The Keys to Heaven
Matthew 16:13-20
February 25, 2007
How many of you have ever been locked
out of your car? It’s okay – you can admit it.
Frustrating, isn’t it? Okay, maddening.
Maybe you can relate
Returning home one afternoon with my two daughters, Kimberley, age two, and Kristi, six months, I pulled into my driveway and stopped to check the mailbox. But when I returned to the car, I found Kimberley had pushed the locks down on both doors—and I had left the key in the ignition.
For an hour I tried to explain to Kimberley how to pull up the door handle. I was on the verge of tears. My husband wasn’t home, and since we live in the country, there were no neighbors to help.
Finally Kimberley stood up and softly tapped on the window. As I looked down at her, she said, “Mommy, do you want me to roll down the window?”
[Diane Prestwood (Magee, Miss.) Contributed by: SermonCentral]
Keys are such a small thing, but they are so important for our functioning in everyday living.
If you don’t believe me, just try losing them. Especially your car keys.
You’ll tear the place apart, you’ll check your pants pockets ten or eleven times and your coat pockets 7 or 8 times.
You look in the couch cushions, the desk, the microwave…
You’ll ask your spouse, and of course, they haven’t seen them.
And then you get desperate. You go to the baby, “Did you put my keys in your crib? Hmmm? Did U put my keys in you widdle cwib?
That doesn’t do any good.
The rest of the kids hide because they remember what happened when you lost the remote.
You look at the dog. The dog sees the look in your eyes and runs away.
As panic begins to really take over, you get the wild idea to check the car. And sure enough, you find you’d left them in the ignition overnight.
Keys are important to functioning as human beings in this day and age, aren’t they?
Jesus talks about some keys. And these keys are infinitely more important than your car keys
Matthew 16:13-20 –
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, 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." 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
We’ve spent a good deal of time on this passage, and we’ve looked at a number of things that it deals with.
First we looked at the idea that it’s incredibly important that we get the correct idea of who Jesus is, because what we believe about Jesus affects where we’ll spend eternity. And so I said that to get the truth about Jesus, you need to go the Word, not the world. Then we looked at the fact that Jesus doesn’t bend to our ideas about Him, we bend to His ideas about Him, which of course we get from the Scriptures, not other people’s or our own opinions about Him.
Today we pick up our examination by looking specifically at verse 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."
This is some pretty heavy stuff, and I want to make sure we don’t take it lightly. This passage is key to helping us understand our task as it relates to the kingdom of heaven and how people become part of it.
I mentioned last week that the verses just before this, where Jesus says that He will build His church, are subject to a ton of opinions about just who the rock is, and this and that.
But this passage seems to have a large consensus of agreement among conservative preachers and scholars.
I think I can summarize what I found by saying this: Jesus has given us have the awesome task and responsibility to make sure as many people as possible make it through the doors of heaven.
I say task and responsibility, because it’s not just a job, it’s a job that is backed with authority – authority given to us by Jesus.
I’m going to talk about that authority in just a second, but I want to take a moment to discuss why I say “we” and not just Peter.
Peter was initially given the keys. And when Pentecost came, he used those keys to open the doors to heaven to over 3,000 people, and of course, God used him to open the doors of heaven to many, many others as well.
But if only Peter was given the keys, then heaven would have been closed when he died, which would have gone against Jesus own words to make disciples of all nations and that He would be with us to the end of the age as we work to that end.
Now back to this authority thing. I said that Jesus has given us authority open the doors of heaven in His name.
How can I say that? Well, think with me for a moment.
Keys are a sign of authority. Whoever has the key to something has authority to possess or use it.
For instance, you have no right to be in my house if I’m gone. But if I give you the keys to my house, I’m saying that you have authority to be in there.
And I’ll even give you authority to clean it and do the dishes if you want!
But if I don’t want people in my house, I lock it. If you don’t have the key, you can’t get in without breaking the law.
If I give you my car keys (dream on!), then I’m giving you authority to drive it. And wash and wax it…
Jesus has given us the keys to heaven. We have the authority to let people into heaven and to keep them out.
That’s a hefty responsibility so let’s break it down just a little bit by looking at what it means to open the door and to close it.
1. We “open” the door to heaven to those who would come to God through Christ.
This is when we say, “Jesus has made it possible to find forgiveness of sins and a home in heaven. He offers it to everyone who will accept it on His terms. Come to Christ and know the joy of being a child of God who has eternity squared away. The door is open – and you’re invited to walk through it.”
Does that make sense? We want to open the door and open as wide as possible to admit as many people as possible.
2. But we’re also charged to “close” the door to heaven to those who attempt to come to God through any way other than Christ.
That’s when we say, “Jesus said that He is the only way to heaven. You have to come through Him. Any other way is not allowed. Belief in other gods is not allowed. Relying on your good works and religious activity doesn’t work. The door is closed to those who refuse to believe in Jesus and put their trust in Him.”
This is the part that gets us into trouble nowadays. It’s very popular to open the door and very unpopular to close it, isn’t it?
But Jesus has made it very clear about what it takes to enter heaven, and He has charged you and me with guarding the door by declaring what is acceptable and not acceptable in God’s sight.
Bottom-line, it means that we have the responsibility of telling people just how to get to heaven and what keeps them out.
We’re not saying, “Here are my rules to get into heaven.” We’re saying, “Here’s what God says. If you come on His terms, you gain entrance. If you don’t, you don’t.”
So what’s this got to do with this deal about “binding” and “loosing?”
They’re closely connected by the sentence structure here – we have the keys and whatever we bind or loose are bound and loosed in heaven.
It boils down to the idea that we are to tell people what is acceptable to God, not just in terms of their salvation, but also in terms of lifestyle.
This aspect is fleshed out in other passages, like John 20 and Matthew 18, which we’ll be exploring in a couple months.
For now, allow me to read what John MacArthur has to say on this passage. He summarizes very well what I found as the theme of just about everything I could find about it:
"All believers have that authority because God’s Word reveals to us what kind of behavior God approves or disapproves of. So if you ask a man if he has received Christ as his Lord and Savior and he says yes, you can say, ’Your sins are forgiven.’ But if he says no you can say, ’Your sins aren’t forgiven.’ Similarly, we can say to others, ’It’s wrong to do that!’ If what we say is based on God’s Word – not on a person’s title, office, human worthiness, or intelligence – we know that it will concur with what’s said in heaven.”
We’re saying, “This is what God approves or disapproves of, in terms of how to get to heaven and how to live.” And heaven approves and disapproves of it as well. Why? Because God’s Word approves or disapproves of it.
God’s Word is the source of both our information and our authority.
So how should this affect us in the here and now?
Well, it comes down to this: you have to know how to get to heaven and be able to tell others.
If someone were to ask you if you knew how to get to heaven, could you tell them? If not, could you tell how to find out?
Hopefully you already know – because you’ve done it already.
Folks, I want to say this as kindly as I can, but also as straightforward as possible:
If you aren’t able to tell someone how to get to heaven or at the very least how to find out how to get to heaven, you are in effect closing the door to heaven for them.
Do you see why this is so important?
We have a task and a responsibility to make sure that we’re doing all we can to open the doors of heaven and not shutting them in people’s faces.
So often the Church of Jesus is seen as an exclusive “club” where unless a person looks, acts, and talks just like them, he or she just isn’t welcome.
And truth be told, there are plenty of churches out there that are just that way.
But can you imagine what can happen in a church where people can come and find the doors wide open – to our fellowship and more importantly, to heaven?
Not that we allow unbiblical ideas or lifestyles to be seen as acceptable, but where a person can hear the good news of heaven and forgiveness of sins, and be able to hear it regardless of their present condition?
Jesus offers the good news to everyone who will listen. And when a person comes to Him on His terms, He does amazing things.
I’ve mentioned in the past that from what I can tell, this church has little or no reputation for good or bad in the community right now.
There are still untold numbers of people who don’t even know we exist.
So whaddya say we work intentionally to become a church where people find the doors to heaven wide open.
Whaddya say we work intentionally to become a church where guests can come in and find that we’re more concerned with getting people into heaven than we are about keeping them out because they don’t fit the mold some other church tried to force on them?
Whaddya say that we take our responsibility to open and close the doors of heaven seriously – both as a church and as individuals in the church – so people can see that eternity is a serious issue and that it effects not only the hereafter but the here and now?
Whaddya say that we allow Jesus to build a portion of His Church through this congregation in a way that tells the world, “Jesus is way, the Truth, and the Life,” and He wins – in the Church and ultimately, in the world as well.
