Matthew 16
Main focus: The Holy Spirit
I. 16:2-4, The Pharisees and Sadducees were living in the flesh, thus Christ serves that they have no comprehension of the spiritual realm. They have no spirituality themselves.
Sign of Jonah = a sign of judgment: as the Son of Man was judged so shall hey.
16:8-12, This story of the disciples tells us that without faith we will not be able to see false teachers, which are those who do not have a connection or concept of the spiritual realm. *It’s nice to also serve us as a reminder that God can do almost anything (this is a reference to a subject later in the lesson.)
II. Jesus Tests the Disciples
16:13-20, Simon answers correctly by saying that, “…Yu are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus knows that this is the foundation of our faith, thus he changes Simon Peter’s name to just Peter, meaning “Rock.”
16:18, Jesus says, “…on this rock….” He’s not saying that the church will be built around peter, but on the truth that he proclaimed in 16:16
This is the first mention of the church in the Gospels.
16:19, The Keys to the gates of heaven are given to peter, he opens them on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2
To quickly explain binding and loosing, my footnotes say that heaven initiates all binding, and the apostles announce what’s binding and loosing.
16:20, Jesus tells the disciples to keep a secret here. What’s up with this?
Romans 16:21, “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things that you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death.” This verse talks about our sin. We often keep sin a secret, and this results in death.
1 Corinthians 4:5”Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” This verse talks about the motives behind our secrets that we are hiding in the dark.
So what are the motives behind our secret; are they good or bad? There can definitely be good motives. Take for example the case of a pastor who talks to many people about their problems, he must keep secrets in the name of confidentiality, so that he will not hurt anybody that has told him personal things. It’s important to also realize that our secrets can lead to lying, which is a sin.
Where Jesus’ intentions good or bad? Then why’d he do it? Did it so that he wouldn’t be possibly killed before His appointed time.
III. 16:21-28
16:23 tells us that Peter was a sinful man. Jesus even calls him Satan, yet he was just given the keys to heaven! This is a very good reason why the church is not being built around Peter, but in what he said, and why the church is still very far of from being built.
16:24-28 Jesus gives us our saving message. If we want to be saved and filled with the spirit, we must deny everything that we are, put it at the foot of his cross, then pick up ours and follow him. We must do this daily.
16:27, We are rewarded in heaven for what we have done, to me this means walking in faith and proclaiming Jesus as my Lord and Savior, not building X amount of churches or doing x amount of service hours.
Take Home: 1. Do we have spiritual discernment, can we see between the physical and spiritual: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come form the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments of all things, but he himself is not subject to any mans judgment: ‘For who knows the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 14-16 From this we can judge if our secrets are going to better our walk with God, or harm it. We will be able to see through people that are giving us false doctrine.
2. Are we walking in the faith: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us form all sin.” 1 John 1:7 If we do not walk in faith, if we do not walk in the light, we are worthless.
**If you have the time, please e-mail me with comments and suggestions, I’d love all the input you could give, I can be reached at rocksandwaves@aol.com, Thank you very much.**
