02 March 2022
“...upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” (Matthew 16:18)
There’s this moment In Matthew 16 in which Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say I am? What are people saying about me?”
They answer that people seem to think maybe he’s a prophet, once gone and now reappeared. And they give him the rundown—maybe Elijah, maybe Jeremiah, or maybe someone as recent as John the Baptizer. In other words, “People don’t know what to make of you, but they can tell you’re powerful and sent by God.”
Then he asked them, “What about you? Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus, you’re the One. You are God in the flesh. You’re the Lord of everything and the Savior of the world.
Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”
“I will build my church…” Jesus declared.
Upon Peter? No.
Upon the truth Peter God revealed to Peter? Yes.
The foundation of the church is the rock-solid realization of who Jesus is.
And there is no power of darkness that can prevail against this church Jesus is building. The Church should never be underestimated, especially by us! We hold the hope of the world, the answer to injustice, and the key to human flourishing. The church is God's plan to set right all that’s gone wrong.
That tells me just how big the church is--how important. To think that Jesus is head over it all and His work is being done all over the world through His people.
“What about you? Who do you say I am?” Jesus asked. And asks, I believe, each of us today.
We say, you are our Lord and our Savior, the builder of the Church whose power nothing from even hell itself can conquer.
And we declare we are well aware that hell in trying to have its way…
in murder and shootings,
in hate and heartbreak,
in letting go of that’s right and good,
in abuse and accusation and assault,
in shame and condemnation,
oppression, depression…
darkness advancing on every side—
attacking our mental health,
eroding our humanity,
pitting us against each other,
keeping people down,
and counting others out.
But we know a power, love, and grace that seeks with compassion the mentally troubled and spiritually tormented, that steps into the grinding gears of generational poverty, that strives to stop the cycle of prejudice and division, that says to hate and falsehood and hurt and shame “no more” and “not here.”
Churches are meant to be beacons of light, beachheads of the Kingdom amidst the turmoil hell spreads. That’s who we are, built on the foundation of who He is.
REMEMBER, REPENT, RESOLVE…
“I find it a good discipline to practice believing as many as seven impossible things every morning before breakfast.”
Madeleine L’Engle
FROM MY READING…
I’m so moved by this memoir by Dante Stewart as he tells his story of being a young man who left behind the Black Pentecostal church of his youth to be accepted by a mostly white and reformed fellowship, and how this affected him and his views of racial identity and justice. Here’s an excerpt:
White supremacy was not just about terrible white American men in white hoods with white crosses. It was also about all the terrible ways I learned how to harm Black people and be terrible to Black people and not listen to Black people and not cry over Black people and not care about Black people and do it all in the name of Jesus. I believed white people were the center of my world. I believed every other person’s value was determined by them. I believed Black people must be the cause of our own pain, our death. I must make this confession: I was anti-Black. I found out that white people were not the only ones who could be cold and callous, complicit and complacent, in the project of white supremacy.
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DEEP BREATH, NEXT STEP…
This four-and-a-half minute video of a team summitting Mt. Everest is gripping and inspiring. The views are amazing, and at 2:26 a climber stops for 30 seconds to catch his/her breath and YOU ARE THERE just cheering them on. Whatever your mountain, just keep climbing.
A PRAYER TO BREATHE…
“Jesus, build Your church through me.”