Turn with me if you would to Matthew 16. We’ll be beginning to read at verse 13 through to verse 28.
While you’re looking for that, let me thank you for your invitation for me to return. Rosemary was sitting down here. And I have been away for almost 12 years. It will be 12 years in June. And time has flown by. I bring you greetings from First Columbia. And it’s almost a clone. Apart from denominational affiliation, it’s almost a clone of First Pres Jackson. And I’m grateful to Bill Wymond, who never seems to change. All of you look 10 or 12 years older, but for Dr. Wymond. And whatever the elixir of life is, I want some to take back with me! It’s a joy to be here and to see familiar faces. Hardly a day, and certainly hardly a week goes by and Rosemary and I are not having some kind of conversation about one of you or about this congregation or about Jackson itself.
Now let’s read together from Matthew 16 and verse 13. And before we read, let’s pray.
Father, we thank You that this is Your Word. Holy men of old wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in the way of righteousness that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Help us to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“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.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! 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, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’
Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’”
Well so far may God add His blessing to the reading of His holy and inerrant Word.
Now we cannot possibly, in the time we have available this morning, expound everything that is in this glorious and wonderful passage. If you ask me this morning to lay my finger on a passage of Scripture that is all about mission, then this is it. This is Mission 101. This is Jesus telling Peter and the disciples about His plan. And He only has one plan and that plan is called church. The church is central to what Jesus came to do and to accomplish. It’s not Plan B; it’s not a parenthesis. It isn’t, as so many Christians in this country of ours still believe, that God’s plan is Israel and the church is Plan B. He makes it very clear here. The reason why He came into this world was to build a church. It’s astonishing that the word “church,” “ekklesia,” it’s the first time it’s used in the gospel of Matthew; the first time, as far as we know, that the disciples had heard Jesus ever use the word “church.”
And you might expect it, Peter, to say to Jesus, “What’s church?” And the fact that he didn’t, tells you that he understood what church was, at least in its basic form. It’s a word that would occur in the Old Testament Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. And Stephen, in his dying sermon, would make a reference to the “church in the wilderness.” Some of your translations might not have “church in the wilderness” because they’ve been translated by Baptists who are a little shy of seeing the church in the Old Testament and continuity from Old Testament to New Testament. But any elementary Greek lesson for 20 minutes will demonstrate to you that the word that Stephen uses is “ekklesia” and he’s talking about the period of Israel in the wilderness, the gathering together, the calling together of God’s people under the umbrella of the shepherding of God. That concept would have been very familiar to Peter. God is calling together His people. He’s calling them out of the world and He’s calling them together and in fellowship with His Son. That’s the basic idea of church.
He was asking a question – and it’s the $64,000 question – “Who do men say that I am?” Jesus has kept His identity fairly close to His chest. Only those in the innermost circle truly understood who He was – that He was the Son of Man, that He was the divine Messiah, that He was the divine fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. But this is a turning point in His ministry. Up until this point, things have been done quietly. Scholars talk about the Messianic secret but now it is to be made known publicly and it would have consequences. Because from this point forth, His face is set steadfastly towards Jerusalem. From here it will be a downward journey toward Jerusalem and to the cross and to death and burial and resurrection and ascension. So He asks Peter, the number one disciple, “Who do men say that I am?” And there were all kinds of answers. There was an expectation of the return of Elijah because he hadn’t died but had been taken up to heaven, so at Passover there was the empty seat. At first thought, He sounded a bit like Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The fact is, they weren’t sure who He was. This is the general public, the general religious Jewish public. And so He says to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”
I wonder if you’ve got an answer this morning. Maybe you just crawled in off the street. You had a rough night and you wanted somewhere to go. You’re searching for something and you don’t know what you’re searching for. And it’s not surprising that you go into a church and you hear something about Jesus; it would be surprising if you didn’t. But have you got an adequate answer to the question, “Who do men say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” Do you know who Jesus actually is? It’s as relevant a question in 2023 as it was in His own day. And Peter, this is Peter’s finest moment – Peter has no finer moment than this one. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Ten out of ten, Peter. You got it right. “You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Promised One. The Son of the living God.” Peter would have his moments when he would stumble. He would have one terrible moment before Jesus died when he would deny Him three times. Peter was flesh and blood. We resonate, perhaps, with Peter more than we resonate with the apostle Paul. Paul was always right about everything. He had an opinion about everything. There was hardly a moment when the apostle Paul would say, “You know, I don’t know anything about this.” But Peter is revealed in Scripture, warts and all, the good, the bad and the ugly, and this is the good. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The Cost of Mission is the Cross of Christ
Jesus is going to tell Peter something here, and the rest of the disciples – something about, first of all, the cost of building this church. The cost of mission. He says in verse 21, Matthew says, “From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” This is a turning point. What does it mean for Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God? It means that He has come into this world for one purpose – to build His church, to gather His people. And what is the cost of building His church and gathering His people? That He must be crucified. He must go to Jerusalem and be arrested and be scourged and be crucified until He is dead. He must bear the unmitigated wrath of God. He must propitiate the sins of His people. He must pay the ransom price to set them free. He must become a sacrifice. He must become the substitute for sinners like you and me. For there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in.
Peter, Peter doesn’t get it. And Peter says to Jesus, because he loved Him, he really loved Him with all his heart; he couldn’t bear to think that Jesus would be crucified. He would have been familiar enough with crucifixions. No doubt they’d seen hundreds of them along Roman highways as punishment for crimes and a deterrent for crimes. And Peter utters two words out of his mouth that, they just don’t belong together – “Never, Lord! You are my Lord. You are my sovereign King. You are the Creator of the heavens and the earth and I worship You, but You’re just dead wrong here. You are mistaken here.” Do notice in verse 23 how harsh Jesus’ response was? He doesn’t respond like this normally. It’s as though Peter’s suggestion that you could gain salvation and build the church without the price of the cross, and how tempting and alluring that might be. And He’s heard this before – from Satan in the temptation narratives – that He could be given everything, all the treasures of the world, if He would only bow down and worship him. That He could gain a crown without a cross. But that’s why He says to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! I’ve heard this temptation before and it didn’t come out of your lips; it came out of Satan’s lips. So as you speak now, it is not you that speaks, it is Satan who speaks because there is no other way.” The cost of mission is the cross of Christ.
Jesus Expands the Church by the Proclamation of the Gospel
Then secondly, He expands the church by the proclamation of the Gospel. Now in verse 19, and these are words that are often debated and discussed particularly in Reformed circles – “‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.” It wasn’t time yet. Now what do these keys represent? And in the history of the church, and particularly in the history of the Presbyterian churches, going back to the time of the Reformation and the 17th century in particular, keys represented church discipline. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant here when He was speaking to Peter. “I’m giving you keys. Keys that bind and keys that loose.” What is that key? What is it that looses, sets a soul loose and free from the shackles and bondage and tyranny of sin and Satan? And the answer is, the Gospel. That’s what the Gospel does. When you understand the Gospel, when you understand that Jesus died for you, that He shed His blood for you, that He’s met the wrath of God for you, that in the Gospel, as you believe in Jesus only, you are set free from your bondage and tyranny. Free at last! True freedom. Freedom that can never be taken away. Jesus is saying to Peter and the disciples, “I’m giving you the key that will set people free.”
What is that key? It’s the Gospel. Without that key, you are still dead in your sins. Without that key, you are still in prison. Without that key you are still in shackles and bondage. But when you have the Gospel, when you have Jesus, you have freedom – freedom to be who you really are, who God has made you. Free to become what God wants you to become. There are millions and millions of people in this world and they’re across the street and they’re on the other side of the globe and they’re in prison, in spiritual prison, in Satan’s prison. And Jesus says, “I have a plan. I’m giving you a key. It’s in your pocket. Take it out and use it and unlock the doors that shackle sinners dead in trespasses and in sins. He expands the church through the proclamation of the Gospel. That’s what you see, isn’t it, in the Acts of the apostles and Peter in particular on the Day of Pentecost when 3,000 souls come to saving faith in one day. He used the key!
Jesus Intends to Defeat Every Hostile Power that is Arraigned Against Him
But then, thirdly, He intends to defeat every hostile power that is arraigned against Him. The gates of hell will not prevail. The gates of hell will not prevail. What’s wrong with this world? Oh, you’re asking that question all the time. You’re probably listening far too much to Fox News. You need to turn it off. Listen to what God is saying in His Word instead. It will give you much the same message – the world is a mess, the world is broken. To be sure, there are things happening today that I couldn’t have dreamt of when I was a little boy growing up in rural Wales on a farm. Life is very different now. Satan is having his day. He is being set loose for a season. “He prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” He is right here in Caesarea Philippi through the voice of Peter saying, “Never, Lord!” He hates Jesus. We cannot imagine, and in one sense we don’t want to put ourselves into the mind of Satan; there’s something unhealthy about even attempting to do that. He hates Christ. He hates the church. He wants to destroy the church. And he’s doing a good job because the church is a mess. And even our churches, even Reformed churches, even Reformed denominations, he prowls about like a roaring lion. And you need to be on your guard. And you need to be equipped with the full armor of God every day. But here’s a promise – The gates of hell will never prevail. However bad it gets, however difficult it gets, we are on the winning side. Victory is assured. The Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father and then He will repay each person according to what He has done.
“Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” What is that? I think that’s probably a reference to Pentecost. I don’t think it’s a reference to the last end time. All of these disciples and everyone that was alive when Jesus said these words are long since dead. But many of them were alive when they saw Him coming in His glory, clothed by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing this promise of building a church to pass as the church spread out of Jerusalem into Antioch and Cyprus and Galatia and across the Aegean to Philippi and Greece and eventually to Rome. And it was as if, in their worldview, the whole world was now encapsulated by the promise of building a church. The gates of hell will not prevail.
And if you are discouraged this morning, then you need to read this passage again, because it’s not meant to be a passage to discourage; it’s meant to be a passage to encourage. What’s the point in sending these people over to Pakistan? I’ve been in Pakistan. It’s a rough place. What’s the point in sending our brother over to Pakistan with good wishes from First Presbyterian Church and a check in his pocket? No, we send him there by the power of God and a promise that can never be broken – that the gates of hell will never prevail. Jesus wins. That’s the future. Jesus wins.
Jesus Calls the Church to a Life of Cross-bearing
But there’s one more thing that I want us to see. He calls the church to a life of cross-bearing. In verses 24 and 25, He told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake, will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What shall a man give in return for his soul?” Being a Christian should cost you. Being a committed Christian should cost you. Being a missionary should cost you. Being one who supports missionaries should cost you – in money and prayer and commitment. What is the most important thing in all the world right now? It is this – that Jesus has a plan and He’s building His church and He wants you. You may not be in Pakistan but you can pray for our brother who is going to Pakistan. And you can give and give and give until it hurts and to take a cross upon you. All our life is a life of cross-bearing and self-denial. That’s how the Reformer, John Calvin, summed up the Christian life. It is a life of cross-bearing and self-denial. Take up your cross, deny yourself.
Maybe you need to deny yourself some of your pleasures, legitimate pleasures. I’m not a killjoy. Maybe you need to deny yourself one or two of those pleasures and give them for the advancement of the kingdom of God until it hurts. I think that’s what Jesus is saying here. You’ve been at many missions conferences, some of you with gray hairs, and this is your fiftieth or sixtieth missions conference that you can remember. And First Pres Jackson has a reputation for missions for as long as you can remember. That’s one of the key, central features of First Pres Jackson. And the next generations cannot allow that to disappear. You must take up, you must take up that flag and carry it forward. You younger generations, it’s your turn now, so that this church here in Jackson, Mississippi might be part of the way Jesus fulfills His plan to build His church throughout the world and bring and gather His people to Himself. What a joy that is. What a privilege that is. As you get on your knees early in the morning, you pray for missionaries as you fill out these cards and send them hither and yon to remind them – “I’m part of this battle. I’m part of this battle and I’m going to pray and I’m going to give, not because First Pres Jackson thinks it’s a good idea, but because Jesus said that’s what I must do.” It’s the central plan. It’s the only plan. There is no Plan B.
So let us look to Him in faith and prayer and ask Him to pour out His Spirit and fulfill this plan until Jesus comes again and the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We’ve barely scratched the surface of it this morning, but we pray that we as a congregation might give ourselves in cross-bearing and self-denial for the fulfillment of this plan of Yours knowing, with absolute certainty, that the gates of hell will never prevail and that You will get all the victory. For Jesus’ sake, amen.