The Church As Authority (Matthew 16:13-20)

I Will Build My Church

Matt 16:13 – 20

EMP: Jesus constructs his authoritative gathering in this age on the confessions of his people that Jesus is the Christ.

SMP: We must submit to (rather than just join) a church and rightly exercise the authority Jesus entrusted to us.

Sticky: Jesus shares his authority with his church and it’s good for us to submit to his church.

Connection/Tension

In some ways, since we just planted a church (including sending out two of our crucial leaders), we are a new church in some ways. Not only because our leadership team is different, but because our whole church community has changed. In addition, there have never been such a steady flow of visitors and new members since we started planting.

So, we are going to jump into a sermon series on the church. Although our church has changed, our mission has not! We still have the same statement to capture it,

“We exist to multiply worshippers of Jesus and healthy churches in the Twin Cities and beyond.”

So, if we are going to be a healthy church that plants healthy churches, shouldn’t we know what a church is biblically? This series will try to fill out our understanding both of what the Bible says a church should be and how we want to carry that our specifically as All Peoples Church.

Okay, so this first message in our series is, “the church as authority.” This message is not the first in order because it’s the most important of all these sermons. It’s first because I’m the first one up to teach and it’s the one I wanted to talk about.  

Alright, so the church as authority. That sounds strange to our ears- maybe even threatening. Most of us have experienced wounds from a church community before and all of us likely know someone who has. Experiences like these make us cautious to trust churches and church leaders, and understandably so.

I remember being a part of a church over ten years ago where the leadership was heavy handed from one leader. Things got painful in that church. I was sad to hear a few years later it closed down. Problems from misused authority are abundant.

And yet, we should not ask, “what do I feel about a church having authority” but, “what does Scripture say?” So, to answer that question, we are going to turn to the part of the Bible where we see the word “church” mentioned for the first time and see what it has to say…

Context

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Here is a short and amazing story that deserves an entire sermon on its own, which we don’t have time to give this morning. This morning, it is context for the verses we will focus on, beginning with verse 18 here,

Revelation

The Rock and the Assembly (v. 18)

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So, Peter is having this conversation with Jesus. And, there is this moment where he grows in his clarity at seeing who Jesus is- and rightly identifies him as Christ. Christ means, “one anointed with oil” which is the OT equivalent of making someone the next-in-line to the throne. Jesus is on a journey to become king (not just of Rome, as Peter may have thought, but of all of heaven and earth).

Jesus responds to Peter’s insight into his identity by bestowing a high amount of honor upon Peter. First, he names him “rock,” then he says “on this rock I will build my church.” In what way is Peter a rock? This is super mysterious! I think it’s safest to say in context that Peter is a foundational rock of the church as he is the first one confessing Jesus as Christ. The church exists where the people of God are making the true confession that Jesus is the Christ- and Peter is the chief example of this. His confession is foundational in that it’s the same confession all of God’s people in all places repeat throughout the ages until Jesus returns.

So, Jesus says, “on this rock, on this confessor making this confession, I build my church.” This is the first time in the Bible we ever see the word “church.” It’s also the only time in the Bible Jesus refers to the church as “mine,”[1] revealing Jesus’s immense affection for his creation.

Next question, what does this word “church” mean? In Greek, it means, “assembly,” as in he “meeting of citizens for a civic meeting or of soldiers for battle.”[2] It has the sense of a formal or even a legal gathering in the ancient world. Very strange right? No one thought of anything like this when you said you were going to the APC gathering this morning, did you?

A Military Gathering

Okay, let’s break this down a bit. First, you can sense the military aspect of the word in this very verse, because Jesus’s next phrase is that, “that gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Gates mark the boundary between two realms. In the church, the realm of life and goodness confronts the realm of death and evil.

What’s the result of this conflict? The church wins, because Jesus wins. No other institution or organization can say that! Every other organization, institution, and nation will cease. It has an expiration date- at the very latest when Jesus comes back to make the world new. Only the church endures into the endless ages of the world to come! Christ died only for his church and for nothing else. She is his prize and his bride and he will have her. Even the language of “building” the church references the creation of Eve from Adam (it’s the same word). So, even subtly in this text, Jesus tips his hand that this creation of his is no less than his bride, and he will slay every power of hell to possess her. He’s not playing around.

Question, Has the church ever hurt you? Has this church ever hurt you? Will this church hurt you again? I urge you not to give up on the church because Jesus’s doesn’t. I urge you to fight for the church because only the church, and the church alone remains when the war with evil is over. The church is permanent like a rock.

A Legal Gathering

Okay, so far, Jesus says he will build his “legal, military” assembly that is also his bride (there is a lot here). And we have seen that since Jesus has victory over death, so does the church and it remains forever. Now, Jesus moves onto the legal or civic part of this assembly in these next verses,

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Do Jesus’s words keep being mysterious? Yes. But do they also point to amazing things? Also yes. The first thing Jesus does to this Peter, the first confessor, is to assign to him keys. Peter gets a tool.

Before I try to unpack what this tool is, I first want to qualify that this tool does not belong to Peter alone, but to all who confess Jesus like Peter in Jesus’s assembly. Why would I say that? Because although in these verses, Jesus speaks these words directly to Peter, the next time this phrase comes up, Jesus speaks it to ALL his disciples,

Flip your Bibles over a few pages to Matthew 18. Look at 18:1. Who is Jesus conversing with? His “disciples.” Now, scroll down to verse 18. What do you see there? Same verse. Also, you can’t see it in the English, but in the Greek, the word “you” has gone from singular to plural. So, you can take two views about Jesus’s conversation with Peter and think that it is specifically for Peter only (Roman Catholic), or specifically for Peter as a representative for those who follow him in making the same confession. I think Matthew 18 clarifies that he’s a representative.

Okay, let’s get back to these keys in Matthew 16. What are these keys? First, the possession of the tool like a key implies some kind of authority. An author named Jonathan Leeman helped me to see this, but in a few places in Scripture, when God sets up an authority, he designates a tool that goes along with that authority as a symbol.

For example, in Romans 13, Paul writes that God entrusted the state with the tool of the sword (v. 4)

Or, in Proverbs, God entrusts parents with the tool of the rod (13:24).

And here, Jesus entrusts his disciples who comprise his assembly with the tool of keys.

They are the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” which means, that there is earthly authority the church possesses that relate to people’s standing in heaven. Okay, in what way?

The text says these keys are for “binding and loosing” on earth as a preview of what’s true in heaven (“shall be bound…”. Binding on earth is a preview of what will be true in heaven and loosing on earth will be a preview of what will be true in heaven.

Now, think of the terms “binding and loosing.” What could those refer to? Simply, the idea of “binding” is a bringing together and the idea of “loosing” is of releasing or letting do.

So, when we put all these ideas together, what do we get? The best I can do (and have heard) is that the church has the authority to bring members into it who are confessing Jesus (“binding”) and to remove members out from it when their confession turns out to not be genuine (“loosing”).

If you’re having trouble seeing that, let me turn again to Matthew 18 and read the verses there since this very same phrase appears and Jesus further explains,

15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 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, when Jesus first teaches about his assembly, he reveals that it is a community both of his warriors (“gates of hell”) and leaders who are bringing people into the church or sending them to another church or even removing them out (“binding and loosing”).

And if you have questions about these radical verses, you’re not the only one. We just don’t have the time to make this a sermon about church discipline specifically this morning (maybe we need one soon!). At the very least, if you have questions, go on our website, click teachings, search “discipline,” and at least one sermon on it comes up you can listen to- and feel free to follow up with me or any of the other pastors.

Authority is Life

So, when Jesus first teaches about his church, the first concept he introduces is authority. This term does not sit well with our modern, American ears. In our culture, authority is a threat. Why? Because someone can abuse it. So, we want to protect ourselves. Fear lurks behind our anti-authoritarianism.

Though we think this way in modern America, this is not what God of scripture has to say. In the beginning, God authored the world, and he authored life, through authority. He spoke, reality obeyed, and it was “good” seven times over.

Then, God shared his authority with Adam and Eve so they could partner with him in authoring more life in the world (Gen 1:28). What he gives them in the beginning is, “dominion.” God’s heart is to share everything of his with his people, and that includes even his authority. He doesn’t withhold anything!

Adam’s and Eve’s authority did not last long. There was an evil snake who came and “ruled the rulers” as Stephen Dempster says. So, before we surrender to Jesus and his church, we think we are in charge, but really, we’re just obeying a snake who wants to rule and ruin all of us.

All this changes when Jesus, the new Adam (he fixes mistake the first Adam made), comes into the world, and rather than surrendering to evil, he surrenders to God. He rules in a surprising and beautiful way. As Jesus says later in Matthew,

“even as the son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

In the gospel, Jesus uses his authority to sacrifice and rescue. Here is Leeman again, “Jesus submitted and sacrificed himself as an act of authority—…. Jesus declared, “Satan, you have no dominion over these people. People, you belong to me because I’m paying your ransom,” 49.

To rescue you, Jesus must rule you. Why? He had to repossess you from the corrupt rule of a tyrannical serpent who has sealed your death. When he reclaims you as your king, your destiny changes from death to life.

In the church, Jesus gathers those he has repossessed from his enemy, both to be under his authority and to share his authority with them so that they exercise it together.

The Bible is the story of God sharing his authority with his people, then his people losing their rule, and then Jesus gaining it back and sharing it again with God’s people. When you see a group of people both ruled by God and brining his rule to one another’s lives and the lives of the world, things are going back to the way they were before evil and going towards what they will be forever when Jesus returns and reigns.

Considering all of these realities about this text and about Jesus’s rule that I just highlighted, I want to highlight five applications for us:

5 Applications

1.      Since the church is an authority set up by Jesus, we are called not just to join a church, but also to submit to a church. (Paul Eph 5:21, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”)

Here is a crucial distinction, it’s not pastors who have the keys and exercise church’s authority of binding and loosing, it’s the members. And we pastors are under the same call to submit to the church’s authority as well. Which means that we should all have a humble posture of welcoming encouragement and correction from our brothers and sisters as a way God helps us get to heaven. Church you are in authority over me and I am over you- we belong to each other.

Every year we go on an elder retreat, and a part of that retreat is to share corrections with one another, and all of us testify that God mightily helps us through the these words. Yet, we can only receive them if we have a posture of submission to one another.

One more quick word- there is an authority that pastors have that the New Testament highlights, it’s just Jesus doesn’t start there when he starts with his church (he starts with the authority of the whole church, so that’s where we are focusing this morning).

2.      If you are a regular attender here, and not a member, I want to call you to join a church. I hope it’s ours. We were not meant to live without authority over us- directly from God and indirectly through authority he has set up for us like parents, and our church. One lie from our modern culture is that authority is bad and self-rule is good. The paradigm shift of the Bible is that authority is good for our souls.

I especially want to call you to this if you take communion regularly here. One of the things we say when we take the supper regularly together is not just “We belong to the Lord,” but also, “we belong to one another.”  That’s why we say in the invitation “those who follow Jesus and have joined his church” because it’s a much a meal that makes the church one with one another as it makes God one with his people.  

3.      If you are a member here, do your best to prioritize All Church Nights (you already do great at this!). It’s a night where we get to enter this realm of exercising authority by adding in new members, calling new pastors and deacons, and even exercising church discipline. Church discipline sounds painful- and it is! Yet, this last year, we saw a miracle happen before our eyes, did we not? There was a man who was on a sure path to spiritual destruction and the unravelling of his family, yet because this church stepped in, exercised godly authority, and lovingly brought this matter to the church, God worked, and we saw a supernatural transformation! Thank you, God! You could even think of “all church nights” as “authority nights.” I’m not sure we should call them that- doesn’t have the same ring.

4.      Become more connected relationally and emotionally to this church. I’m not sure I’ve done a good job of this as your pastor, but I want to call you and me to this afresh this morning. I want to make this goal because authority without love comes off as cold, and it’s off putting. On the other hand, what we often think we long for is love without authority, but that’s squishy and lacks the solid foundation we need. Rather, we long for love with authority and authority with love. So, since I am calling All People’s Church to be a place of godly authority- of overseeing one another’s faith and even removing people who have shown their confession to be false- let us strive to be more to be a place of love, warmth, and connection, lest this feel like a cold church. May that never be! It’s not a contradiction to be a place and authority and a place of love. The Scripture calls the church an assembly a (place of authority), and he also calls it a body (a place of connection).

5.      I want to speak to those who have experienced church hurt and are finding it difficult to trust again. First, God is sad about what happened to you- it matters to him. And, he doesn’t want you to lock your heart and your gifts away. He wants you to take gradual and wise steps forward of trusting your church community, its leaders, and his grace. If you lock away your gifts and your heart because of what someone in the past did to you, then that same person keeps influencing your present and future. Healing, moving beyond what happened, and re-entering church life is the way forward.

Out main point this morning is that Jesus is so good that he shares his authority with his church- that’s us. We share a Jesus who doesn’t withhold good things from us but shares so much more than we can ask and think.

And more than that, this authority is good for us both to share and to be under. We reject the lie that God’s authority or his authority through his people is bad. In fact, it’s God’s good authority that rescued us, and his good authority through his people that will help us get safely home.

Let’s pray together.

[1] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 48.

[2] Leland Ryken et al., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 147.