I BELIEVE JESUS IS GOD'S SON

I Believe Jesus is God’s Son

Text: Matthew 16:16-20

Proposition: What makes me believe Jesus really is God’s Son?

Introduction

Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. This was quite a statement. He wasn’t the first man to claim being divine. Many men have claimed to be descended from a god. In the Greek myths Zeus was always having relations with women he thought were beautiful. Hercules was one of his sons. How would you like to have a god like that? He thinks your wife or your daughter is beautiful so he comes down has relations with her. I think I would be looking for a different god. God didn’t do this with Jesus. God kept her a virgin. She didn’t have relations with God. She couldn’t be a virgin if He had and Joseph couldn’t have kept her a virgin until Jesus birth, Matthew 1:25.

The virgin birth makes Jesus God’s Son. Only God can cause a virgin to give birth.

I. He was born of a virgin (Why is the Virgin Birth important?)

A. If He wasn’t born of a virgin he was not the Son of God

1. Luke 1:30-35

2. If the virgin birth is not true Jesus was not the Son of God. But we know that it is true. His life proves this is true and also his resurrection

3. Mary knew she was a virgin

a. Joseph knew she was a virgin

b. Matthew 1:18-25

c. Joseph would have divorced her had she not been a virgin

d. Most men would do as Joseph was planning had their fiancé become pregnant and they knew they hadn’t had relations with her.

e. Luke 1:39-45, Elizabeth knew

f. Those words were just what Mary needed to hear. Who is going to believe that she was a virgin? Mary probably had not told anyone she was pregnant yet, but Elizabeth by the Holy Spirit knows Mary is the mother of her Lord.

B. The Son of God had to be born by a miracle

1. The virgin birth is a miracle. The virgin birth is the only way the Son of God could come into this world.

2. Isaiah 7:1-16

3. Ahaz was a wicked king of Judah. He worshipped idols and sacrificed his children to idols. God gave him in to the hand of his enemies. The king of Aram attacked him and took captives. Israel attacked Ahaz and killed 120,000 of Ahaz’s soldiers in one day. They killed his son Maaseiah and they took 200,000 captives. (II Chronicles 28:1-8)

4. Ahaz was worried that they were going to come and remove him from the throne and replace him with a man named Tabeel (Isaiah 7:6), but God had promised that David’s descendants would be on the throne forever. So Ahaz needed to have faith in what God promised. He didn’t want to test God and ask for a sign, even though he had been told to. So he didn’t get to see the sign. God gave the sign to the house of David. When Jesus was born of a virgin Judah was still a nation, but Ephraim was no more and Aram was no more.

5. The seed of woman had come, the one who would bruise the serpent’s head.

II. The way he spoke (Why did this prove he was the Son of God?)

A. He spoke with power

1. John 7:32, 44-53

2. Men went to arrest Jesus, but they were so amazed at the way he spoke that they came back without him.

3. John 18:1-11

a. The men fell to the ground when he said, “I am He.” Jesus had complete power over them just with his words. He gave himself to them.

b. Luke 22:49-51, Jesus healed the high priest’s slave’s ear after Peter cut it off.

B. He spoke with wisdom

1. Luke 2:41-47, even as a boy Jesus spoke with wisdom.

2. Matthew 12:42, Jesus wisdom was greater than Solomon’s

C. He answered difficult questions

1. Matthew 22:15-22

2. If he said to pay the tax he would be seen as a traitor to the Jews. If he said, “Don’t pay the tax.” He would be going against the Roman government encouraging tax evasion. They were hypocrites. They didn’t like to pay taxes to Caesar. He was a pagan and so they didn’t think they should have to pay taxes to him. Caesar was the one who gave them the money to use. So they were to pay taxes. Our money doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to the Federal Reserve. They have allow you to use it to pay debts. It is illegal to destroy money. Why? If it is yours why can’t you do with it as you please? Because it isn’t yours.

3. Title 18 United States Code, Section 333

Mutilation of national bank obligations

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

4. John 8:1-11, If Jesus said to stone her he was breaking Roman law. They reserved the right of execution for themselves. If he said, “Don’t stone her he was breaking the Law of Moses.” They thought they had him trapped either way, but Jesus was wiser than Solomon. They ended up being trapped. He wrote something on the ground and said, “He who is without sin cast the first stone.”

5. These men claimed to be witnesses. They had caught her in the very act. They were to be the first to cast a stone. (Deuteronomy 17:7 and 13:9) These men were cowards. They had caught the woman in the very act. Where was the man? They had left him behind and brought the woman. Both were to be executed. None of them had the courage to bring the man or to cast the first stone. They ended up being the ones in the trap.

6. Psalms 7:15

III. His miracles (What miracles prove He was the Son of God?)

A. The resurrection of Lazarus

1. John 11:25-44

2. Mary and Martha sent a message to Jesus that Lazarus was sick. They wanted Jesus to come and heal Lazarus. Jesus didn’t come. He waited for two more days after he got the message. By the time Jesus got to Bethany Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus knew Lazarus would die and he knew when he died. The disciples didn’t know Lazarus was dead, but Jesus did.

3. Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus called him back from the dead. Jesus has power over death. He is the Son of God.

B. Healing the man born blind

1. John 9:1-14, 26-38

2. None of the prophets in the Old Testament healed a man born blind from birth. Elisha asked God to blind the army of the Arameans. The Arameans were blinded and Elisha led them to the king of Israel and asked God to restore their sight, but no one had healed a man born blind.

3. Matthew 11:1-5

4. John was confused. He was in prison for preaching that it was unlawful for Herod to have his brother’s wife. (Mark 6:17-20) John didn’t think this was the way things were supposed to be. He was the forerunner of the Messiah. He was, "THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!'" (Matthew 3:3)

5. Jesus told him of the miracles that were happening as proof that he was the Messiah.

C. His resurrection

1. Matthew 27:63-28:15

2. Jesus could not be the Son of God if he stayed in the grave. Many men have claimed to be the son of a god.

a. Ashurbanipal – the Assyrian emperor took a name which means “Ashur has made a son”

b. Alexander the Great claimed to be the son of Zeus.

c. The Egyptian Pharaohs believed that they were sons of gods.

d. They all died just like all other men. They lay down in a bed of maggots and worms just like everyone else.

3. The Jews who shouted, “Crucify Him, Crucify Him,” repented of what they had done because they knew Jesus had resurrected from the dead.

a. Acts 2:22-38

b. No one produced Jesus body. No one accused Peter of stealing Jesus body. No one called Peter a liar. They knew the truth and 3,000 of them were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ that day.

4. The resurrection is what declares Jesus to be the Son of God.

a. Romans 1:4

b. Acts 13:33-35

c. Jesus overcame death. He came to restore what was lost in the Garden of Eden. He came to give us eternal life. We can only have eternal life because of Jesus death, burial and resurrection.

Conclusion

There are three times when God declared Jesus as His Son

• At Jesus baptism
• At the transfiguration
• Because of the Resurrection, God didn’t speak audibly at the resurrection. The resurrection spoke for itself.

On the day of Pentecost the people believed that Jesus was the Son of God. They repented of their sin, and they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin. They then became sons of God.

Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Gal 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

We can be sons of God also.

Rom 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

We are raised up baptism. By faith we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and because of that by faith we become a son of God also.

Knowing that you are a son of God conduct ourselves in a way that pleases our Father just as Jesus pleased his father.