The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:21–23 · November 2, 2025

Transcript:
Let's get our Bible, if you would, and go to the book of Matthew, chapter 16. The Lord helps us today. I'd love to finish Matthew 16. Seems like we've been in the book for a month or two, but we're going to try to get through 21 to 28 today, part of it this morning, part of it tonight. This morning we're going to look at verses 21 through 23, but the good part about going through it slowly like this is that, and this is a perfect example of that, is that when we get to a passage of Scripture, the context of the passage at hand is fresh in our mind because we've spent time in what's above it already, and that is especially important this morning. So verse 21, the Bible says this, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savrest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Would you pray with me this morning? Our Lord, thank you first of all for your Word and the truths of Scripture. Lord, we're thankful for, especially for the real life of Peter. Lord, how often we see ourselves in his place. Just a regular man who had faith in Christ, who had little faith in a very powerful Christ. Help us, Lord, in our study of Scripture. Help me, Lord, to help your people and to say the things that they need to hear and guide my every word and thought and motivation, Lord, that your people might be strengthened. But Lord, we know that even outside of the things that I say, there might be other portions There might be other things going on in the hearts of each person here that you might use to speak to them and guide their steps and help them to draw close to you. There might be someone among us who has not yet put their faith in Christ and his gospel. Lord, if that's the case, prick the heart of that person. Do not let them leave in peace and comfort. I pray that you would just strengthen us, guide us, help us. Lord, we look to you. Lord, we look to the subject of this passage and we want to see the things that you'd have us to see from it. Be our teacher. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. You'll notice in verse number 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. We might assume that, especially knowing the whole story, the beginning from the end, as we do from Scripture, that the subject of Christ's suffering on the cross is a subject that would have been topics of his conversation from the very beginning, but it wasn't. But it was not. And the Lord waited until this point, Matthew chapter 16, until this point to begin, notice what it says, he began Jesus to show unto his disciples. He waited until this moment to begin to teach them something that they were not at all expecting. In fact, in the Jewish psyche, and we've seen it over and over in Matthew, in the Jewish mind the Messiah, the Christ, was someone who was primarily a political leader. In the salvation, when Jesus spoke of salvation, what they heard was not salvation of the soul, but deliverance from earthly powers that were oppressing them and those kinds of things. And we've seen that over and over and over. And that philosophy is also part of the disciples' thinking as well. But it is at this point that the Lord begins to rain on their parade and let them know that his end is not what they expect. It's interesting to me that he waits until this point because we've spent, again, in Matthew so much time building upon the foundation of, like we saw last Sunday, the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. That has been something that's been driven home over and over and over, from the miracles to the healings to all the different teachings of Christ. Everything he did, it seems there's somebody that's saying, who is this guy? Who is this guy? And that's what we looked at last Sunday. But that's an important foundation to be laid because the truths of the cross mean nothing unless we first understand who it is that's on the cross. If Jesus is just a guy that's on the cross, even if he's a really good guy, like again last Sunday, that's not enough. He must be the very unique Son of God or else the cross means nothing. His identity is the foundation of that. And that's actually what, again, the context above this passage is what we saw, this establishing once and for all, this historical confession of Peter, of who Jesus Christ is. He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But you know, many people ended up rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember the cross? And again, I know I'm repeating myself a little bit, but bear with me. You remember at the cross, there were people who walked by and wagged their heads and sneered at the Lord Jesus Christ and said specifically, If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross and we'll believe you. Remember that? So the question of his identity was already there in their mind and to them, the Son of God, to them, let me say it like this, Jesus of Nazareth hanging on the cross was proof positive that he was not who he said he was, right? Which is ironic because it's actually the reverse. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus said the sign of the proof of his identity would be the fact that he died on the cross and was buried and rose again. That is the one great proof that Jesus would give of his identity. But as it is, the people walked by and mocked him because he was on the cross, and that very idea is a part of the disciples' thinking as well. But by this point, in contrast to the multitude who would walk by the cross and sneer at the Lord Jesus, at this point, as we saw in verse 17, or verse 16 rather, in the same chapter, the question of who Jesus is has been settled. Among the disciples at least. It's a settled question. And so he waits until that is a settled point. They get it. I know who this is. Now they don't know what's going to happen with Jesus in the future, but they are convinced of who he is. They are absolutely convinced of who he is. So whatever he does from this point on, they might not like it, they might not understand it, but they know it's right because of who he is, and that's something that has been settled among them. You see the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, his rejection by the elders of Israel and his being nailed to the tree was the cause for many to turn from him because he would not rule as they expected. And so right on the heels of this great confession is the Lord Jesus goes into the next kind of phase. Phase one, who am I? Settled. Phase two, here's what I'm about to do. Man, you look at verse number 21, Jesus began to show what he was going to do, how he was going to suffer and die on the cross, be killed, raised again the third day. And what's funny is when you look at the previous chapters to this point, you look at early part of Matthew, I do want to look at several of those, but when you look at it, it's not there. There are no clear passages of scripture where the Lord tells anything about what's going to happen to him prior to this. Let's look at a few. There are a couple of hints. I want to show you those. Matthew chapter two is where we'll begin and then we'll be at Luke for one passage and then back in Matthew. Matthew two, verse number 11. Now Matthew two is probably familiar to you because that's of course talking about Jesus' nativity, but in Matthew two it says this, verse 11, talking about the wise men. And when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Now we know from other passages of scripture that myrrh was a spice that was specifical...