Matthew sixteen. I'll begin reading in verse sixteen, Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter. And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. You know, not everything that bears the name of church is in fact a church. Have you noticed that there's all kinds of churches out there that whatever the bare requirements are, the minimum requirements to be a church. There's all kinds of groups that call themselves churches that fail to meet those requirements. I mean, the name church is co-opted by everything from the Roman Catholic Church to the Mormons who call their church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. There are multi-site churches where the pastor is, you know, just a time zone away. There are multi-location churches where there's no elders at one place. There are internet churches. I don't know what the word church means, but it cannot possibly encompass an internet church. I've even been to, and I kid you not, a cowboy church. I heard this week of a surfer church that meets down in North Carolina. Why not? If I lived in North Carolina, it's so beautiful there. I would I would join a surfer church. I don't even know how to surf. I get seasick surfing, but I would be part of the surfer church for sure. I even saw recently online a church for people who don't like church. That's what the tagline said. A church for those who don't like church. And I thought, and also for those who don't like logic, apparently. Easily the most common email I get is from people who are from Immanuel Bible Church that have rotated out, gone somewhere else, like a different state, a different country, saying, can you help me find a good church in wherever? Easily the most common email I get. And then it's often I'll give some church recommendations, uh, and, you know, often and I always end the email with, please let me know how it goes. So I start to refine my list over years. And I'm telling you, thirteen years into this, there are still major places the government sends people. Major cities that I do not know a good church in, because they'll email me back and they'll say, I tried all the churches. You said no luck. You know, And try a few more churches, and then they're like, well, we rotate out again next year. And so let's hope that the next place goes better. A very common exchange. And if you hear that exchange and your first thought is, are you really telling me there are no good churches in Pittsburgh or wherever? It's like, certainly you can get online and find some churches in Pittsburgh, right? You can find some there. Certainly you can. But you know what the person means by that. It's not even that they're being too picky. You know what they mean by that? They went to the place and there were, you know, female elders, and the preaching was weak sauce. And it was just it was like more of a community event than a church service. That is by far and away the most common experience people have when they go church shopping. And it's a wonderful book. Why Johnny Can't Preach. David Gordon is a professor up at Grove City, points out that he would define a good sermon as something that comes from the Bible and is relatively true, and that on the way home, when your wife asks you what was the sermon about, you have about a one sentence answer, and what you say is also kind of from the passages the preacher preached on. That's about as low of a bar as you can get. And he says, by that definition, most churches don't have preaching. It is sobering. This is not a modern day phenomenon. This is this is the issue of the Protestant Reformation. As we look back at the Protestant Reformation, we often frame the Reformation around the terms of what is the gospel, because that's, of course, what the fight that Luther had was over the nature of saving faith. Does it come through sacrament and works, or does it come on the basis of the completed work of Christ and is received through faith by grace? That was the that was the nature of the divide, but that was not in the contemporary world of of the fifteen hundreds. That was not where the fight reared its head. The fight reared its head over what is a church then? Because the watching world saw the reformers start to lead people out of the Catholic Church, and they were leading them. Where was the question? This is a world where, for most Europeans, they viewed the Catholic Church as the only church. And so you start to see a movement of people leaving it. Where are they going? It's not like there's another church across the street you can try out next Sunday. There is no other church. And that's why almost every work, every theology of one of the reformers, always has a section in it about what is a true church, because their response to that was that actually the Bible describes what a church is. The passage that they often turn to was Matthew sixteen, the passage we're looking at this morning, Matthew sixteen walks you through the Jesus saying, I'm going to build my church. It's elaborated on in Matthew eighteen. It's expanded in Matthew twenty eight with the express teaching of baptism. It's then lived out in the book of acts, and the nuts and bolts are described in the epistles, but the origin of it is here in Matthew sixteen. This is, as I've mentioned in the last several months. I think I say this every Sunday. This is the first place the word church is used in the Bible. It's the first time the church has taught about now. Jesus gave teaching about the church, but not by name. Back in the in the parables in Matthew thirteen, he veiled his teaching so the disciples would recall it later. He didn't say this is about the church, but he described the kingdom of God going out of Israel, around the world. He was speaking forward of the church age. They didn't have the vocab yet though, but in Matthew sixteen he gives them the vocabulary. He doesn't say, I'm going to build a new synagogue for people who don't like synagogues. He says, I'm going to build a church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Now we looked at some of this last week. Last week we've zeroed in on the first mark of a true church. And I'm going to give you the outline this week for foundational marks of the true church. For foundational marks of a true church. And the first one we did cover last week. Last week's sermon was just focused on this one, the true confession Jesus as Lord. This gets launched. The church gets launched into the world. It's not going to happen historically until acts two, but the teaching of it happens here in Matthew sixteen, where Jesus kind of gets the catapult ready. Here he he loads it up. He says, this is coming. You'll see it coming in acts chapter two. But now he's he's loading it up. He's putting the ammo in the gun, so to speak, and he tells them, I'm going to build my church. Future tense. I will build it. What's he building it on? Well, he's building it. On Peter's confession that we just read in verse sixteen, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. He's building it on the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. Do you remember from last week that word Christ is the word for Messiah. It means sent from heaven. Last we looked at how it was the three offices of Christ, these prophet, priest and king, that he is the prophet prefigured in the Old Testament that will come, bringing the good news of God, the gospel to the world. He is the high priest prophesied in the Old Testament who will cleanse the nations from their sin. And he is the King of heaven, who will reign on the throne of David over the nations. He is prophet, priest, and king. That is what is wrapped up in the word Messiah. We say it in English just this way that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's the confession. The world has all kinds of ideas who Jesus is. Oh, he's a good teacher, like Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He's a miracle worker like Elijah. That's what they were saying to Jesus in the verse before this. Who do people say that I am? Some people think you're a teacher. Some people think you're a miracle worker. Obviously some people think he's a demon. But who do you say I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. So we talked about that confession last week. That's the confession upon which the church is built. But I saved perhaps the most obvious observation from that confession for this week's sermon. The most obvious observation from that declaration is that the church belongs to Jesus. It is his church. He will build his church on the confession that he is the Lord of his church. A place that does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord is not a true church. He is the only head of the church. The Pope is not the head of the church. The King of England is not the head of the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. This is his body. It belongs to him. It does not belong to us. And so we build the church in his way with the tools that he gave us. We are the subcontractors. That would be the more modern way of saying it. The way Paul said it in the Roman world is that we're under rowers. Paul didn't even make himself like the chief rower. The captain rower Paul made himself the rower and he's the galley slave beneath deck. That's how Paul described himself. Jesus is the Lord. Paul didn't even like referring to himself as a shepherd. He referred to himself as an undershepherd. Peter refers to himself as an undershepherd of Christ, the Great Shepherd. The church is his. It's his body. We are his people. You know. We paid the mortgage off this building. Praise God, it's paid off. But the building belongs to Jesus. Pull the Fairfax County records. It may even say to the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't know. And so when people say, if you leave the Roman Catholic Church, where are you going? The response was, we're going to a true church, and a true church does not have a pope as its head. It doesn't have a human being as it as its head. It has the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ as its head. Not only that, but a true church is Trinitarian. You see this in Peter's answer you're the Christ, the son of the living God the father sends the son to accomplish redemption. The son accomplishes redemption. The father and the son together send the spirit who builds the church. You can even outline the whole Bible that way. The the Old Testament is the words of the father about the son. The gospel is the son manifest in human flesh, and the epistles are the spirit building the church. The spirit comes from the father and the son. And Jesus even hints at that here when Peter confesses, Jesus is the Christ, Jesus says, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, but my father who is in heaven. So how did the father reveal that to Peter? And of course, the answer is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that the spirit is the one building the church. The spirit saves people by causing them to be born again. They are born from above through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The spirit draws people to faith in Christ. It is the Spirit's church. Jesus is the head of the church, but the spirit is the one who builds it. And so the church is designed in that sense by the father, accomplished by the son, and built by the spirit, and it becomes arbitrary. All three are doing all the work all the time, of course, but this is a Trinitarian church, and so a group that denies the Trinity, of course, is not a true church. That's the most basic confession. The church is built on the Triune Confession of God. Secondly, the church is built on true preaching. Upon this rock, verse eighteen, I will build my church. The rock here, of course, is Peter. It's a pun off of Peter's name. How does Peter build the church in acts chapter two? Well, through preaching about the resurrected Lord Jesus, he takes the Old Testament. He preaches a sermon from it. He shows it how it was accomplished in Christ, fulfilled in Christ. And then he calls for a response. People repent from their sins, recognize Jesus Christ as the crucified and resurrected Lord. Place their faith in him as they turn from their sins. They were baptized into the church. That's how the church is built. And then the church immediately begins gathering all the time, daily devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. And as the book of Acts goes forward, you realize they settle into the pattern of meeting on the Lord's Day. They're bound together. Jesus is the cornerstone. The preaching of the apostles is the foundation. And then every person who comes to faith is a brick built into the body of Christ. What binds the church together, of course, is the preaching of the Word of God. It is Jesus's word. It's not the preacher who binds the church together. Preachers come and go. They're a dime a dozen, believe me. It's the Word of God that binds the church together, as expressed by the preacher. And so this is why, when you hear your friend who moved to the new city, he says, I can't find a good church. What he means by that is not that he can't find a church that has a service time that is helpful for his family. I hope that's not what he means by it. What he means by it is probably he's gone to church after church and can't find somebody who's actually preaching the Word of God. Luther called the church a mouth house. This is again the contrast with Catholicism, which was a church of sacrament. What will the the true church be if not a church of Sacrament? It will be a church of words, a mouth house where a preacher. And I'm sure the word mouth house sounds even better in German than it does in English. Where the church gathers together, it's the. The preaching becomes the point in which the church is gathered. The Word of God goes forward. You all have Bibles. You can read the Word of God on your own all week long, and I hope that you do. But then why gather on Sunday for the word preached, for it be proclaimed to you? For there to be insights from the Word of God given to you, the whole congregation hears at once, not even that you remember it. Somebody asks you on Wednesday what was the sermon on Sunday? I can barely answer that question on Wednesdays. So long ago. Wednesdays so long ago. But it's the effect the Word of God has on you while you're gathered together. Is is working on your heart. It binds people together. Churches begin to go off the rails when they minimize preaching or sideline preaching, or make it one of many activities. I read many years ago Martyn Lloyd-Jones biography, and it's just astonishing. I mean, he's a famous physician known throughout throughout England and gets called to the ministry and he goes to pastor in an impoverished area like a mining town. And kind of the closest American analogy you might have to this is somebody like Ben Carson or somebody like that, like a physician that is just known by Americans who, like, renounces the practice and goes to be a pastor. And he goes into this mining town and he immediately has conflict in the church because they can't find the pulpit. The pulpit keeps getting moved for their drama, for their evangelistic drama, they do at the evening services. So if you've read his biography, you know he fetches the pulpit and nails it to the platform. It's like, that's what we're going to do now. Nails the thing down. Church isn't built by drama. Of course. It's built by preaching. Praise God for that. Paul tells Timothy, Preach the word in season and out of season. That's two Timothy four. Verse two doesn't even matter what season he's talking about. You're either in it or you're out of it. It's always the the season for preaching. I remember a church in Los Angeles that decided to cancel services once a month for the congregation to stay home and do community projects with their neighbors. And I watched the the video announcement from the pastor explaining this. He encouraged the congregation to stay home and, you know, help help your neighbors build their fence instead of going to church and listening to another sermon. You don't need another sermon. Kind of logic. And I listened to that thinking, you know, if you're helping your neighbor build their fence, aren't you building your own fence? That's not church. That's not church. The true church gathers for the faithfulness of the word being preached. That's what binds people together. Third, true ordinances. Jesus says, I give you the keys in verse nineteen of the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. As I said, the nuts and bolts of the church will be spelled out later in acts and the epistles. A true church is going to have elders and deacons. They're going to be leading the church. There's human leadership of the church. The church does not belong to the elders. It belongs to the Lord. The elders express the leadership of the church on earth. A church without elders is hardly a church. It may be a five hundred one C three, but it is not a church. The Lord says, I'm going to build my church. I'm handing you over the keys. Peter, that doesn't mean that Peter is the the first Pope. And it definitely does, because the very next passage, Jesus is going to call him the devil. By the way, that's coming up. It means that there's going to be leadership in the church, and this gets fleshed out in the book of acts. Paul, in fact, tells Timothy and Titus, establish elders in all the churches you go to. They're expressing the leadership. Elders are fallible. Of course. They make mistakes. We have limited sight and limited knowledge, but we are expressing the leadership of the church. That leadership of the church is seen here with the image of keys. You know the building belongs to the Lord, but there is a front door and a back door. There are keys. This is an expression. It's often taught of the ordinances. Now, again, the ordinances aren't expressly described here. They're going to be more clearly taught in Matthew twenty eight, where Jesus says, go into all the world preaching the gospel. You see the contrast with verse twenty. He says, don't tell anyone, because now the church is being launched. But Matthew twenty eight. Now go into all the world. Now the church is being launched. Preach the gospel, make disciples, baptizing them that joins them with the body and then discipling them, teaching them to obey all I've commanded you. It begins with baptism. And you see that played out historically in acts chapter two. The church is launched with preaching, and the very first thing that happens is people say, what must we do to be saved? And Peter says, repent, every one of you. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are baptized for the remission of sins. Baptism then marks the entrance to the church. It's the front door. Eventually, through the book of acts that grows into churches with elders and and membership and lists of their members and all that. It starts in acts two. Really? Baptism. And then there's a number of those who are baptized that are joined to the church. This is what the early church gathered for the preaching of the word and the baptism of converts. And the baptism then gives gives way to communion those who are baptized in the church. Then the communion expresses their union, their unity as a church. And here's where it is probably helpful for me to park the car on the side of the road for a second and let you know this is talking about the visible church. It's helpful to have a distinction between the invisible church and the visible church, or the reformers, said the church as God sees it, and the church as we see it. But, you know, now, most theology books just refer to that as the invisible, invisible church. The invisible church is the church as God sees it. It's the elect who will be saved who've expressed their faith in Christ. They are members of the invisible church. There are people who are chosen by God for salvation who have yet to believe. So on earth we don't recognize them. We don't see them. We can't know the secret will of God. But God sees them. And then there are people on earth who are connected to a local church. That's the visible church. The local church. And there's people who are connected to a local church that are hypocrites and are liars and are are making false professions. The Lord sees that we don't. But the Lord does. What do we see? We see local congregations gathered together. That's the visible church. Communion represents the unity of the visible church. And I can prove this in a couple of ways. Well, first of all, I'm calling it the marks of a church. Marks are, by definition, visible. That's what a mark means. It's visible. These marks are the visible expression of the true church in this world. But I can show it to you another way. You know, we're going to take we're going to take communion right now, obviously, that express our unity as a church. It does not express our unity with every other true church in the world. They might do the same thing, but they're not taking communion at the same time. I remember a couple years ago, in fact, we still do this, the International Communion Sunday in October, where lots of churches try to take communion on the same Sunday. And a few years ago we had that Korean choir came on that Sunday, and so we moved it back a week. Well, nobody said that defeats the whole purpose. All the other churches are doing communion on October second, and we're doing it on the ninth. It's ruined now. No, it's it's the union and unity of the visible church gathered. Paul tells that to the Corinthians. Some of you are taking communion, and you're like, taking it like a feast. Don't leave it on the table in front of you and wait until the congregation gathers. He doesn't mean wait until every believer in the invisible church around the whole world is gathered, because that doesn't happen until heaven. It means wait until your body gathers. Baptism similarly reflects your entrance into the visible church. Spirit baptism represents your entrance into the invisible church, the spiritual church. Water baptism represents your entrance into the visible manifest church. Then communion represents our unity as a congregation around Christ. Those are the ordinances of the church. Baptism and communion are not for social gatherings. They're for the union of the church. They demarcate the whole body of the local church, who by baptism have been entered into the body, and through Lord's Supper proclaimed the unity of the body to which they belong. And so you can see the progression here, can't you? Jesus Christ is Lord. You gather for the preaching. You enter through baptism, and union is maintained through communion. This is the marks of the visible church. Again a contrast. In Catholicism you have those sacraments that are meritorious. The function of the church is sacramentalism to dispense grace through the sacraments. That's why the church in Catholicism gathers. In evangelicalism we say, no, those those ordinances are not for salvation. They proclaim salvation. They reveal salvation, but they are not for salvation. And you can think of that forward and backward, forward, forward is that you are saved by grace through faith, not through works, but backwards. Could be that those things are proclaiming the joining of the visible church, which should be made of regenerate saved people. So you can't say that these are for salvation, but they're only to be partaken of by those who are saved. That doesn't make any sense any more than you would say. A soldier gets a medal for bravery, and he has to get the medal in order to be brave. That confuses cause and effect. You come to faith in Christ. Baptism proclaims what already happened. You take communion to demonstrate your union with Christ. That's the nature of the keys. Fourth true membership. True membership. The keys are not just for letting people in, but also for locking people out. That's the nature of keys. They let you in and they lock you out. The unsaved are lost in their sins. And so it would be malpractice for the church leadership to tell somebody who's not saved. Oh, you're on your way to heaven. In the same way, it would be malpractice for church leadership to say somebody who's refusing to repent from their sins. But you can stay a member of the church, even in your unrepentant state. Jesus's point here is that the church belongs to him, but the keys are given to the elders. The keys are given to the leadership of the church, and they are supposed to lock the front door and lock the back door. They are supposed to guard it or fence it as the word people often use. When you become a member of the church, you talk to some of the elders. You give your testimony to some of the elders. The elders then vote to have you join the church in membership. This has been the practice for two thousand years and this goes all the way back to acts chapter two. By the way, when people responded, believed, were baptized, numbered and added to their midst. They knew them, they knew them. And Jesus goes on to say, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, bound on earth, bound in heaven. That's verse nineteen. What he's saying there is that as best as the elders are able, the visible gathering should reflect the invisible church. So, as somebody confesses, Christ is Lord, has turned from their sin and has received the gospel by faith. The elders affirm that person. It's not an affirmation out of the blue. It's saying, the angels in heaven, see, this person is saved. Certainly we can also. And the other side of that is if somebody refuses to repent from their sin, this is going to be more clearly taught in Matthew eighteen. So I'll be brief here. When someone refuses to repent from their sin, they're confronted. And then you bring a witness and they're brought before the church. And if they still refuse to repent, they're a member of the church, and they refuse to repent. They're supposed to be put out of the church. That's the nature of keys saying you tell the person, listen, a Christian is someone who recognizes the lordship of Christ and has turned from their sins. You're unwilling to turn from your sins. So, as best as we can discern, you're not acting like a Christian. And so we have to remove you from the church, which hopefully will be a wake up call for you and lead you to repentance. But at the very least, it's using the keys. I've heard, I've heard elders say, oh, we don't want to discipline so-and-so, because that will seem like we failed. Now, that's not that's not failing. That's using the key for what it's been. It'd be like me saying, I don't want to lock my house at night, because if the lock keeps somebody out, then I failed. No, we paid a locksmith to put a lock on our house. It's for that purpose. It's not a failure to remove somebody who's unrepentant from the church. It's what Jesus tells us to do to build the church. And when we do that, we're not stepping out on a limb all by ourselves. We're saying as best as we can discern, this is the reality in heaven right now. And of course, when you repent from your sin, you can be welcomed back. Also recognized in heaven. This is why the church is not for the lost. The church isn't for the unregenerate. The church isn't a seeker sensitive church kind of language like that. What the church is, for those who are gathered for the preaching of the word, entered through baptism and maintained the unity of through communion. Calvin writes, quote by confession of faith, regularity of conduct, and participation in the ordinances. We are united with the same God and with Christ, his body. That's the idea. That's the idea that we're bought together as a visible congregation of believers. This is the nature of the church. Now, if you remember, last week I talked about the three offices of Christ prophet, priest, and King. If you look at this, do you see how these marks of the true church map onto that? I hope you do. A church is brought together by the true confession of Jesus Christ as Lord, prophet, priest, and king. It's then the maintained through the the preaching of the word which proclaims Jesus as prophet. That he is God is the speaker. Jesus is the word. The word comes to the world through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, fills the Scripture with God's words that are then proclaimed Jesus as the ultimate prophet. Jesus is priest. He is the one who gives his life as a ransom for sinners. He is the one prophesied in the Old Testament who will sprinkle the nations with his blood. He's the one that David prayed for that he'd be purged with hyssop. He is the high priest that's celebrated through baptism, the death and resurrection of Christ, and then communion, the sprinkling of blood to atone for sin. And then finally, Jesus is King. This is his people. We are his citizens. We belong to him as our Lord. That's the membership of the church. Jesus is our sanctified King, our powerful prophet, and our exalted High Priest. And so it should not surprise us that the offices of Christ are on display in the body of Christ. The church is the body of Christ. And so, of course, the person of Christ is displayed all over this. This is what makes a true church a church that does not recognize Jesus as Lord. A church that does not preach the true gospel. A church that does not have baptism as the front door and communion as the unity and discipline as the back door, is not a true church. A church that does not have, in that sense, membership, that confesses Christ as Lord is not a true church. There's all kinds of things you can be a part of. You can be a part. You can be a member of the library. You can be a member at giant across the street to give you a nice car that goes in your keychain and everything. You can be a member of the Saint James or LA fitness. You can be a member of the Rotary Club or of your community pool. You can be a member of the church. Of all of those, the church is the only one that is the body of Christ bound with all of these things. Lord, we're thankful for the body of Christ on earth. The wonderful display of the person and work of Christ lived out daily. We know we're an imperfect church. Our leadership makes mistakes. Of course, we have limited vision. There are sinners in our congregation. But we're so thankful that you are merciful, just, and omnipotent that you have the power to build your church. The gates of hell will not overcome it. You're invincible and we know of death can't kill you. Nothing can. We're so grateful that you rose from the dead. You ascended to heaven and sent your spirit to build the church, and we are so thankful to be part of this church. Our hearts are filled with joy at the gathering of your people. We give you thanks for this in Jesus name. Amen. And now for parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ.com. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service, but no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.