[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Blessed are you, says Jesus to Peter, 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’re Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Amen.
Dear saints of God, we have this confidence in Christ, that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. And this does not mean, as I used to think about it, at least this was the picture in my own mind, as if the church had gates and hell was pressing in, but the gates would hold, the wall would be sturdy, they wouldn’t fall, we’ll be safe inside. I used to think that that was it, but the text does not say that the gates of the church will prevail against hell, but rather that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. It’s the other way around.
The gates of hell are being bombarded by the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will not hold up to this bombardment. They will not withstand the pressure of the Lord’s Word and His truth and His gospel that they will give way. And we have proof of it. We had proof of it this morning when John Augustine Simenach was baptized, and the gates of hell did not prevail but fell and his heart was claimed by Jesus and he was given a new name and adopted into the family of the Lord and given new life in Christ. We have proof of it already today.
When you heard the words spoken from the gift of Jesus, we’ll talk about it more later, but when you heard the words spoken, I forgive you all of your sins. This sin which clings to your flesh, that draws you down to hell, that’s pulling you towards darkness, that is the reason that you are dying. That sin was forgiven. It was wiped away. The strength was taken away. The bondage was broken. The keys were exercised, and you were set free.
This is the gift that Jesus is giving when He establishes here in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18 and John chapter 20 His church, which is His kingdom where His keys are exercised. Now there’s keys all over this church. I mean, not like people lost for their cars or something like that, but in the windows especially, I don’t know if you noticed this, but if you go top left in the center window there, you see two keys that are crossed. It’s very hard to see, but if you come for communion and you look up at the back window at the top, there are two keys crossed like this and handcuffs with the chains broken. If you’re on the pulpit side and you come for communion, you might be able to see it. I can barely see it from here. You can check it out afterwards.
And these are reminders of what Jesus is giving. This is the symbol of St. Peter, who on this day in Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus has him and the disciples way up in Caesarea and he’s asking about who people say he is and who they say he is, and Peter confesses to Christ that he is then given this gift of the keys. We want to talk about it.
But there’s a couple other pictures of Peter, by the way, around, and I want you to make sure since we’re talking about it that you notice that on the window on the back, again on the pulpit side where it has the apostles and there’s James and Andrew and Peter, that Peter is there, but he’s not the keys, he’s the rooster. And I don’t wonder if that’s what Peter would rather be known by, the rooster. Because remember, the rooster crowed twice when Peter denied Jesus three times.
In other words, Peter doesn’t wanna be known by his ability or by his strength or by his wisdom, but by his confession and by the forgiveness of his sins. That’s how we should all wanna be known.
Don’t put on the windows the gifts that God gives. Put on the windows the symbols of His grace for us and His kindness for us and His love for us. But it is true in Matthew chapter 16 that the Lord does a marvelous and miraculous thing with Peter. It’s a very unique text.
Jesus has taken His disciples up north to Caesarea Philippi. It’s a real pagan place. It’s north, you know, around the Sea of Galilee there were a lot of Jewish settlements, but then if you go up north, there’s very few Jewish people. It’s almost all Roman citizens. And the name of the place is Caesar Philip, and it’s a Roman colony that’s up there. It has all of these pagan temples. In fact, they had a grotto to Pan and a temple to Augustus Caesar that was built into this cliff. And out of the cliff, this river flowed. It became part of the headwaters of the Jordan River.
And from this cave where the river flowed out, they had named it casually the Gate of Hades, the gate of hell. And so that’s in the background when Jesus says the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. But Jesus is up in this area, but he’s not even in the city. He’s kind of out in the wilderness, and he’s there with his disciples. No one’s around, and it’s pretty rare that it’s just Jesus and the disciples. And he asks them this question, which seems at first kind of strange.
Who do people say that I am? Now, it’s strange because it’s not like Jesus is trying to figure out who he is. In fact, it’s not even as if Jesus is trying to figure out who people think he is. He knows that. He knows the heart of man. I think he’s pushing on the disciples. He wants to get the wisdom of the disciples to see where they are, what they’re thinking about.
So he first asks them, who do people say that I am? And they give this report. It’s kind of like I mean we’re in the political season now, and it’s kind of like one of these polls to see how what people think of you, an opinion poll. They say, well, some people think that you’re the prophet that was promised by Moses, Deuteronomy 19. Some people think you’re Elijah who was to come. Some people think that you’re John the Baptist back from the dead or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. In other words, the people think that you’re something unique. There’s something different. They’re still not quite sure, they still have you pinned as one of the prophets.
So then Jesus looks at the disciples and he says, well, who then do you think that I am? Now there’s just a pause there for just a moment to recognize that that question is for each one of us the most important question. Who do you say Jesus is? It’s the reason we confess the creed. It’s the reason we have confirmation class. It’s the reason we learn the scriptures so that we know who Jesus is. That he is the Lord, that he is the Savior, that he is the forgiver of sins. That’s to come. Who do you say that I am?
And Peter now answers for all of the apostles, disciples, and he says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. As far as I can tell, that is the first time that Jesus is identified as the Christ by a human being. The demons have been calling Jesus Christ all along. Oh Christ, what do you have to do with us? But this is the first time that Jesus is recognized and confessed as Christ by a living, breathing human being.
And Jesus is overwhelmed by this answer. He looks at Peter and he’s gushing. Now, this is gonna change in a few minutes. We don’t have the text this week; that’ll be next week. When Jesus explains to them who the Christ is and Peter thinks that Jesus has got some bad doctrine and he tries to correct him, which doesn’t end up well for Peter. But here, here, Peter has confessed rightly.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and so Jesus blesses him. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Why? Flesh and blood haven’t revealed this to you. You didn’t come up with this on your own. You didn’t figure this out by your own wisdom. This doesn’t come from humanity or from human, and we know that we cannot, by our own reason or strength, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, so that this confession is the gift of God the Father, and he’s placed it in the mouth of Peter and in every single Christian who confesses Christ.
And this is the rock upon which the Lord Jesus will build his church. He says it. On this, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Now there’s a big misunderstanding in the history of the church that Peter is the rock. There’s a play on words in the Greek. We can’t see it in the English. The word petra means rock. So it reads like this: you are Petras, and on this Petra, I will build my church.
And so people are confused about what is the rock? Is it Peter? Of course, it can’t be Peter. I mean, we’ll see that in five minutes when Jesus rebukes him, but it is rather the confession of Peter that Jesus builds his church, and then he goes on to describe his church.
Now here’s an amazing thing. We thought, at least as we are listening to the text, we thought that Jesus was particularly interested in teaching about himself. That’s how he started, after all, right? He says, who do men say that I am? But it turns out that Jesus is much less interested in teaching about himself than about his kingdom. As soon as Peter says, you are the Christ, then Jesus says, right, let’s talk about the kingdom of the Christ. Not let’s talk about the Christ, but let’s talk about the kingdom.
I will build my church. In other words, my kingdom is a church. It’s the first time that word is used in the New Testament, in the Scriptures, at least in the Greek Scriptures, that word ekklesia, and it’s Jesus’ group of people called out from the world, and he says, I’m going to build it, and I’m going to build it so strong in such profound ways, with such strength that even the gates of hell will not prevail, that this kingdom will continue to come among us and continue to grow and will continue to flourish.
And then he says, how? And he gives us the gift of the keys. 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. We, dear saints, need to know what these keys are.
Could you turn in your hymnals to page 326? That’s where we find the text of the small catechism. And we’ll let Luther teach us a little bit today about the keys and the office of the keys. And we’ll rejoice in this. I’ve been trying to figure out how—I’ve been, for a long time—and most especially this week, I’ve been trying, there’s a thing that I want to say and I just don’t know how to say it about the keys. Someone can help me.
I’ll just say it, and then after church you can tell me a better way to say it. You know, normally if someone gives you a key, it’s pointing to something else. Like, could you just imagine that this Christmas that you’re opening a little box and you get in that box a key and you say, oh wow, I love it. And you put it in your pocket and you hold it, and you look at it and it’s so beautiful and there’s the little ridges on it and it’s so shiny and you love, no, the reason why getting a key is so nice is because it belongs to the car in the driveway.
Right? Or could you imagine going to, like you go to a closing at the house and you sign away all these thousands and thousands of dollars, and then they give you just this little key and you walk away with a key? Well, no, the key doesn’t have any value at all. The key is just the key to the front door of your new house. In other words, the key is pointing to something more, something bigger. It’s a way to have access to something that’s greater than that. That’s what we think of; that’s what a key does.
But that’s not the case with the key that Jesus gives. And this, I don’t know how to say it, except that the treasure is the key. The kingdom is the key. The gift is the key. It doesn’t go to anything greater. It is the greatest thing of all. Listen to how we confess it.
I’m on page 326 in your hymnal, left column, two-thirds towards the bottom. I’ll ask the questions, and is it okay if we all read it together and answer together? What is the office of the keys? The office of the keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.
Where is this written? This is what Saint John the Evangelist writes in chapter 20. The Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. What do you believe according to these words? I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by his divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain even in heaven as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us himself.
This is the gift that our Lord Jesus Christ gives to Peter and to the apostles in chapter 18 and to the whole church in John chapter 20. It is the unique power to retain and to remit sins. Now, we love this power most especially for the remitting of sins part, and that’s why Jesus gives it, and so more about that in a little bit, but we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about this retaining of sins. If you had a key that only unlocked the door but never locked it, it wouldn’t work. And the ability to lock is what shows that it also can unlock.
So the Lord Jesus gives to the church the ability not only to set sins free, to loose people from sins, which is why that is given to the church, but also to retain people in their sins. Now that unique retaining office is what we sometimes call excommunication, where people are removed from the fellowship of the Lord’s altar. They’re not kicked off the property or removed from the church or taken off the prayer list or anything else like that, but that’s where the church says, according to the authority of God’s word, that you’ve grabbed a hold of your sin and you’re unwilling to let go of it, and so by your lack of repentance you’re clinging to your sin instead of to Christ.
Now I want to be very clear on this because did you know what sometimes happens is we think that excommunication is a matter of the severity of our sins? Like if I commit some really, really bad sin, then I get excommunicated. But as long as I’m committing the smaller sins or the little sins, then I’ll be safe. No, it is not the size of your sin that matters. It’s not the characteristic of your sin that matters. Did you notice how we said it in the catechism? Those who repent of their sins are absolved. Those who do not repent are not resolved. The question is not of the sin but of repentance.
Now this is doubly important because we are tempted to think that the worst temptation is when the devil tempts us before sin. Remember when he’s tempting us to sin. But really the worst part of dealing with sin, the most difficult temptation, comes after our sin. It comes to us like this, what do you think of your sin? Do you love it or do you hate it? Are you calling it into the house or are you shooing it away?
Are you sorry for your sin or are you embracing your sin? The devil wants us to embrace our sin, to boast of our sin, or to keep it secret but to feed it where we, in the shadows. That’s what the devil wants us to do, and that’s unrepentance, and that’s dangerous. That’s where we’re excluded from the Lord’s gifts. But the Holy Spirit calls us to repent, and it does not matter. The severity of your sin does not matter. Jesus is such a good Savior that he can forgive every single sin. You cannot out-sin His grace.
This is where people struggle, and they come to me and they say, Pastor, I just don’t think that God can forgive me for this, for this thing that I’ve done. It’s just too bad. And you know, my response to that, I told the early service, I don’t think this is what they want, they teach you to say at the seminary. My response to that is something like this. Well, that’s amazing that you’ve managed to commit such a good sin that Jesus is not strong enough to forgive it.
It’s amazing that you’ve managed to accomplish breaking a law so great that Jesus’ death doesn’t atone for it. I think you must be greater than God himself to commit such a profound sin. Maybe we shouldn’t be so proud of our sins. Maybe we should know that Jesus is a better Savior than we are a sinner, and this is the point. That when we repent of our sins, when we know that we have broken God’s law, He is there, ready to forgive.
And this is the key unlocking the door. This is the gospel being brought to us. This is the reason why Jesus institutes this office and gives it to the church so that we could know that in spite of our sins, in spite of our breaking of God’s law, in spite of our failures, in spite of our wanton indifference to his word and his kindness and his love, in spite of all the things that we’ve done wrong and all the things done wrong around us and all the things done wrong to us and all the wrong things happening inside of us— in spite of all of this sin everywhere, Jesus comes into the midst of it with his key, with his mercy, with his blood and his kindness and His cross, and He says your sins are forgiven just as if Jesus Himself said it.
The absolution is spoken, and it is the breath of heaven, and it’s the declaration that the Lord Jesus will make on the last day when He comes to judge to quicken the dead, and we’re standing before Him, it will be the same declaration: your sins are forgiven, all of them. Even the one that you wake up in the middle of the night worrying about. Even the one that comes to your imagination when you kneel down to confess your sins. Even that one that you didn’t even know about. Even that one. They are all forgiven, and Jesus wants you to know it.
And that, that promise, that declaration of righteousness is why he established the church. It’s why he, as soon as Peter confesses him to be the Christ, gives this gift. His kingdom does not have armies and generals and firepower and borders and constitutions and budgets and all this sort of stuff. His kingdom has one thing—a key. The key that shuts hell and opens heaven, the key that shuts the grave and opens eternal life, the key that frees you from the bondage to sin and gives you a good conscience to stand before the Lord on the day of judgment.
And he’s put that key in the water of holy baptism and he’s put that key in his body in blood at the altar and he’s put that key in the mouth of the preacher and the one standing in front of you absolving you, and this will withstand; in fact, this key is so strong that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Listen: whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. You are set free.
Free from worrying about the judgment day. Free from worrying about the face of God when you finally see it when you die. Free from worrying about God’s wrath or judgment. Free from your guilt and your shame and a bad conscience. Free to live and to die, all in Jesus’ name. You are set free by this key, which is the kingdom.
And if you missed it, I’ll give it to you one more time. In the stead, and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. God be praised. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.