Thee Most Important Question Of All Time: Who Do You Say That I Am?

Who Do You Say That I Am?

The most important question facing you today has nothing to do with your job, your income, your house, or for that matter plenty of things that you might hold to be important.  It is a simple six-word question, “ Who do you say that I am?”

This was the exact same question that Jesus posed to his Apostles.  See their answers.   

Matthew 16 13:15

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, 'Who do people say the Son of man is?'

14 And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.'

15 'But you,' he said, 'who do you say I am?'

Who do you say that I am?

A question for the ages because it will also be the question we need to answer for the next world as well.  What good is it to gain riches in this world if we can not take those riches with us?  Would it not be better to be poor in this world so we could be rich in the next one?  This is faith.  This commitment and this is the Truth. Do we have the type of faith that we truly need?  Do we have the faith that will help us in troubled times or do we have the type of faith that goes away when the sunsets on our good times?  

Christ came to give us a way of life, not a quick fix.  It is not enough to believe in him.  Consider the fact that the devil himself believes in God- he just does follow him.  This is the problem when we are choosing to do our own thing or following worldly goals, who or what are we actually following?  The devil of course. 

Bishop Fulton Sheen put out these wonderful quotes about the life of Christ in his book of the same title, The Life Of Christ.

“Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.”

? Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

“Very few people believe in the devil these days, which suits the devil very well. He is always helping to circulate the news of his own death. The essence of God is existence, and He defines Himself as: 'I am Who am.' The essence of the devil is the lie, and he defines himself as: 'I am who am not.' Satan has very little trouble with those who do not believe in him; they are already on his side.”

? Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

“The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is Christ. Each has awaited new partners who will pick them up in a kind of second and adulterous union. Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ.

Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supra-individual goals. But the Cross without Christ is a sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentration camps, firing squads, and brain-washings.

The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.”

? Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

“Two classes of people make up the world: those who have found God, and those who are looking for Him - thirsting, hungering, seeking! And the great sinners came closer to Him than the proud intellectuals! Pride swells and inflates the ego; gross sinners are depressed, deflated, and empty. They, therefore, have room for God. God prefers a loving sinner to a loveless 'saint'. Love can be trained; pride cannot. The man who thinks that he knows will rarely find truth; the man who knows he is a miserable, unhappy sinner, like the woman at the well, is closer to peace, joy, and salvation than he knows.”

? Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

“The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.”

? Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ