the Lord good praise for that cleansing flood.
Hallelujah.
Thank you for being in the house of the Lord today.
Turn with me to Matthew's gospel, chapter 22.
It's good to have little Lucas.
He's had to take a break, but it's little Lucas's first day
at Hope Well this morning.
So it's good to have him.
He'll be up in the balcony to my right later on.
We'll have a dedication here before long for Lucas.
Give the Lord thanks.
Dedicate him. Amen.
Good to see you in the house of the Lord today.
Matthew's gospel, chapter 22, 22 verse 42.
Matthew 22, you're there, say amen.
If you're not, say wait just a minute.
Here we go.
Verse 42.
Saying, what think ye of Christ, whose son is he?
They say unto him, the son of David.
With the help of the Lord, just pulling this passage out.
I want to speak to us on the thought this morning for a little bit.
Opinions matter.
I'll pray for you if you pray for me.
We'll be expedient this morning.
Lord, we love you.
We thank you.
I pray, Lord, that you would help in this house today.
Lord, I need your help.
I need your strength.
Stir that unction and anointing that you've placed upon me.
Lord, I thank you for those who are in this house today.
Lord, none of us here by accident, but by reason and purpose.
Your reason and your purpose.
So I pray, Lord, before we leave here,
that we leave touched and we leave blessed.
Blessed by being with each other.
Blessed with our worship corporately.
Blessed by being in your presence.
You be praised forever.
In Christ's holy name.
That's what you're saying?
Amen, amen.
You can be seated this morning.
Opinions matter.
There's a lot taking place in the text this morning.
Pharisees are gathered.
They've come together.
Jesus poses a question to them.
They so often are questioning him about who he is and what he's about,
what he's doing.
But he poses a question to them in our text this morning.
And yes, them will.
What do you think about me?
That's dangerous, isn't it?
Isn't that dangerous sometimes?
You'll pick a certain crowd to ask that question,
and you won't just ask that question to anyone.
Sometimes we might be afraid we'll get an honest answer.
So we want to find that crowd that's going to be favorable toward us.
But I assure you with Jesus asking the Pharisees,
what think you of Christ, whose son is he?
I guarantee you it wasn't a very popular question at the moment.
When we think about opinion,
opinion is a judgment, a viewpoint, a statement that is not concise.
But opinions are important.
They have a bearing on most of us,
and they have a bearing on our lives and how we go about life.
An opinion being defined as the view or the judgment or appraisal
formed in the mind about a specific matter.
Politicians live and die by the opinion polls.
Corporations have been built and destroyed by the opinions of people,
so much so noted in our council culture of our day.
Webster says it's that appraisal, that formation in the mind
about a particular matter.
Fashion, style are determined by opinion.
Movies, success or failures are determined by opinions.
Songs, successes are determined by opinions.
Those opinions determine the outcome of our choices.
They are formed throughout a various process in our hearts and lives.
How many of you are first impressionists?
Anybody?
I mean, you pretty much form your opinion in about 90 seconds.
I've got you beat.
I'm about a 32-second opinion former.
First impressions, what did you say, true?
I can hear.
I lay heavy upon my first impressions.
Three times I've been proven wrong.
I'm trying to break it up.
Y'all are cold as ice in here.
I'm just about to give an altar call and let you go.
We'll try it again next week.
Have it, thank you.
He needs it, Lord.
Character studies form opinions through the sorting out of information
and all of these combine to help form a knowledgeable opinion about a subject matter.
We have opinions concerning your favorite people, places, cars, food, clothes, music,
so many other things in life.
However, the most important opinion you will ever form
is the opinion you form concerning Jesus Christ.
The Pharisees are put to the test and they have the question posed to them.
What think ye of the Christ?
What is your opinion of the Christ and whose son is he?
That's a powerful deep subject to begin to ponder.
But I think for each of us we must have a reevaluation.
I do it quite often.
I evaluate in my own life what it is I think of Christ
and what he means to me and how much my need of him really is.
I don't know about you, but I really need Jesus in my life.
I really need him every day just so that I can cope and make life happen
and live what life brings toward me day in and day out.
I need Jesus.
So today for you to ask me my opinion of who the Christ is
and what my opinion of the Christ really is,
he's my all in all.
He's my everything, the existence of myself, and the reason of my being.
It took me a little over 20 years to find out that the reason of my being
was for his purpose and his purpose alone.
That the surrender of my life was for his will and for his good pleasure
and for him to do with me and in me as he pleases.
I don't know how long it's taking you to get there.
You may not be there yet, but let me just assure you,
the quicker you get there, the quicker you form your opinion
and have it informed by the Word of God and the power of God.
As we would ponder this same question, he still stands on trial today,
some 2,000 years past the asking of this original question.
He is still an opinionated character in our culture
because many people form opinions about him.
Listen to this, a Barna study in 2014 said 93% of the people in the US
believed Jesus was a real person.
Just go figure, I don't know what the other seven are thinking about,
but you know, what kind of proof they need to know that he was a real person.
Americans who identify as Christians are most likely to say,
listen to this, this is an opinion, they are most likely to say
that they find Jesus, number one, as Savior, 53%,
as the Son of God, 50%.
When you think of the pick three from the list that they had provided,
they picked this, Messiah, 21%, Lord is 20% and healer, at 17%.
It might actually shock you to believe now and to hear
that only about 53% of Americans actually believe,
I'm talking about out of that 93% Christian rate,
that only about 53% according to Pew Research believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of the Living God and that he is divine,
not was but is because he continues still to be.
Are you with me this morning?
So now look at the decline of this nation, look at where we are,
look at how people are still forming their opinion.
29% of adult Americans in the United States,
29% identify themselves as none when it comes to religious affiliation.
They're either atheists or agnostic or they're just nothing in particular at all.
They don't even believe there's a God or if they even believe there's a God,
they don't believe that you can know that God.
So the question that was posed to the Pharisees 2000 years ago
is a relevant question here on this 24th day of September in the year of our Lord 2023.
It's still a valid question, it's an important question,
and it's one that we will all have to form an answer to.
You have to develop an opinion of who Christ is.
Is he the Messiah? Oh, 21%.
Is he Lord? 20%.
Oh, is he just whatever? Is he healer?
Only 17% of the people believe that he is healer.
But I'm here to tell you today, he's 100% of all of the above.
And the verification is written throughout history,
and history proves it, and history validates it,
and you have to form your opinion here on this day in the year of our Lord.
And as we seek out character weaknesses through the Word of God.
It's a question about God's ability and not only his ability,
but it's about his existence.
If you look in 1 Kings 18 and 21, and Elijah came unto all the people,
and he said, how long halt you between two opinions?
If the Lord be God, then follow him. If Baal, then follow him.
And the people answered him not a word.
So I'm posing that question to you today.
If the Lord is God, if there is a God,
you've got to form an opinion about him quick today.
And if he is Lord, then you must follow him.
Are you going to choose to follow him?
There's a line that gets drawn in the sand.
There's one in eternity that's awaiting you to approach.
And the only way to cross that line is to accept the fact
that God is God and there is no other.
And he is the creator of all things.
And because of him, all things are into existence.
So what is your opinion? What is your thought today?
You've got to have an answer.
You can't be like the Israelites of that day and not have an answer.
You must form an opinion and have an answer.
And if he is Lord, then you must choose him.
In our culture today, it's like going to the Bass Pro Shop
and going down to Fish and Eye.
There's just way too much stuff.
Hello?
Just way too much.
They've got an aisle and a section designated to whatever it is you desire to catch.
And when you get there, you're scratching your head saying,
well, I wonder which one's the best?
Huh?
Unless you weigh a lot better off than I am,
you can't just afford to get a pack of each and find out for yourself.
It works that way in the religious system of this world in which you and I are living.
Because of man's perversion in his heart,
there are so many options that are out there.
People do not know what to believe.
But I'm here to tell you there's only one correct answer,
and that is who is the Christ?
The answer to that question.
If you'll remember, Jesus not only posed this question to the Pharisees,
but he asked his disciples,
Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?
And Peter gives that wonderful, powerful answer.
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And then we hear Jesus retort to him,
Blessed art thou, Simon Parchon,
For flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you,
But my Father, which is in heaven.
Oh, and he didn't just stop there.
He said, Whatsoever you bind on earth, you'll be bound in heaven.
And whatsoever you loose on earth is going to be loosed in heaven.
And how does that happen?
He said, Because, behold, I give unto you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Here's the key to the kingdom of heaven.
It is that Christ is the Messiah.
Hallelujah.
And that Jesus is the Redeemer of lost humanity.
And you've got to form that opinion correctly.
Character witnesses throughout Scripture
Validate the authenticity.
If you don't take his word for it, at least take the Father's word.
John 1 and 1, in the beginning, was the word, and the word was God.
Colossians 1 and 17 declares, He is before all things,
And by Him all things consist.
John 3 and 17, we hear this voice from heaven as the Father begins to speak.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.
If you don't take my word for it this morning,
If you won't take the Bible's word for it, then take God the Father's word for it.
This is my beloved Son, who is the Christ, and whose Son is He.
He is the Son of the Heavenly Father, the only begotten upon this earth of the Father.
John 3 and 16, it's because of the begotten one that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.
I don't know if you've looked around you lately,
but this whole world's going to hell in a handbasket.
That's the world.
I may be in this world, but I am not of this world.
And by virtue of not being of this world,
I'm not going to hell in any basket or bucket or anything else.
There's a place being prepared for me, and that is where I'm going.
I'm here to encourage somebody today.
Your opinion does matter. Your opinion does matter.
Your opinion of He being the Christ and the Lord of your life and the Messiah,
of the saving, redempting Worker of all of humanity.
It really does matter.
It does not matter what the devil thinks about it or what people think about it,
but it matters what you think about it this morning.
The angels weigh in on the matter.
Luke 2, 11, they declare in the heavens,
unto you is born a Savior, which is called Christ the Lord.
Now, the Pharisees are not going to have a good answer,
but the angels had a good one.
John the Baptist would come on the scene, the last of the Old Testament prophets.
He's standing ways deep in Jordan baptizing converts,
and he looks up on the hillside and sees Jesus coming down.
And it was there he would make that declaration.
Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world.
Come on now.
I know you may not think you need him to take him away, but you do.
And the sooner you realize it, the better off you're going to be.
It took me a while to realize that I was raised in church,
cut my teeth on an oak pew and a redback hymn cover.
Amen, but that still didn't give me what I needed.
Just because I was raised in it and surrounded by it,
did not do the work in my life until the day that I realized that I was lost and dying
and on my way to a devil's hell.
But there was a hope extended to me through who is this, who is the Christ.
He is the Redeemer, he is the Savior, he's the lover of my soul.
And when I realized and recognized my own, oh, my own unworthy condition
and realized that I was a sinner and the only escape from my sin was the sinless one,
who is the Christ, the Lord of all.
And upon him I called, and at his feet I fell.
That's what I think about him.
That's what I think concerning him.
The angel said a Savior is born, which is called Christ the Lord.
John said he's the lamb that takes away the sins of the world.
The best answer that scribes and Pharisees could give found Matthew 7 and 29.
All they could say is, well, he just speaks as one having authority.
Yeah, well, that's the best you got.
He did have authority, right?
All authority in heaven and in earth have been given to him.
That's all they can answer.
Simon said he is the Christ.
Judas is Caryat.
Remember what Judas said in Matthew 27 and 4?
He said, I have betrayed innocent blood.
Oh, I'm telling you, he had an opinion, but he formed it way too late, didn't he?
He formed it after he had already sold out the Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
He found it out after he is crucified.
He come to that knowledge way too late, my Lord, and I'm encouraging us today.
Don't come to that knowledge way too late.
You hear me this morning?
Jesus loves you.
We used to sing it as we were little children, and I hope they still sing it today.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Amen.
Little ones to him belong.
Come on, somebody.
We need to know that Jesus still loves us.
What is your opinion?
Is your opinion as the enemy convinced you and got you to believe that he's abandoned you in your trouble,
as he left you and forsaken you in your darkest hour, then the devil is a lie.
He has never forsaken you.
Why, pastor?
Because he said, I will never leave you.
I will never forsake you.
But, lo, I will go with you always, even to the end of the earth.
My God, this morning, understand that your opinion really matters.
I already preached that page anyway.
Some of you just formed an opinion of that, and I and not even will go there.
Pilate said, I find no fault in him.
His opinion mattered, didn't it?
Pilate's opinion mattered.
Upon the word of Pilate, Christ could have went free.
And he tried every way in the world, every way possible to get him out of it, to keep from Christ being crucified.
He took a picture and had him pour water over his hands.
I wash my hands.
I'm innocent, hoping that the gesture would make sense and convince them not to crucify.
He said, well, I'll really do it for him now.
Oh, it's your tradition that on this day that we release one from prison.
You remember?
So I can just see him in his conversation with his guards.
Find me the dirtiest, rotten, meanest scoundrel down in the lower, the lowest part of the prison,
and bring him up here tomorrow and I will let them choose.
Knowing, Pilate, knowing there's no way they're going to take this man, Barabbas, over this innocent man,
a murderer, a thief, a conniver, over one who'd raised the dead.
Are you with me this morning?
One who had opened the eyes of the blind, one who'd opened deaf ears, who had untied the tangleman of the tongue,
of the mute, come on, and the leper who had been washed clean.
That was his charge against him.
That was all they had.
And then he presents them with Barabbas and here they cry because their opinion had been formed.
He was a blasphemer.
Their opinion had already been stated in their mind.
He is claiming to be God.
There is no other but God.
Oh, he's transgressed the law.
He's picked fruit on the seventh day.
He's washed his hands on the Sabbath.
He's healed.
My, my, my, he reached out and healed on the seventh.
Give us Barabbas.
Opinions matter.
Had it not been piloted, what ultimately ended up being Caesar?
Why, pastor?
Because he had to die.
Why did he have to die?
To save you and me.
That's why.
Thomas.
We call him Doubting Thomas, but that's not really fair.
He wasn't there the day that Christ presented himself after the resurrection.
He wasn't there in the midst, in the crowd with the others when Jesus showed his hands in his side
and they accepted and believed.
All he got was their testimony.
Are you here? Hang on here now.
All Thomas received was their testimony.
We have seen the Christ.
He is risen.
And like most of us doubters, come on.
Like most of us will say, well, unless I see him with my own eyes, I'm not going to believe it.
Until I put my finger where they drove the spikes into his wrist, I'll not accept it.
Until I can put my hand in his side where I know that spear lacerated his flesh, until I can do that, I won't believe.
But one day he was in the house.
Come on, somebody.
Oh, Thomas was there with the rest and Christ comes before them.
And he said, look, Thomas, here's my hand.
Oh, Thomas, you say and you got to get this.
I hope you're not missing it.
He wasn't there when he said it, but he knew it.
He wasn't there when he testified to the fact of doubt and disbelief.
But it was there that he stood with his side open.
Put your hand here.
Put your fingers here.
Oh, no, Thomas fell.
There's your faith.
My Lord, sometimes in life when things look so unbelievable, we can't even acknowledge the fact that God is working on our behalf.
But you hear me this morning.
I don't care how bad it is or how bad it looks.
God is still at work on your behalf.
He's seeing, he's knowing, he's hearing, he's understanding.
Even at your weakest faith moment, he knows what's on your mind and knows.
Here's the good part.
He knows what you need to see.
I just formed an opinion, but I'm not going to express it.
I wish you could feel what I'm feeling while I'm trying to preach this to you.
I wish you could experience just a little bit of what's going on inside of me as I'm trying to relay to you the opinions matter.
I can't express to you the war that's going on.
I wish I could.
I wish you could feel it some Sundays you wouldn't be as out to be as distracted as you are.
I wish you knew the war that was going on the inside so that the word of God goes forth so that faith can be encouraged and faith could be built.
You really think the devil wants me to stand up here with ease and tell you that your opinion matters?
You really think the devil wants you to just hear that the power of Christ is what makes you,
what strengthens you, encourages you, and is grace that's added to your life and enables you to make it another day?
No, he doesn't want that to go forward.
He wants you as distracted as you can possibly be.
He wants me as frustrated as I can possibly get, but I've got news for him.
I've seen it all.
It's all happened.
It's been done.
Batteries have died.
Cords have went out.
Youngins have screamed and people have got up and in and out, and you wonder if they don't need to be on dialysis?
Surely, bladders can't be this week.
I have foreign opinion and I'm trying to keep it to myself because they matter.
Because if I really express mine, some of you probably won't be back, so I'll not do that.
You've got to understand, me and the devil have nothing in common.
You hear me?
I rub him wrong and he rubs me wrong.
So my frustration is not always with you, it's with him.
Always with him.
But sometimes to those who yield themselves as instruments, I get a little aggravated.
Moving right along, Thomas declared, my Lord and my God.
Upon simply seeing he didn't have to touch, remember?
Not one finger went in one nail.
Not one hand went in one side.
Just simply upon making it available, he fell and made his opinion known, my Lord and my God.
That's what happens in our weak faith moments.
He will reveal himself to us.
He will reveal himself to you.
When your faith is at its weakest and life is at its lowest, he can come to where you are.
And when he gets there and he arrives there, when we have our earthly complaints,
Lord, where were you?
Why didn't you show up there when I was with them then?
It doesn't matter.
That's not the point.
The point is when you need him the most, that's when he arrives.
You always have to know that God's always on time.
He's never late.
He's never early.
But he always shows up precisely when and where you need him, my Lord and my God.
Revelation 19 and 16, John declares him king of kings and lord of lords.
Paul's confession in Philippians 3 10 would be this, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.
And to be a partaker and fellowship in his suffering.
We don't want none of that.
I don't want none of that.
Do you?
I don't want the suffering.
I long for the glorification to be with him.
Amen.
That's us.
Opinions express the man that was born blind in John 9.
They call him to court.
When you born blind.
Yes, sir, I was.
Who's made you whole?
Well, I really couldn't see him.
I don't know who did all this.
Get his mother and dad, bring them into court.
Is this your son?
Yes, our boy.
Was he born blind?
He was born blind.
Well, then how can he see right now?
Listen to this.
You need to go back and read it.
John chapter nine, the Pharisees had already said that if anyone confesses him as the Christ,
they would be thrown out of the synagogue.
What's that mean?
Kicked out of church.
They'd already said that.
So here they are standing before a packed court.
Right?
So now how we going to answer this?
Oh, I got it.
Boy's old enough.
He'll answer for himself.
Thank you, your honor, and they leave.
They didn't want kicked out church.
So they pull the boy back up.
How then do you see?
He has formed an opinion.
I don't know how.
I really don't know who it was.
But what I can tell you is this.
I was blind.
But now I can see now.
I see you sitting there judging me as Pastor Brian's already made mention.
I see you now.
I couldn't see you before, but I see you now.
So it really to me doesn't matter who it was or how he done it or what day of the week he'd done it on.
The fact is that he had the power to do it and the compassion to extend it toward me.
It really doesn't matter, child, of God, when or where or the how.
The simplicity is this, is that your opinion matters and your faith is built, and he does it for you.
You good?
The leper?
Luke 5?
Just come to thank him.
I know you go on and on and on, but I'll digress this morning.
The apostles centered their preaching and teaching around the person and the centrality of Jesus Christ and no other message.
I fear today that our message has gotten too far from Calvary.
The hope that many try to portray to others is a self-hope.
It's not self-hope that I offer you today.
It's the hope that Paul offers to young Timothy when he said, Jesus Christ, which is our hope.
That's what I offer you today.
That's what I extend to you today.
That's the focal point of the message, the Son of God, the heart leader of the preaching and our preaching from then to now.
It always will be the focus on what do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he? Knowing that he is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent one.
He is the hope that exists in our life.
He's the hope in an otherwise hopeless society.
It is he who is the hope of humanity.
So opinions matter.
The enemy tries to alter our opinions of who Christ is and what he means to us.
That's the reason you can't form opinions in and through and during worship.
Remember the lady with the alabaster box who brought the little box that was full of a year's wages of perfume, a year's wages.
And she comes into where Christ is at, a sinner woman who had been forgiven.
She takes that box, breaks it. That's the only way in. You break it.
The man is soft, almost like chalk.
And pours it on his feet.
And the disciples had the nerve to form an opinion and become indignant, angry.
We could have sold that and fed men.
I want to tell you, you can't form an opinion on someone else's worship and the worth that they pour out on him.
Because one thing we don't know is what he has really done for them.
We catch an outward glimpse, but we don't know what he has done for them.
Opinions matter.
Stand with me this morning.
So what is your opinion of Christ today?
I'll not be so bold as to ask your opinion of myself this morning.
What is your opinion about Jesus?
What is your opinion of him?
I pose the question that Peter had to answer.
Who do men say that I, the son of man, am?
And then when they begin to answer, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah, one of the other prophets, Lord, that's what the popular opinion is.
But then it comes down to this.
Who do you say?
Father, I love you this morning.
Lord, I thank you today.
I so thank you for your help this morning.
Opinions matter.
Opinions matter, Lord.
So what is yours today?
If he's not Lord of your life, if he is not your Savior,
I've already quoted to you, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believes in him should not perish without everlasting life.
Have you asked him to forgive you of your sin?
Have you asked him to cleanse you and be Lord of your life?
I have not, preacher.
I have not.
I've not done that.
I feel like I need to.