The Foundation of the Church

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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The Foundation of the Church

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 17 November 2013

What is a biblical church? Not every place that says it’s a church is a church. So let's learn from what Jesus says. In Matthew 16, you have the word "church" used for the first time. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ who begins by saying in Matthew 16:18, “I will build My church.” It is His Church, not ours, He will build it and He also gives us the necessary components for a church to be a church.

You have all kinds of churches today, even places that are called atheist churches. If you say that is a Buddhist Temple, that's clear. If you say that is a Jewish Synagogue, that's clear. But if you say that is a church but you are not, then that is serious deception. The Lord Jesus lays out the foundation, the defining characteristics and marks of the church.

And Jesus gives us that in Matthew 16:13-28. All the New Testament epistles that write about the church are basing what they write on this specific text. Here the Lord of the Church establishes the foundation of the church. I am going to give you seven of them. Number one: The church is a gathering of people who make a great confession.

In verse 15, Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” People say many things, but what do you say? “And Simon Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'" That is the great confession. Jesus said, "I will build My church on that confession." The first absolute in a church is a biblical understanding of Jesus Christ.

Anything else results in a false church. It must be another belief and therefore it is anathema, it's accursed. 2 John 1:9-11 says, “He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”

The church is not a group of people who gather together to hear a motivational speech or are seeking help for their addictions. The church is not a collection of people who want to feel spiritual. It is an assembly of people who from the heart have made that great confession that there is a living God who has manifested Himself in His Son, who can give us eternal life. We are those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and confess Him as our Lord.

Look to 1 Timothy 3:15-16, “that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.” The true church is an assembly of those who agree to that there is the mystery of godliness, and the mystery is that God became a man.

But there is more. The church is not only built on a great confession, but a great communication. Remember verse 17, “Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” There is only one way that we can know the truth of the great confession and that is by divine revelation.

It is the Word by which we are saved. And we are also sanctified by the Word, John 17:17, says, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John Calvin said, "If a church does not have sound doctrine and exposition of Scripture, it's not a church." And he added more things, church discipline and baptism and the Lord's Table. If any of those are missing, that's not a church.

Now let us go to verse 18, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” This is a simple verse, but it has caused all kinds of confusion. This is Peter, he is just a man. In fact, down in verse 23 Jesus says to him, "Get behind Me, Satan." So we don't want to hold him up too much.

This is not his inauguration into the Papacy. Jesus says to Peter, you wouldn't do anything or know anything if My Father in heaven had not revealed it to you. You are Peter and upon this rock I will build My church. Well, petros or Peter means a pebble, a small rock, but upon this rock, petra, this rock bed, I will build My church. Jesus says, you're just a pebble and I am going to build My church on a rock bed.

In other words, “Peter, you are one rock, and I'm going to build My church on the confession you made. But there are many other confessions and I'm going to build My church on all of that too.” Scripture indicates that this confession is also made by the rest of the Apostles. Ephesians 2:20 says, that the church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and the prophets, and they all made that confession.

The church is not built on the supremacy of Peter. It is built on the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, the holy one, the Lord. And if Peter makes that confession and the Apostles make that and you and I make that, Jesus will build His church. God revealed it all and they just wrote it down. They wrote the New Testament based on their own confessions.

The church then is built on the great revelation of God which is contained in Scripture. And a church built on that, the gates of Hades cannot overpower. Gates of Hades is just a euphemism for death, even death cannot destroy this. In fact history verifies this, the more you kill the people of the church, the more the church grows.

Verse 19 adds, “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ‘Binding and loosing’ are terms that explain repentance. You are bound in your sin if you don't repent, and you are loosed from your sin if you do repent.

And Jesus says, look, by preaching the gospel you loosen the cords of the curse by which we are bound and make forgiveness of sin possible and that heaven agrees to. But when you reject the gospel, you bring down on yourself a heavy judgment and the authority to bind is also given to the preachers so that their mockery of the preachers does not remain unpunished.

We must not be tempted by the worldly things that appeal to people, especially the self-righteousness and hypocrisy that so dominates our secular culture. Jesus here teaches us that by those means we will never bring about the saving faith first professed by Simon Peter. As we teach and proclaim God's Word, the Father in heaven reveals the truth in the minds and hearts of the people and brings them to true and saving faith.”

There is not only a great confession and a great communication at the foundation of the church, but there is a great contrast. Verse 20, “Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.” Wow, that seems exactly the opposite of what you would expect.

Why did He say that? Their view was that Jesus was going to come and provide military power and overwhelm the hated and despised Roman occupiers. Their view of the Messiah was that He was going to give all of the promises to David and Abraham in the Covenant to the Jews and fulfill everything, give them their land in prosperity and blessing and dispel all Gentile influence.

They were looking for an earthly king and Jesus didn't want anything to do with that. He warned the disciples they should tell no one that He was the Christ because they had still the wrong view of the Messiah. They did not understand yet what Jesus was going to do. This is the great contrast.

Turn to John 18 for a moment. It's the conversation between Jesus and Pilate. The Jewish leaders had brought Jesus to Pilate. They wanted him to execute Jesus. In verse 29 he said, "What accusation do you bring against this man?” What did He do? And Pilate then brings Him in, in verse 33 and asks, “Are You the King of the Jews?" Now pay attention to the answer.

John 18:36-37, “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here. 37 Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

It is irrelevant to the Kingdom of salvation what the earthly governments do or what they don't do. The church has no direct role in providing a more acceptable life style for sinners. We aren't called to create a Christian culture or a Christian nation. We are called to influence the world and all that are around us with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Well there's a fourth foundation, let's call it a great conquest. Look how much is here and how cohesive and critical it all is. Verse 21, "From that time on, Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day."

A true church is centered on a great conquest, Christ on the cross. He cannot be our Lord and Savior without a cross. That's why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:2, "I preach Christ and Him crucified." We know that. We celebrate the cross regularly by the Lord's Table as we remember the cross, and realize that there our sins were paid for.

We see the cross throughout all of Scripture, a cross that casts its shadow backwards over the Old Testament, forward over the New Testament. We can't understand Christianity without the cross because there the justice of God is satisfied. He was made to be sin for us that we might become righteous in Him. The cross represents the righteousness of God, the justice of God but also the love, grace and mercy of God.

Number five in the list of a true church is a great conflict. A true church is actively engaged in a war against Satan. Verse 22-23, “Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Peter just wanted to do was offer a plan B, a better way. And he winds up being identified as if he's the devil himself and Jesus said, "You are in My way, Peter, get out of the way.” When you side against the revelation of God, you are a stumbling block to the divine purpose and you have taken up Satan's agenda because that's what he does. You're not focused on the divine will but on your own.

We live in the midst of an unending conflict. We fight against every false interpretation of the revelation of God. When we know of people in the congregation who live in opposition to the revelation of God, we have to act against that. If you find somebody whose life style is full of sin, Jesus told us what to do in Matthew 18. Whether it is a doctrinal error, a rejection of the theology of Scripture or against the divine purposes for holiness in the church, it has to be dealt with.

A true church also is a great contradiction. Verses 24 to 26, "Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me, 25 for whoever wishes to save his life shall loses it, whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. 26 What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul?'"

Some people think that the church was designed to make people feel good, boost their self-esteem, feel like they are connected with God and that God is their sugar daddy, just whatever you want, whatever your felt need is, I'm here to fulfill your needs, I want to make something out of you, I want you to be all you can be, I want you to think positively, I want you to be able to create your own world and whatever it is in your mind, I can fulfill.

That's not the church. That has nothing to do with the church. The church is defined by the great contradiction, everybody who is there has to give themselves up. It is all about self- denial. It is all about giving up your life, taking up a cross meant you would be willing to die for the gospel.

You're there because you want to obey Christ. You're there not to save your life but to lose it. You're there not to hang on but to give it all up. Jesus said you can't come into My Kingdom if you don't hate yourself and hate your father and mother and hate your earthly possessions. Lord, I refuse the person I am, there's nothing good in me at all, I am like Paul the chief of sinners. Forgive me.

What marks a true church? Humility, selflessness, a broken and contrite heart and meekness, gentleness and submission. Christ-exalting, Scripture committed, separated from the world, centered on the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, engaged in a conflict with sin all the time both in doctrine and in life, and self-denying, self-sacrificing and humbly obedient.

When you are in a true church, you have a gathering of people who look forward to a great consummation. Verse 27, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then recompense every man according to his deeds." A true church is all caught up in the glory of the future and not caught up in the present. In fact, the things that we endure in this time in this place are just minor details.

Romans 8:18 says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” James 1:2-4 says, “count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

You know what makes heaven so good? Because we anticipate purification. We look forward to the time when we no longer have sin, we no longer have the battle with the flesh. We look forward to the time when we see Jesus face to face.

This is a fallen world and we are fallen people, forgiven but fallen. We serve, giving the Lord in our service gold, silver, precious stones that they may stand the test at the end and we may be rewarded with the privilege of greater service to the Lord in days to come. Let us pray.



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