The Son's Death and the Church's Life

Call to Worship: Deuteronomy 32:3-4 // Prayer

Adoration: Our God: you are our Rock. Unchanging, faithful, immovable. All your work is perfect. All your ways are just and pure and good--lofty and high above us! Inaccessible and hidden from us! Infinitely and absolutely beautiful!

Confession: And we come to you; and in the light of your beauty we see the ugliness of our sins. You are worthy that we should live in total holiness--but we have not. And so, in your presence, we confess that we have sinned. We have sinned in pride and in selfishness, in lust and in anger, in laziness and idolatry. We have sinned in these ways in thought, word, and deed. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: And in asking for your forgiveness, we remember your Son, crucified for us. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is your very power, O God. For in it, you have redeemed us.

Supp: So then, as those whom you have redeemed, we beg you: teach us to walk more worthy of the gospel of your Son; help us to press on further up and further in to our union with him; and this morning, especially we lift up to you the women among us: we ask that you give them peace, joy, courage, assurance of faith, and holiness, and that you would give them grace to reject the world’s lies about womanhood and instead to embrace your glorious design of it with joy, that they might flourish in that in every way // and we ask for Bethany Bible Church, that you would empower them by your Spirit to have joy in your gospel, to live in contentment and holiness, and to boldly share your gospel // and we lift up to you our community and especially its children: we ask that you would protect them from the damaging effects of the LGBT agenda, of pornography, and of all the damage that these and other forms of intimacy outside of marriage can do—but even more we ask, in your mercy, that you would redeem those who have gone down these kinds of roads, for such were some of us, but you have saved us and cleansed us and destined us for glory! // and beyond our community, we bring our brothers and sisters in India before you: we ask that you would protect them from the violence of the Hindu Nationalists there, and fill them with holiness and boldness and love to proclaim your gospel to their neighbors // and as we open your Word, we ask that you would increase our wisdom, our reverence, our knowledge, and our love of You...

Announcements

Next Sunday: Potluck + Congregational Meeting

Potluck, of course, is for all!

Meeting will be for the congregation only - members of the congregation, and all members are strongly encouraged to attend if at all possible. We’ll be going over some important business, including an annual financial report and some discussion of Fuego en el Espiritu and our relationship to them.

Benediction

Peace be to the brothers and love with faith, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ until the day dawns and the shadows flee away. Amen. 

Eph 6:23 + Songs 2:17

Sermon

Introduction

Every passage in Matthew, as I study it, feels deep and rich.

But there are some rare moments that define the whole book. Places where the whole rest of the story turns dramatically. Today’s passage is one of them—it is meant to sum up all the glory we’ve seen up to this point, and then point all of that in a surprising direction.

You know, there are some incredible places in the world. There are places you can stand—in the Andes Mountains, for example—and the rain which falls by your left foot will find its way down, eventually, to the Amazon River, where it will flow out through its long course into the stormy Atlantic Ocean. But the drops of rain which fall by your right foot will flow the other direction, and find their way out to the mighty Pacific. It’s the watershed border.

That’s our passage this morning:

Everything in verses 13-20 points backward to the picture of the glories of Christ which Matthew has been painting for us, up to this point. Immanuel. Divine Law-Giver. Physician of Souls, and so on. It’s a high point for Peter and the rest disciples, as they recognize Jesus’ true identity in a way that most everyone else has missed.

But verse 21 is the watershed moment. From there, everything flows forward toward the death of Jesus in Jerusalem. And when this flow begins, the disciples struggle hard to handle it. Key to Jesus’ divine glory as the Son of God is his coming death. But that’s completely backward from their expectations.

So begins Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem. His disciples understand that he is the Son. They confess that he is the Son. And they must have rejoiced in how he responded—telling them that they would become an ever-living, gospel-declaring community. But then, when he began to show them that he must die, it turned their world upside-down. So began Jesus’ task of showing his disciples that a community founded on confessing a crucified savior would be a community of believers who would deny themselves and follow after him with their own crosses. In short, his point was this: Those who confess the crucified Son become his living, declaring, and cruciform community.

Jesus, Peter, and the Son’s True Glory

But in order to understand all of that, let’s start out by just looking at Jesus and Peter.

As the account goes, they are there Caesarea Philippi, and all of this stuff about Jesus’ divine glory and about the religious leader’s blindness to it has come to a point.

And so Jesus asks his disciples, vs. 13, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they respond, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

So that’s where the people are at. Speculating about Jesus, and for the most part getting it wrong. Failing to see that he’s more than a prophet. Missing Jesus’ divine glory.

But then Jesus asks the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”

At this point, Peter steps into the spotlight again, and answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Now, in a moment, we’ll get into why Jesus asked all the disciples, but Peter responds by himself. But for now, let’s follow the drama between Jesus and Peter.

Jesus responds to Peter in verse 17:

Matthew 16:17 “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

So Peter has confessed the true identity of Jesus. And by the way, when I say “confessed” here, I mean a solemn statement of truth. Peter has confessed the true identity of Jesus, and Jesus replies by telling him that he didn’t get this truth from any human being, but from God the Father.

So Peter received the truth about the Son from the Father—and he received it supernaturally. And notice, the way Peter says it kind of sums up everything we’ve seen so far.

Jesus is the Christ—meaning, he’s the promised Son of David, the Messiah. He’s the human king who will redeem God’s people.

Yet also, Jesus is the Son of the Living God—meaning, he is himself True God from True God, and all the fulness of divine glory dwells in him… though of course, it is veiled—hidden to some degree—by his humanity.

And so the long and the short of it is this: the glories of Jesus have been put on display up to this point in his ministry, and Peter gets it. Peter sees it, because the Father has graciously opened his eyes to see it. Peter knows and confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And based on this, Jesus spells out two things for Peter:

The first is in vs. 18: Peter will be like a rock—a foundation stone—that Jesus will build the church on. And it’s actually a pun, because his name “Peter” means “rock.” And we’ll get into the details of what this means in a moment.

And then the second is that Peter receives the keys of the kingdom. And again, we’ll look at those in detail in a moment. But the point is, it’s a very high honor.

But then we come to the hinge. Verse 21 begins with, “from that time.” That’s the watershed. Everything in Jesus’ life up to this point has been summed up in Peter’s declaration that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” But now, from this point, Jesus does what? He begins:

Matthew 16:21 “…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.”

Now, we’ve seen foreshadows of Jesus’ death, for example, in the sign of Jonah, or in the hatred of the Pharisees. But to have it stated plainly is new.

It’s new to us as we read through Matthew’s gospel, and it’s new to Peter as he hears it from Jesus’ mouth. How does he react? Verse 22:

Matthew 16:22 “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.””

So, Peter isn’t just shocked by this idea that Jesus must die. He’s scandalized and moved to action. He is so determined to prevent it that he takes Jesus aside and begins to give him a heavy rebuke. But how does Jesus respond? Look at what he says to Peter in verse 23:

Matthew 16:23 “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.”

What in the world is that? Does that seem like an over-reaction from Jesus? Calling Peter, “Satan?”

Well, let’s set this in context: first, I want to point out that the word translated, “hindrance,” here is the same as the word for temptation. It’s that kind of hindrance. Peter is tempting Jesus with an easy way out: “Yes you’re the Messiah. No, you don’t have to suffer and die in Jerusalem.” In fact, Peter is telling Jesus, “You shouldn’t.”

Where was the last point in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus was tempted that way? Back in chapter 4, by Satan himself. This was right after Jesus was baptized, after he’d been in the wilderness fasting for 40 days… right before beginning his public ministry. This was when Satan came to him and offered him three temptations—and the most important one for us to call to mind is the last one. Matthew 4:8-10 records it for us:

Matthew 4:8–10 ESV

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

So, back at that point, Satan had tempted Jesus to take the easy road. Rather than gain all the kingdoms of the world through suffering and death—as the Father had appointed—Satan offered Jesus a shortcut: ‘Worship me, and I’ll give you the kingdoms now… without suffering.’

Do you see that? Back right before Jesus’ ministry started, he was tempted by Satan to avoid the road of suffering and death. He rejected the temptation. But here, as his public ministry is coming to a close, and as he’s setting his face toward his death in Jerusalem, the very same temptation is brought to him by Peter.

It is a Satanic and seductive temptation. And Jesus waists no words is calling it what it is. “Get behind me, Satan.”

Peter had recognized Jesus as King by calling him, “Christ.” But Peter’s mind was still so much set on the things of man rather than the things of God. And so he had no category for a suffering and dying King. And so he had unwittingly re-spoken one of Satan’s temptations to Jesus—the temptation to avoid the looming horror of the crucifixion.

So then, Peter’s story here goes from the highest of highs—that he would be the blessed rock on which Jesus would build the church—to the lowest of lows—that he had unwittingly become the mouthpiece of a Satanic temptation toward Jesus—a temptation to avoid the cross.

But being called “Satan” was not a rejection of Peter. It was a strong rebuke, but not a rejection. And you can see that in verses 24-28, where Jesus then turns to instruct his disciples—including Peter—on how it is not enough to merely confess him as Messiah and Son of God. His death and resurrection would be the climax of his earthly ministry—these things were the very reason that he came into the world in the first place! And so, they must also confess him as the crucified Son.

So Then, What About Peter?

But in order to really get what this passage is doing, we need to address something:

Why is there this back-and-forth, throughout the whole passage, between Jesus addressing all the disciples, and Jesus addressing Peter specifically? In all of this, what is unique to Peter, and what applies generally to all the disciples? What’s the main point of this passage, really, and what does it have to do with us as the church?

Well, a lot of ink has been spilled over this for a variety of reasons—debates going back and forth. Some of you may know that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that keys here given to Peter in verse 19 made him the first Pope. But there are at least two problems with that view.

First, the keys are also given to the whole church just two chapters later—not to church leadership, but to the congregation. To local congregations. To you guys.

And second, the idea of Peter as the first Pope just doesn’t play out the book of Acts—the sequel to the gospels. In fact, Peter begins as the most prominent apostle in that book, but never officially above the other apostles. And actually, Peter is even sent by the other apostles at one point, which shows that as an individual, he was under the leadership of the whole group, not above them. And by the end of Acts, he has been equalled or even overshadowed by Paul, in terms of influence.

But if these verses don’t teach that Peter was the first Pope, then what do they teach? Well, they teach something about the church. And in fact, the whole reason Peter is important here is because of what he meant for the church. It’s really the church that is central here. Let me show you this from three angles:

First, these verses pointed forward to the very real leading role that Peter would play in the first generation of the church. He really would be the rock the church was built on.

Acts chapter 2 records that Peter preached the very first sermon of the church, and that as a result of him proclaiming the gospel there, 3000 people were saved and added to the Jerusalem congregation, which was the very first local church.

And notice, this means that Peter’s role as “the rock” was connected to his confession of Christ in verses 16 and 17. The truth about Jesus, revealed to him from heaven, was a truth he would then preach and teach, and in this way he would be a crucial foundation stone for the church. Peter would declare these truths, and this would lead to the salvation of many into the church during his lifetime.

And so that’s the unique way that Peter would be the rock—through declaring the gospel in his leading role as the most outspoken of the Apostles in order to be a foundation for the church.

Second, there’s this back and forth between Peter and the other disciples in this passage. Peter makes the declaration of Jesus’ identity, and Peter receives the direct blessing from this. And yet the question was posed to all the disciples, and the section ends with instructions for all the disciples to keep his identity secret. So Peter was kind of acting as a spokesman for the group as a whole. And the second half of the passage has the same pattern: it goes from the disciples in general, to Peter, and back to the disciples.

All of this seems to imply some role for rest of the 12 also in being the foundation of the Church and holding the keys of the kingdom.

And as it turns out, that’s exactly what we see unfold in the Book of Acts, and also described in Ephesians 2:20, which says that the church is:

Ephesians 2:20 “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,”

And so, in the end, we—the church—have been built on the foundation of all of the apostles and prophets—that is, on those who originally preached the gospel, and then recorded it in the books we now call the NT, of which the core message is that Jesus is the Christ, the confession of Christ as the crucified Son of the Living God. That is the message on which we, the church, are built.

So in one sense, Peter was uniquely the rock on which the church was built. And in another sense, that foundation included all the Apostles. But then, in a third sense, these verses give a pattern for all believers. That is to say, in a real sense you become a believer by making this same confession: that Jesus is the Christ, the crucified Son of the Living God. And when you make that confession, you become part of the church that Jesus mentions here.

The Church: Living (Death-Defying) and Gospel-Declaring (Key-Wielding)

So with that connection made, let’s explore what all of this means for the church.

You know, the fascinating thing here is that this is the big reveal. This is where we find out that Jesus will suffer and die and be raised from the dead. This is where we find out that the brightest ray of his divine glory shine out from his death and resurrection.

And yet, this passage actually does not zero in on Jesus. It gives equal or greater attention, actually, to Jesus’ people, the church. In fact, most of what Jesus himself says here is about the church in one way or another.

And let me get specific about this: the effect of Peter confessing the Jesus’ true identity in verse 16, followed by the fact that this truth was given to Peter from heaven in verse 17, followed by the promise that the church would be built on Peter as he preaches this same truth tells us this:

If you hear and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, you become part of Jesus’ church. Period. There is no such thing as belonging to Jesus and not being part of his church. Or, as some have said, “the gospel creates a community.” It does not create a bunch of saved individuals who then get to decide whether or not they commit to a local church. “The gospel’s product is the church.” And the church’s form in time and space is local churches.

And the flip side of that truth is this: the Church—the assembly of all true believers—is simply those who have heard and believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the crucified Son of the Living God. That is our core identity. That is who we are.

But this leads to two critical truths about the church:

First, she is a death-defying community. That’s the basic meaning of that phrase, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” there in verse 18. The gates of hell will not prevail against Jesus’ church.

The tricky bit here is that the word translated “hell” is from the word “hades.” It’s not the typical word for hell used in the NT, and it doesn’t mean either the place of eternal judgement or the dark spiritual powers of the kingdom of darkness. Rather, in Jesus’ context, it meant something like, “the realm of the dead” or “the grave” or simply, “death.”

And I rarely say this, because most modern English versions are very, very good translations. But here the ESV would have been a little clearer if it had said, “the gates of death will not prevail against her.

And so, the church is a death-defying community. Connected to the Son of the Living God, she herself is a living church. And I think that’s in a very expansive sense: with Christ as her Lord, she cannot die. No one can extinguish the church! We will go on, carrying out our gospel mission until he returns. But even more, we are a church bound for the resurrection. On that last day, the gates of the grave will not contain us, even as they could not contain him.

We belong to a Living God through his Living Son. And so, we are a living community.

And second, we are a declaring community:

In this passage, the keys of the Kingdom are given explicitly to Peter. And these are keys, as it says in verse 19, that bind and loose. What does that mean?

In Jesus’ day, “binding and loosing” was a description of what Rabbis did in their teaching. What was true and false? What was clean and unclean? Legitimate and illegitimate? The Rabbis would bind and loose these things in their teachings.

But here, this binding and loosing is done with keys to the kingdom—and so, it’s declaring who is in the kingdom and who is out of the kingdom.

But that’s just another way of saying, Peter would declare the gospel. As an apostle, he would preach and teach the gospel. And the gospel itself tells you who is in and who is out of the kingdom: it is those who repent and believe who are in. And so, every time that Peter declared the gospel, he was declaring a message that said this: it’s only believing Jews who are in the Kingdom. Unbelieving Jews are out. And unbelieving gentiles are out, too. But praise the Lord, anyone from the nations who believes is welcomed in!

And what do you call this rag-tag group of believing Jews and Gentiles? The church. The living church.

But as I’ve mentioned, two chapters later, these keys are then given to local churches. Speaking to his disciples when they are acting together as a local church body, Jesus says this:

Matthew 18:18 “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

So, we, as a church, also have the responsibility, like Peter, not just to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the crucified Son—but also to declare this truth to others. It’s how we steward the keys of the kingdom which have been given to us.

And as it turns out, we are also supposed to use these keys, binding and loosing, by recognizing genuine confessions of faith. That’s what church membership is about. More on that when we get to chapter 18.

And you may have some questions about the exact wording of this ‘binding and loosing’. Is it saying that we change something in heaven by the declarations we make on earth? The short answer is no. It means recognizing on earth what is already true in a heavenly sense. But again, that’s something we’ll dig more into when we reach chapter 18.

But the basic point here is that you, the church, have been given these keys to exercise. You have been given the task and the honor of declaring the truth about Jesus, and of recognizing those who hear and believe.

So then, those who confess the Son of God become his ever-living, gospel-declaring community. But there’s one more thing here.

The Church: Following Jesus with a Cross

Those first two things—living and declaring—are both wonderful. They are obvious glories for us, the church. But there’s a third glory for the church which is counter-intuitive: the glory of death. The glory of being a cruciform church.

I think this is counter-intuitive to most believers today, just as it was counter-intuitive for Peter. Peter delighted in the fact that Jesus is the Son of the Living God, but not in the fact that Jesus would suffer and die. And so, while Peter’s confession was true, it was incomplete. So what does a complete confession look like? How does it shape the life of Jesus’ church? Look at vs. 24:

English Standard Version Chapter 16

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

“If anyone would come after me”—that’s just another way of saying, if anyone would be my disciple. Or, if anyone would be saved. So whatever Jesus is saying here marks out a line between genuine Christian and non-Christian—between saved and unsaved.

So then, what does it mean to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus? It means that when the truth of the gospel comes to you, it gives you two paths:

One is the path of rejecting the crucified Son. It is a path which allows you to keep control over your own life. You can do what you want to do. You can live by your own rules, and make your own comfort and glory your primary concern. You can focus your love on yourself.

The other is the path of believing on the crucified Son. When you believe, you believe in him as crucified king, for that is what he is. Crucified for your redemption, and king of those he redeems. And so you deny yourself. He, now, is king.

And when, by faith, you own Jesus as King, you own him as the one who your own life will imitate. And so as his life was a life in which first was suffering, and then glory, so also will your life be. Do you see that? The redeemed life is the cross-shaped life, with no exceptions. The saved person is the person carrying his cross, with no exceptions.

True faith denies itself and looks to Jesus instead. And the result of this is always a life that picks up your cross and carries it, following in your savior’s footsteps. OK—what does that actually mean, though? Well so much could be said. But let me give you an example:

There’s someone in your life that’s hard to love. Maybe very hard. Maybe too hard. What do you do?

You look ahead of you, down the path. You look to the one who carried the ultimate cross, and walked this path before you. In HIS crucifixion, you see the fathomless love of God on display. In his wounds, you see a patience which cannot be measure, which he has shown you. And as you gaze at his beauty in these things, your heart starts to say, “OK, OK. That’s love. I’ve been so bad about imitating that. But I want my love to hold at least a shadow of that beauty.”

And then with your eyes fixed on him, you repent and resolve anew to follow him. That’s the Christian life.

Now, I do want to make two points of clarification here:

First, their are a wide variety of ways this can look. Often, it looks very ordinary and quiet. Ordinary believers living ordinary lives in which they look to Jesus and deny themselves in ordinary, daily life. And Jesus is glorified in that.

Second, it certainly isn’t perfect. There are still many moments, in this self-denying life, of reverting to self-gratification and self-rule and self-centeredness. But at the same time, there has been a genuine turn away from self, with lasting implications for your life going forward. That’s always the case if you belong to Jesus.

And Jesus makes no bones about the fact that this is not just some added layer of Christianity. This is not some extra level you go to. This is simply what you do: you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow the crucified Son. It is those who do this, and only those, who are saved. Look at vss. 25-27:

Matthew 16:25–27 ESV

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.

In other words, try to save your life for yourself, and you’ll lose it entirely. Try to gain the whole world for yourself, and you’ll forfeit your soul. You are lost, and in need of redemption, and that redemption can only be found in the crucified Son.

You must turn from yourself to become one of his people. In a word, you must repent. It says in verse 27 that when Jesus returns in the glory of his Father, he will repay each person according to what he has done. And specifically, that phrase, “what he has done,” means whether he denied himself and turned to Jesus or not. And this is because only Jesus can save, and a person who has turned to Jesus will be found carrying his own cross as he follows after Jesus.

Now, again, I want to clarify this. If this truth is causing you anxiety, listen carefully. Cross carrying does not save you. Faith saves you. But genuine faith has always turned from self. And this results in a life which, while vastly imperfect, begins to carry its cross. And Peter’s the example for us here: he utterly rebelled, at first, to this idea of the cross. But when the Lord Jesus then instructed him on these things, he stuck around. And eventually he learned it so well that when he was beaten for his faith in Acts 5, he and the other apostles rejoiced at being counted worthy to suffer for the Name.

But all of this comes together to tell us this: if the character of a true believer is cross-carrying, then it is the same for the church as a whole. And so, she is not only a living and gospel-declaring church, but also a cruciform church. A cross-carrying church.

Conclusion

So then, in this passage we have crossed over. What we will now hear as we go forward in Matthew no longer flows backward toward Jesus’ glory in his ministry. It now flows forward toward the brighter glory of his cross. And this brighter glory of Jesus defines who we are as his people, because those who confess the crucified Son become his cruciform, declaring, and ever-living community.