He asked His disciples, saying who do men say I am? Or what's people's opinion about Me? And they said some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. So He said who do you say I am? What's your belief or your opinion? Simon Peter answered and said You're the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church and the gates of Hades or hell shall not prevail against it. In other words the devil won't be able to hold out against the believing church. And He said and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then He commanded His disciples they should tell no on He was Jesus the Christ - because it wasn't the right timing. There's a timing [He'd have 00.08.55] everything.
So the first thing you find, there's a revelation of several things. First of all there is revelation in here of the king. Notice He asks for what do men say? What is the opinion of people? Now lots of people have got opinions about who Jesus is. He's another good man, He's another prophet. He's just someone who does great things, or He was the founder of Christianity - but Jesus is not interested in opinions see. Our opinion doesn't change what is fact and reality, and so we need to understand there are a lot of opinions but Peter got a revelation of who He is. Now a revelation means it was put into his heart by the Spirit of God. When you don't know Jesus Christ He's just another person, but what he had was God spoke into his heart and made known who Jesus is. The knowledge - now listen to this - the knowledge of Jesus Christ, who He is and what He's like, requires revelation by the Spirit of God. That's not just for your initial salvation, but if you really want to know what He's like.
The Holy Spirit is sent into the world to make Him known and you need - every one of us, we're called not just to come into a first encounter with Him, but to get to know what He's like. If you don't know Him as a healer you can never present Him as a healer. If you don't know Him as a deliverer you can never present Him as a deliverer. If you don't know Him as a saviour you can never present Him as a saviour. If you don't know Him as a provider you can never represent Him as a provider - and so in every area of life we need revelation of what Jesus is like. We need to see Him, what the Bible tells us He's like, but it's got to become reality. If you're a rejected person and you've lived all your life with rejection and you believe I'm not acceptable, you need revelation to your heart to change that belief see? Otherwise you'll come to Jesus and yet you'll still struggle as to whether you're accepted, and then you'll live in defeat as a believer because you actually haven't had it revealed to your heart yet that He is the one who makes us totally acceptable.
See, it came out in the communion just concerning the prodigal son and how, when he came back to the father and how the father totally embraced him, sins, faults, failures and all, made him welcome and gave him positioning. Now that's a revelation. You may have heard the story this morning, but it needs to be a revelation to our heart. Only the Holy Spirit can do it. I've got to ask God to show me these things, see? Now if you want to know Jesus as the one who works miracles, not one in the Bible historically who worked miracles, but if you want to know Him as the miracle worker today you need the Holy Spirit to reveal it, it's got to become faith in our heart. You see I believe most believers here would believe God does miracles. That's not the issue. Here's the issue: the issue is will He do miracles through me? Now that's revelation is needed for that. You need to know who He is. He's the same yesterday, today and forever - so Peter got a revelation of who Jesus was.