A Willful Disciple

The Lord’s Day Evening

August 9, 2009

Matthew 16:13-23

“A Willful Disciple”

Reverend Mr. Jeremy Smith

Now this evening in verse 13 of Matthew 16 and beginning at verse 13, but before we do, let’s look to the Lord in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we have sung Your praises, we have lifted up our prayers to You. Now we turn once more seeking Your help – seeking Your help in understanding, help in applying, help in living the truth that Your Son would teach us. Lord, we do ask, that in Your grace and mercy, for the love of Your Son, You would do that for us this evening. We ask it in His name. Amen.

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 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. 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.’ Then He strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You.’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’”

Amen - thus far the very words of our God.

Jesus has been ministering in and around the Sea of Galilee. He has been having conflicts with the religious leaders there, He has been teaching, He has been performing miracles – but now He has called His disciples, this group of twelve who have been with Him, and He heads north to Caesarea Philippi. He wants to spend some time with His disciples. He is going to begin to prepare them in earnest – to prepare them for their journey to Jerusalem which will culminate with His death on the cross. But before He gets there, He wants to spend some time with these twelve men. He is on a core group retreat. He wants to spend time teaching them, as we will see, teaching them especially about His upcoming suffering.

Now we don’t have time this evening to do justice to all the things Jesus is going to say to them, especially pertaining to the Church. What I do want to focus our attention on this evening is three things: The Revelation that we find here, the Rock, and the Rebuke. The Revelation, the Rock, and the Rebuke.

Jesus begins this retreat by asking a question. I just love the way Jesus asks questions – He elicits all sorts of responses by His questions. He gets into all sorts of gospel conversations through the questions that He asks. He reveals the hearts of men to them by the questions He asks. And He begins with a simple question: “What’s the word on the street? What are people saying? Who do people think that I am?” He is trying to find out what the common man thinks – what they’re talking about in the markets – in the city in and around Galilee. He asks His disciples what they heard and apparently they have heard a variety of things. They’ve heard various things with respect to Jesus. He’s been teaching there, He’s been performing miracles there – He’s a known person in these parts. And they respond to Him, “Well, Jesus, some say You are John the Baptist, or maybe You’re Elijah, or maybe You’re Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Really, this has a very modern feel to it, doesn’t it? There’s some gallop poll questions going on – some Barna Group asking what people think about Jesus. And actually the responses themselves sound altogether modern.

Well, who is Jesus? If you went and took a poll tonight of those perhaps who know Christ and especially those who do not, oftentimes you’ll get a very positive response to who Jesus is. People think favorably of Jesus. We’re still in a context where Jesus is held in some regard. I was watching TV last night and flipping through the channels and landed on the induction ceremony into the Football Hall of Fame. It wasn’t that interesting so I didn’t stay long, but I did catch a couple of snipits of, I think, two speeches. I only heard parts of two speeches. Actually, I caught the beginnings of two speeches and each of them began in a very similar kind of way. I knew one of the individuals speaking – the other one I didn’t have any idea who he was, but they both sounded very similar. They said, “I’d like to begin with a word of thanks to Jesus. I want to thank Jesus.” Now on the one case he went on to give a pretty evangelical understanding of who Jesus is and what He’s done. The other fellow not as much, but the fact that you could find this secular ceremony celebrating these athletes being inducted into the Hall of Fame, some smattering of applause when Jesus’ name was pronounced indicates that we still live in a culture where Jesus is regarded highly.

People have a generally positive view about who Jesus is. That’s the way it is in a culture, especially say in a “Bible-belt” culture, a culture where it’s socially acceptable, in fact socially assumed, that you would have a positive view of Jesus. This response that the disciples give sounds like it could come from Jackson, Mississippi. We could go out of these doors and ask, “Who do you think Jesus is?” and people would say, “Well, He’s a good teacher. He’s got some nice things to say - we’re willing to listen.” It’s a generally positive kind of response, but it’s a wholly inadequate response. It is, at the end of the day, nothing other than idolatry – making of Jesus not of what He is, but what the people would have Him to be. They make Him into a fashion, a form, not as He actually is, but as they would have Him to be.

Now Jesus follows up that first question. He’s not there just for the “man on the street report” but He wants to find out what His disciples are thinking. And He turns to them and very explicitly says “But who do you say that I am?” It’s a very personal question. He’s saying, “Andrew and Peter and James and John and Bartholomew and Nathaniel – who do you think I am? What do you think about Me?” - is a very personal, individual question. In the history of Christianity, and especially the last couple hundred years in the west, Christianity has often had a very individualistic flavor to it, such that folks define Christianity exclusively by their own relationship with Jesus – “It’s me and my Bible. It’s this faith that I have in Jesus and nothing more.” And there have been, even in our own day, attempts to address that, to shift it, to recognize that in the New Testament there is a corporate flavor to our faith and that there are corporate responsibilities, corporate blessings; that Christianity is more than just “me and Jesus” – but there are all sorts of things affecting me and other believers as well. But in some quarters and in some cases, that pendulum has swung even further. It’s a question whether how much a personal relationship with Jesus, even in a helpful way - I’ve heard a man who I respect tremendously say, “I don’t even know what a personal relationship with Jesus, that language, means.”

I find it interesting in a context where Jesus will speak about the Church, He begins that question, He begins that talk by asking a question – “Well, who do you say that I am?” And Peter, not surprisingly Peter, pipes up with the answer. He says, “Well, You’re the Christ. You’re the Christ.” And we’re familiar with that term - we often hear, we speak about it. Jesus was the Christ and when Peter uses that term here he is using it no so much as Jesus’ last name, as it is a title. He’s saying there is something about who You are – that You perform, that You fulfill, that You occupy this role, this role of Christ, this role of Messiah, this Anointed One. Peter is saying that, You Jesus, we see as the One who has been set apart – set apart by God Himself – set apart for a work of redemption.

In Peter’s day, the Jews were looking for a Messiah. They knew their Bibles. They knew that the Old Testament was full of promise and prophecies of this coming Anointed One, this One who would do a work of redemption, a work of restoration - who would do even a work of salvation. Now often that would have been understood in a context of social and cultural and political ideologies, but also the spiritual state of the nation. People were looking for a Messiah – the One promised in the Old Testament. Peter is saying that, “Jesus in You, the hopes and fears of all the years, well, they’re met in You. That’s what we understand You to be.” And in Peter’s day, especially that strand of Old Testament prophecy relating to the successor to David, would have been associated with the Messiah. When you thought of Christ, when you thought of Christ, you immediately thought of David and one who would rule like David – that quintessential king of the Old Testament. They were looking for his son, who would sit on the throne in Jerusalem and who would fulfill what God had said to David – that one from your line would rule.

Now Jesus is very reluctant to apply this term to Himself. In fact, He never does. Even here in this passage He is going to tell His disciples not to tell anyone that He is, in fact, the Christ because of the religious, especially the political and social implications that came along with being the Messiah. But He accepts what Peter says – yes, I am that Messiah, that Anointed One, that One spoken of in the Old Testament. Peter goes on to say, “You are the Son of the living God.” He calls Him the living God because He’s the only God there is and You are the Son of that God. Perhaps, perhaps Peter would have recognized himself as a child of God in some way, but when he calls Jesus the Son of God, he means more than just an abstract child of God. He is confessing, he is saying to Jesus, that You are one who occupies a special relationship to God. You are unique in this way. You are a Son in the sense that none other are the Son of God. You are - You are the Son of the living God.

Now remember this is a good first century Jew - a good first century Jew who knew his Old Testament, and he knew that one of the foundational tenets of this Bible is that there is one God. He knew that one of the foundational sins of the Old Testament people was going after other gods who weren’t really gods. He knew Deuteronomy 6:4 which acted as a synopsis of Old Testament religion – “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And if that first century Jew can look at Jesus and say, “You are the Son of the only God there is” – subsequently, we would find even more about this Son, that He is the second member of the Trinity – the Son of the Father, the One who has been sent. Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And I wonder at that moment if the hearts of the other disciples didn’t stop just a moment and they sort of paused to see what would happen after that. Peter is frequent in getting out in front and uttering one thing or another – sometimes for good and often for ill.

What will Jesus’ response be to this confession that Peter has made? For there is not a rebuke, there is not a word of chastisement – instead, there is a benediction that Jesus pronounces. He says, “Peter, you are blessed - blessed for having said these things, blessed for understanding these things.” Jesus’ evaluation is, in fact, that this knowledge, that this faith that you have Peter, this has a divine, heavenly origin. Look what He says to Peter, “He says, ‘Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. What you have just said has come to you from God Himself, from My Father in heaven. And had it not, you could not have known these things.’”

There is of course a separation between us and God that is the result of our sin – such that we cannot approach God as sinful human beings, but I don’t think that’s the sense Jesus uses “flesh and blood.” Paul will use “flesh” that way. He will compare flesh especially with things of the Spirit, and when he uses the term “flesh” it will often be in thinking about especially sin. But here, Jesus is saying “flesh and blood” – that is by your very creatureliness. There is a separation between you and God. We could say it this way – there is not only a moral separation; there seems to be a metaphysical separation – a sense that Peter, by your being human, you could never have arrived at this knowledge on your own. It’s not simply your sin that keeps you from understanding; it’s actually because you are a man. Because of that, you never could have arrived at this knowledge had not My Father revealed it to you.

There’s a supernatural quality to it. The Father must reveal this. We are getting into the waters of election, of predestination, where Derek reminded us of something of a family secret. This teaching is used in the New Testament for a variety of purposes. Sometimes it’s used to help us understand why there will be a variety of responses to Jesus. What separates Peter from Judas? Is it their upbringing? Judas’ mother didn’t love him enough as a child? Is it their social status or class? Is it Peter’s innate goodness that will set him apart from Judas? What will cause one man to act the part of the traitor and turn his back on Jesus, and the other man to give his life for his Savior? Well, the Bible will help us understand that. And he will say that Peter has been given this knowledge. That Jesus, this Man standing before him, this Man that they have seen work miracles and teach, this Man they have seen sleep and eat, this Man they have spent these years with is the Christ, the Son of the living God. It’s from God.

Other times this doctrine is used to work humility in us. At first glance it seems to be an awful proud thing to say – that God has imparted this knowledge on me. But in fact, the Bible will use this teaching as a way of pressing humility down upon us – “Why was I made to hear Your voice and enter while there’s room, while thousands (and millions, billions) make a wretched choice and rather starve than come?” – Isaac Watts would ask – “Only with the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in.” Nothing in us - it was because God and His love pressed this knowledge down upon us; gave us this great gift of faith. It’s a humbling teaching in fact.

But it’s also used in the Bible as a means of assurance. That’s because this knowledge has been given to Peter by the heavenly Father, it cannot escape. That will be so important as we watch Peter as Mathew’s gospel unfolds. For it will be that same Peter, who, for an evening, maybe for an hour or so, was willing to deny that he knew Jesus - never even heard of him. That same Peter will say, “No. I’m not with Jesus. I don’t know anything about him;” that same Peter who can think back to Jesus’ words when Jesus said, “It was My Father. It was My Father who granted you this knowledge, this gift of faith. And although you may deny for a moment, you cannot evacuate the knowledge that God has given to you. You may doubt. You may even for a time act that it’s not true, but you cannot finally suppress this because this knowledge comes from My Father.”

In the first place, we see that to encounter Jesus as He is requires a supernatural work of God. Now there’s something about Revelation, and there’s also something about the Rock.

Peter – Jesus goes on to say to Peter – “Not only are you blessed for having received this information, this knowledge, this faith” - but He goes on to say something else. He says to him in verse 18, “I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.” Now a lot of ink has been spilt over what Jesus means by that and there are still a variety of interpretations for what Jesus is saying. Jesus is making a pun. It doesn’t come through all that well in the English, but Jesus has previously already given Peter a new name. We know Peter by several names in the New Testament. We know him by his given name which was Simon, we know him by the name Peter, and sometimes Cephas – actually those two names are the same. But that name Peter was a name that Jesus had given to him. Prior to this time there is no indication that anyone used Peter as a proper name. It’s just a Greek word for ‘rock’ or ‘stone.’ Jesus looked at him and said, “You’re going to have a new name. You’re going to have a nickname. I’m going to call you ‘Rock.’” And when Jesus says these words to Peter, He says, “you are the rock and on this rock I will build My church.” Rock is a nickname.

I know a man named Rock. His name is Rock Brockman. If ever there was a strong name is it that – Rock Brockman. The man had four daughters and to come and date one of their daughters you had to come and sit down in the living room of Rock Brockman. (laughter) Peter’s got one of those names. That is his name. Jesus says, “You are ‘Rock’ and upon this rock I will build My church.” Now what does Jesus mean when He says that? Again, there’s more than one way to understand it and historically there have been a variety of ways. Some would say that what Jesus is pointing out is that Peter has made this grand confession that, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and it’s that confession upon which the church will be built. And I think there’s some truth to that, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying. Others would say that it’s the teachings that Jesus has given to the Apostles that will be the establishment of the church and I think there’s truth to that, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying. No, He’s saying, “You are the rock and upon this rock I will build My church.”

What does Jesus mean? I think this is what He means – that Peter, as one of the Apostles who has received this revelation from God, it’s upon Peter that Jesus will build His church. Or, to say it another way, Jesus, the foundation, the cornerstone, is now calling Himself the Builder. And to borrow the language from Paul from Ephesians chapter 2, He’s going to set His first course with these men, these rocks, these stones who are before Him. That will be His first course. And upon those rocks, upon those stones, He will begin to add stone upon stone upon stone upon stone, such that even a congregation in Jackson Mississippi, is made up of a group of living stones and the Lord Jesus Himself has placed upon this first row of stones who are Peter and the Apostles.

So much confusion, so much debate about this particular meaning has obscured the point that Jesus is making. This is something that Jesus is going to do. He says, “I will build My church. That’s something that I’m going to do. That’s something that I’m going to do as long as there is seed time and harvest, as long as the sun rises and sets, as long as there is life on this earth, I will be about the task of building My church.” Yes, Peter and to a lesser extent the Apostles are called out for attention, but it’s Jesus here who is the focus. It’s Jesus’ work in building His church. But it’s also clear that this church is where Christians are placed row by row; that it’s the church that serves as the outpost of heaven as it were – a little taste of heaven that is safe from all adversaries. It’s safe from even the fiery darts of Hell itself. Jesus is saying, “I will build My church placing these stone upon stone.”

But Jesus goes on to say more. He says to Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Now what does Jesus mean when He tells him that he’s got the keys of the kingdom – the keys of heaven – in this language of loosing and binding? I think we get help further from Matthew’s gospel in a couple of chapters, in chapter 23. It will be Jesus in the final week before the crucifixion, and He will be against the Pharisees, and He will pronounce those woes against the Pharisees, and He will say of the Pharisees that one of the woes that come to them is because they have shut up heaven to their disciples. That by their teaching, by what they have instructed those who would follow them, is as if they have taken a key and locked the door to heaven itself.

And it’s in that sense that Jesus says He grants these keys; that in contrast to the Pharisees who lock the door of heaven, to these Apostles and to this church are given the keys of heaven to open the door. Now how’s the door opened? Well, read the book of Acts. What happens? The Apostles go out and preach the gospel. They teach about Jesus - Who He is, what He’s like, and what He’s done. And men and women and boys and girls come to faith in Jesus Christ. And as they’re preaching the Gospel, those disciples, those Apostles, are exercising those keys to the kingdom of heaven such that heaven’s doors are opened up and folks come into the kingdom.

Then He says, “Whatever you loose will be loosed in heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” Again Jesus will use that language in Matthew chapter 18 and this, at that time especially in the context of the church, that there is given to the church on earth a declarative function. We saw something of it this morning when these men and women sat down front. They had met with the elders last week and those elders had heard their Christian testimony – had heard them responding to the Gospel and professing Christ. And we stood and declared that they were members of this church. I think that’s what Jesus here is talking about. There’s focus, there’s a focus on what Christ is doing, especially through His Church. It informs everything that we do around here from membership to missions. It’s why church planting is such an emphasis in this congregation. With the dollars you give to Faith Promise we put such a high focus on the building of the Church both in this nation and around the world, the training of pastors who would go out and who would establish churches because that’s Christ’s work of setting an outpost of heaven here on earth – of granting access into heaven. Jesus is here teaching us that a heavenly, opening encounter with Jesus will take place with the preaching of the Gospel, especially in the context of the local church.

Well, there’s something about Revelation, there’s something about the Rock, and there’s something about Rebuke. If you or I were writing this script we would have stopped right there. The house music would have started, the lights would have come on, the credits would have begun to roll, and we would have picked up our empty boxes of popcorn and taken them out – story over. But that’s not where this encounter ends. Instead, we have verse 21: “And from that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day, to be raised.” Jesus has taken this core group on a retreat especially because He wants to begin to teach them and prepare them for what’s going to transpire in Jerusalem. His teaching will begin to focus on this aspect of His ministry. He’s hinted at it, He’s taught them, and they have not caught on yet, but He will begin to teach more and more about what is to come.

First He says, “We’re going to Jerusalem. We’re going into that hotbed of controversy where they hate Me. We’re not going to stay up here in the north where there’s nobody around. We’re not going to stay in Caesarea Philippi. We’re going right where they hate Me. Let me tell you what’s going to happen when I get there. I’m going to suffer many things. That’s the result of the promise I made. My Father won’t spare Me – as we were reminded this morning – but I am going to Jerusalem for the express purpose of suffering, and I’m going to suffer at the hands of the religious rulers in Jerusalem, those who should have been preparing the way of the Messiah. In their hands, I will suffer many things. And oh by the way, I’m going to die,” Jesus says plainly. “When we get to Jerusalem, I’m going to die.” You can imagine the response of His disciples. He got that far and apparently they didn’t hear any more. He went on to talk about the fact that He would be raised from the dead but it was as if they could not, they did not, hear that part. He’s just shattered their understanding of who the Messiah would be. They understand, they understood that there was a Promised One who was anointed by God who would come and save His people but they did not know, they did not remember, they did not understand that that same Messiah would be the Suffering Servant. Those two strands of thought had never been brought together in their minds.

So Peter, Peter who had just made this profound confession, Peter pulls Him aside – they’re walking. Peter comes up beside Him and says, “Jesus, could I have a word?” And he begins to rebuke Him. You get the sense that that rebuke would have gone on further had Jesus not interrupted. He’s only begun to rebuke Him saying, “No Lord, have mercy. No, it will never be like that. Far be it from You that You will ever suffer anything.” I think we can understand, I think we can see Peter’s heart, and I think we can understand what motivates him. But do you see what Peter’s asking? When Peter says, “No Lord, this will never happen to You,” Peter is doing nothing less than saying to Jesus, “Send me to hell. Lord, I would have you damn me.” Because if the Messiah does not go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and die, then Peter’s sins cannot be forgiven, and your sins cannot be forgiven, and my sins cannot be forgiven.

No, I think we can see Peter’s heart – you understand the gravity of what Peter is saying? Jesus sees it. Jesus remembers it. He’s heard this line before. He’s heard it from the mouth of Satan.

At the beginning of His ministry out in the wilderness, Satan had come to Him and said, “Listen Jesus, I’ll give you the kingdoms. I’ll give you the kingdoms of this world. You don’t have to go through all that trouble. You don’t have to go through all that suffering. You can skip that part and go right to the end – the end that includes glory.” And Jesus had sent Satan away, but now he’s back. He’s back this time using Peter, saying the same thing to Jesus once more – “You don’t have to go the way of the cross. You don’t have to go to Jerusalem and suffer. You can have glory in another way.” Jesus sees that for what it is – it’s a trap. It’s a temptation of Satan and He rebukes Peter. He says, listen Peter, listen disciples, listen friends. That may make sense - there might be some internal logic that the Anointed One of God would be immune from suffering. There may even be some internal logic to the thought that one who is loved by God would not suffer. It makes sense, doesn’t it? But Jesus says that line of thought are the thoughts of man – they may be logically correct, but they simply aren’t true.

We could look at this whole passage by looking at the perspectives on Jesus. Jesus begins by finding out the man on the streets word – the word that Jesus is some sort of good teacher has some quality aspects to it. And it ends with a different view of the Man – the idea that suffering is not the way of God. That’s contrasted with the heavenly view of Jesus. The heavenly view of Jesus is that Jesus is sent to redeem fallen man through suffering. It’s two perspectives on Jesus – one from earth and one from heaven.

Let’s pray.

This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the web page. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template.

Should there be questions regarding grammar or theological content, the reader should presume any website error to be with the webmaster/transcriber/editor rather than with the original speaker. For full copyright, reproduction and permissions information, please visit the FPC Copyright, Reproduction & Permission statement

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH ● 1390 North State Street Jackson, Mississippi 39202 ● (601) 924-0575