Building My Church

Well, if you have a copy of God's

word, let me invite you to join me

in Matthew chapter

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

16.

This evening, we'll be taking just a a

brief time to look at Matthew 16

Matthew 16:13–18

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

Matthew 16:13–18

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

Matthew 16:13

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

Ephesians 1:3–4

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

Ephesians 1:3

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

Ephesians 2:19–22

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.