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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God

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March 1, 2026
Matthew 16:13-20
Jon Nowlin
North Campus Youth, Dir

The Person of Christ

Faith

The Gospel

Transcript

0:12I encourage you to keep your Bibles open. We're gonna be moving through this passage phrase by phrase, and it'll help you as you continue to look at it. I wanna begin with a question. How many of you, once second winter passes, are looking forward to getting outside and going on a hike? Do any of you like that? I really enjoy hiking. It's one of my favorite things outdoors, and I especially like a hike with a good goal. Maybe there's this magnificent waterfall at the end of the hike or this scenic overlook like Mount Oberg in the fall where you can just look out on all these changing trees. Well, our passage today has some similarities.

1:00In fact, if we were to zoom out in the gospel of Matthew, we have been on a hike for 12 chapters. And believe it or not, today's text is the scenic overlook. So what do I, what do I mean by that? If you flip back in your Bibles, you don't have to, but you can. If you flip back to Matthew four 17, it says, from that time, Jesus began to preach, and that's a clue. Jesus was starting something. He was setting out on a journey of discipleship, teaching his people about his identity, showing his miracles. And if you look at the verse after our passage, it sounds very similar. From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer.

1:49So next week, Stephen will kick off another section of the gospel of Matthew, and that's gonna take us to the cross. But today we're on a journey taking us to Jesus' identity and seeing the greatness of who he is. The aim of this passage is to marvel at Christ's identity. But unlike modern day hikes, back in the day like Lewis and Clark or explorers, they would hike and go to a high place, not only to see something beautiful, but to see where they're going next to chart their future course. And that's the other thing that this text is about it, Jesus reveals in it not just who he is, but also who his people are and where they're headed, what their mission is, where they're going.

2:43So that's the twofold aim of this passage, both to Marvel at the greatness of Jesus in his identity and to see afresh the great mission that he has for his people. So we're gonna walk through this passage, Lord willing, line by line in three sections. Then it comes to us in these three parts. In verses 13 through 16, we will look at Jesus identity. This whole text is focused around Christ Jesus identity in verses 13 to 16. Then we will look at Jesus's church, the one that he is building in verses 17 and 18. And finally, Jesus's mission, it's our mission that he's commissioning us in appointing us, delegating to believers in verses 19 and 20, Jesus' identity, Jesus's church and Jesus's mission.

3:41And this text as we'll soon see, calls us to be dependent and humble on the Lord. So let's begin by praying and asking for his help. Father, this, this passage is very clear that you are the revealer of your identity, Christ's identity to your people. So we want to humbly come to you and say, would you reveal your yourself to those who do not know you? And would you stir up the stagnant places in our thoughts of your identity in hearts that do know you? And Father, would you quicken our hearts to understand the mission and the authority that you've delegated to your people? We ask for your help in Jesus name. Amen.

4:40So let's begin. In the first phrases of this passage in verse 13, this is set in a narrative context. This is history unfolding. This is a real conversation that the real living God had with his disciples. So they were on a journey themselves, a 25 mile journey perhaps because the, the district of Caesarea Philippi is 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. And we just need to know a couple things about this place. Uh, it was named after, uh, Philip the Tetra, kind of like Trump tower is named after our president, Cesary Philippi took that name and he wanted to probably let everybody know that he existed.

5:26And it contained a lot of pagan. It was, it was a, a Greek area. It had pagan practices. There was a cave there where they worshiped the false God pan. And right next to it was a temple where they probably worshiped other false gods. And that was in honor of Augustus, um, Caesar. And the reason that's, that's interesting is because we're gonna find out about the true and living God in that very pagan culture. And it's very possible that once again, Matthew's like this gospel is for the nations. It's not just this Jewish inner thing, it's to go out to the nations. This identity of Christ is to impact people who are very confused about who he is.

6:16What we're gonna see in this, in these verses is his first Jesus comment of his veiled identity. Then we're gonna look at confusion about his identity for different misinterpretations of who Jesus is. And then finally, Peter's confession on behalf of the disciples of who Jesus really is. So I don't want you to miss. Now, when Jesus came to the district of accessory of Philippi, he asked his disciples. So this is a group asking who do the people say that the son of man is? So we just left a section where the, the disciples were warned about the false teachings of the Pharisees. Now Jesus is saying, who do the crowds? Who do the others?

6:59Who do the onlookers? Who do the people say that the son of man is? But we don't wanna miss Jesus. Veiled, uh, comment in here, the son of man, this is one of the most amazing, uh, realities. Jesus says it often, it's probably his favorite self identification and it has two parts. And we see these in the scriptures. Psalm eight, four says that part of this is just, he's a regular Joe. Meaning 'cause he's not, he's he's regular human. Psalm eight, four says, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Our God took on flesh and became very man, true man. But the term is also used in Daniel seven of this great, the greatest ruler ever, one like the son of man came to the ancient of days.

7:58God the Father and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples and nations, here we go again. And languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away in his kingdom. One that shall not be destroyed. Jesus is very man and very God. And yet he used this term in ways that people just couldn't fit those pieces together. They didn't quite know who he was and to prove that we kind of get the word on the street about Jesus. Small group discussion with Jesus and his disciples. Who do the people say that he is? And they give four misinterpretations of who he is.

8:42First is John the Baptist. Um, the second is Elijah and so on. But let's first look at John the Baptist. The prominent spokesperson for this view was Herod the Tetra. If you've been with us in our series on Matthew just a couple chapters ago, we heard Pastor Sam share about this account where John the Baptist, uh, where Herod was uh, talking about Jesus. He, he couldn't figure it out and he says, this is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead and this is why these miraculous powers are at work in him. Now what we need to be careful about is we can't insert what we think about the resurrection into Herod's mind.

9:26This was false superstition. He was like, well he's kind like John the Baptist, but he's bigger and better and what's going on? Well maybe there's like this thing where this dead guy like I don't know, some of his spirit was infused him and now he's doing all these amazing things. So there was some really wacky ideas that were had about Jesus being John the Baptist. Well Elijah, where do people get that? Well, in Malachi chapter three verses one in chapter four verses five and six, God's word talks about this forerunner, this one who would prepare the way for the Lord. And so people either miss Jesus' teaching or just misinterpreted God's teaching because Jesus clarified, no, actually John the Baptist is the one who went before me.

10:19He clarified that in chapter 11. But people were thinking they were using scripture but misinterpreting it. And they were saying, well maybe this guy is Elijah, which is also not true. And the third and fourth are Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Now commentators and scholars are like, where did they get Jeremiah? Nowhere else is to talk about that. That's pretty interesting. People kind of speculate and say, well, Jesus kind of spoke against the religious leaders like Jeremiah did and and he kind of had this suffering tinge to his ministry like Jeremiah did. Maybe that's why we're not quite sure.

10:58But Jeremiah and the other prophets basically helps us understand that there's really no one solid idea that the people thought Jesus was. They sort of had all these different weird messianic interpretations and none of them were right. Now we can kinda look back and scoff and say, well we know better. Of course he's not John the Baptist. Where did they get Jeremiah? But just think about our day and age. How many false views of Christ are there? Maybe they just take a little part of scripture and say, well Jesus is this, or maybe there's some sort of superstitious thing like he was a miracle worker or he was a really good person or all these different things.

11:44We shouldn't be historical snobs. They were trying to figure this out and they were missing it and the disciples were seeking to do the same thing. And Jesus is really eager as well to understand what do you believe? And he asks this question, and this should cause us to think this is really super important. It's super important for us to have discussions with the people that we love in our lives about who Jesus is. We should try to draw them out and explore and understand and really listen carefully so that we can understand what they truly believe so we can help point them to the truth or so like what happened with Peter, we can draw them out and we can really know yes, what you're seeing is absolutely true.

12:30That's right. So let's hear what Peter said. The text goes on and he said to them, it's really important he's saying this to all the disciples. He does have a conversation with Peter because as we know Peter is off and the one who grabs the mic and says, well, let me tell you, which is awesome about him anyway. Uh, but he said to them, but who do you, who do y'all say that I am? And Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

13:06You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is a huge vista that we are supposed to stop and pause and marvel at on our hike here in this passage on our journey thus far in Matthew. We can easily, like if we're doing our Bible reading, like flying through chapter 16 of Matthew, we can just fly by that. But I think we need to pause and say what is really behind that? And we're gonna take that in two phrases. You are the Christ. Now we need to remember this is not Jesus' last name. Oh yeah. Which Jesus, Jesus Christ. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah.

13:55Jesus the promised one, Jesus the one that was promised in Genesis three 15 to crush the serpent Jesus who was mentioned about as the offspring of Abraham, through whom all the earth, all the nations will be blessed. Oh yeah, Jesus, the promised one who was promised to David in two Samuel seven, 13 and 16, the one whom God will establish is throne forever. This is the king that they were waiting for the king who would rescue them, who would save them. This is the promised king. And Matthew's been saying this since verse one of his gospel, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

14:50Jesus is the Messiah. Compare your thinking to Peter. Is Jesus your king? Is he worthy of praise? Several of our songs mentioned that this morning. Does your heart well up and say you are the great king of the universe, the one who has always been promised you are the savior, you are the one we've been waiting for. But Peter doesn't pause, he just moves right on to a second truth. Peter continues saying, the son of the living God, the son of the living God. First we need to understand what living God, what he meant by living God. Living God has the idea of the actual God, the one true God who is ruling and actually involved in our world.

15:47He's not some distant God, he's not some watchmaker who set things up and kinda let it go. He is the one that interacts in our world who does stuff and we see that throughout scripture. But what does this title son of God? I mean we, we often think about maybe he's the second person of the trinity, which he absolutely is. But what's behind that? What does it mean that Jesus is the son of God? Well let, let's just think about a few different things. If, if Peter were to look in his Bible and like explain this to us, Peter might go to Psalm two verse seven, where the Lord, that's capital LO speaking of Yahweh, said to me, you are my son today I have begotten you.

16:34It's getting at this idea of trinity and it's speaking of this term called begetting. Now we don't often use the word beget, but it means to have offspring. And oftentimes it's in our, it's in the Nicean creed. Begotten not made. Um, what does that mean? CS Lewis is really helpful on this. He talks about the difference between begetting something and making something in his book mere Christianity. CS Lewis said, when you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies a beaver. That's kind of a fun analogy. All of a sudden you move to beavers, beavers beget little beavers.

17:17Can you just picture him? Um, and birds beget eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make you make something different than yourself, a bird makes a nest, a beaver makes a dam. So part of what he's getting at in the idea of the son of God is that Jesus is divine. Jesus is God. Jesus is God. And Peter has also seen so many evidences of this. Who else walks on the water except for God? Who else cleanses? Lepers except for God? You read the book of Leviticus, all the priests do is identify. That's leprosy, that's not leprosy, that's unclean, that's clean. Only God heals. Jesus is God.

18:08Jesus is God as well. Peter believes because he is a uh, a, a true um Jew, that there is only one God how many times We can only imagine. How many times has he said the Shama Deuteronomy six, four hero Israel, the Lord your God. The Lord is one. So he's saying that Jesus is divine and he also finally knows that Jesus is distinct from the Father and relates to him. How often has he heard Jesus talk about my father or pray to his father or say astounding things about who his father is? For example, Matthew 1125 and 26, at that time Jesus declared, I thank you Father Lord of heaven and earth. There we can say the one true God who is active in our world.

18:57Jesus is saying this, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the Father. And no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. This is an amazing statement. Just to summarize, Jesus is divine, he is truly God. Jesus has always been one with the Father because just as God is the eternal God, Jesus is the eternal God. He's the same true God with the Father. And Jesus has always been distinct from the Father and able to relate to him.

19:41So many wonderful mind-bending realities in this confession. So again, how does your thinking compare with Peters? Do you believe that Jesus is God? Are you able with Thomas to kneel before him and say, my Lord and my God, if you need the waters of the confession of Christ's identity to be stirred up in you or if you need to actually see and believe parts of this, I have a book recommendation for you. It's the gospel of John. It's just a couple books over he wrote that his his purpose statement is in John 20 verse 31. But these things are written so that you may know, may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, exactly what we're looking at.

20:34And that by believing you may have life in his name. Well now let's move on in this text to see what Jesus had to say in response and specifically what he had to say about his church, the people that he is building. And we're gonna look at two things in this first section, um, and throughout this section. Now what did Jesus intend? What did he mean by these things? But also we wanna be really careful that we see all of the claims that he's making within these statements. What is he saying around what he is saying that show his identity? We can be really focused. Oh this is about me. I'm leaning in and focusing, which is really good.

21:17You should, but you should also not miss within these words are powerful statements of identity by Jesus. So let me reread 16 verses 17 and 18 and Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon bar Jonah 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 on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

21:51I love that. This is Peter's personal beatitude in chapter five of Matthew's uh, gospel. We get all of these beatitudes to those that are blessed in this. And if you are like this, you're blessed and if you enemies persecute you, you're blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. But right here he gets real personal and looks at Peter and says, you are blessed. Jesus is authoritatively saying that you've got this right and from an external standard I'm looking at you and you are favored by God and you are in some sense because you are favored by God happy in a deep internal reality sense. You are blessed. And why is he blessed?

22:40He's been favored by God because God has revealed this to him. God has revealed this to him. It is revealed by my father who is in heaven. I think some of us went like little kids, we ask them a hard question or something at school and and our initial reaction is, I got it. And in a sense in this text, Jesus is saying, you didn't get it. It was revealed to you. You got it right but you got it right because God gave it to you. All believers should think that way. Not like, look what I got. No. Look what was revealed to you. Humbly realize that you are in the truth because of God. It's revealed to you.

23:34Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. Bar Jonah means son of Jonah. It wasn't your father revealed it to you. It wasn't the smart disciple sitting next to you who's not very talkative but whispered the right things into your ear. No, it was God. But my father who is in heaven, verse 18 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. There are a lot of things for us to consider in this text, but we wanna look at what's Peter's role in God's called out people. Jesus is saying some remarkable things about Peter, which I think some in our camps, in our theological tradition would be wanting to minimize because we don't want it to be overestimated who Peter is and what he's done because there are people in our day and age who see things like apostolic succession.

24:35Um, Peter is the first pope, like the Catholic church might teach from this text. I think it's a com. It's a middle ground where amazing things are said about Peter, but certainly not that. So what does this text mean? Let's look at it in three different parts. First, let's begin in the middle. I will build my church. We need to realize this says amazing things about Jesus. He is the builder. Peter's not a builder. Peter's a tool to help Jesus build just like a lot of other people. Jesus is the builder. And what is the church that is the assembly. The called out ones the messianic community. Jesus is saying in a sense I'm the Messiah, I'm a king.

25:21Kings have people, kings build kingdoms and Jesus is building his church. Next let's look at the gates of hell will not prevail against it. There's a lot of confusion. What does that mean? I'm helped. When I look at some of the passages in the Old Testament that speak about the gates of death and the gates of Hades, which is literally what that word means. Um, in the Greek job 17 verse 16, job 38 verse 17 and Psalm nine verse 13 speak about these gates of death and what do gates do? They keep the dead in. And what Jesus I think is saying is there's all sorts of different interpretations. But what I think Jesus is saying is this people, this called out people that I am building will not even be stopped by death.

26:13They're not gonna be held captive by death because I am the God of resurrection. They are able to love not their lives even unto death because death is not the end. My kingdom people are eternal. They will be with me forever. This is meant to embolden God's people, those that are having bombs drop on them right now as we speak. Those that are being persecuted in countries where the gospel is hated. Those that in our, in our country, even though in some sense we are the Disneyland of Christianity, uh, those that when we are persecuted and we might be called to give up our lives, uh, and and not count them or hold them close, but but trust Christ to move forward.

27:02Our God is the God of resurrection. Do you believe that we need to have roots that go down deep, that we trust the Lord even when we're facing death. The spirit is powerful enough to preserve us, to help us endure even to death and to take us beyond death. But what does it mean that Peter is the rock? The word Peter means rock. It's, it's the word petros and the Greek word for rock is on this rock is the word Petra. So Jesus is doing a word play and what I think he's doing is he's saying, Peter, you are the one that I am going to use to start some great things. So imagine an entire gym filled with dominoes.

27:56What Jesus is saying is, Peter, let me just say you are the first domino and I am gonna bless you by allowing you to start all the dominoes falling. And we can see that in history he was given a very special place. First he's the one that speaks this on behalf of the disciples. He's the first person to let this out. His words are recorded for us to marvel at here. But even more in Acts two when the spirit falls upon the disciples, it's Peter who speaks the first gospel message and calls rebels to repent. Those that even probably yelled out, crucify him. Peter is the one who says, you must repent.

28:41Here's who Jesus is. Trust in him. He's stitching together all these old Testament pieces and the dominoes are falling in 3000 are added that day. But even more think about Peter is the one that receives this vision from heaven. He is the one on whom this sheet is laid down and he realizes God is not showing partiality. This is not just a Jewish thing. We need to include the gentiles and therefore the domino spread to the nations. So Peter is a super significant thing and it's connected to his confession. What he said about Christ is a message that has been revealed to him by God and that's gonna go out and shape the nations, shape the people around him, start the church moving in the right direction, the text.

29:29Now we might wonder, well what does that have to do about Peter being the pope? Dia Carson has some really helpful comments about that. The text says nothing and you can look for yourself. The text says nothing about successors. It says nothing about infallibility or exclusive authority. These late interpretations have exegetical, which he just mentioned and historical problems. For example, after Peter's death, his successor in quotes would've had authority over the surviving Apostle John. Those things are just not true and can't be proven from history or from this passage. But what this does, what this passage does do is it it should encourage us that God uses fallible people.

30:14How many fallible things? Like if we wanted to create a list, Peter just keeps putting himself forward so he can find all sorts of things that Peter got that wrong or he spoke too fast here, the next text, he's gonna be rebuked so many different things that Peter got wrong, but that's what God does. He shows his great power by using fallible people to advance his mission. He doesn't have to do that, but be encouraged. That's the type of people that he uses. Are you that type of person? Yeah, me too. Let's look at Jesus's mission in the final two verses. 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.

31:01Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. I'm thankful that there aren't any questions in this text and you all understand what the keys of the kingdom are. So we can probably all go home and just, or just turn to each other and explain what that is. There was a little bit of sarcasm there. Um, I even put a smiley face in my manuscript. Um, this this is super confusing. What is this? What are these keys? Do I have 'em? Are they on my hearing? Um, what are the keys? I wanna try to answer three questions quickly. Who has the keys? What are the keys? And um, what's my third question?

31:38Uh, and what do the keys do? Who has the keys? What are the keys and what do the keys do? First note, Jesus is speaking directly to Peter. So when he says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom in this context, he's speaking to one individual person. But when we move two chapters to the right, chapter 18 verse 18, there he says that the church has the keys. So this is really relevant to us. He's saying it first to Peter, but it's for all of us who has the keys. Jesus has the keys and he's giving them to his church. Second question, what are the keys? I think we can look at two passages to help illuminate this for us.

32:27In Isaiah 22, verses 21 and 22, it's talking about two stewards, people who have been entrusted with authority and there was a wicked person that God is saying, I'm judging you and replacing you and giving your authority to another steward. And this is what it says to that second steward. And I will clothe him. That is the new steward with your robe and will commit your authority to his hands. And I will place on his shoulders the keys of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut and he shall shut and none shall open. The reason that I went to that text is because wisely other people, as they study this, see this as a stewardship.

33:12Just like I've been given a key to the front door of this church. Doesn't mean that I own this church, but I can walk into it when the doors are locked. 'cause I just use my key. I can unlock it for other people or I can just leave them out in the cold like let me in. Um, but I have authority. I I have been given a stewardship, a key to allow people to enter and exit and so on and so forth with that key. But there's a second thing that helps us get even more understanding of what this key is. Jesus talks about a key of knowledge in Luke 1152 and it's in a section where he's rebuking religious leaders and he says, woe to you lawyers.

33:57And he's specifically talking about people that deal in the Old Testament with the Old Testament law. For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourself and you have hindered those who were entering. So this woe of knowledge, which it means you are being judged, which is the opposite of a blessing, is upon some people that are using their understanding of the Old Testament, to bind people's consciences in false ways. They are using their understanding which is false understanding, which is just like the text that we just saw last week to speak falsely about how do you get right with this God?

34:38Which means that God is giving the true knowledge, the true teaching, the true discipleship of how people are to interact and be involved in this messianic kingdom to his disciples, through his word, through his teaching as well. He's giving them this evangelistic opportunity with this key of knowledge to spread the gospel that the kingdom might be built. The keys are the truths of Jesus' teaching given to Peter and all born again believers in Jesus in which they are to make disciples and teach them all that Jesus has commanded. This is a delegated authority. So let's just pause for a second and say, do I understand the gospel message?

35:30Do I understand that Jesus died in my place as a substitute, he lived a perfect life, that I'm a sinful person and need Christ to die in my place and that he didn't just die, he rose again and that my faith in him allows him to be the wrath absorbing person who died on the cross for my sins. Do I understand the gospel? If you do, you have been given that authoritative teaching to share it. And if you've been given a Bible and the ability of the Holy Spirit to help you study it and truly understand what does this book mean? What did the authors truly intend? You have been given the authority to disciple and bless through your small groups, through your teaching of children in your own home or other people at church or whatever it happens to be, to disciple others.

36:24That is the keys of the kingdom. That is a distinct and amazing privilege that so many people do not have. So many people don't even have this one in five people do not have a copy of the scriptures. We are so blessed. We have been given authority by God to speak for him and build his kingdom. Finally, what is this binding and loosening thing? I mentioned this binding of people's consciences. It has an idea with that. But when does that happen? These are future perfect passive verbs. I won't explain that, don't worry. Um, but what it means, what it could be translated is will have been bound or will have been loose.

37:10What it's what he's saying is what you are doing church will one day be revealed to have already been done in heaven. We are carrying out God's mission on earth what he has already done. One, here's one helpful summary. As the church takes the teaching of Jesus and proclaims it and lives it out in the world, both in terms of opening the doors of the kingdom to converts that is evangelism and opening the truths of the kingdom to the new messian community. That's discipleship. It does so with the authority and guidance of God. Do you feel the weight of that privilege? Are you leaning into use that privilege?

38:02God wants to take you up on this mountaintop to see what he has for you to see this vision of his ministry for you. Jesus', final words will quickly close with them. Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. What are they not supposed to use? The keys? Not yet as we're gonna see. Their understanding was only part, they were missing the cross. They didn't understand that this Messiah was coming to die. So Jesus wants them to button their lips for now. Watch, wait. Spirit will be sent upon you and then go for it. This is in a historical bound account. Jesus is certainly not saying that to his church today.

38:51You know, you see the spirit is present. Use the keys, build his kingdom in discipleship and evangelism. Let me close with two questions. How would you respond if Jesus asked you? Who do you say I am? That is a vitally important question. Imagine Jesus looking at you one-on-one and say, who do you say I am? Do you know the truth? And let me further say is your truth that you know stagnant does, doesn't need to be stirred up by way of reminder where the Lord would lean in and give you fresh wind and fresh appreciation for who Jesus is.

39:42Secondly, if you're a believer, are you taking advantage of the authority God has given you to spread the kingdom that is use the keys? Would this next week somebody were to ask you, what'd you do this weekend? Well, I went to the church and, and we looked at this question that Jesus said, who do you say I am? Have you ever thought about that question or around the lunch table? Who do you say that Jesus is? What's amazing about Christ? What do you love about him? What does it mean that he's the Son of God and the Messiah and the Christ and the Savior of the world? What does that mean? Are you using leaning into desiring to spread his fame and his kingdom in your spheres of influence?

40:32Let me pray for us in line with that. Father, there's so much in this text, so many glories that you have privileged us to see. And so we again wanna ask, would you help us see them? Would you minister to those people who are waffling about who you are? Would you, by your greatness, God reveal to them your great identity? Would you help us to bask in that and love that? And Lord, would you help us to go out and be your kingdom spreading people near and far? Would you use your church spread throughout this globe to do that same thing? Would you encourage them and build them up in your identity?

41:21And would you use them as your gospel spokespeople and your discipleship builders? We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 16:13-20

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