Scripture: Matthew 16:13-20
Listen Link: https://www.lcepc.org/sermons
I want to start by sharing a bit about the significance of where they were when this conversation took place. It was the winter before His crucifixion. There would only be a few more months for Jesus to finish training his disciples. Jesus brought them to Caesarea Philippi. There he asked them to say what they knew about who he really is. He was giving them a pop quiz. What had they been learning? And he affirmed Peter’s answer that He was indeed the Messiah of the Jews, and as we know, the Savior of the world.
The city of Caesarea Philippi was situated way in the north of Israel, near their northern border, about 30 miles past the Sea of Galilee on a terrace at the foot of Mount Hermon on its southern slope. The area had an unusually beautiful setting, it was very lush and full of life and it has always been one of the main sources of the Jordan River, or perhaps the chief source, according to an ancient historian known as Josephus.
It started out as a place where the ancient Canaanites built a sanctuary to Baal. It was in this area that Jeroboam, the first king of Northern Israel led his subjects into idolatry. When the Greeks and Romans took over they called it at Paneas after the God they called Pan. They also built sanctuaries there. This was all because of an amazing cave there. Inside the cave was a seemingly bottomless pit with an unlimited quantity of water which made the pagans marvel. Such natural features impressed the Greeks and led them to believe it must be a dwelling place of the gods.
This was a place where the Greeks and Romans believed they were receiving revelations from the god Pan who was mentioned in classical writings as a "seer" or fortune teller and a giver of revelations. And here Peter was granted a true revelation of Jesus’ identity.
By Jesus’ day the place had been renamed again, to Caesarea Philippi in honor of the Roman conquerors. And before Jesus was born, Herod the great had also built a temple there to honor the Caesar who had given Herod that province to rule! We have a case in which a Jewish King, named Herod, paid homage to a worldly ruler, named Caesar. But Jesus the real King of the Jews would pay no such homage. Under his rule, all other gods and idols and kings will fade into nothing.
The cave of Pan, as a religious tourist site, was well known in Jesus’ day. Though we do not know for sure that Jesus and his disciples visited the actual place, they certainly knew about it. That cave was also known as the Gate of Hades, or the Gates of Hell. So that adds meaning to why Jesus used that phrase on this spot, when he spoke of building his Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Not even the Roman emperor, symbolized by Caesarea Philippi, could stand up to Jesus ultimately.
In addition, Caesarea Philippi itself was built upon a great rock! The cave entrance was at the base of a great wall of rock. The city was on top of that rock. And Jesus made a great contrast when he spoke of the rock upon which he would build his church. He could have meant that very same rocky place would one day have a church building instead of these pagan temples. He definitely meant that there was a greater rock of solid Truth, more important than significant geography, that would make a better foundation for his church. And this may the why Jesus called Simon by the nickname Peter, which means rock, since Peter was the first person among his disciples to actually say, “You are the Messiah.” That is the rock of truth upon which the Church is built. Not that rock that supports a Roman city, but this rock, the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
We call this section of Scripture Peter’s Great Confession. A lot of people think confession is only for when you did something bad and you own up to it. As in, people only confess their sins. That is the very common current usage of the word. I have a 90-year old friend back in NY and I was just talking with her about this on the phone last week. She actually asked me what I was going to be preaching about. So, I told her, Peter’s great confession, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!” Now, she has been a church goer for her whole life, though not every Sunday, and she did not know that confession really means, agreeing with God about what is true. Literally “Con” in its Latin origin means “with” and “fess” means “say,” so to confess is to “say with” and that is why it means to agree with God.
Now of course sins come under that. When we repent of our sins we are finally agreeing with God, or confessing, or saying with God that he was right about that all along and we shouldn’t have been doing it. Peter’s confession is a positive one. “Saying with” is really neither positive of negative in itself. That depends on what you’re saying. The Apostle’s creed is a confession of faith that we “say with” each other as a community of believers. Peter was the first to correctly identify Jesus as our Messiah. And Jesus said, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.” You are saying it with God.
But in our day, a lot of people have lost sight of this rock-solid truth about Jesus. They might say that Jesus was a good teacher, or a wise rabbi, or even a prophet, in the sense that he dared to speak truth to power even though they killed him for it just as they often did with the prophets of old. A lot of people today have no idea who Jesus is anymore! All they have is their own opinion, with no foundation of truth to support their ideas.
What’s more, in our day, a lot of people think that the Bible is so old by now that no one can even get back to the actual truth about Jesus behind the stories in the Bible. Many think we can’t find out who Jesus really is, and it doesn’t matter anyway because all that matters is to be a good enough person and do what feels right as long as you’re not hurting anybody. And many churches in our nation will preach that message. But this only goes to show that just as we are blind to our deepest sins, we are also blind to God’s deepest truths, unless the Spirit helps us to say it with God.
In spite of the opinions of the masses, Jesus said that God would build his church only on the positive confession, the rock-solid truth, that Jesus is God. This is significant because it means the church is not built on our good behavior, but on our faith in and proclamation of the truth of the gospel!
We know that we are saved by this proclamation of the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. And we know that we are saved by faith in that, apart from works. But that is also how the church grows! It is not by having great music, a good speaker, a comfortable and beautiful sanctuary, though those things can help. What I’m saying is that the church really grows when believers like you go around in your life and among your acquaintances telling people who Jesus really is and even doing your best to convince them, by knowing what you’re talking about. We are an Evangelical Church. It’s our mission. It’s God’s mission, for us to pursue, in obedience to his call.
It’s not an easy job because a lot of people around us today don’t even care much about church anymore either. This is a tragedy. But what can we do? We have already seen that they mostly don’t know that Jesus is God and that this Jesus is good news for them! Our job is to help them find out, and to care enough about them to try, and to learn enough about them to figure out what they will listen to, or how they will best be able to hear the gospel message.
But, of course, as Jesus said, we know that they can’t see it unless the Spirit reveals it to them. So, we’re just partnering with God to do the part he wants us to do in this work. To confess it. That doesn’t mean we have it easy. It means that we have a lot of work to do. Ezekiel was asked to preach to dry bones, dead people. And because of the proclamation of the gospel they came to life. But Ezekiel didn’t resuscitate them. God raised them up and made them come alive. Ezekiel just preached. That’s what we’re called to do to. But we have to care.
Let’s start with seeing the problem a new way. If you confess to a crime, you might go to jail. In contrast, if you confess to God’s truth, you get out of jail. The truth sets you free! Now think of what this means. All the world is already in jail! All the world is trapped in a prison camp made of satan’s deceptive lies. In this world, everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and lives by that truth is set free from being captive to satan! And then as saved, free believers we can look at those who do not believe as if we are looking at them through the barbed wire fence that keeps them in the prison, while we are now standing on the outside. We got out. We know how it happened. We know how to set them free too! They are still trapped. Don’t you want to help them?
The best way to help is them is make the good confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior who forgives sins and doesn’t wait until you’re good enough before he will forgive you. He already died to forgive you and loves you so much that he died for you even though he knew you might not love him back. And pray that they believe it too. To confess, you need to know what you believe, you need to believe what you say you believe, and you need to be able to talk about it anytime anywhere.
Do you really believe what Peter believed and confessed? Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the whole world. He is the real and living God and the only hope of salvation. Everybody needs to know Jesus as soon as they can, or they are doomed to hell by their unbelief.
That’s the message we are trying to get out into the world. The main purpose of the church, in fact the only reason this institution exists at all, is not to give you a nice comfortable place to see each other and sing a few songs once a week. The Church exists to evangelize, and you are the Church. So, you do the evangelism. This place exists only to train you and to equip you and to encourage you to do that work. If you only attend Church on Sunday and never speak about Jesus the rest of the week, that’s like a football player who shows up at the gym for the workout and the field for practice, but never gets to a real game and never scores any points. It’s pointless!
Our worship has to move outward now. If you really love God and you tell him so in worship and you act it out in ministry, that’s going to spill over in to the life you live where you work and play outside the walls of this building. And if it really is the love of God pouring out of a full heart of joy because you’re an undeserving sinner who is forgiven nonetheless, then people are going to notice how much you love them and that’s what is going to open the door for you and you are going to get opportunities to tell them how wonderful God is.
That’s why in one of his later epistles, Peter said, “You must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” Peter expected people to ask you because the very way you live your life would demand and explanation! And if you think God likes it when you tell Him how much you love him, just think how much he loves it when you are bragging on him to people that don’t know yet so they get a chance to find out how to be forgiven and saved by our wonderful, loving God who died for them too. That’s evangelism!
How did the early church grow? Did it just happen on Sundays when curious people visited a bunch of believers? No. It happened as people who knew Jesus, talked about Jesus with people who didn’t know Jesus, while they were together for work, or play, or family get-togethers, and even worship. They talked about Jesus in the synagogue. Of course, we know that Paul the Apostle did that. It was his strategy. Whenever he visited a new place he went to the synagogue first and told the Jews about Jesus. But understand this, when Paul went in to a synagogue to tell people about Jesus, he wasn’t there to worship with believers! No. He was there to talk to unbelievers who didn’t know about Jesus yet!
Paul went in knowing who he was talking to, knowing what they were interested in and what they were hoping to get out of life. And he went in knowing who he wanted to talk about and he used their Scriptures that they believed in to prove to them that Jesus is their Messiah. So, he had to know what they cared about, and he had to know who Jesus really is and how those two things connect. That’s our task today, to know what we believe about Jesus and how to explain that to people and also find out who we’re talking to, what their concerns are and what they’re hoping to get out of life, so that we can show them how Jesus the Messiah meets their deepest needs.
Now we have a couple of very practical tools that you can take advantage of immediately so that you can feel fully equipped or being equipped to and have an effective ministry.
1. Worship on Sunday is for you! This is the place where you get your batteries recharged. You get a Word from the Lord and encouragement to really believe the good confession so that you are more likely to talk about it on Monday through Saturday with confidence.
2. Praying. Together and at home. This is the means by which God is able to speak into our hearts by his Holy Spirit so that we learn the things that we need to know to do an effective ministry.
3. The Leadership Essentials Bible study that starts today, is going to deal with these things too, intentionally talking about strategy and leadership and how to be positive influencers of people for God’s sake and for theirs.
4. Find and read books on your own that teach about the doctrines of the faith or show you how to explain them, and also books that teach about the condition of the culture of the United States, so that you see where the connection points are.
5. Be friends with people, new people who come in to your spheres of influence or other people who already are there. Pray for them and get to know them. Pray for opportunities to tell them how good it is to trust in Jesus for wisdom, provision, truth, joy, strength, meaning and salvation.
Once again, to give the good confession, you need to know what you believe, that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. You need to believe in that so much that it shows up in the way you live your life. And you need to be able to talk about it, always ready to answer anyone who asks for an explanation, anytime anywhere. That is the rock upon which God’s church is built. Amen.
Listen Link: https://www.lcepc.org/sermons
I want to start by sharing a bit about the significance of where they were when this conversation took place. It was the winter before His crucifixion. There would only be a few more months for Jesus to finish training his disciples. Jesus brought them to Caesarea Philippi. There he asked them to say what they knew about who he really is. He was giving them a pop quiz. What had they been learning? And he affirmed Peter’s answer that He was indeed the Messiah of the Jews, and as we know, the Savior of the world.
The city of Caesarea Philippi was situated way in the north of Israel, near their northern border, about 30 miles past the Sea of Galilee on a terrace at the foot of Mount Hermon on its southern slope. The area had an unusually beautiful setting, it was very lush and full of life and it has always been one of the main sources of the Jordan River, or perhaps the chief source, according to an ancient historian known as Josephus.
It started out as a place where the ancient Canaanites built a sanctuary to Baal. It was in this area that Jeroboam, the first king of Northern Israel led his subjects into idolatry. When the Greeks and Romans took over they called it at Paneas after the God they called Pan. They also built sanctuaries there. This was all because of an amazing cave there. Inside the cave was a seemingly bottomless pit with an unlimited quantity of water which made the pagans marvel. Such natural features impressed the Greeks and led them to believe it must be a dwelling place of the gods.
This was a place where the Greeks and Romans believed they were receiving revelations from the god Pan who was mentioned in classical writings as a "seer" or fortune teller and a giver of revelations. And here Peter was granted a true revelation of Jesus’ identity.
By Jesus’ day the place had been renamed again, to Caesarea Philippi in honor of the Roman conquerors. And before Jesus was born, Herod the great had also built a temple there to honor the Caesar who had given Herod that province to rule! We have a case in which a Jewish King, named Herod, paid homage to a worldly ruler, named Caesar. But Jesus the real King of the Jews would pay no such homage. Under his rule, all other gods and idols and kings will fade into nothing.
The cave of Pan, as a religious tourist site, was well known in Jesus’ day. Though we do not know for sure that Jesus and his disciples visited the actual place, they certainly knew about it. That cave was also known as the Gate of Hades, or the Gates of Hell. So that adds meaning to why Jesus used that phrase on this spot, when he spoke of building his Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Not even the Roman emperor, symbolized by Caesarea Philippi, could stand up to Jesus ultimately.
In addition, Caesarea Philippi itself was built upon a great rock! The cave entrance was at the base of a great wall of rock. The city was on top of that rock. And Jesus made a great contrast when he spoke of the rock upon which he would build his church. He could have meant that very same rocky place would one day have a church building instead of these pagan temples. He definitely meant that there was a greater rock of solid Truth, more important than significant geography, that would make a better foundation for his church. And this may the why Jesus called Simon by the nickname Peter, which means rock, since Peter was the first person among his disciples to actually say, “You are the Messiah.” That is the rock of truth upon which the Church is built. Not that rock that supports a Roman city, but this rock, the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
We call this section of Scripture Peter’s Great Confession. A lot of people think confession is only for when you did something bad and you own up to it. As in, people only confess their sins. That is the very common current usage of the word. I have a 90-year old friend back in NY and I was just talking with her about this on the phone last week. She actually asked me what I was going to be preaching about. So, I told her, Peter’s great confession, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!” Now, she has been a church goer for her whole life, though not every Sunday, and she did not know that confession really means, agreeing with God about what is true. Literally “Con” in its Latin origin means “with” and “fess” means “say,” so to confess is to “say with” and that is why it means to agree with God.
Now of course sins come under that. When we repent of our sins we are finally agreeing with God, or confessing, or saying with God that he was right about that all along and we shouldn’t have been doing it. Peter’s confession is a positive one. “Saying with” is really neither positive of negative in itself. That depends on what you’re saying. The Apostle’s creed is a confession of faith that we “say with” each other as a community of believers. Peter was the first to correctly identify Jesus as our Messiah. And Jesus said, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.” You are saying it with God.
But in our day, a lot of people have lost sight of this rock-solid truth about Jesus. They might say that Jesus was a good teacher, or a wise rabbi, or even a prophet, in the sense that he dared to speak truth to power even though they killed him for it just as they often did with the prophets of old. A lot of people today have no idea who Jesus is anymore! All they have is their own opinion, with no foundation of truth to support their ideas.
What’s more, in our day, a lot of people think that the Bible is so old by now that no one can even get back to the actual truth about Jesus behind the stories in the Bible. Many think we can’t find out who Jesus really is, and it doesn’t matter anyway because all that matters is to be a good enough person and do what feels right as long as you’re not hurting anybody. And many churches in our nation will preach that message. But this only goes to show that just as we are blind to our deepest sins, we are also blind to God’s deepest truths, unless the Spirit helps us to say it with God.
In spite of the opinions of the masses, Jesus said that God would build his church only on the positive confession, the rock-solid truth, that Jesus is God. This is significant because it means the church is not built on our good behavior, but on our faith in and proclamation of the truth of the gospel!
We know that we are saved by this proclamation of the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. And we know that we are saved by faith in that, apart from works. But that is also how the church grows! It is not by having great music, a good speaker, a comfortable and beautiful sanctuary, though those things can help. What I’m saying is that the church really grows when believers like you go around in your life and among your acquaintances telling people who Jesus really is and even doing your best to convince them, by knowing what you’re talking about. We are an Evangelical Church. It’s our mission. It’s God’s mission, for us to pursue, in obedience to his call.
It’s not an easy job because a lot of people around us today don’t even care much about church anymore either. This is a tragedy. But what can we do? We have already seen that they mostly don’t know that Jesus is God and that this Jesus is good news for them! Our job is to help them find out, and to care enough about them to try, and to learn enough about them to figure out what they will listen to, or how they will best be able to hear the gospel message.
But, of course, as Jesus said, we know that they can’t see it unless the Spirit reveals it to them. So, we’re just partnering with God to do the part he wants us to do in this work. To confess it. That doesn’t mean we have it easy. It means that we have a lot of work to do. Ezekiel was asked to preach to dry bones, dead people. And because of the proclamation of the gospel they came to life. But Ezekiel didn’t resuscitate them. God raised them up and made them come alive. Ezekiel just preached. That’s what we’re called to do to. But we have to care.
Let’s start with seeing the problem a new way. If you confess to a crime, you might go to jail. In contrast, if you confess to God’s truth, you get out of jail. The truth sets you free! Now think of what this means. All the world is already in jail! All the world is trapped in a prison camp made of satan’s deceptive lies. In this world, everyone who confesses that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and lives by that truth is set free from being captive to satan! And then as saved, free believers we can look at those who do not believe as if we are looking at them through the barbed wire fence that keeps them in the prison, while we are now standing on the outside. We got out. We know how it happened. We know how to set them free too! They are still trapped. Don’t you want to help them?
The best way to help is them is make the good confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior who forgives sins and doesn’t wait until you’re good enough before he will forgive you. He already died to forgive you and loves you so much that he died for you even though he knew you might not love him back. And pray that they believe it too. To confess, you need to know what you believe, you need to believe what you say you believe, and you need to be able to talk about it anytime anywhere.
Do you really believe what Peter believed and confessed? Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the whole world. He is the real and living God and the only hope of salvation. Everybody needs to know Jesus as soon as they can, or they are doomed to hell by their unbelief.
That’s the message we are trying to get out into the world. The main purpose of the church, in fact the only reason this institution exists at all, is not to give you a nice comfortable place to see each other and sing a few songs once a week. The Church exists to evangelize, and you are the Church. So, you do the evangelism. This place exists only to train you and to equip you and to encourage you to do that work. If you only attend Church on Sunday and never speak about Jesus the rest of the week, that’s like a football player who shows up at the gym for the workout and the field for practice, but never gets to a real game and never scores any points. It’s pointless!
Our worship has to move outward now. If you really love God and you tell him so in worship and you act it out in ministry, that’s going to spill over in to the life you live where you work and play outside the walls of this building. And if it really is the love of God pouring out of a full heart of joy because you’re an undeserving sinner who is forgiven nonetheless, then people are going to notice how much you love them and that’s what is going to open the door for you and you are going to get opportunities to tell them how wonderful God is.
That’s why in one of his later epistles, Peter said, “You must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” Peter expected people to ask you because the very way you live your life would demand and explanation! And if you think God likes it when you tell Him how much you love him, just think how much he loves it when you are bragging on him to people that don’t know yet so they get a chance to find out how to be forgiven and saved by our wonderful, loving God who died for them too. That’s evangelism!
How did the early church grow? Did it just happen on Sundays when curious people visited a bunch of believers? No. It happened as people who knew Jesus, talked about Jesus with people who didn’t know Jesus, while they were together for work, or play, or family get-togethers, and even worship. They talked about Jesus in the synagogue. Of course, we know that Paul the Apostle did that. It was his strategy. Whenever he visited a new place he went to the synagogue first and told the Jews about Jesus. But understand this, when Paul went in to a synagogue to tell people about Jesus, he wasn’t there to worship with believers! No. He was there to talk to unbelievers who didn’t know about Jesus yet!
Paul went in knowing who he was talking to, knowing what they were interested in and what they were hoping to get out of life. And he went in knowing who he wanted to talk about and he used their Scriptures that they believed in to prove to them that Jesus is their Messiah. So, he had to know what they cared about, and he had to know who Jesus really is and how those two things connect. That’s our task today, to know what we believe about Jesus and how to explain that to people and also find out who we’re talking to, what their concerns are and what they’re hoping to get out of life, so that we can show them how Jesus the Messiah meets their deepest needs.
Now we have a couple of very practical tools that you can take advantage of immediately so that you can feel fully equipped or being equipped to and have an effective ministry.
1. Worship on Sunday is for you! This is the place where you get your batteries recharged. You get a Word from the Lord and encouragement to really believe the good confession so that you are more likely to talk about it on Monday through Saturday with confidence.
2. Praying. Together and at home. This is the means by which God is able to speak into our hearts by his Holy Spirit so that we learn the things that we need to know to do an effective ministry.
3. The Leadership Essentials Bible study that starts today, is going to deal with these things too, intentionally talking about strategy and leadership and how to be positive influencers of people for God’s sake and for theirs.
4. Find and read books on your own that teach about the doctrines of the faith or show you how to explain them, and also books that teach about the condition of the culture of the United States, so that you see where the connection points are.
5. Be friends with people, new people who come in to your spheres of influence or other people who already are there. Pray for them and get to know them. Pray for opportunities to tell them how good it is to trust in Jesus for wisdom, provision, truth, joy, strength, meaning and salvation.
Once again, to give the good confession, you need to know what you believe, that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. You need to believe in that so much that it shows up in the way you live your life. And you need to be able to talk about it, always ready to answer anyone who asks for an explanation, anytime anywhere. That is the rock upon which God’s church is built. Amen.
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