Matthew 16: 13-19
I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church

And I have read the verse to you from Matthew 16: 18 which is my Biblical text this morning.  Notice the words of our Lord here in his saying of this same thing that appears in this final list of six points added to the growing "Apostles' Creed."(so called, not because the Apostles actually wrote it, but because it was thought to be a summary of Apostolic doctrine.

I. FIRST, THINK ABOUT "MY CHURCH, I WILL BUILD" the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church!" "My Church," Jesus said.

2. It is not any particular church, organized as an ecclesiastical body that is spoken of -- certainly not the so-called "Roman Catholic Church."  Various church bodies are merely more or less reflections of this church, at their very best, and denials of it at their worst.  They may overlap and be co-existent to some extent with this church spoken of.  It is to their glory if they do and to their shame if they do not.

3. This is the "universal church," for so, the word "catholic" means.  That word is confused by various organized groups riding on it's coat-tails, as is the case with the Roman Catholic Church, but also the case with the name "Church of Christ, Christian Church, not to say also individual churches named "The Church of the Savior," "Church of the Redeemer," "Church of the Lord Jesus Christ."  This is the Holy Catholic Church, the Universal Church, the assembly made up of every one from the New Testamant age until our own day; those who are now in Heaven and every true Christian who is presently in the world, no matter where he might be or what his race or individual church connection might be.

It is for this reason, I think, that we should sharpen up our prayers a bit.  It is, of course not wrong to pray for those poor people in Africa or Viet Nam or Iraq, or in some other part of the world ravaged by, warfare or persecution, poverty, or natural disaster. In many of these case, when we pray, we are praying for their conversions by the movement of the Holy Spirit.  But we have a specific, valid interest in the Lord's people in those countries and areas; for they and we are members of the same church, the "Holy Catholic Church."  It is not wrong to pray for our country's military, but we have a special fraternal interest in those members of the military who are fellow-citizens of the true church, the Holy Universal Church which the Greek word cath-o-lik-os means, the church which our Savior purchased with his own blood and which is made up of everyone who has been redeemed by him.  And our prayers ought to reflect this fraternal interest.  Although it is not wrong for us to pray to our God to protect our fellow citizens as a favor to us who are his children, or to deliver our country from devastation by its enemies, because many of God's redeemed people reside here.

4. It is the Holy Catholic Church -- "Holy," because in every case (unless we are speaking about the saints, now glorified in heaven, who are "established in holiness," as we say, God the Holy Spirit is bringing sanctification about in the lives of its members.  They are becoming holy.  But they are also, at the same time, already holy, in the sense that the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to their accounts and God in his role as Judge has declared them to be perfectly righteous, or "holy" by the act of what we call "justification" (in which God charges the righteousness of Jesus Christ to their accounts and then treats them as if they are perfectly righteous -- which they are because of this "imputed" righteousness, as we call it.) even though in their behavior, they become relatively righteous due to God's work of sanctification.

II. THE LORD SAID: "UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH." referring to Peter's confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

1. The person of Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry during "the days of his flesh" is the rock upon which this Holy Catholic Church is built.

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Peter confessed in our passage.  And that word "Christ" -- the Greek word for mesheha, "messiah" (for Jesus certainly spoke these words in Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew) and "Messiah" signified to the disciples' minds all the prophesies in the Old Testament about the Messiah who was to come and live and die and be "wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities" and (upon whom) "the chastisement of our peace" was to come, and "by (whose) stripes, we are healed," as Isaiah 53 puts it. (Isaiah 53: 5)

"Thou art petros -- Peter" -- "a piece of stone," Jesus said, as it is reported in Greek.  But this foundation, upon which Christ was to build his church, is rock -- petra -- the bed-rock, the foundation rock of a terrain like Palestine; and "upon this rock I will build my church," said the Savior.  Matthew reports this in Greek, but his being inspired as he wrote, we gather the meaning from the Greek words he used to report it, as being an accurate reflection of the Aramaic Jesus was actually speaking at the time.

Paul, a quarter of a century later, confirmed this meaning when he said in I Corinthians 3: 11: "No other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus."  And Peter, about the same time, called the Lord Jesus "the corner-stone upon which the church is built" (Ephesians 2: 20) and which holds up the whole edifice of which we, ourselves, are "living stones" (I Peter 2: 5), being upon the top course added to the wall.

And in your case, as you go from place to place to live your life, make sure you are associating with a local church which is within the category of "this church" which the Lord owned as his.

III. IN THE THIRD PLACE, NOTICE THAT JESUS SAID "I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH -- UPON THIS ROCK."

1. There is a fund-raising organization that has as it motto "Men build churches for God."  That may be so about the kind of churches that they raise funds for, i.e., buildings that we call "churches" in the English language.  But the church, the "Holy Catholic Church," the "universal church" that is comprised all God's people on earth and in heaven, Jesus Christ builds.  And the people who are ostensibly building it are the mere instruments of the building by the hands of the Master-Builder, Jesus Christ.

2. Furthermore, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!"  (I respectfully reject the textual reading of the RSV., in favor of the marginal reading which is certainly the literal translation.)  The meaning here is not, I think, that the church is conquering hell and is going to run right through it's gates like water through a fire hose.  The "gates of (a city)" here is a metonymy.  A "metonymy," you may remember, is a figure of speech which uses a part for the whole, or a symbol for the thing symbolized.  What it means is that the forces of hell, itself, allied with all the fire power of its best arsenals, (symbolized by its gates) cannot thwart the will of God in respect to Christ's church.

And in your life, if you have truly accepted our Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior, and give proof of that by following him, though you may be severely and intensely challenged by the forces of hell, Christ will build his church in your life and ministry and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.

I wonder if there is someone here this morning who is experiencing great testing or temptation by the Devil in his or her life?  If you are a true Christian, take courage and persevere in your faith and obedience!  Take comfort!  Christ is building his church!  "And the gates of Hell," (the symbol of its forces) shall not prevail against it!"

One of the great wonders of human ingenuity is the great cathedrals and churches of Western Europe and other places in the Old World.  The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is one of my favorites, which goes back to something like the early 300's AD.  I visited it many times when I lived there.  With primitive hand tools which we would judge to be almost useless, those wonderful stone masons and engineers created what has been described as "lace in stone," and buildings that have stood without movement or sagging or cracking -- ever since.  One is awed at the enormity of the project!  Some of the buildings were built over a span of 400 years.  And that they have stood so long is perhaps an even greater wonder, when you consider that we are tearing down 40 and 50 year old buildings because they are unsafe and obsolete.

But these wonderful achievements of the human genius are not even remotely comparable to the building that is always going on, with which we have to do.  It is the building of the Holy Universal Church, the "Holy Catholic Church" of the Creed -- of which we are a small part.  It is build upon a foundation like no other foundation, and has a builder like no earthly builder; a builder who uses us to do his work, as his instruments, so that we find ourselves accomplishing unthinkable feats of building construction, which he does through us.  This is the Holy Catholic Church of which we are a part, if we know the Lord.

In my life, since the days of my high-school years 56 years ago, and before, I wanted to build houses and other buildings.  I started out as a carpenter's apprentice.  And even when I was a solder in Korea, they saw in my record that I had been a carpenter who built houses in civilian life and gave me a job building things.  And you can tell by looking around you (including the two rooms in which we are meeting) that it is still in my blood stream.  Well, Jesus is a builder something like that -- only in a glorious and eternal sense.  He is building his church and uses us, who are like spiritual tradesmen.  The elders and workers of this church, and even you who do background kinds of work, are the "work force" of this Master-builder.  Every person you have won to the Lord, or helped along the way, or even substantially encouraged in their Christian life, is a part of the building that he has built!  You are a part of the labor force!  He it is -- our Lord Jesus Christ, who said "I will build my church!"  And he is graciously willing to use you and to use me and to take us into partnership with himself, as he builds his church -- which "the gates of hell cannot prevail against!"  O dear friend, do what you can do to serve as a part of the labor-force of the kingdom of this Master Builder!  Find places in the building project in which to be involved and have the great privilege to be in partnership with this Master Builder who is building his church!  Do this in your giving and in the use of your time and efforts!  Do this in your prayers!  And from the vantage point of heaven you will look back with great satisfaction that you have been used by God to have been an assistant of the Son of God in his project of building his church.  May you have that opportunity and may you succeed in it in a wonderful way as you live out your Christian life!