June 3, 2018 The Churchs One Foundation by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Well, yesterday my wife and I were at a memorial service at a church in Fremont. The sanctuary room being about the same size as this and being filled to capacity, it was roughly 200 people,

I would guess, but it was filled. On a day a little bit warmer than this, and about three -quarters of the way, maybe halfway through the service, the air conditioner went out and it became very stuffy in the place.

And the pastor's message, the sermon, was towards the end of the service, and when he got up there, he very wisely, very smartly, and in a very smooth way,

I think, let the people know, let all of us know that he knew the air conditioner was out and that we were all suffering in there, and he was therefore going to cut short his message as an act of mercy upon us so that we could exit and get some fresh air.

It was very, very warm and stuffy. I do notice that our conditioning is working, and it's nice and cool in here, so you'll receive no such mercy this morning.

I have no obligation to cut anything short in the comfort that we have here. If we went outside, you'd be very hot, very warm.

If you got in your cars, you would probably melt, so it would probably be good for you if this was an extra long, a bonus message, if you will.

If you turn, please, to Matthew 16, and we are this morning and the next

Sunday or two going to attend to one common theme, one subject, a topical set of messages, if you will, as I prepare myself to go into the next series, which we will have, which will be

Ezra and Nehemiah. And in the meantime, between having finished Romans a few weeks ago and starting

Ezra and Nehemiah, Lord willing, in a few weeks, I have some topical message, which is your pastor, I wish to bring to you.

And this morning, we're going to begin this small series within this period of flexibility that I have about a very important subject, and that subject is membership in the church.

It's something that we have focused on quite a bit here lately. A couple of months ago, we had a two -month curriculum on church membership, and why we hold to it, and what the biblical basis is for it, and what is the nature of membership, what does it inherit upon us, and why do we hold it as strongly as we do here in this church.

And just so you know, if your patience is wearing thin, and I hope it is not, but if it is, and you're wondering when are we ever going to fast forward and get on to something else, this is it,

I've just given you the schedule. I have a few sermons on this topic I wish to present to you, and then we will move on.

What we have in Matthew 16, 13 through 20, which I'll read in a moment, is very important because it's

Jesus' definition of the church. It is what Jesus says the church is, how the church is founded, what the church is based on, and in these verses before us, we have how

Jesus authorizes the church. He gives the church certain responsibilities, and we know these responsibilities, we've been through them many times, responsibilities to edify one another, to encourage one another, build one another up, to grow together as a body and individuals as we help one another into the image of Christ, and many other things.

Here in Matthew 16, these first verses here that we're going to attend to, verses 13 through 20,

Jesus is going to authorize what he makes the church responsible for. In my secular life, before I went into the ministry,

I worked for a very large, a Fortune 500 company, and I had about a three year period where I had a great job,

I really enjoyed it, I had great responsibility. But, through certain circumstances, which

I won't go through in any detail, I found that even though I had a lot of responsibility, I did not have the authority to control those things for which

I was responsible. Not the case with the church. Not the case with the church, as we will see, that Jesus not only gives the church its responsibility, gives us his charter, gives us what we must do, he gives us the responsibility and the means for doing it, and the authority to accomplish these things.

I want to look at these verses 13 through 20 in Matthew 16 in two parts. First is verses 13 through 17, and that's going to be the revelation upon which the church is founded.

And then verses 18 through 20, we have the ramifications of this charter upon which we are founded.

We might say the authoritative function by which she, the church, is to operate.

For some, this is going to be a reminder of doctrines to which you are already fully committed.

Lord willing, I will affirm you in that commitment. You will know that in that sense, in that way, you are on the right track.

Hear this as I give you the support for this act you took when you formally joined the church, the local body, the local fellowship.

And there are some who are going to wonder if we're ever going to concern us with anything else, and the answer, of course, is yes, we are.

We're going to move on, and soon. But I want you to know,

I want all of you to know, that the reason we have focused on this with the intensity we have, the reason

I had our Sunday school teacher go through two months of curriculum on membership, the reason we're going to preach these two or three messages on this subject, how to join the church, why you must join the church, what it means to join the church, is because we care about you.

We care about the Word of God. We care about those saints who God sends to this place. We care about those who are not yet in Christ, who

God sends to this place. We preach this because we believe this is what the Word of God implies, what the

Word of God inheres upon us. We preach this to you not to test your patience, not to make you feel guilty about anything, because we care about you, because we care primarily about Jesus Christ and His Word, and therefore we care about bringing that Word to those whose care

He has made us responsible for. Just so you know, that's why we're preaching this again.

That's why we went through this in Sunday school for two months, because we care about you. There are duties, there are privileges, there are responsibilities that no less an authority than Jesus Christ insists be given to card -carrying members of His body, the church.

Note carefully that we're not tying together church membership and salvation. Salvation is of the

Lord. He saves, not the church. You're not saved by joining the church. The church is made up of those who have been saved.

By this I mean, of course, been reborn. And so simple attendance at the church doesn't make you a member of the church any more than it makes you a saint in Christ.

Salvation first, and then as a consequence of salvation, that gift of God, that opening of the eyes, that dropping off the scales that only

God by His Spirit can do for the individual, that first, and then to the church.

I want you to hear this text, which I'll read in just a moment. I want you to understand what really happened here.

When Jesus is walking with His disciples and He's going to stop, and this is fairly well known to us, I'll read it in a second, and He's going to ask them this great question.

There's going to be this interchange between Him and Simon Peter, and it's of greater importance than we often think.

The Protestant church, conservative Christians, Reformed Christians, know that this is a moment. Moment with a capital

M. We know this is big. I want it to become bigger. Because I think in the

Scripture, it's a huge watershed moment that occurs here. So, if you're not already there, please open to Matthew 16.

I want to look first at the revelation. This thing that Peter speaks out, verses 13 through 17.

I'll read them now. 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. Listen, we have here a distinctly

Trinitarian moment. The Father has decreed Peter to receive this foundational revelation about Jesus.

And the Spirit of God has applied this truth to him and opened his mouth to speak it forth.

And then as we might expect, Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh, is the one who speaks it all into order.

So let's ask first, how is it that Peter came to this conclusion? The importance of what he said, according to Jesus' reaction to it, is pretty clear to us.

And we're going to make it more clear as we go through, Lord willing. So the first question is, how did

Peter come to this conclusion? How did he get this? Well, as I said a moment ago, it is the

Son of God, it is the Word made flesh, who speaks it all into order, who makes sense of it, who tells us what's happening.

Let me read it again, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. Flesh and blood meaning human reasoning, logic, your own ability,

Peter, or any of our others, or any of us others, did not, by our own intellectual excellence, by our own spiritual exercise, come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is the

Christ, the Son of the living God. No, it's by revelation of God by His Spirit.

Isaiah spoke of the Spirit of the Lord being upon him, Ezekiel spoke of being lifted up by the Spirit, the

Apostle John wrote that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day when the revelation was given to him.

And even our Lord Jesus Christ, Luke reports to us, he went out in the power of the

Spirit. So even while a verse like 1 Corinthians 12, 3, says no one could say that Jesus is

Lord except by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God who is the revelator to man, and that places the

Holy Spirit as the usual means that God uses with men. The fact that Jesus Christ attributes

Peter's words, this revelation, he attributes it directly to the

Father. It makes it something that we need to really pause and consider. You see, it's very unusual for God the

Father to make direct contact with people without the mediation of His Son or His Spirit.

In the Gospels, it's extremely rare. John the Baptist spoke of, quote, he who sent me to baptize, now who sent him to baptize?

God the Father. He who sent me to baptize, saying to him, he upon whom you see the

Spirit descend and remain, is the Christ. So here's one of those rare instances where God the

Father speaks directly to man. At Jesus' baptism, the Father, not to one man, but in the hearing of all, said what?

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. A few years later, on the

Mount of Transfiguration, He spoke again directly to men. This is my beloved

Son, in whom I am well pleased. And then He added to what He said at the baptism, hear

Him. In John chapter 12, God the Father spoke in a voice that many mistook for thunder, saying,

I have glorified my name, and I will glorify it again. And I can find no other instances where God the

Father, while His Son is on earth, speaks directly to men or a man.

You know, the Lord Jesus, He said at one point that He had a greater testimony than just His own testimony.

When He was accused, He said, your testimony is not valid. You need more witnesses, citing the law of Moses.

He said, I do have witnesses, because I witness of myself, and the Father witnesses of me, and the

Spirit witnesses of me. And here it is, in these words from the

Father to men about His beloved Son. There's that testimony. John the

Baptist was able to say, behold the Son of God. God by His voice says what? This one, this is my

Son. Just before the verses that we read, where Jesus stops and asks

His disciples, who do people say that I am? And now, who do you say I am? Just before this, and we're not going to go back to it right now, but let me just summarize it for you quickly and remind you that there was this exchange between Jesus and the

Pharisees. And at the end of that exchange, Jesus says to the disciples, just before what we read a moment ago, just before that,

He says the upshot of it all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

They had just demanded a sign from Him to prove who He was. It was sort of, show us why we ought to even listen to you.

Do something, give us a miracle if you please. And Jesus says to them, beware of such falsehoods.

Beware of such flesh and blood, quote, revelations, small r.

Beware the wisdom of men and beware these things that men place upon you that sound so much like God.

You see, absent God's direct revelation, we can proceed by our natural senses only far enough to know that there is a

God. That's Psalm 19, verses 1 and 2. The heavens declare the glory of God.

The firmament shows forth His handiwork. Day after day they utter speech, and what do they utter? That there is a

God? No, that there is God, that there is

God, capital G, just not the intelligent designer, not the big guy in the sky, not some higher power,

God. There is a God who made all this, and He is a personal

God. He is the only God. And that's as far as we can go, and that's as far as we're responsible to go, by our own inclinations.

And that's as far as we are responsible to go. But to go beyond this, to go beyond this general and this passive revelation is possible only by God's specific and personal revelation of Himself, normally through His Spirit, normally through His Spirit by the hearing of His Word.

Jesus took very special note of what had just happened with Peter. The Lord Himself takes special note of it.

Calvin, I think, puts this very well, John Calvin, our 16th century commentator. He says of this incident,

Hence we infer that the minds of men are destitute of that sagacity, isn't that a great word, sagacity?

It means wisdom, it means ability, it means intellectual prowess, destitute of that sagacity which is necessary for perceiving the mysteries of heavenly wisdom which are hidden in Christ.

And even that all the senses of men are deficient in this respect till God opens our eyes to perceive

His glory in Christ. Verse 13 in Matthew 16, that first verse

I read to you, it tells us that this all took place in the district of Caesarea Philippi, and that's a very interesting spot in northern

Israel. That's very near where Jesus was at that moment, is very near where centuries before King Jeroboam had set up one of his golden calves as a stand -in for Yahweh.

Do you remember this incident? It's right after the southern and northern kingdoms of Israel split, and the two tribes stayed south at the temple,

Judah, and the ten tribes went north, and their first king, Jeroboam, was afraid that they would go back to the temple, so he set up the golden calves, one in Bethel in southern

Israel, and this one here. And he said, these are your gods, O Israel, who led you out of the land of Egypt, a stand -in for Yahweh.

That golden calf was right in that area where Jesus stopped the disciples and said, who do the people say the

Son of Man is? It was right there. There's a cave in that area, a cave which by the time of the

Gospels was thought to belong to the god, small g, the god Pan.

Pan was the god of fright, and people would bring sacrifices to him, animal sacrifices to that spot for Pan.

On top of all that, the pagans of that day went there to receive oracles, and I don't know where the temple was and how the oracles worked, but they believed that that was a place where they could receive truth, oracles.

So the very setting where Jesus stops and asks the disciples, who do people say

I am? Who do you say that I am? It's rich in irony. It's rich in meaning.

When he stopped them, Matthew 16. It was the last winter before the cross.

The last winter before Jesus goes to Calgary. So God's sacrifice of the

Lamb of God is being announced there, and that's going to come right after the passage I read, and we're not going to go there, but that's when

Jesus says, he begins to tell them about his coming crucifixion, his sacrifice. So in that spot where sacrifices to Pan, a false god, are made, these false sacrifices, which are no more than cruelty to animals, they're just slaughter, because they can't do any good.

In that place where that occurred, Jesus tells of the true coming sacrifice, the sacrifice of God, of the

Lamb of God. Peter's confession was really an expression of pure worship in spirit and truth, qualities possible only in those who have been reborn by the

Spirit of God. And we can see these words, if we think of King Jeroboam putting the calf there and saying, here are your gods,

O Israel, who led you out of Egypt. If we think of that, then Peter's words do what? They correct false worship.

They bring truth, not that calf, not these are your gods, there's only one God. And Peter speaks it correctly.

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So he corrects the idolatry that had centuries before been instituted in that place.

So pagan worshipers are coming there for oracles of revelation, no more possible from a dumb idol than it would be to change the direction of the earth's rotation.

So standing close by the place where false oracles were received, God gives us oracle of truth.

Here, there is true revelation from the true God regarding his true Son. His Son is the

Son of Man by virtue of having been born and lived as all men do, yet without sin, but born as we are born, living as we live, yet without sin.

And He, the Son of Man, as a man, came to save man. That's the truth. Truth, capital

T, in a place that was bathed in falsehood.

That's the truth, church. As we sit and worship in an area that is bathed in falsehood, bathed in falsehood about ethics, about morality, bathed in falsehood about truth of self and identity and who we are and what the image of man is and where man came from, and what then should we do, how then shall we live, we're surrounded by no more or no less falsehood than was that area in Caesarea Philippi where Jesus stopped the disciples and said, who do you say that I am?

And all that matters for the church, really, in the end, the ultimate thing for the church is, who do we say

Jesus is? The Christ, the Son of the living God.

And on that truth we stand, we live, on that truth we might die. Surrounded as were the disciples then by all the fixtures of falsehood,

Peter added living to the name. You're the Son of the living God, He's not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Jesus made that clear when the Sadducees said, well, whose wife shall she be?

And I'm not going to read that whole question that they put to him. Jesus says, you don't know the scriptures, you don't know the power of God, we're not going to do that in heaven.

He's the God of the living, not of the dead, and this is what Peter said. He's the true

God of true life, he's not the God of fright. He is the God who graciously gave access to himself by way of sacrifice, which brought a soothing aroma to his nostrils, whereas the beasts offered to the false

God in that place were slaughtered uselessly, needlessly. So what we're doing here is we're following Jesus Christ's words.

We're following what the Lord says, just as the Lord followed the Father's words. I mean, do you see what a huge moment this really was?

We speak in terms of redemptive history, and basically that's from the time of Genesis 3 .15,

where the Lord speaks of Satan, one who's going to be crushed by the one who is coming, the seed of the woman.

That's the Proto -Evangelium, the first gospel hint that we get, and all from there, all the way through the end of Revelation, is that flow of redemptive history.

It's all we mean by it. Where are we in redemptive history at any given moment?

We're just following what Jesus says, that this, Matthew 16, verses 13 -20, was one of those big moments in redemptive history.

God the Father revealing something directly to Peter without the intervention, without the mediation of his

Son or the Spirit of God. In no other place in the gospel does God the Father work like this.

I hope you see what a watershed moment this is. Jesus did. Jesus stopped and took special note here.

His blessing, they said, blessed are you, Simon Bar -Jonah, it's the same form as the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.

And so, from that, we can realize right away that the blessing conferred upon Peter is also conferred upon any and all who make this same confession, that he is the

Christ, the Son of the living God. Calvin rightly points out that the blessing cannot be

Peter's alone. Jesus does not elevate him materially above the others, but instead makes an example of him so that all who follow and by faith make this same confession shall indeed be blessed.

So all this has to bring more gravity, more moment, more weight to what follows.

Verses 18 -20. If 13 -17 have

God the Father in this huge moment, this unusual moment, this rare instance directly revealing to an individual, to Peter.

So much so that Jesus Christ takes note of it and says, blessed are you, and goes on with the rest of it.

That has to add to the weight, to the gravity, to the moment, to the drama, if you will, of what follows.

The ramification of it all. 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. New name,

Peter. Rock in the original Greek was Petra, so obviously it's a word play.

And as is almost always, if not always the case in the Bible, the one who names another, and most especially the one who renames another, is the one of superior authority.

They have taken ownership, they have proven their sovereign. And to take it a step further, when

God renames, He gives prophetic names, He gives prophecies in the name, which

He then fulfills. Genesis chapter 12, who was sent out of Ur of the Chaldees and told to go to a land which

I will show you, Abram. Abram means exalted father. Genesis 17, when the covenant is restated, when it is renewed,

God renames Abram, and what does He rename him? Abraham, the plural, meaning father of many nations.

And not just a name with meaning that you can boast about, but a name with God's prophetic word behind it, as Abraham indeed became the father of many nations.

New names in that way are prophetic, and so it is with Simon's new name. You are Peter. You are

Peter. Now, this morning I'm not going to open up a polemic against the Catholic doctrine that isolates

Peter and makes him the first pope. We're not going to do that. But I'm also not going to allow their error to drive us away from the truth.

And here's the truth. Peter was blessed personally. It was he who preached at Pentecost and saw the church's first converts.

It was he who was first to preach to the Gentiles. He went to Samaria first. He went to Cornelius' household first.

He brought in the Gentiles. Let us say fearlessly that Jesus' word to Peter, that he would build his church on him, was literally true and literally fulfilled.

Let us say with equal conviction that the declaration of Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of the living

God, did not make him superior to anyone else who makes that same confession. He was simply the first.

And as we know from all the Gospels, generally he's the one who stepped forward as a spokesman. We often think of him as being brash or impetuous.

I have some disagreement with those characterizations, but we do know he's the one who would normally step forward and speak for them all.

And so the blessing is for them all. And as they hear Peter being blessed, there's no doubt that as they make that same confession, as God opens their eyes to see this truth about Jesus, that it is for them as well and for all who follow in that footstep of faith.

The passage from Ephesians that was read to you a bit ago by Joseph makes it clear that the church is built ultimately not on Peter, not on any man, but on the word of all the apostles and prophets, on the word of Christ, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone.

Not on Peter, but on the word God gave to Peter, and the word God gave to Paul, and the word

God gave to John, and the word God gave to Calvin, or Luther, or R .C.

Spruill, or Joshua Sheldon, or yourselves. That is the foundation of the church.

We speak just a moment about the gates of hell having no chance against the church. I just want to make a few quick points about that.

In that same area, again, Caesarea Philippi, but right there near where Jesus was, it was also believed that around there was the gates of Hades.

They thought the gates of Hades, they being the pagans, thought the gates of Hades were there. No, they weren't.

We know that. There are no physical gates to Hades or to hell. Hell exists.

Hades does not. And hell, knowing it exists, we know that it's not administered by Pan or the devil.

We know God rules hell just as he does all else. Let's think about the gates of hell.

The gates of hell. The kingdom behind those gates, the gates that are keeping men trapped in darkness and in sin and in hopelessness, those gates can try as they might to keep their subjects inside, but once the strong man has been bound, his goods can be plundered, gate or no gate.

Now I speak of the strong man. I'm going back to Matthew chapter 12 and verse 29, where Jesus speaks of you can't plunder a strong man's goods until you bind up the strong man and then plunder.

Well Jesus at the cross bound up the strong man, Satan, and plunders his goods, which is the saints, the ones for whom he died.

And when he says to the gates of hell, open, and I want this one to come out, those gates have no chance.

They will not prevail against his word. John chapter 5 says when Jesus, the son of man, speaks and the graves open, those who he calls will indeed come to him.

There's no resisting his voice. Neither can the gates of hell prevail against the power of Christ's word and his cross.

He is the plunderer, and as he draws sinners out of darkness and into his marvelous light, he takes what had been

Satan's and brings them to himself. So the gates of hell have no chance against this faithful confession and the church where this confession is manifest.

You ever wonder how you can be saved, how you were saved? The answer is simply to believe this gospel.

You sinner must believe that God through Christ has provided all the means by which you might stand before him in full righteousness.

Not by works, but by faith. We've been through this so many times as we went through the book of Romans.

We finished it several weeks ago. We often bring out Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of works, so that no one should boast. How do you get saved?

Through faith, through believing this gospel. You sinner, you outside of Christ, must believe this gospel that God saves sinners, that God forgives your sin, that God sent his son to die for your sin on the cross, and by faith in him and him alone, his work and his work alone, coming to him, confessing yourself a sinner, and praying his forgiveness.

That's the gospel that God forgives. Sinners can be justified by faith, justified before the law by faith, standing before God the

Father in the righteousness of his son Jesus. And when is that cloak that covers your sin, that cloak of righteousness handed to you?

It's when Christ tells the gates of hell, open, this one is mine.

Here's that scene in Schindler's List, which is a true story. This is one scene where Schindler made up a list,

I forget how long it was, I think it was some 450 people, and he had convinced the Nazis that these were all munitions manufacturing specialists, and he needed them name by name by name.

They're in a concentration camp, and the guards are reading out Schindler's List name by name. And as that name is called, you came out of that line and went to the line that's going to what they knew by then, though the

Nazis didn't, was a safe place, where you weren't worked to death, where you were actually fed,

Schindler's List. And it's like that when Jesus tells those gates to open, they cannot prevail.

When that name is read, they can't say, well, we like this one here, we want to keep him in darkness, we want her to remain hopeless in her sin.

No. Jesus calls those gates to open, and they will open, they will not prevail, and that's what this means.

None can resist his voice, not you, sinner, when he calls you to himself, not hell when he demands your release.

Let's move on to verse 19. Jesus says, still speaking to Peter, 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. The keys were not given to Peter the man, but to the church he would found, to every church constituted in the gospel, and following the apostolic instructions that come in the epistles later, that was after the

Lord's ascension. What are keys? Keys are a symbol of responsibility and authority.

They're more than a symbol, they are a duty. They're not some old relic or a family heirloom tucked away in a hope chest, stored in the far reaches of an attic.

They are the charter of the church. They're given to the church. They are the means by which we carry out our duties, because without the keys we have no license from Christ to do anything.

There's three things here that are inextricably tied together. The first is the church.

On this rock, this confession that Peter made, on that rock is the church.

And tied to the church is the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and that is the third thing, the kingdom of heaven.

So church, keys, and kingdom, all wrapped together. Church is the embodiment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Unlike my sad situation many years ago, where I didn't have the authority to really carry out all of my responsibilities, no,

Jesus is not that kind of a manager, if manager we can call him, but has authorized us to do all we need in order to carry out the duties, the responsibilities he's given us.

The keys are wielded by the church. Not a single man, not Peter, was never meant for him, not the

Pope, not me, they're wielded by the church. The local, discreet, physical assembly.

Providence Bible Church of Sunnyvale. Gateway Church in Livermore. The church leaders, pastors, certainly have a lot of influence on their use, as doors are open for ingress and egress, but the authority of the keys is ultimately vested in you, in the local body.

There's ingress, egress, that comes from the binding and loosing, and binding and loosing are rabbinic terms that meant permitting or allowing.

They're used in the context of behavior. That which complied with Scripture was allowed, that which did not was forbidden, and that's how

Jesus used these terms here. And something we're going to look at more when we get to Matthew 18 and verses 15 -20, that'll be another

Sunday. And the language Jesus uses, where he says whatever rather than whoever, he says whatever confirms that what is in view here is conduct.

Those who claim Christ as their Savior are confirmed as such and are brought in. They are bound.

Those who conduct displays that Christ is not their Lord to such an extent that he seems to not even be their

Savior, those are loosed. And that's the use of these keys, opening that door to bind, to bring in, to loose, to send out.

And in both cases, it is the assembled body, it is the assembled and local body, it is you, the members here at this church, who will these keys and pass these judgments.

Under pastoral direction, yes. But as the designated body whose duty it is, it is yours finally to decide.

There's an immediate example here of how this works. Peter's soul was opened by God the

Father, and he was the first one to speak forth the church's rock. Jesus bound

Peter by affirming what heaven had decreed. What was bound on earth was bound in heaven.

And this relates perfectly to us here today. The Father spoke first, though not audibly.

The means by which the Father communicated it are really unimportant in light of Jesus saying it was directly from the Father to Peter.

But we today have God's voice. And where do we have it? We have it in our scripture. These Bibles that are in front of you in every lap here this morning.

That's God's voice speaking his revelation. It's a living word. It's an active word.

It's a powerful word. We have his guidance by the

Holy Spirit who is real, who is true, who is little. He is a person bound together to the people he brought to Christ and promising to be here with us.

Heaven speaks first. And praise God for that because if it were the other way around, all heaven would be standing in suspense waiting for us to give them something to agree to.

And it's not that way. It's we here, by this revelation where God has spoken, bounding here what has been bound in heaven or loosing the other way.

Jesus acted by affirming Peter's blessing and the role to lay down the first brick of our foundation which is

Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that's just what the church does. We bind or allow that behavior that's prescribed in heaven's voice or we loose when something doesn't comport with that voice.

So that's the binding. And right here in the context, not what I exactly read, right after it, when

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.

Now Peter knew Jesus to be the Christ, so he understood his heavenly origin and his unique relationship to the

Father and immediately his behavior, after Jesus bound that behavior in the first place, immediately he is loosed.

Immediately, Jesus says, no, that's wrong, I loose. I do not bind this behavior,

I loose this. This is not from the Father. And this is us.

This is us. Any time we leave our Bibles closed or we open them and we study them and we parse out the verbs and we diagram the sentences, all to determine the meeting which jumps out at us and then we do not do what it so clearly tells us to do.

Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, you are a hindrance to me. In other words, he's loosed for the behavior that was outside of the heavenly revelation, which is what the church does, and we'll get to this another week, when the church uses the keys to the kingdom and opens the exit door, the loosing door.

So the keys are not given to individuals. They weren't given to Peter so he could hand them off to another man.

They weren't given to me when I was ordained as your pastor, neither were they given to you when you came to Christ.

All that said, holding the keys is not an option. You, if you are indeed a

Christian, you are required both to have and to wield the keys. You have duties.

And these duties are licensed to you by these keys of binding and loosing. You must take part in the whole process that Jesus speaks of here, and we're going to get to this in Matthew 18, later in Matthew 28, on another

Sunday. That process of binding and loosing, those duties vested in the church, are not something you can take or leave, if you are a

Christian. Jesus didn't give you a key and somebody else another key to another door.

He gave the church these keys. And it is by commitment to membership in the local assembly where you carry out these duties, these responsibilities, that Jesus Christ himself says are yours.

That's what membership's all about. That's how the keys are handed to you. That is the license that allows you to carry out the duties that are required of you.

You know, a police officer, anytime a police officer pulls you over, you can make him or her prove to you that they're a police officer.

Now, if they're in uniform and they've got that badge on their left side, it's pretty clear. They also have a special identification that they carry in their wallet that proves that they're police officers.

In other words, they have the authority to carry out their responsibility. And that responsibility of keeping society safe includes arresting me or you.

They can prove that they've been vested with the authority to carry that out. The same way with the church.

The keys are our license. The keys are the badge that we have. The keys show that we bear

Christ's name and we act in accordance with his word. I said earlier,

I want to reiterate, we insist here on membership for many things.

And we insist not because we're legalistic. We insist not because we want to boast of a vast membership role.

We insist not because we want to constrain your liberty in Christ. We insist because Christ Jesus right here in Matthew 16 verses 13 through 20 insists.

We believe that this is what's behind what the Lord is saying here. We believe that only by membership can you be involved with the church and wield those keys which

Jesus Christ says you must. There's a very real sense in which you're so limited without this.

One of the great criticisms of the Billy Graham crusade was people would get excited and they'd come down the aisle and men would pray for them and the music would be playing and there would be tears flowing and people would recognize themselves as sinners and Jesus Christ is their only hope.

All of which is true. All of which is a good gospel message to bring out. But then there was no follow up to ensure that these people, these sinners,

Lord willing, who became saints, God only knows, became invested in a church.

In a church. No, not because we want to constrain you.

Not because we're some cult that's going to hang on to you and force you to do everything our way.

Nothing like that. We go Christ's way. We open our scriptures when the pastor preaches here.

Why? So like the Bereans in Acts chapter 17 or 16, excuse me, you can see if these things are so.

And if they are so, then we will all together do them. That's how the church operates.

We insist because we think Christ Jesus insists. We insist because Matthew 28, 16 through 20, the

Great Commission, is about making disciples of Christ and disciples members of churches. We insist because Matthew 18, 15 through 20, which we call church discipline, makes no sense without it.

We insist because if you read the apostles in the letters to the churches,

Romans and first and second Corinthians and Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, first and second

Thessalonians, first and second Timothy, I'm not going to read them all to you. The apostles assumed it.

It was just there. It'd be like me telling you, don't go out of the house without your pants on.

Who would do that? We assume that you will. The apostles assumed this membership.

Christ taught it in Matthew 16, 13 through 20. We practice membership because by it we bind and loose on earth what is bound and loosed in heaven.

When we get to Matthew 18, 15 through 20, and you want to go to a brother or sister and show them their fault, where will you get your witnesses?

Just stop people on the street and say, hey, do you happen to be a Christian? I need a witness. You? No, I'm a Hindu. You? No, I'm a

Buddhist. You? Well, yes, I'm a Christian, but I'm a Christian of a different brand. Let's talk for a few hours and see which brand of Christian you need.

No. It's in the church, and someone will not hear you.

If someone will not recognize their sin, if someone will not repent, it is the church wielding those keys that says, your sin has been established.

Every matter, as Jesus Christ says, has been established, and therefore this is the action we must take.

And without that, without those keys, you cannot even enter into Matthew 18, 15 through 20 and follow the

Lord's requirement of you. Why am I preaching this?

Why are we being so pointed about it? We're doing it for your good. We're doing it because we love our

Lord Jesus Christ, and we proclaim it to you because our love for Christ compels us.

The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and because of that, we can hold back on none of this in the scripture.

That's why we preach it. That's why we insist upon it. That's why we want you to know that when

Jesus stopped the disciples, as we read in Matthew 15, 16 to 20, this moment where Jesus then gives the keys of the kingdom and describes them and authorizes the church is so much bigger than we usually make it out to be.

And I leave it to each of your consciences to ask yourself before God, what then must

I do? I'm not going to list right now all the things that are in this church, this local assembly right here, that we hold for the members and the members only.

May God have mercy if I'm wrong about all those things and withhold those privileges from people who haven't joined.

May God have mercy on me. But this church stands on this. My understanding of the scripture is not mine alone.

It's very common. There's so many things that you must do as a Christian, which you cannot do unless these keys, this binding and loosing authority have been handed to you in conjunction with the rest in this body or a body of true believers.

Any true church where the gospel is preached, where the ordinances are followed, where discipline is practiced, these marks are the true church.

These marks are the church where the keys are, where you must come and be a part of it and carry out your responsibilities the way

Jesus would have you to do. Amen. Heavenly Father, I do thank you again for this day you've given us, for this time that we have together.

I ask, Father, that you would just impress your word upon all our hearts, on all our souls, and give us,

Lord, by your Spirit, the wherewithal to do as your word tells us and would have us to do.

I do thank you for this day of worship, for this time that we have together, in all things, giving you all the glory and the praise.