Well, good morning, everyone. Good to see your faces here on this July, hot July Sunday morning. A delight to be with you here in the sanctuary for our all-adult Sunday school hour. I want to thank, as you turn in your Bibles now to Matthew 16, this will be our primary text. for today's Sunday school lesson. I want to thank all our Sunday school teachers who have taught us this summer. One of my jobs here at Second Presbyterian Church is to be the Sunday school superintendent and one of the great responsibilities of that, one of the most fun things I get to do is to pick our book that we use each summer to work through and what a great book Holiness by J.C. Ryle has been. I hope you've enjoyed this breath of fresh air out of the 19th century, this beloved Anglican bishop who spoke clearly and directly in a way that sounds like it could be 2021. So I want to thank our teachers. I also want to thank all of you who prayed for me, many of you throughout the years. I battled one malady after another. And I want to tell you, God has heard your prayers. I certainly have felt them, and I'm grateful for you, each of you. So many of you have said kind words to me, texts and notes, and I'm very thankful for that. Thank you for your Christian concern. And last, but certainly not least, I want to welcome my Aunt Carla Ledford, who's with us today, visiting from Florida. We had a family wedding this week, and it's always good to have our family gathered together. Well, if you have your Bibles open, we're going to look at verses 13 through 20 of Matthew 16, a classic text that has become foundational to our understanding of the church. And the chapter, chapter 13, that we're looking at in holiness this week is the whole idea of Christ building His church. And so we're going to look at this scripture passage where Peter confesses Christ, Jesus as the Christ, is our primary text for the lesson today. Matthew 16 verses 13 through 20. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And 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 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, then he strictly charged them, the disciples, to tell no one that he was the Christ. Let's pray. God in heaven, as we study together in your word and attempt to unpack both the mystery and the riches of your revelation through Peter, to the world that you are indeed the Christ. We ask, Lord, that you would reorient us around your word, that you would remind us that the church is not your plan B for this age of man, but that from the foundation of the world, the church continued the gathering a process of engrafting into the family of God your elect. And Lord, we thank you that we can be a part of the church, and we thank you for that expression of the church known as the PCA and Calvary Presbyterian, Second Presbyterian Church. Lord, bless us as we study, and thank you for this time together. We ask all this in Jesus' name. A few days ago, I was asked to speak to some elders on the administration committee during my yearly staff job review. And I opened up my remarks to them with the following, I love this church. I love our officers. I love our members. I love our pastors. I love our staff. I love our people. I love the theology that this church proclaims. I love the teachers. I love the youth workers. I love our worship services. I love our connection to the PCA. I love our history. I love our ministry. I love our building. I even love the genealogy of our church members. At staff meeting this past week, we were rejoicing in the home going of Fran Reddick. It was announced this morning that her funeral will be this afternoon. Some of our older members will know that she was Tommy Lasorda's sister-in-law. Now, our younger staff members immediately said, who is Tommy Lasorda? And I said, who is Tommy Lasorda? For many decades, he was the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And I can remember some Sunday mornings in the 1970s and 80s where he would come up from Atlanta, the Dodgers would be playing the Braves. No doubt the Braves would have had bad efforts in those days. And LaSorda would be at the back of the sanctuary and I would walk in and go, that's Tommy LaSorda. And I've enjoyed celebrating even the family members of our church family here. The Lord has given His church a family in this world to help one another until He comes again. That is one of the purposes of the church. And we see in our passage a disclosure by Jesus that is to build for himself, he is to build for himself a church. Jesus is addressing Peter. Peter has made this enormously significant confession, namely that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the long-promised Messiah who would come to save his people from their sins and establish a new realm and a new reign of God on earth. Jesus said to Peter that flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven." There's a sense where this is a moment for Peter. Linda and I are the parents now of two teenagers and we oftentimes are talking about moments that our children seem to understand things in a new way and really seem to get the bigger picture. And this is a moment where Peter who was the leader of the disciples, really seemed to understand not only his calling, but really who his master was. Namely, that God had put him in a particular place to proclaim Christ as Lord. Well, J.C. Rall has five main ideas out of our chapter today. We're in chapter 13 of holiness. He wants us to understand the building, the builder, the one foundation, the inevitable certain trials that will come, and lastly, the strong gates that we live around. So a building, a builder, foundation, trials, and gates. This is a picture of the church that Ryle paints for us. So let's talk about this building, this building. The first of our five marks of a true church, Mark Dever had, has nine marks. John Knox had three marks of a true church. I won't explicate those things today, but here J.C. Ryle is giving us five marks of a church, and the first mark of a true church is a building, and it has to do with the shape of that which the Lord intends to do with his people. In regard to that, what Jesus here is saying is that in his redemptive purposes, that is in his plan, that he made with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit before the foundations of the world to bring in and elect people and to build a church. It was going to revolve around a building. He says in verse 18, it's very significant in Matthew's Gospel because it's the first occurrence, scholars tell me, of the word church in Matthew's Gospel. In fact, the word church, I am told, is somewhat rare as a word used in the Gospels as a whole. Jesus is taking a word that actually comes directly from the Old Testament. It's a word that would have appeared strange, would not have appeared strange to the disciples who heard it because it's an Old Testament word. And Jesus is speaking of a word which has at its basic meaning the idea of a people that are called out in order that they might worship God. And that's the whole story of the Old Testament, isn't it? God saves his people from Egypt, from bondage, into a new land, and he gives them a new purpose. And their first action as a redeemed enslaved people was to worship God in the wilderness. Well, God is calling us together out of the world and into fellowship with each other. The word synagogue comes from the same root word that Jesus ordains, is using here. The idea that the Apostle Paul uses when he calls God's people a sheep in a flock, or branches in a vine, or friends to a bridegroom, or stones in a temple, or citizens in a new Israel. Jesus is speaking, especially here to Peter, And he says something to Peter that has become something of a controversy over the last 2,000 years or so. He's going to say, Peter, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. Let's listen to Bishop Ryle's own description of this. The church of our text is no material building. It is no temple made with hands of wood or brick or stone or marble. It is a company of men and women. It is no particular visible church on earth. It is neither the Eastern nor the Western church. It is not the Church of England or the Church of Scotland. Perhaps some of us might quibble with him about that point. Above all, it certainly is not the church in Rome. The church of our text is one that makes far less show than any visible church in the eyes of man, but it is of far more importance in the eyes of God. The church of our text is made up of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and all who really are holy and converted. It comprehends all who have repented of sin. It compromises all God's elect, all who have received God's grace, all who have been washed in Christ's blood, all who have been clothed in Christ's righteousness, all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ's work. All such of every name and rank and nation and people and tongue compose the church of our text. This is the body of Christ, the flock, the bride, the Lamb's wife, this is the holy Catholic and apostolic church of the creeds, this is the blessed company of all faithful people." Rather well said, I might say. Isn't it interesting when Peter comes to write his first epistle that the image that he takes up, he speaks about the church as a house or a building or a temple and that you and I, by the grace of God, are like the living stones, chiseled stones, stones that the mason has worked and shaped and placed in relationship with other stones to build the house. I think for the Apostle Peter, the metaphor of the church actually is of stones. So let's go from the building to the builder. I'll go back to Ryle again to describe our builder, the builder of course being Christ. Our text contains not merely a building, but a builder. The Lord Jesus Christ declares, I will build my church, the true church of Christ is cared for by all three people of the blessed Trinity in the plan of salvation revealed in the Bible beyond doubt. God the Father chooses, God the Son redeems, God the Holy Spirit sanctifies. God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the three people and one God cooperate for the salvation of every saved soul. Therefore, it is the church. It is the church built by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is peculiarly and preeminently the Redeemer and Savior of the church. Therefore, it is that we find Him saying in our text, I will build. The work of building is my special work. You remember Peter has made several bold professions of Christ by this point in his association with the Lord and his disciples. He made a profession after Jesus walked on the water. He confessed him to be the very son of God there. He had already confessed Jesus to be the Messiah as many of the other disciples also have. But Jesus has pulled these men aside because he wants them to make a profession of him, not in the heat of the moment, not when their emotions are boiling after a miracle that he has done. He wants them to stop. and reflect and say, this is what I truly believe. This is what I'm convicted of. This is the truth I have embraced for my life. I'm committed to it beyond all. Here is what Peter doesn't say, or as one of my friends on the radio likes to say, here what I'm not saying. Here's what Peter doesn't say. Well, you know, Lord, you know the Pharisees and the Sadducees are confused about this and they're the religious leaders of our people. How can you expect uneducated fishermen like us to give you an answer to the question of who do men say that I am? Here's what Peter also doesn't say. Well, Lord, you know, I personally believe you're the Messiah, but there are a lot of people that don't. Peter also doesn't say, you know, I believe you're the Messiah, but how could I be so narrow and arrogant to assume that my viewpoint is greater than others? No, Peter says without equivocation, without hesitation, without reservation, you are the Christ. You are God's living son. Peter makes a universal statement. It is both a confession that he's making and a truth he is asserting. He says, you are the Christ. And by saying that, he's saying, Jesus, you are the Messiah. You are the one prophesied. By all the prophets, you are the long-awaited deliverer of all God's people. Ephesians 2 reads, now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, another metaphor in the New Testament for the church. having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. So a building and a builder, a foundation, now we will look at Listen again to Ryle's words as he describes the foundation of this church. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us upon this rock will I build my church. This is the foundation upon which the church is built. What did Christ mean when he spoke of the foundation? Did he mean Peter to whom he was speaking? I think assuredly not. I can see no reason if he meant Peter why he did not say Upon you will I build my church, if he had met Peter. He surely would have said, I will build my church on you, as plainly as he said. To you I will give the keys. No, it was not the person of the apostle Peter, but the good confession which the apostle had just made. It was not Peter, the erring unstable man, but the mighty truth which the father had revealed to Peter. It was the truth concerning Christ. It was the truth concerning Christ's mediatorship and Christ's messiahship. It was the blessed truth that Jesus was the promised Savior. The foundation of the true church was laid at a mighty cost. It was necessary that the Son of God should take our nature upon Him and in that nature suffer and die, not for His own sins but for ours. It was necessary that in that nature Christ should go to the grave and rise again. So in response to this question of what was Jesus saying when he said, upon you I will build my church, there is a consensus Protestant understanding that that's not saying Peter as the first pope. Ryle is asserting the idea that it's Peter's confession that Jesus is going to build his church upon Calvin alludes to Revelation in his commentaries. And he says when we turn to John's vision in Revelation and we see the picture of the heavenly Jerusalem, what is the foundation of the city, the names of the apostles and the elders? John Calvin would say what Jesus is saying here is that though you now are a tiny number of men and therefore your confession has little worth at present time, Yet the time will soon come when it will stand out splendidly and will spread far wider. And Peter and the apostles' roles in the building of the church are on record. And so a third view of what is the foundation is that it was actually not just Peter, but it was Peter and the apostles. It was their confession. It was their response. It was their faithfulness. And that is another common understanding which I share of this. So foundations, now certain trials. J.C. Ryle reminds us that the history of the church is one that is full of conflict and war. It is constantly assailed by a deadly enemy, Satan and the prince of this world. You know, in America right now, we live in relative peace. There's relatively little threat to the church. There's very few obstacles to us coming to church. There actually are plenty of incentives built in. This is a society that largely still keeps Sunday quiet other than a few sports here and there. This is a society that by and large still takes Sundays off and so there really are very few impediments to Christians gathering to worship. But if you think about our brothers and sisters in Haiti right now, It's quite an ordeal to honor the Lord as the covenant family. We've come through something of a trial of the plague the last year and a half with the pandemic where we now can safely gather again together and worship God. These trials, we are told, will be constant between the first coming and the second coming of the Lord. There always will be opposition against its members. Sometimes you have to ask yourself if there isn't opposition to the church right now, is the church doing its job? Because as Steve Lawson, a Baptist minister, likes to say, the problem with ministers today is that no one wants to kill them. They say such easy things to our ears and they ignore the obvious sins and scandals of the world that we live in. So trials are certain. They will come. Well, lastly, we see Ryle's fifth mark of the true church as strong gates, strong gates. Ryle concludes this message with the idea of the security of heaven. That is that Christians have the benefit of knowing that there are spiritual walls around them. Ryle says that the gates of hell shall not prevail. He who cannot lie has pledged his word that all the powers of hell shall never overthrow his church. It shall continue and stand, and in spite of every assault, it shall never be overcome. All other created things perish and pass away, but the church which is built on the rock The true church is Christ's body. Not one bone in that mystical body shall ever be broken. The true church is Christ's bride. Those whom God has joined in everlasting covenant shall never be put asunder. The true church is Christ's flock. When the lion came and took a lamb out of David's flock, David arose and delivered the lamb from the mouth of the lion. Christ is David's greater son. Not a single sick lamb in Christ's flock shall perish. It may be sifted, winnowed, buffeted, tossed to and fro, but not one grain shall be lost. The tares and the chaff shall be burned. The wheat shall be gathered into the barn. The true church is Christ's army. The captain of our salvation loses none of his soldiers. His plans are never defeated. His supplies never fail. His muster role is the same at the end as it was at the beginning. What makes our gates strong? It should come as no surprise to you that I'm now going to quote to you from the Book of Church Order. which is actually fantastic in certain places as a devotional item despite some statements to the contrary. Chapter 3 of our Presbyterian Church Book of Church Order talks about what is the power given to the church. What is the energy that allows the church to bless God's people? What are the things that the church ought to be doing? And we're reminded in that chapter that the power which Christ has committed to his church, thus in the whole body, the rulers and the ruled, constituting a spiritual commonwealth. Have you ever thought of yourself as a member of this church, as a member of a spiritual commonwealth? We're almost like a small country or a small city set apart for the work of God in this place, in Greenville, in the upstate, in this time in the world. The power given to the church is exclusively spiritual in nature. What on earth does that mean? It means that the gifts we've been given are not things of marketing, it's not things of personality, but it's the gift of the Word. It's a gift of the means of grace. Those are the things, ultimately, that are going to change wicked hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. Those are the gifts that God gives to the church. The sole functions of the church, chapter 3, section 3, as a kingdom and government distinct from the civil commonwealth are to proclaim, to administer, and to enforce the law of Christ revealed in the scriptures. That's what we're supposed to do one to another. The power of the church is exclusively spiritual. the church with its ordinances, officers, and courts is the agency which Christ has ordained for the edification and government of his people, for the propagation of the faith, and for the evangelization of the world. That's no small thing, the church is. That's no afterthought. That's no one-hour-a-week institution. That's something that God has built and installed and empowered to be His instrument of salvation in this world. And then one of Dr. Phillips' famous favorite sections, the exercise of power, whether joint or several, has the divine sanction when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers, appointed thereunto in His Word." Presbyterian churches are governed by elders, and elders make decisions by the grace of God when empowered jointly on behalf of the church, not severally or individually, except in those instances where the Word of God is preached. The sick are visited and prayers are given over God's people. The song that we sang before the lesson this morning was the church's one foundation. It was written as a direct response to a schism that had occurred in the Anglican Church in South Africa. This was actually written during the era of J.C. Ryle. There was a bishop down there named John William Colenso. He was the first bishop of Natal who had denounced the entire Bible as being fictitious. He said it was a myth. It was untrue. And he was teaching this from the pulpit. And as the diocesan bishop, he had great authority over the churches there in South Africa. And some zealous Anglican filed a complaint within the church courts of the Church of England. And that complaint, by God's grace, was sustained. And Colin So, as any good liberal will do, fought back. and challenged and mocked his complainers. And the matter was raised to the highest courts of the Church of England. And the author of this hymn, Samuel Stone, I believe is his name, decided to try to help those folks who were advocating for orthodoxy by writing a hymn. And in that hymn, you hear the message of a faithful churchman who's trying to promote gospel truth in the life of the church, but he's also wanting to church teach his people that sometimes life in the church is hard and that we have to celebrate God and his sovereignty over the good and the bad things in the church. Well, let me just conclude by reading a few words of that hymn to you again. Perhaps you can hear these words in a new light. The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation by water and the word. From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died. Listen to verse three, though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed. Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up how long, and soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song. Verse four got Mr. Stone in so much trouble that for a long time it wasn't allowed to be sung. The church shall never perish. Her dear Lord to defend, to guide, sustain, and cherish is with her to the end. Though there be those that hate her and fault son in her pale, against both foe and traitor, she ever will prevail. Well, such is true in our day too. Such is true that God has empowered the church to be His messenger, to be His herald. Let's be faithful heralds. Let's be faithful members of the spiritual commonwealth of Second Presbyterian Church. Let's love this church as we love the Lord and be faithful to His Word. Let's close now in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the gift of the church, our family in this world. We pray, Lord, that we would love her as we love family. That is, as children love their father, as families gather together in faithfulness around your word. May our songs be joyful because we are redeemed. May our love for one another be palpable because you have transformed us. Lord, may our church be strong because we are living stones knit together by the finished work of Christ into this building that is the building of the church. Lord, may we long for heaven. May we have a heavenly mindset as we talk with one another, not caught up in the fashions or the turmoils or the politics or the arguments of this age, but may we have heaven in mind when we speak to our brother or sister who does not know Thee. May we have the humility of Christ in mind when we encounter the proud of this world. And Lord, when we encounter the lowly, may we in a supernatural way, driven by Your grace, help build them up and remind them that by God's everlasting power, they too are a precious part of the body of Christ. Lord, thank you again for this people and this time. Thank you for Bishop Ryle who wrote us a good book that draws us closer to you and bless us as we continue to worship and rest this day. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.