Well, if you have a copy of God's
word, let me invite you to join me
in Matthew chapter
16.
This evening, we'll be taking just a a
brief time to look at Matthew 16
verses
13
through 18.
And I've selected this passage tonight because it
gives me the distinct privilege
of sharing with you
the secret
to building the church.
We might even say that we have here
in this passage the secret
to church planting.
Now before I continue any further, I have
to confess you confess to you that this
is actually an open secret.
Right? Here it is in the scriptures.
Exactly Jesus' plan and his promise to his
people for how the church is to be
built. And so it's a privilege for us
tonight
as we celebrate,
the new call to ministry for Juan Carlos,
as we celebrate this new church that is
being built and established here in The Woodlands,
to remember the promise that Christ has made
to his people
concerning the building of the church. With that
said, let me read this passage for us
this evening, Matthew chapter 16
verses 13 through 18. If you're able, would
you please stand for the reading of God's
word? Matthew 16. I'll begin in verse 13.
This is God's holy, authoritative,
sufficient,
inspired inerrant and infallible words.
Matthew 16 verse 13. Now when Jesus
came
into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked
his disciples,
who do people say that the Son of
Man is? And they
said, some say John the Baptist.
Others say Elijah. And others, Jeremiah or one
of the prophets.
He said to them, but who do you
say that I am?
Simon Peter replied,
you
are the Christ,
the son of the living God.
Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Bar
jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed
this to you, but my father who is
in heaven. And I tell you, you are
Peter,
and on this rock I will build my
church.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. And it's absolutely true
given to us in love for our good.
You can be seated.
Well, this evening as we walk through this
passage, we're gonna consider it under 3 headings.
We'll see, first, the question.
2nd, the confession.
And 3rd, the promise.
So the question, the confession,
and the promise. Well, let's begin by looking
at this question. Actually, there's 2 questions here
that the Lord Jesus
has for his disciples, but he begins with
this question in in verse 13. Look there
again at verse 13. We read that Jesus
came in the district of Caesarea Philippi.
That is that so often when Jesus was
in the region of Galilee, he was constantly
swamped by the crowds that needed to be
near him, that wanted,
to be with him. And so he takes
this opportunity as he withdraws
out of the region of his normal home
base for ministry
to Caesarea Philippi for a bit of a
retreat,
even to take a minute to consider and
reflect with his disciples.
And as they're doing that, he has this
question
for them.
Of course, even before we read this question
for a second time, we need to be
reminded that Jesus is
asking this question
not for his own benefit,
not to pique his own curiosity.
He's not asking a question that he doesn't
know the answer to, but rather Jesus
is asking this question
for the benefit of his disciples,
to give them an opportunity
to reflect on what they believe,
who they believe the Lord Jesus to be.
And so Jesus
asks
one of the most important questions
that a person can possibly ask.
The Lord Jesus in verse 13 refers to
himself as the Son of Man
and he asks, who do people
say
that the son of man is?
Essentially, Jesus is asking,
who do people
say that I am? Again, it's one of
the most important questions that we can ask.
It's a question that every one of us
gathered here tonight needs to have a solid,
convicted,
accurate,
biblical
answer for.
Who is
the Lord Jesus Christ?
But in this first instance, Jesus
wants to ask the disciples
what the common opinion of him is.
Who do the people
say that the son of man is? It's
a disarming way
to ask a question
to a person, to give them an opportunity,
right or wrong, to answer the question. And
so Jesus asked them, who do the people
say that I am? He wants to know
the common opinion of the people.
So look at verse 14. How do the
disciples answer?
Verse 14. And they said,
some say John the Baptist.
Others say Elijah. And others, Jeremiah
or
one of the prophets.
Now the first thing that we notice about
the disciples' answer is that, in general, these
are positive
descriptions.
But, in general, this is a a positive
answer that would have
really been a compliment to any mere man.
In fact, it's quite interesting the disciples answer
with more or less only positive answers,
because we notice that the disciples have omitted
an entire category of opinion.
Right? Up at this point in the gospel
accounts, we know that there are many opponents
of the Lord Jesus, but not everyone
thinks so positively and so well
of Christ.
We know that there are those who said
that Jesus was out of his mind, even
those in his own family.
We know that there were those that said
that Jesus was leading the people astray, and
that he threatened even to destroy the nation
of Israel.
Astray and that he threatened even to destroy
the nation of Israel.
There were those even who went so far
to call Jesus
a blasphemer
against God.
But the disciples
don't mention those views.
Nonetheless, we're reminded that they existed, and, of
course,
in our culture today in the 21st century,
those views still exist.
Probably, in general, most people have something positive
to say about the Lord Jesus,
but, increasingly,
there are those who readily identify themselves as
opponents of Christ
with hostility towards Christ,
who hate Christ and hate his church.
There were those that existed in the 1st
century. There are those that exist today.
But but in total,
the common opinion of Christ,
at least in the 1st century,
was more positive.
They say that many people think that Jesus
is on par with
perhaps one of the great prophets of the
Old Testament. Maybe he was a reincarnation
of John the Baptist.
Maybe he was Jeremiah.
Maybe even he was of the greatest of
the Old Testament prophets,
Elijah himself.
This is no doubt the common opinion of
the people of the Lord Jesus in the
1st century.
And what we have here
is the common error
that men and women
and boys and girls
all throughout the ages
have been all too willing to commit themselves
to.
That error
that perhaps Jesus was only a good moral
teacher
or maybe even if we dare, a religious
prophet
of some kind.
Now was the common opinion in the 1st
century? It continues to be an opinion of
the Lord Jesus today,
but it is an error.
And, nonetheless,
people think that they do well
to think so well
of Jesus.
People tend to put themselves in a category
of a friend of Jesus,
friendly towards him, if they're willing to commit
themselves to such high praise. Maybe a great
moral teacher, maybe a virtuous person, maybe even
a religious prophet
of some kind.
But we notice
that Jesus does not think that people do
well to think of him merely as a
prophet
or a good teacher.
Notice how Jesus responds
to the opinion of the people. Look at
verse 15.
Jesus has a second question.
He said to the disciples he said to
them,
but who do
you say that I am?
Notice that as Jesus
responds to the common opinion of the people,
Jesus does not praise the answer.
He doesn't even say, well, people mostly
understand
who I am.
No. Jesus dismisses the opinions
of the crowds altogether
by asking another question.
And even though these answers of the common
opinion of the people are mostly positive on
the whole, they're certainly more positive than the
answers that Jesus's enemies
would have given. They are no more correct.
They are wrong.
Jesus is not any of the things that
the people thought that he was.
And so he wants to know
from his disciples,
what do you believe?
What do you say?
Who am I?
We're reminded this evening that it's not enough
that we think well of Jesus.
It's not enough
that we consider ourself friendly towards him.
It's not enough
that we simply say, well, I'm not opposed
to Christ.
Instead, Jesus
presses the issue further.
He asked them,
what do they believe?
Of course, Jesus' original audience in the 1st
century was his own own disciples.
But the Lord Jesus still presses this question
on human hearts today.
He wants to
know. Not, well, who do the people say
that I am? Who do your parents say
that I am? What's the general opinion? What's
the cultural consensus?
He wants to know, from individual human hearts,
the question presses on us tonight,
who do you say that Christ is?
Who do you believe the Son of Man
is?
Jesus presses the issue
on our own hearts
tonight.
So look at verse 16. As Jesus
presses the question,
the apostle Peter has a confession.
Look at verse 16.
Simon Peter replied,
you are the Christ,
the son
of the living God.
Now here we have Peter's confession
of faith in Christ.
We need to notice how different Peter's answer
is from the opinion of the crowds.
It's different from beginning to end. First, Peter's
answer contains
a confidence
that Jesus is who he says he is.
What a difference that is from the opinions
of the crowds.
They don't know. They're not confident in their
answer. Maybe he's John the Baptist.
Maybe Jeremiah.
Maybe Elijah. They paint with a broad stroke.
Maybe any one of the other prophets.
There's a question.
There's no question for Peter. Peter's confident.
He answers with conviction.
He says, lord, you are the Christ,
the
son of the living God.
He says that Jesus is the Christ, that
is, he's the messiah,
the promised one spoken of in the Old
Testament
to fulfill the covenant
that God has made with his people to
make redemption
for the forgiveness of sins
for God's people. He's the Christ.
Not only that, Peter says he's the son
of the living God,
meaning
that Jesus,
separated from even the greatest of the prophets
of the Old Testament, is no mere man.
The Lord Jesus is God himself,
fully man
and fully God.
And so Peter confesses his faith in Christ.
Look at verse 17.
We have Jesus's
response
to Peter's confession.
If this is your first time reading this,
we would be steeped in anticipation wondering how
will Christ respond.
You certainly didn't like the answer that the
crowds gave. What about Peter's answer? What will
Jesus say? Verse 17. And Jesus answered him,
blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and
blood has not revealed this to you,
but my father who is in heaven.
2 things we notice about Jesus' response to
Peter's confession. 1st,
Jesus says that Simon, the son of Jonah,
Peter
he says that Peter is blessed.
He calls him blessed.
There is no greater or richer blessing
than a sure confidence
that Jesus
Christ
is the Son of God.
That's the riches of the mercy of God.
To have that confession on our lips and
in our hearts
is to be blessed.
We should be reminded that
the Lord Jesus does not bless does not
measure, rather,
blessedness
by the standard of man.
If we were to go and ask the
common opinion of the people, what does it
mean to be blessed?
We get all kinds of answers of the
attainment of all of the physical accoutrements,
that the world has to offer.
The Lord Jesus,
how does he measure blessedness?
What does it mean to be blessed by
God?
It is to confess with conviction
that Jesus is who he says he is,
the Christ,
the son of the living God. In fact,
this is exactly what the apostle Paul says
about the blessings that God has poured out
on his people in Ephesians
chapter 1 verses 3 through 4. Remember there
where Paul is extolling
the the the marvelous
majesty
of God
and the doctrine of election. Listen to what
Paul says in Ephesians 1:3 and 4. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord
and Jesus Christ,
who has done what?
Who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him. It's a
magnificent statement that Paul has made. He says
that that for those who've been chosen before
the foundation of the world, for those who've
been given the gift of faith in Christ,
for those who profess to believe that Jesus
is the Son of the living God,
he says that that amounts
to being blessed with every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly places.
Put another way, there is no blessing that
God the Father has for his people that
he has held back.
He's blessed his people with everything that he
has,
every spiritual blessing.
And the evidence of that blessing
is made clear in the life of Peter
as he confesses with conviction
Jesus to be the Christ, the son of
the living God. Secondly,
as Jesus responds, he also reveals
how this happened to Peter.
Right? How is Peter how is Peter able
to confess the truth about Christ
while the common opinion of the crowds failed.
How did Peter learn this?
How did Peter know that Jesus was the
Christ,
the son of the living God? Well, look
there again at verse 17.
After calling Peter blessed, Jesus says to him,
for flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you,
but rather my father
who is in heaven.
See, how was Peter able to confess the
truth about Christ?
Well, Jesus tells us the fact that Peter
is able to do this, to confess this
truth about Christ,
is nothing short of a miracle.
It took a miracle in the heart of
Peter for Peter to be able to confess
this truth. It required an act of God
for Peter to come to this understanding. Jesus
says, flesh and blood
flesh and blood alone could never have done
this.
Flesh and blood would produce something altogether different.
Flesh and blood produced the mere opinions of
the crowds.
It speculated that Jesus perhaps might be a
great moral teacher
or maybe even a prophet,
but the work of God, a miracle wrought
by the Holy Spirit and the heart of
a believer,
it produces this confession,
this confession that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Theologian John
Calvin puts it this way.
He says, from this, we infer that human
minds lack the ability to perceive the mysteries
of heavenly wisdom
hidden in Christ.
More,
all human senses fail in this respect until
God opens our eyes
to see his glory in Christ.
And so let no one, trusting in his
own insight, break out in pride,
but let us humbly allow ourselves to be
taught inwardly by the father of lights that
his spirit alone may enlighten our darkness.
Now, let those who have been given faith
learn to be aware of their own blindness
and to refer to God
what they have received.
You see, as we're reminded
of the fact that even to confess that
Jesus is Christ, the son of the living
God, is a miracle,
it ought to cause in us 2 responses.
1st, it it ought to utterly humble us.
It's exactly what Calvin says here.
He says that when we learn this fact,
we ought to recognize our own blindness,
a blindness that we could have never overcome
ourselves.
We ought to recognize that when we, with
conviction,
honestly confess
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of
the living God, we ought to be humbled
to realize that a miracle has taken place
in our own hearts.
We're here tonight confessing that Jesus is Lord,
not
because we're just the good people and everyone
else out there the bad people,
not because we've done something
worthy or meritorious
or deserving of God's favor,
but because God in his sovereign mercy has
looked upon us in his kindness
and he's done for us what we can't
do for ourselves. We ought to be humbled
that we're able to confess with conviction
that Christ is lord.
Secondly,
it puts into perspective
what we're doing
as we seek to build a church.
You see, as we seek to establish
a new church,
like this church, the Woodlands Reformed Church,
as we seek to establish a new church,
what are we doing?
What are we doing when we're building a
new church?
Jesus reminds us that what we're doing when
we're planting, establishing, building a new church is
nothing less than asking God to work miracles
in the hearts
of men
and women
and boys
and girls.
They might come to confess
that Jesus is Lord,
the son of the of the living God.
We're asking God again
to do something
that we cannot do for ourselves
and that we cannot do for our neighbors,
that we can't do for our friends,
that we can't do for our coworkers,
that we can't do for our family members.
We're asking God
to build his church.
How different this is
in building the church,
how different this is from building or establishing
any other human institution.
I need to be reminded tonight, the church
is built differently from a business.
The church is built differently than a government.
Praise God.
The church is built differently
than any other human establishment or institution that
we could name.
The church is built by the work of
God.
It's something that God must do.
In fact, that's exactly
what Jesus promises to his church
in verse 18.
Listen to Jesus as he continues
with the promise.
Verse 18,
Jesus says, and I tell you,
you are Peter and on this rock,
I will build
my church
and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.
Here in verse 18, Jesus
makes a glorious
promise to his church.
He says to Peter
that he's going to build
his church
on the confession that Peter has just made.
Now Jesus' play on words here make more
sense if we're able to hear them in
the Greek
that Matthew records.
You see, Peter's name means rock. It's pronounced
petros,
which sounds very similar to the word for
rock that Jesus uses, but it's not identical.
So if we're to hear it in the
Greek that Matthew recorded, it would sound something
like this. Jesus says to Peter,
you are petros,
and on this petra,
I will build my church. Now we need
to be clear.
Jesus is not saying
that he will build his church
on Peter.
Jesus wanted to say that, it would be
very simple. He would have said, I'm building
my church on you, petros, Peter.
That's not what Jesus says. He's not building
the church on Peter. Peter's far too weak
for that.
The church can't be built on Peter.
Instead,
as Jesus makes this promise to build his
church,
he is revealing what the foundation
of the church is.
He's revealing what the church is built upon,
and it's not Peter.
It's not any other leader in the history
of Christ's church.
It's actually
Christ himself.
That that is what Peter's confession reveals.
As Peter confesses
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of
the living God,
Jesus blesses him because he understands what the
foundation of the church is. It's Jesus himself.
This is what Paul tells us in Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 19 through 22.
Remember when Paul's marveling at the reality that
Gentiles,
who were once aliens, have now been called
into the church, are now a part of
the church that Christ is building.
Listen to what Paul says there in Ephesians
2 19 through 22.
He says, so then you are no longer
strangers and aliens,
but you are fellow citizens
with the saints and members of the household
of God
built on the foundation
of the apostles
and the prophets.
And we ask Paul, what's the foundation?
What's the foundation of the apostles and the
prophets? He answers us. Christ
Jesus himself
being the cornerstone,
and whom the whole structure, being joined together,
grows into a holy temple in the lord.
In him, you also are being built together
into a dwelling place
for God
by the spirit.
You see, Paul tells us Christ is the
cornerstone.
Christ is the foundation of the church.
And the reason that
Jesus calls Peter Petros,
the rock,
is because all those who confess
like Peter,
the Christ of the Lord, the Son of
the living God, they too are rocks. They're
stones
that are added to the building of the
church
that Christ himself
has promised
to accomplish.
And notice
that as Jesus makes this grand promise to
the church, he guarantees it.
He guarantees it against all enemies.
Look there again at verse 18. And I
tell you, you are Peter on this rock.
I will build my church
and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.
Jesus tells
us that none of the devices
of Satan will accomplish their purpose.
They will not succeed. He says the gates
of hell will not prevail against the building
that Christ has promised. Now so often,
when we picture the visual that Jesus has
just created about the gates of hell,
So often, we're we're tempted
to picture something like
Satan and the forces of darkness
almost
overcoming the church, almost overwhelming the church. But
the church, because of Christ's promise, just barely
holds
and Satan doesn't prevail.
But actually the picture is the exact opposite.
Jesus's promise is that the gates of hell
won't prevail.
Do you know where gates are?
Gates are on walls.
You know what walls are used for?
They're used for defenses.
See, the picture is that the Christ the
kingdom of Christ
is growing and establishing and it's subduing Satan
and the forces of darkness.
And those defenses, those gates will not hold.
They will not prevail.
Christ will build his church.
He makes this promise.
He makes this promise to Peter.
He makes this promise to all who by
faith
trust in Christ alone.
As we leave this
passage this evening, I just wanna make very
quick three final observations
about the promise that Christ makes to his
church. 1st,
as Jesus makes this promise,
he promises to protect
and uphold his church
and in the end, subdue Satan and all
the forces of evil.
What a comforting promise this ought to be
to us in 2024.
As we see our culture
increasingly
hostile
against Christ and his kingdom, at times, it
does feel like the forces of darkness are
breaking in on the church and the church
is just barely holding,
but we're reminded
what the picture
in all of the history of redemption and
all of eternity actually is. Christ promises to
protect his people,
to protect his sheep, to uphold us.
It may cost us greatly.
It may cost us even our lives, but
Christ has already gone to the grave. He's
conquered death.
There is nothing left of the enemies of
the people of God. Christ has secured salvation
for his people.
He promises to protect us and uphold us.
Secondly,
this also reminds us that as Calvin puts
it,
so long as the church is a pilgrim
on this earth,
she will know no rest but will be
exposed to many assaults.
See, Calvin there is is saying that the
reason Jesus puts this promise
in the terms of a battle
is because that's what it is to be
a follower of Christ.
We're entering into a war,
a war with ourselves,
a war against our sin,
warring against our fleshly nature, putting to death
our sin,
calling sinners to repentance, to faith in Christ.
Reminded by this that building the church, planting
the church is not easy.
It's difficult.
It's hard. I can tell you. We've been
planting. We have planted a church for the
last 3 years.
It's not easy.
There's often opposition,
difficulties, and trials,
but Christ makes this promise to the church.
I will do it.
I will build it.
This is my promise.
3rd and finally,
the main thrust of Jesus' promise here
is that Jesus must do
this work.
If the church is to be built, The
Woodlands Reformed Church, any other church, any true
church of Jesus,
if it is to be built, Christ must
do it.
It's possible
to call something a church
and to build it by many other means,
but a true church
is built by the Lord Jesus Christ.
That means then
that the measure of success
for The Woodlands Reformed Church, for any other
church for that matter,
is not
the numbers.
Although we want people to come we want
people to come to faith in Christ. We
want this church to grow.
The measure of success ultimately won't be the
budget.
Although we want resources to be increased, that
we might do more and more ministry in
this place,
the ultimate measure of success
for this church, for any other church, any
other true church of the Lord Jesus, is
faithfulness.
It's faithfulness to Christ.
At every turn, every decision,
every trial, every difficulty, the question ought to
be not what is easiest, what will work
most, what will people like best, what will
get the most people here. The question always
has to be, what will be faithful to
Christ?
This is his church.
This is why Jesus says, I will build
my church.
He owns it.
He owns the church.
He promises to build it.
And so then our call is to be
faithful,
to be obedient,
and to rest in him.
So what a joy it is for us
tonight to celebrate the faithfulness of Christ to
his church
and to celebrate this new call for our
brother
Juan Carlos.
Amen. Let me pray for us.