18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” 20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ.
When we read some history, I am reading church history with some of our church people. One thing keenly we realize is we live in a world in which almost everything is “temporary,” and is destined to pass away. Young people may not see it much. If you have some experience… maybe 45, 50, or 70 or 80… you realize everything that is there today is temporary. Great legend Padmashri, Padma Bhushan, Kalaimaamani S. P. Balasubrahmanyam passes away… we cannot hear his voice anymore.
It’s a reality that we see throughout human history. The great works of mankind; achievements that seemed so important to humanity and civilization at the time—the great kingdoms, empires, governments, nations, their achievements, principles, laws, cities, institutions—all of them were subject to change, decay, and eventual destruction. And what was true of the great works of man in the past will prove to be true of what we consider to be so great and important today. Change and decay all around I see.
If this is so, if we place our ultimate, full hopes in these human, temporary things, our life will be most pitiably blind, disappointed, and wasteful. I worked for a company 10 years… night and day like a dog… that company is gone… not even a name today. We may give everything for our families, everything for companies or for governments, fight for nations and give lives… all will go… people may not even remember the name.
What prospect or expectation do we have if we place our hopes in the temporary and uncertain hands of men? What is there in this world that can endure or abide throughout the ages of human history? What institution is there in this world today that we can be sure—no matter what—will never pass away? What is there in this world that we can attach ourselves to, commit ourselves and invest our body, spirit, wealth, and ourselves in, that will last forever? So that our small life will have some eternal meaning…
Well, in this morning’s passage, the Son of God Himself tells us of that one institution that will never pass away. It is the only institution within the sphere of human experience that will last forever; because it was not instituted by man and is not maintained by men. Jesus—who, as it had just been asserted in our passage, is “the Christ, the Son of the living God”—makes the promise that He Himself would build His church; and that the very gates of hades itself will not prevail against it. Verse 18: Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
One author said, “Empires rising and falling, Babylon, Persia, Greek, Rome… rose to the heights and built big kingdoms, but all fell and became ashes and gone with the wind.” Revolutions and counter-revolutions, wealth accumulating and scattered, one nation dominant and then another. In one lifetime, one nation ruled the entire world. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin were praised as great heroes who would build a great permanent nation, all dead and remembered as the worst men in history. All only one lifetime, all gone with the wind.
Above all self-appointed imperial heroes, history’s debris and their kingdoms in ashes, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of Whom, by Whom, in Whom, and through Whom alone, mankind may still have peace and achieve eternal hope. The person of Jesus Christ, and the church he builds, will only abide even today and will abide forever, overcoming the gates of hades… forever…
One song: 1 O where are kings and empires now, Of old that went and came? But, Lord, your Church is praying yet, A thousand years the same.
Unshaken as eternal hills, Immovable she stands, A mountain that shall fill the earth, A house not made by hands.
Today we are going to look at the first mention in the New Testament about the church.
Verse 18: 18 I also say to you that you are [l]Peter, and upon this [m]rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
After the great confession of Peter, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,” Our Lord takes Peter and his confession, and signs a royal, divine charter. It is a glorious, triumphant verse. You know the devil hates this verse so much. In his subtlety, he divided Christianity into different parts using this verse. This verse is a battleground between the Roman church and the Protestant church. From the 6th century, from the first Pope Leo, the Roman Catholic Church has said the church is built on Peter, therefore making Peter the first pope, establishing papal succession, and making the papacy the ultimate divine authority on the earth.
Protestants have reacted to that and said the church is not built on Peter at all, but it is rather built on the confession that Peter makes in verse 16, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And it is Christ who is the head of the church, and there is no papacy found in the passage. Dispensationalists 150 years ago have said it is a passage in which Christ introduces something new, “I will” —future tense— “build my church,” the implication being there never has been a church in the Old Testament, but there will be a church in the future, setting off the church as distinct from Israel. And then there have been great debates as to what are the gates of Hades and in what sense does the church conquer these gates?
And then in verse 19, it says to Peter was given the keys of the Kingdom. What are those keys? And what does he unlock and lock? And what does it mean that whatever he binds on earth or looses on earth is already done in heaven? And why does the Lord say don’t tell anybody that I’m the Messiah? So you can see there are important questions. So we have to go slow in this passage and get a proper understanding, and today, I want to look at only verse 18.
We will understand verse 18 in 3 headings. So this passage is about the church.
The builder of the church By whom he is going to build this church – Members of this church Such a Church is invincible or indestructible – never failing or never passing away.
1. Builder of the church
Last week we saw the great confession of Peter. When the Lord asked what do you say about me, he with certainty, with heart conviction, cried out, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” We saw our Lord responded by blessing Peter, saying the revelation came from the Father’s illumination.
After that, he says, “I say also unto you.” You not only blessed Peter in yourself, Verse 18: 18 I also say to you that you are [l]Peter, and upon this [m]rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
The word Church comes from the Greek ekklasia, which is an assembly or people of “called-out” people. We know it doesn’t stand for any building; it is stupid to call a building a church. It means called-out people. If people gather under a tree, then that is church. The Bible never uses it as a building; that is why Paul could say the church gathers in your home. Ekklasia—this “assembly of the called-out ones.”
The Sovereign Lord who is Christ, the Son of the living God, to whom the Father has given all judgment, who has all authority in heaven and earth, says with all the power I have, “I will build my church.” I myself, not my angels, not my archangels, not you apostles, not pastors, but I will myself be involved in building my church.
Notice the certainty of the language. And because the Son of God Himself personally builds it—and entrusts its construction to no one else—if he builds something, we can know for sure that it will endure forever!
Notice the intimacy of it. How wonderful He says, “I will build” – not the church, a church, not the great church, but – “my church.” He’s the owner. The church is His personal possession. How intimate… See, I can say my house, my car; it is close to an extent… more, my wife, my children, closer than those. But when I say my body, how intimate that is to me. I can tolerate anything happening to all outside me, but something happens to my body… oh, unbearable. I cannot live without my body. The church is His body. The church is marvelously united to Him more than any union; in fact, it is a mysterious union between the Father and the Son. My church. Oh, we have seen the great truth of eternal union with Christ… We don’t belong to some organization, we belong to an intimate union… The reason nobody can destroy the church is because He has united with Him… “Because I live, you also.”
When someone touches the church, Saul touched it. Acts 9: one kick and blind for 3 days. Why? What did he ask Saul…? “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting” the church – is that what He said? That’s not what He said. “Why are you persecuting” – what? – “me?” You touch His church, you touch Him. Now, that’s intimacy. It is the apple of my eye, meaning the pupil of the eye in Hebrew. How you feel when someone puts a finger on your pupil, the most sensitive part of the exposed human anatomy? That is how God feels when someone plays around with His church. That is why he says if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it is better to tie a millstone around your neck and drop you in the middle of the sea. That is why it is very dangerous to play with the church members… like a big don… you touched… our men… you touched us… over your cause… whole family, here third, 4th generation cursed. Old Testament tabernacle: Eli played, “your children no one will live above 20, if he lives he will be a beggar, no education, no skill, or he will be a handicap, always family curse all generations.” If we play with His temple which He purchased with His blood… unspeakable. You touch the church, it is like putting a finger in the eyes of Christ. It’s my church, I gave my life for that church. Acts 20:28, He purchased it with His own blood. He is its architect. He is its builder.
It is the Lord Jesus Christ who builds the church. Do you know Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1 say, “Father raised Christ from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
God put him above everything so he can be head over the church. Oh, do we understand how big and important the church is to God? Some of you have such low views of the church… that is why your church life and your commitment to church is so poor. The only thing Jesus Christ builds in this world is the church… how committed are you? Augustine said, “No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” The way you treat the church is exactly the way you treat Lord Jesus Christ. Christ rules the universe today above every name for the sake of the church.
Bishop J.C. Ryle once wrote:
For the preserving of the true church, the laws of nature have oftentimes been suspended or changed. For the good of that church, all the providential dealings of God in this world are ordered and arranged. For the elect’s sake, wars are brought to an end, and peace is given to a nation. Statesmen, rulers, emperors, kings, presidents, heads of governments, have their schemes and plans, and think them of vast importance. None of them realize, behind there is another work going on of infinitely greater moment, for which they are only the instruments, ‘axes and saws’ in God’s hands (Isa. 10:15). That work is the erection of Christ’s spiritual temple, the gathering in of living stones into the one true church.
The Sovereign Lord says, “I will build my church.” Does this mean Christ didn’t build the church in the Old Testament, so there was no church in the Old Testament? A sharp and clear understanding will avoid two extremes. The Dispensational teaching says It is a new dispensation completely different from the Old Testament, their salvation is different, saved by law, no connection… so they say Israel is different and set Israel above the church. Also, if you go to the other extreme and say there is no difference, the Old Testament had the church and he continues to build the church. This is the tendency in Presbyterian covenant theology that erases the differences between the Old and New Covenant people so as to justify the practice of infant baptism like infant circumcision… see, both extremes are dangerous.
It doesn’t mean he has not built his church so far in Old Testament times. Our confession beautifully explains this point in a balanced way. Old Testament saints were part of the invisible, universal church. The explanation in the Confession of Faith helps us avoid dispensational teaching that they are completely different from us by showing Old Testament saints were saved just like us, looking in faith to the Christ who would come in the future. At the same time, it shows they are different as a church structurally. But they belonged to a different institutional structuring of the people of God. That Old Covenant structure was identified with Moses and the redemption accomplished in the Exodus. The church to which we belong is identified with Jesus and the redemption accomplished in His cross. The church is a different institution than the theocracy of the Old Covenant as a nation in a promised land. We are scattered across the world. Old Covenant Israel was a type, a prefigurement, of the church (Rom 2:28,29; Gal 6:16; Phil 3:3) so that the church is now said to be the New Israel of God. We are spiritual Israel… Ecclesiologically different, but soteriologically same (the doctrine of salvation). So, we cannot justify the Old Testament practice of covenant theology and baptize infants because they circumcised children.
So the first thing we see is the Builder and Maker of the church is Christ Himself. This is the fulfillment of all the temple pictures of the Old Testament where God will dwell in our midst, and we will be His people. Solomon was a type of Christ when he built that glorious temple in 1 Kings. Solomon built the old temple with many materials and precious stones.
What are the stones with which Christ will build? This brings us to the next heading.
2. By whom he is going to build this church – Members of this church
See, the foundation and material for building are very important. However great the architect, if the foundation is rotten, the building will not stand. Let us, therefore, see what the foundation and material for this church are.
Verse 18: 18 I also say to you that you are [l]Peter, and upon this [m]rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
He talks about the material for his church, Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church. As I said, the meaning of this material is the cause of all confusion and has split Christianity into different major parts. Now what is the meaning of “you are Peter” (meaning rock) and “I will build my church upon this rock”?
The Roman Catholic explanation: The traditional Roman Catholic interpretation is that when Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church,” he was saying that Peter (which means rock) himself was the rock upon which the church would be built. Peter as a person was supreme and was to have primacy over the other apostles. And the keys of the kingdom that Jesus talks about in verse 19 refer to the prerogatives given to Peter as the first leader of the Christian church and the first Bishop of Rome. Ultimately, of course, the Roman Catholic looks to this passage as the proof that Peter was indeed the first pope, and all Popes come in his line. I explained to people last church history meeting how Leo twisted this verse and introduced the papacy.
The Protestant argument: Protestants have given a number of different answers over the centuries. One of the most popular evangelical answers goes something like this: There are two different Greek words used for “Peter” and “Rock.” Peter is petros, which can mean a small stone, and “rock” is petra, which can mean a large rock. In that case, Peter is not the rock; the rock is his confession of faith. Jesus would be saying, “You are like a small stone, but I am building my church on your rock-like confession of faith.” Some interpreters have even suggested that Jesus was standing in front of that massive rock cliff and may have picked up a stone when he said, “You are Peter” and then gestured toward himself when he said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.”
There you have the two great answers to the question—What is the rock upon which the church is built? Is it Peter? Or is it his confession of faith? I have been taught this, and this is what I also believed for many years till last week. This may not be wrong.
But when I studied this in detail last week, I think there is a third answer, and I believe that is the right one and the closest one. Many reformed preachers agree to this, and even the great commentator Hendrickson also gives this explanation.
This answer is the most fitting and the easiest to understand. First, when Jesus said “Upon this rock I will build my church,” he was referring to Peter. I say that because the two Greek words—petros and petra—basically mean the same thing; Aramaic language was used. They are different forms of the same word. One is masculine and the other is feminine. How one name can have male and female? Christian, Christina. That’s the only real difference. Jesus was saying, “Peter, you are a rock-man.”
Second, when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church,” he said it after Peter made his great confession of faith. The timing is crucial. It’s not as if Jesus looks around and says, “Well, you are the best of all the apostles, and so I chose you as the top leader stone.” Peter could not have been the rock until he made the great confession. That is, the rock is not Peter the doubter or Peter the denier. The rock is Peter the believer and Peter the confessor. The rock is Peter as he publicly confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Upon that rock, Jesus will build his church.
Third, when Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church,” he said it to Peter as representing all the apostles. Remember that the question Jesus asked earlier, “Who do you (plural) say that I am?” was in the plural—Jesus wasn’t asking Peter alone; he was asking all of them. When Peter answered, he wasn’t answering only for himself; he was answering for all of them. And when Jesus said, “You are the rock,” he wasn’t speaking of Peter alone. He was speaking of all the apostles.
Yes, Peter was first. He was the leader. Give him all the credit. When no one would speak up, Peter said it loud and clear. Yes, Peter is the rock. And so are the other apostles.
I think Jesus was saying, “Peter, you are a rock. And upon you, and men like you, who make a confession like you, I will build my church.” Now to say that is not to agree with anything the Roman Catholic Church says about Peter being the head rock or Pope. But it is to say that Peter is one of the foundations of the church in the sense that, when he made that confession—and all the apostles with him—he was the rock—and they were the rocks upon which the church is built.
Let me put it plainly. The church is not built on men alone; nor is it built on a confession alone. The church is built on men confessing together that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That is the foundation of the church.
Important – Men Who Make this Great Confession. I am saying that the church is not built upon an idea alone or a theory alone or upon a confession of faith alone. But the church is built upon men who make a great confession—that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And that is exactly what Ephesians 2:20 says. “For you are…built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” I would understand it this way: That the cornerstone or the bedrock of the church is Jesus Christ himself. And upon that bedrock are the apostles. Those ordinary men, those uneducated men, those Galilean men, those fishermen, those tax collectors, are the foundation stones of the church… because they made this confession. The Church is built on them, and do you know it is not only Peter who is a rock; you and I are stones in that church.
1 Peter 2:4: “You have come to Christ who is the Living Stone.” He called Christ the Living Stone. Then he said, “And you are built upon him as living stones upon living stones.” (1 Peter 2:4-5 paraphrased).
That is to say, Jesus Christ is first. He’s the Living Stone. Upon him is built first, the apostles, then all the first century believers, then the second century believers, then the third century believers, then the fourth and the fifth and the sixth, all the way up to the 21st century. Here’s where we fit in. When we confess faith in Jesus Christ, we become living stones, joined into that great church which Jesus Christ is building.
See, this is revolutionary truth. We have seen the builder of the church, and next, what kind of materials or men does Jesus build his church with? He builds it with men and women who have made this confession as an expression of their heart conviction. Martin Luther said it well. He said, “All who agree with the confession of Peter are Peters/stones themselves, being built in this church. Peter is thus pointed out to us as the ‘representative testifier’— the ‘model confessor’ of Jesus Christ. Peter is thy name, and strength and stability are with thee. Thou art not shaken with the waves of men’s fluctuating opinions concerning me, but established in the present truth,” 2 Peter 1:12.
So the church’s foundation is first the bedrock, Jesus Christ, then the apostles—led by Peter who first confessed that truth, and then finally we join in when we have come face to face with the truth: Jesus is the Christ, Son of God from heaven. In that moment, we become living stones in the church that Jesus is building.
This, then, makes Peter the “model member” of the church that Jesus promised to build. All that are a part of Jesus’ church must come to Him in the same way, making the same confession of faith in Him from the heart—that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
3. Such a Church is Invincible or Indestructible – Never Fail or Never Pass Away.
Jesus promises to build His church; but He doesn’t promise that His building program would be carried on without opposition. Jesus’ words imply that the church that He promises to build will be under threat from “the gates of hades” or “hell.”
What is this gates of Hades? Some say this is the power of all the devil and his forces: the “principalities,” “powers,” “rulers of the darkness of this age,” and “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” against whom the Bible says we wrestle (Eph. 6:12). Yes, the devil is a great enemy of the church—he seeks tirelessly to oppose the progress of the church… we see that in Revelation unceasingly. His only target in the world is the church. These fight against the church by opposing gospel truths, corrupting gospel ordinances, persecuting good ministers and good Christians, drawing or driving, persuading by craft or forcing by cruelty, to that which is inconsistent with the purity of religion. This is the design of the gates of hell: to root out the name of Christianity (Psalm 83:4), to devour the man-child (Revelation 12:9), to raze this city to the ground.
But, “The woman lives, though in a wilderness” (Revelation 12:14), “cast down but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:9). He also seeks to prevent the message of the gospel from entering his dark regions, which he is controlling and holding people as prisoners through the fear of death and the snares of sin.
The church will face this fierce opposition from the devil and its forces. There is a war going on in the spiritual realm over the redemption of God’s elect; and the eternal destinies of powerful spiritual beings are at stake. Jesus speaks to us realistically about the gates of hades. Examine the history of the church over the past twenty centuries; and you’ll see how the gates of hades have often sought—through one means or another—to utterly destroy the church and hinder its life-giving message to fallen humanity.
The promise is: Satan may have brought sin and death, by making mankind fall, and made angels fall, but he shall never destroy this church… try as he wants… as much as he wants… he can tempt, persecute, discourage, kill, deceive, distress, bring trials, bring low… do whatever he wants… he can never bring an end to the church. It shall outlive the wrath of Pharaohs and Roman Emperors. Every elect person will be brought to glory. In spite of falls, failures, and shortcomings—in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil—no member of the true Church shall ever be cast away.
While the world stands, Christ will have a church in it, in which his truths and ordinances shall be owned and kept up, in spite of all the opposition of the powers of darkness. “They shall not prevail against it,” Psalm 129:1,2. Maybe it includes all opposition of the devil and his forces in this world, but Gates of Hades goes beyond that… not only in this world… The worst attack of Satan is this…
But Gates of Hades does not refer to hell. It generally refers to the invisible realm of the dead. In that sense it corresponds to the Hebrew word sheol. When the Bible speaks of Hades it is not necessarily making a distinction between the saved and the lost. It is simply the land of the dead.
So Jesus is saying that the gates of the realm of the dead will never overpower the church. But what are the “gates?” The word “gates” is a very common Greek word. “Gates” are a means of entrance by which you pass from one realm to another and exit. Gates serve two purposes—they keep people in and they keep people out. For instance, this same word is used for the gates of the city of Jerusalem, for the gates to the temple, and for prison gates. Gates are a means of access, a means of entry.
If hades is the land of the dead, what is the gate by which you enter that realm? Death. You have to die to enter the realm of the dead. Death is the gateway to hades.
Satan’s greatest weapon is death, right? He keeps men in fear of death all their life. That is the last enemy. What, then, is Jesus saying? He is saying that death as Satan’s great weapon and all its ugly power will never overcome the church he is building.
But why did he say that? Because he knew something his disciples didn’t know. In verse 21: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” To us, this is old news. We’ve heard it a thousand times. But to the disciples, this was the first they had heard about it. Jesus… the Messiah… the Son of God… was going to die.
Now connect verse 18 with verse 21. When Jesus said the power of death will never overcome the church, he said it because when he rose from the dead, he broke open the gates of hades. Up until Jesus’ day no one had ever escaped from the land of the dead. But Jesus did. And he came out holding the keys in his hand. That’s what Revelation 1:18 says. “I am the Living One. I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” How do you get the keys to Hades? You break the gate wide open. You die and then you come back from the dead.
And that is why the gates of Hades—death itself—even the greatest enemy of man, can never overpower the church. Because Jesus Christ has died and come back from the dead and he holds in his hand the keys to the gates of Hades.
Oh, not only this… throughout church history… Satan and his men thought killing Christians would end the church… in fact, it has always been… deaths have always made the church strong. One pastor started the church… he died as a martyr… people thought the church would die… but wonderfully, the church became even stronger by his death. This was because those members were careless and didn’t take the pastor’s words seriously till he was alive.
They thought it wasn’t that important to live for the Lord and seek God’s kingdom. But when they heard the pastor gave his life for Christ’s testimony and died a “glorious death” serving the Lord, hundreds repented and the church became stronger, and more pastors grew up.
That is what Jesus meant when he said, “The gates of Hades cannot prevail against it.” Ladies and gentlemen, we are all going to die someday. But the church goes on and on and on. That is the church’s assurance. We are here for a little while and then we are gone. But the church goes on.
Why? Because it doesn’t depend on mortal men. It is built on the word and promise of Jesus Christ, who is the Living One, who was dead and is now alive forevermore, who holds the keys of death and Hades in his hand. That, my friends, is the church’s assurance. That is our hope. Death cannot overpower the church. The Gates of Hell shall not prevail. Why? Satan has the gates, but Jesus has the keys.
There is victory through the grave, even conquerors of the grave, life after death. That’s why Jesus died. John 14:19, “Because I live, ye shall live” – what? – “also.” And that’s the whole point: that the worst that the devil can do to the church is to do what? Kill it, martyr, kill us. He has the power of death, Hebrews 2:14. And Satan will try to kill Christians, destroy the church, but the gates of Hades can’t hold it in. This is a promise of resurrection.
ITS ULTIMATE VICTORY…
He affirms that He would build His church; and promises that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” It would try to overcome the church. And when it serves the purpose of God to strengthen and build His precious redeemed people, the gates of Hades may even be allowed times in which it seems to be making progress against the church. But it will never ultimately prevail!
“Prevail” is a good translation; so is “overcome.” It’s a military term. It will war to prevail, but cannot. Jesus is saying that the Gates of Hell—whatever they are—may fight the church but they will not win. The battle will rage long and hard, soldiers will die on every side, and the gates of Hell may win a few skirmishes, a whole string of battles, but they will not win the war. The gates of Hell are strong, but they aren’t strong enough.
And if He promises that the greatest opposition the church could face—even the very gates of Hades itself—will not prevail against the church, then we can be sure that neither can any other opposition from this world.
So we have seen 3 points:
- The Builder of the church.
- By what He is going to build this church – Members of this church.
- Such a Church is Invincible – never fails or never passes away.
Applications: 3 Lessons from 3 Points
First, We must learn deeply in our heart from this passage that it is Christ who builds his church.
One of the great mistakes we make as believers is to think that the building of the church on earth is ultimately up to us! It is not! He is the Builder of the church. Apostles may preach and spread the Gospel, but Acts 2:47, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved,” is still as true today as it ever was.
Oh, how important it is that we realize we don’t build the church. We are not church planters and builders. It is Christ who builds the church. I hear people say, “See that man, I brought him into salvation.” Or, “See, I built this church.” Yes, I think there are churches that men have built, but that’s different than the Lord building His church—very different.
We will never be in the church-building business, trying to use techniques, programs, plans, promotions, and methods that guarantee a crowd. But we all should seek Christ to build our church. I want to make sure we keep a distinction. We all must desire to be part of the church He’s building. GRBC is not what we build; we want GRBC to be part of the church the Lord is building. That should be our prayer, labor, and commitment.
And all we want to do is be in the place where He’s building it. You say, “What is that place?” The place where His word wants us to be. His word reveals his mind to us. And the Scripture tells us how to think, speak, and live as Christ wants us. The Bible lays out the pattern. And as we begin as a church to learn more and more and live in obedience to God’s Word, the more we live under the rule of his word, the more we live under his reign and kingdom. More and more as we walk within the parameters set by the Word of God, we become a channel through which Christ can build His church… like a living water/river path. Now, as soon as we deviate from the word of God, give room to men’s ideas, stop obeying the Word, as soon as we detour from a life of obedience, as soon as we abandon the biblical pattern, then the channel is blocked. The church isn’t blocked; it’ll find another place to go, and it’ll move on being built, but we won’t be a part of it.
Oh, we may say, “Our country has so many churches that are dead; nothing is happening; Christ is not building.” That is wrong. That doesn’t mean the church isn’t being built. That means those people aren’t in the position so that God can do it there. But He’ll cut that fresh channel as many times as He needs to keep the flow of the life of the church. He’ll build His church.
See, our greatest desire, commitment, and prayer must be to soak ourselves fully in God’s word. The word of God must richly dwell in us, then the Holy Spirit fills us, and when we do everything in our church according to God’s word and allow only his word to reign in our midst, you do whatever the Word of God says in the church, you’re letting Him build it His way. That’s the joy. We don’t have to use any tricks, talents, or strategy… just believe, read, preach, and obey God’s word more and more.
We are to be faithful men making this blessed confession and live guarding our hearts… Christ will build. The day we stop walking in obedience to God’s Word, give room to men’s ideas, and we stop doing things by the book, then the Lord’s going to sort of dam up the situation; He’s going to shoot off in another place.
We’ve seen that. I have told you of churches at one time that were flourishing, and the Lord was building the church and He was using a certain local assembly, and today it’s nothing but a shell of what it was. It’s happened all over the world. The trend now is: in Western countries, many churches are becoming traditional and liberal; the river may be blocked there, and the river is moving towards Asia, Korea, China; many evangelical churches are growing. Christ is building the church. The Lord will build His church. God, help us to be in the place where He’s doing it because that’s the exciting reality. We have to be in a place where his word reigns and is given the most important place… because that is where the Lord is building his invincible church… other places it is men building something in the name of the church.
And when we walk in obedience to Him, we become the channel in which He’ll build His church. What a great confidence.
How long will he build the church and what is the goal? Ephesians chapter 5. Now here’s why He gathers the church, here’s why He builds the church: “to sanctify, to cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word in order that having it cleansed now, He might present it to Himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.” You know why the Lord is building the church? To present it to Himself a glorious church.
In all coming eternity, the church will be a display of his great glory. Nothing else in the universe will display God’s glory more than the church. And Paul in the Ephesian letter even says that He’s doing this to display to the angels His infinite wisdom. The angels are saying, “Ah, what a God who can make something out of that miserable depraved bunch of human beings.” You see, God is building the church so that when the church is built, no man will be able to say, “Look what we did.” But God will say, “This is solely and only to my glory.”
So God is building the church, and that is so marvelous to know that, and all we want to do is be in that place where He’s doing it. And that’s why we oppose human wisdom, worldly ideas, leaven, liberalism, externalism, traditionalism, politicians’ temptations, and worldly name or wealth; we resist these. We must hate and remove all false teaching and sin from the church… don’t allow unbelieving, unrepentant men as members in the church. If we have allowed them, remove them through church discipline. Rebuke all kind of spiritual laziness, carnality, spiritual indifference and apathy. We have to exhort and change members who do not read the Bible and members who are prayerless. All this hinders his work of building the church, and he may go to some other channel. He may even remove the lampstand… No church here. And He’ll build His glorious body. I want me and this church to be part of this… Oh, that is why to an extent… I go through birth pangs… why do we weekly, every day of the week, except Monday… we are regularly training people on God’s word… for you weekly once… daily for me.
Second lesson, we learn from this that He builds the church with men and women who made this blessed confession: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.” Only they are used as living stones being built in his glorious church.
The Lord is still building His church and putting up those living stones that Peter talks about; He’s still building His church on those people who affirm the revelation of God about Christ to be true. To look at it another way, a group of people who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God have no place where Christ can build His church.
Have you made this great confession by God’s revelation and given yourselves fully to Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King… daily learning from Him, applying his blood and intercession, living a cleansed life, and being ruled by his reign? Only then are you truly part of the church Christ is building. Only such a church will no gate of hades overcome… There will be a mixture in any true church… there are inside and outside people… Only one question is left. Are you in the church or out? If you are in, you’re in because you have made this confession and given yourselves wholly to him. If you’re out, it’s because you haven’t done that. So where do you stand this morning? Are you in or are you out? You cannot be a true member in this building if you have not truly made this confession from the heart.
See, this is revolutionary truth. You cannot become a living stone in this church the Lord is building because you have been baptized here, attended a membership class, take communion here, come every Sunday, or give tithes. You can be a living stone because of what you believe and confess about Jesus as Christ, Son of the living God. The true church is made up of people who have confessed one revolutionary truth—that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He is everything to you… Prophet, Priest, King… otherwise, just like foolish virgins, you are waiting to be deceived in the day of the judgment.
Third lesson, we have seen the invincibility of the church… oh, what comfort should this promise give us… it is a glorious promise to believers who love the church.
It is a great promise; it is the assurance of the church. He said “I.” The immutable, sovereign, faithful, omnipotent Lord of heaven and earth whose Word can’t return void but always accomplishes what He says, whose purpose always comes to pass, whose will is always fulfilled ultimately, whose plan is invincible and unshakable, has spoken about building the church in no less than extremely triumphant words.
Imagine how comforting this was for the disciples. They were really in exile, rejected by the nation Israel, no one accepted them in their entire nation. The Jewish leaders, religious and political, were both after Jesus and wanted to kill him. The populace understood only a political, economic kingdom, just a worldly level; they understood only a military, political Messiah. They missed the whole point.
Even the disciples saw no glory of the Messiah, setting Himself on a throne of David, and restoring dominion to Israel, and having a Kingdom that swept across the globe with all of the pomp and circumstance and glory and grandeur. All of that Messianic expectation just wasn’t happening. In fact, quite the contrary. They were a little band of nobodies, a sort of a disheveled group of the ill-equipped who were rejected and seemingly going nowhere but toward greater hostility.
They had even to retreat into this obscure place populated mostly by Gentiles to find some rest and some privacy and some safety. And there they were with Jesus, wondering whether or not the whole program of God was really on schedule because from external appearance, it looked as if everything was the very opposite of what had been planned.
And so it is in this very special moment when their hopes are beginning to fall. It looked as if the Lord wasn’t building His Kingdom. Quite the contrary. Worst of all, in a few moments, he is revealing that he is going to suffer and be murdered by elders and chief priests. They may be very discouraged. That is why Peter said, “No, Lord, that is not the plan… how can the Messiah suffer and die… never…” It was bad enough that it had been this bad, but for you to die, that is an inconceivable thought. He should be executed was beyond belief.
And so there’s coming a lot of bad news, you see—bad news, worse than they’ve even heard before. And in light of this, the Lord needs to reveal to them that in spite of what appears on the surface, the program is moving ahead, you see. And that’s why it’s so marvelous that in this very moment He says, “I will build my church.” There isn’t any variation from the original plan. There isn’t any loss. The program hasn’t changed. He is building the church. And what appears on the surface isn’t the reality at all.
See, in the time we live, what a comfort it is for us… no matter what false teaching does, no matter what governments do, no matter what changes or laws governments may bring, the Lord will build his church.
And so they needed that confidence, just like we do, just like those people of God throughout all the history of the ages have needed it when it looked bleak. You can imagine how it looked to the early church when they were being massacred… The last apostle on the island of Patmos… “Will Christianity survive?” How it would have looked in the Middle Ages, with a Roman Catholic filled world of darkness. There have always been times when it looked as if the people of God would be wiped out… the church would be no more.
There were always those times when the church looked like it was going to come to a halt. But it never did and it wouldn’t now, and so this is a message of great hope that the beleaguered, persecuted, martyred, rejected, maligned, poor, ignoble people of God are still going to go on, and when they look like losers, you just aren’t looking close enough. There’s victory at the end.
You know, just this key thought. Jesus is saying, “No matter what the world does, no matter how the world reacts to me, to you, to the gospel, I will go on building the church. No matter how apostate the nation Israel, I will build the church.”
And we could say today, no matter how liberal the church gets – no matter what the Roman Catholic traditional church does, – no matter how apostate Christianity becomes, no matter how decadent India becomes, no matter how godless and Christless our society gets, that will not thwart the building of the church, will it? This is the infallible promise of the Lord of the church… it should fill us with great encouragement for building the church and in gospel work.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 