The Keys of the Kingdom (2024)

0:00 Well, good morning again, everyone. Welcome to 3rd Avenue Baptist Church. Glad you're here with us. If you are new to 3rd Avenue, my name is Greg Gilbert. I'm the second Greg that you've met from this pulpit today. But my name is Greg Gilbert, and I am the senior pastor here, which means that usually I am the guy who stands up behind this pulpit and does the preaching of the Word on any given Sunday. We're actually doing something really pretty unusual this morning. Normally, the way I preached by conviction and for lots of other reasons is what we call expositional preaching, which means that on a normal Sunday, I would stand up and I would have us turn to a particular passage in the Bible.

0:42 It might be a big passage, several chapters, or it might be just a couple of verses, but we'll go to one particular passage of scripture. And then my job is to stand up here and by talking about it, expose that text to you. In other words, explain it and show you what it means and then try to help you see some ways that you can apply that text to your life. You might even say that expositional preaching is not so much exposing the text to you as it is exposing you to the power of the text. That's what we do on a normal Sunday morning.

1:12 Today, though, we're going to be doing something a little bit different. It's not utterly different, but it's somewhat different. Because today we're going to begin a three-part topical series on one topic that is talked about in many different places around the Bible and especially the New Testament. And that topic is the church. Now, there are lots of things that we could talk about as topics, right? We could say, let's look at everything that the Bible talks about in terms of prayer. Let's look at everything the Bible talks about when it comes to Jesus.

1:44 Let's talk about the Holy Spirit. Lots of different topics that we could talk about. And we don't do these topical series very often. So why, of all those topics, have I decided to talk to you about the church? Well, I'll tell it to you straight. It's because I am pretty convinced. I've been doing ministry a really long time, talked to a whole bunch of people in the ministry world and in Christian churches. And I am really convinced that most Christians have little to no idea how the church actually fits into God's work of redemption.

2:16 Now, you can talk to Christians, and you can ask them what they think about the church, about the local church, about their local church, and they'll generally say good things about it, right? Because they wouldn't be at that church if they didn't have some good things to say about it. But most of the time, Christians tend to think of church as just a good thing to do. It's kind of one option on the buffet of activities that you can do in order to grow in your individual spiritual life, right? So they sort of walk along the buffet like, oh, look, there's some prayer, you know, and there's, oh, look at that.

2:47 There's some Bible reading. We'll do some Bible reading. And the church. Hmm. Maybe a little bit of church, not too much. And let's put some cheese sauce on that to make it taste better. That's how people think about the church. At best, we tend to think of it as a kind of one-stop shop. It's like a speedy mart for all of the things that will be good for you spiritually. You can get it all here, ladies and gentlemen. and you can get your prayer and your sermons and your worship. We could do a whole topical series on that because Christians misunderstand that too. And your fellowship and your music.

3:18 You can get it all here, folks, for one low price of 10% of your income. But then again, if you find something that you think works better, well, okay, there's no real reason to keep doing this church thing. After all, the podcast preachers are better than the church preachers. The iTunes music is better than the church music. So at the end of the day, it's really something that most Christians do, I think, mostly out of tradition and sometimes out of friendship.

3:53 A couple of years ago, it was more than a couple, it was a few years ago, a fellow named George Barna wrote a book that he just called Revolution. That was the title of the book. And I was asked to write a review of this book, Revolution. Let me give you some of the quotes from this book by George Barna. He said, I want to tell you about an explosion of spiritual energy and activity that we are calling the revolution, an unprecedented re-engineering of America's faith dimension that is likely to be the most significant transition in the religious landscape that you will ever experience.

4:28 My goodness, blow your hair back. He goes on, the revolution is on track to become the most significant recalibration of the American Christian body in more than a century. It's bursting open the walls of the worldwide church to bring a truly international network of relationships. The synergies resulting from this expanded horizon will be impossible to quantify or contain. This revolution is gathering momentum.

5:00 It's introducing sweeping changes. It's reshaping our society. And it has unleashed a massive shift that is the most significant transition you or I will experience during our lifetime. Wow. And what is the revolution? What's he talking about that's going to do all this amazing stuff? You want to know what his revolution is? When you get to about the fifth chapter of the book, he finally tells you what it is. And it's this. The church doesn't matter. That's what he meant.

5:31 The local church doesn't matter, and that's going to change everything. It's not just Barna that doesn't think the church matters. And for most of us, if we do think the church doesn't matter, we don't get quite so excited about it. But there is a whole generation of Christians, especially young Christians, who basically have decided what Barna is so excited about, and that is that the church doesn't matter. They find it boring. They find it outdated. They find it even a little bit pathetic. I remember going to a university. I'd been asked to preach a few different messages on the church, what it is, how it matters.

6:05 And preaching to those university students, you would have thought I was just telling them to brush their teeth. They just weren't interested. They wanted something bigger, more spectacular. Now, maybe that's not you. I mean, here you are actually in church, and good for you. I think still, though, it may be helpful to take a few weeks, over the next three weeks or so, it may be helpful to take an extended and focused look at what the Bible says about the church. Because there are plenty of people and organizations out there that would happily say they love the church, they appreciate the church, they're even glad to be under the authority and leadership and discipline of the church.

6:42 But when push comes to shove, it turns out that the church really doesn't mean much to them after all. So what I want to do is try to wave away some of the smoke for you. Some of the, you know, when you really think about it, the question of what is this thing anyway? Like who came up with this idea that Christians should gather together on Sundays? Who came up with all the stuff that we're supposed to do as a church? Is all of that just tradition? Is it just because we've always done that? Is that why we do this? I want to wave away some of that smoke and help you see why the local church, churches like this one, Third Avenue, really matter.

7:14 I want to place it for you. I want to show you how it fits in God's plan of redemption and then look at how and why it does what it does. So here's the plan over the next three weeks. Two weeks from now, because I'm not here next week, but two weeks from now, we're going to look at the idea of church membership. So where did the idea of becoming a member of a church come from? Is that biblical or did we just steal that from like LA Fitness at some point, right? Why do you have to become a member of a church? I want to make the case to you that membership is a biblical thing.

7:45 It actually comes from the Bible. We sort of made it up in LA Fitness, stole it from us. And then I want to show you, as the old credit card company said, that membership has its privileges. What the credit card company didn't tell you, though, is that it also has its responsibilities. So that's what we're going to talk about next week, church membership. We're also going to talk about the kind of flip side of that, which is church discipline. So what does it mean biblically when someone is put out of the membership of the church for unrepentant sin? What does all of that mean? That's sort of two weeks from now. Right after that, in the third week of this series, we're going to be talking about something else.

8:20 We're going to be talking about basically how a local church functions and the kind of government that our particular local church has, which is called elder-led congregationalism. So the congregationalism part means that we are congregationally ruled. Final authority, final decision-making power is in the assembled congregation at a members meeting, right? The congregation can basically do anything it wants at a member's meeting. That's congregationalism. So what does it mean, then, if that's true, to be elder-led?

8:52 We've got 15 elders of this church, and somehow those elders are supposed to lead, and yet all the authority is in the congregation. How exactly does that fit together? That's what we're going to be talking about on the third week of the series. Today, though, what I want to do is something much sort of broader. Those are very practical questions that are coming, right? Very down-in-the-dirt practical things. Today, I want to back up and try to help you see where the church fits theologically in this great sweeping epic of Christianity. I want it to become part of the story, part of the movie that plays in your head when you think about God's work of redemption.

9:30 Because there are other parts of your theology that fit into that story really nicely, right? If I were to ask you, hey, how does the cross of Jesus Christ fit into God's sweeping plan of redemption? You've got an answer to that, right? You can say, ah, here's how it fits. This is where it goes in the story. If I ask you that question about the church, for a lot of you, you're not going to have a clear answer to it. And I want to try to give you one today. I want to help you see that the kind of thinking that says that the church doesn't matter or that the church is optional or that the church is a great supporter and money giver to the real work of ministry, but that's about it.

10:02 Or even that the church is a really cool, fun gathering of Christians that are trying their best to help each other grow spiritually. I want to show you that all of those things don't cut it. I want to try to convince you today that the church is a critical part of God's work of redemption and it plays a unique and necessary role in the kingdom of God. So here it is, main idea, just kind of giving you the goods up front. Main idea of what I want to try to convince you of is this. The church, the local church, is nothing less than the embassy of the high king of heaven in this rebellious world.

10:36 The local church is nothing less than the embassy of the high king of heaven in this rebellious world. Which means, if that's true, and it is, it means that the local church is not optional for you. It's not just a tool for your individual spiritual growth. You can't just take the church and then substitute it with other stuff like podcast sermons and coffee meetings and campus groups and Bible studies. You can't do that because nothing else plays the role that the local church does. No other organization has the authority that it does.

11:10 No other organization has the promises made to it by Jesus that the local church does. No other church speaks with the authority of the king in the world like the local church. And because of all of that, what I want to try to convince you of is that Jesus loves the church, not just the individuals in it. Jesus loves the church, not just the individuals in it. Now, right off the bat, that may just kind of be a new thought to you. Like, wow, never really thought about that.

11:41 But I want to try to show you today that just as much as his attention is on you as an individual Christian, it is also on his church. So that's where we're going. I want to try to show you that Jesus' attention and his fierce affection is on the local church, on groups of his people who are redeemed by his grace and who are organized then together as embassies of his kingdom to speak with his voice in the world. Now, if that's true, if that's true, then your life as a Christian ought to be affected by that.

12:19 Your life as a Christian ought to be, in fact, must be centered and focused on and burned out in service to the local church. It doesn't necessarily mean this local church, but it does mean some local church. So that's where we're going. And to do that, I want to paint a picture. I want to take you to three different places in the book of Matthew and sort of paint a picture for you of how Jesus thinks about the church. I want to do it by taking you to Matthew 16, then Matthew 18, and then Matthew 28.

12:50 When you put those three sort of passages together, not the whole chapter, but pieces within them, when you put these passages in Matthew 16, 18, 28 together, what you get is this kind of outworking of Jesus instituting the church, Creating it, establishing it, empowering it, and then commanding it to be his royal embassy on the earth. So from those passages, we learn three things. We see three things happening. Number one, the church's constitution. That's what we're going to see in Matthew 16. Talk about that in a minute. Don't get confused by the word.

13:20 Number two, in Matthew 18, we see the church's charter. I'm going to explain that phrase also, that word also. And then number three, in 28, you've got the church's commission. So the church's constitution, the church's charter, and the church's commission. So let's look first at Matthew chapter 16, and we're going to look at verses 13 to 20. We're not going to read them because we already did earlier in the service. But what you've got here, if you look at it, Matthew chapter 16, 13 to 20, that paragraph, you have this story of Peter's first full confession of the identity and work of Christ.

13:58 Like for the first time ever, somebody gets it and gets it sort of all the way down. Now, Peter's going to mess it up later, right? He's going to have some misunderstandings. But in that moment, he's got it. He knows who Jesus is, and therefore he knows what Jesus has come to do at the same time. So by this point in Matthew 16, you've come to a really crucial turning point in the story. Because for 15 chapters now, the disciples have just been struggling to understand at any level of depth whatsoever who Jesus is. they're getting bits and pieces of it he seems like he's he might be the king he might be the long-awaited messiah they're getting little bits and pieces of it but right here in matthew 16 it's peter who blows the lid off of it with his confession of jesus's identity as the christ the son of the living god you see that it's verse 16 jesus asks him who do you say that i am everyone's trying to figure it out but who do you say i am and simon peter is the one who replies you are the christ the son of the living god now what did he mean well we've talked

15:04 about this a lot so you probably you probably know christ is just the greek word for anointed one or messiah which is a word that got applied to several different offices in old testament israel but the most important one the most well-known one was the king so if you're the messiah the christos you are the anointed one you are the king so when peter says that to jesus i know that you are the Christ, he's saying, I've got it. You are the long-awaited king of Israel. You're the Messiah that we've been waiting on for centuries, and you, Jesus, are finally here. Okay, what does he mean though when he appends to that? You are the Christ, not just the Christ, but you are the son of the living God. What does that mean? Well, it's got a couple of layers to it. Son of the living God. So So on one layer, it could just be repeating the fact that Jesus is king.

16:00 Because one of the sort of throne names that the king of Israel took was son of God. He is a son of God. So you can see that in several different places in the Psalms where David is talked about as being a son of God because he is the king. So Peter could just be using this ancient throne name or throne title for the king of Israel and saying, Jesus. I know that you're the king. I know that you hold the throne title, like David and all the other kings did, of son of the living God. That could be all he's saying, but it's not.

16:35 Do you remember in the book of Matthew, the last time the disciples declared him to be the son of God? There's one other time prior to this when the disciples look at him in awe and wonder and they say, this is the son of God. Do you remember when that was and what caused them to say that? It's back in chapter 14, verse 33, and it's when he walked on the water out to their ship and then quieted a storm. And when he does that, they look at him and they say, you are the son of God. Now what they mean by that is not just you hold a particular throne title, because the kings of Israel couldn't quiet storms, they couldn't walk on water, they couldn't do that thing.

17:20 For them to call him son of God right there is not just saying you are the king like every other king, it's saying you are the king who is the divine son of God. You put the realm of chaos, the sea, literally underneath your feet. You quiet a storm with a word, which is something that only God can do. So Peter gets it there in verse 16. He's got it. He's got it more deeply than anyone else has ever gotten it. You are the long-awaited Messiah, and the Messiah is the divine Son of God. He's got it. And look what happens next. You might say that Peter here is kind of the first full-fledged believer, right? He's the first guy to get it. And look what happens when Jesus is sitting across from the first believer that he's got.

18:14 He says, blessed are you, Simon Barger. So he's happy. He's happy that the person's become a believer. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. My father who is in heaven, so don't get cocky, Peter. You didn't come up with this by yourself. This is something that the Lord did in you. He brought your soul to life so that you could see this, right? So flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you. But my Father, who is in heaven, and I tell you, you're Peter. He changes his name from Simon to Peter, which means rock. And he says, on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

18:49 I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatever you buy. And he goes on and goes on. Now, that's incredibly interesting, isn't it? When Jesus has his very first believer, what does he talk to him about? He tells him not to be prideful. And then he starts talking to him about daily Bible reading and prayer and disciples. No, immediately when he's got his first believer, he talks to him about the church. He talks to him about establishing the church.

19:23 And it's almost like those old, you've seen those old war movies where the, you know, the ships, troop carrying ships like, you know, slide up onto the beach and then what happens? You got ropes that come down and anchor the ships to the shore and the doors open and the invasion begins, right? That's what's happening here. Simon's confession of Jesus works as a kind of trigger to say that the counter-invasion of this fallen world has now begun. The new age has now erupted into the heart of a fallen person, right?

19:56 And the counter-invasion has begun. So the ropes go down, the doors open, and Jesus starts to do the kingly work of establishing his embassy in the world. This is where it begins. He creates the church. Now let's look at something in these verses a little more carefully. Look at 18. This is when he starts to do the work of the church. In other words, he's constituting the church. That's what I mean by the title of this point. The constitution of the church is, it's constituting, it's establishment, it's creation, it's beginning.

20:29 I want you to see a couple things about it. First of all, 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. I will give you, he says here, 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. Now, I want you to see here that there is, the rock is Peter. He's the one on whom Jesus is going to build his church because this is where it all starts. There's no sense here of any office that Peter gets to hand down to his successors.

21:02 There's no hint of any infallibility that Peter possesses. In other words, there's no indication here that Peter is the first pope. But he is the first one to proclaim this as deeply as he does. And so Jesus says, look, it's right here. It's on you because you're the only one I've got. It's on you that this whole thing is going to start, and I'm going to build my church starting with just you. This is where it all starts. Now, another thing to notice here is that it's not finally just Peter who is given the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

21:37 Now, here it is. He's given this. We'll talk about the keys later. I'll explain what they mean and, you know, how they work and everything. But here, notice that Peter is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. But if you look over to chapter 18, which we'll look at in the second point, those same keys are now given, just two chapters later, those same keys are given not just to Peter anymore, but to the assembled church. It's moved, right? Because by the time you get to chapter 18, Jesus is conceiving of a world in which there isn't just one believer, Peter, anymore.

22:11 There are lots of believers organized into local churches, and now the keys are given to them. So you see who the keys are going to? They're not just going, in 16, they're not just going to Peter, alone and forever. They're going to Peter because Peter's a believer. And then by the time you get to 18, they're going to believers as churches. You see what's going on there? Right, so he's not a pope. He's a believer. That's why he gets the keys. So what I want you to see here, the point of this first point, we'll get to keys later.

22:42 What I want you to see, though, is that it is King Jesus himself who constitutes this thing called the church. It's his. It's his idea. It's not just an invention of preachers and pastors who needed jobs centuries ago. It's not just created somewhere along the way of history as one more tool to encourage you, like prayer and Bible reading and Bible studies. No, Jesus does this. It's founded and established on the recognition of his kingship.

23:17 So what that means, if you just start to think about it, is that the church plays a critical role in this whole story of redemption. It's not just an afterthought. It's not just a component that gets stuck on or could be taken off without doing much damage to the story of the gospel. No. It's unique because Jesus makes it unique. The fact that he created it makes it unique. Now, friends, I don't know what your thoughts are about the local church. I mean, most of you in this room, I know, are members of Third Avenue.

23:49 And so you've heard some of these kinds of things before in membership classes and all the rest. And, you know, being a member of Third Avenue requires a bit of getting over a bit of a threshold, right? Because we require things of you. So I know if you're a member of Third Avenue, you care about the local church. But it might mean that seeing the uniqueness of the local church, seeing that Jesus is the one who established it, It might mean that some of your thoughts and feelings about the local church need to conform just a little bit to Jesus's. Maybe you're here and you're not a member of Third Avenue and you've never even thought about this kind of stuff before.

24:20 Like the church, I just have never thought of it as anything but just green beans on the buffet, right? But maybe your feelings about the church need to conform a little bit more closely to Jesus's. There used to be a bumper sticker around. I've seen it actually pretty recently. And the bumper sticker on the back of the car says something like this, Jesus, I love you, but I can't stand your people. You ever seen that bumper sticker? And have you ever wondered what reaction the person who puts that bumper sticker on their car is hoping to get from Jesus?

24:56 I mean, it's addressed to Jesus, right? Dear Jesus, I love you, but I can't stand your people. They're speaking to Jesus in some way. What reaction are they expecting to get from Jesus? Are they expecting him to go, I know, dude. I really can't stand him either. My dad made me do this whole thing. Is that what they're expecting? Because I promise you that if you actually said those words to Jesus, that is not the reaction that you're going to get. The reaction that you're going to get from him, if you stand in front of him and say, Jesus, I really do love you, but I can't stand your people, is no.

25:33 then you do not really love me. Because to love me is to love my people. Friends, you cannot love Jesus without loving his people because he is irrevocably united to them. It's not in Acts, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my church? It's Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? He is irrevocably united to them because he shed his blood to purchase them.

26:04 Which also means, friends, that whatever service you give in the life of the local church, you ought to do it with that same kind of love. You ought to recognize the significance of what you're doing, whatever it is and however small you may think that it is. It might be that you're standing up in this pulpit preaching a Sunday evening service and that may seem really big to you. You should do that with some joy because you're doing that in service to the church that Jesus bought with his own blood. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe it's when, you know, hundreds of you throughout the life of this church volunteer at various times in the nursery.

26:39 And you're changing dirty diapers and you're getting urinated on and you're breaking up fights between two-year-olds and you're wiping slobber off the book that the little girl was chewing on. You know, a lot goes on back there. But friends, when you're doing that, let me encourage you. Don't think of that as just getting through a shift because it's not just getting through a shift. It's service to the people of the king. So learn in whatever service you do to lift your eyes up off the dirty diapers and consider that this little guy whose keister you're wiping may one day bow his knee to the same King Jesus that you profess.

27:20 The little girl that you're reading the book to, I mean, she may not be paying attention to you at all, but just understand that you're reading a book. Maybe it's about Jesus, maybe it's not. But you're building some sort of relationship with a little girl who might bow her knee to the same king that you bow to. And that's big work. I mean, when you're doing a crash-up derby with some trucks in the back of the nursery with a little four-year-old boy, right? And let's just say that the Lord in his providence uses the laws of physics when you slam your truck up against the wall, he may use the laws of physics to cause that truck to do some acrobatics in the air that will make that little four-year-old boy look at you for the rest of his life as a hero.

28:02 And someday in his providence, the Lord may use that. He may use the explosion of that little toy truck and the admiration that was created between you and that little four-year-old. He may use that when that kid is 16 years old to allow you to tell him about the gospel and bring him to Christ. You don't know, in all the service that you're doing, you don't know what the Lord and His providence is doing. But you do know that this is a place, right here, this local church is a place where Jesus has said, I'm going to be there, my spirit's going to be there, and the gates of hell are not going to prevail against my church.

28:46 You have no idea what's happening here every time we meet together. And there's more. Two chapters later, Jesus is still filling this thing out. He's constituted it in 16. I'm establishing my church. I'm the first believer that I've got. Here are the keys of the kingdom. He keeps doing the same thing in chapter 18 because he now charters the church. In other words, he grants it explicit authority to speak in his name.

29:17 So point number two, the charter. The church is chartered. Matthew 18, 15 through 20. We read that earlier in the service too, so we're not going to read it again. But take a look at it. Matthew 18, 15. It's just across the page. Not much time has elapsed here. So what you've got here, if you look at it, if you were listening when we read it earlier, you've actually got a passage of Scripture here that seems like it's weirdly dealing with just sort of conflict among believers. How do you handle it when one Christian sins against another Christian?

29:52 What are you supposed to do as believers, as the people of the king? And Jesus is giving instruction on what you do when you find yourself at odds with another Christian. But Jesus uses this occasion. He uses this teaching to actually empower the church that he just constituted back in chapter 16. In other words, he gives it a grant of authority, a charter of authority to act in his name and to speak in his name in a unique way. In a way that no other organization on the planet gets to do.

30:23 The local church speaks in the name of the king until he comes back. Okay, so let's look at it and see how that shows up in this passage. So first thing to notice here is that in 15 through 20, you've got really detailed instructions on how to handle it when two believers find themselves in conflict. That's really important to notice because once you're in the kingdom of Jesus, once you're under the authority of the kingdom, it is no longer just do whatever you want. You can handle conflict in any way you want. Don't worry about it. Whatever seems right to you, you go do it.

30:54 That is not it. These are detailed instructions on how to handle it. So a few things to see here. First of all, I want you to notice that this whole process of go to that believer, then take two witnesses, then tell it to the church. I want you to notice that this whole process is done in the context of an organized, instituted church. This is not just a group of people. This is not just a mob of friends. It's an organized, instituted church. So, for example, you look at verse 17, and you'll see there that the final appeal is made to the church, right?

31:29 So if he refuses to listen to them, to the two witnesses, what are you supposed to do then? You tell it to the church. Now, that's not the body of Christ all over the world. That does not mean go to Twitter and tell the universal body of Christ what has been done to you. That is not what that means. What it means is take it to your organized, instituted, local church. And if you look at it carefully, this is a group of people who know each other, who are organized such that they can investigate something, right?

32:04 Tell it to the church implies that the church can hear. So the church can hear, and then the church can consider it and think about it. You ever seen a mob consider anything? No, they don't. You've got to be organized in some way to be able to do that, to be able to hear and think and consider. And then, if you look at it, it says there in 17, if he refuses to listen to the church, that is not just friendly advice from 650 people. That's not what that is. Listening to the church implies that the church as a body can speak with one voice.

32:41 It can say one sharp thing to that person. You have sinned or our judgment is that you have not sinned, right? But the church speaks with one voice because it's organized and instituted. It's a thing. It's not just a group of people who gather together to do a bunch of stuff. That's the first thing I want you to notice. Second, I want you to notice here that Jesus is investing this local church. He's investing this church with his royal authority. In other words, he's chartering it to speak in his name.

33:15 So what's this charter thing? Well, I mean, you've seen the movies, right? So let's say you're the king of England, right, in the medieval times. And you're going to send an embassy to the king of France. Because you have some treaties that you want signed or some trade routes opened or whatever. But you're not going to go to Paris yourself from London. So what you're going to do is that you're going to create an embassy. You're going to have an ambassador here who comes and kneels before you. And you're going to say to that ambassador, Mr. Ambassador, I am giving you here these written words. This is a charter of authority to create you an embassy of the king of England to go to the king of France and say things to him for me.

33:52 In other words, I'm giving you authority because there were no telephones, right? So you can't just do that. You can't just text the king of France like they can now. But you give this guy authority to speak in your name. And you might say, listen, you have authority to speak in my name. Here are your instructions. I want you to accomplish this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, six months from now, I'm going to be coming to France myself for whatever set of reasons. And when I get to the royal court of France, anything that you have spoken in my name that turns out to be wrong, I will fix that when I get there.

34:24 But until I get there, you are speaking with my authority. Okay, that's what Jesus is doing with the church. He's saying, you have authority to speak in my name until I get back. Now, how do we know that that's what's going on? Well, look at verse 18 and 19. He says, Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Now, does that sound familiar?

34:58 Whatever you bind shall be bound. Whatever you loose shall be loosed. Does it sound familiar? Well, it's the same language from Matthew 16 when Jesus is talking about the keys of the kingdom. Exact same language, like almost word for word. Because what's going on here is that Jesus, now that there are more believers, the authority of the keys of the kingdom are being given to that church. Now, let's think about it. What are the keys? Because this is where this idea of authority and chartering of authority, speaking in the king's name, This is where it all comes from, is this idea of the keys being given to the church.

35:30 What are the keys? Well, the keys were a well-known symbol of a steward's authority over a king's castle, or even his whole kingdom sometimes. And what the binding and loosing language means is that if the steward takes his keys, his authority, and he puts it into a door and binds that door, nobody else in the castle has authority to unbind that door. If he unbinds the door or loosens it, nobody in that castle has authority to unloosen it because he's got the keys, right?

36:05 So that's what Jesus means. If you bind something on earth with these keys that I've given you, you can consider it bound in heaven. If you loose something here, you can consider it loosed in heaven. In other words, you're speaking for me until I get back. So it's a symbol of authority. And that's what's happening. Jesus is giving authority, the keys binding and loosing. He's giving it first to Peter as the first believer, then the apostles as they come to believe, then many others after them as they organize into churches. The church has the authority to speak in the name of the heavenly king.

36:39 Another thing to see here, what kind of authority does Jesus give to the church? Well, Jesus gives the church authority to speak for him, particularly in matters regarding the who and the what of the Christian gospel. You can see it in those five verses or six verses, Matthew 18. He gives them authority to speak in matters regarding the who and the what of the Christian gospel. In other words, it has authority to say, the church has authority to say what the gospel is, not in terms of defining it, not in terms of creating it, but in terms of affirming it and defending it.

37:18 As they hear other gospels and other people talking, they can say, yep, that's the gospel. that is too, that is, but that's not, that's not, and that's not. That's what it means, the what of the gospel. Also, the who, the who of the gospel. In other words, who is rightly confessing the gospel? Who is credibly claiming to be a Christian? So where do you see the what? Well, you can see the what super clearly in Matthew 16, right? Because Jesus only gives this authority to Peter to talk about the what, to affirm the what of the gospel.

37:54 He only gives it to him when Peter has the what nailed down for himself, right? He's only got authority. He's only got ability to say, yep, that's the gospel. That is, that is, that isn't. That's not. He's only got that once he understands it deeply himself. And that's the moment. All right, here's the keys. Now you have authority to do that. As for the who, that's the point here in Matthew 18. It's not just about conflict resolution. At the end of this process, do you see what's going on at the end of this process? The church is exercising power and authority to say, listen, listen, brother, you who have sinned against this other person, you may be confessing the true gospel.

38:31 You may have all the propositions down and right, but your life doesn't match up with your profession of being a Christian. So, in treating you as a tax collector and a Gentile, we are acting to remove you from our number. To declare to the world that that is not how a Christian lives. Do you see what's going on? They're able to say what the gospel is in terms of defending it and affirming it. And then they can look at someone and say, your life doesn't match up with that gospel.

39:04 So now, because you won't repent, we're removing you from the membership of the church. Look at verse 19 also. Because it sort of nails this down. He says, again, I say to you, if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. What's that about? Just generally, the topic, what is that about?

39:37 This verse gets just horribly misused and misunderstood because people basically think it's about prayer. It's not about prayer. And even less is it about an emotional, mystical encounter with the presence of Jesus. So there are two clues in here about what this is really about. The first is the word anything in verse 19. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything, they ask. That's not one word.

40:08 And it's not just a throwaway word that means anything in all the world. It's actually two words. It's if any two of you agree about anything. And the word thing is a very technical term in Greek for a legal matter. It's a case. It's an issue that has been brought to the attention of the church that he's been talking about all along. The other clue here is just where it falls. I mean, it's coming right on the heels of all this talk about conflict resolution and then the authority of the church to resolve that conflict and speak about that conflict.

40:45 And you don't, in verse 19, just have this random switch to the topic of prayer. It's still talking about the church. It's still talking about the ambassadorial authority of the church. When the church acts, even if it's just two or three of you gathered as a church in my name, Jesus says. My father is going to vest that action with full authority. It's going to be as if I myself am there. That's what it means. So once you understand that, it all kind of starts to click in place, right? Because all of a sudden you realize, oh my goodness, local churches like this one right here, like Third Avenue Baptist Church, have been uniquely chartered and authorized to speak with the authority of Jesus.

41:37 And once you realize that, you realize that there's nothing else like it on planet Earth. Nothing else has the authority to speak as an embassy of the kingdom of heaven. Nothing else. Your Bible study doesn't have the right to do that. Your campus group doesn't have the right to do that. Across campus does not have the right to do that. No preacher has the right to do that. It's the church that's been given that authority. This is just mind-blowing to me, and I hope it is to you. Every single local church, no matter how small, no matter how pathetic looking in the eyes of the world, no matter whether they have a building or not, or whether their building is falling down around them, every single local church in the world is a fully decked out, fully credentialed embassy of the high king of heaven in this fallen world.

42:24 There is no substitute for that, and there's no right way for you to be indifferent to it if you're a Christian. Just real practically, too. This also helps us understand the importance of what we're doing when we gather here at members meetings. Because when we gather here on those one Wednesday night a month, that's when we, as Third Avenue, are most visibly exercising the authority of the keys of the kingdom. Because what we're doing again and again and again, when we bring people in, when we put people out, the whole deal, what we're doing is that we're speaking authoritatively about the what of the gospel and the who of the gospel.

43:03 Every time you bring somebody into membership of this church, you're saying, on the recommendation of your elders, but you're saying, yeah, we believe that this person has got the right what of the gospel. They're professing the gospel rightly. We believe that. And as far as we can tell so far, they're living a life that lines up with their profession of faith in Jesus. And so when you vote and bring that person in, something just extraordinary is happening. I mean, you realize that, right? I mean, when we're gathered in this room for a members meeting, it's your I that does the work.

43:36 There's been a lot of prep up to that point. Membership interviews and classes and all the rest, and the elders have judged the matter and made a recommendation and all the rest. But nothing has happened, right? I mean, if a covenant is going to be created, right, when the person puts forward their hand and says, I want to be in covenant with Third Avenue, and Third Avenue grabs onto them and says, yep, we're in covenant. Up until the moment you say I, nothing has happened. But when you say I, that's when the church's hand reaches out and grasps the extended hand of that new member and a covenant is formed.

44:08 Something heavenly is happening when you say that word I. It's an incredible thing that happens in our membership. I want you to understand too that all of this is not just make-believe. It's reality. It's reality. And it's when Christians are not just individual little Christians running around praying and doing their daily Bible reading that they become a threat to the powers that be in the world and in the spiritual places. It's when Christians organize into embassies of the high king that we become a threat.

44:46 Most of you have heard me talk about this before, but I was several years ago when I was regularly going to the nation of China. I went at one point to a genuine Christian bookstore that was in a very public place. One of the missionaries that was there took me to a Christian bookstore. And the Chinese government, which all of you know its character, was very happy to have that Christian bookstore there. And it had all kinds of books that you would see. It had John Piper books and John MacArthur books and no Gilbert books.

45:20 That's sad, but it had a lot of the books that you and I have read in the Chinese. language and my friend this missionary as we looked around he said I want you to take a minute I want you to notice what kinds of books are not here and I looked and it's like well I don't I don't know there's books about prayer and there's the bible and there's you know God's sovereignty and all the all this stuff it's all here it's a good it's a good bookstore he said there's one kind of book that the government of China will not allow I said I have no idea and he said you will not find in this bookstore a single book about the church because it's not a bunch of Christians running around as individuals praying and reading their Bibles that are a threat to the regime. It's Christians when they are organized and they know that they speak for the king.

46:13 That's when they become a threat. So the church is chartered. All right, last thing, the church's commission, Matthew chapter 28. We haven't read this, but turn over there. Matthew chapter 28, 16. So here's the question before we read it. If the church is the embassy of the king in this world, it's got authority to speak in his name about the what and the who of the gospel, right if that's all true then what is this embassy supposed to be doing right you got your medieval king grants his ambassador authority to go to france and doesn't give him any instructions just says go well that's absurd the ambassador would turn around and say what do you want me to do your majesty well what am i supposed to be about am i opening trade routes or am i declaring war what do you want me to be about when i get to france so that's the question what is this embassy of the church supposed to be doing and accomplishing well to put it as simply as I can our

47:20 commission our goal our marching orders from the king are to proclaim the good news of the king and make disciples of the king so the grand question what is the mission of the church what is the the commission that the king has given to the church it's to proclaim the good news about the king and to make disciples of the king. So let me show you that in one of the most famous passages in the Bible. It's got this name, the Great Commission, and there's a reason that it's got that. It's Matthew chapter 28, 16 to 20. So let me read it. Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

48:10 And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. All right. Well, probably when you were in elementary school, you learned how to sort of pick a reading passage apart to understand it by asking the questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how, right? That's how we did it. Who, what, when, where, why, and how? And if you can answer those questions, you can understand what a passage is actually saying. Well, here, we're going to do that, but not in that order. we're going to do where who when why what and how so here we go where where was this given well it was given on top of the mountain in Galilee now I don't want to this will this will preach for a really long time but I don't want to take time to preach it what I want you to understand is that the mission of the church was given to the disciples in what was understood to be the darkest most broken area of the entire nation of Israel it was way up in the north and when the Assyrians and the Babylonians and everybody else invades the nation guess who takes the heaviest blow with a

49:11 hammer it's those people up there in Galilee they get broken and destroyed it's the darkest place in the nation and Jesus takes them there and says this is where I want you to begin at the bottom of the barrel in the darkest place in the entire nation this is where I want you to begin shining light. Now, again, not going to preach that, but I do just want you to understand it, friend, that if you think, if you think you're at the bottom of the barrel, if you think you're in the darkest place, you need to understand that that's where God wants the light to shine. In other words, you're in exactly the kind of place where God shines light and brings people to believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe that's what this whole thing is about for you this morning, for you to just hear that. Believe in Christ, repent of your sins, and you'll be forgiven for all eternity, and then you join a church, and you get on with it. That's the where. Number two, who? Who? Well, some say it's

50:11 just the 11 that are given this commission, so we're off the hook, right? But that's not true. We're not off the hook, and the reason is actually because of the when. So the who the commission is given to is actually answered by when the commission actually launches. When does the commission to go to the world and start making disciples, when does it actually launch? It's not here in Matthew 28. Because other gospels tell us that as soon as he gives this commission, Jesus says, but.

50:44 He tells him something else. Here's your commission, here's what you're going to do, but go to Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit comes on you from on high. The commission doesn't launch until Pentecost when the church is formed. The commission's for us. It's for us, the church. And when does it end? If it started at Pentecost? When does the commission end? Well, very last sentence of Matthew 28.

51:16 Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, which is a good thing because the commission carries on to the end of the age. When this age gives way entirely to the next age and Jesus returns. So that's the when. What about the why? Why are they given this commission? Why are they given it? Well, he tells them in verse 18. He gives them the basis for the mission they're about to give him. and you're given this commission to go out and make disciples of me, the king, because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

51:52 This is an extraordinary statement. I mean, can you imagine saying that to a group of your friends? Like you're sitting around watching the final four or something and say, hey guys, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, I have some things to say to you. No, no, no, no, no. You can't get away with that. It's only the resurrected Christ that can get away with saying something like that because it's true. We're given this commission because all authority has been given to the king. What about the what?

52:23 Well, I've already told you what the what is, and it's very clear. The what is that we're to proclaim the gospel and make disciples. I mean, you can see it. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all that I've commanded you. In other words, go out into the world, tell them who I am. and bring them into my kingdom. Bring them to me so that they can learn what I have to teach them. That's the mission of the church. Proclaim the gospel and make disciples.

52:54 And then how are we going to do it? Well, same last line of the whole gospel. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I told you at the beginning of this whole thing that Jesus has a fierce love for his churches. This proves it. I'm with you. I'm with you in this to the very end of the age. I've got a job for you to do. It's going to be a hard job. But I'm with you in it. I'm with you to the very, very end. Well, just briefly, what does all that mean for you?

53:28 What does it mean for you as a Christian? All this stuff about the church. Well, it means, friend, that if you want to love Jesus, if you want to spend your life in service to Jesus, then that is going to mean a life spent in service to the local church. That's what it means. It gets very practical, too. I mean, it means committed membership in a church. We're going to talk about membership in more detail, but that's what it means. You need to be a member of a local church. And you need to not think that you can substitute other things for the local church.

54:00 Campus organizations don't count. Neither do universities or seminaries. Why? Because universities and campus groups and seminaries and all the rest of the things that Christians do, they're not the church. They have a different commission. They have a different charter of authority. They have a different constituting. They're not the church. Friends, here's another thing that it means. This is the last thing. When you come to church, when you come and gather with the church here at 3rd Avenue, Don't let yourself forget what we're doing here.

54:38 Don't let yourself forget what we're doing here. I absolutely love, one of my favorite Bible verses is Luke 12, 32. Because Jesus is sending his followers out into the world, right? He basically wants them to get roughed up. He's trying to teach them what's coming. He's sending them out into the world. And he says that I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves. In other words, you're about to get cut up. And that's just the nature of being a church. But do you remember what he says in Luke 12, 32? He says, fear not, little flock, for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

55:18 It's beautiful, isn't it? I mean, look, local churches don't look like embassies from the outside. They certainly don't look like embassies of the high king of heaven. I've seen some embassies, right? You go to capitals of various nations in the world and you go to kind of embassy row and you look at those things and they're incredible. Local churches don't look like that. They don't look like much. But each and every one of them, including this one, is the embassy of the king. It speaks with his voice.

55:50 It acts with his authority. And one day, because it is Jesus's, because he constituted it, because he bought it with his own blood, he's going to exalt it and glorify it and give it the kingdom. I'll close with these words from a hymn that I love because I think it captures so well what we're about. Here's what that hymn says. Amid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, she waits the consummation of peace forevermore until with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blessed and the great church victorious.

56:30 shall be the church at rest. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have constituted and chartered and commissioned your church. Lord, we pray that you would grow in every single one of us a love for your people and an understanding of what the local church is and is meant to do in your great plan of redemption. Lord, never let us think too little of your bride. Never let us think too little of this church which you have bought with your own blood.

57:00 We pray that in the name of Jesus and always to his honor and glory. Amen.