Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS, USA

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

CHAPTER III

THE PREACHING OF THE CHURCH ON THE ROCK

Matthew 16:21-28

With the exception of two usages in chapter 18, to be dealt with in Chapter IV, the word "church'' does not appear again until after Pentecost, but if the church had indeed been started, it hardly ceased to exist in this period. The future tense of the verb in verse 16, "I will build," may well be the "progressive future," that is, action continuing into the future. (Compare Philippians 1:18, "I do rejoice, yes, and I shall continue to rejoice," or Romans 6:2, "How shall we, who are dead to sin, continue to live any longer therein?'' By the way, I am indebted to Dr. Randolph Yeager's Renaissance New Testament for these examples.)

One of our fine students in the Bible College where I taught was challenging the idea that Christ built His church during His earthly ministry. As he and I moved through the lunch line, I waited until he had his tray and food, and then said, “Enjoy your meal!” His immediate reply was, “I will”, to which my response was, “But that's future tense, and yet you already have the meal!" It is good to record that that student today affirms the view that Christ also had His church before Him as he spoke of its continuity. This company of His followers grew as He preached, as a child grows before it walks and talks and acts independently by the nourishment provided by its parents. His Word is food for souls, and should be our spiritual sole food.

A careful study of the history of homiletics, then, should begin (for Christians) with Christ. The latter part of Matthew 16 affords a superb example of the straightforward, explicit preaching of our Lord. Here, as elsewhere, the disciples are not above their Master! He Who was the Master Teacher should also be Master of our learning, especially as we learn to preach. No message of Jesus should be ignored because of our "theory-ology,'' nor should we deliberately avoid His style of public address or pulpit presence. While a given congregation or circumstance may call for variety, we should note His approach, His authority, and His absolutes. He did not speak in existential terms, though He recognized human needs and diversity. All of His preaching was teaching; all had strong doctrinal content, some of it offensive. Yet the common people heard Him gladly, and all who

heard understood. He did not speak over their heads; He was feeding sheep, not giraffes. We might with profit study the Message on the Mount, or the Sermon on the Second Coming of Matthew 24-25, as exercises in homiletic form. Let us merely analyze the example before us, and note that the sermons recorded in Acts use the same sort of approach as that of Jesus' longer, teaching messages. They show the same respect for the authority of the O1d Testament, the Holy Scriptures. And they preach the same gospel, with the same sort of power--that of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

"In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o'er the wrecks of time." "God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It was "at the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away." "No cross, no empty tomb; no Calvary, no Pentecost."

The sublimest efforts of human tongue and pen have been turned toward lifting up the Christ of the cross.

Any preaching which ignores the shed blood or the One Whose Blood was shed on Golgotha has no message for sin-cursed humanity, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Any so-called Christian message without the centrality of the cross is hypocrisy or folly, or both. Those who ridicule or denigrate the atoning, voluntary, vicarious, victorious event in which Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us give evidence that Christ is not their Passover! The leaders of modernism, liberalism, humanism, existentialism, ecumenicism, unitarianism, universalism, or any other ism will ultimately bow and confess the Christ of the cross, but according to Philippians 2:10-11 and Revelation 20:11-15, it will be too late. Unless the knee is bowed, and the heart broken, here, there is no hope hereafter. When the dead are judged out of those things written in the books, according to their works, and when they acknowledge the justice of their sentence of eternal doom, it will be because they have rejected the cross of Christ and the Christ of the cross.

That is New Testament preaching; crossless preaching is crownless preaching. The idea that He came merely to set an example is heartrending folly, for His example is so high it merely drives me to despair. The idea that He came to help good people is impossible nonsense, for there is none good,

no, not one, both according to Scripture and to experience. The only sort of Christ Who will draw all men unto Him is One Who is lifted up (John 12:32-33).

If for Jesus it was "no cross, no completion," for the believer it is "no cross, no crown." The believer's cross does not save, but it does sanctify. As Galatians 2:20 (author's free translation) helps us understand, "I hang on the cross with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ goes on living in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me."

As one has well said, "If you want real power, plug into 2:20 (Galatians 2:20). "The Paradoxes of the Exchanged Life in this exposition of the words of Jesus from Matthew 16:24-26 are fourfold.

One is reminded of the story told of Augustine, after his conversion from an immoral youth, when he saw a former female friend on the street. As he turned and ran rapidly away, she called after him, "Augustine, be not afraid; it is I!" "Yes," he replied, "but it is not I!"

The Christian life is lived as the believer accepts his cross. A cross is not a physical ailment, nor an external problem: you choose a cross. "If any one will come after me, let him deny himself.''

Deny himself what? There is no other direct object; the object of the verb is himself. It is our self that we must deny.

The story is told of a father who gave up liquor for Lent. His young son, recognizing how much of a sacrifice this was, gave up candy for the same period. Imagine the boy's feelings when he discovered his father sipping sherry secretly! The father, equal to the occasion, said, "Son, I gave up hard liquor for the season." The boy, equally ready, responded: "Good! I never did like hard candy anyway!"

Our self-denial must be more than dealing with some external; it must deal with the you inside of you, the real person who will live forever. It must be an acceptance of Christ in repentance ("Let him deny himself"), and in faith ("Take up his cross and follow.") It must be an exchanged life, in which Christ makes the choices, does the work, lives the life, and receives the glory. Even our faith is "the faith of the Son of God," not ours in Him but His in us, as Paul also says twice in 2:16-We have believed in Jesus Christ, that we

may be justified by HIS faith. Even our faith is no ground on which to stand before a Holy God; the believer's cross is the one His cross has earned and provided for us.

Between the cross of Christ and His coming, we are living in the forgotten fundamental, the present reign of Christ over His own. But this should not obscure the glory that is yet to come when we shall be like Him, because we see Him as He is-the shining hour when the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father, and shall reward every man according to his works. Whatever the present aspects of the kingdom, and these ought not be forgotten, yet there is an eternal kingdom where the righteous shall shine as the stars forever and forever. And those whose works have been done outside of Christ will be "rewarded'' also, as the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of fire.

Any congregation which does not preach the coming, nay, the soon coming, of our precious Lord is less than it ought to be, less than it could be, less than it need be. While the details may be dim, so were those relating to Messiah's first advent; yet Israel was encouraged to watch, and those who did were rewarded by their joy in seeing God work. Even should He delay His return far past our few days, the spiritual warmth produced by a balanced preaching on His coming will be glory here and now, and those whom we lead to faith in Him will be stars in our crown when we see Him as He is.

The preaching of the Church on the Rock, then, is evangelistic, warm-hearted, missionary, outgoing, doctrinal, teaching-preaching, full of biblical content, Christ-centered, Bible-based, and quite rare in our or in any age. Such preaching is well worth driving a long way (even walking a long way) to hear. May our churches be established on the Rock of great Christian preaching!