The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand—The Book of Matthew · Pastor Adam Wood · Matthew 16:18–20 · October 26, 2025

Transcript:
Let's go back to Matthew chapter number 18. Matthew 18. Matthew 18, we are going to look, we're gonna continue in, Matthew 18, Matthew 16, I apologize, I was looking at the wrong number. Matthew 16, and we'll just begin, we'll just read back over our text here, we're gonna pick up in verse number 18, and kind of finish this out, and go into what I think are just really interesting, interesting truths that we don't often cover just because they're not super frequently mentioned in scripture, but we wanna look at them tonight. Verse number 13, the Bible says, when Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and some others Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto them, blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. It's interesting to note here that he uses all of the, basically all of the names of Peter in this passage. The only exception is the name Cephas, which is a different language, it's Aramaic, which actually he probably said Cephas when he actually spoke it, and then Matthew recorded it when he recorded it in Greek, which is the language of the New Testament. Then he put Peter because that's the Greek equivalent of the word Cephas, the name Cephas. But anyway, he uses all of the names in verse 17, and then he says, Simon, which is his Hebrew name, now this is his given name, Bar-Jona, which means Son of Jonah. And then he says in verse number 18, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, the keys of God's kingdom, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be loosen and I will give unto thee the keys of my kingdom, The ourselves who renew theうん by God, and the things that we have made amint us. So we think let us pray in the Bible, let us ask there now, where they should put down the sand, Oh, how we need you, Lord. Every day, every moment, Lord, we need your help. As we meet together, as we study your word, Lord, we're ignorant. We really do need you to teach us. Lord, we need you to give us grace, not only to learn and to get knowledge, but also to act and live according to the knowledge you give us. So Lord, we just entrust this time to you. We ask you to work in our hearts in Jesus' name, amen. All right. What we want to do is look at verse number 18. And as I said, it says here, and I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now we saw this morning how the Lord uses a play on words. I don't think it, and you'll see in a minute, but I don't think this, I don't think at all that, and I'm going to mention Catholicism here several times because this is the primary go-to passage for basically, this is the foot in the door passage that swings the door open for every doctrine that has come to pass since the three or four hundreds until our day in Catholicism. So I'm going to mention it several times, but this passage is sometimes, basically, sometimes interpreted to say this. Jesus says to Peter, Peter, your name means rock, and you're the rock upon which I'm going to build my church. And then he goes on from there. But that's not what he says. The Lord says, thou art Peter, and we saw this morning, scripturally speaking, that the name means stone. We saw that in John chapter 1, verse 42. And then playing off of that name, which remember, that name was given to Simon by the Lord. In other words, the Lord surname him Peter. Peter was not a name given to him by his friends or family. It was given to him by Jesus, probably, my guess, for this purpose right here. Because he's going to bring it up and use the name to tell a truth. And that truth is this rock, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now notice, we saw some things about the church this morning, but there's a couple more things I want to point out to you about the church. The first thing I want you to see, and these are just good practical reminders to remember about the Church of Christ. And I don't mean the denomination. I mean the Church of Jesus Christ. Number one, the church belongs to Christ. He calls it my church. My church. The Church of Christ is his possession alone. It's not my church. It's not your church. I know we call it that colloquially. We say my church. At my church we sing this. My church we do that. But in all truth, in the absolute sense, the church belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and anyone who touches it will give an account to him. It is his special possession. And there is no pastor. There's no spiritual leader that owns the Church of Christ. Right? The spiritual leaders are only overseers, are only guides, and serve only as examples. But the church itself belongs to Jesus Christ. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 1, listen to this verse. And you're very familiar with this, I know. Peter is speaking to the elders, to the spiritual leaders of the church. Here's what he says. The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. To the elders now he says, feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. Here's the key. Neither, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. Neither as being lords over God's heritage. A lord is an owner. That's the one who holds the deed. And it says, neither being lords over God's heritage, but in samples to the flock. A heritage is your property. Right? That's what your heritage is, scripturally. I know that's not how we necessarily use it. But that's what the word means. It's a heritage. It's the same word as lot, referring to a parcel of the land. So this is God's heritage. The Church of God is God's heritage. Now I just say that just to reiterate. Listen. Spiritual leaders in churches, and this includes myself, have limits on what they're allowed to do. Right? We do not have a blank check. No spiritual leader, not a deacon, not a pastor, or any member for that matter. I mean, no person in a church has a blank check to do with the church whatever that person wishes. There are limits to it. And those limits are imposed by the Lord Jesus himself. So we all must keep that in mind. In everything we do, it's about we must ask the question, Lord, this is your church. What do you want? Right? This is your church. We are mere stewards of what the Lord has given us. The second thing I want you to see is this. The building of the church, he said, I will build my church. The building of the church, and by this, I don't mean this building made of brick and two by fours. I'm not talking about that. And I'm not even really talking about this particular local church, which again, we saw this morning, is a local, visible manifestation of the body of Christ. But the building of this church, which is the body of Christ, is the responsibility not of us, but is the responsibility of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. I will build my church. So it is not our responsibility to build the church. Let me say that...