In the sermon 'Who is Jesus?' by Jason Dohm, the speaker explores the profound question Jesus poses to His disciples in Matthew 16:13-20: 'Who do you say that I am?' The sermon delves into the different answers given by people of the time, pointing to various theories about Jesus' identity, such as Him being John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets. The focus then shifts to Peter's confession, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' which Jesus affirms as a revelation from God, not from human wisdom. The sermon highlights the significance of Peter's role, symbolized by his name change from Simon to Peter (meaning 'rock'), and how Jesus declares that on this rock, He will build His church. The concept of 'leaven' is discussed as a metaphor for false teachings to be wary of. The sermon further explains how the church is given authority, represented by the 'keys of the kingdom,' to act on behalf of Christ, emphasizing the importance of aligning with God's will and revelation. The overarching theme is the divine revelation of Jesus' true identity and the implications for the church's mission and authority in the world.

Matthew, chapter 16 verse 13. When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea of Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, saying, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? So they said, some say that John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Jesus answered and said to him, Bless are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth will be lose in heaven." Then He commanded His disciples that they should not tell, that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. Holy Father I prayed that today You reveal us the Almighty King, the King of glory, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah, but also with great fear that you put in our hearts that He is the Judge of all there. The title of the sermon is, Who is Jesus? The identity of Jesus Christ is the topic on the table in our text today.

Last week was an earnest warning against false teaching. And Jesus sets before us men who would add to the Word of God like the Pharisees added to the Word of God. He wants us to take heed and to beware their teaching. He sets before us men who subtract from the Word of God, like the Sadducees did. And He wants us to take heed and beware of men like that and teaching like that.

He sets before us men who would completely ignore the Word of God, the ways of God, and just bring a worldly framework to us. They would teach the wisdom of the world. And Jesus says, take heed of that, beware of that. And he calls this false teaching, leaven. He said It's like that almost imperceptible leaven that you put into bread and it just permeates, it infiltrates, it gets in all the cracks.

When leaven is something that corrupts, You had better be on the lookout for it. And you had better beware it. You had better be concerned about it and be ready to act against it. So this is what Jesus was teaching us last week. There will always be in every generation people who will add to the Word of God, people who will subtract from the Word of God, people who will set aside the Word of God and just bring the world's wisdom.

And we'd better be on the lookout for that. And we'd better beware of that. Be concerned about it. Be ready to counteract that. And so Jesus is training His disciples and He is training us because we are His disciples.

That it is leaven and that we better take heed, we better beware. Now we come to today's text. Let's pray again. Father what a rich text we have before us. We could pray that every week, But this one to me seems to be so condensed with truth, with some things that are hard to understand, but things that your people desperately need to know and hear and obey and walk in.

So God I pray that your Holy Spirit would be free among us, working in hearts, bringing conviction, pressing this truth home to your disciples so that we might rise up, go from here and obey your word, understanding what it is that you want us to know from this text and having committed in our hearts to obey you in everything, Lord. May it be so in Jesus' name. Amen. The text begins with where they are. They're in Caesarea Philippi.

This is north of where they've been. They've been operating in and around the Sea of Galilee. This is considerably north of that, maybe 30 miles north of that. And it's predominantly a Gentile place. There are Syrians there, there are Greeks there, there are not very many Jews there at all.

For hundreds and thousands of years, it's been a center for idol worship. For many centuries it was the center of Baal worship. And then when the Greeks took over that area, it became the center for the Greek god Pan. And then when the Romans came and took over this district, it became the center for the worship of Caesar. And within the lifetime of the people who were here, Jesus and his disciples, within their lifetime it's been renamed to Caesarea Caesar Philippi, Philip the Tetrarch, in honor of Caesar and in honor of Philip.

Philip renamed it in honor of himself and also in honor of Caesar. And it's essentially at the base of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon is the Mount of Transfiguration. So when we get to chapter 17 and Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John, it will be right here, just a little north of where they are right now. So this is where they are.

They are in Gentile territory. They are in territory that has been named for the worship of Caesar and renamed in honor of the Tetrarch who is the ruler of this region now. Jesus begins by asking a question, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? We have two parallel texts. The first one is in Mark 8.

In Mark 8.27, it says that Jesus and his disciples were on the road when this question was asked. There is a second parallel text in Luke 9. This is Luke 9, 18. And it happened as Jesus was alone praying that his disciples joined him and he asked them. That's when he asked them this question.

So Jesus has been alone praying. Obviously when his disciples join him, he's not alone praying anymore. They begin walking and Jesus initiates this conversation with this question, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? Jesus knows the answer to the question. He knows what people have been saying about them.

But he wants to speak with his disciples about his identity. So he is guiding the discussion to his own identity. He is doing that through asking a question to his disciples. He is bringing them around to his identity. He wants to speak with them about his identity.

The answer is actually embedded in the question, but it is veiled. When he calls himself the Son of Man, that really is an answer to the question. It's a great answer to the question, but it is a veiled answer to the question. All of Jesus' teaching about his identity has been that way to this point. In other words, looking back now through the New Testament, through the lens of the Gospels, to all the things prophesied about Jesus in the Old Testament, We can see that the things that Jesus has been doing and that He's been saying about Himself clearly point to the conclusion that He is the Christ and that He is the Son of God.

And yet, He's never come out and just said it in those terms. It's been veiled teaching about his identity. It's clear when we look back through the New Testament lands, but it probably wasn't as clear to the disciples. Obviously, it was not. Daniel 7 speaks of one like the Son of Man.

One like the Son of Man. Being brought before the Ancient of Days and receiving a kingdom. It's an everlasting kingdom and it's a kingdom over all the nations of the world. So we can look back to Daniel 7 and see Jesus over and over calling himself the Son of Man and say, that's Daniel 7. It has to be the one who's brought before the Ancient of Days to receive an everlasting kingdom that will be over all of the nations of the earth.

And so to us, we say this is so clear. The answer is right there in the question. Son of Man is a prophetic title. And we can Take it back to Daniel 7 and say, that should tell them who the Son of Man is. And it's also a Trinitarian title.

He's the Son of Man and we'll see as we proceed through our text today that he's also the Son of God. So the Son of Man and the Son of God are brought together in this one, in this God man who is a member of the Trinity. But even to students of the Old Testament, Son of Man is not only in Daniel 7. In fact, the phrase or the title, Son of Man, appears 107 times in the Old Testament. 93 out of those.

So in other words, The overwhelming majority, 9 out of 10 times you see a son of man in the Old Testament. It's in Ezekiel and it's God calling him, son of man say this, son of man say that, son of man do this. And it doesn't have any messianic meaning to it at all. So the title, Son of Man, is a messianic title, but it's a veiled messianic title to be sure. There are different theories about who this Son of Man is.

And we are given a list of those theories in our text today. Some people say that it's John the Baptist come back from the dead. That's what Herod thought. Herod, this man with a guilty conscience for how He had sinned against God and sinned against John the Baptist for having his head cut off on a whim. He thinks that it was John the Baptist and there were people who were telling Herod that.

He was listening to them. Some people say that Jesus is Elijah. The people of Israel are waiting for Elijah. And they are waiting for Elijah because of Malachi 4 verse 5 which says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So this isn't a bad guess.

This is a guess based on prophecy that God will send Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. So Some people are seeing the things that Jesus does and they're saying, this is Elijah, this is the one God said he would send. Some say Jeremiah. Some are hearing the preaching of Jesus and saying, this is the prophet of doom. Jeremiah was known as the prophet of doom or the weeping prophet.

He was weeping because what God gave him to say was that Judah was going to cease to exist and he was proclaiming judgment on the people. So Jeremiah was the prophet of doom. And so here comes Jesus saying, woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. Woe to you, Capernaum.

You're worse than Tyre and Sidon and Sodom. And it will be worse for you in the day of judgment than for Tyre and Sidon and Sodom." So they hear Jesus pronouncing these woes and they say, wow, he sounds like Jeremiah. Some aren't so precise. They say that he's like one of the old prophets who's been sent back to God's people. If somebody asks you, who's Mark Cole?

Who do people say Mark Cole is? The answer would be, well, he's a guy who lives in Boynton, Virginia. He's married to angel. He has these children, lives on a farm. And the answer would be the same if somebody asked you who do people say that Jason Dome is?

Well, he's a pastor in Youngsville, North Carolina. He's married to Janet. He has these kids. But with Jesus, they see these miracles. The answer is different when you raise people from the dead.

The line of Questioning is different when you raise people from the dead. Because they're not asking, who's he married to, what town is he from, what does he do for a living, how many kids does he have? They're asking, where does he fit in God's economy? Where does he fit in redemptive history? Where does he fit in the plan of God that is being worked out through time?

That's what's being asked of Jesus. So when all these theories come about, it's to try to determine where Jesus fits. Because people just don't raise people from the dead. They don't give sight to the blind. They don't give hearing to the deaf.

They don't walk on water. They don't feed multitudes from nothing. Where does Jesus fit in this plan of God? And that's what people are trying to determine. That's why all these theories are out there.

So Jesus, or the disciples give the list of theories. And then Jesus asks, but who do you say that I am? What about you? Okay, we have a list of theories about who I am. Who do you say that I am?

Think of all that Jesus has been teaching and doing. And the disciples are on the front row for all of it. They're hearing every sermon. They're seeing every miracle. Jesus has just rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they could not discern the signs of the times.

They want another sign and Jesus says, you don't even know how to interpret the signs that have already been given to you. So now disciples, it's your turn. Do you know how to discern the signs of the times? Do you know how to listen to what you've been listening to and see the things that you've been seeing and make sense of this with the scriptures in your hand? Do you know how to discern the things that you're seeing and hearing?

Simon Peter answers the question. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Turn in your Bibles to John 1. There is so much in John 1 that is important to a right understanding of this text. John 1 is the account of Peter meeting Jesus for the very first time.

Peter's never met Jesus before, but we get this account in John 1. And if you don't understand John 1 and the history here, it's hard to get the texture and the richness of what Peter is confessing in Matthew 16. John 1, we'll start in verse 35. Again, the next day, John, this is John the Baptist, stood with two of his disciples. Looking at Jesus as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God!

The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and seeing them following, said to them, What do you seek? They said to him, Rabbi, which is to say when translated teacher, where are you staying? He said to them, come and see. They came and saw where he was staying and remained with him that day.

Now it was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah, which is translated the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. Now when Jesus looked at him, he said, You are Simon the son of Jonah.

You shall be called Cephas, which is translated a stone. Cephas, by the way, is just Aramaic stone. Peter is Greek for stone. They would have been speaking Aramaic, their writing in Greek. So it's essentially the same thing.

Cephas and Peter mean the same thing, a stone or a rock. So two things really critical from this text. The first thing is this, Jesus and the Messiah isn't new. Jesus as the Messiah goes all the way back to Peter's first meeting with Jesus. That's what Andrew comes to tell him.

We have found the Messiah. So what Jesus is confessing in Matthew 16 isn't a new thought at all. This has been in Peter's mind since the very first time that he met Jesus because he has his brother testifying that they have found the Messiah or the Christ, which just means the anointed of God. The one that God has anointed to be this, the prophet and the priest and the king for the people of God. The anointed one of God.

So this has always been planted in Peter's mind. The second thing is this, the name change. The name change is so significant to rightly understanding this passage. In our text in Matthew 16, in verse 16, our author Matthew introduces him as Simon Peter. The old name given to him by his father, Jonah, Simon, and the new name given to him by Jesus Christ, Peter, Simon Peter.

The old right there with the new. What he was and what Jesus has declared him to be. In verse 17, the very next verse, Jesus calls him Simon Barjona, just like the first time he met him. See in John 1 he calls him Simon son of Jonah. That's what bar Jonah means.

And then in the very next verse, verse 18, he calls him Peter, the name that Jesus had renamed him to, and he makes a point to say also, I say you are Peter. Jesus has prophetically renamed an erratic, sometimes unstable man, a man who would deny even knowing him three times. He has renamed him Rock. You are a rock. Now what we know of Peter is that he's not a rock.

That's not what we know about Peter. We've been watching Peter. We've been observing Peter. We've been hearing Peter. Peter's no rock.

But Jesus, because he's God, can lay claim on Peter and say, I declare you to be a rock. You're a rock. Because as God, he knows that he begins a work and then he brings it through to completion. Nothing can withhold him from bringing Peter to completion, to be a rock. So he can look at Peter in his unformed state, in his immature state, in his erratic state, in his unstable state and say, you're a rock.

Because he's able to make Peter what he's not. He's able to transform him. He's able to lay claim on the life of a man and say, everybody knows you at this, but you're this because I say so. This is the prerogative of God. This has significant precedent in the Bible.

Listen to Genesis 17.5. God says, No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. Abraham is not a father of many nations. He is an old man with a barren wife. But God says, I lay claim to you, you are a father of many nations.

Period. Everyone else in the world might laugh at this name, but you are Abraham. You are a father of multitudes. Listen to Genesis 32 verse 28. And God said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed." God lays hold of Jacob, this man whose name means deceiver and supplanter.

And isn't that what we've seen in Jacob's life? He's deceived everyone all along and he's a supplanter. And God lays claim to him and claims the right to rename him and call him what he is not. Because he can make him into the thing that he declares him to be. And he makes him God prevails or soldier of God, which is what Israel means.

Peter is the work of God. And he's called a rock not because he's fashioned himself into a rock, but because God laid claim on Him. And God began a work, and God will always complete the works that He begins. And He is transforming Peter from an erratic, unstable man who will deny him into a rock. Verse 17, Jesus says, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Peter has given us one absolutely foundational truth, which is the identity of Jesus.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, not just the Son of God, which all the disciples had declared him to be. Remember, they walked on water, Peter came out of the boat, Jesus saves Peter, they get back in the boat, the storm immediately. As soon as they're back in the boat, the storm is done. It's silent because it has performed its duty. And the disciples' reaction is to gather around Jesus to worship him and to say you are the Son of God.

Now Peter has one-upped that and said, you are the Son of the Living God. In the Old Testament, many Old Testament writers talk about the fake gods, the idols. They have ears but they don't hear. They have eyes but they don't see. They have hands, but they can't do anything.

But this is a living God. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So Peter has given us this absolutely foundational truth that Jesus is Christ's Son of the Living God, and Jesus gives us another absolutely foundational truth which is how anyone can truly grasp this identity. That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, is completely a separate issue from how anyone can grasp that. How would you know that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God?

And Jesus tells us. It's revealed by the Father. In Matthew 13, maybe a month ago, in Matthew 13, When Jesus was explaining while he teaches in parables, he goes back to the prophecies in Isaiah that talk about people hardened in unbelief. They have eyes but they can't see. They have ears but they can't hear.

But then He turns to his disciples and says, blessed are your eyes for they see, blessed are your ears for they hear. Now this isn't bless your heart you disciples, bless your heart Peter. This is you are blessed. This is you are blessed. This is an explanation of how someone without eyes to see can be given eyes to see.

How someone without ears to hear can be given ears to hear. It's a gift. It's a blessing. Blessed are you. Blessed are you.

Simon Barjona, you're blessed because the Father has revealed the identity of the Son to you. In John 6, 44, Jesus says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one, No one, no one, no one, ever in time and eternity, no one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus draws him.

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 2, 14, but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. This is why it must be done for you. This is why understanding, truly understanding the identity of Jesus requires revelation from the father. It's required because the natural man thinks all these things are foolish. The natural man will never think anything other than that about the identity of Jesus Christ because they are spiritually discerned.

It must be revealed to you by the Father. Now there is a counterfeit that is revealed and received through flesh and blood. In other words, it is imparted by flesh and blood and it's received by flesh and blood. And it might look for a time, this is the parable of the soil, it might look for a time like someone has truly understood the identity of Jesus. No, They have not truly understood it.

The Father has not revealed it to them. Two great examples. Matthew 21, 9, the triumphal entry. There are probably hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets, and they're crying out, Hosanna to the son of David. Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They're speaking as if they understand the identity of Jesus, nope. A week later most of these people are saying, crucify Him. They did not understand. It had been imparted to them by flesh and blood.

It had been received by flesh and blood. But it did not transform them. They were not born again and most of them a week later were crying for his crucifixion. At the cross, Matthew 27, 54, the centurions and others at the cross, the Centurion, upon seeing Jesus die says, surely this was the Son of God. Surely it was.

It would be a mistake to think that the people who were there and witnessed that moment, that all of them were born again, that it had been revealed by the Father to them. Just because you've seen something unusual or heard someone say that Jesus is the Son of God does not mean it has been revealed to you by the Father. This is not just Peter. If you have understood, truly understood, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, It's not because you're smart, it's because you one day figured it out. That you weighed all the options.

That you set the world religion side by side and you sorted it all out and you came to this conclusion. It has been revealed to you by the Father and you're blessed. You've been blessed. You've been given a gift. This is the nature of saving faith.

It is so different from this counterfeit that says, Oh yeah, Jesus is Christ. Sure, Jesus died for the sins of the world, but there is no change. There is no transformation. There is not a new creation. How does this bear on our evangelism?

Well, it makes us much more dependent on prayer and waiting on God. So we preach the same. The message doesn't change, but our reliance on God should be through the roof, because you're flesh and blood, and they're flesh and blood. And it must be revealed by the Father in order for there to be saving faith. We should be praying.

We should be prevailing upon God for converts that He would reveal Himself to people. That doesn't mean that preaching doesn't matter, right? God has established means for this. When we go to Romans 10, Paul explains it. Faith comes through hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

How will they hear if there's not a preacher? So of course, we must be preachers of the Gospel. But that alone will not be enough. The Father must reveal if there is to be saving faith. We should be on our faces before God knowing that there is nothing that flesh and blood can say to more flesh and blood to generate saving faith.

It must be revealed by the Father through His Holy Spirit. Verses 18 and 19. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you Loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." These are fearful verses just in the sense of the crazy doctrines that have come out of these verses. There's so much madness that has come out of this.

I think if we just look at it with a level head, we'll find out that it teaches something that's so helpful and straightforward, and that we don't need to be afraid of these verses at all. Jesus begins by saying, You're Peter. And when I see that, looking back through the lens of John 1.42 where Jesus has changed His name, I see this. You are the rock that I have declared. You are the rock that I have declared.

You are the rock that I am making you to be. You're Peter. You're what I declared that you'll be because I'm making you that. Having said that to Peter, He says, on this rock I will build my church. There are three dominant views of what this means.

The first is this, that the rock is Christ. That what we have here is a play on words. That Peter actually means stone. And that the rock is a derivative of that word in the Greek, but it means something much larger and much more foundational. So it's like Peter, you're just a chip, just a chip off the rock and Christ is the rock and there's support for that truth.

Right? When we go to Matthew 7, it speaks of a wise man building his house upon the rock. And the rock is the sayings of Jesus Christ and the obedience to Him. So Jesus is a rock. So that's a truth of Scripture.

Both in the Old Testament, Jesus is called the chief cornerstone. And he is that. It was said of him in the Old Testament and that Old Testament text is referenced multiple times in the New Testament. He is the chief cornerstone. So that's a great sermon.

And that is a mighty truth of Scripture, but I don't think this text teaches that truth of Scripture. But that's a view, it's a credible view, it's a view that has a lot of adherence. Secondly, that the rock is Peter's confession. Peter's just said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. So the rock is that.

That's the hinge point of faith. Understanding the identity of Jesus Christ is the hinge point of our faith. And it's the rock that the church is built upon. Romans 10, 9. If you confess the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

This is the rock upon which the church is built. That is a fantastic sermon. That is a mighty truth of Scripture. I don't think that's what this text teaches. The third option, by the way, option number two also has many adherents.

Many people believe that the rock is Peter's confession. The third option is that the rock is Peter. The rock is Peter. It's the natural reading. I think it's Peter.

I think the rock is Peter. Because this is the Catholic view, and they've done all these wacky things with it, there's been a reaction that makes it not the Protestant view. We want nothing to do with a preeminent Peter. And we want nothing to do with an infallible Peter. And we want nothing to do with the succession of Peter.

That leaves us in the year 2012 with an old man with a pointy hat, thinking that he is Christ on earth. The vicar of Christ. Infallibly his representative. And you know what? We're right not to want a preeminent Peter.

We're right not to want an infallible Peter. We're right not to want the succession of Peter. None of that is remotely supportable from a decent exegesis of this text or any other text in the Bible. None of that. So I don't think we have to be afraid of the preeminence of Peter, the infallibility of Peter, the succession of Peter from this text.

I think the rock can be Peter, the natural reading of this verse, without bringing in any of the baloney And it matches up very nicely with the rest of the teaching of Scripture, and teaches us something beautiful about what God intended His church to represent, and how He intended for it to be led. Peter is the rock. At least that's what I'm arguing for. With all due respect to those other two views, which represent truth, I just don't think it's the truth of this text. But Peter's not a self-made rock.

He's a man who God has laid claim on and who's been renamed by God and is being fashioned into something that he never was. He's not a self-made rock. He's not an independent rock. He's not free to then, having been declared to be the rock upon which the church would be built, to go create his own world. That's not what Jesus is saying here in any way, shape, or form.

Consider this. The book of John, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. So Jesus is the light of the world indisputably. Matthew 5, 14. Where is the light of the world?

How does that work? Which is it? Does that mean Jesus isn't the light of the world? Does that mean Jesus' role, position, Office is diminished? No.

All of the light of the world that his disciples would be until the end of time, 100% of it is derived from Jesus Christ. We don't have any of our own light. But Jesus works in and through His people. Jesus manifests Himself through His people. So Jesus is the light of the world and we are the light of the world.

Both are right. None of it diminishes Jesus Christ and His position and His office. None of it. Because it's all derived from Jesus Christ. In fact, it doesn't diminish His glory.

Maybe it enhances His glory. He would actually shine through a sinful people that he has redeemed. Glory to God! We are the light of the world, not that we have our own light, but that he is the light of the world and he works in and through his people. I believe much the same thing is being communicated here.

This man who has been claimed by God and renamed by God to be something that he never was and could never make himself into. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter. Let's let Peter weigh in on this. Let's start in verse 4. 1 Peter 2, 4.

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious." So Jesus is the living stone. We're talking about coming to Jesus. Coming to Jesus as to a living stone. Rejected indeed by God, but chosen by God and precious. You also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it is also contained in the scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." Now what Peter is teaching here is that Christ is the chief cornerstone. Absolutely. But he's speaking of a concept of a building being built up. And it's all dependent upon the chief cornerstone.

This is what Peter is teaching. And we, disciples, as living stones, are being built, put together, built up. This is the building of the church. This has a close relationship to Matthew 16, doesn't it? I will build my church.

What is that if it's not these living stones being built up together? Now turn to Ephesians 2. We're going to ask for a little help from Paul in Ephesians 2. So Peter has affirmed that there is a building being built with living stones. You and I, those who trust in Christ, are those living stones.

And that Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. Listen to what Paul says. Paul is speaking the same language. He is talking about the same building. And he says this in Ephesians 2, 19-22.

Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Paul is talking about the same building, living stones being built up, the people of God, citizens of heaven. And he also speaks of the chief cornerstone. No one debates that.

Jesus is the chief cornerstone, but he calls the prophets and the apostles the foundation for this building that is being built up. In other words, there is no pitting Jesus against Peter as the foundation of the church. Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone and Peter and he will be joined by the rest of the apostles are the foundation for this building that is being built up we see the same thing listen revelation 2114 revelation 2114 now the wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the name of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The Lamb's twelve apostles are foundational. Paul says it and it is related to us again by John in Revelation.

And Peter is the first stone laid. Jesus Christ lays the first stone in the foundation here in Matthew 16, and it's Peter. He won't be the last stone laid and he's not the chief cornerstone. None of our texts today doesn't require any of that. Jesus is the chief cornerstone but he's laying foundation stones and it's the twelve apostles and he's just laid the first one and his name is Rock and he gave him that name and he made him into that.

There is no denying that Peter has a special place. It cannot be denied. He is the first disciple called, Matthew 4.18. He is the first on every list of the apostles. There are four of them.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts. He is the first name on every list of the disciples. In Matthew it's 10-2. He's the first to preach the Jews at Pentecost after the coming of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people are added and the church is born that day.

It was as a result of Peter's Holy Spirit preaching. The Holy Spirit is poured out and the church starts that day. Peter has a special spot. Philip preaches to the Samaritans and there are those that believe. And in Acts 8, Peter goes to the Samaritan and prays for them and they are filled with the Holy Spirit then as well.

They were not filled with the Holy Spirit until Peter got there. Consequently, Peter in Acts 8 is sent by the leaders, by the other disciples. So much for Peter as Pope running the show that he's actually sent on a mission in Acts 8 by the others. And he prays and the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Samaritans. In Acts 10, providentially, supernaturally, Peter is summoned to the house of Cornelius and the Gospel is opened up to the Gentiles.

He's first with the Jews. He's first with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the Samaritans. He's first with the Gentiles in Acts 10. Peter has a foundational place in the redemptive history of God. In Acts 2, 42, when it talks about this new church and the things that they're devoting themselves, it says this, that they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine.

The Apostles are foundation stone. Their doctrine is being attended to. Do you think that's their own doctrine? Do you think they were making up their own teaching? Now this is right after Acts 1-3 where Jesus has been with them 40 days speaking with them about the Kingdom of God.

The Apostles' doctrine is not the Apostles' doctrine. The Apostles' doctrine is Jesus' doctrine. That's why these men are foundation stones. That's why the early church was devoting themselves to the apostles' doctrine because it was what Jesus had taught them to teach. We see the appearance of the word church in our text in Matthew.

Back to Matthew 16. We see the appearance of the word church in our text in Matthew. Back to Matthew 16. We see the appearance of the word church for the first time. It will be used 118 times in the New Testament.

Ecclesia. It's only used two times in all of the gospels. It's exclusive to Matthew. And then it's just used. There's a torrent of the usage of that word in Acts through the end.

But in the Gospels, it only appears two times. It appears here where Jesus is introducing us to the word church, and it's used in Matthew 18. It's not used by any of the other Gospel writers. But it's used like crazy by Luke and Acts and by Paul and the rest of the New Testament writers, subsequent to the Gospels. It's a word that means people called out to assemble.

People who have been summoned to assemble. The kingdom of heaven is different. Under the old covenant, the temple was significant. Under the old covenant, the synagogue was significant. They don't mean anything in the new covenant.

There's a new people of God where the wall of separation has been torn down, where the shadows have been swept away and it's all substance. Because Jesus has come and he has fulfilled the law and the prophets. And so the temple won't mean anything anymore. The synagogues won't mean anything anymore. But His church will mean something.

They are the ones that have been called out to assemble in the name of the Lord, to be His people. And Jesus says, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. The gates of Hades will not prevail against the church because it's his church. Now we've been introduced to Hades already in Matthew 11. In Matthew 11, this is the woe to you, Corazine and Bethsaida and Capernaum chapter.

Listen to Matthew 11, 23. And you Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." So in our introduction to Hades as a word, as a concept, It was put in contrast with heaven. You've been exalted to heaven, you'll be brought down to Hades. And it's representative of the second kingdom.

There's the kingdom of heaven, and there's that other kingdom. And Hades represents the other kingdom. Sin is a part of that kingdom. Death is a part of that kingdom. The devil is a part of that kingdom.

All of his demons are a part of that kingdom. And Jesus is saying none of that, not sin, not death, not the devil, no demons will prevail against the demons will prevail against the church. It's the language of the siege. When you lay siege, Job number one is to get that gate down. To bust that gate down so you can plunder that city.

And it goes hand in hand with the Great Commission. In the Great Commission, the Church is given its marching orders to go and to invade enemy territory and to take it for Jesus Christ the King. To go into that other kingdom and plunder it, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church. The church will actually be successful. The church will actually be successful in the mission given to it because they'll batter down that gate.

That gate will not prevail against the church. So yes, our enemy is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He will not prevail against us. Yes, sin ravages the church at times. It will not prevail against us.

We're all going to die. That will not prevail against the church. There may be resistance, counter-attacks, discouragement. None of that other stuff from that other kingdom will prevail against the church. The church will prevail.

Listen to Revelation 12, 9-11. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come. For the accuser of the brethren who accused them before God day and night has been cast down And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death." The gates of Hades will not prevail against the church.

But those who have been accused day and night by the devil will overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and that they did not love their lives even to death. There will be a war. It is the language of war. But the church will prevail. We can have confidence in this.

Jesus has said it was so. And in Revelation you get the picture. There is an overcoming by the blood of the Lamb. By the word of our testimony. By not loving our lives even to the point of death.

The church will overcome. Verse 19. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. We have two things here. We have the keys of the kingdom and we have binding and loosing.

Anybody ever been confused by this verse before? No? No one? Good. I probably don't need to say any more about it now.

When Jesus says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, it's the language of commissioning a servant. If You're a great householder, that's what you do. You hand over the keys to your steward. And you're commissioning him to act on your behalf. That's what happens when a great householder hands over the keys.

It's someone who's going to act on behalf of the great master of the house. So you are not making the steward master of the house. You are not handing over the keys. Here it is, your own house. It is not that.

Hebrews 3 verses 4-6 says this, Hebrews 3, 4-6, For every house is built by someone, But he who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant. Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterwards. But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm to the end." This is it. There are many stewards in the house of God.

Moses was a steward, but it wasn't his house. He was a servant. He was handed keys to act on behalf of the mighty householder, but he wasn't the son over the house. He didn't build the house. Peter, being handed keys, he's not the householder.

He doesn't own the house. He's the servant who acts on behalf of the mighty householder. Listen to Titus 1.7, right in the same vein. Titus 1.7, for a bishop, speaking of elders here, overseers, shepherds, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God. Not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, and all of the qualifications for elders.

That's what elders are. They're stewards. And there's a sense, I don't believe it's the same sense in which it was with Peter, but there's a sense in which they're handed keys, not as a householder, but to act on behalf of the householder. Given authority to act on behalf. Because Jesus Christ is still working in and through His people.

So we have these two concepts that are very closely related. We have the keys, which is a narrower concept which has to do with letting in and putting out. What the person with the keys does is controls access to the house. And then we have binding and loosing, which is broader and it comes with the term whatever, whatever you bind on earth, whatever you loose on earth. And it's a broad sense of exercising authority on behalf of the homeowner, the householder, the master.

Just the servant, just the steward, but doing it on behalf of the master according to the instructions of the master. We've been given the Great Commission. We're told to do what? Baptize. Baptize.

You might know somebody who baptized themselves, but they shouldn't have. They should have been baptized by a representative of the church. You don't baptize yourself. You don't usher yourself into the kingdom. The church speaks and you're baptized And you're part of the visible church.

Does that mean everybody who's baptized is saved? No. But there's access control through baptism. It's part of the keys of the kingdom. There's an entrance that is allowed when the church speaks and says, we'll baptize you.

How about exiting? Matthew 18. Listen to Matthew 18, 17 and 18. The same words are used. This is at the very end of the church discipline passage in Matthew 18.

And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Do you hear that church? You've been commanded in the church discipline passage to act on behalf of God.

Not because you're the householder and because you can determine things in an eternal sense, but because authority has been delegated to the church to act on behalf of the householder. And, as Matthew Henry says, according to the rules of the Gospel. In other words, in no way does this give us freedom to create our own world, no? We've been given the rules of the gospel in the Old and New Testament and we apply that. Matthew Henry says, it's not legislative authority, it's judicial authority.

In other words, You don't write the laws, but you've been given the responsibility to apply the laws. That's what's being said here, church. And it applies to churches and to leaders of churches. We've been given responsibilities to act according to the rules of the Gospel, and to make declarations in the name of Jesus Christ as a steward of the householder. That's what's being taught here.

And we see in Matthew 18 that this isn't isolated to Peter or his successors at all. It's given to the church. Peter's name not even mentioned in Matthew 18. It's talking about what the church has a responsibility to do. It's delegated authority.

And this is exactly what we see in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 18-20. Jesus starts by saying, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He just declares that he has all authority and then he ends at the end by saying, lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Jesus is continuing to exercise His authority in and through His people. The ongoing exercise of the authority of Christ isn't all mystical.

It's not Jesus as a vapor going to do this or say that, but He's working in and through His people. This is what the church does. It acts on behalf of Jesus. Jesus is working in and through His people to exercise His authority. Now does Jesus supernaturally intervene through the work of the Holy Spirit sometimes?

Of course. He always has the right to do that. But the normal working of the authority of God comes through him working in and through his people. This is how all authority works in every sphere. All authority in every sphere works the way that's being described in Matthew 16.

In Romans 13, Paul is talking about the civil magistrate. And in Romans 13, he says this, he is God's minister to you. In other words, the civil magistrate in the civil realm is God's stand in. He doesn't have his own authority. He derives authority from God.

So it's a big problem if he misuses that authority because it wasn't his own to create what he wanted to do. He's God's man on the spot to apply God's ways. That's how it works in the civil realm. The civil magistrate is God's minister to you. He stands in for God.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul talks about authority in the house, and he makes a husband and a father the head of his household. But again, it works the same way. There's a chain of authority and a husband and a father is always beneath Christ. He's God's man in that family. To bring the government of God into that family.

He can't create his own rules for that family. He only acts rightly as he applies the rules of the gospel to the family. And he's there to do that. And he doesn't have his own authority. He derives his authority from Jesus Christ to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

In the church, elders are under shepherds. Peter speaks of this in 1 Peter 5 verse 4. He talks about the chief shepherd. So elders have authority, but it's not their own authority. It's derived from the chief shepherd Jesus Christ.

So it's the same in every sphere. People being put as stewards of the householder to bring the will of the householder to those in the house. And that's what's being taught in Matthew 16. The church itself, as an institution, given its charter by God, has authority. I'm not talking about leaders in the church.

I'm talking about the church of Jesus Christ in the world. It has authority to go and do the things that God has told them to do in the name of Jesus Christ. We've been given the keys of the kingdom and we're to go do on behalf of the householder what we've been told to do by the householder. Again completely derived from Jesus Christ. And it must be done according to His revealed will to us.

From what we see in the Word of God and what we are prompted to by the Holy Spirit. The NASB, by the way, translates this differently than the other major translations. It's no different in the underlying text here, but it's a different rendering of the verb tense. I think it's a very accurate and more precise rendering of the verb tense here. The NASB renders it this way, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. And that just keeps us away from any idea that heaven would somehow be bound by an action of the church or by an action of a leader of the church. Heaven is not bound by anyone at any time. Only by the immutable character of God is heaven bound. So what's being taught here is that the church has the ability to act on behalf of the householder.

In other words, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The church is able, The church has all the weaponry necessary to batter down that gate. And that the church has the authority, has been given the authority by the householder. The ability and the authority. Verse 20, our last verse.

Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. Yes, I am Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, but don't tell anybody. That's a little hard to swallow, honestly, isn't it? But this was His good pleasure, this was His right. Romans 1-4 says this, that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

He was declared to be the Son of God with power. That's the declaration that kicks off the church age, the resurrection. He was declared to be the Son of God with power. That's the declaration that kicks off the church age, the resurrection. He was declared to be the Son of God with power at His resurrection.

And after the resurrection, Don't you see that? We're sent everywhere to declare. But not now, not at this time. It's very similar to what we just saw. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, they ask for a sign.

What sign did he say I would give you? Sign of Jonah? Hang tight for the sign of Jonah. Then you'll know. When I'm resurrected from the dead, then you'll know.

A few concluding remarks. Peter's confession is the fountainhead of our faith. It's the fountainhead. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Everything associated with our faith is built starting there.

Your faith is built on that confession. You cannot come to Christ without acknowledging that He is the Anointed One sent by God, that He is the Son of the Living God. Secondly, the Father and only the Father reveals this to men in a saving way. You cannot know this in a saving way. You cannot truly know that this is the identity of Jesus unless the Father has revealed it to you.

It's said so explicitly here in our text today. Lastly, when that happens, when the Father reveals to your soul that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, God prophetically changes your name. And He says you're something, He declares you to be something that you never were, that you never could have fashioned yourself into, and he commissions you to act on his behalf in the world. Peter is a microcosm. If God has revealed to you that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, then He has prophetically declared you to be something you never could have made yourself into, something that you never were, and He has commissioned you, He's handed you keys to act on His behalf, to exercise His authority in this earth.

This is the kingdom of heaven. He's changed our name, declared us to be what we never were, what we never could have made ourselves into and given us authority to act on his behalf. And we should be busy acting because he's given us keys and told us to go and bind and loose in his name, not creating our own world. How many times do I have to say that? I want to say it one more time.

We don't have the right to create our own world, but we ought to stand on the Word of God and apply it in every nook and cranny of where God puts us. We ought to apply it in confidence, in His name, having been made stewards in His house. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for the mighty truths of this text. I pray that You would burn them on our souls, O God.

God, I thank you for the truth that you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I pray that this would be savingly revealed to us by the Father. And then I pray, God, that we would go in your name having been given authority by you to do your will in the world and that we would bring your ways everywhere that we are, in our homes, with our neighbors, in our city, our state, our nation. Oh God, make us a mighty people. We're not a mighty people, but you could declare us to be a rock.

We pray that it would be so in Jesus' name, amen.