[0:00] Matthew 16 records for us as it opens up kind of the questioning of the Pharisees as they are asking him for a sign, asking Christ for a sign. And Jesus gives them this great statement that no sign will be given unto you other than the sign of Jonah.
[0:17] And then it immediately goes to Jesus traveling with his disciples and him warning the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And the disciples thought that this was literally because they did not take bread.
[0:31] And Jesus says, have you forgotten what happened with the loaves of the 5,000? Have you forgot how the Lord worked and moved in this way? And the reason I highlight that is because we see this is a time of questioning by men, but also a time of not necessarily great faith by the disciples because even after Jesus opened it up to them, he said, your faith is little, and he reminded them that it wasn't literal bread, but it was the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
[0:59] And in that setting, we get to Matthew 16, starting in verse 13, where it says, Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?
[1:12] And they said, Some say John the Baptist and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And he said to them, But who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
[1:26] And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barthona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
[1:40] I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ.
[1:52] Here we see the first mentioning of the church, but we also see the mentioning of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. If there is one portion of Scripture in reference to the keys of authority that has been interpreted in a variety of ways, and has been used to build whole theologies upon, and others used to refute those theologies, more than any other, it is this portion of Scripture, Matthew 16, verses 13 through 20, in direct reference to the position of Peter and the place that he holds within the church.
[2:22] And we'll seek to answer those as we go through the text, but we kind of want to put it in the proper context. So we understand here that Jesus is at kind of the height of his ministry, the pinnacle of his ministry.
[2:35] His popularity is growing, and men and women all around the country here of Israel are talking about him, and people are questioning him and asking him for signs, and he is even taking his disciples along with them, and we see that their faith is not yet what it should be.
[2:50] And he brings them to the place of Caesarea Philippi, which is really in the northern part of the land of Israel, even outside of the bounds of Israel. It kind of goes up into the outer skirts of the Roman Empire, and the setting is just as unique as the truth that we see, because Jesus brought them to a place of rampant idolatry.
[3:10] He brought them to a place where paganistic worship was there. He brought them to a place where a multitude of temples were built. There were temples erected to the god of Pan. There were temples erected to the god of the Roman Emperor.
[3:23] It was a city that was set up to signify and display the power of the Roman Empire, and also to encourage the worship of the Roman Emperor.
[3:34] And it was at this locale, at this place where men were worshiping all these lowercase g little gods, and people were adoring the power of the Roman Empire, Jesus brought his disciples and asked them the question that rings true throughout all ages, Who am I?
[3:51] And it was at this location that Jesus made reference to him building a church that nothing in the world would be able to oppose. As they were looking at the power of the Roman Empire, and they were looking at the display of the authority there, he was talking to them of something that even the Romans would not be able to oppose.
[4:10] Nothing would come, and that is the church. But we're focusing on these keys of the kingdom of heaven that are in connection with the church, because these things are in direct connection.
[4:21] Maybe many of you are like me, and at times you will go through your keychain, and you'll look over in your keys and you'll say, I don't even know what these keys go to, or I don't know where these keys came from, and therefore I'm going to discard these keys, because keys are only important when they are connected to something.
[4:38] And we see that here in connection with the profession of Christ, and we also see it in connection with the church that Christ references. So I want you to see just three things this morning.
[4:48] Number one, we see the profession. The profession that is offered. The great confession, you will, of Peter, but it is not just of Peter. We need to understand this.
[4:58] It is the profession of who he is. We see now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? Now he's asking the multitude of the disciples this question, right?
[5:11] And they, that is the multitude of them, said, some say John the Baptist and others Elijah, but still others Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Now what we see here about this profession is that the profession of Christ that is true is not based upon popular opinion.
[5:27] The profession of Christ, of who he is, what he stands for, the things which he are doing is not based upon popular opinion or upon the thoughts of the people of this world.
[5:40] Many people have thoughts and they have opinions as to who Jesus is. Many have an interpretation of who Jesus is. As a matter of fact, just about every world religion around the world acknowledges the person of Jesus Christ and they have an opinion as to who Jesus Christ is.
[5:56] And many will tell you great things about Jesus and the great things which he did. And many people will tell you that you come into contact with their opinion on Jesus. One thing we understand is that authority does not come from the public opinion of who Jesus is.
[6:14] It does not matter. We need to be careful that we do not base our theology, especially in the world in which we live in, the society in which God has placed us in, we must not base our theology and interpretation of Jesus Christ based on popular opinion or based on what other people think about him.
[6:35] Friend, listen to me. You cannot base your theology on who Jesus Christ is based on what your mother, your father, your grandparents think he is or what your friends think he is or what your neighbors think he is or what anyone else thinks he is because we do not find authority given because of what other people say.
[6:52] It always must come to this matter of a personal understanding because Jesus now makes a transition and he said to them, but who do you say that I am?
[7:02] Now the word you here is plural. This is important for a proper interpretation of this passage. In our saying, it would be, who do you all say that I am or who do y'all say that I am?
[7:13] So he's asking the group of the disciples here, right? He's got the apostles with him and he says, but who do you all say that I am? Now this is where the rubber hits the road because it's not a matter of what everybody else says about Jesus.
[7:26] The church doesn't operate because of what other people think Jesus is. The church operates because of who we think he is and who we know he is. Now we're still looking at this profession of Christ.
[7:36] He says, now who do you say that I am? Let me just stop right here and say, this is a great place to say, the question is not who do the people around you think Jesus is. The question really is who do you think Jesus is? The question is not, what does everybody you surround yourself with think Jesus is?
[7:50] The question, the real question that must be asked is who do I think he is? Who do I say that he is? And we go on in the passage and it says that Peter stood up to say, he says, Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
[8:04] Now we need to understand for interpretative reasons that Peter is not just speaking for himself here. Every group has a spokesperson and we see this being a consistent theme throughout the group of the apostles.
[8:16] Who was it that got out of the boat and walked on the water? It was Peter, right? Who was it that speaks first most time? It's Peter. Who is it that refused to have his feet washed? It was Peter, right? Who is it that cut off the ear of Malchus?
[8:28] It was Peter. Peter is always the outspoken and the outgoing one. So Peter here is speaking for the group of the you all, right? Who do you all say that I am? And Peter stands up to speak for the group of the apostles and makes this great profession.
[8:43] He says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. It is literally his profession of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. You are the Messiah. Now we understand when we read our scripture, this is not the first time nor the only time that Jesus is professed for his rightful identity.
[9:02] As a matter of fact, when he's calling his apostles to himself, we see that they make this profession. We have found he who is the son of God. We have found the Messiah. We have found those. And they bring Nathanael to him because this is the one that has been prophesied over, over and over again in the early portions of the gospels.
[9:19] We found this profession of Jesus Christ. When he calms the sea, his disciples look at him and say, well, this is none other than the son of God. So what's different with this one? Well, this one is Jesus is asking them and Jesus acknowledges this profession, right?
[9:32] At this point, it is a matter of personal concern. Who do you say that I am? And Peter makes this profession. Now look at this. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven.
[9:48] Read this in context with the verses that precede it. The disciples did not have enough faith in Jesus Christ and know that just because they forgot to bring bread that they were not going to go hungry.
[10:00] They thought that when Jesus said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, that he was getting on to them because they didn't bring enough food. So their faith was so little that they doubted the reality that Jesus could feed them with what little they had.
[10:13] And now, just a short time later, Peter makes this great confession. When Jesus pronounces this truth, you don't know who I am because of what others say about me. You don't know who I am because of what you think about me.
[10:27] You know who I am because my father has revealed that to you. Friend, listen to me. A proper understanding and a proper profession of who Jesus Christ is is not found in the weight of worldly opinion.
[10:39] It is not found in the weight of worldly interpretation. Rather, a proper understanding of who Jesus Christ is is only found by divine heavenly inspiration. That is that we cannot really understand who Christ is unless he is revealed to us by the Father through the presence of the Spirit.
[10:58] This is why when we come to Jesus Christ as our Savior, as our Lord and Savior, and we have a great understanding of who he is, and we can make that profession that he is the Son of the living God, that he is the Messiah, he is my Savior.
[11:10] We do not celebrate because somebody told us about him. We do not celebrate because we figure things out about him. Rather, we worship because God has revealed him to us. God may have used an individual to tell us a truth that was a revelation.
[11:24] God may have used our minds and the Word of God to open it up to us to reveal it. But friend, listen, every time we come to a proper profession of Jesus Christ, it is a matter of heavenly revelation.
[11:37] We only know because the Father has revealed him to us. This is why salvation is so great. This is why it is so amazing to have this understanding of Jesus Christ.
[11:48] This is why also that to have a true and fuller understanding of Christ, we not only cultivate relationships with one another so that iron can sharpen iron, but we must cultivate a right understanding and a right relationship with our heavenly Father because we will not know him greater until we are in a greater fellowship with him.
[12:06] And this is what we see in this profession. It is not that Peter was great. It was not that Peter knew everything. It is not that Peter found it out. Friend, listen to me. We are talking about the keys of the kingdom of heaven and it is really understanding of the profession.
[12:20] Peter could be the spokesman for the group simply because the Father had revealed the Son to them. Peter made a right profession not because he was smart, not because he was educated.
[12:31] As a matter of fact, we read in the book of Acts that when Peter and John stand before the religious leaders, they understand that they were untrained, unskilled men, uneducated men, right? They were just common men. Peter didn't search the scriptures and find things out for himself.
[12:45] Peter was standing in the glory of heavenly revelation and had a true understanding of who Jesus is. We have the same privilege today. We have the same opportunity today to make that right profession and therefore we rejoice in that.
[12:58] And the keys to the kingdom of heaven are directly connected to that profession that the Father has revealed who the Son is and man professes who the Son is.
[13:09] And we see here the profession. Number two, we see the people because we want to take this in its proper setting. We have seen that Jesus is speaking to the multitude of the disciples or the multitude of the apostles.
[13:22] He's got them gathered together and he's asking the 12, who do you think that I am? And he has spoken to them in light of what other people say about him. And now he kind of focuses in on the profession of what Peter had said.
[13:33] He says in verse 18, I also say to you, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Here is the verse that has divided schools of thought. Here is the verse that has divided so many directions of the church throughout the ages.
[13:48] One whole realm of Christianity builds all of their theology upon this one verse and we need to properly understand it. It's a very deep verse. There's a lot of interpretation, a lot of biblical scholar opinion on it and you can do a lot of research and you can do a lot of study and you can find out all these different thoughts on it.
[14:06] But there are just some simple truths. My thinking when I come to portions of scripture, especially portions of scripture that have seemed to be divisive, is what is the simplest understanding of this verse or what is the simplest understanding of the scripture?
[14:19] Because what I have found, at least personally, that most often the simplest, clearest understanding is the right one. Because we are not called to read into scripture, but we are just called to take it.
[14:31] We need to understand that the Bible was written for the common man in the common language. It was not written as a mast or kind of a hidden gem to be fallen. It's deeper than the depths of the earth.
[14:42] We'll never mind to the depths of it, but it's also not so unknowable that we can't read it as simple individuals and come to the great truth of it. But what we see here is, I also say to you that you are Peter.
[14:53] Now Jesus uses very intentional wordings here and he uses a very intentional word in the original language and the Holy Spirit moves Matthew as he writes this. He used the same words. He says, you are Peter.
[15:05] That word is the Greek word petros, which is the word for a single rock. You are a single rock. You are just a stone. And Peter is a stone. He is not, he's in all of his imperfections.
[15:17] He is a stone. He said, you are a single rock, but upon this rock. Now that second word rock is not a reference to Peter because that word is petra. Petros means a single rock.
[15:29] Petra means a combination or a gathering together of a large sum of rocks in order to build a bedrock. It is a foundation stone. It is a large gathering of stones.
[15:39] So what we see is, Jesus says, Peter, you are a single rock and I will build my church upon this foundation. So the question is, is what foundation was Jesus building his church upon? Some say that they were building their, he was building his foundation upon Peter, that the church would be built upon the profession of Peter.
[15:57] Well, the first problem we have with that is Peter was a sinful, imperfect man. We know that Peter denies him. There are some who say yes, but that was before he was filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
[16:08] But we can also go to Galatians chapter two and see where Paul had to rebuke Peter because Peter, even after being filled with the Holy Spirit, had some shortcomings, right? So we understand that Peter is fallible and surely Jesus Christ would not build his church upon something that was able to mess up.
[16:26] We also see that Peter gives an interpretation of his own as to what this rock or this single stone is. In first Peter chapter two, Peter says that we, this is Peter himself speaking, that we come to the living stone, that is the cornerstone who is Jesus Christ, as living stones ourself and we are being built up one with another.
[16:47] So Peter refers to all believers as single stones who are being joined together. Paul says no other foundation has been laid than that which has already been laid, who is Jesus Christ.
[16:58] So the simplest interpretation that I find for the passage is that the foundation on which Jesus builds his church is himself. He is the foundation stone. He is the cornerstone that was rejected.
[17:10] But he builds that church with other single stones who are those believers who make a true profession of who he is. He is the foundation on which the living stones, that is the petros, that is the single stones, are laid and joined together with one another.
[17:27] And all of this to say that the church is not built around a single person other than the person and work of Jesus Christ. And it is not built upon Peter. It is rather built with a bunch of Peters, that is a bunch of people, a bunch of single stones, right?
[17:40] That we are the stones laid on the foundation of who Jesus is. And this is a real important understanding for this because God is not promoting and exalting Peter here.
[17:51] He is promoting and exalting Jesus as being the foundation for the church. And we are stones laid on that foundation as the church, being fitted and joined together with one another to be the church so that we can stand in opposition to the gates of Hades.
[18:11] Now the gates are defensive mechanisms, which means that the church should be on the offensive, but gates are also seen as places of business. We see it throughout scripture.
[18:23] We see people sitting at the gates in the Old Testament. They're always making decisions at the gates. So really what we see is that all the planning and the scheming and the promoting of Hades, that is death and hell, will not have authoritative power over the church.
[18:38] That all the schemes, all of the plans, we see that being played out in the book of Revelation, right? Have no power over the church, which Jesus is building upon the foundation of himself.
[18:50] Because it is a church built of people who are living stones fitted together on one foundation. And that foundation is Jesus Christ. So we see here that he says, I also say to you that you are Peter, you are just a stone, you are a single stone built upon a foundation stone, the rock, and I will build my church in the gates of Hades when I'll overpower it.
[19:12] So now we see here that there was a profession and that profession united a group of people upon a common foundation who is Jesus Christ. And that leads us to this third principle, the purpose of the keys.
[19:24] Because why do we have the keys given? Verse 19 says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
[19:35] Then he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ. He says, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Now, I do believe that he is speaking to Peter personally here, but we need to understand exactly what is going on.
[19:48] He says, I will give you, I will entrust you with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. What we do not see is he has not given him the keys to heaven. Right? Peter is not standing at the gates of heaven making the decision of who he's going to let in and who he's going to let out.
[20:01] I know that there are a lot of jokes and a lot of stories about that, but Peter does not have the gates to heaven. Why? Because you don't enter heaven through a gate, you enter heaven through a door. Right? And Jesus gave this great picture, this great imagery, that he was the door into the sheep for the sheep to go in and out of.
[20:15] Right? He was the shepherd. He says in the parable that he was the door in which the sheep went through. Now, one thing we need to understand in the setting, take everything in context, at that time, what Jesus was telling us is that when the shepherd brought the sheep in, they would put them in these holding pens, if you will, these stonewalled holding pens that had no physical gate because the shepherd himself would serve as the gate.
[20:37] He would actually lay across this opening in which the sheep went in and out of. Therefore, the sheep couldn't get out that night because he was the door himself and no predator could get in because they had to go over himself.
[20:48] He was the door. So what Jesus is saying is that Peter doesn't have the keys to a gate because Jesus is the door. He is the way in and he's the way out. So we understand that this is not in reference to heaven itself.
[21:00] As a matter of fact, these keys are given in reference to the kingdom of heaven. Tony Evans has a right interpretation of this where he says that the church is to operate as a bit of heaven placed in a place of earth.
[21:13] The church is to operate as a representative of the kingdom of heaven in operation of the kingdom of this world. And he has a great picture of much like embassies around the world.
[21:23] He said you can go to a multitude of foreign countries and you can go in that foreign country and in the midst of that foreign country, you will find a United States embassy. And that United States embassy is a representation of the kingdom of the United States in operation in the kingdom of that realm or that world.
[21:41] And this is what the church is to be. The church is to be a representation of heaven on earth. And it is these keys that were given to Peter, that Peter was to open up the access for the church to spread out through the earth.
[21:56] Now we see this. Peter was not the sole owner of these keys as you'll see in just a moment. We see this in the book of Acts, right? The Jews heard the gospel because Peter preached his Pentecost message.
[22:07] When Philip began to proclaim the gospel in Samaria, so there's the Jewish people. When Philip began to proclaim the gospel in Samaria after the persecution and death of Stephen, and people began to believe the gospel, it was Peter and John who went to Samaria, and Peter prayed for them and they received the Holy Spirit.
[22:23] So now that's the Samaritans. So the Samaritans were half Jew, half Gentile, right? So you got to Jews, you got to half Jews. And then when Cornelius had this longing to hear the gospel, he sent for Peter in Acts chapter 10.
[22:36] So Peter is the one who goes into the household of Cornelius and preaches the gospel to Cornelius, and Cornelius becomes the first Gentile that is non-Jew to accept the gospel.
[22:46] So we see Peter using the keys to the kingdom of heaven, unlocking the door to the Jewish people, unlocking the door to the Samaritan people, and unlocking the door to the Gentile people through Cornelius.
[22:58] Now this was so that a church could be established in all of these regions, right? It was not so that Peter could dictate who gets in and out, but it is rather opening up these regions for the establishment of a church, which is the kingdom of heaven.
[23:12] Now this authoritative power was given to a multitude of others as well, because we have Philip the evangelist preaching in Samaria. We have Philip sharing the gospel with the Ethiopian eunuch, who by the way ended up taking it back to Ethiopia, and there was a flourishing church there.
[23:27] So who opened that door? That was Philip. We have Paul taking the gospel and establishing churches in the world outside of the land of Israel. Sure, Peter has already opened the gospel to the Gentile people, but Paul extends it beyond even to the realm of the Roman world here.
[23:44] So what we see is the disciples and the believers opening up the door for the kingdom of heaven to be present in the kingdom of this world, and that is through the establishment of the church. That is so that churches could be built, that people could believe.
[23:58] Remember, because the church is made up of people laid on a common foundation. And as people began to respond to Jesus Christ, he was the foundation, and they were being built together. And when those people come together, now the kingdom of heaven is in operation in the kingdom of this world.
[24:14] And then we have this passage where it says, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. There's many false interpretations of this, saying that Peter had the authority, and the descendants of Peter have the authority, to bind and loose in heaven and on earth.
[24:32] But rather, the binding and loosen was a very common phrase at that time where Jesus was speaking of something that the Pharisees knew very much of. Binding would be to restrict, and loosing would be to give liberties or to give freedom.
[24:46] To bind something was to restrict from doing it, and to loose something was to give freedom to do that thing in your settings. And we see that not only Peter has given this, because the second mentioning of the church is in Matthew chapter 18.
[24:58] Matthew 16 is the first mentioning of the church. Matthew 18 is the second mentioning of the church. Matthew 16 speaks of the authority and the power of the church. Matthew 18 speaks of church discipline, right?
[25:12] Where the church was to hold one another accountable. Well, who is holding accountable here? Well, it's not just Peter in Matthew 18. It's all of the apostles, and it's all of the believers who hold one another accountable.
[25:23] So we see this binding and loosing principle being even extended into those others. Now, to bind and loose is to say, you are going to set forth that which cannot be done as a church and that which can be done as a church.
[25:36] Now, I believe the New American Standard has the wording properly. It's a little wordy, but when you read it in its original language, this is exactly how it should read. It says, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.
[25:49] It does not say, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. I know some translations say that, but it is a future perfect participle tense, which means it would have already been bound in heaven. What we see here is that the apostles are operating in such great fellowship with their Lord and Savior, operating in such great revelation with God, that what they dictate on earth would have already been dictated in heaven.
[26:13] The apostles are not determining what heaven does, but rather heaven will determine what the apostles allow to be done on earth. That's a big difference, right? It is not Peter telling heaven, this is how you're going to operate.
[26:24] It was the apostles seeing what was going on in heaven and telling men what is already happening in heaven, shall have already been bound or shall have already been loosed. And the wording is this, the apostles would be those who set forward how the church would operate, what liberties you could have within the church, what restrictions you could have within the church.
[26:47] We see this being played out in the book of Acts when the church is born. You have what we call the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where the decision was made on what could operate in a church outside of the Jewish realm.
[26:59] Remember, Peter had opened the door to Cornelius and the Gentiles, but Paul had taken the gospel outside of the land. Of course, Cornelius was inside the land of the Jewish people.
[27:11] Paul had taken it to very non-Jewish people, and there were certain liberties there. So there was the council of Jerusalem to determine what was right and what was wrong. And so they give these binding and loosings, right?
[27:24] They say, you're free. You don't have to be circumcised. That is, you're loosed from circumcision, but abstain from the eating of blood and from worshiping false idols and from fornication and all these.
[27:35] So there's the binding. There's the restriction. Someone rightfully said that everything the church is free to do and everything the church is compelled not to do is only found within the New Testament pages of Scripture.
[27:48] The apostles set forward all the binding and loosing. So friend, what does that tell us? Is that when we're looking at another church, before we judge that church based on how we practice things, we need to look at that church as to how the New Testament, how the apostles laid it out for us because here's the binding and loosing.
[28:03] The keys to the kingdom of heaven was given to open up the world to the church, but also to show how the church should operate in the world in which it was put in. It was not to set forward these certain restrictive elements.
[28:15] It was to show the freedom and the operation of the kingdom of heaven in the realm of this world. And they were given to them for a season, for a purpose, for a time. God entrusted the apostles with authoritative power, that is the keys, so that he could build his church and the church could be the world force that it is today.
[28:38] It is still that, that all the counsel and the scheming of Hades, all the plans of Satan and demonic forces would never be able to overpower that which was built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.
[28:52] The freedoms of the church are there, that which is loose. The bindings, the restrictions of the church are there. All of these things are tied to the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Peter was entrusted with authoritative responsibility, but Peter was not entrusted with absolute power.
[29:10] Because go back to that Acts 15 Jerusalem council. Peter was not even sitting in the place of judgment there. James was. James was the head of the church at Jerusalem. Peter confessed, made this great confession or testimony that united with what Paul had said, but it was not Peter who dictated exactly what they would bind and loose.
[29:30] Rather, it was James. We understand here that the keys to the kingdom of heaven was that which would allow the establishment of the church so that heaven would have representation in this world where Satan already holds the keys.
[29:44] Satan has the keys to this world, but the kingdom of heaven is representative in this world through the church. The church is here not just so that we would have a cool place to gather together, though I'm so excited about next week coming back together as a corporate body.
[29:59] The church is here not just so that we could have a place where we could go to a fellowship, though fellowship is important. The church exists so that the church could be a representation of the kingdom of heaven while operating in the kingdom of this world.
[30:13] He who holds the keys to this world has no authority over the keys which opened up the kingdom of heaven. That is the church. And we are called to be his church for his glory and for his power. My prayer, friend, is that we would be the church which reaches this world not only with the gospel, but with the love of Christ.
[30:29] I pray that as we move forward, and I know we're going to move forward, I'm excited. I want us to do new things in new ways and different opportunities. God has given each one of us an opportunity. He's given us an authoritative power to be his representation on this earth.
[30:43] And I pray that we will learn what that means, that we would grow together and we would see the glory of Christ being shown forth out of this church for his glory, for his namesake, and his name only.
[30:57] Friend, I love you. I pray that all is going well with you. I look forward to speaking with you soon and I look forward to us gathering together. Let me pray and then we'll be dismissed. Lord, I thank you so much for all that you have done. I thank you, oh Lord, that you've given us this opportunity of gathering together.
[31:11] I thank you, Lord, for those who work so hard to make it possible for us to be able to watch these videos online. Lord, I thank you for the work that goes on behind the scenes. Lord, I thank you for those who are going to watch these videos.
[31:22] I pray, Lord, that you would use them to draw us closer to you, Lord. Not that it would be a promotion of man's understanding, but Lord, that it would be a drawing of heavenly revelation. Lord, that it would draw us closer to you for your glory.
[31:34] Lord, may we be your church. May we be your people who are gathered and built upon a common foundation for a common goal and a common glory. Lord, may you be glorified and may you be honored through all that we say, all that we do.
[31:47] Lord, and everywhere we go for your namesake. And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you, friend. We love you. May God bless you. Amen.
[32:52] Amen. Amen.
[33:52] Amen. Amen.
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