“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”
So, in the passage from Matthew’s gospel, we hear the confession of faith of Peter.  Jesus wants to know what people have been saying about him, and who he is.  So Peter replies, People are saying that he is John the Baptist, or he is Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.  And then, Jesus asks Peter, “But who do you say that I am?”  And Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus pronounces a blessing, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for my Father in heaven has revealed this to you.”
Now, faith is frequently regarded as relating to content, where we have faith in someone, something.  And, what we have in this passage is just that—content; “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  So Peter is addressing Jesus.  He sees in Jesus this reality.
There is another way of looking at faith, which can be seen in several passages of the New Testament.  But, for example, when Jesus was on the cross, some people mocked him, saying, “This man trusted God; let God deliver him, if he wishes; for so he claims to be the Son of God.”  So, in that mockery, there is a reference to Jesus’ own faith.
Now, Jesus’ own faith is not the subject of a lot of discussion in the New Testament.  It is the background to a lot that goes on.  And so, for example, the words that I used to begin this service are an encouragement to the disciples to share or have a part in the faith that Jesus himself had—
He said to them, “...   Truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Or, take another example.  Jesus, when he came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, he was greeted by the other disciples, not Peter, James and John.  They had had problems in dealing with a situation, a situation which required the power of healing on their part.  And they asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out this demon.  And he replied, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”  Again... a reflection on Jesus’ own faith.  And you could multiply the examples.
Now, the apostle Paul does not normally speak of Jesus’ faith.  However, he does speak of the Christian faith, and of how, when the Spirit is part of people’s lives, they cry, “Abba, Father,” just like Jesus did.
So, we can regard faith in terms of its content—Peter saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  We can also regard it as a gift of God, certainly, whereby we somehow share in the reality of the faith of Jesus.  As Jesus could call God, “Abba, Father,” so, by the Spirit, we too can call God, “Abba, Father”.
Now, Jesus said to Peter, “On this rock—and, of course, there are various interpretations of what this means—on this rock, I will build my church; and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
Seemingly—and this is more the Protestant view of things—the faith of Peter, or faith generally, is the reality on which God builds the Church.  It is not Peter himself, but the faith of Peter, in which we also take part.  It’s on the basis of this faith that the Church is built.
Now, when we look at that passage from Romans that I read to you earlier, Paul talks about “a measure of faith”—“Don’t think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think; but think with sober judgement, according to the measure of faith you have been given.”  And the measure of faith, seemingly, as Paul goes on to describe various gifts, or various activities in which we are involved—the “measure of faith” would seem to be the nature of our particular faith; how it works itself out, in terms of service of neighbour, glorifying God.  Each of us does not have the faith, obviously, of Jesus himself, precisely, nor of the apostle Paul; nor do we have the faith precisely the same as our neighbour’s faith.  Our faith is unique to us; it has its own “measure”, shall we say, its own way of working itself out, in glorifying God, also serving neighbour.  And if the faith does not serve neighbour, it’s somehow stunted, because it is not really living out of that “measure of faith” that God has given us, which is to benefit our neighbour.
In a book I have recently been reading, there is a story of Harriett Tubman.  Harriett Tubman was given the name of “Moses”, which is an interesting name to give a woman.  She was a major “conductor” in the “underground railroad” that brought slaves from the southern United States to the Northern States before the American Civil War, and into Canada as well.  When we lived on the Niagara Peninsula, we lived at one end of that “underground railroad”, and, in St. Catharines, there is the “Methodist Episcopal Church”, which is a black church.  We also lived in Southwestern Ontario, near Dresden, another end of the “underground railroad”.  Dresden.   I don’t know remember the relationship exactly—but Dresden is connected to that famous book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Harriett Tubman had a pronounced faith.  She could say that, in the over 1,000 people she was able to bring to freedom as a “conductor” on the “underground railroad”, she lost not one of them.  According to her, she had “divine premonitions”.  She followed her instinct, her intuition, and she felt that that was an inspired intuition, enabling her to bring every one of the persons she was responsible for to freedom.
So there was a “measure of faith”, exhibited in a very remarkable way, and doing something pretty extraordinary for the sake of many people, bringing them to freedom.
Now, unfortunately, in the history of the Christian Church, faith has been equated simply with content, and not with a “measure of faith” that we are given, which we then can share with others, so that they can come to greater freedom.  Martin Luther is, of course, associated with the idea that we are “justified by faith”.  But Martin Luther had difficulty dealing with some of the consequences of the Reformation.  And one of those consequences was a peasant uprising.  Here were people who had been working as “peasants” for landowners, and wished to better their condition, wished to free themselves from their condition.  Well, Luther had difficulty accepting the apparent disorder that was associated with that movement.
In any case, we are all given a “measure of faith” we are called to use for the benefit of our neighbour, bringing them the freedom of the children of God, as God’s grace may allow us to achieve.
It is sometimes the case, however, that we may abandon carrying out—or living out—of this “measure of faith” that we have been given.  In the passage from Matthew 16 [actually Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26] which follows what I read to you earlier, we read words of Jesus such as these,
“Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
 Now, Peter, of course, who expressed this faith, was just one who denied Jesus, if only for a short while.
We can be thankful that God brings us back to the manner of life, the direction of life, the “measure of faith” that he has given us in which to live—that he doesn’t give up on us.  Even though we are unfaithful, God is faithful, and supports us, enables us to return to the manner of life he wishes for us.
Now, I won’t go into all aspects of this passage from Matthew’s gospel—particularly, the matter of “binding and loosing”.  There is one short proclamation or declaration at the end of the passage, however, which states that “Jesus warned the disciples, ordered the disciples, not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”  Here, Peter had this inspiration of faith, which the disciples were aware of.  But they could not tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Too bad, perhaps.  But, of course, that, again, was only for a period of time.  A time would come when what they had heard in secret, they would shout from the mountaintops, and the word “Christ” or “Messiah” that they heard Peter say, they would proclaim to the whole world.  And, in fact, the “measure of faith” that each of us is given is to contribute to making known to the world the reality of God’s love and salvation made known in Jesus Christ.
We have, then, the gift of faith that God gives us, whereby we can share in Jesus’ own faith, and call on God as “Abba, Father”.  We each have our peculiar or special “measure of faith”, which is the way in which God would have us serve others in the world and glorify God.  We have also—thankfully—God himself who upholds us, when we might fall by the wayside, when we might abandon this direction that God gives our lives.  And, beyond all this, of course, we are part of the Christian community which has as its mandate to communicate to the world, by means of the faith that God has given us, the reality of God’s love and the will that God has to call into his kingdom the people of the world, so that they too may cry, “Abba, Father”.