this looks like for ourselves and in the context of church as well.
In Jesus asking, “Who do you say I am?” there is an opportunity for the disciples to define things more clearly for themselves. They’re verbalizing what they believe. When we say things out loud, it often creates an opportunity to articulate things differently, to have ideas formed more solidly. We saw that demonstrated with the baptism and confirmation service a couple of weeks ago, where we had public confessions — public declarations of faith by the candidates. These were opportunities to put pieces together, to offer verbal testimony, and to confess Christ crucified. Now, while the candidates know who they are in Christ (and we know who they are in Christ), verbalizing it is an encouragement to us and it solidifies things in their own minds as well.
And this is exactly what we have Peter doing here. Peter was the spokesperson for the group, and he says, “You are the Messiah.” Sometimes we do need an opportunity for personal reflection like this. Do we recognize who Jesus is to us? He is an individual sacrifice for each and every one of us at the one time. For each of us, He died on the cross for all of our sins — but as an individual, we are called to accept it as our own. I call it “not a pick-and-choose Jesus.”
(I was going to have a slide here of a Mr. Potato Head toy, but I thought it would ruin the vibe!) The point of using a Mr. Potato Head is that you can change out the eyes and the arms and the mouth and so on. In our current culture of customizing everything, I felt it was prudent to mention that not all things are customizable. Accepting that Jesus died for your sins gives us the hope of eternal life that is not customizable. What is unique is your relationship with him — the way that he speaks with you, the type of prayer that you engage in with him. Not any of us engage in prayer in the same way as another. At different times in our lives and in our walk with him, he will reveal Scripture differently to each of us. The truth remains the same, but the uniqueness is where the joy is. We are created in his image, each uniquely able to enjoy a relationship with him. In this, we have been given an individual opportunity to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, to confess Christ crucified, and to look for his coming in glory.
Jesus Predicts His Death (Luke 9:21–22)
So the next section in Luke chapter 9 starts at verse 21. (Again, a little bit of subtext.) This was an amazing revelation that Peter had — one line: Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.” Those four words close out that scene, and then Jesus pivots a little bit. He strictly warns them not to tell this to anyone, because it really was not the time for public revelation as they were moving towards the cross. The whole point of the salvation work of Jesus and the demonstration of him as the Messiah was that it was not yet time for a public proclamation of what was happening. They did not yet have the Holy Spirit to give power to their testimony. But they also — and hear me out — they also would have messed with God’s ordained plan, the order of events. (Now, nothing can derail the plans of God!) My point in mentioning this is that although nothing happens without God’s knowledge, this command had a purpose like all commands do. In the disciples’ honoring of this command — deciding not to tell anyone, as they were asked — they then began to see the outworking of God’s plan unfold.
What they saw and realized was the strengthening of their faith. What they received was the Holy Spirit. And what they ultimately created was the building of the early church. There was a reason why they were asked to do what they were asked to do, and sometimes we are fortunate enough in this lifetime to see the outworking of commands like that.
Verse 22 continues:
“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life again.”
Here is the confirmation of why they needed to be quiet for now — Jesus adds that he’ll be raised again in three days, to confirm and align with Old Testament prophecies. But it also begins to give a realistic understanding of what he was going to endure. This is not the messianic triumph and splendor they expected; it is a very progressive and slow revelation of his coming death. The disciples were slowly able to grasp and understand these little bits and put them together — these things that were previously only alluded to are now actually being spoken of. It begins to redefine their expectations: who they thought Jesus was, who he was becoming to them, versus who he always knew he was — the Messiah.
I wonder, has there been a time when your expectations were redefined by Jesus? He has always known you to be his child — do you see that in yourself? Do you recall a time where things looked a little different, when you thought one way and God revealed Himself to you in a different way? Personal revelation.
The Cost of Discipleship (Luke 9:23–25)
Verse 23 continues:
“Then he said to them all, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’”
So we’ve had the personal reflection in a small group; we’ve had the time of prayer together. Now Jesus is saying this to everyone — a big teachable moment to the crowds. This is not a condemnation to carry a literal cross (although in biblical times this would have been a very shocking statement, because only criminals and people literally heading towards execution carried their crosses on their backs as they went to their sentence). In this context, it’s a call to commitment, where the outcome of eternal life with Jesus Christ is assured. But we have a time between now and then, and that time can be very hard. The “taking up of your cross” is a call to committing to Jesus daily — and this word “daily” means throughout the day, regularly, multiple times a day. When we commit to Jesus, we have what we like to call a soul at peace, eternally focused. However, we remain in the bodies here on earth, and it is not always easy. It is not always restful, and it is not always comfortable.
The disciples are demonstrating to us the reality of life. We have an infilling before outpouring to others, and then we try to replenish again — but we don’t always quite get there before outpouring again. But now, unlike the disciples in that moment, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. And it is possible. We know there are challenges to face. It’s not always what we want to do or how we want to do it. But we are able to be still and know that He is God. He is God of all of it, until we meet again — our soul at peace, our body at rest with Him.
Verse 24 carries on:
“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
This verse really focuses on the cost here on earth — although ultimately there’s no cost at all when it comes to eternal life. The disciples are being presented with what was to come, and naturally they might start considering how they could prevent Jesus’ suffering. Because if you think of it from their perspective, they are hearing about his death and going, “Well, no, that’s no good — we’re going to have to fix this problem.” They didn’t yet understand the outworking of God’s holy plan. It also unfortunately presents them with an opportunity to reflect on and prepare for their own deaths. If this was how the Lord was going to die, what would that look like for them?
Verse 25 continues:
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?”
Surrendering to Jesus is not passive. It’s active. And as we said, it is daily — an exercise in obedience. Our identity can be passive. I am a daughter (and I’ll take a moment to shout out to my mom and dad watching online!). I am called a wife by Adrian in Kids Min today (fortunately, because we’re actually married!). The identity that I have in Christ is not self-defined; it is not given by the world. We receive it through accepting His sacrifice. We receive it and accept it.
For a bit of an analogy: self-defining your identity is like shopping for new clothes — choosing the next thing that seems nice, that fits well, maybe is on trend (doesn’t have to be). But you’re still choosing it as your own; you’re still choosing it as your own identity. Or potentially it’s something that someone has declared over you: “You are this.” We don’t take up these self-made identities as our cross — they are far too heavy, too hard to live up to. Being a good person or a genuine friend won’t get us into heaven. Releasing our self-identities — letting go of who we say we are — to focus on who Christ says we are. “You are a child of God.” We acknowledge Jesus as our Savior and our Messiah. And while some of the facts about us that I mentioned (daughter, wife, etc.) stay true, they are not who God is calling us to be as our first priority. They are not who I am, and they should not be who I am. The cross that Jesus asks us to pick up daily is our commitment to Him.
Not Ashamed of Christ (Luke 9:26)
Verse 26 says:
“Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
This begs the question: what does it look like to be ashamed of Christ? The word “ashamed” is defined as a sense of embarrassment, but in a public context — being worried about identifying yourself with something or someone such that when someone notices, they might say, “Why would you align yourself with that person?” It’s a very personal word. In the particular societal values of honor and shame in biblical times, this (“ashamed”) was the opposite of honor; this was shame. Early Christians were often marginalized and persecuted for their beliefs, so here Jesus is encouraging them to stand firm despite societal pressures.
So that’s biblical times — we start to understand what it looked like and why it mattered then. But what does it look like in a modern context? What does it look like to be brave and to call yourself a Christian today? How do you describe your weekend when somebody asks, “How was your weekend? Did you get up to anything different yesterday?” And while regularly coming to church is no longer considered unusual (given that you do it most weeks), it can still be nerve-wracking to mention it.
By way of analogy, I tested this out in my own life this week. At work we don’t talk face-to-face much; we tippy-type on the chats — which if you ask me is worse, because it’s there in writing. Conversations come and go, but typed words stay forever. And so, last Monday morning at 7:15, when my colleague said, “Hey, what’d you get up to this weekend?” I thought, “Oh, God does not work in mysterious ways; He works in very obvious ways sometimes!” And I decided — you know what — that’s it, I’m going to be brave. I’m not always brave, but I am going to be brave this time.
I did what I described to my growth group as “the sandwich.” So I replied: my in-laws went to visit, we went to church and saw some friends, sandwiched in there. (Take from that what you will.) And of course, my delightful colleague — who is very new to the company (we have not known each other very long at all) — said, “Oh, church! Which one do you go to and how long have you been there?” And I thought, oh well, can’t hurt, right? So I told her. I mentioned I was playing piano at church last week because it was my turn. And she said, “Oh, that’s so good. I’ve been church hopping.” (Now I know, of course.) And she goes, “It’s really difficult at the moment because my husband and my children, they do not believe.”
In that moment, I really felt like God was giving me the opportunity to know how to pray for my colleague. It’s not something that we are able to do all the time, but my hope is that for her, hearing that somebody else is a Christian at work — and somebody a bit senior to her as well — that she hopefully knows that I have her best interests at heart when doing the job that God has called me to do. God has given me the gift to be able to then, in my own prayer time, pray for her, for her relationship with her husband and her adult children. And as I typed out to her, “You are an encouragement to them. You continue doing what you’re doing because your faithfulness will be the thing that people see.”
And that, to me, is what commitment to Jesus daily looks like. For some people, it will look different.
So what if you’re not feeling brave? Is there hope for you? Boy, is there ever. (And I wrote down here: Absolutely.)
Hope for the Fearful: Peter’s Example
Peter — and his growing maturity in faith as he learns and struggles — is an example for all of us. And this is the best part of the Bible (we say that a bit tongue-in-cheek): there’s something in there for all of us… but there really is! As I mentioned earlier, Peter is the spokesperson for the group, voicing the realization and the revelation that Jesus is the Messiah. But if you read further, you’ll also see that Peter has a moment of being ashamed. When Jesus has been arrested and is on trial, in Matthew 26 we read about Peter’s denial. Verse 69 says:
“Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. ‘You also were with Jesus of Galilee,’ she said. But he denied it before them all, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’” (Matthew 26:69–70)
And that can sometimes be really hard to read, because sometimes it is exactly what we have said out loud. But God, in His wisdom and mercy, calls us towards Himself. He reinstates Peter before Peter dies — before the end of his life. John 21:16 says:
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And he answered, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” (John 21:16)
And Peter became the builder of the early church. So we see that although we have the peaks and the troughs — times of being brave and times of being ashamed — God never leaves us, He never denies us. And He is always there with us.
Our last verse of today’s passage is verse 27, and it says:
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Here we see the reference to the last days — the Son of Man coming in glory, eternal life and fulfillment and true hope. Now, all of the Gospels have the account that we looked at today, but Luke has a unique emphasis: he highlights that all people are able to be disciples of Jesus, and he specifically emphasizes the daily following of Jesus.
An Invitation to Respond
So in this series, we’re looking at questions. We’re asking them. We’re answering them. And (if you were here last week) I believe God gave me some very pointed wisdom to share with us: we can also avoid answering them if we really want to. You can continue to be self-defined, but God does not move. Sometimes He’s waiting right next to us. Sometimes He’s actively calling us to Himself.
And so we ask: Are you brave enough to listen — to pick up your cross of commitment daily, throughout the day — and to follow Him into the gift of eternal life?
In a moment, we’re heading into a time of singing and then communion, and I’d love to invite you to respond to what the Lord is saying to you today. That can look however you want it to look. I’m going to ask you some questions and ask you to visualize, either with your eyes open or closed (it doesn’t matter).
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Take a moment to see Jesus standing in front of you.
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Is He calling you with what I know is a smile on His face?
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Is He telling you more about how He sees you? Ask Him how He sees you.
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You can declare to Him, “I know I am Your child.” What else is He saying?
In our human minds, there is always a point at which we say yes to something — when we feel that the benefit outweighs the cost. After evaluating the gift of eternal life, are you willing to take a step forward and place your trust in Him? When the gift outweighs the cost, what cost is there at all? Jesus approached people, but He also waited for them to come to Him. Is Jesus waiting for you today to recognize Him in a deeper way?
I’d love you to use this next time of worship as an opportunity to reflect on some of the things that God has been saying to you today. Further to that, as we take up communion and as we look at the promises that are on the screen, my prayer for you today is that they would resonate powerfully and be an encouragement to you. That as you lean into Jesus, He was already there. And as you take up your cross for Him, the gift of eternal life is the very next step. Amen.
