Building Churches
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’
Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’
Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’”
Today’s Text: Matthew 16:13-28 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
First of all: the audacity of Peter to question the Lord! Especially when he had just confessed, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!” Perhaps Peter was feeling proud and confident because Jesus had responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (verses 17-19).
Second of all: what a slap in the face it must have been for Peter to hear Jesus say, "“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” We can practically hear Peter’s ego deflating.
Christ will build His church, and He will build it on the faith of the faithful, not on the cleverness or the competency, and certainly not the ego, of the proud.
Us humans, and even us Christians, have a tendency to trust way too much on our own abilities. Whenever we get into that mode, may Jesus’s rebuke ring in our ears, as it did in Peter’s.
Because
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
— Micah 6:8
and
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
— 1 Samuel 15:22b
The first step in denying ourselves and taking up our crosses and following Jesus (verse 24) is to let go of any disillusion that Jesus somehow needs “me.”
Jesus does not need “me,” but He desires my faithful obedience, because I desperately need Him. And that is how Jesus will build up His church—by continually reminding and showing His followers that we all desperately need Him. In fact, that is what the church is—a congregation of people who desperately need Jesus.
Of course, that does not mean that we should just sit around and do nothing. But in everything we do, we must continually check our attitudes so as to never presume to tell Jesus how to build up His church.
That is the second step in denying ourselves and taking up our crosses and following Jesus. It is to simply need Jesus and to know it.
Everything else pretty much falls into place from steps 1 and 2.
Father, You are Maker of heaven and earth. You are sovereign over this universe, over this world, over Your church, and over me. Forgive me for any presumption that You need me. But grow me in my desperate need for You every day. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
