“But what about you?” He asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:15-16
One of our emphases in the youth ministry is small groups. We encourage a time to be with one another, ask questions, and dive deeper into the Scriptures we study that day. During one of our sessions, we talked about the supremacy of God. We discussed that because Jesus is supreme over all things our faith in Him provides security in every circumstance. As we kept exploring what supremacy looks like from a Biblical standpoint, one of the students raised their hand and said “Harry, how come it feels like you’re saying the same question and we’re giving the same answer? Why can’t you just give us the answers?”
This brought up the question: “how do you answer the question ‘who do you say God is and why?’. As expected, they said various things like, “we’ve watched it on YouTube, we hear you talk about it at youth group, or our parents told us.” I continued to dive deeper and ask, “but what does the Bible say and where does it say that?” To which some of their responses were “I don’t know”. This allowed us to explore the importance of being in the Word for themselves and knowing the truths of Scripture. It was exciting to see their faces realize that although people can tell them what to believe, the Scripture is the final authority and the truth that God has revealed to us.
In the gospels, Peter has a conversation with Jesus in which Jesus asked Peter, “Who do YOU say that I am?” There are many opinions about God in this world and each of us can hear about who God is from the perspective of others. Some opinions may be Scriptural, and others may not be. But when the day comes and someone asks us, “who do you say Jesus is?”, how would you support your answer? Does your faith reflect an article you might have read online? Or is your faith firm on the foundation of truth that is God’s Word? Spend time with God through prayer and being in His Word. May you come to know as Peter did in a personal way that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
