We are wrapping up our current series on the church. For several weeks now, we have been talking about what it means to be a local church, members of the body of Christ and members of one another - a deep, meaningful, covenantal commitment to one another. In other words, what church membership - members of the body - looks like. We have gone through our church covenant statement line by line. 

And as we close this series, I really want for this not to be merely a series of messages that may encourage or challenge you for a week or two, but a clarion call to us as a church to give ourselves to the purposes of the Lord Jesus Christ in being committed, faithful members of one another. 

It’s fitting to end with what are probably the most important words in all the bible about the church. We have talked quite a lot about what we will do, what we as a church commit to. Here, we see what the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ will do, what he is committed to. This is so important. What we see is that the Jesus is present doing this work in every expression of the body of Christ in a faithful local congregation:

On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

[transition] In his own words, Christ identifies the 1) Builder of the church, 2) the Identity of the church, 3) the Foundation of the church and 4) the Invincibility of the church. And as we see these things, 

The Builder of the Church

I will build my church...

The Builder of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And notice the absolute commitment of Christ to build his church. He does not say, “I will try to build my church” or “I will do my best to build my church”, or “if you all cooperate with me, I will build my church.” He says, “I will build my church.“

Christ is speaking in the first Person singular. At that time he spoke these words, he said, “I will build my church…” and has been ever since. He has been and is building his church. Christ is building in that he is adding more and more disciples to the be among his people, those added to the church. In John 10:16, Jesus said,

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will (notice - “they will) listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one Shepherd.

Christ is building his church by bringing in sheep. If you are saved it is because you were once a lost sheep, and the good shepherd went looking for you and found you and brought you into his fold. But Christ is also building his church in that he is bringing us to maturity - he is building up the church. Listen to how Peter puts this in 1 Peter 2:4-5:

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. 

We are being built up as a spiritual house to offer spiritual sacrifices to God… through Christ (by means of Christ). As a part of the body of Christ, as a member of the body, it’s important for us to understand that we are called to build up the church. That is important - each part! BUT we are to build in cooperation with Christ, under the headship of Christ, with the strength of Christ, and for the glory of Christ. 

One of the great blessings of reading church history is to see how Christ has been faithfully building his church. I have mentioned before the story of a young woman named Blandina in the 2nd century, who remained faithful to Christ through terrible suffering and eventual martyrdom, and in so doing brought great encouragement to the saints in Lyon to remain faithful even in the face of death. Through her, Christ was building his church. 

There are the writings of faithful leaders in the early church like Irenaeus who wrote a book called “Against Heresies” who fought against serious threats to the church from false teachers. This brought the needed theological arguments against damning false teaching at the time. Through him, Christ was building his church. Right on the heels of the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press, there was a push for the bible to be translated into common languages from Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, into languages like German and English. Through those efforts, Christ was building his church. The period coming out of the dark ages in which the Reformation truths were recovered. In and through faithful men and women, Christ was building his church. 

And all the way down to the present, as each part of the body of Christ (that’s you) does what it was functioned to do in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ continues to build his church. Think about that. As we work to build up the body, Christ is building up the body. That’s the glorious mystery of the work of ministry. The work of the great commission to make disciples is working with Christ - what did Jesus say? As the Father sent me, even so I send you… (John 20:21). And he has given us the Spirit to do the work, so that it is not mainly about us mustering up our strength, but doing his work, in his way, with his strength. And so we see Christ is committed to building his church. And he continues his building project through workers, in local churches, laboring to build up the body. I love the exhortation at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:58: 

Therefore be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58). 

Now if we labor in the Lord it’s not in vain because 1) it’s for him and not ourselves, and 2) because if we are laboring in the Lord, we are laboring with all his strength that he works within us (Colossians 1:29). Christ is the Builder of the church. And just as we can count on him to complete the good work he has started in our individual lives. We can count on him to complete the good work he has begun in the church (and this church). 

The Identity of the Church

I will build my church

The identity of the church (universal) and each local church is fundamentally that we are His church. Christ says of the church, “My church”. It is common to talk about what a church might be like by emphasizing distinctions - the kind of worship, an understanding of the gifts of the Spirit, and so forth. But the emphasis here that Christ is making is that we are his. He said I will build my church. Jesus calls the church, “my church”. Real Life Church is his church. First, we need to think about what the word church means. It’s the Greek word “ekklesia” which can be translated as congregation or assembly or church. The meaning of the word is those called out and gathered together. When we talk about the Christian church of course, we understand that we are called out of the world and gathered together in order to worship our Lord. This idea of the called out assembly can be traced back to the OT, when God called his people out of Egypt into the wilderness in order to worship him.  

I praise God for technology and the ability to reach people online and serve people online, but the idea of digital church or people saying, “my church is an online community” is just an oxymoron when you understand what church means. So when Jesus says, “I will build my church” he is saying, “I am building a people who are called out of the world and called to gather with one another, to Me in order to worship God.” That is who we are. Let’s think about what it means that we are his church. 

Possession. Jesus Christ purchased the church, to be his own cherished possession. We are his. Acts 20:28 says that Christ “obtained the church with his own blood.” 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “you were ransomed… not with perishable things such as gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” We are his because he purchased us at the cost of his own precious, imperishable blood. 

Authority. But there is more. We are his church because Jesus Christ is head of the church. He is in charge. Ephesians 1:21-21 says, “[God the Father] raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church.”

Union. We have been joined to Christ. Jesus Christ is the husband of the church and his bride, we are his. We belong to Him. Paul exhorts husbands to “love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25)

The church’s identity is found in Christ because of his possession of us, his authority over us, his union with us and finally because of his ultimate purpose for us, which is to bring glory and honor to God - “to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Let us never emphasize any other distinctiveness above the identity that we have in Christ. We are the Christ of Christ purchased by the blood of Christ under the headship of Christ, united to Christ, for the glory of Christ.

The Foundation of the Church

Let’s read all of verses 15-18 because this really is the main point of the text (READ). 

Jesus said that he was going to build his church on a certain rock. What was the rock, the foundation? This has been a hotly contested issue for several hundred years, between Roman Catholics and Protestants. The Roman Catholic church has said that the rock referred to here is Peter. The name Peter in Greek “Petros” means rock. And so they have built the doctrine of the pope and the whole apostolic succession teaching on this interpretation. 

But I don’t think that’s what it means. First of all, Jesus uses a similar but different word when he says, “on this rock I will build my church.” It’s the word “Petra”. Whereas the name Peter (“Petros”) means rock or stone, the word Petra means rock bed or rocky ground or cliff. So it is as if Jesus is saying, “You are Peter (little rock) and on this rock (rock bed or cliff) I will build my church. Also notice what Jesus praises Peter for: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Peter is blessed because of the revelation he received about who Christ was. And I think this gives us the important hint as to the foundation of the church. The foundation is Christ and the divine revelation about Him. And I think that second part is important to add - “and the divine revelation about Christ”. 

A few years ago a very popular Christian teacher made a splash (not a good one) when he did a teaching series in which one of the underlying premises was that the Christian faith is not built on a book, but on an event. We shouldn’t say, “I believe thus and so because the bible says so, but because Jesus rose from the dead.” Of course it is true that without the resurrection there is no Christian faith, of course! But here is where the argument breaks down. How do we know about the resurrection - that it happened, what it means, and the life-changing effects of it? Through a book, right? How do we know Christ, know about him and grow in him? Largely through what we learn in the book!

And so it is Christ and the revelation that Peter confessed of Christ that is the foundation of the church. This is why truth, the divine truth of scripture has always been central in the life of the church AND why it has been the object of attack by enemies of the church, foreign and domestic (from without and within). 

I think this is why Paul says in Ephesians 2, the church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” The first apostles laid the foundation. A foundation is laid once and we are called to build on that foundation. The early church continually devoted themselves to the “apostle’s doctrine”. And then as the church continued to be built by Christ through Christians down to this very day, it’s built on the foundation once laid. 

And we should be careful to build on this foundation. Jesus is not looking for us to invent something new out of whole cloth, but to continue to faithfully build on the once laid foundation. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

The foundation is Christ and divine truth about him. Let’s build on that foundation well!

The Invincibility of the Church

Because Christ is the Builder of the church, and the identity of the church is the Founder of the church, and Christ (and the apostolic confession of him) is the Rock and Foundation of the Church, the church is invincible. 

The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I have heard people explain or indicate that this means the devil and all the powers of evil will not overcome the church. That of course is true, but not what Jesus is talking about. There are a couple of clues that we need to understand. First, Jesus says that something will not “prevail” or “overcome” (NASB) the church. The word means to be superior in strength or overpowering in might. So something is a threat to overcome the church. Gates. What are gates for? I think in this context Christ is using gates as a tool to keep people in, to keep people bound. The wall separating east and west Germany, right through the middle of Berlin was to keep people from getting out of the east. Here, Jesus is speaking of the gates of hell - the Greek word is hades (NASB, NKJV). The word hades means death, the grave. 

So Christ himself will continue to build his church and death itself cannot keep the church bound. There is not a single gate that will keep the church locked up, not even death. Why? Because the One who spoke these words has conquered death. Our Lord Jesus himself said these most epic words in Revelation 1:17-18:

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

Christ died and was buried. He descended to the realm of the dead. But behold, he is alive forevermore! He has conquered the grave! And in Him we have conquered death! Jesus said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). This is the promise of resurrection. The church will continue to go from triumph to triumph, though it often looks like defeat. In observing church history, there are many times it appears that the church is being defeated, locked up, bound in by gates of persecution, false teaching and death. But Christ continues to build. Roman persecution or more recent persecution (China) where the attempt is to literally snuff out the church. Did it work? Of course not! In fact, as more and more martyrs spilled their blood, it became the seed for the gospel to spread and flourish even more. Death, the last enemy will not overcome the church. 

Which is why as individuals, as members of Christ and one another we ought to be able to say like missionary Henry Martyn, “You cannot harm me, you can only kill me.” Isn’t that essentially what Jesus said? “Don’t fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) Henry Martyn said elsewhere, “I am immortal until God’s work for me to do is done. The Lord reigns.” The true church, whose Builder and Founder is Christ and whose foundation is laid on the truth of Christ is invincible. Amen!

As we close this series out, how should we then live? One word: Faithfulness. “Many a man proclaims his steadfast love but a faithful man who can find” (Proverbs 20:6). 

Faithfulness to Christ. And faithfulness to Christ means being faithful to his church and faithful to his truth all the way to the end of your life.